Finish Nano: Check

owned by Nano

Hello all of you out there.

As you can see from the banner above, I have won Nano! I ended up finishing the novel too, clocking in at almost 51 thousand. I'm very excited about this. I've now finished two novels! I will say, however, they are both far from being done and ready to be sent out.

It's exciting to have finished though. I now have two novels under my belt! It still baffles my mind to think about. I struggled a lot this month with school work and what not, and it's nice to have been able to finish this along with so many other tasks.

This leads into my next topic point. I've been neglecting this blog a lot this month. Last year I posted multiple times almost every week. I think this year I have one other post. However, that will change. I am done with all of my hard school work for this semester, minus one ten page paper. I will have much more time to write and reach out to others. I also plan on starting up on Road Trip Wednesdays again (run by YA Highway). 

I'm very excited for what's coming up! I hope you'll tune in too! And tell me, how was your Nano? Did you finish the 50k? Did you love what you wrote? Did you hate it? Talk to me!

also owned by nano

And in the spirit of finishing Nano, here is an excerpt from mine! This year's was a YA Contemporary.

___________________________________________________

               I watch him close his eyes and hum, tilting his head towards the sky a little bit. With the sun shining on his hair it looks almost white. “Thatch,” I say, my voice barely audible over the music. He looks at me and smiles. “I do like you.” He slowly walks over to me and stands a couple of feet in front of me. “I just... I need time.”

               He smiles again and puts his arms around me, pulling me close to him. “Dance with me.”

               “Right here?” I ask, looking into his eyes.

               “Why not?” he says, smiling again.

               He pulls me closer into him and I wrap my arms around his neck, wresting my head on his chest. I feel the heat radiating off of him and for the first time in months, I feel whole.

RTW 186: Best Book of June

Road Trip Wednesday: Best book of June. (Click here to see details)

Let me first say, it's crazy to think that June is already over! I feel like it was just yesterday that June 1st hit and I thought, this summer is going to be long! Now I have little over a month until I have to go back to training for work at school. Luckily it's my senior year.

Back to the best book. The book that really made me say, "wow" was The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick DeBoard.

I won this book on the Goodreads giveaway section. If you haven't noticed, quite a bit of my book collection comes from this website. (Tip: If you don't have much money, the giveaway section is a great place to win free books, just make sure you leave a review as a thanks.)

It's about Kirsten, a young girl who idealizes a teenage girl that ends up dating her brother. The teenage girl goes missing and Kirsten's brother is the last to see her. The town, and even the family, start to implode. When I started reading this book I was weary. While it sounded interesting, it wasn't a book I'd normally pick up.

After I started reading it, I got more and more into the groove of the story. It was interesting reading the book with the teenage girl as a character, knowing she was going to disappear; just waiting for it to happen. (By the way, I didn't spoil anything, it says on the back of the book that the girl disappears!)

Then, I hit a spot in the book where I just felt like I was done. I knew what was going to happen, and I wanted to stop reading. I felt like I had all the answers and the book was just dragging it out to make a page length. I almost put the book down, and almost skimmed parts. Boy am I glad I didn't.

The ending hit. And when I say hit, I mean HIT. This book has one of the most mind boggling endings I have ever read. Others said it was out of nowhere, but looking back there were clues to this ending. I can usually see endings coming when watching movies, tv shows, and reading books, and this often takes the fun out of it. However, upon completing this book my jaw literally dropped and I said "holy crap" really loud, causing my boyfriend to give me a weird look. This ending goes down as one of my favorite endings of any book of all time. (Next to Divergent and Insurgent, which both pleasantly surprised me!)

Definitely give it a read if you get a chance!

RTW 185:Superhuman Skills

This week's Road Trip Wednesday, which you should know about and if you don't can find out about HERE, is "If you were reborn faster, stronger, and quicker healing, what's the first thing you'd do?"

Let me start off by saying, if I were reborn with all those attributes, I'd hope to look like this.

Basically your worst nightmare. (Picture owned by epSos .de)

Beyond terrifying children with the way I look, I'd like to use my newfound life for good. I know you'll probably roll your eyes because every other person out there will say this too, but come on, who would be willing to admit (at least in front of people) that they'd use their powers for bad!?

So, I almost skipped this week because I didn't know what to say, but then I realized, I had to answer. One of my favorite movies of all time was The Incredibles. I loved it growing up and still do to this day. I have finally admitted to myself that I unfortunetly will never wake up being able to control things with my mind, or create force fields, etc. However, with these powers, I could be my own brand of super hero! 

I could be Kevin: Man of Steel (I saw Man of Steel in a special premiere the night before and LOVED it!). I would come up with a much more awesome name of course, but I'd be an incredible! Who could pass up on that? Some of my blogger friends on YA have picked other things like spy and I say BAH! (That might be fine for you, but come on, YOU COULD BE AN INCREDIBLE!) 

Although, Spy Kids was one of my favorite movies growing up too, but I am too old to be a spy kid and I feel like adult spies die way too often. I'm to the point of rambling.

So I cut myself off.

Incredible. I'd be an incredible. =D

RTW 183: Best Book of May

This one was really hard for me. Last week the RTW was what book really swept you off your feet. For it I talked about Recipes for Disaster by Tess Rafferty. The thing is, it really did sweep me off my feet, AND I read it in May. However, I didn't want to do the same book, or put the same link up, so I'm deciding to not give all my praise to one book and do another that I really liked that I also read in May!

I'm a little torn here. I've read plenty of good books in May, but it's hard to choose one to talk about. I think I'll go with a different approach and talk about one I won on Goodreads, SURPRISE THERE (sarcasm), that is a Middle Grade book. Hold up, before you roll your eyes and close your browser, read the rest of this post, hear me out!

I normally don't read middle grade novels because, well, they don't appeal to me. Don't go yelling at me, "It's because they're for middle grade aged readers!" Bologna! If Young Adult books were only read by YA aged readers, well, you can only imagine! But, I won the book The Dreamcatcher Adventures: Greedy Jack Wallace by Adam C. Veile and let me tell you, it really surprised me at how good it was! Veile even signed the book and sent me a personal message on goodreads to top it off!

Anyway, the book is about a boy who faces things most kids his age face, girls and bullies, then moves onto him dealing with things like foreclosure on his house. Veile has managed to intertwine subjects usually meant for adults into a kids book so that they can relate too. It's sad that in today's time kids that age actually have to deal with things such as this. Blake, the main character, even talks about what it would like to live on the streets!

The storyline was actually really compelling, and even managed to address things like death in a way that younger kids can understand while not being completely freaked out. The idea of the dreamcatcher that Veile uses is something really unique that I had never heard of. Blake is so realistic, you'd think the book was written by Blake himself. The suspense, yes there's suspense!, is so good I actually found myself not able to stop reading!

There's so much more that I could say about this book, and if you have any questions feels free to comment, but I would like to keep this post shorter than book length. I find myself actually interested in reading the second book when it comes out. (The first cleverly set up a storyline in passing conversation that could be stretched into a series.)

I highly recommend this to anyone that would like a quick read or even to those of you who have kids, you could read it to them if they're younger or have them read it. Definitely worth picking up!

Have any of you ever been surprised by liking a book in a genre or subject matter that you normally don't gravitate towards?

RTW 182:What book swept you off your feet?

Awesomely hilarious.

The book that really swept me off my feet was Recipes for Disaster by Tess Rafferty.

Now I know what you're thinking, who is Tess Rafferty, right? Yeah, I said the same thing. In fact, when I woke this book on Goodreads in a giveaway, I didn't even remember entering into the contest. I can't say how happy I am that I did win it. Tess was once a writer for the show, The Soup, and it really shows through in her writing.

I've read food memoirs (the cover says memoir but don't let it fool you, it's a food memoir) in the past, Toast sticks out in my mind whenever anyone says food memoir, but this one was different. Tess goes about food in a way that is not only honest and true, but hilarious. She always seemed to have a positive way to look at things even if they were unbelievably terrible. She focuses on having dinner parties and makes them seem horribly stressful and extremely fun at the same time. She also gives advice on how to cook for picky eaters (picky by choice and picky by food allergies) that will come in handy to anyone who cooks for someone with food allergies. For example she is allergic to most fruits and vegetables, something she talks about a lot during the memoir.

Her tips, and recipes, that showed up at the end of each chapter were hilarious and totally doable, many of which I plan on trying out (all with alternatives for food allergies). The entire time I was reading this memoir I felt more as if I were talking to a friend rather than reading a book. Her positive attitude and ability to make extremely stressful things seems fun have made me want to start having dinner parties of my own! I recommend this book to anyone that likes to laugh, cook, or drink (there is a lot of drinking involved).

Genre Writing

If you can't tell, I like GIFS... and Spongebob.

I've been thinking a lot about what I write lately. A couple of different things have popped up that have really got me thinking about the fact that I write Young Adult. First was over Winter Break when I started looking up MFA programs that I wanted to apply to. I knew most of the programs wouldn't have any kind of YA type things but I wasn't prepared for the fact that almost all reputable programs say specifically no genre writing. This really got me down. But I've talked to my sister, who is getting her PhD at University California Riverside and my personal mentor, and she helped me realized something. Just because I don't get into my program off my YA writing does not mean I can't still write YA.

Another thing that happened was I recently applied for a position at the schools undergraduate literary magazine Grassroots. For my interview I had to bring them a writing sample. I know most people look down on YA writing as not real writing, so I decided to bring in one of my non-YA works. This also made me realize, and I will restate, most people look down on YA writing. For all you YA writers out there, you know this stinks and is a common thing. It really is a bummer that most people see YA writing as not real or not good.

The third thing that happened that made me think about it was an article I read on YA Highway's blog. It asked the question, do you read outside your genre. My answer is yes. I have to. Because of my school classes I am required to read almost exclusively things that are out of the genre that I write. I think this is good for me though. It really helps me improve my writing. However, it makes me realize how little YA is read in college and the fact that it really isn't credited well.

I know I have led you down a long and depressing road of what seems like anti-YA but I have a point. The thing is, if you're out there and are like me, feeling like YA isn't looked upon well, then what I have to say is, forget them. Really all that matters is you're writing, right? You're doing what you love, no matter what genre. While I think it is a good idea, and very important, to read other genres, just remember to stay faithful to what you love. Don't let someone else persuade you that your writing will never be good enough because the characters aren't the right age, or the fact that your setting may be a little fantasy. Do what you love, and forget the rest.

RTW 171:Quarterly Check In!

owned by niteowls

Hey guys! Looks like I'm doing another Road Trip Wednesday! This weeks topic is that we're one fourth done with the year, where are you with your writing goals.

It's crazy to think that this year is already one fourth done! Well, almost, it won't quite be done until the END of March, but still! haha

My writing goal(s) for this month was to have starting editing my novel, which I have done! I'm currently editing my WIP, although at a slower pace than I would like, I'm still doing it. My goal was to have my first round of edits done by summer, but we'll see if that happens! As of right now it looks like it may. I've already had one beta go out, am sending out another within the next few weeks, and have a third going out at the beginning of April. My writing goal has been up to par so far, let's see if I stick to it for the rest of the year!

My reading goal was a little different. I didn't want to set anything extremely high because seeing as I am in the English field in college, all I do is read book after book. This year I've only had time to read 2 books that were my own personal choice. I'm hoping that that changes this summer, after school is over, and I can start reading (and editing/writing) more! If you aren't in college yet, be prepared to be doing work pretty much all the time!

How are your goals for reading/writing going?

RTW 170: Best Book of February

Hey all! I know I'm breaking my 'posting on Friday' thing, but as I said before I will do this from time to time!

So I have decided to participate in my first ever Road Trip Wednesday put on by the good people at YA highway. (If you don't read their blog, you should, CLICK HERE to get to their blog.) It's just something to get people to write about either reading or writing topics. They're quite fun and I suggest you take a look at them! A lot of great people take part in them!

Anyway, this Wednesday's topic is the best book you've read in February. Unfortunately, with how busy I've been this past month, I haven't been able to get much reading done. However, I just today finished a really amazing book:

The Animal Gospels
By: Brian Barker

This is actually a book of poetry. I know for a lot of you out there, this may make you cringe. For a long time, the thought of reading any poetry made me cringe. (Still to this day a lot of older poetry makes me scratch my head in confusion.) However, this book is really great. It's a quick read that really draws you in. Some of the poems in the book aren't as good at the others, but there are multiple within that really are a must read. His voice is fresh and stays modern throughout all of the poems. Some are sad, some are funny, and some are just out there. This book sells for rather cheap on Amazon (I had to buy it for a class) and I would definitely recommend picking it up!

What was your best read of February?