August 2014 IWSG

Hey everybody! Hope you’re all doing fantastic! Today is the first Wednesday of a new month so it’s time again for another IWSG. :D

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

So I’ve been intermittently working on a Young Adult Faery novel for a couple months now and I’m about a third of the way through the novel and I hate it. All of it. I want to light it on fire and watch it burn. My main character seems to lack a drive to do anything and the story feels flat. The beginning came very easily, but I have to admit beginnings are probably the easiest part for me. I also have a deadline on this project since it is for a class I’m working on so I can’t afford to set it aside for now. What did you do when you completely fell out of love on a project? Was there anything you did that helped you reignite that spark and helped you finish the project you were working on?

Let me know in the comments below! :D

July 2014 IWSG A Tale of Two…Tales

Hey everybody! Hope you’re all doing fantastic! Today is the first Wednesday of a new month so it’s time again for another IWSG. :D

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

So I’ve been working hard on a couple of pieces lately, one being my novel assignment for the Institute of Children’s Literature and the other being a short contest piece for the Central Oregon Writer’s Guild’s Annual Contest (which just opened up state wide! :D Woohoo!). They’re both coming along great and I’m really excited about both, but they both also have some upcoming deadlines. The first third of my novel’s rough draft is due in a week or so and my contest piece is due on the first of September. I’ve almost got my novel’s first third done and I’m really close to having my contest piece fully written out, but the editing process is going to take a while. I’ve been having a bit of difficulty switching back and forth between the two; I get focused and then I have to switch back to the other piece. When you’re working on multiple pieces, how do you juggle them? Do you have a system that helps you better manage your time? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for stopping by! ^^ :D

 

May 2014 IWSG

Hey Guys! So seeing as how it is the first Wednesday of the Month, it must be IWSG! So I’ve been a little hiatus lately, but don’t worry, I’m still writing in the background! ;) What I wanted to ask all you writers out there is how you respond when people ask you about ideas you have that you may be currently working on. I was trying to explain one of my ideas out loud the other day and the more I tried to describe it, the more I thought, Woooow that sounds sooo stupid. And the more I talked about it, the more my idea started to lose that magic glimmer that had convinced me to write about it in the first place.

How do all you other writers out there deal with this?

Thanks guys! ^^ :D

 The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.

Gotta love that Aftershock

Do you ever get that feeling after reading a particularly good book, that if you don’t move, you’ll absolutely explode??? That if you remain sitting for just one more second, you’ll absolutely pass out from the sheer epic-ness? I just finished reading The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas and there are no words. What an amazing read that leads into a spectacular series. I think I’ve been slowly picked apart and pieced back together. And I loved it!!! This. This is why I decided to become a writer. Because books can so utterly move you and in one fell swoop, utterly destroy you. And without even realizing it, they can pick you up, dust you off and put you back together. I ran across a video a year or so ago that I think absolutely nails it on the head. Enjoy! ^^

 

Writitng Exercises

Hi everyone! It’s been quite a while hasn’t it? I hope you’re all doing well and getting plenty of good writing in. J So today I want to share with you a writing exercise I came up with while doing some brainstorming for my current WIP. I recently had the opportunity to do a group interview at one of the local retail stores here in town. They brought in six people, including myself, and had us all interview together taking turns answering questions and one of the questions they asked us was, “What two words would you use to describe yourself?” I thought, Oh this’ll be easy! Piece of cake! ^^ Not so. Have you ever tried to come up with only two words that would wholly encompass who you are and still do justice to your character? Well it wasn’t exactly easy, but while sitting at my desk thinking about my WIP, I thought, What if I tried to use just two words to describe my characters? It was actually a great exercise. I’m still working on it for a couple more characters, but it really makes you think about them and dig deep into what makes each character uniquely who they are. I’ll share a couple examples just so that you can see a few of mine.

 

Charming and Elusive

Swarthy and Cunning

Adventurous and Delicate

 

Of course these could be a little stronger, but you get the idea. Plus as you keep working on your story and your characters change, sometimes so should some of their words, but not all the time. In fact, because these words should describe the core of your character, these words will rarely change, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fine tune them a little more, not to mention that if you’ve got a seriously dynamic character who changes during the course of the story, his core could change a little too.

Try it out and see what you think. If you want, share one or two of yours in the comments below! ^^ :D

Happy Birthday, December IWSG, and a Movie Review!!!

Hey everybody! So it has been a crazy awesome week! Yesterday was my 22nd Birthday! I got to celebrate with family eating cake and ice cream, topping it off with a night at the movies. Woohoo! ^^ :D I have to say, I don't feel much older, but I've heard that doesn't start to set in until later. Lol :) So for my birthday movie, my brother and my sister-in-law took me to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire for the second time (My mom took me to see it the first time on the day it came out lol). It was really sweet too, because the lady running the concession stand sang Happy Birthday to me. ^^

                And I have to say, it was AWESOME!!! Frances Lawrence did an excellent job! He created a world so intricate and detailed that even though it passes by in short little bursts, you really get a good sense of it. And the characters I feel got a whole lot better and deeper. The costumes were so great and some totally outrageous (lol Effie J). The first half felt just slightly rushed, but for the time they had, they covered a lot. There were a couple parts that made me giggle…really loudly. :] If you’ve seen the movie or read the books, all I have to say is. Johanna. Hehe. ^^ Of course there were a couple parts that had me tearing up. If you've read the books you know what parts those probably were. It was pretty funny too, because at the end where the big hurrah takes place, my brother and I were both pumping our fist saying Yeah!  

You can really tell the difference between fans of the books versus those that have only seen the movies too because my sister-in-law kept leaning over to explain little nuances to my brother because he hasn't read the books yet. Key word: yet. Between the two of us, I'm sure we'll have him reading them in no time! ;D

Overall, I would give Catching Fire 4.5 stars only because I felt like there was just a smidge where they could've done a little bit more, but like I said: Fantastic job. I'm so glad Frances is doing both Mockingjay part 1 & 2. And after seeing the second one, I'm really glad they split the movie into two parts because that will really allow them to dig into the story and honor those parts that really need it and are huge parts of the overall arc. In my opinion, Suzanne Collins is a genius. I also haven't read any of her other books yet, so I might be biased, but Hunger Games is my all-time favorite book series. Ever.

 

Anyways, before I go all Fangirl over you guys, today is the first Wednesday of December, which means it’s time for another IWSG! The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a wonderful place where writers can share their worries and failures as well as their successes and advice. Led by our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG meets the first Wednesday of every month and you can join on his site here. There's also a brand new website now so be sure to check it out here.  

 

So every year at the Central Oregon Writer’s Guild, we hold two annual readers showcases where members can volunteer to read their work to the guild and on December 19^th is our next showcase and I volunteered! I’ve never been able to read my work out loud in public before so I’m super excited and absolutely terrified! I’m not a great out loud reader. I tend to skip words and mix up letters within words. I don’t want to read too quickly or slowly especially since I only have eight minutes to read, but for those that have had the opportunity to speak before groups and share their work publicly, what have you found works best and helps you present better? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for stopping by! J

 

Happy Writing! ^^ :D