Update Thursday #71

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Book Blog Tours in the tenth installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing.
• Want to ask our Indie Author Panel a question about self publishing? Please ask away and they will answer!
• I review Don't Breathe A Word by Holly Cupala. AND...
• I interview Holly Cupala about her book. AND...
• You can enter a giveaway to win a copy of Don't Breathe A Word (US only).
• See the awesome books I received in my July Edition of Stacking The Shelves.
• My review of Diana Peterfreund's gorgeous novel For Darkness Shows The Stars.

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

~Jane On Her Own by Ursula K. Le Guin~

~The Princess Bride by William Goldman~

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

~Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty~
~Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers~
~Brightest Kind Of Darkness by P.T. Michelle~

626 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (35 this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 30,010 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~
~ Under Enchanted Skies ~ 1,550/plotting ~
~ Beyond The Horizon ~ plotting ~
~ So I Thought ~ plotting ~
~ Hold Your Breath ~ plotting ~

I started writing in order rather than scatter scenes all over the place. Some of the scene ideas I had my heart set on are not going to work as well as I wanted them to. While it is hard and I haven't gotten far, I was able to develop the plot a whole lot better. Once I leap over this hurdle (of boring connecting scenes) I'll be able to get to some important scenes. Those will come out a lot easier. When I break my current word count above while writing in order, I'll update it. Until then, I'm not changing it. A lot of what I already have written is valid and being adjusted to fit into the now plotted out much better version.

With all the time I've spent writing and rewriting, I won't be in the mood to go through it for revisions right away. I will probably do a spelling and grammar check to clean it up a little bit... but I think I want to have a couple people read it for me to critique it. I need to know if I'm heading in a wrong direction or need to develop things differently. Then I'll revise. Then get beta readers.

~*~

Otherwise...

This is semi-writing but not really writing related. I have this, well, problem with putting the cart before the horse when it comes to my writing. I have spent literally hours on stock photo sites (mostly Dreamstime) searching for a picture that captures the essence of If Only We. I could NEVER find anything. Anyhow. I was trying to see what other avenues there were because I don't want to settle on a cover. I came across a cover art designer who used pictures from Deviant Art to create book covers. She would ask the artist for permission to use the picture and then adjust it in different ways and add in text. I thought to myself, "That's a perfect idea!" I had a Deviant Art account set up years ago (which I didn't do much on since I couldn't afford to upgrade my account for more access until now). I logged in and started browsing. OMG. There were SOOO many great photos.

It also got me to thinking about how I want to do more photography. I have some art prints up for sale in my Etsy shop (plus 6 more I need to list this weekend). It's hard to get attention for them, since my shop is currently FULL of craft supplies for sale. I dabble in so many artsy crafty things, I never seem to focus on one thing. Anyways. MY POINT (lol). The sellers on Etsy that get the attention for art prints are the ones who have MANY pictures available. I want to have many prints available. But it will take two things... 1). taking more pictures worthy of printing/framing, and 2). saving up enough to invest in more prints.

I really should dedicate a post about my artsy endeavors. Not to get attention for my Etsy shop (because too much self-promotion is lame, lol), but just so you guys can see all the things I dabble in. The 'Jessica' outside the writing, blogging, and reading world. ^_^


Until next time!

~Jessica

Update Thursday #70

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Contacting Book Bloggers in the ninth installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing.
• My review of Glitch by Heather Anastasiu.
• See my thoughts on Thomas Hardy's Under The Greenwood Tree.
• LAST CHANCE to fill out my blog survey. I want to know what you think of my blog and what kind of things you like and don't like on blogs. I'll be compiling a small post with my thoughts on your thoughts! ^_^

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

~Safe Landing by Tess Oliver~

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

~Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty~
~Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers~
~The Princess Bride by William Goldman~
~Brightest Kind Of Darkness by P.T. Michelle~

591 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (14 this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 30,010 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~
~ Under Enchanted Skies ~ 1,550/plotting ~
~ Beyond The Horizon ~ plotting ~
~ So I Thought ~ plotting ~
~ Hold Your Breath ~ plotting ~

Despite numbers above, I have been a busy bee. How so? I have been fixing my novel. I started a notebook dedicated to If Only We and have written out details for chapters and characters. While I was writing in the notebook, I got so anxious to start writing it all out. New revisions are underway and I am feeling a lot better.

I read an article earlier this week about writing in order versus not writing in order. It was a really useful article for writers. Kind of helped me find the proper balance, since I had been writing out some scenes that happen later in my story.

~*~

Otherwise...

With the whole photos on the blog issue, I decided to make some LOLcats pictures of my own. I've only done 4 so far, but I'll make more soon. I used the Lolcats Generator on the website Big Huge Labs. It works pretty well. And I found it to be lotsa fun, even though some of my humor isn't that laugh out loud funny. Here's one of them:

I read an awesome post on Joyousreads on Tuesday called Author Behaving Graciously. It's about an author who welcomes an unfavorable review. With all the controversies lately, it was so nice to read about an author who can take an honest review and see the bright side.


Until next time!

~Jessica

Update Thursday #69

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Establishing Yourself Online in the eighth installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing.
• My review of Perfect by Ellen Hopkins.
• Are you a Castle Fan? See my review of Richard Castle's Heat Wave.
• Important information for fellow bloggers on the usage of pictures on your blog.
• Don't forget to fill out my blog survey. I want to know what you think of my blog and what kind of things you like and don't like on blogs. ^_^

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

~Meant To Be by Lauren Morrill~

 ~For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund~

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

~The Princess Bride by William Goldman~

~Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty~
~Safe Landing by Tess Oliver~

577 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (-0- this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 30,010 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~
~ Under Enchanted Skies ~ 1,550/plotting ~
~ Beyond The Horizon ~ plotting ~
~ So I Thought ~ plotting ~
~ Hold Your Breath ~ plotting ~

So... nothing word count wise to report. I've actually been thinking lately that I haven't been too focused on my writing at all. It kind of makes me a little mad at myself. I made a goal to get published by the end of the year and what do I do? Not dedicate time to writing. I was doing good for a little while there, but I hit a wall because I didn't have much back story or character background developed. You don't realize how important it is to have solid definitions of those things until your story reaches a point where they become necessary to move the plot along.

Last night, I dedicated a few hours to writing. I spent some time writing on paper certain details for the first few chapters. Then I got on the computer and started typing. I didn't gain anything for my word count total because I was starting over on my first two chapters. I sat down and added in more details to the back story and had to tweak the mention of it in the beginning. I also started the chapter differently, reworked what I needed to include, took out what I didn't need to include... and it feels better.

I think reading well written books has been helping me. I'm reading more as a writer in search of the right way to tell a story. It's making all the difference.

SO... I am telling all of you that I am not giving up on my goal. I am determined to reach it. How determined? I am spending the rest of the summer (now until August 31st) dedicated to getting as much done with my novel as possible. I may not finish, but I am going to get as close as I possibly can.

~*~

Otherwise...

One of my coworkers quit, so I'm going to be working an extra day here and there in the coming weeks. It won't mess up my schedule too much. I am pretty well ahead on blog posts and my online sale listings. I do need to go through all my postings for pictures that need to be removed/changed (that's going to be quite a task, I wish I could get it all done in one sitting, but that won't happen). I'll still be able to focus on my writing. I probably won't be able to keep up with a lot of my internet surfing, so don't worry if I'm not around commenting on here or visiting other blogs. I'll still be here. I'll still be keeping you all updated on the latest. ^_^


Until next time!

~Jessica

Update Thursday #68

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Book Trailers in the seventh installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing.
• My review of The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee.
• See the pictures from my Zoo Trip last month!
• Don't forget to fill out my blog survey. I want to know what you think of my blog and what kind of things you like and don't like on blogs. ^_^

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

*looks around* ~none~ *oops*

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

~Meant To Be by Lauren Morrill~

 ~For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund~

~The Princess Bride by William Goldman~

~Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty~

577 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (30 this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 30,010 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~
~ Under Enchanted Skies ~ 1,550/plotting ~
~ Beyond The Horizon ~ plotting ~
~ So I Thought ~ plotting ~
~ Hold Your Breath ~ plotting ~

Well! Didn't do a thing. I wanted to, but I had more pressing things to do. (See below in Otherwise) One thing that DID just happen is I won a five page critique from an author. Score! So I'll be getting some feedback on my writing. Maybe that will boost my enthusiasm a bit.

I was just reading this article on YA Highway and it seems to sum up how I feel at this point of my novel. Mostly the 'somewhere in the middle things get difficult' part. I am enjoying writing, but it's gotten harder with the little things I need to include to get the story to progress. Hence the index cards and calendar from last week. I've got scene ideas to include as filler (not like wasteful scenes that do nothing for the story, but those tiny scenes that fill in the blanks so that you don't have your story skip a whole week to get to the next important scene), but using them to fill in almost seems... like a speed bump? All I really have to do is rewrite it out better, maybe even cut part of it down. But, it's frustrating nonetheless.

~*~

Otherwise...

It's been a busy week since my last update, mostly trying to get caught up on everything. My long "To Do" list is still long. And my room is still a mess. And I have online sales and listings to take care of. I'm hoping to get half of the stuff on that list crossed off by tomorrow night. INCLUDING finishing a book AND something to do with my writing, probably writing on the index cards. So... I'm gonna sign off and take care of this list!

Until next time!

~Jessica

Update Thursday #67

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Extras To Include in the sixth installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing.
• My review of Keary Taylor's What I Didn't Say.
• The lovely Keary Taylor stops by to talk about her book.
• See what I stacked on my shelves in June.
• What do you think of books that retell the classics? I want your thoughts!
• Don't forget to fill out my blog survey. I want to know what you think of my blog and what kind of things you like and don't like on blogs. ^_^

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

~The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee~

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

~Meant To Be by Lauren Morrill~

 ~For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund~

~The Princess Bride by William Goldman~

~Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty~

547 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (30 this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 30,010 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~
~ Under Enchanted Skies ~ 1,550/plotting ~
~ Beyond The Horizon ~ plotting ~
~ So I Thought ~ plotting ~
~ Hold Your Breath ~ plotting ~

I did reach my goal of 30,000 words so YAY! But, I was hoping to break more than that. Why didn't I? Well, I needed to remap out my story. Remember my idea with the index cards? It was time to sit down and get that going. So I did. Check it out:

Three giant blank calendars

Pretty colored index cards to fit the spaces

I didn't get to work on mapping anything out, but this alone is progress. I'm also working on coming up with more background details on all of my characters. I want to flesh out the reasons why my characters act like they do, the things they love... Right now, I feel like I can't write much unless I have more of this worked out. I sometimes forget certain details and that's no good.

~*~

Otherwise...

My mom got a TV stand... so that means I can have my entertainment center back. And that means, my room can be complete. FINALLY. It's been almost two years since we moved in here, it's about time. So I've been going through my room and moving furniture. By next week it shall all be done.

To get myself motivated, I started listening to music on Pandora. I created a playlist by entering Wham! (how I adore George Michael's voice), which ends up playing all kinds of great 80's tunes. It played "Shattered Dreams" by Johnny Hates Jazz at one point, triggering me to pull it up on YouTube and put it on repeat. Oh, so good. It's times like these that I wonder if I was supposed to grow up in the 80's instead of the 90's. Then I hear my favorite 90's music and realize I wouldn't be me without that either.

I'll be working on my blog plans for August and September soon. I want to stay ahead and keep the content going on here. Especially once my blog post series ends. I've got a few things in the works. As much as I want to have lots going on here, I want to keep up with writing my book. I'm not as ahead of the game as I'd like. Oh, the balancing acts we face. *sigh*

Until next time!

~Jessica

PS: Scheduling this so I can sleep in, and take care of things outside the blog.

Update Thursday #66

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Formatting in the fifth installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing.
• My review of A.M. Hargrove's Determinant, the third book in the Guardians series.
• Love poetry? Me too! Read about it in my I Love Poetry post.
• Check out my review of Forgotten by Cat Patrick.
• I also wrapped up the first half of 2012 for all things reading and writing on my blog.
• Don't forget to fill out my blog survey. I want to know what you think of my blog and what kind of things you like and don't like on blogs. ^_^

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

~Don't Breathe A Word by Holly Cupala~

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

~The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee~

~For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund~

517 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (18 this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 29,401 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~
~ Under Enchanted Skies ~ 1,550/plotting ~
~ Beyond The Horizon ~ plotting ~
~ So I Thought ~ plotting ~
~ Hold Your Breath ~ plotting ~

ALMOST got to the 30,000. I used some of my writing time working out title ideas for the ones I'm outlining/plotting. Check it out up there! Outlining means I'm actually outlining for the story, and plotting means it's pretty much on the back burner but I'm still jotting down notes. For the one, you can see I've got a word count. That's because I couldn't help myself when a couple awesome scenes came to mind. I had to execute them beyond just jotting down notes.

I keep seeing dream cast posts from authors online... and it makes me think about my books. Not dream casting them but actually having a detailed physical description of each character. I have some vague descriptions written down but nothing specific. I never thought it was necessary but the more I've been reading lately, I've been noticing certain details that pop up in relation to a person physically. I want to be able to add those sorts of details seamlessly. Plus, having a visual of what they look like would actually help make them more real in my head. I've always had trouble with this aspect because I end up making the characters all the same all the time. Starting charts and cutting pictures from magazines might help add some diversity.

~*~

Otherwise...

I am in real need of cutting down on my online time and getting caught up on things. It seems like I go through this a lot. I blame it on the fact that the stuff I need to do is either boring or time-consuming, so I purposely spend more time online because it's more fun.

One thing I've been thinking about is how I want to learn another language. I started learning sign language several years back and would love to return to it. BUT, I also would like to learn at least one spoken language. When I was homeschooling, I checked out several books from the library to learn French. I actually learned a lot of words at the time, but I didn't learn proper grammar and the like. When I went to Barnes & Noble, I looked through the books on learning French there... and couldn't find anything worth buying. I want to find a book that writes out phonetically how to pronounce the words AND comes with a CD to listen to for pronouncing. Does anyone have any suggestions for books to get for this? I would so appreciate it!

OH! One last thing... Here's my corn picture for this year:

As you can see, the corn is INDEED Jessica High by the 4th of July.

Until next time!

~Jessica

Update Thursday #65

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Cover Art in the fourth installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing
• My review of A.M. Hargrove's Resurrection, the sequel to Survival.
• What I've learned during my writing and revising: I am insane.
• I also review Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally.

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

~Under The Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy (Classics Challenge)~
~Determinant by A.M. Hargrove~

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

~Don't Breathe A Word by Holly Cupala~

~The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee~

~For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund~

499 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (12 this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 27,921 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~

I was hoping to reach the 30,000 word mark, but no such luck. 1,000 words in one week is good enough for now! I had a new idea come up out of nowhere this week, which has me giddy with excitement. And a couple of my other WIP stories have been popping into my head lately. I think it's my brain telling me I need to figure out titles for them ALL so that I can keep track of those like I am the three I have listed above.

~*~

Otherwise...

Sooo... I went to the zoo yesterday!!! And saw the lemurs! I took literally 80 pictures of them. EIGHTY. If I could have sat there watching them all day, I would have. I will be putting together a little zoo post early next month, but in the meantime, here's a picture to hold you over ----->

Can you say SQUEEEEE?!?! Because I almost did while I was there. I actually almost teared up. It's just so amazing for me to finally see them after all these years of loving them. I also got myself a couple lemur plushies... and next time I go there's one more I need to buy. Teeheehee! I am such a child at heart!


Until next time!

~Jessica

PS: I'll be working on getting that survey for my followers together as soon as I can. I started to work on it and my mind just wasn't focusing at the time as to what I wanted to ask. So, I'm writing out a list. I'm hoping to have it out around the time I put together a "halfway through the year" post. ^_^

Update Thursday #64

Welcome to Update Thursday, my own personal meme of sorts where I post an update of the goings on at my blog, with reading, with writing, and beyond. Feel free to borrow the idea from me for your own bookish musings.

~*~

On the Blog this week:

• The indie author panel tackles Professional Editors in the third installment of my blog post series, The Journey of Self Publishing
• See my review of Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess)
• All my followers will want to enter the Midsummer's Eve Giveaway for a chance to win one of 0 awesome books

~*~

Reading...

Books I finished this week:

~Heat Wave (Nikki Heat #1) by Richard Castle~

Books I'm reading now (and some still):

 

~Don't Breathe A Word by Holly Cupala~

~Under The Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy (Classics Challenge)~

~The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee~

~For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund~

487 of 1026 E.E. Cummings poems finished (30 this week)

~*~
 

Writing...

~ If Only We ~ 26,912 ~

~ Before We Knew ~ 11, 449 ~

~ Whatever This Is ~ outlining ~

WOOT! Almost 3,000 words. Getting there. I set a higher goal for myself this week, but got preoccupied reading. I actually finished two books, but one of them isn't listed on Goodreads yet. It should be listed soon though.

Anyhow. I had some interesting thoughts while writing over the last week and decided to type up a post about writing. It will come up tomorrow (er, at 1:00 am, which is technically tomorrow, but will be here in a little over 12 hours).

There's one of my book ideas that I am constantly getting good ideas for. The only thing I haven't gotten an idea on is the TITLE. Once I brainstorm a good one, I'm gonna add it to the list above. I actually have a nice little beginning to the word count on it because I've written out a couple of the scenes. And now that I'm talking about it, I'm THINKING about and want to keep WRITING IT. Not good. FOCUS on ONE book, Jessica.

~*~

Otherwise...

Um, same as usual. Working, looking for work, selling online. I have several packages to put together and ship out. My mom just pointed out there are some new flowers on a bush in our yard, so I'm gonna head out there and take some pictures.

I am kind of wanting to do something more on my blog. I haven't had many guest posts, on my blog or me visiting other blogs. So, note to followers: You want to guest post on this blog or have me guest post on yours? CONTACT ME. Here's my email: impulsivities[at]gmail[dot]com.

I'm actually thinking about putting together a little survey for my followers to see what kind of things they like and don't like and would like to see on my blog. That way I can have a better idea of how to continue on with my blog. I would like to have more consistent posting. There are some weeks I'm missing three days in a row until the next new post comes. Also, I've got plenty of ideas, but I want to execute them well. What do you think? You wanna do a survey? If you do, I'll get it typed up and posted this weekend.


Until next time!

~Jessica