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Life and Writing Updates

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Life Update

Since the last time I wrote a blog post I graduated from Western Washington University with my english creative writing degree and I went to the Denver Publishing Institute at University of Denver. Attending the Denver Publishing Institute was a great experience and if you are interested in a career in publishing I would recommend applying!

            I learned so much about the publishing industry in only four weeks. During the program guest speakers from the publishing industry lead lectures and homework assignments. It’s a lot of information to process so I would be prepared to be a bit overwhelmed with knowledge during these four weeks and the weeks after.

            Lecture titles included were: The Role of the Editor, The Role of the Literary Agent, College Textbooks, Copyediting, Children’s Books, and Resume and Cover Letter Workshop. And many more, but here is an idea of what you would be learning. Though each session changes.

            There was so much more to the program but I’m just giving a brief overview. Meeting classmates was a great experience too and to see how much everyone loved books and wanted to work with books. Exploring Denver was also fun and a great experience. The only downside was how hot it was in the summer there. Coming from the Pacific Northwest I was not prepared for 95 degree days, sometimes 100 degree days! There were some good thunderstorms so that was fun, if you enjoy a good storm! Though it’s not fun to be stuck in a thunderstorm when driving. Though plenty of students didn’t have a car as they flew.

            Overall, I thought the Denver Publishing Institute was very informative and provided great networking opportunities!

Writing Update: The Gemstone Collector

            I just finished going through a big round of developmental edits for the book I’m self-publishing at the beginning of next year. I hired a freelance editor who did a developmental edit and I have gone through those comments and made the appropriate changes. Now I’m ready to read through the book to make sure everything makes sense and that it’s good to go for a grammar edit!

            I got my book printed and spiral bound at Office Max so I’m excited to do this read through on paper. It will be nice to have a break from the computer screen.

            Well, that wraps up my updates. Life has been busy but I’m working on getting back into a writing routine that I’m excited about! Hopefully the next blog post will be an updated writing routine (fall themed)! Because who doesn’t love fall? I’m so ready for cozy season. It’s when I’m the most productive for writing and reading. I hope whoever is reading this is well and reading lots of good books!

~Alex

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A Writing Update and Books I’ve Read Recently!

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It has been a few months since I lost wrote a blog post. I have read quite a few books since the last time I checked on my blog. I have also returned to college to finish up my English degree with creative writing emphasis. That has been exciting and has really helped my writing in surprising ways.

One of the classes I took was on war literature. In the start of The Gemstone Collector, the young adult fantasy book I’m self-publishing by the end of next summer, the main character Zephyr, is still feeling the effects of the war that happened ten years ago. I didn’t expect a class on war literature to help me out with my current book. Learning anything and everything is very helpful for writing. Like recently I went axe throwing and my instructor went into the physics of throwing axes, so that is great to use in a fantasy novel! Now I can say I have experience throwing axes. Although I was very bad at it, but it was fun.

Since I last talked about The Gemstone Collector, I have hired a freelance editor who did a developmental edit. I am starting to go through those edits. I plan on doing a few rounds of developmental edits. I want to make sure this book is the absolute best it can be. I’m actually having so much fun adding to the world I have created and coming up with ideas and plot twists I didn’t have in the book before I sent it to my developmental editor!

There is a lot of talk in the writing community discussing which is better, editing or drafting. I can’t decide which I like better. They are obviously both needed, but I think they are both so fun! It’s fun to draft and think up of a story on the spot, as I’m not an outliner, but it is also gratifying to improve your story and make it better in every way possible. They both have their time and right now, I can’t choose which one I enjoy the most.

Now on to the books I’ve read. I read a lot for school from September through December this year. A book I read for my war literature class was Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. It was the first Virginia Woolf book I’ve read and I definitely found it fascinating. She has a very stream of consciousness style of writing, at least in Mrs. Dalloway. I also studied indigenous author Lee Maracle in my Native Literature of the Pacific Northwest class. She was a member of the Stó:lō Nation and she is a very powerful and prolific writer. I would recommend looking her up!

As far as books for fun that I read I loved Rachel Griffin’s new book Bring Me Your Midnight! It was so fun and had the perfect seaside witchy vibes! Rachel Griffin is another author I would highly recommend. I’ve read all of her books and they are excellent and so fun! I’ve also read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, which I ended up loving! I read it while I had a bad cold so it really kept me entertained. I got sick for the first part of July. It was weird to have a cold during the summer. I also read The Dragon’s Promise by Elizabeth Lim. That sequel was so good and I feel like it’s hard to get sequels right, but The Dragon’s Promise was even better than the first book Six Crimson Cranes and that was very good!

I have read so many more books I could talk on and on about, but I will leave this blog post here and write something new in January of 2024! How are we already to 2024? That seems wild, but also pretty cool! I hope everyone has a great new year and that you get to read lots of great books and make progress toward your writing goals or creative projects!

Writing Updates

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Since I last posted I finished writing the WIP I’ve been calling Forest (definitely not the title, just a placeholder in my mind until I come up with a real title). I started working on Forest at the beginning of the year. It’s the tenth book I’ve written in the last fifteen years. It was a lot of fun to work on! Now I still have to go back through and read it for the first time and do the first round of edits. I’m not sure when that will happen though as I’m working on self-publishing The Gemstone Collector!

The Gemstone Collector is the ninth book I’ve written throughout my journey as a writer, however it will be the first book I’m self-publishing. The first book of mine ever to be published! I have queried two books in the past and I never got a request from an agent. I kept on writing though and working on my craft. I’m currently working my twelfth book which I have titled The Curse of Blood Thorn Manor. This one is very fun and when I started working on it, I told myself I was writing it just for fun so that I wouldn’t put pressure on myself thinking about trying to publish it.

One day I might self-publish it, I have so many books I would love to see out in the world. Since I write so much, that’s another reason why I decided to go the indie route. Plus I like having control of the creative decisions. It’s pretty cool! Writing is my passion and it’s something I will always be working on. I often think of this motivational writing quote “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” Richard Bach. I believe that is true.

Updates on The Gemstone Collector: It’s currently in the hands of an editor for a developmental edit! Next, I will go through the edits to make changes for the big picture issues. I will be doing this throughout the late fall/early winter. Hopefully by next February it will be in the hands of a proofreader editor. Then I’ll need to find a cover designer, and then decide where I’m going to upload it. So many decisions to make when self-publishing! Plus, there’s marketing on social media, which is something else I’m always trying to figure out. I love learning about all of this stuff though! It’s a lot of work, but I can’t believe my book will soon be out in the world. I’m so excited for you all to read it!

It’s a ways away, but May 2024 is still the projected release date. I hope you have been well and are excited about a writing project, or a creative project you’ve been working on! Okay, now it’s time for me to write some more words for The Curse of Blood Thorn Manor. Happy Friday and happy weekend!

My Self Editing Journey and an Announcement!

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“Writing stories is a kind of magic, too,” Cornelia Funke, Inkheart.

I just finished self-editing (round two of edits) a recent WIP which I currently have titled A History of Memory and Gemstones. This title is a working title and I will most likely end up changing it. This blog post took me a few months to write as I was working on finishing edits at the same time and I wanted to write out my experience. Since I started working on this post in March, I have come up with a new title I love. I’m most likely settling on The Gemstone Collector!

This book is going to be a series, which I am self-publishing! This is my first time announcing I really am going to self-publish a book. It probably won’t be out until next May, that is what I’m hoping for. I hired a developmental editor, but I don’t send out my book to them until September 1st. Then I will be doing more edits after that. In between now and September 1st, I’m editing as much as I can and sending my book out to beta readers.

As I started editing after reading through my first draft for the first time (at the end of last year), I found it was in better shape than I thought. Stepping away from the manuscript helped me gain perspective. And as I’m going through reading it a second time, it is more put together than I thought. The writers self-doubt sometimes creeps in, but it is often squashed by taking a little time away from whatever manuscript I’m working on at the time.

Reading through it for a second time is making me have a different point of view of my writing. At first, I thought the magic system was going to be messy and need more clarification, but as I read through it, much slower the second time, I described it more than I realized and it makes sense! Sometimes it helps to read through drafts with different intentions each time you read your work. That’s what I’m finding helps me self-edit.         

For example, the first time I read The Gemstone Collector, I sped read through it, just to see what kind of shape it was in and to remind myself of the story as I had stepped away from it for months. Now, I’m reading it so slowly, analyzing the sentence structure, the pacing of the story and the character arcs. As I do that, it helps me think through the magic system and focus on what it is the characters are striving for and what they want most. Editing as a pantser is extremely important and the most critical part of writing, at least it is for my own process.  

I want to be sure that on each page the main character wants something and that they are working towards achieving their goal. I read that in a blog post recently. I wish I could remember where I read that, but it has really helped with my editing process. Especially as I’m a discovery writer and pantser.

Another helpful tool I’ve been using while editing is making a style sheet. I heard they do that in traditional publishing, so I wanted to do it for myself. It is helping with making sure my spellings and character descriptions are consistent. And it did help because I just found an inconsistency with a character description. Earlier in the book I said a character had green eyes and then one hundred pages later, I said they had brown eyes, oops! That’s why I take editing so seriously.

I’m excited at how far this book has come. Last spring I went on The Storyteller’s Retreat (Writing With The Soul), where we read aloud to a small critique group the first ten pages of a book we were working on. I read aloud this book I’m now self-publishing. The feedback I received was insightful and positive. I am so in love with this world I have created in The Gemstone Collector and I can’t wait until it is out in the world! I will keep writing blog post updates about it and talking about it on my Instagram stories!

I hope everyone’s writing is going well and that you’re reading lots of good books! Happy writing and happy spring! I hope the weather is getting warmer where you are! It definitely is where I live in the Pacific Northwest.

Keeping the Motivation to Write

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“You fail only if you stop writing,” Ray Bradbury.

I just finished reading The Successful Author Mindset: A Handbook For Surviving The Writer’s Journey by Joanna Penn. There was a lot to think about in this little book (141 pages). I enjoyed the content and that it was so short. It gave me a lot of motivation to keep on writing. I would definitely recommend it if you are a writer trying to get published and need some inspiration.

The number one thing I gleaned from this nonfiction book was to simply write. Often I get distracted by social media and other things on a day to day basis, but writing and writing well, is the number one thing to never stop doing. Marketing is important, but it is more important to have an excellent book. The book is what matters.

This may sound a bit odd, but I have never really believed in writer’s block. I think there’s burnout and taking a break is great to restore that creative energy, but sometimes writing even when the inspiration isn’t there is what needs to be done. That is something I’ve learned over the last fifteen years I’ve been writing and from reading many writing craft books and blogs.  

I can’t believe I’ve been writing half of my life. I started writing when I was fifteen, I’m thirty now. So it really has been half of my life that I’ve been writing. The first few years I started writing I did it for fun and as an escape. With my early books, I would get so attached to them that I wouldn’t want to move onto a new project.

It wasn’t until I started querying in 2017 that I realized I needed to keep on writing new things if I wanted to be a published author and have it be my career. Once I started writing new projects, my passion for writing luckily increased. It was fun to create new worlds and characters and I’m still having a blast doing it in 2023.

Another thing I’ve done a lot of thinking about is whether to traditional publish or self-publish. Last year I spent a lot of time researching self-publishing. Right now I’m about to finish a course titled Publish Your Novel: Self-Publishing & Marketing Masterclass. The Complete, Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Publishing and Marketing Your Book and Launching Your Author Career created by Jessica Brody, Writing Mastery, and Bethany Atazadeh.

When I signed up for the course the original cost was $85, but it was on sale for $10 at that time (January 2023). I took that as a sign that self-publishing was for me, and many other signs and lots and lots of thinking, of course. I can now confidently say I’m excited to be an indie author, to keep on creating my fantasy worlds and hopefully have a book published and out in the world potentially sometime next year!

I hope writing is going well for whoever is reading this and that you’re having fun doing it!

Deleting Crutch Words from my Draft and Trying a Different Writing Exercise

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“Overnight success is almost always a myth. Half of this industry is luck, and half is the refusal to quit,” Victoria Schwab.

I’m currently working on first edits of a WIP I finished writing last year. I’m also drafting a new book as I always want to be working on something new. While I’ve heard that you should read through the first draft of a WIP without revising, I can’t help but notice the little things that need to be fixed. Right now, I’m reading it on paper. I went to Office Max and had it printed and bound so it would feel like a manuscript.

Going through the draft on paper has helped me see mistakes that would normally be missed digitally. I highly recommend reading a draft of your work on paper. It helps immensely. The biggest things I’ve noticed so far in my writing is the amount of times I have the characters look at something. So, any phrase or sentence that has gaze, eyes, look or search, I’m trying to rewrite so it is not as repetitive. I will leave one of those words in if it works for the sentence, but the goal is to reduce the amount of times they are used.

Something else I noticed this last week when working on my writing is the rhythm of the sentences themselves. I found in my first drafts I underwrite, so the sentences sometimes feel monotone. The sentence lengths need variety, like in music. An exercise I recently tried was writing to my favorite band, Phish. I paid attention to the rhythm of the music and attempted to match the rhythm of the music to the sentence structure in my writing.

It was a very cool writing experience and I easily got into the creative flow. Doing this writing exercise helped me get super excited about the plot, characters and setting all over again. I noticed it did help vary the rhythm of my sentences. It was a different way to think about writing and it’s something I’ll probably do again.

Do you have a writing routine, or something you do while writing that is unique?

List of crutch words I’m deleting from my manuscript:

Gaze

Eyes

Look

Search

Just

Only

Fascinating

Snake

Felt like (trying to make this more active and descriptive)

Happy writing!

Happy New Year!

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“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world,” Robin Williams.

Happy New Year!

Wow, I haven’t updated this blog since July of 2022. This year I really do hope to be more consistent with updating my website. Since I last posted, I have finished writing a draft. My 2022 WIP which I currently have named Luna. That will not be the final title, but it’s a good placeholder title so that I can keep my works organized. I have also started writing my WIP for 2023 which I have titled as Forest (again not the final title but more exciting than just calling it my WIP). I’m 12,000 words into Forest and I’m really getting excited about it! Writing has been so much fun lately and I keep learning and improving my craft. I get as much excitement from learning how to write well as I do when I’m writing.

A book I’ve been slowly reading that I would recommend for writers and creatives is The Successful Author Mindset by Joanna Penn. It is extremely encouraging and motivating. It’s the perfect read to start off your new year with! Here is a quote that stuck out to me and that might inspire you. “The easiest way to deal with fear of judgement around one book is to write another book, because who we are right now changes and the next book is something else again. We morph as our work does, or vice versa. I find the fear of judgement lessens with every book I put out there, because I’ve moved on,” Pg. 26 Joanna Penn “The Successful Author Mindset”.

After fifteen years of writing, I have learned how to move on from one book to the next. I have definitely been too attached to one book that I forgot that I should keep on writing. It wasn’t until around 2017 that I finally moved on from that book and started writing other things. That book, however, eventually became a trilogy and I learned so much from writing that trilogy. Especially as I didn’t plan it out, yet somehow, it come together. I might come back to that series one day and do something with it, but I’m having fun working on new things now. I hope writing is going well for you and that you are having a great start to the new year!

Currently reading: Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amelie Wen Zhao, Fear the Flames by Olivia Rose Darling and The Successful Author Mindset by Joanna Penn.

Online course I’m currently taking: Publish Your Novel: Self-Publishing & Marketing Masterclass. The Complete, Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Publishing and Marketing Your Book and Launching Your Author Career created by Jessica Brody, Writing Mastery, Bethany Atazadeh

The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker Review

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“Everyone has terrible parts inside them, even if they pretend otherwise. You’re just honest about it,” Baker, The Keeper of Night.

The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker follows Ren Scarborough, who is expected to obey the harsh rules of the reapers society. The reapers do not like her because of her mysterious Shinigami powers and her elusive mother. Ren doesn’t easily reveal her emotions and avoids those who do not like her. Eventually, she can’t control her Shinigami powers and she has to escape London.

She goes to Japan, accompanied by her younger brother and enters the Japanese underworld. She is looking for acceptance in a world that does not accept her. She thinks she’ll find it in the underworld, but even there she has to prove herself. She gets help from her younger brother and a new ally. She doesn’t know whether or not this new ally is trustworthy, and romantic feelings may get in the way.

I really loved this book! The writing was very captivating. Baker used the five senses extremely well which helped put me into each scene. I also thought the character development was exceptional. I could see the growth in Ren as she tried to find acceptance in a world where she wasn’t accepted. She struggled, but she came into herself, with the assistance of a new ally and her brother.

Her only consistent companion her whole life has been her younger brother and as they went on this journey to the underworld together, their relationship evolved, which helped each of them turn into stronger versions of themselves. I think there is a lot in this book for readers to relate to, such as Ren trying to find acceptance and a place for herself in her world.

Annotating is something I just started doing while reading and I highlighted and tabbed so many beautiful passages, which really speaks to the masterful writing. As a writer myself, I know revisiting these tabbed passages will help improve my writing and worldbuilding because the worldbuilding was also excellent!

I can’t wait for the sequel currently set to release on October 4th, 2022. This is a duology I highly recommend, especially for the fall time as it gives off those creepy vibes! Happy reading!

The House Across The Lake by Riley Sager Review

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“You withhold and withhold and withhold until that mental dam breaks and all those bad urges come spilling out, often causing harm in the process.”

The House Across The Lake by Riley Sager follows Casey Fletcher, a widowed actress who is trying to stay out of the public eye and some bad press. She’s gone into hiding at her family’s lake house in Vermont. She spends the majority of her time watching the house across the lake with her binoculars, while drinking (she is an alcoholic). The couple across the lake, Katherine and Tom, keep her captivated. Katherine was a former supermodel and Tom is a powerful force to be reckoned with. Eventually, Casey and Katherine become friends. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems on the isolated lake in Vermont. The setting, Vermont in the fall, provides a character all in itself.

The longer Casey watches the house, the more concerned she gets about what may happen to Katherine. It seems as though Casey is obsessed with Katherine and the house across the lake, but maybe she has reason to be? The few people left in Casey’s life are worried about her current activities. It does seem as though she is unnecessarily obsessed with the home on the other side of the lake.

As the reader, it was interesting to see the mystery unfold. I don’t want to give too much of a summary in a review for a thriller as I don’t want to give anything away, but it needed some description. I thought the plot twists unfolded slowly and with enough intrigue for me to wonder what in the world was going on. I haven’t read many thrillers, but this one had so many twists that made me scoff out loud while reading. It also gave me the creeps as I read it late at night.

Then when I was swimming in a lake the next day, the major mystery that drives the entire plot and story made me scared for a moment and thankful that I had just finished the book and that I wasn’t going to go back inside and finish it that night, after swimming. That’s all I have to say about it.

If you want an atmospheric fall in new England whodunit kind of story with frequent plot twists that will keep you guessing, then I would recommend The House Across The Lake, which I think works as a summer read, despite it taking place in fall. Though, of course, you can read it anytime of year, but it suits both summer and fall.

My Process for Worldbuilding my Standalone Young Adult Fantasy Novels

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When I start writing a new young adult fantasy novel, it often begins with a complicated idea in my head. It also begins with a confusing magic system that I have to work out by thinking it through, and or writing it down in my drafting notebook. That idea makes sense to me, but then I have to figure out how to simplify it, so that it makes sense when I type out the first draft.   

I always want my idea for the book to be clear when I first start writing, but that is almost never the case. With each book I write though, it gets easier to make my initial idea for the book come across faster and with less drafts. I’ve been writing since I was fifteen; I’m almost thirty now and I have learned a lot in the last fifteen years about my writing process.  

It really is true what they say, practice makes perfect. I like to say that practice doesn’t make perfect, but rather it gives you the confidence to keep learning that one thing you are focused on. In my case, improving the stakes in my books and working on worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is my favorite part of writing standalone young adult fantasy books. Although, with these standalones, they all have the potential of turning into a series, but I enjoy having a satisfying conclusion to each book I write.

I used to second guess myself a lot when I was worldbuilding. It took me a long time to learn how to sprinkle pieces of information into the book without info dumping, or without it being boring. Now, I love sprinkling information in about the world, leaving little bread crumbs for the reader. It’s so much fun!

One of my favorite methods of not info dumping, is explaining the world through dialogue with my main characters, and through the main character learning something new about their world as they go along on their journey. I love how my process with worldbuilding has changed and how every time I sit down to write it gets easier and it’s more fun because I feel like I know what I’m doing now.