Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Contest!
In which a girl reads just reached 600 followers, so Choco is giving away two books to celebrate! The contest ends Apr 17th, and one lucky winner will receive both Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver AND Willow by Julie Hoban.
Check it out!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Another Contest!!
Alright, head on over to Shannon's blog and enter her fabulous contest. She's celebrating getting an awesome agent, so say congrats while you're there! The winners (6 of 'em) will each win a signed book from one of agent Laura Rennert of Andrea Brown, so you really want to check this one out.
Good luck everyone, and CONGRATULATIONS!!!! to Shannon (aka packratx). :D
My Entry...
The contest is to write a rhyming query (I had to to it for one of my SNIs that I'm toying with but not actually playing with yet). Enjoy!
The ghosts and the ghouls
And a number of fools,
In shades of gray,
Gather to say
They feel bad.
They give their confessions,
And at the end of each session
They give a group hug,
Shuffle over the rug,
And part until the next meeting
When Bonnie gets restless
She sadly confesses
The girl in 4D,
Obnoxious and peeved,
Is Bonnie’s first spook in a month.
The gang is all sad,
They say Bonnie was bad,
But they’re happy she feels better;
Bonnie signs a new letter
Swearing off spooking for good.
Dear Ms Agent,
I hope my email sent
To you this beautiful query
And that you aren’t weary
To request more.
I have the whole book,
Please don’t give me that look,
It’s really quite something
And could easily bring
Lots of money to you and to me.
Simply request
And I’ll send you my best
60,000 word novel,
There's no need to grovel,
For my YA paranormal comedy SPOOKS!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
So I haven't signed off yet...
...but I'm getting there. To tell the truth, I'll try not to disappear at all, though I can't promise anything.
I got another blog award! :) You guys really think I'm at least half way interesting. I'm glad. It makes me happy that I'm not just standing up here on my invisible box talking to a wall. What was I saying? Oh, blog award, right.
This one is from the very popular Nicole over at One Significant Moment at a Time, if you haven't ever stopped by or have never heard of Nicole, you should check her out. Now. Seriously, anyone who can compare life and a novel to a subway car is pretty interesting to me!
I'd like to pass this on now to some people who are a whole lot cooler than I am. Unfortunately, that would take forever, because I want you all to have this one. So, if you're reading this, congratulations! I think you're all wonderful and magnificent and quite a few other adjectives, so please consider yourself awarded, and continue passing on the silver lining. :D
In completely unrelated news, I'm thinking about starting to do reviews on here (not that I get to read very often, but I think it's be nice), what do you guys think? Would you like to know what I'm reading and what I think about it?
To give you a look, first up would more than likely be the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan. But I have a ton of books I bought recently including, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Beastly by Alex Flinn, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Neffenegger, and Atonement by Ian McEwan, so there's a nice little mix in there.
If I can keep up with posting, I'll try to stick to a schedule. Teaser Tuesday and Work in Progress Wednesday are at the top of my list, if you have any requests, now's the time to speak up! Do you want to hear about my school life? What caf food tastes like? Want me to stop talking and go away? Let me know!
And now, I'll leave you with a tiny snippet and no introduction whatsoever to my newest WiP, because I'm mean like that.
“Mom. He’s doing it again!” Taryn Jacobson bellowed, her voice carrying through the hall and into the kitchen where her mother was making dinner. “Make him stop!” she shouted. She sat on her bed trying to watch the latest episode of her favorite monster television show; Taryn’s little brother Luke sat in the floor between her bed and the TV throwing spit wads at the screen and giggling when they stuck in the middle of an actor’s face. Luke hated ghosts and all things scary. He even refused to go to sleep at night if the door wasn’t left open or if there wasn’t a light on. Luke was afraid the monsters would get him.
Taryn wished they would.
She was tired of having to get out of bed at night to check in on him because he was huddled against the wall crying about the scary things in his closet or the men hiding in the shadows. She would always sit with him and calm him down by turning on all the lights and showing him that everything was safe. Luke never really believed her, though; he always said that the monsters could only be seen when the lights were out because they were a part of the dark. They were made of darkness. It made sense to Taryn, but she still didn’t like having to give up her own sleep because her baby brother was scared, especially when he was such a pain during the day.
“Luke, if you don’t cut it out, I’ll let the monsters get you,” she said, threatening him. “I’ll turn out all the lights and close your door tonight after you go to sleep, and they’ll creep out of the shadows and in through the windows, and you’ll never even see them coming.” Luke froze, a spit wad dangling at the end of the straw that was sticking out of his five-year-old mouth. His face went pale and Taryn could see the tears welling in his little brown eyes. She knew she’d over done it, but she had had enough of his shenanigans; she just wanted to watch TV.
Friday, March 26, 2010
WiP Update
This story is fantastic and wonderful and new and exciting. And I love it. I'm also still not telling you anything about it, other than it's a paranormal YA hahaha. The only problem is that I've been on Spring Break all week, and I probably won't get to do much more writing for a while. I've got to spend my last two days catching up on all the homework I was supposed to get done (so not cool) instead of starting chapter 3. *sigh* Oh well.
School work is calling... The good news? I get to read Beastly by Alex Flinn for my Folklore class and write a paper on it, unless I choose to do Mercedes Lackey's The Fire Rose instead. I love awesome English classes. :) The bad news, that's the easiest and smallest assignment I have.
Are you making progress on something that you're working on? Are you getting bogged down with school/work/kids? Have anything to look forward to?
This may be the last you hear of me for a while. Farewell, my friends!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Looking on the Bright Side
It sucks.
But I'm not taking it personally. She didn't take a stab at me. She didn't tell me I was trying to get into a business that is completely out of my league. She didn't chop my hopes and dreams into tiny tiny pieces and then flush them down the toilet.
No. She was nice, and she actually gave me hope. She complimented my writing and told me that, ultimately, it was the voice that didn't work, not that she hated the way I had done everything. It just wasn't the best fit for what they were looking for. And on top of that, she told me I have potential.
I may not have gotten an awesome job, but I feel better about myself. I feel like I actually have the right to call myself a writer now. It didn't matter that I had book and a screenplay sitting on my hard-drive or that I'm working on edits for my first book when I can, or even that I'm starting on book number two right now. No. I sent my words out there for the first time, and that's what matters. I proved to myself that this really is what I want, and I can take the rejections and the ups and downs. But this is what I want.
I want to write, and I want to be read.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Answers and Other Random Bits
I've tried to play the flute and failed miserably. I wish I drank V8 Splash every day, but the stuff is expensive. My dog's name is Chloe, though technically she's my mom's (I have a cat named Kidda). I didn't skip any grades, though I really wanted to; I am, however, always one of the youngest in my class because I started school when I was 5 instead of 6. As much as I wish my brother and I were best friends, most of the time we have a hard time getting along for more than ten minutes at a time. And while I haven't driven a car in a while, it hasn't been three years, only two...and a half. :P
As far as writing goes, I've finally started in on the project I've been trying to avoid for the last 2+ months. It's pretty cool. I like it. :D I'd tell you what it's about, but I'm trying to keep it under wraps for a while. I want to get a first draft out before I go spoiling the surprise, haha.
I'm on Spring Break this week, so I'm trying to catch up on some reading and writing. I've started on the new project and I've already read the 2nd and 3rd Percy Jackson books; 4 and 5 are sitting next to me waiting to be read. I'm hoping I'll get to read a few more books after I read two for my folklore class (Beastly and The Fire Rose). I've got Leviathan, and it's been staring me down and taunting me for weeks, but I've also gone on a huge book buying spree so I have a ton to choose from. :)
In other news, I won't be interning anywhere this summer, which sucks, but it's all good. I still plan on going to NY in May to try to job shadow a few people and get a look at the industry in hopes that I won't be completely lost when I move to NY after graduation and try to break in.
How are things going for all of you? Working on anything exciting? Have any great plans for the summer?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Thrill
My friend Jade (I'm going to call her that whether she thinks we're friends or not, because she's made of awesome like that) wrote a magnificent post this morning on writing, and I think she did a great job explaining the thrill of writing. Go read it. Now. I'll wait...
So, Jade says the key is in the characters, and I think she's right. I don't think any of us would really struggle to write a book if we didn't fall in love with those new voices that pop into our heads whispering their stories to us in the middle of the night when we're trying to sleep. Don't worry, Jade, that's usually when they find me too. :/
The characters are what make getting out of bed early to write worth it. They're the reason we stay up way too late writing, because we're so utterly enthralled with them that we literally can't walk away or crawl under the covers for fear that we'll lose something great and never get it back or (more than likely) we won't be able to sleep again until we've finished the scene that's itching to be written.
This seems to be a recurring theme in my posts of late, reasons for writing... I'll try to come up with something else to talk about soon. :P Really, I will.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
:P
I'm not entirely sure why, considering I don't update on any kind of regular basis and I'm not that interesting, but I have another blog award! :D A huge thanks to Medeia Sharif for my new "Creative Writer" award!!
Alright, so the deal with this one is to tell six lies and a truth and leave it up to you lovely readers to figure out which is the truth.
1. I can play the flute.
2. I drink V8 Splash every day.
3. My dog's name is Pookie.
4. I skipped the 2nd grade.
5. My brother and I are best friends.
6. Almost every one of my best friends are woodwind players.
7. I haven't driven a car in three years.
Good luck!
This beautimous award is being passed on to the lovely Karen Amanda Hooper over here and to Jonathon Arntson at his blog. Go check 'em out! :)
In other news, I finished the two sample chapters I was working on for the possible MG band series. It was a ton of fun to write, and I hope I get the chance to write some more on it. To be honest, it was a completely new experience for me. I'm used to writing something with at least a little magic in it, so realist fiction is a bit beyond me. But it was a blast, especially since it combined my love of music and writing.
As for my other writing, Rise of the Phoenix is pretty much on hold for the moment, but I'm hoping to get back to it as soon as I'm finished with my junior recital on my horn this week. I'm still trying not to start writing WIP #2 that's been sitting in my head and in my heart for months now. And I had a good idea for a paranormal comedy when I was walking across campus to the library earlier; I'll write it down and try to flush it out later, but no real writing until RotP has been edited. :D
How are things going with all of you?
Monday, March 8, 2010
Contest!
Fans
Anyway, I've been writing fanfics since I was like 14 (I'm 20 now), and I've always gotten really good feedback on my stuff. I know my fics aren't as great as they should be; they haven't been edited with a careful eye, and I've become a much better writer since some of them were penned. But I have fans, and that's really something to me. (Please don't look up any of my stories and embarrass me.)
We say that as writers we want to share a story with people, we want to affect their lives for the better, we want to create the book that gets people reading. So when I opened my Outlook when I got home from work this evening, I nearly cried over a fanfic response:
Hey, I've been a fan for a while now, since Hell's fire, Heaven's Wings =D I just wanted to say thankyou. Thankyou for inspiring me to write =).... I was sitting in my job employment place today on my fanfiction page. I've been really sick lately, and it hurts to use my laptop, and I don't have a printer.
But while I was sitting at the place, looking at your stories again, I decided to take advantage of the printer, and ended up printing off all of "Hell's Fire, Heaven's Wings", "The Dragon Underneath", "The Phoenix Within", "Heaven's Forgiveness, Hell's Damnation", "Stress Relief". lol all up it was 82 pages. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you, that I did it for my personal use. I absolutely love your stories...
And I can honestly say, two weeks ago I was on the phone to my best friend, and I was telling her about a story I hadn't read for ages, and when I did read it, I absolutely fell in love with it. And to this day, it's still my favourite on fanfiction. Ever. Nothing has topped it yet =D Can you guess what it is? Hell's Fire, Heaven's Wings =D.
This absolutely made my day. It topped the bunnies that I saw on the way back to the dorm. It topped the fresh, crispy, salty fries I had from McDonald's.
This, this is why I write. I write because I hope that my stories will resonate with people, will inspire them, will take them to new highs/lows/places/etc. I write to make a difference in someone's life, even if it's only the tiniest impact, because you never know how the smallest things can change your whole life.
Why do you write?
Monday, March 1, 2010
Hodgepodge Monday
Band geeks are the new cheerleaders. Okay, okay, so that’s just wishful thinking, but it could happen, right? Right? I mean, there’s no hope for the choir nerds or the orchestra dorks, but we band geeks have potential. It isn’t like we’re mathletes or in the chess club… Besides, I have a good feeling about this year. It’s going to be epic. And do you know why? Eighth graders. I know, that says it all.
On a different note, I got another award! This one's from the very cool Medeia Sharif.
For this one, you're supposed to tell some things that make you happy. Medeia did 10, we'll see if I can come up 10 without getting cheesy haha.
1.) Friends- particularly Katie and Kristin (they're my faves :P)
2.) Family- mostly just my mom, brother, sister-in-law, and little sisters (not that I don't like the rest of my family or anything lol)
3.) Books :)
4.) Writing
5.) Music- especially GLEE and Wicked right now.
6.) Macaroni and hotdogs- don't knock it til you've tried it. (Oscar Meyer all the way!)
7.) Sweet tea.
8.) Desserts (cookies!)
9.) English classes
10.) Foreign languages (I have a thing for them, am trying to get a Spanish minor :P)
Woo, I did it! And hopefully you learned something new about me in the process haha.
I'm giving this to:
Weronika because she always looks at the bright side of things.
Karla because she's pretty awesome.
Katie because she's my other half and she doesn't update nearly enough, so maybe this will inspire her to. :)
I know that isn't very many, but I'm trying to wrap this up because I have to be across campus for a strep test in a few, because that's just how awesome my day is going. :/
Hope you're all having a wonderful day, and that you're getting lots of reading and writing in!
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