Beautiful People | Isaac's Addicted to Mountain Dew

What's up, Wordlings? How's the month of March treating you this far? Is writing going well? If it's not, let this be a prompt to open up that document or scribbler and continue working!

This month's Beautiful People came out a few weeks ago which means that there's still time for you to participate. If you're interested, just follow this link and pick a character.

Speaking of characters, I'm currently in the middle of my secondary edits on "Living City" and have noticed that I haven't done too much work on one of my side characters, Isaac Ghassemi. He's the skeptic of the book and a fellow plane crash survivor of my main character, Kimerly. Ironically, I used to know more about him than any other character in the novel. Now I feel as though it's the exact opposite XD

Onwards to the questions!

What first inspired this character? Is there a person/actor you based them off?

There very well may have been something or someone but I can't remember who or what it would have been for the life of me. Isaac's become his own person now which I think is an achievement of any writer. His appearance however is based off of a younger version of Avan Jogia with shorter hair.  

Describe their daily routine.

Before the plane crash, Isaac woke up and ate breakfast at the table while studying for any tests he had that day. At school he hangs out with his best friend Colton and Colton's girlfriend, Audrey as well as Audrey's twin sister, Rynn. Somewhere in the day, he'll have a can of Mountain Dew since he'll need a caffeine boost from staying up late the night before.

At the end of every decent weathered day, he and his friends hang out in a gazebo by a pond and do their homework or play cards. Most of his actual productive work time is done once everyone is fast asleep in his house and he has yet, another can of Mountain Dew. He's gotta stay awake somehow XD

Isaac doesn't really hold a part time job but his dad pays him to do some general office work on Saturday afternoons at his business.

It's a pretty chill life for the most part. The plane crash into Tholus kinda messes everything up.

If they joined your local high school, what clique would they fit into?

Definitely the hyper-academics. He'd probably join the commerce club or the model UN club. I can see him in either. He'd probably try to run for some sort of high-up position in whatever club he joined too. 

Hey look! I found a short haired
version of Avan Jogia!

Write a list of things they merely tolerate. Ex: certain people, foods, circumstances in their lives…

• Arrogant people (which is slightly ironic since he's got a thin thread of arrogance himself) 
• Isaac likes to make calculated decisions so it bothers him when people in his student council jump to conclusions. 
• Broccoli
• Parmesan cheese 
• When restaurants don't serve Mountain Dew
• Friday nights when his sister and mom watch chick-flicks
• School dances
• Lastly (but not limited to), group presentations at school

How do they react in awkward silences?

While he definitely feels the awkwardness, he doesn't usually do much for awhile.

First he'll observe the group and analyze the reason for the silence. After a mental (or visible) eye roll, if he can and feels the need to, Isaac will say something to break the silence—usually a question to get people talking about something else. 

Can they swim? If so, how did they learn?

Yep, Isaac can swim. His parents put him in swimming lessons at the local pool when he was really little and that's how he met his current best friend, Colton. They were pretty competitive, timing each other on laps and trying to finish the exercises before the other one. 

What is one major event that helped shape who they are?

When he was ten, Isaac's travelled to New York with his parents to visit family. While there, they visited the UN building and that sparked a little fire in him that grew over the years. His dream job is to be an ambassador for the UN so he's made an effort to be a part of the student council and also learn Arabic and Spanish.

What things do they value most in life?

His family and friends for sure. They mean the world to him. Also, a pursuit of knowledge is super important to him. In his opinion, knowledge is power and success so his schooling and his personal study of language is placed on a tall pedestal for him. He also values Mountain Dew XD It's his favourite kind of pop and he greatly appreciates it's caffeinated qualities ;)

Do they believe in giving other people second chances? Do they have any trust issues?

Nope. No second chances. At least not if they're a stranger. Friends and family are different. He doesn't have trust issues really, he just trusts himself more than he trusts people he doesn't know especially when it comes to decision making. I guess it's more of a pride issue than a trust issue.

Your character is having a rough day…what things do they do to make them happy again? Is there anyone they talk/interact with to get in a better mood?

Colton and his other friends always know how to make him happy. A few rounds of cards at the gazebo or a trip for ice-cream, coffee or burgers will pick him up again. If something really bad has happened, he usually won't talk about it unless Colton forces it out of him which will them leave him admitting that yes, he does feel better. 

Did you do Beautiful People this month? If you did, tell me a bit about your character! 

Keep up the writing, Wordlings! 

Beautiful Books | Living City is Written....Now What?

November is over and a few weeks behind us which means that NaNoWriMo is officially over. So my wordlings, did you win? Did you come close? Even if you didn't quite make it, the fact that you made the commitment to begin with is beyond commendable! *showers you with confetti sprinkles*

Now that December has come it's time for the third month of Paperfury's blog link-up, Beautiful Books. This time it's about the aftermath (aka editing). 

This is the first time I'm experiencing this process of writing. I'm feeling a mixture of pride and uncertainty and I stare a lot at the box my manuscript resides in. I haven't even touched the first draft so I'm expecting some more strong emotions to come about. 
But anyway...onwards to the questions! 

On a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 (best), how did the book turn out? Did anything defy your expectations?

On boy....it's a blind analysis since I haven't really read over much. I'm gonna be safe and say 6 or 7. It's a first draft after all and there are some things that I know need improvement. I got lazy for some scenes and breezed through them knowing I'd edit later. The story itself though? I'm very proud of that.

There was quite a bit that defied my expectations, actually. Sometimes I'd be about to move onto a new scene and it would just feel wrong so I'd go with the flow, letting my characters guide me, when all of the sudden a new development twists the entire outline, forcing me to rethink some scenes I had originally planned. All of the defiances worked for the benefit of the story though so three cheers for that!

Comparative title time: what published books, movies, or TV shows are like your book? (Ex: Inkheart meets X-Men.)

I've always tried to figured this out but felt I never could....let's give it a shot though.

The Maze Runner (for the escape stuff) meets...Percy Jackson (for the mythos and ability stuff)? When I put it like that my story sounds rather cliche XD

I suppose that's what I get for coming up with the comparative title on the spot ;)

Maybe a splash of "Heroes" in there as well? 

Do you enjoy working with deadlines and pressure (aka NaNoWriMo)? Or do you prefer to write-as-you’re-inspired?

Deadlines and goals are much better for me. *inner adventurer screeches* Sorry, inner me! We can still spontaneously explore the world!

Without some sort of goal in sight that I can compare my progress to, absolutely nothing will get done. I'm the type that has to tell myself how many chapters I'll study for a final exam or in the case of writing, how many words I'll write by the end of the week.

I will write when I'm inspired but usually poetry will come out of that. If I want to make this author thing work, I need to write both when I want to and when I'd rather curl up and binge watch "Once Upon a Time" all day.

Plus, deadlines always make writing feel epic

How do you go about editing? Give us an insight into your editing process.

Well I've never actually gone through the editing process but so far I've taken some steps and have a plan...

Step one: 

Print off my full manuscript. 

Step Two: 

Box the manuscript and hide it for six weeks. 

Step Three: 

Send the first draft straight off the keys to my Alpha readers with guidelines for watching for continuity errors. For most, I send a list of questions to answer so I can get the feedback I need.

Step Four: 

Read over the Alpha feedback once all or most of it has come it and make note of important or repeated comments in my feedback journal. 

Step Five: 

Once the six weeks have passed, I can open the box and take out the manuscript to edit. I edit best when I can scribble all over the margins and mark up every mistake—I like visual proof that I'm fixing mistakes. It's soothing XD 

Step Six: 

Write draft two. 

Step Seven: 

Send the second draft to selected Beta readers for micro edits. 

Step Eight: 

Mark up a printed copy of draft two. (why do I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of money on ink and paper?) 

Step Nine: 

Read the comments and write them down like I did with the Alpha reader comments. 

Step Ten: 

Rewrite to form a third draft. 

Step 11: 

Reread the third draft and make any necessary changes ie. commas, spelling, word choice. 

That's the plan anyways....let's see how it goes. I've only gotten to step three so far. 

Bring on the rewrites! 

What aspect of your story needs the most work?

"Aspect". Thank you for not making it "aspects" XD

The beginning for sure. I was a little unsure of where the story would go when I started so it needs a massive reworking. It's choppy and rushed and confusing. Pieces are great but the pieces don't flow yet. I need to make that happen.

What aspect of your story did you love the most?

The ending <3 <3

I love my ending with a passion. It just fell into place and I wasn't expecting it to. It sets up the next book without being too much of a cliffhanger. I also really liked the build to the ending. There was a lot more action in it that I expected but I'm really glad so much of it got in there. As a reader, action is one of my favourite parts of a story.

Give us a brief run down on your main characters and how you think they turned out. Do you think they’ll need changes in edits?

Well this should be fun!

*Drags Kim to the stage* This is Kim. She's my main character and she's super determined...maybe too determined since it gets her into some trouble. Also, she's a little too independently wired for her own good. *pats her head* She needs to make friends.
She turned out exactly as I hoped and better. As I wrote, I found out a lot about her. I do need to change her reactions to a few events and also must explore her backstory some more. She lead me astray a few times so there's some false info in her profile. *parents glares her* 

And this is Colton. *pulls Colton onto the stage* He's my caring British character who is definitely the most level headed of the group. He's kind of the only one who can actually talk Kim out of something since he's reasonable and knows how to tailor information to certain individuals. One thing that I kept running into with this one is that he sometimes acted a little too much like Matt in both speech and action. I'll need to watch for that in my edits.

Lastly, I'll introduce you to Matt. *yanks him to the stage with Colton and Kim* He's not exactly the most charming of people but he's pretty helpfully so we've decided to keep him around, haven't we Kim? Colton?

Matt surprised me though, proving he has a heart for those suffering from injustice. It's a good thing this isn't a revolution story or he'd probably get himself killed.

So those are the main three for this book. *hugs them all*  

What are your plans for this novel once you finish editing? More edits? Finding beta readers? Querying? Self-publishing? Hiding it in a dark hole forever?

Edits and beta readers for sure. Beyond that, I'm going to be prepping all January to pull together a fabulous pitch—one sheets, first five pages etc. In February I'll be travelling to Florida to pitch it to agents and editors *fingers crossed*. If that doesn't work, I'll start querying and hit up some more conferences. I'm determined to be published. 

Share a favourite snippet!

Oh boy...this is hard. Most of my favourite snippets are at the end and they're full of spoilers. I do like this piece though: 

"Kim looked back at the phone and rolled the turtle charm between her finger and thumb. "What're all these phones from?" 

Matt reached into the box and pulled out one with a black protective case. "Wrecks." 

Kim's eyes darted to him. "Like…"

"It's a museum of stuff from Up There. What did you expect?" 

"Well I knew it would be like this but…all this stuff. It feels so personal to hold." 

Matt sighed. "I know what you mean. Whoever owned this phone, it's a piece of their life." He flipped the device over in the palm of his opposite hand. "You can tell a lot about a person based on what they owned you know." 

Kim glanced at him. "What do you mean?" 

"Well, this person has a protective case around an old phone. The case is black and clunky. Obviously they didn't really care about trends. Functionality was more important to them." He nodded to the phone in Kim's hand. "Whoever had that phone was obviously a girl, probably liked the colour green and maybe went to Hawaii or something." 

Kim looked at the phone. "I never would have thought of any of that." 

Matt dropped the phone in the box. "Yeah well you pick up on it when you're surrounded by this stuff.""

What are your writing goals and plans for 2016?

As I mentioned above, there's that trip to Florida. I hope to finish "Living City" to it's final draft and have the first draft of "Crec" written. If I'm lucky, I'll even have "Sunken Sky", Tholus's second book started. I'm super excited for 2016. It'll be a new era in my writing universe :)

2016, here I come

So that's the link up for this month. If you missed last month's post where I talked about the process of writing "Living City", click here and if you want to learn more about the story itself, follow this linky here. 

How was NaNo this year? 
Did you do Beautiful People? Share a link with me so I can read about your novel too :) 

Write on, Wordlings! 

Beautiful Books | The Process of Writing "Living City"

Hello, Wordlings! It's the second month in Paperfury's blog link-up, Beautiful Books and this time it's all about the process of writing the books was slave over in this crazy month some of us refer to as NaNoWrMo. 
Speaking of which, I've won NaNo! I completed it on the eighteenth and on that same say, I also finished the first draft of the novel at just over 95k. 
This post now seems incredibly fitting since it will kind of be like I'm looking back on my writing process as well as looking forward to what writing the next book will be like. 

So let's get to it. Onwards to the questions! 

Is the book turning out how you thought it would be, or is it defying your expectations? 

As of the completion of the first draft, it's defied my expectations but in the best way possible. I definitely thought it would have a slightly different tone to it and I imagined a lot of the scenes to turn out differently than they did—some scenes just sort of happened, too! It will obviously need some editing but overall, I'm super happy with what I've written.

Super, duper happy. How could I not?
This is my first ever completed draft!

What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)?

My first paragraph is only one sentence but here it is: 

              “Kyla, you’re late.” 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Have you ever tried both methods and how did it turn out?

I'm kinda a mix between the two so a plantser I suppose. I can't seem to do just one. I've tried just planning and I became stressed and suffocated by my own outline. I need be able to let the story flow. At the same time, whenever I tried just pantsing, my lack planning lead me straight to some pretty big moments of writer's block. The combination gives me direction without holding me back.

What do you reward yourself with after meeting a goal?

Web-camming sessions with my friend, Tori, new music, watching anime with another one of my friends, Kendall, watching some Good Mythical Morning or buying myself a slurpee. Sometimes I'll combine a few :) To reward myself for bigger goals, I might buy myself lunch or a bigger slurpee ;) 

A slurpee my sister brought me as a reward. 

What do you look for in a name? Do you have themes and where do you find your names?

Assuming this question means the name of my characters, I look for ease of pronunciation, if it's similar to any other characters I have in that book, if it fits the time period and genre of the novel and generally if I think it feels right. I don't usually have themes for names but I often gravitate todays 'A's and 'J's for some reason...

I usually find my names just by surfing around the internet. If I like a name, I put it in my document I've called 'Name Bank'. When I need a new name, I'll go through it and see if anything stands out. I think I have about 400 names in there by now. I'll never run out! 

What is your favourite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why?

I love writing the end. I love bringing things full circle, tiring up lose ends and having my characters ask more questions. There's something incredible about writing the end of a story. 

Kim using her ability

Who’s your current favourite character in your novel?

Kim, my protagonist is still my favourite. It could be a biased answer though since I'm writing from her point of view and have basically spent the last while living inside her head. She's got a clever sense of humour, is a little impatient and is definitely determined. I love her ^ ^ 

What kind of things have you researched for this project, and how do you go about researching? (What’s the weirdest thing you’ve researched?!)

I've researched a lot about the Bermuda Triangle. I've watched documentaries and read articles about people who claim weird things have happened to them around the triangle and about the Atlantis conspiracies. 

Basically my researching is composed of a simple google search which then leads me to more google searches, YouTube videos and pictures. I don't usually write a lot down. Instead, I'll bookmark sources. 

The weirdest thing I've researched for this project...hm...I researched a lot on drug tolerance and overdosing. You may not think so but I'd even say that researching the conspiracy theories was pretty high up on the list. It lead me to learning about a lot of pretty strange stuff.
I also researched what a dead body looks like for one of my writer friends....*coughs* moving on.

Do you write better alone or with others? Do you share your work or prefer to keep it to yourself?

I write best alone. The movement of people around me is distracting. I'm working on it though. I've managed to generate words on the bus to school which is a total plus. 

Ironically though, all my highest word counts come from warring with friends. Then again, those wars are over the internet so maybe that doesn't count. 

I share snippets but I like to keep it to myself. When a draft is finished though, I'll let a few people read it. I won't make the story completely public though until it's published or I've polished it enough for it to be published. 

What are your writing habits? Is there a specific snack you eat? Do you listen to music? What time of day do you write best? Feel free to show us a picture of your writing space!

Music is a must. I listened to a lot of HDSoundi on YouTube and "The Scorch Trials" soundtrack for this novel. As for snacks, I like to eat grape tomatoes and bell peppers will I write. For drinks I for a slurpee if I'm rewarding myself or tea and sometimes Coke if it's early but I still need a caffeine boost. 

Time of day has jumped all over the place. It used to be eight and then it was three in the afternoon and then eleven at night. I think it depends on my current sleep pattern and the wakefulness of my muse XD 

This is my living room where I make my home while writing. Here you can see the remnants of a reward, my journal, my fuzzy blue blanket, my blue English binder from school and my backpack because I'm also trying to balance that right now, and a glass of Coke over ice because it's just one of those times XD

So that's the link up for this month. If you missed last month's post where I talked about "Living City", click here. 

I'll be doing one of these next month too so make sure you follow me on my Facebook, Bloglovin' or subscribe to me with your blogger account or email so you don't miss it :) 

How's NaNo going for everyone? Do you have a few quirky things about your writing process?

Keep on keeping on, Wordlings! 

The 777 Tag | Excepts From My Novels

This week's post was supposed to be Beautiful Books with with university, I never got around to putting it together. So instead, I'm going a tag! Beautiful Books will be next week :)
I got tagged in this way back in May by my good friend, Tori at Stori Tori's Blog and was recently reminded to do it. With NaNo going, I thought it would be a fitting time to do it.

How it Works

It's easy! All you have to do is go to the seventh page in your work in progress (whether it's editing or writing), scroll to the seventh line and then post the next seven lines. After that, you tag seven bloggers to do the same thing. 

Since I have two works on the go, I'm gonna share an excerpt from both. I wrote this part of "Crec" last year so I'm a little hesitant to share this but why not, right? 

"Living City" is my NaNoWriMo novel that I'm working on currently. So far, so good, everyone! I'm surviving :D 

Onwards to the excerpts! We'll start with "Crec" so that we finish with the better except ;) 

"Crec"

“There.” Piper handed her the loose end of the rope. “Do you want me to thread your grigri too?” 

Masara shook her head and took the rope. She could take it from here. She wouldn't let Piper do everything for her. 

Piper thrust some gloves into Masara’s line of sight. 

Masara pulled them on. “Thanks.”

She tugged at the rope connecting her to the support beam. It would hold her, right?

To learn more about "Crec", head over to the Writing Dimension *points to the top bar*, or check out Masara's Beautiful People 1, Beautiful People 2, Beautiful People 3.

"Living City"

The chilling memory of the crash came rushing back. She gasped, her body lurching. Panic as cold as the water itself gripped her entire being. 

“It’s...it’s okay,” Andrew’s familiar voice breathed heavily. 

A rolling wave lifted them up and dropped them back down. Kim’s stomach sunk. She caught her breath. This would be it, would it? She would drown out here and her body would never be found just like in all those stupid documentaries she watched before the plane ride. 

If you'd like to know more about "Living City" or the characters in them, head over to the Writing Dimension or you can check out Louis's (the antagonist) Beautiful People, Matt's (a main character) character interview or my recent Beautiful Books post. 

As for the 7 bloggers, I always hate being selective about this so instead, anyone reading is welcome to take the challenge! Just comment below and let me know if you're gonna do it cause I'd love to read what you're writing :) 

How's NaNo going for everyone? Any excerpts (7th line or not) that you'd like to share?

See you all next week, Wordlings!

Beautiful Books | The Tholus Trilogy: Book 1

Guess what everyone? Beautiful Books is back! And by back I mean it's back on the Paperfury blog (an all time favourite blog of mine). I haven't done Beautiful Books yet but I'm really excited to!
This time of year they halt Beautiful People and doing Beautiful Books for the sake of all people doing Nanowrimo and even for those people who're just writing and want to talk about their work of art.
I'm participating in Nano for the first time this year as an attempt to become more disciplined with writing. For one thing, I need to have a book ready to pitch this February as I'll be making my first attempt at publication of a novel!
My amazing friend, Victoria from StoriTori has been helping me with every procrastinator's worst nightmare—*whispers* scheduling. One of those things on the schedule is blogging more frequently. Beautiful Books will help me with that. 

I'm choosing to do the first book, which is currently unnamed, from my Tholus (the 'h' is silent) Trilogy. It used to be called "The Dome" but because of confusion with Stephan King's "Under the Dome", I had to get creative ;)

But enough of that. Onwards to the questions! 

How did you come up with the idea for your novel, and how long have you had the idea?

I came up with the idea while sitting at the kitchen island with

my mom and my friend, Kendall. I was staring at the picture over there *points to picture* and said out loud, "How cool would it be to write a story about a flooded city? Or a city that's about to be completely flooded? What if all the people have to escape before it floods?" The questions came from a recent article I read about underwater hotels that were in development. 

I shelved the idea since I was working on another project but brought it back the next week when I entered a novel writing contest. Even though I pulled out halfway through, the time I spent on it was enough to solidify a premise. 

It's been about three years since that happened. Now the idea is being revisited for a makeover and complete drafting :D

Why are you excited to write this novel?

The Bermuda Triangle and other pseudoscientific conspiracies have always fascinated me. To fictionally explain one of them makes me a little giddy. I can't wait to complete my own explanation of why the planes and boats keep disappearing. Plus, my characters have been staring at me for some time now, begging me to write their story. *glances at them*

What is your novel about, and what is the title?

As I mentioned above, my novel is about the Bermuda Triangle. Kimerly Hayes, my MC, boards a plane bound for Bermuda that's pulled down into the ocean. There she discovers a city—not Atlantis, but Tholus—where superhuman abilities are part of how the city functions. However Kim isn't interested in abilities or underwater cities. She wants to go home. As she searches for a way out, she uncovers secrets and conspiracies about Tholas's history and very existence that threaten her life and the lives of ever citizen. 

Three cheers for coming up with that description in five minutes. Not too shabby, eh? 

As for the title, it's currently title-less. Thanks a lot Stephan King. *shakes fist at him* Oh well. More creative brainwork for me. 

Sum up your characters in one word each. (Feel free to add pictures!)

I have a pretty large cast so I'll just focus on the five main protagonists and one of my antagonists.

Kimerly—Quick-witted

Matt—Assertive (His Character Interview)

Isaac (he has shorter hair though)—Skeptical 

Colton—Level-headed

Rynn—Observant

Louis—Apathetic (His Beautiful People Post)

Meet Erik

Which character(s) do you think will be your favourite to write? Tell us about them!

I love Kim. She's my POV character and I love her. She's got a little bit of sarcastic sass that makes her interior monologues really fun to write. I also love her inner journey and can't wait to see her blossom as a person. 

Louis is my next favourite to write about. He's my twisted scientist. Any of my friends would agree that twisted is a good word to describe him. Despite his...experiments, he's somehow a character you can't help but love. 

Lastly, there's Erik. He's not super important in the first book but I can't wait to introduce him. He's another villain of mine who has a mansion in the forrest. He works in the museum and is infatuated with art from 'Up There' (land). 

What is your protagonist’s goal, and what stands in the way?

Kim wants to go home. However first she needs to find out if that's even possible. 

Because she skips class to find out some important tidbits, she gets in trouble with Louis and also the Council. 

Internally, she has some confidence issues. While she covers them up with her pride, her lack of self-confidence often gets in her way and prevents her from finding things out that could help her. 

On top of that, she's not the most sociable person. This is a pretty big obstacle since getting out of Tholas isn't a one man job.

Where is your novel set? (Show us pictures if you have them!)

Tholas is positioned at the bottom of the ocean in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. It's protected by a large dome that has a city, lake and forrest that loops in a ring around the edge of the dome.

City skyline I modled Tholas after

What is the most important relationship your character has?

This is an interesting question. I think I'd have to say the one she has with her parents. While you never see them in the book, she thinks about them a lot in interior monologue. When she thinks of going home, she often thinks of her parents. It's a driving force in her journey. 

How does your protagonist change by the end of the novel?

Kim isn't totally sure of herself yet but she's beginning to gain a bit of boldness. She's also got a group of friends around her that she's starting to love. She wants to protect them and would risk her life trying to save them. Also, her independence is still there but she now has learned to lean on others too. 

What themes are in your book? How do you want your readers to feel when the story is over?

Still trying to figure this one out. I think it will come more to me as I write. So far my thematic ideas are friendship and trust, how society and people masks their flaws, fear vs. love as a driving force, the dangers of curiosity, and where and how a person finds their worth. 

Some of those themes are themes for the whole trilogy and they'll be more prevalent in the sequels than in the first book.
I want my readers to be left thinking but I'm still trying to figure out what type of thinking. 

BONUS! Tell us your 3 best pieces of advice for others trying to write a book in a month.

1. Write

2. Write

3. Don't stop writing

Even 500 words is good. And also, word war! Find some writer buddies to word war with. 

As a university student, I squeeze in 250 words on the bus to school and 250 back. Then if I try to get up to 1k or 2k depending on homework.

Write on, fellow writers! We got this! If you did Beautiful Books, let me know! If not, feel free to tell me about your novel in the comments below. I'd love to here about it :) 

Staycation Writing Retreat Week 2

Hey guys! My timed post thing didn't work so once again, this is a delayed post. I really need to figure this thing out....
Anyways, this week marked a lot of exciting events but I still got my writing time it. One of those things is a job interview with a bookstore. A writer's dream, right? Fingers crossed that I get the job :)
Also, good news! I will be published next year in "Focus on the Family Adventures in Odyssey Clubhouse" magazine for my article in the Truth Pursuer section. Woot, woot! I can't wait to see my work in print in a big time magazine like this one.  I'm super pumped ^.^
One more piece of good news is that I got into university. I'll be studying psychology for four years in an undergraduate degree. You can bet I'll be posting what I learn here! 

Weekly Resource

Every heard of the Emotion Thesaurus? It's exactly as it sounds. It's a database of tons of human emotions and includes the physical, mental, internal, acute/prolonged, and suppressed responses to each emotion. It also includes a list of which emotion the once listed can lead to. 
While writing, I looked up a lot of different emotions to help me with description and internal monologue. It's so much more useful that I ever expected—a brilliantly written book to say the least. If you've seen this book around and have wondered if you should get it, let me be the one to tell you: get the book!

Find it on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles

 Weekly Writing Music

The scenes I wrote this week were a mixure of mysterious and intense atmospheres so I chose to listen to the Insurgent soundtrack by Joseph Trapanese. My favourite track this week is "Dauntless Arrive". It sparked a lot of very intense moments. 

Weekly Progress

Not as productive as I would like but I'm moving forward and that's all that matters :) 

Current Word Count: 5,154

Onwards to the next week!

Any update on your summer goals? 

Staycation Writing Retreat Week 1

Hey guys! Week one of my writing retreat has completed. 
It was a little harder to write this week since I was doing a lot of things that were away from my laptop. Most notably, I got to go to a berry farm and pick saskatoons in which my boyfriend and I made jam this week. I've never made jam before so it was a huge learning curve. My breakfasts are now ten times better than before though :)

Weekly Resource

While I was on my laptop this week, I did less writing and more planning. I've always prided myself as a "pantser" until this now. Turns out I might be more of a planner....or at minimum, a "plantser". 
I follower of the Go Teen Writer's blog and a member of the Facebook community. At the beginning of the week I read Jill Williamson's post titled, "How to Describe a Place". Being a person that finds it difficult to keep track of all the little details of people and places when I write, her suggestion to make checklists was revolutionary. 
Around the same, I was telling one of my best friends and writing buddies, Tori about my struggle to find direction in my writing. She suggested writing short scene descriptions before every scene. I loved this idea as well. Big picture outlines aren't really my thing—but this? This seemed manageable.
Both Tori's suggestion and Jill Williamson's suggestion lead me to a big time lightbulb moment. Why not combine both ideas? 
I spent a solid hour and a bit building a template on my computer and then spent a few days planning up to chapter four using my new template. I couldn't believe how help it was. My writing life became so much easier and my confidence level went up a bit. 
I decided to share the template here for anyone who thinks they could use it. Whether you need direction like me or are in need of a new planning document or even if you're unsure how to start your book and only want to use it for the first chapter, I would recommend it.
Click here to fill out the form and I'll have it email to you within the next twenty four hours. (I tried to make a link for you using google drive but it wouldn't work for some reason :p)
When you open it, save it as a template into your word processor and then you can easily access a new document any time. I hope you find it as useful as I have!

The blank template

My template filled out for the first scene of my book

 Weekly Writing Music

Since I was planning, I didn't end up listening to soundtracks like I normally do. Instead, I listened to an album by Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest called "Sylva". They don't write for movies but some of their songs (particularly the one I shared) sounds like trailer music. It's more jazzy than what I normally listen to but it was a really nice change. Listen to it below!

Weekly Progress

As I said above, I did more planning that actual writing. The planning also had me going back to deleting a whole chapter that I realized I didn't actually want.

Current Word Count: 2,790

Despite the low number, I now have a direction in my novel and can't wait to follow my scene planners this week. That number will be higher next Sunday. Guaranteed. 

How are your summer goals going? Have you been doing much reading and writing?