Sara Alva

August 30th, 2012 Aaron scrunched a ball of used packing tape, and after failing to locate a trash bag, dropped it straight onto Jake’s head. “Hey!” Jake made a half-hearted attempt to relocate the tape onto Aaron’s ass. He couldn’t quite reach that high from where he sat, though, with his legs splayed out on the hardwood floor. “Quit working already, will you? It’s almost nine, and I’m beat.” Aaron sank down next to him. A few boxes remained unpacked, strewn about the unfurnished living r

A story about how everyday choices affect our lives.

Yup. Something similar just happened to my husband last month. Luckily, they caught it early enough, but the doc did say if they hadn't treated it immediately he could've gone blind in that eye.

I can't be of any help, but I know it feels so good to vent sometimes. Vent away...we'll always be on your side Oh, and I recommend staying away from the FB drama 'Cause she may not have anything better to do than to post crap on FB all day, but you're a talented writer and have better things to be writing!

Aw, thanks Andy, Mark, little a andy, Cailen, Cia and Stu And Cailen, that is some crazy cake

Like, we should like, totally get together, like sometime! *flips hair and pops bubble gum*

why is the East Coast cooler than the West Coast

um what were you googling??

Yeah, unfortunately, it really couldn't have hit closer to home. Well, it pretty much did hit home, since I don't have any kids of my own. Thanks for your continued interest in my stuff ...can't believe you haven't forgotten about me yet My story in the anthology is cheesy and light...to sort of counteract my year, I guess. Silent (new novel) is a lot darker...I'm hoping that'll be ready by the fall.

Thanks I guess I'm glad not everyone forgot about me

I got to beta for SG and I really almost died laughing. Dani's characters are freakin' hilarious.

Thanks, Maria! At least I've gotten to see your amazing stuff on FB

I almost didn't want to finish reading this, because you captured the pain of your character all too well. It made me feel raw. But the ending shows strength and hope, and for such a short piece you really made a powerful impact. Really great writing.

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been “gone” from GA for a while. I ended my last post of Social Skills, wrote a short story, chickened out about posting it, and disappeared into the mist. It took me about a month to begin working on a new piece. At the time, I was moving from an apartment into a house, and my writing time was severely limited. In addition to that, I’m a very slow writer (or, if you choose to believe, as Carringtonrj so kindly put it, a “thoughtful” one ). I can’t seem to publish works-in-progress. I let stories simmer in my mind for a really long time before touching fingers to keyboard. And I edit/revise obsessively. So I knew I probably wasn’t going to be posting anytime soon, but I did not mean to disappear from GA in terms of keeping up with friends and reading the great authors here. But then I got news in the fall that my layoff from the previous summer had been rescinded. No more casual days of subbing--I had less than one week to go on interviews and find a new permanent placement. I took the first job offered, at the very first interview. Big mistake. BIG MISTAKE. Hell on earth soon followed. I won’t go into all the details, but basically it was more work than I get paid for, in addition to tons of out-of-pocket money spent because I didn’t want budget shortcuts affecting the way I run my classroom. The biggest problem was (is) coworkers averse to change or anything different—people so petty and vengeful for no apparent reason, it’s absolutely mind-boggling. I’ve worked at several places in LA due to the district’s yearly layoffs, but none so awful as this. My writing slowed, and my participation in the world—both online and offline—dropped off as well. I was too drained from having to deal with B.S. every day. And just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they got much, much worse. Again, I won’t go into specifics here. But I’ll just say a former coworker was arrested for a horrible crime—something that affected children and families I am very close to. Things snowballed . . . other people were accused of crimes—perhaps (and I pray) unjustly because I consider them friends—and suddenly a whole mass of people were under attack…every single person who had ever worked at that location. I was and am still shaken by these events. If it hadn’t been for the support of family and friends, I don’t know if I even could’ve finished out the year at my job. Luckily, some very amazing people have helped me through the darkest parts of the year so that I am now able to (cheesy, I know) see the light at the end of the tunnel. And now… I’ve been laid off again. For once, I’m happy about it. I can leave my current location behind and hope for a better placement in the future…although if ‘the future’ doesn’t come fast enough, I might have to start looking for a totally different career. There is that mortgage payment, after all. Which brings me to the next reason for this blog post (my first one ever). Over the course of the year I managed to finish my second novel, with the help of my beta-- the talented author Dani Alexander (if you haven’t read his book, Shattered Glass, go read it now). He kept bugging me as we rehashed chapters to publish my work…and I kept saying no, no, no, until the thing was done and I realized…why not? I’ll be on unemployment this summer as I wait to see whether I’ll be picked up again next year, and although I don’t expect to make tons of money, the life change has affected my decision to publish. On the advice of other authors and friends, I will be epublishing both Social Skills and my new novel, Silent. As some of you may have noticed, the GA version of Social Skills has moved to Premium. While I wrote the whole thing before I knew about GA, the story definitely matured here, so I chose to have it moved to Premium instead of pulling it down entirely. Of course, me being me, Social Skills is currently being revised. I’ve added a few scenes, changed a few things, and now it’s off to a series of betas. The scariest thing about publishing for me is that I won’t be able to sneak in and edit chapters as easily as I could here, so I imagine it will still be a few months before I’m ready to re-release it into the world. I have a website/blog now, (again, thanks to the talented Dani) where I’ll post updates on my work and general thoughts on reading/writing/publishing. Stop by if you’re so inclined www.SaraAlva.com The summer is almost here, and though I’ll be busy editing/revising, I do have some WIPs for GA. I hope to be more present in the future and definitely have missed being around over the past year. Thanks for reading. P.S. I actually got my butt in gear and submitted a short story to the anthology.

Part 1: Indecent Proposal "I want to have sex so badly." Kristina sighed into the phone. "I'm just tired of waiting." I waved to my mom as I entered the house, glad she was slaving over the ironing board and wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation. "Jeez, Kris. Hire a prostitute already." "I'm scared of diseases." Next stop was the fridge. Tossing aside a few yogurts, I settled on a gulp of orange juice, straight from the carton. “Use a glass!” my mother yelled, which was

Part 2: If a Tree Falls in the Forest “This is too cool,” Kristina bubbled, reaching across the center console to lay her hand on Brennan’s thigh. I felt a little queasy and shrank back into my seat, where Genji’s smile caught me. “Super fun!” he exclaimed. “Yeah, super fun.” May patted his back from her spot behind him. “That’s what America’s all about.” Kristina whipped out her cell phone, and mine buzzed a second later. What did I tell u? I didn’t respond—except to roll my eyes when

Josh's friend has made an important life decision. Given the opportunity, will he make the same one?

!! Adorable

Sorry about Soc Skills! But it'll be available as a ebook hopefully by this summer.Glad you enjoyed this one I have a short story (2 chaps) that I'll be posting in the near future, a half-finished one for the new GA anthol, and another novel that will be released as an ebook

lol you scared me

Yup. As soon as this school year is over I will be looking for any excuse to party

Really lovely story

To go w/ Cailen's interview suggestion, here's a link to a character workbook

schools

Yup. I never even knew real ramen existed until I moved to LA