Writing Goal Rewards

This week's Road Trip Wednesday is almost freakishly timed. YA Highway asked:

How do you reward yourself when you meet your writing goals? Answer for big goals and/or small goals.

       The reason why I say this is so freakily timed, is because I finally wrote The Big Ending today! Once I was done I thought, "Time to celebrate!" But found myself not really knowing how. I suppose that it's wasn't such a HUGE deal because I still have those damn 2-3 chapters in the middle to write that I initially skipped over to begin the ending not too long ago. 
       I'm sure I've said this before. I think it's important to let yourself write things that keep coming back to you, even if it's not in order. I believe that you keep thinking about That Scene for a reason! So you should get it out! This idea/personal writing rule of mine has sort of come back to bite me in the ass however, because today I wanted very much to cheer "I'M DONE! MY FIRST DRAFT IS DONE!" as I took a lap around my house, pumping my fists in the air while the Rocky soundtrack played in the background -- but I could not. Because of the rule I let myself follow, I am still not yet done. It's a strange thing to write THE END when you still feel that it is not, in fact, the end. So strange.
       However, how I feel right now still doesn't make me want to change my standpoint on that rule. I still think it's important to let yourself write scenes that really jump out at you.
       Anywho, back to the topic at hand. The weirdness I'm feeling right now should not detract from celebrating achievement of my goal to push through that 5k today to get those final two chapters DONE. My WIP class is going to be very proud of me this weekend. *beams* *clears space on paper for gold star* I've had a bit of a writing drought these past few weeks so even a few hundred a day has been good (when my norm used to be 2.5k a day). I thought setting a goal this week to finish those chapters was maybe even a bit too ambitious of me, but I was feeling pretty determined. :)
       So, how did I celebrate the accomplishment of meeting this weeks goal? I ate a cookie. What can I say? Positive reinforcement, it works!
       Oh, and I logged on here to write this. Celebratory blog writing! Wahoo!
       To celebrate my long term goal of actually publishing a damn novel (which may never happen, but hey, that's the dream) I'll most likely get the ISBN numbers tattooed on me somewhere. I'd thought a lot about maybe getting "scribo ut vivam" tattooed at some point, so I could possibly get the two done together. Maybe put the numbers right under the phrase? That'd be kind of nice. Maybe on my left wrist? We'll see. Someday. Hopefully.
       Normally this is the point of the post in which I quickly update on how the writing went this week, but it seems as though I have already done that!
       In my WIP class news I read a Very Important Scene this past Sunday and was more relieved than you can imagine when it got all the positive feedback it did. I didn't read an action scene for once! I read a conversational scene in which a lot of important information is divulged and the main driving force behind the trilogy is revealed. I was ecstatic to hear how much they loved what I'd come up with! If they didn't like the ideas/information in that particular scene, the whole trilogy would have been shot. *whew!*
       In other random news, (but not so random because I just talked about tattoos) I promised to post a picture of the Shakespeare tattoo I got last week once it healed a bit more. Here it is! If you missed the post last week, I got this quote in particular because I read it when I was just starting out high school and it really stuck with me. It's probably the one thing I live by more than anything else. Always be true to yourself. Don't ever let anyone change you into something you're not. As everyone knows, high school is That Time that shapes you very much into the person you will be in life. This is something I repeated to myself time and time again throughout those four years. You're always going to have people coming at you from all sides in life (especially in school during those detrimental years) and the most important thing to remember is to just stick to your guns and not let anybody sway you! Oh, and if you were wondering, this quote is from Hamlet, said by Polonius to his son, Laertes, before he heads off to school.
       
I guess that's all for now. :)


Happy writing,

Who Should Narrate the Audio Book?

       It's Road Trip Wednesday again, and this week on the YA Highway blog the question is: if you got to choose a celebrity narrator for the audio book of your WIP or your favorite novel, who would it be and why?
       What's funny, is that I've totally thought about this question before. I've even celebrity casted my MCs in my head, ha, maybe I'll post those ideas sometime. :) 
       Iona in particular has a smoky voice, but it's never really commented on throughout the book since it's all from her POV -- & it's not really a natural thing to comment on someone else's voice -- so I don't think anyone would pick up on that fact unless I went out of my way to make sure they hired a smoky-sounding actress to read the audiobook! Ideally, I imagine Sophia Bush's voice <-- that link is to a YouTube clip of her interview on Chelsea Lately! Someone similar sounding would be absolutely perfect, as I imagine Sophia Bush would be a tad bit too busy to read for an audiobook recording..
       Okay, now that that is done with, here's the update on the past two weeks of my writing since I skipped out on last week:
       To be completely honest, I haven't gotten much done at all. I've managed to edit the scenes I had to bring in for my WIP class to critique.. and that's about it. 
       It's still taking a lot of effort on my part to really focus in on something because of everything that's been going on in the past few weeks since my grandmother's passing. I'm trying my best and I think I've been doing better these past couple days, so hopefully I'll be able to get back into my groove sometime soon. The most I've written in the past few weeks is a scene that actually doesn't have any place in the book at all. It's just of something I knew happened in their world a year or two prior to Prophetess that I felt like writing out. It was nice to write something for fun, just for myself, for once. I think I've also been feeling pressure lately when I sit down to write because I'm so close to finishing the first draft. I'm ridiculously scared to finish it, I think, because when I do everything will suddenly get very real.
       It also didn't help my writing any that I had a minor surgery done on my back at the beginning of this week, and all of last week I had to work since one of the girls at the bank had the week off. I haven't really had the time to sit down and force myself to get back into it! These are also the reasons for the sudden influx of book reviews because that's all I can really do at work, ha! :)
       I'd like to write a bit more today, but again I have to edit the hell out of these few pages I have to read for my class on Sunday. It's a very important scene with a lot of information, so I really want to do it right! Plus, I want to keep my good streak going.. They seem to have really enjoyed everything I've brought in so far! Well, I wouldn't actually say they enjoyed last week's piece because a few of the girls said they were actually scared to walk home alone after I was through reading.. I guess I write a good serial killer POV, lol. Not too sure what that says about me.. I think I've just watched one too many murder mystery/cop shows.
       In completely random news, I got my third tattoo this week! It's a Shakespeare quote that I've wanted to get since I read Hamlet in my sophomore year of high school. For those of you that don't know, I'm something of a Shakespeare groupie. I'd post a picture of it for you all to see, but I think I'm going to wait on doing such because I hate the way fresh tattoos photograph. They look all red and puffy in some spots! Yuck. This tattoo actually hurt, which completely surprised me. My first two honestly didn't hurt much at all, so I figured no tattoo would ever really bother me! Especially since I've heard a lot of people claim that the top of your foot is the most painful spot (other than the backs of your knees & elbows) to get a tattoo and that was my first one! My second one was on my wrist and that honestly didn't hurt much either. This third one is definitely bigger than the other two combined and it's placed on my shoulder blade. It hurt like hell and I was totally shocked. It actually still hurts. It's sore and I can't move around much.. Also, I have to walk around in racerback tank-tops because it needs to heal without having anything touch it and I'm absolutely freezing. :( On the bright side though, I really love the way it came out. :)


I suppose that's all for now! 
Happy writing,



Edit: As I'm sure most of you know, everyone had their super awesome comments erased on their most recent post due to the crazy Blogger meltdown earlier this week. For me, it was this post. I'm sorry if you took the time to comment & now have had it deleted! :(

Manuscript Music.. and Princesses

       This post is brought to you by Princess Maker.
       No, seriously. It is.


       Thanks to Steph Perkins and her blogpost, hours of my life have gone to this website. When I was younger I used to enjoy making little dolls, designing their outfits and what they looked like. That's what this website basically is.. only better. You get to make princesses!
       Needlesstosay, I had to make each of my (female) characters princesses. From left to right/top to bottom: Iona, Addy, Rosie and Nata. Technically Rosie and Nata, although important characters in the trilogy, don't show up physically until book two (but they are spoken about!). Aren't they all so pretty?! I especially love that Addy is so pink and that Rosie looks like a badass-version of Giselle from Enchanted. I even went one further and made the characters of my other WIP into princesses as well. I'm not going to post those princesses because I have yet to write a damn word of it (other than just plotting points/an outline) so it feels a bit premature to put anything out there about Terasunda.*
       I'm glad I did this. In doing such, I actually learned something about my characters for both series. No two are alike. When I was making up each of the nine girls, choosing their features and putting them in what they would wear for clothing, I didn't realize that they were all so different from one another. When I was done I found every one of them with a different color dress on and a different hairstyle (except for two, because there are only so many ways one can wear a bob haircut. Sorry, Addy and Mairin!). Not only that, but their nationalities and their personalities/style vary greatly. I did all this without realizing it, but I'm so, so happy it turned out as it did. I like diversity. I like that there is a character in each series someone can hopefully relate to in that way. They're all different. This revelation made me extremely happy.
       I appreciated the task of designing them all. It was very distracting, and a distraction at this time is very much needed. A grieving house is not a happy house. It was nice to have something to do that didn't require much concentration to take my mind off other things. This brings me to my next point.
       I have gotten zero writing done since I posted last, due to everything going on -- If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here -- As I'm sure you can imagine, everything I would try to write right now would be absolute crap, and I don't want that. I think it would just frustrate me even more. I really need to start editing the piece I'm supposed to bring in and read to my class on Sunday, but I just can't do that right now. I also need to get working on some critiques, but I can't seem to focus on those either. I always want to give the text my critters send me my utmost attention, so I'm thinking that those are, unfortunately, going to have to sit on the back-burner for now too. Hopefully when this week is through I'll be able to get my head back into things.

       On a less depressing note, this weeks YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday question is: If your WIP (work-in-progress) or favorite book were music, what song(s) would it be?
      I was actually just discussing this, albeit briefly, in the comments section a blogpost by one of my crit partners, Marisa. Every single time I try to write an Iona/Nathair scene, I have to listen to Drumming Song by Florence + the Machine. It just helps in such a strange way that I never expected. It really gets me into the scene, makes me feel more of what their feeling as I'm writing. I hope that shows! The entire album, Lungs, is absolutely amazing, I love every single song, and I thought I was on my way to a world record with the amount of song plays I had goin' on until I read on Marisa's post. She has listened to Rabbit Heart over four-hundred times since she started writing. I'm definitely not that far, but we'll see how many plays I have once I'm actually done! Another song off that album that has inspired me completely is Blinding. I think it inspired my entire idea for Terasunda, actually. I try to not listen to it so often because it just makes me want to ditch my current WIP to go write that, but I can't! I love The Eternal Gifts too much to just leave it in the cold. :)

Florence Welch

       The thing with music and me is, I love it, and it inspires me to no end, but I can't actually listen to it while writing. I know a lot of writers that need to have it on in the background as they go along, but I have never been able to do that. I know a lot of writers that need commotion to some degree going on around them (hence writing in coffee shops being so popular) but I have never been able to do that either. I need complete silence when I write. Like, pin-drop quiet. If anything is going on around me I can't concentrate and I get extremely frustrated. That's why I usually get my most writing in when I'm home alone. Since I don't have an office/a desk somewhere away from the noisy first floor, I usually can't write if anyone is home. The TV going and people talking just aggravates me! I wish I could write with noise the way Baby Bro does. Baby Bro needs lots of noise while he's doing homework and such or else he can't concentrate. It's so strange how we all have our different little quirks.


       Okay, well I suppose that is all for now. Go make princesses and listen to Florence + the Machine! Hopefully I will have a better writing report for you all next week..


Happy writing,



I am working on my footnote problem because of a comment Baby Bro** made about another post of mine.. I'm trying my best to have less of them! Of course, less footnotes means more sentences in parentheses, but whatever. I think he will be proud of me this time since there are only two! And one of them is totally his fault. :D


* I'm not 100% positive about the name of that other WIP, but just go with me on this one.
** When I say Baby Bro, I don't actually mean Baby Bro. Baby Bro is sixteen. :)

Spin On First-Kiss

       Since I have decided to update on Wednesdays, it only makes sense to start or end each post with an answer to YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday question. Road Trip Wednesday is, as described on their blog, "a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered." This week, the topic is: Compare your first kiss to your favorite characters first kiss.

       I have many favorite characters, but I'd have to say that one of my all-time favorite first novel kisses would be between Clary and Jace of Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments* series. If you haven't read City of Bones, this is somewhat of a spoiler, but nothing too bad. :)

       The moon, directly overhead now, lit everything nearly to daylight brightness. In between one step and another she saw a white spark struck off something on the floor: It was the knife Jace had been using to cut apples, lying on its side. She jerked hastily back to avoid stepping on it, and her shoulder bumped his--he put a hand out to steady her, just as she turned to apologize, and then she was somehow in the circle of his arm and he was kissing her.

       Oh Clary & Jace, the first kiss of many. They are, quite possibly, my favorite couple ever. The pictures above and below are of two actors/models from the book trailer** filming that very scene! I also adore Tessa and Will's first kiss from Cassandra's Infernal Devices trilogy.. The woman has quite the knack for tortured romance. Which is my favorite kind, of course. I'm looking forward to Tessa and Jem's first kiss, because we all know it's coming! These first kisses make mine pale in comparison, but I will discuss it nonetheless, because I have dedicated myself to answering all the Wednesday questions fully.. *sigh*

       I was in the second grade, and I had this love-hate relationship with a boy who is now the father of one of my best friend's children (that's Winthrop for ya.. this place is too damn small). We were playing kickball, of which I was amazing at because we played every day (I was QUITE the tomboy when I was younger), and I recall him chasing me down and pecking me on the mound. Nothing big or special, just some cute eight-year-olds pretending they know what a "real-relationship" is, i.e. Will you be my girlfriend? Check yes or no. It's funny the things we remember so vividly. I would write about my first real kiss, but I feel as though that'd be too embarrassing. 

Okay, now that the kissing portion of the post is done with, here's the weekly update:

       I think the good-critique fairy has blessed this week, because I have had so many amazingly nice things said to me about my work these past few days, that I'm concerned about the size of my head. I checked it again in the mirror this morning and it still seems to look normal, but I'm going to keep tabs on it.. 

       Seriously though, there is nothing better than hearing from people that have no good reason to lie to you about how they feel, tell you that they love what you've been slaving over the past few months of your life for every waking moment. The best thing about critique partners is just that. You know they're not sugar-coating anything for your benefit. Family members and good friends may read your work and not like it, therefore feeling the need to lie to you because they don't have the heart to break yours, or they may simply read everything you write with rose-colored glasses. There is never any way to really know if it's as good as they're saying. Critique partners on the other hand, are people you don't really know. People halfway around the world (my partners are in Canada, Texas and Australia) that don't have any real reason to lie to you about what they think. So when they tell you they think you're really on to something great, or have natural talent that shines through to them, you best better believe it, because it's actually true.

       There's a lot of uncertainty in the life of a writer, a lot of insecurity, so getting an uplifting comment every once in a while is important. It gives you the confidence to continue on. I can't tell you how many times I've tortured myself with a "why do I think I can really do this?" kind of thought. I wonder what makes me think I have anything worth writing. Anything worth reading. And then I get notes back from critique partners and their comments completely wash those ideas away. I can write. My story is worth reading. It's the most amazing feeling in the world.

       On the topic of feedback, I've been attending a Novel-in-Progress class for the past few weeks now and I read my second excerpt for them tonight. Normally class is on Sunday nights, but because of Palm Sunday and Easter, this past Sunday and the upcoming one have been rescheduled to weekdays. I had the joy of looking for my class tonight in some Boston University building, because my instructor teaches a class there and had us relocate on account of our normal space on Sunday's being taken up on Wednesday nights. For those of you that don't know, BU is huge and my natural sense of direction is so terrible that I've been known to get lost in a closet. That is not an exaggeration.*** After I finally found my way, I read the rest of the first chapter for them (I read the first 500 words during the first class) and they seemed to really be on board with my concept! They told me to erase some of my information dumping (which is like, my worse habit ever) and other than that it was perfect. It made me excited to come home and get right to work but it's 10:30 now, so I know if I start I won't stop.. and sleep is necessary for humans to function. I know, lame. I always hate reading my work aloud because I have terrible, terrible anxiety, so getting good feedback is always good. I wish there was something I could do to make it go away, but it just won't. I've tried everything. Medication. Meditation. Nothing works. Not even soothing images of the beach. *sigh* I wish I didn't get worried so easily. Just thinking about the anxiety now, is actually making me anxious. Ridiculous, right? It's so sad.

In other news:

       I died my hair blue today! Not completely blue, just the underneath part of my hair.. Truly I don't know how else to describe it, so hopefully y'all know what I mean (I included a picture, but I honestly think it looks much better in person). Most suggested me against it because my hair is a strawberry color†, but I get bored with my hair so easily that I couldn't help myself. I quite like it. It's different and funky.. and I've died my hair every natural-looking color, so the only reasonable thing to do now is to start dying it colors of the rainbow, right? :)

That's all for now, I guess.

Happy writing!

*Get used to me gushing over the amazing Ms. Clare, because she is a HUGE inspiration to me and I will probably never stop admiring her to almost a stalker-that-needs-to-be-handed-a-restraining-order extent.

**Are book trailers not the coolest thing EVER?! The fact that they're slowly making their way onto television (for example: James Patterson's Angel & Carrie Ryan's The Dark and Hollow Places) is just beyond awesome.

***Okay, maybe it is.

†Not naturally. Naturally my hair is this very strange, ashy, mousy-looking blonde. It sounds absolutely terrible, but it is the ideal color for someone who likes to dye their hair a lot. It's very versatile! Whatever color my hair is at the time, people are always shocked to hear it's not natural. Your hair isn't naturally black you say? Your hair isn't normally bright red? Nope. Just lame 'ole ash.