IT'S ALMOST APRIL

Okay, I am honestly freaking out a little bit because it is almost April. And I signed up for the A to Z Challenge for the first time in like four years. I have no idea how this is going to work out.

Anyway, last week I was in North Carolina for Spring Break (even though I'm not even in college). It was spring break for my siblings, so that was nice. We got to visit some cool places and see the ocean, even though it was freezing cold.

We also got to visit Roanoke Island.

If you're American or English, you probably know the story, but if you'd like to know a little more about it, I wrote a whole post on it on my new blog which is less about writing and more about a lot of random stuff, My Unofficial Guide To Everything.

This week has been so busy and a bit stressful, so I apologize for this post being so short! I love you all, and I hope you have an amazing day :)

–Jess

A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal!

My dear readers, before we get going, I'd like to make a few announcements. First of all, I have officially started a new blog! I'm not entirely sure why I started it, but I have a feeling I will be posting there more often than here. If you would like to check it out, here is a link My Unofficial Guide To Everything, and if you enjoy it please follow me!

Secondly, I apologize for posting so late today, but I'm on vacation in North Carolina so I've been a bit busy relaxing.

Now I'd like to present to you, my A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal!

And my theme is…

A short guide to: From The Ashes

For those of you who don't know me, From The Ashes is my first published novel (the sequel is on the way). So my theme is going to be all about my book so you can get a little sneak peak of the world and the characters.

Visit other participants in the A to Z Theme Reveal here.

Are you participating in the A to Z Challenge? If so, what is your theme!? Don't forget to check out my new blog My Unofficial Guide To Everything.

Have a lovely day :)

Jess

California

Yup.

You heard me.

California.

If you're not a follower of my mom or my sister, or missed their posts about our trip to California, read on!

We went to California at the beginning of September for a family vacation, so I'm sorry for not posting about it sooner! The reason I didn't was because both my mom and sister were posting about it too, and just hate being repetitive.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

Sea Kayaking in Monterey

Monterey Bay

Lake in Yosemite

Yosemite

At the foot of El Capitan

Tunnel View

Stanford University :)

So, those are pretty much all of the places we went! We LOVED it! And... now I really want to go to Stanford. Most beautiful college campus in the world!

By the way, the pictures are prettier if you click on them :)

Happy Friday!

--Jess

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

(Screenshot on my iPhone of our location)

Right now, we are in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin!  It's the first time we've ever been here, so here are some pictures I took :)

Breakfast table shot :)

Cute restaurant called Sopra we ate at.  The food was amazing!!

View from upstairs at Sopra (through a glass :)

Oh, and the giant spider that had a huge web on the window.

Outdoor pool at the Resort, at night

And, I'll leave you with these three beautiful pictures of the view from the outdoor pool balcony :)

Have an amazing weekend!

--Jess

P.S.

Heading to Madison, today!

Insecure Writers Support Group

More and more, I'm insecure about the relationship between blogging and writing.

And, I'm having issues balancing the two.

Some weeks, I can really keep up with my blogging schedule, but others, it's much harder!  Last week, I felt like I'd stayed inside a shell.  The only day I posted was Monday, which is pretty bad for me.

Sure, I got tons of editing done, but I also have a responsibility to you guys!

I can definitely take on the task of doing both.  I think I started this blog sometime in August last year, so if I've been doing it this long, I can surely continue.

I guess my problem is that I don't always know what to post about.

I'm a person with little experience in anything, moreover writing.  What could I possibly have to say that would be of use to all of you?

What would you guys like me to post about?  What do you want to hear?

Happy Wednesday!!

--Jess

P.S.
Sorry I'm posting so late.  I'm in Wisconsin right now, and we had to drive 8 hours today, so I'm exhausted!!

I'm Back!

Hello my dears!  I'm back!  Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July, and for those who aren't from the U.S. I hope you all had a great week!

Happy Friday and have a nice weekend!

--Jess

P.S.
I'm going back to posting MWF so look out for me on Monday :)

Going Away but Not Really

Hey guys I'm leaving to go up to Michigan today, and I won't be back until next Friday!  Don't worry though, I won't be completely gone.  I've got a few posts 'preposted' and I'm bringing *my trusty new iPhone* in its sapphire blue iPhone case, so I'll still be able to see your comments :)

Speaking of iPhones, I still can't get over how awesome they are.

It's small and easy to carry around.  You can access internet from almost anywhere.  You can text, and call and listen to music.  You can blog.  You can read (download Kindle).  If you're a gamer, you can play games.

But the best part is that, being a writer (and a fast texter/typer), I can take notes and get down ideas.  Honestly, I forget things a lot.

Sometimes I have that genius moment and figure out a key point in a plot, but I don't always have access to paper.  One thing I do always have with me is my phone!  So it's really helped keeping my ideas together and down!

In my opinion, there's only four things a person needs.  Food, shelter, love, and an iPhone.  And with those four things you can do pretty much anything :)

Do you have an iPhone?  Do you want an iPhone?  What do you think about them?


Have a wonderful weekend!


--Jess

Rewriting is Hard.

Okay, so for a while, I've been procrastinating. I've been stalling and making up excuses for myself so I don't have to work on rewriting my sequel. It's not a full rewrite. The last time I wrote in it was November and I had only 33,000 words.

Still. That's like, a third of the book.

I ended up convincing myself that rewriting would be easier than drafting. But, I was in for a really big surprise.

Turns out, rewriting feels twenty times harder than drafting, thank you very much.

You'd think that since you already know what happens and about how to write the scene, you should be okay. But what's hard is writing something you've already written differently.

Well, I stopped procrastinating last week after we got home from the cruise. And despite how hard it was, I'm so glad I did it. It needed to be fixed because it was going totally in the wrong direction. And now, I've got 21,000 words of the new version. Just 12,000 more to go, and I'll be good!

Now I have to give a lot of credit to my really awesome critique partner. She's been working really hard, editing The Trials and as I'm reading over book 1, I'm getting so many new ideas!! (And if you can't tell, I'm getting really excited, too :) )

So, if you're willing to take advice from a fifteen-year-old, here it is: stop procrastinating today. Even if it's just for the day. Good luck!

What do you guys think about rewriting? Is it a lot harder than drafting for you?

Okay, well I really better get to work now! Have an awesome day!

--Jess

P.S.

I've been thinking of starting up a Music Monday thing on my blog since music is such a huge part of my writing. I don't know. What do you think? Good or bad idea?

Cool Random Things

Currently Listening to: Ravenheart by Xandria

Alright guys, looks like my mom beat me to showing you a few pictures of our cruise. I hate to be repetitive, but for those of you that don't follow her, I hope you enjoy :)

(I spy a teenie tiny cruise ship in the distance...)

Okay, so I think that was when we were docked at St. Martin. We went on a tour there. It's really cool because half of the island is Dutch and the other half if French.

(There's me riding a horse for the first time!)

Not only did we get to ride horses across the beach, they actually took us into the ocean!!

Yes, that's a sea lion, and yes he kissed me! Lol, that was really fun.

(This guy lost his tail...)

(I spy an iguana!)

(Me and Alyss braving cool water)

So yeah, those are the highlights of the vacation!

I'm also really proud of myself because I got a ton of reading done. I'm a slow reader anyway, and with the distraction of writing, I don't get much chance to do it. But I'm really excited because I finished two really awesome books and started another one! All of them were awesome :)

So I read:

By the lovely Talli Roland

By the awesome Beth Revis

And I started:

By the one and only Jessica Therrien

All of these books were/are totally awesome and I suggest you check them out if you haven't already!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

--Jess

Yes, I'm Back!

Hey guys, I'd just like to say... I'm back from the Caribbean!

The trip was really awesome, but gosh, I've got a ton of stuff to catch up on! So, I'm going to keep this post short.

Anyway, I know that vacations are for relaxing. And that on a cruise ship, you shouldn't have to do any work. But my writing and I have an interesting relationship. Some days, it's more like work. But others, it's just fun.

There were a few times when we were out at sea and my mom and I sat at the top of the ship, watching the waves and typing away. There's something about the deep, sapphire blue of the ocean that's so inspiring. It would take an effort to keep the inspiration from flowing.

It was awesome. I'll tell you guys more about it later, maybe even show some pics! Oh, and I got a ton of reading done. I'll tell you what two books I finished on Wednesday (there... I'll leave you with a cliffhanger, hehe).

I've got a lot of work to get done right now so I've got to go. 'See' you Wednesday!!

--Jess

Approaching the Rockies

Hello my bloggie friends! I've finally gotten a few precious minutes to write this post, so I'll try to be brief.

First of all, we're almost in the Rocky Mountains! I can see the outline of them from where I'm writing this and it's really cool! It's so weird how much flat land there is between Ohio and Washington... We're in Wyoming right now and might be visiting Yellowstone National Park in a day or two (I'll be keeping my fingers crossed). We went to go see Mt. Rushmore yesterday while we were still over in South Dakota. Here are a few pics:

(George, Thomas, Teddy and Abe)

Me and my new friends ;)

If you haven't seen them, you really missing out. I think it's so amazing how people actually carved these faces out of the side of that huge rock wall. I can hardly make a face out of a tiny ball of clay! These guys must have been really special to do something this big. Anyway, that was just for yesterday. Today we went to go see the Devil's Tower which was absolutely fantastic. Another 'must see' if you haven't seen it already. Here are a few pics of that.

This gigantic tower that formed from magma pressing up on the ground eventually creating this amazing formation is breathtaking. The coolest part is that you can see it from quite a few miles away since the land around it is pretty flat.

Seeing that was just about the most exciting thing that happened today. I'm still so surprised about how much progress we've made across the country! We'll be in Seattle in a few days!

Anyway, that's what's going on in the physical world. As far as my novel goes, well, I'm a little disappointed. I've had time to edit in the car but I don't feel like I'm making as much progress. Even worse, I haven't kept up with all of your blogs (even though I said I would...). In fact, I've hardly checked at all. So, sorry about that, guys :(


But. Here's the good news. When we get to Seattle, I'm buying myself my very own computer! It's going to be a small one, but who cares! My own baby laptop is better than no laptop at all! Hopefully then I'll be able to keep up with everything going on in the blogosphere! And you won't believe how excited I am for that!


What's up for you guys this week? How's you're W.I.P. coming along?


--Jess


P.S.

We saw this little guy on the way to the Devil's Tower and I think he really wanted say 'hi' to everyone!

Happy Tuesday!

Hey everybody! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I got back from Michigan yesterday, so hopefully I'll be able to catch up on most of your blogs today. I also got some really cool new story ideas to keep me even more busy than usual! I even found the time for some long needed reading. It's so cool how refreshing a few days of break can be!


Anyway, it's back to editing for me! And I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. At first I think I was a little too overwhelmed with the fact that my book was done to actually try to fix it. Now I'm on a roll, highlighting pretty much everything I see (well, not everything but that's what it feels like)! I look back at the pages of my MS and want to laugh at the papers streaked with yellow and pencil marks. It's really funny because sometimes I feel like saying "how did I think that was good when I wrote it?" But that is what first drafts are for, right?


Well, I should probably get to work now, but before I leave you, here are a couple pics from our trip!

(Me and Mom trying to stay warm outside!)

(Cousins, Grandma, Sister, Me and Gramps!)

(The Lake! Photo Credit goes to my Grandpa)

Happy Tuesday everyone!

What did you do this weekend?

--Jess

P.S.

Thank you new followers (old followers too, don't worry!) and campaigners for stopping bye!

Labor Day Vacation!

Hey everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! We are going to Michigan tomorrow afternoon for my great grandpa's 90th birthday. He owns a little old cottage on a lake so we're spending the weekend up there. The one problem is that there's no internet connection so I'll miss checking all of your blogs.

Luckily, I think this will be a nice, needed break from constantly writing all day long. Maybe I'll get some fresh new ideas too! A few days away from your work is supposed to be good anyway. Hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll try to bring back pictures to share with you guys! See you on Tuesday!


--Jess