July Book Release Announcement

Hey guys!  I was interviewed over on Examiner - and I announced my upcoming project.  Which means, I am super crazy excited to finally announce my super top secret project here!

I'm well on my way to having my novelette fully edited by the end of this month, which means it will get into the hands of beta readers on time, which means the release date will officially be sometime in July!  I'll announce the date when we get closer.  But for now, the project!

Hipstopia - YA Dystopian
It's been three years since Murphy led the Hipster uprising. For three years, Jay has been by his side. All that's about to change. It starts with the beautifully intense Prisoner Forty-Seven... and a loaded gun.

Why on earth did I write something with such a silly concept?  I blame @courtney_s. My good friend Sarah pointed out a tweet by Courtney that said, "still waiting on a hipster dystopia YA because my god that would be chilling."  I replied with, "We don't do this because it's right or wrong. We don't do this for justice. We do this because it's fashionable."

I know, I know, it was a joke, and I probably should have let it die.  But I couldn't, I just couldn't.  All of a sudden I had this Murphy character floating around in my brain, then came Jay, and... well, I had to tell the story.

It will be a little over 100 pages.  It's a fun concept that came out of a silly tweet, but I took the writing seriously.  It ended up being satirical with a little political commentary.  It's definitely dystopian, and because it is so fast-paced, it might also appeal to people who love adventure stories.

As always, because my books cannot seem to live without it, it has just a little bit of romance.

I will reveal the cover in June - so stay tuned for that.  I'll announce the release date as soon as I have it finalized.  And I'll be running a giveaway once it's published for ebooks and (possibly) paperback copies of the book.  Exciting things!!

Oh yeah, and between now and then?  Try to stay fashionable ;) 

Monthly Goal Update

I am happy to start this post with:

I finished writing No Sugar Coating!

I know I don't normally get this excited about my projects when I finish them, but deciding to self-publish a few of my titles makes me insanely happy.  I have a deadline (February 2014) and a goal to work towards.  It's tangible.  There's a light at the end of the tunnel!

It stands at 47,000 words.  I was aiming for 50,000, but usually more descriptive meat gets added during editing.  My first draft is always in gray scale, so-to-speak, and the second draft gets painted with color.

So!  With that announcement being done, I have several other goals to touch upon.

May is going to be a busy month, but I'm ready, and excited, for it.  I have a trip back to New Hampshire to visit the family (much needed, since I haven't met my youngest nephew yet) and then I have all these shenanigans that I've set out for myself.

Before leaving:  finish the first and second edit of my top secret novelette project.  Deliver a copy to my husband, one of my awesome critique partners, and my roommate.

After getting back:  Do another edit based on feedback of top secret novelette project.  Get it to my beta readers.  Edit The Unanswerable.  Create mock-cover for The Unanswerable.  Start the IndieGogo for The Unanswerable. 

I took a look at my finished projects, and I was shocked to see how many of them are lying around right now.  I have four sitting, not actively being worked on, and one temporarily abandoned (until I feel like rewriting it into a darker NA story).  That's five projects that are doing nothing.

I look at that and think, "What am I doing?!"  I keep starting new, shinier projects and leaving my old ones behind.  It's daunting, looking at that back list, and thinking of how many edits, changes, etc. I have in my future.  But knowing I have plenty of things to work on feels good.

For the rest of this year, with the exception of NaNo, I will be trying to finish what I started.

Writing Over 20,000 Words in a Day

I wasn't sure I would ever get here.  Honestly, when I started writing again, squeezing out six thousand words in a day burned me out.

But this weekend, I set a goal for 10,000 words during a 24-hour competition of word wars. After getting woken up by cats at 4:30 am, I started writing.  I managed 1,600 before crawling back into bed (it was 5:00 am, could you blame me?). I woke up again at 7:30 am, a more appropriate time.  I wrote.  I didn't stop writing until my dearest husband made us breakfast - then I only stopped to eat.

By 4:00 pm, I finished my novelette, a semi-comedic dystopian.  It stands at 19,380 words.

Since I hadn't broken 20,000, I switched gears and wrote a few more thousand for No Sugar Coating.  My grand total of the day was 21,968 words.

A lot of people commented on my status updates and said I was a machine (okay, maybe I said that I was a machine).  I kind of felt like it that day.  My fingers kept writing in this weird autopilot.  It was my writing and me, nothing else came into play.

It was a little bizarre to finish the entire novelette in one day, almost like I had watched a friend grow up in the span of nine hours.

I wanted to share some tips on how I made this possible.

1. If you have a significant other, get him/her to support you for the day (like making food).  You may owe them a few back rubs.  If you don't have a partner in crime, be prepared with meals you can heat, eat, then resume writing.
2. Outline, outline, outline.  I'm usually write by the seat of my pants.  A lot of writers do this, and I used to love doing it.  But I've seen the light. Outlines can really save you from making weird little plot bunnies that don't end up going anywhere.  They can also help you stay focused.  I wrote 2,000 words in my outline.  2k for a 19k piece seems excessive, but my characters stayed on track.
3. Read over your outline the night before.  In fact, you should be thinking about your story almost constantly in the days leading up to this! 
4. Give yourself a reasonable goal.  Pass it.  Then keep writing.  I started with 10k.  Once I finished that and saw how early it was, I said, "I can do this."  Set my next goal for 15k.  Finished that, still had time.  So 20k it was.
5. Don't sweat the small stuff.  You will have grammatical errors and probably a lot of typos.  This is your rough draft.  It does not have to be perfect.  Can't think of the right word?  Find a quick filler and keep going.
6. Reward yourself.  If you achieve your first goal, you should allow yourself to do something that you don't normally do or buy a little something for yourself.  In my case, I bought more books.  (ALL THE BOOKS).

It's possible.  It takes a lot of focus, some fun and friendly competition, a super supportive group of people (thank you husband and members of the G+ community!!), and tons of motivation.

Any of you have big writing goals planned?  How do you approach a full day of writing?

Oh, and be on the lookout for upcoming news of my novelette.  I plan on releasing it in July, but there will be plenty of sneak peeks and information before then!

No Sugar Coating Update

My original intention for No Sugar Coating was to make it into a light and fluffy book.  One that you could pick up, read in an afternoon, and put down feeling happy/emotionally satisfied.  After outlining and writing the first few chapters, I realized it was the opposite.  While you can, and should, fall in love with Hailey, her story is atrociously depressing at times.

It's her character that makes her so interesting to write.  She has moments of teen angst, where she's disgruntled with the world. But most of her moments consist of this strange acceptance of the universe as it currently stands.  Hailey's voice tends to be sincere and poignant, which is why it has been so fun to develop her character.

It ranges from the ridiculousness below:

I glanced around my room, and not having anything better to do for ten minutes, I opened up my book for English. I swear, if I had to read one more depressing poem about the tragedies of mortality, I was going to force myself to barf all over this book and tell my teacher that my dog did it. 

I didn't have a dog, but I figured the puke filled pages would be proof in themselves. 

To something a bit more meaningful:

I found the concept funny. It was amusing that normal people, people without my "problem," would fret over something as undeniably true as the past.

I fell in love with Hailey because she has so many layers.  She wants that first high school love and simple things that the rest of us take for granted.  I think her "problem" only adds to her voice.

I've written 24,000 words so far with an original goal of 45,000 (to self-publish as a novella).  But the more time I spend writing Hailey's story, the longer I want it to be.  Considering I just finished Part 2 out of 5, I doubt her story will fit inside the 45k words anymore.  I hope to finish her story by the end of this month.

While I want instant gratification (share Hailey with all the readers!), I will wait until the book is fully edited and actually done properly.  I refuse to sentence readers to reading a book littered with grammatical errors and typos.

April Goals

March went by and was decently successful.  I have 23,000 words written of No Sugar Coating, my YA Magical Realism piece.  Though, I think calling it Science Fiction and putting it under "Psychic powers" or something like that might be more accurate?  It's contemporary, except the one, magical element.  Which, these days, can arguably be either Magical Realism or Paranormal.

Where We Collide has four chapters left of first edit of the third complete rewrite.  My critique partners have gotten me feedback on most of the chapters.  I still need to work on this throughout the month, but I'm really close!  I did rewrite my not-so-great query letter, so that least that's done.

I need to edit/rework the synopsis, focus on the first five-ten pages, and then send off queries.  I am so excited!

This month, I also plan on finishing No Sugar Coating.  Depending on the length, I might hold off on self-publishing and consider maybe seeking an agent for it.  But if it ends up being novella length (my original intention), I'll self-pub.  If I ends up being over 55k, then I might seek traditional publishing.  I think it's a great story, I'm really proud of it.

And of course, April brings the dreaded Write-a-thon day.  On April 13th, a few friends and I are participating in Camp NaNo's write-a-thon, but we've put our own twist on it.  I'm excited, and nervous.  In preparation, I've been outlining my top-secret-novelette project (which has a name that I won't announce until I get closer to the release date).  It's YA Comedic Dystopian (that's the only sneak peek you're getting).  I plan on writing it in one weekend, and I'm aiming for 20k.  I figure if I outline enough then I might be able to pull it off.

So now I have a bunch of new goals, which include self-publishing the top-secret project by mid-June/early-July and creating an IndieGogo for The Unanswerable.

Yay for new projects!  And yay for almost finishing old projects!