Excuse My Absence

Dear wonderful readers,

I am deeply sorry for my nearly week and a half absence. I don't know if you've seen it, but for some reason on all of our local computers, my blog shows up with a warning saying it could give you a virus if you proceed to my site. I think we fixed it, but I'm not entirely sure.

So that's why I haven't been around much.

Okay, so here's some exciting news:

I finished my final final draft of From the Ashes and once my mom is done reading through this draft, she'll go through all her comments with me and then I shall proclaim it DONE!

That's the plan, anyway.

Also, in figure skating, I'm going to take my Intermediate Moves test next Monday, along with two Preliminary Dances. And if you're not familiar with figure skating, if I pass those tests it just means I'm one step closer to becoming a gold medalist!

So yeah, it's fun :)

That's pretty much it for now, but I just wanted to let you know I'm BACK!

Happy Monday!

--Jess

Going up North + Weekend Plans

As you've probably guessed from the title of this post, we are headed to Michigan for the weekend. Okay, maybe you didn't guess Michigan in particular, but yeah, we're headed up North.


Me and my sister (Over at Life is Good) are both on a synchronized skating team with a bunch of friends, and we have a big competition on Saturday! I'm really excited.


After that, we'll be spending a day at my grandparents house. It's cool because they have a grand piano (opposed to our coffee brown, rectangle one...) and it sounds so pretty when it's played. I'll have to make sure to bring my violin.


So, yeah. That's about all I've got planned for my weekend. Oh, and I have to try convincing my sister to read my novel... She agreed to 'beta read' it a while ago but hasn't gotten to it yet.


What do you guys have planned for the weekend?


--Jess

Passed My Tests!!

Hello, guys! First of all, I thought that with the new year, my blog should get a new look. I get bored of my layout pretty easily, but hopefully I'll keep this one for a while. Anyway, for those of you who read my last post, I took a skating test today, and I passed! So I'm really excited!


I also wanted to tell you guys some of my New Year's Resolutions. One of them is to blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday no matter what. Okay, unless the power goes out and I can't access the internet or something. Another is to be done writing my sequel by the end of the year. It doesn't have to be edited, but I want to be done drafting.


So, those are a few of my goals, but I've really got a lot more. Anyway, I'm just really happy and excited right now!! What a wonderful way to start off the new year :)


Have a great day!


--Jess

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

The Creepy Spider...

Hello everyone! Thanks so much for the birthday wishes and birthday presents! I have 100 followers now! Thank you Susanna Leonard Hill for becoming my 100th follower! I had a really awesome first day of being fifteen! Here's kinda how it went...


First of all my sister found a really creepy looking spider in the morning. She was on the phone with my grandma and she called my mom into the other room. Me and Ryan (I told you about my little brother, right?) followed along and took a look at the creepy looking long legged spider.
Now I'm very supportive of all life and I really didn't want the poor spider to die on my birthday! Ryan and I kept arguing for mom to take the spider outside (we were too scared to do it ourselves). So mom decided that she would be good and take the spider outside. She grabbed a notebook while Ryan and I stood at the door, preparing to open it. Our hearts were racing, all of us hoping that the spider wouldn't fall of and get on any of us.


Suddenly, I looked at my mom and she looked at the notebook. The spider was gone. With lightning speed, she tossed the notebook on the floor and it landed with a thud. Still no spider. My mom stared at the notebook on the floor for another moment. That's when Alyssa screamed and pointed to moms pant-leg. Mom screamed too and ran toward Ryan and I and we both ran away not wanting the spider to get on any of us!


Finally when we were all sure that the spider wasn't on anyone, we stopped running around and started cracking up. I think that was the best part of the day!


After all that craziness, I wrote and did some school work then went skating and landed a few axles! Then we went to my violin lesson and at the end of the day, we all got together and drove to a sushi restaurant. Now I know not everyone likes sushi, but to me nothing could have lived up to that birthday present!


And, even though this isn't exactly relevant to what we've been talking about, we have just confirmed that we will be moving to Seattle, Washington! And we are leaving very soon (within the next few weeks) so I probably won't have as much time to post. Anyway, have a great weekend!


--Jess
P.S.
We never did find the spider...

Favorite Campaign Challenge Entries

Hey everybody! In case you didn't stop by over the weekend, I had a figure skating competition on Saturday and to tell you the truth it went pretty well! I skated my best out there (I didn't land two of my jumps though) and had lots of fun! And I got fifth place out of six, so I didn't get last! (The funny thing is, we went skating again yesterday and I was able to land my jumps fine! Oh well, I guess that's just how it goes...)


I've also been developing new story ideas, and I'm so excited! This whole thing is just so new to me! I wasn't exactly sure if I'd be ready to start another story for a while after finishing up with editing for my current one (I'm not done with that yet, don't worry). Turns out, I've been getting ideas everywhere and need to take a notebook wherever I go or I'm going to explode with too much information inside me!


Anyway, I'd like to share with you my favorite Campaign Flash Fiction entries, and make sure to 'like' them on the Campaign First Challenge if you really like their flash fiction piece! (There were so many great entries and so many that I loved, but of if I tried to make a list of all my favorites I think you guys might get bored. Congrats to everyone who participated!)

1. The Soulless over at Imagination to Publication. This one seriously creeped me out but I loved it!
2. In the Closet over at Feel of Something New. I thought this one was a little creepy too, but I liked how the feeling of the passage was different than most of the other ones I read (I guess it was the 'feel of something new'!)
3. Animate over at The Lobster Tank. I really liked the passion in this passage and I loved the sad hope that the person feels!
4. The Open Door over at Niiganab. I love rhyming poetry! I can't get enough of it! I thought this was a very great poem for the challenge!
5. The War over at Jessica Love Writes. This one reminded me of Middle School (LOL) and it made me laugh.

Hope you enjoy!

--Jess

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!

More Skating

Sorry I didn't post until really late today (I should say 'tonight'), but I've been skating all day long. Literally. We (meaning me and my sister) had skating camp all morning from 7:45 to 12:20am, ran home, ate lunch, then headed off to an ice arena an hour and a half away to do a dress rehearsal for an ice show. We got to skate with some really cool people, including some ice dancers who went to nationals.
We had an hour to just practice things, then a two hour break. We went and ate at a Panera Bread for our break and had a nice time. Then things got hectic once again. We rushed back to the ice arena, put on our dresses, and skated until about 8:30pm.
In fact, we only got home about a half hour ago. I'm exhausted, yet still, I feel that I need to get some 'work' done. When I heard that excuse come out of my mouth when my mom just told me to go up and shower, I realized that she must think I'm crazy. Get some work done? I've been working all day long! So the moment I'm done with this blog post I'm going to write more in my novel.
By the way, any ideas for anything dark? I'm writing a riddle for my book but I don't know what the answer to it should be yet... if you think of anything let me know.


--Jess