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Showing posts from 2016

2016 in Review and Looking Forward to 2017

With 2017 just around the corner I wanted to write a recap on 2016. 2016 was a good year, for me at least and a lot of exciting things have happened. So here you go! Exciting Things That Have Happened to Me This Year: My family went to Ghatlinburg and my mom, my brother and I hiked a mountain and saw some gorgeous waterfalls. It was an amazing experience. I went down to Indianapolis with a college group from my church and handed out food and water and talked to the homeless. It was a very eye opening and unique experience. This is small but it was a great experience too. I helped out at my church's food pantry for an evening. It was a fun time. I had my first book professionally edited. When I gave Weapon Icean over to my editor I thought it was only 90% but when I got it back it was like she'd filled and helped fix all the holes, making it 100%. I published my first book! 2016 will go down as the year I published my first book and I will always look on this year

My Favorite Books of 2016

Hey guys! So right now all I can seem to think about or talk about is Weapon Icean. I just ordered five copies last Friday so I'm hoping they'll be here by next week. I can't wait to have my book in my hands! It's so surreal. I want to do a string of blog posts about Weapon Icean. Some character files and posts about the superhero genre but I didn't feel like this was a good week to start that what with Christmas so close. I think I'll start it next Wednesday. Also I'm obsessed with Pinterest and that's where I get most of my inspiration so check out my Storyboard for Weapon Icean Here. . For now though I want to give you guys a list of the best books I've read in 2016. I know it's a tiny bit early to be thinking back on this year since Christmas isn't even here yet but I've been thinking a lot about all that's happened in 2016 in my life. This year was pretty slow going in the book category. Maybe because this year

Book Release!!

Guess what guys??!! Weapon Icean is out!! It's out for real and I can't believe it! It started out last November as just an idea. I wrote it for my 2015 nanowrimo and it has gone through almost 18 drafts. I spent all year working on it and waiting and waiting so impatiently for it to be ready and now it is! It happened so fast and I am super excited but also a little nervous. This has been a journey, if at sometimes difficult and frustrating but now all the time and effort and patience has paid off. I've dreamed of being a published author since I knew what the word author meant and now I am! I just hope you guys love reading it as much as I loved writing it! And it's so fitting that I publish it the day I finish the first draft of the sequel. It's still messy and crazy and needs a lot of work but I can do it. I'm calling it Project Khione for now but the title might change later. This is the first step in my indie author journey and I am so excited to fin

Nanowrimo Update and A Cover Reveal!

Guys!! I am so, so excited to present the cover for Weapon Icean. The edits and everything are finished. My book is done and it all feels so surreal! It's been a long and sometimes grueling process, especially for someone who can become a bit impatient like me . And then BAM it was just... ready. The cover is amazing and I am so excited to share it with you guys! Just a few more days now and Weapon Icean will be ready for sale! I'll post the day it comes out to let you guys know when it's ready! So without further ado and a lot of overly excited rambling from me, here is the cover for Weapon Icean: Ahhh there it is and it's amazing!!! There's Delphi and she looks awesome! A huge shout out to my amazing mom who did the cover design. It took her two days! She did an amazing job! (And you can find her on Instagram under Personette Photography). I'm overly excited and a little nervous to publish but my excitement definitely outweighs the nerves. I don'

Nanowrimo Week 1 Update

Hey everyone! So it's been a while... I've been pretty busy and stressed out about classes and stuff but I'm back! And I read Lodestar, the next Keeper of the Lost Cities book that came out and it was great and sad and I loved it! (I really hope I'll have time to put a review up on Friday because I have a lot to say about it). Now I'm reading Heartless by Marissa Meyer which I have a feeling will have a bittersweet ending seeing how it's about the Queen of Hearts... Anyways! I'm super excited cuz it's nanowrimo time! Last year I had finished my 50,000 word count by the middle of the month but I have a feeling this year is going to go a bit slower. Why? I'm not sure... Maybe I'm just busier than I was last year. Or maybe sequels are just really hard. For nanowrimo I'm working on the sequel to Weapon Icean, which at the moment I'm calling Project Khione. The title may or may not stick. I just needed something to call it for nanowrimo. (J

Mental Illness and Writers

Hey everyone! So I know I skipped my Wednesday and Friday posts last week. Let's just say... it was a ridiculously stressful and busy week for me. I've barely gotten any consistent writing done in the past two weeks. October is shaping up to be more of a busy month than a writing month for me. At least I still have November and nanowrimo. I hope. Anyways, that's pretty much my writing update. I'm not sure if I'll be posting on Friday since we're going to our grandparents tomorrow and on Friday so probably not. Sorry about that. Hopefully once this week is over I'll become more consistent in writing and blogging again. This post is kind of short notice but this is a topic that I have found increasingly interesting over the past few months. I've noticed a trend in famous writers and other creatives. Mental illness. I, myself, struggle with depression and anxiety so mental illness is not new to me. I think this trend came to light when I read The

The Haunted Mermaid

(So Fridays have sort of evolved into a free for all on this blog. I pretty much just write whatever for Friday's if I write at all... I've been a short story writing kick so I've decided to put one on here. It's the first one I wrote that has no connection to my Tales of the Lonely world that I've created so give it lots of grace. Also no one checked my grammar so... please give the grammar lots of grace too because despite being a writer I suck big time at grammar (especially commas). But I was inspired by Mariella Hunt's blog where she puts her short stories on there and I want to give it a try so I hope you guys like it!) The Haunted Mermaid Sometimes if you sit on the beach long enough and wait until the moon is at its peak you can hear the sorrowful keen of a mermaid. There are some stories that will tell you mermaids are frivolous, vane things. They sit on rocks all day and comb their hair and sing, preening tails. Others will spin ta

Five Most Inspiring Movies for Writers

Hey everyone!! So... I was feeling crappy all this week and last week and didn't have time to come up with a decent blog post idea so... this is all I got and is inspired by that movie Goosebumps that came out a little while ago. I don't think I have any writing related updates or life updates either for that matter... Though I have written three short stories. All of them are rather dark and kind of depressing but that's another post for another time (maybe next week?). Other than that I've got nothing. So here you go. You should check out these movies if you need encouragement as an author. Goosebumps: This one is first because its fresh on my mind from last night. It wasn't that scary. Mild horror at the most. Funny and fun and enjoyable. A good watch if you want something for Halloween but you get scared easily. But what made this movie inspiring was the fact that one of the characters was R. L. Stine and the only way to save everyone was for him to writ

Put Suspense and Stakes Back in Books!

Hey everyone! So just a warning up front this post is going to be a rant. A rant about books that I've been thinking about a lot lately. This post may just end up being me figuring out my train of thought about the whole thing so bare with me. I have been in a bit of a reading slump lately. The last book I actually finished (and probably shouldn't have) was The Real Peter Pan about J.M. Barry. Totally messed up and crazy and disturbing and gave me anxiety for days after I finished reading it. So, if you can't handle child abuse or disturbing true stories in general don't read it. Anyways, my mom, little brothers and I have gotten into the habit of going to the library every Sunday while my brothers are at ultimate Frisbee practice. I love this new "tradition" because I love the library so much. I could live there. Over the past few weeks I've found several new, popular books. I bought the Architect of Song by A. G. Howard (who I love!), I rente

Eight Reasons Why I Love Fall

So I am a huge, huge fan of Fall! I love Fall or Autumn so much! I know some people that love winter, others love summer but I love Fall. So as the first day of Fall was last week I want to give a list of all the reasons Autumn is awesome but first I need to tell you guys something even cooler than Autumn. I am so, so excited! I finished edits for Weapon Icean! Now I just have to go through and check the few scenes (and entire chapter I added!) for grammar, read through it one more time to make sure everything is all good and then I am done! Explanation points all around!!! I can't wait to share Weapon Icean with all of you and I really hope you enjoy it when it comes out! Keep checking back for more updates because they are coming. Also I am still working on Tales of the Lonely. I've hit a bit of a snag but I do still plan on publishing that also so stay tuned for updates on my short story collection as well. And now here are eight reasons why Fall is the best s

Benefits of Writing a Short Story

Hi everyone! So this is another short story post. Loosely connected to the post I did last week. Since last week a lot of exciting things have happened! First I wrote three in a half short stories (I'm working on the third) and I'm thinking about sharing them on here like what Mariella Hunt does on her blog. I really enjoy reading her short stories on there and I want to try doing that too. You can find her blog  Here . Also, another very exciting development is that I have all of Weapon Icean back from the editor! All of it! So I'm going through and accepting all the changes she's done through Track Changes (Track Changes is amazing and I love word for having that program). Then I have to go back through and read through the many comments (because I guess there are sort of a lot of plot holes I didn't notice before...) and then implement those comments. After that I plan to go through again and read through it just to make sure everything's all good and

Cracking the Short Story Code

Hey everyone! So I finally got logged back into my blog... it only took me forever but now I'm back and I am going to try my hardest to be more consistent. Writing related blog posts every Wednesday and a book review on Fridays. Or even some TV shows and movie reviews on Fridays too if my reading is going to slow. I just have to give a quick update. Weapon Icean is taking longer than expected to get edited. I'm getting great feedback but... it's still with the editor so while she's busy with Weapon Icean I've been keeping busy with some other projects. My Tales of the Lonely short story collection is going great. Since I suck at grammar I'm going to print it out and have my mom (who's an expert at grammar) check over it. Get a cover and put it on Amazon. In that order but with more details. I also finished my vampire hunter book called Sterling Silver and am working on the second one. I'm really on fire and in love with this project. The world of va