Holy Giveaway

For those of you that don't follow YA Highway, you probably should for no other reason that sometimes they have awesome (incredible) giveaways.  But YA Highway also has awesome book recommendations.

Giveaway here!

Seriously, check it out - there's so many incredible books to be had!

Poppy by Avi - Books that made me love reading challenge

For some reason, when I was younger, I adored the idea of mice doing battle so much so that I bought almost the entirety of Brian Jacques series without even reading a single one of them. I'm a book hoarder, sue me.

But I think that love all stemmed from Poppy.

When I was younger... I loved how a timid little field mouse could do such a grandiose task.  It made me feel empowered, and I think it made me respect animals a lot more.  She fought for her life and won, she kept on going even when it looked bleak, even when she thought she was going to die.  Poppy was a fighter, and I hugely respected her courage.

Now...  since I have grown to love and respect owls, it is a bit of a bitter sweet ending.  While the owl is completely manipulative, and is a good villain, he is also just trying to survive.  The easiest way for him to do that?  To insight fear into the field mice.  This was an interesting one to read over again.

It's funny, when I was younger, I used to record myself reading and play it back.  The purpose?  To understand how I sounded to other people.  I actually really hated my voice - and for the most part, still do.  I also had a lot of issues with reading out loud.  I would trip over my words in class, and I read Poppy to try to get better at that.

I don't think it was very successful, but hey, it was still fun.

On writing 9,000 words in a day

I know people have done this before, because people have written short length novels over the course of the 3-day novel challenge.

But let me be (probably not) the first to say that it's a lot of work.

Surprisingly, I got done a little over 3,000 words in an hour, so I can see where other people could accomplish a novel in a weekend.  But me?  I'm burned out.

When I get inside my character's head - really inside their head - and I'm writing from a hugely emotional standpoint (this whole novella has been one emotional trigger after another), I get my own gut wrenched.  I just spend the last thousand words sobbing as I brought my character to his emotional conclusions.  His resolve and the decisions that he has made for himself brought me to my own tears, as I know how I would feel if I were in the same situation.

And that's the thing:  It's every emotion at once.

Now that the 9,094 words are out of the way, I feel exhausted.  Not mentally, no, my brain can continue to pump out words for days.  But I'm emotionally hollowed out, my character burrowed a hole into my brain and I no longer have the emotional capacity for even myself.

Does anyone else get this emotionally invested in their characters?  I find that when I do cry, the words flow more genuinely onto the page, with true emotions and feelings.  The negative, well, I already said that.  It takes a lot of work.

I don't ever want to hear anyone say that writing is not a real job.

Oh - and now I have a fancy new Camp NaNoWriMo badge to show off in the corner.  Yay accomplishing goals!

Personal Update

I come to all of you readers from the past.  I wrote this blog post on Friday, but I didn't want to interrupt the blog tour mania. 

This month has brought quite an accomplishment - mostly me going insane.  Just a little insane.  Regardless, I will spend all Saturday finishing my Camp NaNo novel.  As of Friday, I had 10k to go.  And possibly, come Sunday, I might be done with a novella.

The Unanswerable started out as a blog short story, but someone asked me "Where's the rest of it?"  There was no rest of it, but I thought about this.  I thought about the characters, mulled over their circumstances.  And soon?  I had about ten excerpts from this story posted on my blog.

And I set out to eventually finish it.

I'm glad that July is going to be easier.  I'm planning on dedicating the month to editing Ruhe and Rioss and doing a ton of beta reading for other people.  I'm excited to finally be done with another project - but this Camp NaNo really took it out of me.  Due to my (in)sanity, I am also attempting Camp in August and NaNo in November.

Why?

Because the characters (voices) in my head won't leave me alone!  That's why!

Oh, that and if I finish my novella and another novel by October, I will have written four novels and one novella in a year.

And after never having written one?  And picking up projects only to put them down again for years?  I say it's the greatest accomplishment of my writing life. 

Moa Review and Blog Tour with Prizes!

Moa is a quick read focused on Hillary. Hillary begins the novel as a frantic and fearful person - sitting on a plane and reminiscing about her life and how she came to be at this very moment. She visits her sister, Molly, and her niece, Heidi in Hawaii. Life on paradise isn't quite as it seems, as Hillary begins to realize that her past is more intertwined with the Hawaiian Islands than previously imagined.

Although the main character in this book is Hillary, it is told from Moa's perspective. Moa is a gate-keeper of, what is essentially, the spirit world. The perspective is interesting, because the book changes focus a few times. The only confusing part is when Moa is talking in first person, sometimes she refers to herself in third. But, if you take that with a grain of salt, it's an interesting and very different technique with story telling.

Because of the Blog Tour, you can get Moa for only .99 on Amazon! For that price, it is definitely worth the read because you could finish it in one short plane ride - though maybe reading about someone who fears flying on a flight isn't such a good idea.

Be sure to check out all of the amazing things happening as a result of this Blog Tour! There's still tons of giveaways going on. Check it out on Novel Publicity!