The Year of the Dragon! The Adventure Starts Here

Do you remember reading choose your own adventure stories as a kid? I LOVED them!  Well, we have, the Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop. It all started with Rachel Harrie's Platform Building Campaign. The Campaigner's in my group went on an expedition to find the Abominable snowman (Yeti? The Abominable Snowman Expedition). It was such a success, that we did it again, going on a high sea adventure (Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!?).

We're back to bring you, The Year of the Dragon. Nine writers have joined together. We each wrote a piece to the adventure that will send you around Bloggerville. As you follow through the adventure please follow, and leave a comment for these fantastic writers. A special thank you goes out to Crystal and Claire for their support in getting this dragon to take flight!

Meet the fantastic writers of The Year of the Dragon: Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop

Crystal Collier

Claire Hennessy

Diana Nelson

Aun-Juli

J.C. Martin

Cheryl Reifsnyder

Katharina Gerlach

Saba

Welcome to your adventure, but watch out what flies in the sky.

The Year of the Dragon

You are gazing at distant clouds when the sun becomes shadowed by a dark mass. The clouds darken to grey and you look over your head, expecting to see a passing airplane. You see a dark spec in the sky getting larger, descending downward. As it moves closer sunshine surrounds it, and you shield your eyes. The dark shadow takes the form of a large winged bird. You’re no bird expert, but the largest bird it could be is an eagle—except eagles don’t live in your neighborhood.

You rub your eyes that are watering from looking at the sun. As the bird’s wings go up and down you hear the whoosh of air. It is no eagle. You squint. Red shimmers off the bird’s body.

Clouds cover the sun dulling the day. You can see the bird better now. It looks like a giant red blob dropping from the sky. And. It. Is. No Bird! It is something you have only read about in books. It’s a dragon! Its muscular body has thin wings that spanned over eight feet wide. Its scales are a brilliant red, glittering like sun bathing on snow. And its tail! It sails behind him like a giant propeller. It makes you watch in awe, when you should be running.

Two large paws the size of truck tires are coming at you with outstretched talons. The dragon could easily pick you up. Your heart beats frantic against your rib cage. Your fight or flight instinct kicks in and you swallow hard, realizing this could be the end.

Do you:  Duck!

or

Do you:  Stand there gawping like an idiot!

Run Like the Devil Away from the Effeminate Beast!

You run like the devil away from the effeminate beast!

 “Pleathe will you help me?” The dragon has a tear trickling down its scaly face. The California sun beams on it, making it glow as it slides over his red skin.

    You almost feel sorry for the beast until it starts running toward you, squashing a bonsai tree.  The ground shakes and leaves from other nearby trees shower to the ground.

     You back away and when you do, smoke comes out of its nostrils. It seeps out like fog rolling over water, surrounding you and the dragon. The Japanese tea garden and the building are blocked out of your view from the dragon’s smoke.

    “I can’t help you. Go away!” You back up more, but it only upsets the dragon.

    “I don’th wanth to hurth you. I just want you to talth to my frienths for me.”  He says.
    Your insides vibrate from his booming steps and you turn and run.

     He follows. “Won’th you pleathe stop.”

    You find your way out of the circle of smoke and see the high arched bridge where you could escape. You run with all your might, with the dragon following. He wouldn’t give up.
You pump your arms, attempting to go faster.

    “Waith. Don’th go.”

     You make it to the bridge. You have to keep up your pace if you want to outrun the dragon. You clench your jaw and take long strides once your feet hit the stone of the bridge, ignoring the burn in your thighs.

     Halfway over the bridge, a hot wind blows your hair around.

    The dragon is flapping his wings, hovering in the air. “Fineth be that way. I’ll fineth another humanth to talk to my frienths for me! Humph!”  He snubs his head to the side and proceeds to fly away, leaving you breathless and flabbergasted.

    You collapse on the ground, clutching your stomach. A swooshing sound alerts you the dragon is still above you.

Do you: Do you shout for the dragon to come back

or

Do you:  Do you run out of the Japanese Tea Garden and take cover at the Bison Pavilion

Dragon Bloghop

Come back next Thursday to read another choose your own adventure!

Click here to read past adventures.

Fourth Writers' Platform-Building Campaign

Rachel Harrie's Fourth Platform-Building Campaign has begun. This is a great way to build your blog and find more great blogs to follow. To sign up, click on Rachael's name. It will run until March 17, 2012


Also, there are still more slots for the Third Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop. Click here for more information and to sign up.

Happy Writing everyone!

Adventurers Wanted! Sign-Ups for the bloghop begin

Are you looking for an adventure? You've come to the right blog. Sign-ups for the Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop begins and will run until we get 15-20 bloggers.


In celebration of Chinese New Year and the year of the dragon, our theme will involve a mighty dragon.

You must be a follower of this blog to join, be able to write a small piece to the adventure, and use Google Docs. You must be available the night before it goes live to give the other writers your permanent URL, and lastly go crazy and have fun.  It will go live sometime in March, and there will be a vote as to the specific date the bloghop will take place.


This is a great way to connect and get to know other bloggers. The last two bloghops were awesomely fun and I've made great bloggy friends. Looking forward to the next adventure!


To see what a Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop is CLICK HERE.


To sign up to be a stop on the adventure, use the linky tool below. I'll send out e-mails when we have enough Adventurers.

Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!?! The Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop Starts Here

Ahoy Matey! Welcome to your adventure, but beware of what lurks under the water.

It all started with Rachael Harrie's Platform Building Campaign last May. The Campaigner's in my group went on a bloghop expedition to find the Abominable Snowman. Now, the Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop is back again. This time I invited ALL of the Campaigners to take part. 17 writers answered the call! This bloghop is a collaboration with those fabulous Campaigners. We each wrote a snippet that will take you through an adventure, forcing you to make a choice that will send you around bloggerville. As you make your way through the adventure please follow and leave a comment for these fantastic writers.

Crystal Collier

Jessica Aspen

Cheryl Reifsnyder

Randy Lindsay

Susanna Hill

Deana Barnhart

Kelda Crich

Claire Hennessy

Cheree Smith

Mildred Holmes

Ms. Saba

Cathy Von Hassal-Davies

Angela Perry

Mel Corbett (Mel also did all of our badge artwork)

C. Janelle Tuma

Katharina Gerlach

Madeline Baratos

and me

Kerri Cuevas

Look for sign-ups in January if you would like to participate!

Now let your adventure begin.

Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!?!

Something in the water catches your attention. You lean over the railing and a giant creature with shimmering green scales seems to be swimming toward the boat. Your jaw drops open and you’re frozen in place. Never in your life have you seen anything so massive before.
Whales are big, but not as huge as the creature you are about to encounter. You try to scream and alert someone, but no sound comes out of your mouth. You are too mesmerized by the scales on the beast, each the size of a human hand and shiny. Its body moves with accuracy toward the bow of the ship.

Your trip to the Bermuda Triangle was not one of your brightest ideas after all!

Your knuckles turn white from clutching onto the railing, and you close your eyes bracing for impact. You wait

And wait.

And wait, but there is no impact.

You open one eye and then the other. You look down into a pair of glowing green eyeballs that are staring up at you.

Click on your option.

Do you: Arm yourself and prepare to fight?

Or

Do you: Stay where you are and hope it’s friendly

Do You Listen to the Voice Urging You to Go Up?

                                  You Listen to the Voice Urging You Up

The voice in your head nags at your subconscious and the water starts to numb your limbs. The light is fading and so does the image of your beloved. The voice in your head gets louder and becomes clearer. It snaps you out of a lull.

Go up, or you’ll die!

You listen to the voice because you won’t die like this. You kick your feet and move your arms frantic to go upward where you see a sliver of light. Your brain is telling you to take a breath, but to do so now would be a mistake. So you fight the urge and focus on the voice.

You can do it! Faster!

The muscles in your legs begin to burn and your lungs might burst, but you continue up toward the surface. The sliver of light is expanding , getting brighter. The dark water turns into warm aqua swirls, but pieces of the ship are falling around you making their way to the bottom of the sea. The light reflects off of something shiny plunging down past you. You say goodbye to Captain Contemptuous’s blade.

Keep going and swim to the right!

Yes, swim to the right, because the last thing you remember before plunging into the water was the sea serpent. You look in the direction you think the ship was in and you don’t see its dark shadow on the surface anymore, or the sea serpent. Maybe it swam away.

Hurry!

You look up and can see the blue sky through the water. You gain one last surge of energy and kick your legs breaking through to the surface. Warm sea air enters your lungs and circulates through the deprived cells of your body. The voice disappears and the fuzzy mist in your mind goes away.

Your eyes adjust to the sun and you look around to nothing. There is no ship. There is no sea serpent. There is no captain and there is no crew. But there is a piece of wood. Your fatigued muscles manage to lift yourself onto the wood, and you close your eyes hoping another ship will find you.

                                                                   * * * *
“Ninety- nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety- nine bottles of beer. You kick one down and smash it around ninety-“

You stop muttering because the piece of wood you’ve been floating on, for what feels like an eternity, stops with a jerky thud against a rock. You put your hand over the edge, but instead of water you feel rocks and sand.

Your body is stiff, your skin is stretched and burning from the sun, but you roll off of the wood. You squint and if your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you, you see a lush tropical forest in the middle of an island . You smile and stand on shaky legs.

Animals that were drinking from a stream scatter from your presence. You start to run toward the fresh water, imagining it going down your dry throat. Finally there, you walk into the cold water splashing it onto your body. You cup your hands to let the liquid pool in your hand and bring it to your mouth.

If you never get rescued at least you have food and water.

With your belly full of water you start to exit from the stream. You notice shiny blue and green, oval shaped rocks at the bottom. You reach down and pick one up , admiring its unusual texture.

The rock begins to shakes. You watch wide eyed as the surface begins to crack. You lean in close to peer into the hole. Two green orbs look back at you. Great, it looks like you found the sea serpent’s nesting ground.

The End

Do you go back: And still go 

Do you go back: Stay with the boat

Or

Start over

A Story of Epicness!

October 24th is fast approaching and I'm totally excited to bring you another Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop for your reading entertainment! Get ready for total epicness! Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!?!

There are 17 writers and ONE HUGE ADVENTURE! So, take your Dramamine and don't forget a life jacket. As you go through your adventure, look for the picture below.

I'll see you next week--as long as the sea serpent doesn't get me first *grins*!

Meet your Choose Your Own Adventurers!

I was away for the Labor day holiday babysitting and totally doing the Auntie thing. I may have fed the babe a Boston Cream donut and pretended they were organic *evil grins.* I also may have snuck in cookies and other highly processed goodies. Super Auntie!

But, I'm glad to be home in the comfort of my pajamas and back in Bloggerland. I would like to welcome and say hello to all the new followers *221!!! Faints and dies* #IheartCampaigners

A small intro--Besides being the crazy cat lady I write YA fiction--the weirder the better--Urban fantasy and Paranormal Romances. I'm an avid reader and enjoy helping other authors promote their masterpieces. Give me a shout if you would like to be interviewed or would like a review (hairballs optional).

The first Campaign challenge has been posted by, the one and only, Rachael Harrie. Go check out her blog to see what the Campaign is.  I'll be skipping doing tons of laundry from the mini vacation to get working on the challange. Yay!

Also, my list has closed and we have--get this--19!!! Yes, 19 writers who will write part of the Choose Your Own Adventure that will have you traveling through Bloggerville.  It's going to be crazier than the last one. I'm shooting for the end of October, so stay tuned for details.

Without further adieu, I introduce to you, our Adventurers. (click on their names to visit them. I will also be adding them to my sidebar so you can easily find these fantastic writers.)

Crystal Collier
Jessica Aspen
Cheryl Reifsnyder
Randy Lindsay
Susanna Hill
Deana Barnhart
Kelda Crich
Claire Hennessy
Cheree Smith
Mildred Holmes
Kate Lineberger
Saba
Cathy Von Hassal-Davies
Angela Perry
Mel Corbett
C. Janelle Tuma
Katharina Gerlach
Madeline Bartos

Adventurers Wanted! Sign-Ups for the Bloghop begin.

Did you join Rachael Harrie's Campaign? Are you looking for an added adventure? You've come to the right blog. Sign-ups for the Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop begin and will run all week or until we get between 15-30 bloggers.

In this adventure there will be a sea serpent!

You must be a Campaigner and a follower of this blog to join.

You must be dedicated to write a small piece to the adventure within a short span of time, use goggle docs, work with your partner to write opposite decisions...do you run...or do you fight...da da dum. You MUST be available the night before it's to post to give your permanent url, and lastly have fun and go crazy!

If you are interested click on the badge (The Adventure Starts Here) on my sidebar to see what it entails and I hope you will join the fun using the Linky tool below. Once there are enough victims I'll send out an e-mail with more info. (FYI-Your e-mail is under lock and key and I would never use it an a spammer, or annoying type way).

This is a really great way to connect even more with awesome people and I look forward to the next adventure!

Do you want to be a Campaigner?

The Third Writers' Platform-Building Campaign invented and hosted by Rachael Harrie will begin soon. The list is now open until August 31st so hurry on over and sign up if this is something you are interested in. For all the specific details CLICK HERE.

It is a fantastic way to meet awesome sauce peeps and build your followers list. During the Second Writers' Platform-Building Campaign, I hosted a Choose Your Own Adventure Bloghop for my buddies who were in my group. I will soon be hosting another one for only fellow Campaigners who are also blog followers.

If you are interested click on the badge on my sidebar to see what it entails.

You must be dedicated to write a small piece to the adventure within a short span of time, use goggle docs, work with your partner to write opposite decisions...do you run...or do you fight...da da dum. You MUST be available the night before it's to post to give your permanent url, and lastly have fun and go crazy!

This was so much fun to do and collaborating with 14 other writers was totally cool beans! This will run during the Campaign. The theme for this adventure will be a ship with a sea serpent.

LOOK FOR SIGN UPS NEXT WEEK!
Have a wonderful lovely day :)

Yeti? The Abominable Snowman Expedition STARTS HERE

Welcome to the adventure, but beware of what lurks in the dark.

It all started with Rachael Harrie's Second Platform-Building Crusade. There were over 200 of us. Then it was further broken down into groups according to what genre you wrote in. Us Group 9 Crusaders consisted of horror, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance writers for young adults.This bloghop is a collaboration with those thirteen fabulous Group 9 Crusaders. We each wrote a snippet that will take you through an adventure, forcing you to make a choice that will send you around bloggerville. As you make your way through the adventure please follow and leave a comment for these fantastic writers.

Meet the fantastic Crusaders of Group Nine.

Rachael Harrie

Madeline Bartos

Rane Anderson

Kristina Fugate

Cherie Reich

Chantele Sedgwick

Natasha Hanova

Crystal Collier

Nina Newcombe

Beth Elisa

L.L. McKinney

Aun-Juli Riddle

and me

Kerri Cuevas

I just want to thank Rachael and all the Crusaders for a great couple of months. You guys ROCK! I can't wait for the third Crusade from Monday, August 22, 2011 to October 31, 2011.

Maybe there will be another choose your own adventure, da da dum!

                                   YOUR ADVENTURE STARTS NOW

All evidence suggests that the cave before you is the home of the abominable snowman. The cold sting of snow whips at your face and you are relieved to enter the massive stone shelter. You hope that the creature has set out tea and biscuits for lunch, because you ran out of food hours ago.

The snow crunches beneath your boots. As you walk deeper into the darkness snow turns to frozen dirt. There are patches of matted fur frozen to the walls and the ground is littered with scat. This must be the right cave. You shudder with anticipation and walk forward, but the light from outside is fading.

You put your backpack on the frozen ground and open it. The cider in your thermos has gone frosty, but you drink it anyways. You double check that the battery in your camera is powered up. You take out your flashlight, click it on, and continue into the cave.

You are now in total darkness except for the round stream of light from your flashlight. You point it to the left and it reflects over the icy cavern. You run it along the edge of the wall to see how far back the cave goes, but the light catches movement. You gasp and drop the flashlight and see a dark shadow coming towards you. You bend down to pick up the flashlight and it fumbles out of your hands. You finally grip it and shine the light at the shadow. It is coming at you fast and the hairs on your neck prick up.

Click on your choice.
Do You:   STAY AND FIGHT
Do You:   RUN

Chomp Down the Candy Bar

                                                 Click here to go to the beginning

You eye the candy bar on the ground. It’s your favorite, Almond Joy. What can you say, sometimes you feel like a nut--and you must be to search for the Yeti. Your stomach grumbles in angry protest as you eye the open blue package on the ground. You can taste the rich chocolate in your mouth mixed with sweet coconut.

For a split second you forget the camera and reach down to pick up the bar, but you feel hot breath brush your cheek. You look up to see the Yeti staring at you with pleading eyes. His mouth is hanging open and drool dribbles out onto the ground.

He takes a step back. When you stand up he is sitting on a rock leaning into his hands crying. “Do you want some?” You ask holding out the Almond Joy.

Your hand is shaking as the Yeti looks up and meets your eyes.

“I would love some,” he sobs, “if you let me have it I'll give you food for your journey back home and do anything…except.”

“What?” You ask. Your voice shakes and you clear your throat afraid he wants to keep you his hostage.

“Just don’t tell anyone I’m here. I don’t want to be a lab rat and locked in a cage.”

You breathe a long sigh of relief; your breath comes out in a thick fog. “I can do that.”

You smile and hand the Yeti the last of your Almond Joy. Sometimes you don’t feel like a nut and just want to make the Yeti happy. Who knew?

The Yeti moans and licks his thick furry lips as he eats the candy bar. He stands up rubbing the thick white fur on his belly.

“Shall we take some pictures?” The Yeti asks.

You take out your camera and half smile and laugh nervously.

“Let’s do this!” He roars.

                 **********************************************

The Yeti was like a superstar and eager to pose for you. He leaned on a rock with his arms crossed over his chest. He made a silly face that made you laugh. He let you stand next to him as he draped an arm over your shoulder.

“Hey, same time next year?” The Yeti asked.

“Same time and I’ll bring plenty of chocolate. Later buddy.”

You walked out of his cave and would miss the big furry Yeti.

  Go Back: Run
  Go Back: Let the Yeti Talk
  Start Over

The Adventure Begins Tuesday

Come one and come all to the choose your own adventure bloghop. It will go live Tuesday, May 17th at 12:00am. Adventurers wanted, but beware of what lurks in the dark.

It all started with Rachael Harrie's Second Platform-Building Crusade. There were over 200 of us. Then it was further broken down into groups according to what genre you wrote in. Us Group 9 Crusaders consisted of horror, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance writers for young adults.This bloghop is a collaboration with those thirteen fabulous Group 9 Crusaders. We each wrote a snippet that will take you through an adventure, forcing you to make a choice that will send you around bloggerville. As you make your way through the adventure please follow and leave a comment for these fantastic writers. You are in for a treat!

The adventure starts here, but every choice you make has a consequence.

Meet the fantastic Crusaders of Group Nine.

Rachael Harrie

Madeline Bartos

Rane Anderson

Kristina Fugate

Cherie Reich

Chantele Sedgwick

Natasha Hanova

Crystal Collier

Nina Newcombe

Beth Elisa

L.L. McKinney

Aun-Juli Riddle

and me

Kerri Cuevas

I just want to thank Rachael and all the Crusaders for a great couple of months. You guys ROCK! I can't wait for the third Crusade from Monday, August 22, 2011 to October 31, 2011.

Maybe there will be another choose your own adventure, da da dum!