New Year's Resolutions

First of all, I'd like to say that for the first time I've completed my most important resolution from last year. In fact, for the past five years one of my goals for the new year has been to write an entire novel. I can't believe it's taken me this long to just go out and write one, but hey, better late than never, right?


I'm still trying to figure out my resolutions for 2012, but it definitely includes writing another book. Now that I've written one, I've got the confidence to keep going and going and going. I feel like the energizer bunny, lol.


Anyway, I have a skating test on Monday. For those of you who know skating, I'm taking my Juvenile Moves, and my Pre-Juvenile Freestyle tests. I'm skating a two minute program, when I'm used to only a minute and thirty seconds. It seems like a short amount of time, but it's amazing how long two minutes feels like when you're constantly moving.


To make matters worse, I think I'm getting sick. My head feels like it's about to pop, and my throat feels like I swallowed a thorn bush. (Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but still.) So hopefully I won't lose my balance during my tests.


What are you're New Year's Resolutions?


--Jess

Relaxing and Laziness

I have been super lazy this Holiday Season. I'm not even going to try to deny it. I've been sleeping in until 10:00am each morning (probably because I've been staying up until 1:00 each night...). I've been playing video games with my brother and sister which I never do. And it's nice to be spending time with them, but when I play those games, I'll play all day long. They're addicting.


And then of course, we've been watching a lot of TV shows. We don't actually have cable but we have some sort of streaming through Netflix and Amazon. So we started watching the show called Lost. I used to watch commercials for it when we did have cable, but I was too little to take any note of it. In fact, I thought it looked boring.


Well, I was completely wrong. It's full of suspense and pretty much always ends with a cliffhanger. As a writer, I think it's an awesome show to learn from. (That's my excuse for watching it.)


Anyway, I'm still searching for last minute changes in my book. It's a lot more work than I thought. Every time I finish a draft, I announce it to my family. But my dad keeps asking when it will really be done, and I honestly have no idea. Hopefully soon. He says he'll only read it once it's published, so I've got a lot of work to do.


In conclusion, I've hardly done anything since school was let out. I'm not quite sure how I haven't gotten bored yet... maybe I needed a little break.


How have you guys been spending the Holiday Season?


--Jess

Christmas Eve Eve

Well, I have exciting news! I sent the first 25 pages of my novel to be critiqued by Rachele Alpine. This is the first time anyone other than the people in my family will be looking at it, and I'm nervous. Of course, I was so nervous after an hour of sending her my pages that I had to re-read them. And do you know what I found? 65 errors.


There were minor inconsistencies, like, my MC was missing from school for three days, but in a lot of dialogue she says she was gone for five. I found that I had spelled the word 'once' as 'oce'. In one sentence I wrote two of the same word in the same line, "His dark green eyes eyes...".


I freaked out. Immediately, I got to work fixing all of the errors, but I knew it wouldn't change anything. I had already sent off my 25 pages. I know I really shouldn't have looked over it. I know that no matter how many times I look over it, I'm going to find things to change and that it won't be perfect. But I hate wasting people's time with things I know I could have fixed myself.


Perfection is our enemy. No matter how hard we try, or how close we get to catching it, it's always a step ahead of us. I've heard people say that a lot. Of course, just because we can't ever reach it, doesn't mean we should give up. But I didn't imagine myself sending off my first 25 pages for critiquing with that many errors. Could my entire story be that bad? I really hope not.


Anyway, I'm doing a final read through, and then, to prevent myself from falling into the black hole of editing that could keep me reviewing forever, I'll officially declare that I'm done!! So after that, I'll finally be asking for beta readers.


Have a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever holiday you're celebrating this December :)


--Jess


P.S.
Today is Christmas Eve Eve because it's the Eve of Christmas Eve. Just in case you were confused with the post title.

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