IWSG – I'm Trying

Today is the first Wednesday of the month, meaning today is the Insecure Writer's Support Group day! I have not participated in this in years so I'll try and make sure this post doesn't turn into a novel.

I'm actually a very confident person. I don't always show it, and sometimes my "being humble" can come off as insecurity. I used to be insecure about my looks and that sort of thing, but I think that's normal when you're in your younger teenage years.

At the age of 19, I love myself very much. I'm not being self-centered, or trying to brag, that's just the honest truth. I know I'm not perfect, but I love how I look and who I am. And anyone who doesn't like me for who I am can get out of my life. (There's actually a hell of a lot I had to go through to get to this point, but I feel like that's not really relevant to this particular post.)

Despite all my confidence in myself, that has not yet translated over to my writing. Let me say, I'm not a 'timid' writer. I let all my words come straight from my heart or my soul or wherever words might come from. But when I'm getting ready for publication, my whole story seems to turn into a huge mess. I find myself thinking, "What the hell is this? Who turned my beautiful story into this crazy nonsensical disorder?"

As of yet, I have not found a solution, so…I mean I was going to try and make this post a bit hopeful, but I guess this part isn't haha. Not yet anyway.

The second part of this post is that I'm also a bit insecure about getting back into blogging. It's been so great being able to post here again, and see what everyone has been up to, but as I've mentioned in the past couple posts I wonder if I'm just shouting out into the darkness. Is anyone listening?

What are you insecure about this month?

–Jess

Feeling Sorry For Myself :)

I feel like blogging has become kind of awkward for me. I think it's because I feel like I fell off the face of the blogging earth for a little while, and now I'm back, which is great, but I've missed out on so much and the blogging earth has just continued on revolving without me. I have no idea what's going on these days.

Like David Powers King has a book out now, I don't know how long it's been available for, but it looks really cool!

A lot of other people have stopped blogging completely, or taken long breaks like I have, and a lot of the old blogs I used to visit aren't active anymore. Some don't even exist.

For those of you who have continued blogging, I feel like I'm that one friend who disappeared for three years, and then came back expecting everything to be the same but now people hardly recognize me.

Basically, this is me feeling sorry for myself that no one is reading my posts anymore. My plot for world domination seems to have been put on hold for now, seeing that I barely have an audience, but oh well! I'm hoping that changes very very soon.

Anyway, I've signed up for the A to Z Challenge this year, and I'm really excited. Since the world has continued on without me, I probably don't need to give you a link for it, but just in case, if you haven't signed up for the challenge yet, you can sign up for it here: Blogging from A to Z April Challenge

Any ideas on what your A to Z Challenge theme will be about this year?

–Jess

Marketing Is Scary

I guess my plan for blogging more over the summer didn't go down so well.

Either way, I'm done with excuses, because there's really no excuse, nothing I have to say in my own defense as to why I didn't write more over the summer.

Anyway, what's done is done.

Okay, so I'm sort of nervous.

See, I love to write.

I mean, obviously.

Then again, you wouldn't say you love to breathe. You only do it because if you didn't, you would die. I live to write, and write to live. My world, and writing are dependent on each other. It's become a fact of my existence, I guess.

The thing is…

With my book out, and everything, I have to worry about marketing now.

And I don't like marketing, I just like writing.

Let's put it this way.

I'm not really a "people" person.

I'm a writer because I'm not a good speaker.

Although I could probably write a good speech for myself, there's no guarantees I'll actually say it well.

No, really, all I want to do is write.

And meet some hot male protagonist, but that's beside the point.

So my mom has kind of taken the role of a marketing advisor, and been helping me get my books into local book stores. Actually only one bookstore so far, and I haven't even given them the copies they requested yet, but hey, it's a start.

I'll admit, it scares me a little.

Like, a lot.

And it makes me wanna go like this "ASL;DKFJAS;DFJKL" all over the keyboard.

Seriously though…not that I'm going to have one any time soon, but…what exactly do you do at a book signing? I mean, besides sign books? Do you have to answer questions? Are there certain questions that people tend to ask?

Ahhh I'm making myself nervous.

Please, though, if you have any suggestions let me know.

–Jess

Please Read This Post!

Lately, I've been having lots of malware problems on my blog. Apparently it keeps blocking people and coming up with a warning that if you proceed to my site, it could download a virus on your computer.

So I think I've finally gotten it fixed.

Although, I'm not sure if it's only showing up for some people, or if it's COMPLETELY fixed now.

If you didn't see the warning when you visited my blog, please comment and tell me! If you did see the warning, well, I guess it wouldn't have allowed you onto my site. Either way, let me know!

Thanks!

--Jess

If you're having problems like mine, here's a really helpful blogger forum where you can post a question and people can help figure out what's wrong and how to fix it.

Z is for Zestful

Z is for Zestful

“So, now what?” he asks.

I shake my head.  “There’s another challenge coming up.  Not quite like the last one, but still.”

“How do you think we did?”

I laugh.  “We survived.  That’s about all I’m concerned with.”

He lightly pushes me away.  “Come on.  We did better than that.”

“Fine,” I smile.  “We won.”

***

Since this is the last letter of the Alphabet and the last day of the A to Z Challenge, I'll play the song that's last on my playlist.  Well, actually it's not last, but it's the second to last song.

Here's Abraham's Daughter by Arcade Fire:

Yes, that is the last song played for The Hunger Games credits.  But, I love it.

I still can't believe I made it this far without missing a single day.  A few times I was sure I was going to forget to post or miss a day and get behind, but thankfully, those situations were avoided.  (I'll admit that a few of the days I posted really late, though...)

To all my new Jedi Followers:  Thanks so much for following!  I'll get to following back as soon as I can :)

Now, maybe I never got behind as far as posting goes, but everything else is a mess.  There have been only a few blogs I've made time to check had time to check over the last few weeks, and I feel pretty bad about that.

Just don't get sad because I haven't checked your blog in a while.  I'M NOT IGNORING YOU!  I PROMISE!  I'll make it back to you, okay?  Okay, good.  Glad we got that out of the way!

ANYWAY.

I'm feeling a complete mixture of victory and exhaustion right now.  It will be so nice going back to posting MWF again.  What used to take a ton of work will now seem like a piece of cake!!

How are you guys feeling on this last day of the challenge?

Have a Zany day!!

--Jess

Character Blogfest!

Hey guys! The other day, I entered this really cool blogfest hosted by Cassie Mae and Angela Cothran. It's all about characters!!

I've always had trouble writing new characters. Well, the main one isn't too hard, but it's the supporting characters that always turn out flat. So this blogfest is here to helps us show off our characters, and maybe learn something about them in the process.

Days to Post:

February 6th - Monday: Characters on the couch: Have one of your characters answer the following questions (to make this work to your benefit, choose a character who is the hardest for you to write :) Max 250 words (Not including the questions—only the answers). 

1. What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this or is it a secret?
2. What do people believe about you that is false?
3. What would your best friend say is your fatal flaw? Why?
4. What would the same friend say is your one redeeming quality? Why?
5. What do you want most? What will you do to get it? 

February 8th - Wednesday - Dialogue Introduction: Have two characters introduce each other using only dialogue—no backstory, no internalization, just dialogue between the two. Max 250 words.

February 10th - Friday - Emotion Flash Fiction: Emotion is the engine of a story. Pick an emotion and in a flash fiction piece of 250 words MAKE us feel it! We want to connect with your character. This will be a challenge in 250 words.

There will be two winners for each day. Go check out Cassie's or Angie's blog to enter!! It's going to be lots of fun!!

Have a great day!

--Jess

New Inspiration

So, it turns out the 'secret place' that we went to was West Virginia. We stayed at the Greenbrier Resort in Sulphur Springs and I was impressed. I was afraid that since this vacation was mostly just to 'relax', it would also mean doing a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't want to do, and falling behind in editing and all kinds of stuff. But, that was not the case.


We had so much fun, but I have to say, my favorite activity was playing laser tag. There were other families there, so we had a big group of people with us. We split up into two groups and chose teams. After that, the game began. Since I write Sci-Fi and Action/Adventure/Dystopian sort of things, it was pretty good inspiration. I felt like my main character in the heat of battle. Only, the worst thing that could happen to me in there was losing one of my ten lives, where in my story, the consequences are much worse.


I was actually surprised with how good of a shot I was. Sure, I risked my 'lives' a few times, but overall, the girls team won. Of course, after we had achieved victory, the boys tried making excuses, saying that they let us win. But something tells me that that wasn't the case.


Anyway, Christmas break starts tomorrow for me, and I'm looking forward to lots of time to write and get stuff done!


Have a great day!


--Jess

Where Have I Been?

Honestly, I have no idea where I've been. I usually have enough time to write a blog post on the days I set out to write them, but I guess I've been letting editing get in the way. Not that that's a bad thing, but still, I feel kind of bad. I guess I'm just being lazy because it's the Holiday Season.


Anyway, I have some good news! I finished doing the biggest edit of my novel! Now all I've got to do is read over the comments my mom (over at Imagine Today) made for me and fix those.


We're going someplace secret this weekend. I wish I could tell you where we're going, but even I don't know. My mom and dad won't tell me, but apparently we'll have to dress up all the time. The other 'hints' I've gotten are that the place is South East of where I live, and it's about a five hour drive away. Where could that possibly be?


Either way, I like long drives because I can write in the car. And my super cute Toshiba Netbook has a battery that lasts forever (eight hours). So I think I'll be all set :)


Back to finishing up editing! Hope you guys have a great weekend!


--Jess


P.S.
Don't worry, I know that today is Thursday. But I don't think I'll post tomorrow unless I completely finish my book. Just wanted you to let you know!

Sacrifices

No, don't worry. I'm not talking about food or animal sacrifices or anything. (Unless you're trying to impress the writing gods or something...)

We all have to make sacrifices to get our writing done. But it can really be hard sometimes. For this entire week, I've been trying so hard to meet my goal of finishing my entire book on the 10th of December, but as tomorrow swiftly approaches, I just don't see how I can possibly edit thirteen more chapters tonight.


I'm still trying to figure out what I did wrong. I've sacrificed so much time this week for my writing! Okay, maybe I didn't wake up as early as I planned to every day, but I did a lot of other stuff. I stayed up late to get my work done. I didn't go to the movie theater last Sunday with my mom, sister and dad! I even skipped watching two episodes of the TV show Glee to get my writing done! (I couldn't resist watching the most current episode of Star Wars the Clone Wars with my brother, though...)


So, maybe I set too big of a goal for myself. Or maybe I just didn't execute my 'plan' correctly. Or maybe it was just a bad writing week. It sounds silly, but some days when I'm practicing my violin it's just randomly worse than other days. Same thing with skating. Some days I'm really focused, and other days, I completely lose my balance doing simple things.


It's easy to get discouraged when no matter what you do, you feel like you won't finish soon enough, or won't get good things written down. But, I've found that going around and feeling sorry for yourself isn't the way to get what you want done, done. Trust me, I've tried it.


Luckily, I happen to be in a very good writing mood today, so even if I don't finish on the tenth exactly, maybe I could extend my deadline to the end of the weekend or maybe even Monday. Either way, I've still got a lot of work to get done, so I should get back to it.


What are you guys planning for the weekend?


--Jess

Last Day of November

Well, today is the final day of November. No, I didn't meet my goal for NaNoWriMo of 50,000 words. But hey, who can say I didn't try? I'm at thirty three thousand something words, so there's no way I can turn back now.


Anyway, I'd like to let you know that my editing has suddenly taken a HUGE leap forward! I'm hoping to be done with my second and third drafts by December 10th, and will be hopefully be asking for beta readers soon after! I'm really excited!! That also means I'll have less time do other stuff, but I'm really close to being ready to query, so I've got a ton of work to do!


Also, I've got some fun news! I'm interviewing Author S.R. Johannes (aka Shelli) on Friday! I've never done an interview before, so this is pretty exciting! Her book Untraceable just came out yesterday so go give her a big 'Congratulations' at her blog! Here's a summary of her book:

16 year old Grace was reared in the wilderness. Her first pet was a bear named Simon. Her first potty, an oak tree. And, her first swing, a forest vine. Grace has lived in the Smokies her whole life, patrolling with her forest ranger father who taught her everything he knew about wildlife, tracking, and wilderness survival. But when Grace's dad goes missing on a routine patrol, unlike everyone in her sleepy mountain town, she refuses to believe he’s dead. When a Cheetos bag and stolen government file materialize, Grace is convinced she’s one step closer to proving all the non-believers wrong.

Then one day while out tracking clues, Grace is rescued from imminent danger by Mo, a hot guy with an intoxicating accent, that’s definitely not from her neck of the woods, and a secret. Grace has never felt a connection like this before, certainly not with her ex-boyfriend, the adoring, but decidedly unrugged Wyn. 

Now with renewed confidence, Grace travels deeper into the wilderness that has always been her refuge only to learn that her father's disappearance is not a mere coincidence. Soon she’s enmeshed in a web of conspiracy, deception, and murder. And it’s going to take a lot more than a compass and a motorcycle (named Lucifer) for this kickass heroine to emerge from an epidemic that’s spreading like wild fire, threatening everything and everyone she’s ever loved.

I'd also like to thank Fairbetty for her awesome support throughout all of NaNoWriMo! She visited my blog and commented every day I posted in November, so thanks Fairbetty! You can visit her blog here at Fairbetty's World.


Finally, today is my official inauguration back into the blogging world! Despite my huge amount of editing I have ahead of me, I am back and looking forward to reading everyone's posts! November has been an awesome month! I just can't believe it's almost December. This year has gone by so fast!


Any new exciting news? Plans for December? (Hope to see you on Friday :) )


--Jess

Khan Academy

Life has gone back to the 'fairly normal' zone after all of our family members left yesterday. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I got to spend time with my cousins that I hardly ever get to see, so that was fun.


Yesterday, I got a pretty good amount of editing done for me to be pretty happy with myself. Unfortunately, I'm over 9,000 words behind on NaNoWriMo, so I'm plotting my way to catch up. At my current rate of writing, I should hit 50,000 on December 11 :(


Anyway, I thought that I would show you something sorta random today. I get Writer's Block quite often, and I'm always looking for ways to get myself 'unstuck'. So, a while ago, we found this really cool website called Khan Academy, and its got all these lectures and math practices that you can watch or do! Now, I know that it doesn't sound all that great. Who wants to practice math or watch lectures when you could just be writing?


Well, the videos are very interesting, and a lot of times, I'll go through a couple of the math practices when I'm stuck in editing. It works like magic because when I come back to editing, I'm not stuck anymore! They've got stuff from Astronomy and Biology to Finance and Banking. There's practice for basic addition all the way up to calculus, and the best part is, it's completely free! The videos make everything easy to understand (yep, even the calculus). Here's their About page if you want to check it out: http://www.khanacademy.org/about


I just thought it was something really cool and worth noting!


What do you guys to do get unstuck?


--Jess

Thanksgiving Week

Hey everyone! I'm really sorry I haven't posted in a while... as I've mentioned too many times already, I've just been so busy with NaNoWriMo and editing that I've hardly had time for anything else! I promise that once November is over I'll try to post more regularly and I'll definitely be blog-hopping more often.


Okay, so in NaNoWriMo, I'm at 33,062 words meaning I'm 3,062 words behind... and I'm not really sure what to do. I've still got a ton of editing to finish and I know I could get to 50,000 words if I worked through Thanksgiving. But, we're having family over, so I can't be working then.


Secondly, I know where the story is going, but I'm not entirely sure how to get there. Already, I'm seeing things that I've written wrong and that I have to change. I think the romantic tension is moving much too fast, and I have no idea how to slow it down! And at this pace, there might be a train wreck soon.


Anyway, have a great Thanksgiving everyone (and a great end-of-November, just in CASE I don't post until then)!


--Jess

Wonderful Weekend + Thanksgiving Approaches

Hey everyone! Sorry I'm posting so late today, I had a lot of homework to do today and I'm trying desperately to stay up to date with editing and NaNoing! But, oh my gosh, I got so much done over the weekend, I'm so excited! Well, maybe I didn't get a ton of stuff done, but I still feel pretty satisfied.

GOAL: 50,000
TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN: 25,643
WORDS REMAINING: 24,357
DAYS REMAINING: 17
MOOD: Feeling Awesome :)

So, maybe I only got 5,643 words written, but I finally did some editing. And, dearest followers (and new people), I just want to say that I'm really sorry for not checking anyone's blog for almost this entire month. I'll really try to get back into everything after November, but with NaNoWriMo and Thanksgiving coming up, I have no idea how I can get any writing done!

Speaking of Thanksgiving, Let me tell you about a little (big) family tradition we have. Every year my whole family comes to our house to celebrate Thanksgiving. I guess not my whole family because that would just be waaay too many people. But in total, we've got about 19 family members at our house and it's just as crazy as it is awesome. So hopefully I can get ahead in writing because I don't think I'll be doing much of it in two weeks!

Have a great Monday, everyone :)

--Jess

Meme Q&A Thing

Hello everyone! First of all, I can't believe the last time I posted was Monday!! Jeez I'm really behind! Now before I get too far into this post, let me just clarify one thing. I have no idea what a Meme is. If anyone else knows what it means, please tell me because I feel really stupid!

Okay, so recently my lovely friend Laura, over at The Daily Dodo gave me this Meme thingy to answer. Thanks so much Laura!!

So here are the questions and my answers.

If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?

I was taking a three week summer program at Northwestern University in Creative Writing two years ago. I'd relive the night where my roommate and I stayed up all night long laughing and trying to avoid getting caught by the hall monitor. It was scary, but fun :)

If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?

It would be to focus on writing at an earlier age.

What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?

I'm not sure if it's up to me to say but I'd like to go with Princess Leia. I'm strong willed, and passionate and hopefully just as pretty!

If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would you choose?

Hmm... this is a toughie... hate to be cheating this question but I honestly have no idea.

Name one habit you want to change in yourself.

Not be so messy. I mean really. My room doesn't stay clean for a day and neither does my desk. What's up with that?

Why do you blog? (Answer in one sentence)

Because anything that has to do with writing is completely awesome!

Name at least 3 people to send this to:

1. Nick Height over at Writing Fire
2. Liz over at Laws of Gravity
3. Angela over at Live To Write

All three people I met through Rachael Harrie's Third Campaign Challenge. I have really enjoyed reading everyone's posts (yes, I have actually read everyone's, and I'm trying to stay up to date)! So, go visit their blogs and give them a nice big 'Follow'! Because they are all really awesome!

So have a great weekend!

--Jess

P.S.

Actually, all of you guys are awesome!

The Early Works!

Today, I am participating in the lovely Julie's Early Works Blogfest! The idea is to talk about the first stories or pieces of writing you ever wrote. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

When I was six years old, I wrote my first story called The Dragon and the Rose. It was about a princess who was very rebellious. One day, she met a prince and they both fell in love. Unfortunately, a dragon didn't like the fact that the prince and princess were in love, so it stole the princess and the prince had to save her. And of course, all ended happily! (I was six, remember so hopefully I've improved since then!)

When I was eight, I decided that I wanted to write an actual novel. I called it, Tale of the Dragon. This story began when all of the dragons in the world were being killed off by people. Only one survived. When the dragon grew up (it was a baby at the beginning of the story) it heard of a place where dragons still existed and lived in peace. So he had to find his way to this other place where more dragons were. (I never finished this one...)

When I was nine I wrote a story about two African sisters who were separated while trying to escape into a different country (or something like that) and they both ended up thinking that the other person didn't survive. At the end they finally found each other and were happy.

And finally, when I was twelve, I wrote a story about a dragon (I know, I was extremely obsessed with dragons!) who got lost from his world. He had the power to create peace wherever he went but when he landed on the Earth and saw the chaos, he decided to hide. For hundreds of years he waited for it to end, but it never did. Finally he emerged from his cave and tried to make peace. But no one would listen. When he was about to give up, he met a little girl who had lost her parents in a war. She wasn't angry, or remorseful though and she gave him hope that someday the world would be at peace.

Voila!

Those are all of the 'long' stories I wrote. And the funny thing is, all but one had something to do with Dragons. The weirdest part is, (I swear this is completely coincidental), the main boy character in my current W.I.P. is nicknamed Dragon. Strange name, I know, but hopefully it works.

I guess I could never really get over my childhood fascination with that mythical creature.

So what were your early works? You can share in the comment box or just go over to the Early Works Blogfest page and join! (On that page it says the day to finish by is October 14th, but that's been extended to the 28th. So no worries!)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!

--Jess

Really Late Awards!

I just realized that I've got three awards that were awarded to me quite a while ago! I knew I was behind but so behind I couldn't write a quick post for awards? Ahh! This isn't so good!


As you know, I've already gotten the Versatile Blog Award a few times. So instead of enlightening you with seven more facts about me, I've decided to just be lazy, I'll make it easier for me everyone. Here's a link to my old post if you're really dying to know.


The rules for passing on the Versatile Blog Award (and I'm also passing on the One Lovely Blog award with this) are:

1. Thank and link to the person who awarded you
2. Share seven random facts (which I already linked to)
3. And pass this award on to 7 recently discovered blogs

So, I'd like to thank Mel Corbett for giving me the Versatile Blog award and Sheri L. Swift for both the Versatile Blog Award and the One Lovely Blog Award. Thanks again guys (sorry it took so long to pass it on!)

Okie dokie so I'm passing on these awards together (hopefully that's okay) but you can pass them on separately or however you want.

Now, the people I'm passing these to are:

1. 1000th Monkey~ Because I loved her flash fiction piece for the First Campaigner Challenge
2. Cheri Chesley~ Over at 'From the Other Side of the Mirror'. Go check out her review of the book The Armor of Light by Karen E. Hoover.
3. Julie Fedderson~ Over at 'Gypsy In My Soul'. I loved what she had to say for Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group
4. Rayna Iyer~ Over at 'Coffee Rings Everywhere'. First of all, she's got the word 'coffee' in her blog title and I love what she has to say.
5. Jani~ Over at 'Life Debatable'. Check out her contest for figuring out what to do with about 50 fliers!
6. Griffinclaw~ Over at 'Pen and Chocolate'. Give her a nice big 'hi' and lots of support!
7. Raz Darnell~ Over at 'Raz Berries'. Read an awesome excerpt from her Journal from Peru!

And of course, I've got one final thing to pass on. Thanks to Tara Tyler I've been included in the game of Blog tag. So here's five random people that I'm tagging.

1. Anita Laydon Miller
2. Jessica Love
3. Alyssa McKendry
4. Isis Rushdan
5. Kelley

Phew! Hopefully I didn't miss any awards people gave me, and if I did, I'm really sorry! Anyway, have a great rest of the week/weekend and congrats to all the winners!

--Jess

Goodbye and Hello

Well, the day has finally come and the adventure begins! We're finally moving to Seattle. And we're driving all the way there. The plan is to take eight days and explore the countryside on the way out which will be so much fun because I get lots of good writing ideas in long car rides!


Now, a lot of people wouldn't really be as 'okay' as I am with moving, so here's a quick back-story/explanation.


I was born in Rochester, Michigan, but I can't call it in any way home because we moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when I was four. We lived there for two years and I loved it. After that, we moved to Vermont, then to New Hampshire. We lived in Vermont for such a short time that I don't remember the difference between the two states. Then we moved back to Pennsylvania, (this time it was to York, which is right around Harrisburg). We lived there for about two years then decided to move to Connecticut! Finally, after about six months to a year, we moved to Chagrin Falls, Ohio. And here I am, sitting at my computer, just about to move to Seattle, Washington.


This is really the longest we've ever lived anywhere. When you're moving at least once every two years, living someplace five years feels so... weird. But then of course, there's friends, and the people we will be leaving behind.


Saying 'goodbye' is always the hardest part. Even though we're coming back in November for a few days, any 'goodbye' is hard. I'm not a person who cries in front of people (no, really, my mom thinks I'm a robot or something) but I came really close in the past few days as we gave people hugs and exchanged emails to keep in touch.


So why am I 'okay' with this? Well, an old Jedi (Yoda) once said "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose." And even though it's sad to end this amazing adventure we've had here in Ohio, I know that a new one is just about to begin.


--Jess
P.S.
I'll be visiting blogs over the weekend (hopefully more than I've been recently!) but probably not posting because we're driving all the way there, so HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!! It's nice I don't have to say 'goodbye' to all of you guys!

Second Campaigning Challenge: Imago

Hey everyone! I can't believe that it's already September 26th! I just found out that the official 'moving' date is this coming Thursday, which is super exciting! Anyway, here is my entry for Rachael Harrie's 2nd Campaigner Challenge:

Imago of Writing

Staring down at the sheet of paper, I try to read the words in front of me. After an entire summer of writing everything down, everything in my head, there seems to be a miasma of words constantly floating over me. I tell myself to focus but find myself yawning instead.

Oscitate. I don't even have to think about it for my mind to replace the word 'yawning' with this one.

I glance back down at the paper and roll my eyes at the poor examples of grammar and sad run-on sentences. I run my fingers through my hair, deciding that this entire passage is just a lacuna in the story. I continue reading, trying hard not to feel completely frustrated.

"He walked down the corridor of mirrors, and the synchronicity of his reflection was dizzying."

It's funny how I thought that this entire passage was so good while I was writing it. I almost laugh as I read the next few sentences. I rub my eyes, tired and slightly annoyed with myself. What's even stranger is that I actually stick with writing and continue loving it. I've always loved a challenge, but this is definitely the hardest one yet.

***

So that's my flash fiction piece, it's exactly 200 words, I made a reference to mirrors and used all of the words that were given to us (though something tells me that I didn't use the word miasma right... feel free to correct me). If you really enjoyed this piece, feel free to vote for me (and other favorites) on this linky list here. I'm entry #112!

--Jess

P.S.

Thanks for being so patient for me to come back to the blogosphere! We are back from Michigan now but this entire week I've been feeling really sick and I've got to prepare for the Regional Championships in Figure Skating which is on Thursday. Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading more of everyone's blogs! Thanks for stopping by!

Crazy Week!!!

Hello my dear blogger friends! I feel really weird not posting early in the morning like I usually do but I haven't had time to write this any other time. So this week has been and will be very crazy because (as I've mentioned a few times already) we are moving to Seattle, Washington! Yes, we are all very excited but there is so much work that needs to be done around the house before we go! (We aren't sure of the exact date we will be leaving but the first week of October is pretty accurate). We are also in Michigan today spending time with my Great Uncle Eiichi who is visiting from Japan.


We've been having so much fun! He even brought a real kimono (and I say real because this wasn't the kind that you just easily slip on) for us to try on. I'm serious, that thing took a half hour to get everything on right, but it was worth the wait. (I'll try to show you some pictures in the next post, but I'm writing this from the iPad as we're driving so I'm not sure how all of that works.)


I probably will have little or no time to post in the coming weeks, so just try not to forget about me! (I'm still going to try to comment on all of your awesome blogs so I won't TOTALLY disappear from the blogosphere.)


How's the editing coming, you ask? Well thanks for asking! The editing is going surprisingly well despite all of my time lost blogging, spending time with family and getting ready to move. I've gotten so many more good ideas and I even think my romantic language is getting better! (Or maybe I'm just too tired to realize how bad it sounds...) Either way it's kind of exciting! To think that I'm slowly getting closer and closer to being able to start sending it out to publishers is so awesome!


Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful week! I'll be around as much as I can, but who really knows how long that will be?


What's everyone else up to this week?


--Jess

Running Out of Time

Does anyone ever feel like there should be six more hours in a day? Does anyone ever feel like there's too much you've got to do but too little time to do everything? Well then you know exactly how I've been feeling!


When I was little, my mom would remark that she had no time to do anything at all. I would laugh and wonder what the heck she was talking about! Half of the day she didn't look like she was doing anything except staring at the computer screen or helping me with school work (I should have known better!). Only now I have finally discovered what she meant by that.


First of all, I've been trying to read more. During my drafting stage over the summer, I had no time at all to read (it's not like I have more time now...). So every night before bed, I try to squeeze in a chapter or two of my current book, which of course takes away time from everything else I want to be doing.

Second, I've got school. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I'm home-schooled, so what do I have to worry about? Well, I'm not 'home-schooled' in the traditional sense. The school I'm enrolled in is more of a Online Public School where we've got real teachers and due dates and homework... yeah not so fun. I've got classes running throughout the day and you can't believe how hard it is to stay away from writing!

Third, I've been trying so very hard to get my editing done! But my precious editing time at 5:30am has been taken over by skating now! (Yes, where I live there are freestyles super duper early!) So I'm behind on my editing! (And it didn't help that the previous chapter that I worked on today was terrible!)

And finally, there's those new ideas sloshing around in my head that refuse to leave me alone! Despite how exciting they can be, they are also quite distracting.

The funny thing is, time never used to run so fast. (Maybe I scared it away with how much I'm trying to fit into it...) Anyway, I'm so sorry if I haven't visited you're blog in a while! I'm going to try to catch up with everyone I'm following (sooner or later) but I'll probably only be posting on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday now (maybe poetry on Saturday).

Maybe I'm wrong but time seems to be short for most people these days! What are some things YOU try to cram into your day?


--Jess


P.S.
I changed my blogger template so if things seem different to you don't be alarmed! And also, my birthday is tomorrow so I've got to change all of my ages to 15! Yay!