I'm Almost Free!

Life has been so crazy lately. I'm so tired and burned out from the whole school year, the only thing keeping me going is the fact that it's almost over! I only have about two weeks left of school, and god, am I relieved.

Not really looking forward to finals, though, and I'm taking a few classes over the summer.

Anyway, I got this really good (or, at least I hope it's really good) story idea recently, and I've been having a lot of fun adding to it and making character sketches, but I feel like I really should be working on The Inferiors, the sequel to From the Ashes.

It's such a hard choice, because now, I've got people waiting for me to finish it. At the absolute earliest, even if I worked really hard at it, I don't think it'd be done until the end of the year, which I might add, is approaching much more swiftly than I expected. It always does, I guess.

Is it so bad to want to take a break from my main story now and then?

Maybe.

Guess we'll find out.

What do you think?

Have a nice day!

–Jess

P.S.

IF YOU HAVEN'T MADE IT TO THE LAST EPISODE OF SEASON 4 OF DOCTOR WHO or ever plan on watching Doctor Who (which you MUST), DON'T HIGHLIGHT THE FOLLOWING WORDS HIGHLIGHTED IN BLACK.

I just made it to the 5th season of Doctor Who on Netflix, and I'M SO SAD. Okay, at least Matt Smith does a good job, but I was so heartbroken seeing the Doctor die as David Tennant! And DONNA. I don't ever cry, not really about anything, but I got tears in my eyes watching the episode where she forgets. Breaks. My. Heart.

The thing is, most people have made it that far, because I'm so awfully behind in the series. So I probably don't need that spoiler alert. Gotta be safe, anyhow.

BYE! :)

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

Spookfesta & Darkspell Launch

Good morning, everyone! Today is the long awaited Halloween! Well, actually it's tomorrow that I'm waiting for. I keep checking my NaNoWriMo meter to see how many hours I have before I can start writing! I'm at the edge of my seat here! I swear, the moment I finish my school work for the day, I'll be typing away! (That kind of rhymed...)


Anyway, today is also the launch day of Elizabeth Mueller's first novel called Darkspell which can be found HERE on Amazon. Congratulations Elizabeth!

Okay so the prompt for the Spookfesta is:


If I had all the magic in the world, I'd...
Increase technology so that we find a way to travel through space efficiently and not have to wait eighty thousand years to get to the nearest star!


*That's actually not an exaggeration. If you traveled at seventeen kilometers per second (roughly the speed of Voyager 1), and headed straight in the direction of Alpha Centauri (the closest star) it would take about eighty thousand years for you to get there.


With that being said, I think we could use a little magic to help speed up the process there, or we're never going to see a planet outside of the solar system!


Alrighty, go congratulate Elizabeth and check out her awesome book!


Happy Halloween!


--Jess


P.S.
How do you like the new blog layout? I think it's a little more sophisticated than before. What do you think?

Three Day Countdown...

Wow, I knew NaNoWriMo was coming fast, but I just checked my little countdown meter on my sidebar and I didn't realize it was in three days. Okay, I've really got to start working hard.

I'm really not a big fan of writing without an outline. In fact, every single story I’ve written without an outline has remained unfinished. Honestly, if I don’t know where the story is going, I get really bored. You have no idea how much I wish I could just start a story without much of a plan then turn it into something that people love. I think it’s good to be spontaneous. But I guess that’s just not how I work.

So, I’ve got five days to write half of what I like to call, a skeleton. Now I’m sure there’s an official name for it, but I kinda like calling it a skeleton because I write everything down that helps maintain the structure of the story. The fancy and thoughtful language (what I like to call the muscle or meat of the story) can come in later. So until NaNoWriMo begins, I’ve got to be working on my skeleton.

All in all, writing the skeleton is really the part where I get the whole story down and out of my head. I usually break it up in bullet points and don’t write in complete sentences. At the same time, I try to be as detailed as I can be without actually and officially writing the story. And when I say detailed, I mean detailed. It kind of gets to the point of being ridiculous.

Speaking of skeletons, what are everyone’s plans for Halloween? I’m participating in Elizabeth Muller’s Spookfesta and if it weren’t for a reminder email I got, I would have totally forgotten. As far as trick-or-treating goes, I’d much rather buy a bag of Reeces Peanut Butter Cups and write all night long.

--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!

Be Prepared!

First of all, thanks to all my new followers from the campaign and for all the wonderful comments on my flash fiction post!

Alrighty, with that statement out of the way, I can tell you some exciting news! I have a skating competition tomorrow! (In case you didn't know, yes I'm a figure skater.) I usually don't get nervous until I'm actually at the ice rink, awaiting my turn to be called in front of the judges, but I'm not exactly sure how prepared I am for this one. I've got two jumps in there that I can't land consistently and a spin that doesn't exactly spin very well. So, with that being said, yes, maybe I am a little nervous right now.

Me and Alyss after one of our many competitions!

I'm not really someone that preforms well under pressure either. My knees get a little shaky and I constantly feel like I need to take a trip to the bathroom. Not to mention, the past few weeks I've been much more interested in my writing than in my skating (which I guess isn't a terrible thing because writing is my first favorite thing ever), but it isn't so good if I want to have a winning chance.


So, I'm sure you've made this conclusion already, but no, I'm not exactly prepared for this competition. I've got a little bit of an idea of the people I'll be competing against, but to be honest, I could lose miserably, or take first place. I've got no clue how this is going to play out.


And here comes the catch. Maybe I'm not the most physically prepared person there. But from a mental perspective, I very well could be. Not because I can land my jumps or do my spins, but because I'm prepared to lose. I'm prepared to skate hard then walk away with nothing but a green ribbon saying "Honorable Participant". And I can be happy with that.


How can we take this into writing perspective? Well, we need to be prepared. We don't exactly know what we're up against. We could luck out with our manuscripts, and just happen to send it to the right place, reaching the right person at the right time! And that's awesome! But more often than not, we get a nice rejection letter (if we're lucky).


Writing can be rough and sometimes even ruthless. But we can be tougher than that! We've got to look beyond rejection and see that it's all part of the journey. People will knock us down and honestly not like what we write. But what matters, is that we'll get back up and try again! And sometimes, getting that rejection can make getting published in the future all worth while!


Have a great weekend!


--Jess


P.S.

I updated my 'Poetry' page so it's got all of my recent poems. I also got a few new story ideas, so I'm excited!

Chapters

Okay so as of right now I'm on Chapter 54 in my story with around 480 pages double spaced (which is about 240 pages single spaced). Obviously I'll need to do a lot of cutting out for my second draft, but that still leaves me with my 'chapter' problem. So most of my chapters range in between 4-7 pages (single spaced). A few of them are two pages and a few of them are nine. What I'm wondering is if I should combine a few of the short chapters together, or if I should just leave them as they are. Everyone I've asked says they like short chapters, but is 54 chapters (and counting) too much?


--Jess