Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. I hope everyone has a great holiday, filled with family, food, and lots of good memories.

Building characters that work

Recently I was scrolling through facebook, as I usually do, and reading a few articles. One that caught my eye was about a man who had been married for such a short time that he hadn't gotten to see his wedding photos. I read most of the articles, wondering why the pair had broken up after such a short time, but not finding any answers. I commented, "Why did they get divorced?" in the comments section, but no one knew. I found myself wondering why I cared about a stranger getting divorced, and then I realized that a good storyteller can make you care about the people they write about, even if they aren't real or aren't a part of your life. It's always been a dream of mine to be a storyteller. I want people who read my writing to care about the characters and what happens to them. I want them to be on the edge of their seat when the character is in danger. I want people to stay up until one in the morning to finish my book, just like I do for my favorite authors. I know it's a hard path, but it's what I want to do. I want to write a book that makes people feel emotion.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a great day, filled with family, food, and friends.

Jessica Jones review

I know I'm doing a review on a different day than I've set aside for reviews, but I'm trying to whip this blog back into shape while editing and preparing to release my novel. I'm a big marvel fan, but I had to google Jessica Jones when I first heard she was getting a show. I'll admit, after reading about her character, I wasn't that thrilled that Marvel had picked Jessica Jones to give a show to. I would have loved a strong female character, but Jessica Jones is more of a bully. She makes choices that she should know aren't smart, probably just because she can. She's a drunken mess. I almost stopped watching after the second episode, and my boyfriend said he would have stopped watching if it wasn't Marvel. I think the only reason that I finished watching this show was because I didn't want to miss anything that may be seen later in the Marvel Universe, but the whole time I watched this I was asking myself why did this show exist, and couldn't they have found a better Marvel comic to adapt?

Neglecting my blog

I realize that I've been neglecting my blog lately, and if truth be told, I've been neglecting my writing as well. I have things that are finished and just need a little editing, so why haven't I been able to get them out there? Why haven't I been able to connect through my blog and social media at least once a week? Or even a month? I ask myself that every night before I go to sleep. Lately I've been thinking that maybe I'm afraid to get my writing out there. I don't want to fail at this, it's my dream. No one wants to see their dreams fail, but if I don't at least try I will fail.

Steps I'm taking to become more organized

I know that I need to get more organized so that I can get my writing out in a timely manner. I also need to pay more attention to my blog, which I also plan to do. I am using a empty notebook that I found to write down ideas for my blog, and notes for book reviews. I bought a planner, where I plan to map out my day and also plan my blogs. I want to use the planner to set writing related goals for myself. I also need to go through the files on my computer and see what has potential and what I can throw away. I think doing this may help me get things done on time.

Weekend Review: Even White Trash Zombies Get The Blues by Diana Rowland

I want to start out by saying that I do not like the book covers in this series. It kind of grossed me out to see Angel sitting on the toilet right on the cover. Toward the middle of the book the main character is kidnapped and held in a room that she believes was once a bathroom, so I think that's the main reason for this cover choice. Angel had some issues in this book that I think everyone could relate to, she's having trouble at work, people are using her past against her, and she's having trouble with her boyfriend. Her past is a major issue in the book, since people don't believe what she says because of her past. She does make an effort to better herself despite what others say about her, which I think makes her a strong character. Even though the character is kidnapped, I never felt like she was in real danger because she was always such a strong character. The entire time she was being held I kept wondering when she was going to get herself out of trouble. Let's get to the part that I didn't like, her boyfriend. While I like that this isn't one of those books where all the males are in love with the female lead, I don't like the guy that is dating her. He doesn't seem suited for her, and I would like to see her with someone else, someone that she has chemistry with. She says herself that she isn't sure how much she likes Marcus, which is another point in the book that I really liked. Usually the female character falls in love with one of the male characters over the course of one book. Towards the middle/end of the book there's a lot of action. There's a part that shows that there is a bond between the new zombie and the one that created it, which is suspected to be the reason Marcus is so taken with Angel. I think that would be interesting, but I'm not sure if I would like that to be the reason he's so taken with her. Overall, this was a good book and I do plan to read the other two.




BUY THE BOOK, It's on sale

Weekend Review: After Dead by Charlaine Harris

I decided to do another weekend review since I had checked After Dead out of the library as well. I remember when After Dead was released, I had already lost my excitement for the Sookie series and did not buy this or the last three Sookie books. This one was about fifteen dollars for the hardcover and very thin. I browsed through it in the store, but to be honest, it wasn't that appealing. I decided to pick this up at the library while giving Harris's new series a try. I advise anyone who may be interested in this book to do the same, go to the library. Do not waste money on this "book". I had forgotten who some of the characters were and skipped through to the ones I actually remembered and cared about. None of them had great endings, some of them were short, some of the endings were terrible (people dying and divorcing everywhere). It's the type of book you can read in five minutes.

Weekend Review: Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

I want to start out by saying I loved the Sookie Stackhouse books, and thought that I would be a huge Charlaine Harris fan. I found that Sookie Stackhouse was one of the characters that I related to most(in the older books). She felt like an outsider, and I think everyone feels like an outsider at times. I devoured the older Sookie books like candy and while I was waiting for the later books to be published I checked out the Harper books. Both characters had something supernatural about them, but Harper was the more realistic of the two. I loved both series, but I did want Harper to end up with Manfred. Speaking of Manfred, he's in Midnight Crossroad. Midnight Crossroad has a mixture of odd characters, including a vampire, a witch, and Manfred. Even the cast of supposedly interesting characters didn't help me to finish the book. Places and food were described way more than they needed to be. I only read the first fifty or so pages so this is more like a first impressions blog, but my first impression is that this book felt too much like it was trying to copy the Sookie books. In the end this book wasn't for me. I'm still trying to find a book that I can love as much as the Sookie books.


Buy The Book

Sneak Peek

Today I decided to take a peek at one of the short stories connected to Zombie Bite. This is not the main story, just a connected story. It's still in the editing process, but I decided to share a page, so here it is.

                “Why the hell are you sitting home alone on a Friday night?” I greeted my roommate, Darci.

            She didn’t reply as I dropped my purse and apron on the counter closest to the door, and walked over to the sofa, where she was hidden beneath at least ten pounds of blankets. I hadn’t seen her since this morning, but it looked like she hadn’t moved all day. I gasped when I caught sight of her once round face, which had grown thin during the five hours I’d spent at work. Her glassy eyes took a long time to focus on me, but when they did I couldn‘t help noticing they‘d taken a whitish tone.

            “You look like crap,” I said before I could stop myself. I had a habit of saying whatever popped into my head, which sometimes got me into trouble, but Darci had never seemed bothered by it.    

            “I think I’m getting sick,” she mumbled in response.

            “Do you want me to bring you to the doctor?” I asked.

            Darci had always been chubby, but now she looked frail, so thin that her bones were visible beneath her pale skin. The way she was sprawled across the sofa made her look like a rag doll. “Can you turn the light out? It‘s killing my eyes.”

            “Darci, I think you should go to the doctor,” I said as I made my way across the room to turn the light off.

            “Shh, let me watch the news,” she interrupted.

            The light from the TV danced across her pale face, casting her in tones of blue as the words ‘breaking news’ flashed across the screen. The tv was louder than I would have liked, but I took a seat on the floor in front of the sofa. A blonde news reporter stood in front of a house that had been roped off by crime scene tape. 

Big News!!!

I realize that I haven't shared much about my writing lately. I had been planning to self publish Hair Of The Wolf as my first release, but I decided against that. As I was looking at Hair of The Wolf I realized that there was something that didn't fit with the ending, so I took a break from that to work on another story(one featuring grim reapers). When the first draft was nearly complete I decided to look at all of my work, and I came across Zombie Bite. Zombie Bite was a short story that I wrote about zombies. I think that I may have even put the first few paragraphs online because I wasn't sure what to do with it. It was complete, aside from needing a few edits, but it was short. It might be fifty pages, and there are two other short chapters I have on my computer relating to Zombie Bite. I have decided to finish editing Zombie Bite and self publish it. I will look at the short chapters and possibly post those on this blog. I will probably also include them in the book itself as well.

Selling yourself as an author

I've been thinking a lot about the way that I present myself as an author. I haven't published anything yet because I haven't felt that my work was ready, but when I do I want to be prepared. While I know what to do when I am called to a job interview, I have no idea how to sell myself as a writer. I've tried this in the past in query letters, and been told that the query letter was great but my story wasn't. I didn't mind being told that my story wasn't great. I made a big mistake by trying to send my work out before it was ready. I think a lot of young authors do that, and at the time I was about 19. Now that my writing has matured I feel like I need to take a different approach to selling my books. I'm just not sure how to do it. I don't even know when to start, or where.

Weekend Review: Bewitching: The Kendra Chronicles

I don't read many young adult novels, but whenever I do I wonder if it will be too young for me. I decided to read this one after reading Beastly, only to find that this one is too young for me. It's basically a retelling of Cinderella with bits of other fairy tales thrown in. In Beastly I liked Kendra, she was probably my favorite character, in her own novel she's basically a supporting character. I did like hearing what happened to her family and I guess the retelling of Hanzel and Gretal didn't bother me. I also liked that she explains why she keeps going to high school. I didn't care for any of the other characters, they were all bland. I honestly couldn't find myself caring about any of them, but I did wish that the book would have focused more on Kendra and not the other characters. This book is such a disappoint to me. Hopefully Towering is better because I bought that one too.

Young Adult

I've never written a young adult novel, and I don't know if I plan to. I didn't really read young adult novels until recently. When I was a teenager there either weren't as many young adult novels or they were poorly marketed. I remember reading Stephan King as a teenager. I think Smack and Speak may have been the only young adult novels that I read when I was a teenager. I kind of wish some of the novels that are available now wold have been there when I was a teenager. It would have been nice to read about characters who weren't one dimensional with easy to solve problems. I don't remember going to the library and seeing a section with vampires, werewolves, fairies, etc. When I was a teenager I think most of the fiction aimed at us was realistic, and that's a shame.

Why having other interests is important.

In the years since I've decided to try my hand at writing professionally(or at least trying to get there), I've pushed aside all other interests besides writing and reading. I would occasionally play a video game, but would soon push that aside to do something related to writing. Now I feel like it is important to have other interests. Not only does having other interests improve my writing by helping me build stronger characters, but it helps me to relax and take my mind off of things.

Tech Support

Lately I've been doing a lot of editing, but my computer recently put a stop to that. I write on a laptop, I just think it's easier and I can bring it anywhere, and suddenly my mouse pointer disappeared. I couldn't click on anything! I couldn't scroll, I couldn't select anything, and I've never been able to use the computer without a mouse. This morning I finally got in touch with tech support, and the solution was simple (I just had to press f5). I was a bit scared that I would have to lose all my writing. I try to keep everything on a flash drive, but I forgot to save recently. Luckily, I got my computer to work again, but I need to start saving more frequently.

Creative Freedom

Creative freedom is something that I have personally struggled with for almost my entire life. I remember thinking about how people would see me if I wrote something they didn't like. I had a hard time sharing my work with my family and closest friends. I didn't want them to think of me as violent because I wrote about monsters. I also didn't want them to tell me what I should write, or let them influence me. I think that's part of the reason it's been so hard to unleash my writing around the world. I'm scared of what my family will think. I've always loved writing about vampires, werewolves, and other scary creatures, but I know there are some people who don't care much for those creatures. I was worried about what they might think if I wrote about zombies, or werewolves. I couldn't even write with my boyfriend in the same room as me, even though he likes all the creatures that I write about and displays interest in my writing. I came to realize that I was only holding myself back. I will never be able to be a successful writer if I don't embrace my creative freedom. I am the only one who thinks like I do, which means I am the only one who can tell a story like I do. I have to write the stories that I want to write, without fear that someone will try to tell me how to write.

Perfect Writing

I haven't been writing very much about writing. That's probably because I've been busy writing and editing. I feel like I can't just throw something out into the world. It has to be perfect, and I never feel that anything that I write will be perfect. Maybe it's not supposed to be. Maybe all writing has flaws and I just can't always see it because I'm not the one who wrote it. I think all authors feel that way, but I'm not sure when they know their book is finished. When do you know the book that you wrote is as good as you can get it? Can it always get better? I'm sure if you passed around a notebook to every person in the world and told them to add to or edit the current story you'd get an ever changing story that become better with each stroke of the pen. I know there's no perfect, but when is there the best I can do? I think I'll always feel like I can do better, that's why my books aren't out yet.

Casual Tuesday: Black Widow toys

I was going to wait until Friday to post this, but I figured I may as well say something while this is still a hot topic on the internet. One of my favorite memories from when I was younger is when I was about six or seven years old and I went to pick up a pizza with my father. The pizza restaurant had a Street Fighter 2 arcade game near the entrance and my father and I played it together. It was the Street Fighter that only featured eight characters, but one of them was Chun Li, a female fighter. I later asked for the game for my birthday, in fact, I still play the game now as an adult and Chun Li is still one of my favorite fighters in the game. What's the point of this story? Well, as a young female I liked having a character in a game or movie that I could relate to. If I was young now that character would probably be Black Widow or the Scarlet Witch, which makes me wonder why there are so few toys and other merch featuring these ladies. I'm sure girls would be glad to see a character that they could relate to on t-shirts. I'm sure the action figures would sell, because I used to have pink ranger action figures when I was little and used to love power rangers. I saw a post earlier that said there's no Black Widow stuff in stores because it wouldn't sell. It wouldn't sell because boys wouldn't like it, the poster said. I quickly pointed out that girls would buy it, but I should have stopped to think before I replied. I'm sure if I had I would have pointed out that in most cases it's the parents buying and not the little boys. It's the parents that are making the choice of what they want to see in stores. In any case, I know if the internet caused this much uproar about a toy then there must be a demand for it.

Weekend Review: BookPerk App

I'm always looking for something new to read, so I subscribe to a few emails that showcase free books. I noticed an ad for an app at the bottom of one of those emails and decided to check it out. I already have the kindle app and I love it, so I figured this would give me more titles to read on my kindle. I was wrong. The app itself is a reading app and the titles you download are only in the app. None of the books appear to be free, and I rather the design of my kindle. I can't see myself using this app very much so I am planning to delete it after this review.

Weekend Review: Avengers Age Of Ultron

 I know that I need to get back to writing reviews on books, but I haven't been reading very much to be honest. I do love comic books, and I love checking out their adaptions. I did have a problem going into this movie though. This movie was released about a week earlier overseas, which means it was pirated and online already. There were already reviews up on this movie and a lot of them were negative. I wasn't sure that I even wanted to see it, but my boyfriend did so we got tickets and went. I'm glad that we did because it was better than the first. The only thing that I really had an issue with was the Hulk's lack of original story. He's been self loathing since his very first movie, and I understand his self loathing is a big part of his story, but he has so many other story lines that unfold in the comics that it seems to be a shame that this one is the one that keeps getting used. He's also Natasha's love interest, but the romance didn't seem real. It seemed like the romance was there to make flesh out Natasha's character, which they did. Hearing about her past was interesting, but I just don't think she could ever carry a movie. My two new favorite characters were the twins. I was just a little disappointed that they weren't called mutants and there was no Magneto reference. I know the characters are owned by different studios, but it would have been nice. I couldn't get interested in Hawkeye. I did like Thor in this movie, which is unusual since I don't like any of his movies. I never cared for Iron Man either, but here he was decent. Captain America didn't feel like a leader. It felt like everyone was doing their own thing, but I did really like his ending. The action was ok, but it didn't blow my mind.


Four Out Of Five Stars

Writing strong female characters

I love writing strong female characters, but I also think a strong character deserves a good story. I know a lot of people think of Charmed as the perfect example of this, but it isn’t. The characters may have been strong, but the story was weak. It was a monster of the week format where everything was tied up nicely in one or two episodes. There wasn’t any need to keep watching. If you’ve seen one episode of Charmed than you’ve seen them all. While this format may be fine for a standalone book or a movie, it doesn’t work so well in a book series or tv show. Once I’ve seen one episode or read one book there’s no reason to keep reading or watching. It may be great to have a storyline that you can wrap up so quickly, but it won’t keep people reading. 

Weekend Review: Mortal Kombat X

I know that I'm probably a little behind with this review, but I wanted to test everything out before posting a review. Mortal Kombat has always been one of my favorite games. I remember going to a place called Mo's Pizza(where they served amazing pizza) and playing Mortal Kombat on the arcade machine while I waited for my dad to get the pizza. I've managed to play almost all of the Mortal Kombat games, including the Special Ops one with Jax that was probably one of the worst games that I've ever played. When Mortal Kombat X was announced my boyfriend preordered it and we even went to the release event at GameStop. The ac was broken, but we ended up staying for hours to get the game. Upon playing it I realized that I liked the graphics of the game more than any of the previous games. I liked seeing some familiar faces back to fight again, but I couldn't care less about the new people. Not even Cassie Cage, the daughter of Sonya and Johnny Cage. The normal combat mode was great, but I had problems with the story. I think the story should have started earlier, like five years earlier when Shau Khan was replaced with Kotal Khan (who is probably my least favorite character to fight with). I pretty much sat there with my mouth hanging open at the end of story mode. Nothing was resolved, and the final match was too easy. The difficulty on this game is too easy. If you play the game on medium it feels a bit like you're playing on easy. The story was lacking, but the visuals, fighting, and special moves make up for that.



Three Out Of Five Stars

Tv adaptions that don't follow the book

This morning I turned on the tv to find that the season premiere of Bitten was on. I've talked about Bitten before, and I honestly do not like the series. I did watch a little of it, since I had read the second book and wondered if the second season would follow that story line. It didn't appear to, and that got me thinking about tv and movie adaptions that don't follow the story line that unfolds in the book. I don't really mind if the story in the book and the story that unfold on tv or a movie are the same as long as they don't change it up too much. I still want to know that what I'm watching is something from the same vein as what had been written. I want it to be similar enough to know that what I'm watching was inspired by the book or graphic novel of the same name. I think if it was my work being adapted I would enjoy seeing where others went with my work. There wouldn't be much point to watching a tv show or movie if you already knew what was going to happen, but there has to be a balance. It still has to resemble the original work enough for the fans, but be different enough to keep people interested.

Writing weaknesses

When I was in elementary school I remember one of my teachers telling us the importance of adding weakness to our characters. She said that readers don't like to read about a character who isn't flawed and doesn't have some type of weakness. I found myself thinking about that a lot lately. I'm currently writing about a character who is almost human, she just has one thing that makes her stand out. I think that makes her more complex, a little harder to write but more entertaining. No one wants to read about a character who can get through anything thrown at them.

When should you promote your books?

Today I came across a post on twitter saying that you shouldn't promote your first book until you have three or four released. I always thought that you were supposed to promote before you released anything, which is part of the reason that I started this blog. I was told that a good way to promote was to give reviewers free copies of my book and let them review it early, but the post that I read today said that you can waste time and money if you don't have multiple titles out. Both options make sense, but I'm not sure which will work better. Free feel to let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Free Kindle Books

I recently downloaded a bunch of free kindle books. Kindle books are usually given away free when an author wants to expand their audience, or when they just want to get their work out there. I think giving away kindle books for free is a good way to get reviews and get more people to check out a book, but how do I feel about this as a reader as opposed to a writer? I haven't read a single one of the kindle books that I've downloaded yet. All of them are just sitting there on my kindle app, waiting to be read or at least cracked open. I guess I just feel more willing to read a book that I was willing to pay money for. Not saying that the free books aren't great, a lot of them are, but I feel like if I'm willing to spend money on something I better read it.

Weekend Review: To Hell and Back

I decided to do two reviews this week, one on Daredevil and one on To Hell and Back by H.P. Mallory. H.P. Mallory is an author that I really admire because she started out as self published and still publishes some of her stuff like that. After reading the other two Lily Harper books, I could barely wait for this one to come out, but now I wish I hadn't picked it up. The idea that the female heroine of this story could be attacked and still like her attacker is promoting unhealthy relationships. I just couldn't get past that. I didn't enjoy this entry, but I will give the next one a try. Hopefully Lily gets more character in the next one.

Weekend Review: Daredevil

Anyone who knows we knows that I love Marvel superheroes. Daredevil is one of my favorites, and when I heard that he was getting a show on Netflix I couldn't wait to check it out. I watched every trailer I could find and got excited when someone posted a link to the suit. When the actual show was released to Netflix I stayed up late to watch all the episodes. I loved the show, but I did have a few problems. I think the guy who was cast as Wilson Fisk was wrong for the role. His acting took away from the story, and I just wasn't interested in his story. He wasn't big enough to play Wilson Fisk and did not strike me as scary enough to be a kingpin of crime. Whenever his face was on the screen I found myself looking at my phone, or talking to my boyfriend about how much Wilson Fisk annoyed me. Another thing that I didn't care for was that I had to explain certain things to my boyfriend, who is a non comic book reader, because they weren't presented clearly on the show. I think that a lot of people may have had trouble with that. I also didn't like the costume, and I didn't like that it took so long to be revealed after the image of Daredevil in full costume was revealed. I just felt like it was underwhelming. Now, let's get to the good part, I enjoyed the darkness of the show, the black suit, the acting(for everyone but Fisk). The story was great, Matt and Foggy had a friendship that made me jealous. I would love to have a best friend like that. I also liked that they put a mention of Elektra in there. I hope she's in the next season.

Casual Friday: Tv shows

I'm trying to share more about myself, since I want to build a relationship with those who may be interested in reading my work. I'm still not really sure where to start, so I will start with my favorite tv shows. 

The Walking Dead: I, like most others, seem to find myself watching whenever a new episode is on. The last season dragged, and there really was no big bad, but I think I'll tune in next season and to the spin off!

Supernatural: Another show that's starting to drag for me, but I can't stop watching because I want to see where it goes. 

American Horror Story: I almost gave up on this show last season, but I want to see how the seasons are connected. 

IZombie: A fairly new tv show. I loved Veronica Mars, and I'm starting to love this. 

Awkward., Catfish, and Finding Carter: This mtv trio is the perfect boredom killer. 

Abuse in books

I never thought that I would make a blog post about this. I don't usually read books that feature abuse, sexual or otherwise, but a few days ago I was reading To Hell And Back by H.P. Mallory. I loved the first two books in the series, and I expected to like this one, but a few pages in the main character gets attacked. The abuse itself wasn't what bothered me about the book, but the main character's reaction to it. The main character's love interest shares a body with the soul of a warrior, the warrior takes over and attacks the main character. The main character manages to fight him off, but she's still attracted to her love interest. I think most normal people would at least freak out, not suggest starting a relationship with the person who attacked them. He wasn't in his right state of mind, but that doesn't excuse the writing in this book. How could a woman just forgive and forget and be ready to start a relationship with her attacker, or someone who looks like their attacker. How is this ok? Why would H.P. Mallory write a scene like this? I guess I will never understand the trend with abuse in books.

What do I see in my old writing?

I recently came across some things that I had written when I was younger. I was probably in my late teens or early twenties when I wrote them, and I couldn't help seeing how much I'd grown as a writer. I notice the early flaws that I made, for example, I never thought my plot through, and there were often grammar and spelling errors throughout, but my characters were well thought out. The story line that was there could be usable in future works.

Does life experince equal writing experience?

Today I am tasked with applying for jobs online. I have recently gone through some major changes, and I can't help but wonder how they are affecting my writing. One of the characters in a story that I am currently working on works in a shoe store. I used to work in a shoe store. I was the manager of said shoe store, so do I find myself drawing from my own experiences? Yes, I do. That doesn't mean that I think you have to work in a shoe store to write about working in a shoe store. I do think there are some things you need to experience for yourself before writing about. I would feel uncomfortable writing about an emotion if I had never experienced it for myself. I'm not sure if I would have given this character a job working in a shoe store if I had not had the job working in a shoe store myself. With other characters, other professions make sense. I find myself having to use google a lot. I would actually like to find people in a few of those professions and ask them for more details about their jobs. There are some things you won't know unless you've been in their position. I find that it is easier to write things that I know, but I also love learning about new things and writing what I've learned. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter. I'm currently adjusting to something new, so I haven't been able to blog much. Hopefully I will be able to soon.

My blogging nightmare

I decided that it was time to get a domain. I thought it would be a good idea to draw in more readers. I think I should have just stuck with my blog. I bought a domain name, since it was just twelve dollars a year. Anyway, I'm not the greatest with web design. I don't really know much about building a website. I bought the domain name jademcauthor.com and tried to link to this account. That resulted in me without a website for an hour. I am still working on getting things linked correctly. 

Casual Friday: My first job

My first job, as you may imagine, wasn't anything glamorous. In fact, it was the opposite. My first job was preparing food at McDonald's. I used to have to wake every morning at around four in the morning so that I could prepare to be there for five in the morning. I did things like prepare the salads and yogurts. It wasn't the greatest job, but it allowed me to buy a cd or dvd each week while I saved the rest of my money for a car. It was while working there that I started playing a lot of video games. I played video games since I was young, but it's different when you're older and you play them. I started playing games like the sims and Spyro. I started going to a place called Rhino Games that sold used games for older gaming systems. I would get a few games every week and play them with my sister. We would usually go together. Rhino games had a deal that if you bought two games you got one free, I usually let my sister pick one and I picked the other and we would both decide on the free one. That's actually how I ended up playing Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil is one of my favorite games, well the Resident Evil games that I've played. I guess this blog is more about what I spent my money on from my first job.

Do I prefer Kindle or actual books?

If you had asked me this a year ago I would have said actual books. I used my kindle from time to time, but it was never my favorite platform. Kindle was an app on my phone, which meant that it was hard to see, and I've always loved holding a book in my hands. I love having a book mark and putting the book down when I need a break from reading. I realized very recently that there are a lot of benefits to the kindle that I have been overlooking. Price is a major factor to me in the books that I do buy. I might love an author, but when payday comes my rent comes first. Kindle has a lot of low cost and free books. I don't really feel bad about spending money on kindle because it's not much and if I don't like the author at least I've given them a try. Another great thing about kindle is that there are more self published authors there than anywhere else. A lot of people may say that's a bad thing. It does mean that there will be more books which haven't been edited. In most cases, I can look past bad editing for a good book. If someone asked me which I preferred now, I'm sure it would be a tie. I love paperback books, but I also love reading a book on kindle and being able to bring it everywhere.

More old writing!

As I was digging through some of my things I found some more old writing. This is from when I was sending things off to the Long Ridge Writer's group. You can see my progress and see what they wanted me to change. You can also see how immature my writing was at the time. I think I've grown as a writer, and I did learn from the writer's group.

Very Old Writing

I was going through my stuff and found this very old piece of writing. I was thinking about doing something with vampires and angels, but I'm not sure that I ever will.

Business Cards

My business cards just came in and I am excited. I might go with another design next time, but for now these are good to test and see if they help with marketing. I plan to carry them around and leave them anywhere I find a bulletin board. I also plan to give some out to people that I meet.

Casual Friday: My writing origins

Many superheroes have an origin story, a story that explains who they are or how they got to be who they are. I realized today that I hadn't shared much about myself and I also didn't share much about my early years writing. I think that I always had an interest in writing. I'm not sure if I was one of those authors who used tell stories before I was able to write, but I do know that I made everyone read to me. One of my early favorites was the Bernstein bears.

When I started going to school I started writing short stories about dogs and cats and my friends. As I grew older I started writing stories with vampires and werewolves in them. Needless to say, Goosebumps had a big influence on me.

When I turned twelve I started writing songs, but they were more like poems because I didn't have anyway way to make music. I didn't play instruments, and I think that most people would be happy if I didn't try to sing. I kept writing poems until I turned about eighteen and then I took a break from writing. I didn't write again for years. When I did decide to write again I was in my twenties, and I no longer wanted to write songs. I wanted to write stories. I had an idea for one in particular, it was about a woman who could turn into a fox. The idea wouldn't go away so I had to write it down. I got a good way into the story before the computer I was currently using crashed. I was beyond upset. I hadn't done anything to back it up. I may go back and rewrite it someday, but it was my early work and probably wasn't very good. I started on another story, and then I started querying agents. I made a couple of really huge querying mistakes during that time. I think the biggest mistake was that I didn't ever finish anything before I sent out queries. I was just so excited that I decided to research how to query and then I sent out my work. I thought that I could work on a deadline, but I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have been able to. Every response that I received was a rejection, so I knew I had to work harder. I decided that I should give up on querying for awhile and work on the actual act of writing. I finished the first rough draft of Hair of The Wolf, which was titled something different at the time. After finishing Hair of The Wolf I decided that I didn't want to go the traditional route. I had heard a lot about Amanda Hocking at that time, and while I know her story isn't typical, I also learned a lot about self publishing. I decided that it was the way that I should go with my work. I could get my writing out there quickly and learn more about the publishing business. I could make mistakes and learn from them. Anyway, long story short, that's how I got to be where I am. Hopefully I will be able to release my book soon.

Why I want negative reviews.

My novel should be out soon, and as much as I'm scared of getting negative reviews, I also want negative reviews. I don't want all negative reviews, and hopefully I'll have more positive than negative. Perhaps I should just say that I want honest reviews. I want to be able to look at a negative review and know what the person writing the review liked and what they didn't like. I don't know if I will be able to read all reviews, I know the more reviews I get the harder it will be to read them all. I would love to have a lot of reviews. If someone feels strongly enough about my work to review it I would like to know what they thought.

Weekend Review: Divergent the movie

If you are interested in reading my review for the book please click here. I wanted to like Divergent. I thought it would be a cross between the Hunger Games and the Giver, both of which I enjoyed. It wasn't. It was an average film with very little to think about. Everything in the plot was basically spelled out for you. The main characters were boring, and their romance came out of nowhere. The action scenes were decent, but they weren't near what they could have been.

How I portray myself vs. how I should portray myself

For the past few weeks I've been looking at my blog and thinking about how it portrays me. Would I want to buy a book from this author if I happened to stumble across this blog? No, I wouldn't. It's not the design of the blog itself that's been bothering me lately. I know that needs improvement. I need a few days to just sit down with the blog and give it a face lift. It's a small bit better than it used to be, but still not where I need it to be. What's been bothering me the most about my blog is the posts that I've been making lately. I've been writing short posts that aren't very well thought out. It doesn't make me attractive as a writer. As I noted before, I wouldn't want to buy a book from someone who doesn't take the time to work on the actual posts in their blog. It would make me wonder if the book was going to have similar content. I've worked really hard on my actual novel, but when you're self published, or planning to be, you are your own marketing team. You have to pay attention to what you put out there. Every blog post, facebook status, and twitter update is a chance to reach more people.

Does a book have to be well written to be enjoyable?

If you asked ten different people what makes a book enjoyable for them you'd probably get ten different answers. I wouldn't be able to think of just one answer if I was asked that question. Something I've never really thought about is if the book has to be well written to be enjoyable. With the recent release of the 50 Shades movie, I've noticed lots of people commenting about how poorly written. I haven't read the book myself (or seen the movie), so I can't really say what if the errors in the book would be enough for me to put it down. I have put down books in the past because they were poorly written. Although I have put books down, that doesn't mean that they have to be perfectly written to be enjoyable. A book can have typos, or use the same words over and over more times than it should and still be a good book. I think a book can have errors, I am going to try my best to write the best book that I can.

Casual Saturday: Power Rangers Fan Film

I wasn't able to post yesterday, but there was still something I wanted to post about. When I was younger I loved the power rangers. I was even a power ranger for Halloween in forth grade. Now that I'm an adult, I find myself looking forward to the upcoming reboot, so when I heard about the fan film that was getting so much attention I had to check it out. I wish I could say I liked it. I think the majority of people who watched it did like it. I think the biggest problem that I had with the fan film is that the power rangers always fought aliens, in this it took place after some sort of war against the machines. The film had no zordon or alpha, no Goldar or Lord Zedd. The story was lacking, the acting wasn't as great as it could have been, but it was a power ranger movie so I suppose it's ok. I didn't believe any of the people in the roles that they were in. This did not feel like a power rangers movie. The power rangers has always been a little goofy, and that is part of it's charm. I would love to see a dark power rangers film that still had the charm of the original show. What's wrong with fighting some villains and then hanging out at Angel Grove High? That's what the original rangers did. What's wrong with Bulk and Skull being goofy? Maybe the fan film was too gritty for me.

Writing isn't as easy as you may think...

In the past I never listened to talk radio, but within the past six months I've found that I enjoy listening to the John J and Rich morning show on my way to school. This morning they were talking about this woman who has made over 5 million dollars on YouTube for just opening up packages of toys. They thought the idea of the channel was silly and asked for people to call in and talk about people they knew who made a profit for doing something silly or something simple. The first caller was a woman who said she knew a former school teacher who earned enough money to quit his job and support his family by writing erotica. She then went on to say that his main audience was in Europe, and her tone of voice let on that she didn't take writers seriously. Maybe it was the type of book he wrote, or maybe she just wasn't an avid reader. Maybe she has no idea what it's like to write, or maybe she only considers manual labor to be work. It doesn't matter what her reasoning was for thinking writing isn't a good career choice, it's a view that seems to be widely shared. I usually don't even tell the people in my daily life that I'm working on self publishing a novel. They seem to have the idea that it's a hobby. For me, writing is not a hobby, it's what I want to do with my life. It also isn't easy. Aside from just thinking up the story and putting everything together to see how to works on the page, you also have to know how to self edit. If you self publish, like I am planning to do, you do all the marketing, I'm pretty sure that school teacher she was talking about was a self published author. You have to read through your own book so many times that there comes a point where you almost grow sick of your own beloved characters. You're constantly changing things in your novel, you have to know at least the basic rules of grammar. If you self publish then you have to seek out someone to draw your cover. There are a lot of things you have to do that I'm sure I haven't even run into because I haven't published yet, but I know that writing isn't easy. I knew that when I decided to take on the job of self publishing a novel.

What if no one reads it?

I'm sure the question that's crossing my mind right now is the same question that's crossed almost every writer's mind. What if no one reads it? I haven't even published anything yet, but the question has been weighing heavily on my mind. Maybe it's the reason I haven't finished editing. Maybe I'm not sure of myself. How much would it bother me if no one reads the work of fiction I've been working on? Maybe it'll bother me a lot, maybe it wouldn't bother me at all. Even if no one reads my book, it won't take away from my accomplishment. I would have written a book, promoted it, and tried my hardest to sell it.

Casual Friday: Things that women in their thirties shouldn't wear or do...

I recently turned thirty, and although I don't look or feel thirty, I was annoyed when I came across an article telling women what they should throw out when they turned thirty. I read the entire article, which was more like a picture gallery. Each slide made me more annoyed. Some of the things were ridiculous and probably meant as jokes, but others where things such as graphic tees and Pink. I see women of all ages all the time wearing sweatpants from the pink line, and I never consider them too old for the products. Clothing and make up does not have an age limit. Articles like that one only serve to make women feel self conscious about themselves. I feel like all women should be themselves, dress like themselves in the appropriate situations. Clearly no woman should wear a graphic tee to a job interview or a fancy dinner, but that doesn't mean there's no place in their closet for it just because they've turned thirty.

Would my characters have had a decent Valentine's day?

While I haven't published anything yet, I have been working on my writing for awhile. Due to school and work it's been hard to get any content out. I still found myself thinking about my characters during Valentine's day. Would they have had a happy Valentine's day, or would they have spent it the way I did? At work, bored out of their minds. I'm not sure how much I disclosed about the werewolf series that I hope to have published sometime soon, but Anyssa is the main character in that series and she's locked in an apartment sized jail cell as part of her punishment for reviewing werewolves to the outside world. ZB, the main character in the zombie story I started but never finished would probably have lost track of time and not know it was Valentine's day. I'm not sure if I'm going to finish that novel, but I do see potential in it. Lastly, I've been working on a grim reaper novel, and my main character would be working with no Valentine to keep her company. Why didn't I give any of these characters a happy Valentine's day? The answer to that is simple, I feel like my characters have to go through things to make them seem more real. They can't always have true love, or even a happy ending. No one would want to read about a character who has everything going for them. Imagine how boring a novel would be if the main character got everything they wanted and a happy ending. I don't think many people would want to read that. I am aware that lots of people enjoy reading books with a happy ending, but I think the happy endings need to be earned. No one wants to read a book where everything comes easy. Hopefully, no one wants to write a book like that either, it's just lazy.

My blog needs some work

Looking through my blog, I realize that it needs a lot of work. I have to get more detailed with my reviews and I have to go more in depth for my casual Fridays. More than anything else, I need to get back to talking about writing. I need to change the layout of my blog, do lots of editing, find interesting topics that people want to read about. Hopefully I'll be able to do all of those things and get this blog back on track.

Weekend Review: Life After Beth

I love zombie movies, however, not all zombie movies are worth watching. When I saw the ad for Life after Beth it looked like an orignal take on the genre. It was supposed to be a mix between drama, comedy, romance, and horror. It didn't take me long to decide that this was worth a watch, and it also took me about half the length of the movie to regret that choice. The movie is about a guy who loses his girlfriend, only to have her come back as a zombie. At first everything seems great and it just seems like she has some holes in her memory, then she decides it would be a good idea to eat people. This movie had potential, it could have been great, but it just falls flat.



One and a Half Stars Out of Five 

Casual Friday: Valentine's Day

It's the day before Valentine's day, and I can't help but wish for one of those big teddy bears or some other nice surprise from my boyfriend. Unfortunately, I will be working that day and won't get to see him, but we plan to have our own Valentine's day. Anyway, I just wanted to stop in and tell whoever's reading this happy Valentine's day. Hope your day is packed with roses and candy.

Should I put my writing before my needs?

Recently, it was time for me to leave work and instead of allowing me to leave the store manager told me that I needed to put the store's needs before my own. I can not express how angry this made me. The job I have now is not my dream job. I'm sure it's someone's dream job, but I'm barely scarping by with what I get paid. It's even worse now that I barely have any hours. Why am I talking about this issue which seems so personal in my blog? I'm talking about it because it got me thinking. I've been slacking on my writing. I actually have an almost finished novel on my computer, just waiting for it's final edits and I have yet to release it. I have another novel that I can't wait to devote some time to. I have several ideas for comic books that I haven't even gone over, and worst yet, my boyfriend is waiting to draw the images for those! This leads me to wonder, should I put my dream before my own needs? It's something I've wanted to do my entire life, but I'm not getting the chance to. Not that I would give up on school and quit my job (oh how I wish I had a new one though). I just wish I had more time to devote to writing. I'm sure that I could find some time to cut somewhere. Maybe I could combine my writing time with something else. Maybe I could bring my tablet to the gym, or use my cell phone to type up ideas. I do know one thing, I won't be giving up on my dream.

How do I make my dream come true?

Today I realized that I've been working for ten years (since I was twenty). The jobs I've been working haven't been ones that I've liked, but usually I can find something about the job that doesn't make me totally miserable. The jobs I've been holding aren't ones that I like, and I know I have to go to college to get something better. The reason I bring up my job at all is because I'm not doing what I dream of doing. I'd love to be getting paid to write books, but so far I haven't finished one. I think even when I was a little girl I wanted to write. I used to write goofy little horror stories and show them to my parents and teachers and sometimes to my friends as well. I fell like I'm not driven enough. I feel like I need to do something to ensure that I have time to sit at the computer and type out at least a paragraph a day. I need to use the notebook that I carry everywhere. I need to get motivated and snap out of this funk, because I can't let my dream pass me by.

Promotion

I've been thinking about self promotion a lot. I used to promote myself a lot via twitter, and I am trying to move on to facebook and other mediums. I also know that I have to update the look of my blog and maybe get a website of my own. I am not sure that I want to let people view my instagram, since that's really a private glimpse into my life. Other than that, I'm not really sure how to get more views. Do I take out an ad on facebook? Do I join groups and hope that people will like my facebook page? I even considered entering a reader's digest contest, but that costed money. There has to be some way to get myself out there and build an audience for when I am finally able to release my novel.

My birthday

Today is my birthday, which is very bittersweet for me. I had expected to be published by now, not just a work in progress. I am determined that this will be the year. No more playing around. I need to get down to business.

What's on my kindle?

I've done a lot of posts where I've shared what's in my to be read pile, but I realized that I've never discussed anything that's on my kindle. Today is the perfect day to change that. I read a lot of self-published books, and a lot of free ones. Some books I download and never get to.

As you can tell, I am a huge fan of HP Mallory. I realize now that I see the pictures that I haven't read many of these books. I guess my to be read list is bigger than I thought.

Weekend Review: Divergent

I won't go into this review too much, because I simply didn't finish it. I wanted to read it before checking out the movie, but I couldn't get into it. The book is long for a young adult book, which may have been part of the reason I put it down. I couldn't force myself past page 73 of 487. The book itself is like a mixture between the hunger games and the giver, both of which I've already read and enjoyed. The people in this book are divided into groups and assigned certain things based on the groups assigned. When they reached a certain age they were given a test and allowed to pick their own group to live among. That may be a big part of the reason I did not care for this book. I hate when people are sectioned off. Anyway, that's as much as I can review, since I didn't make it very far into the book.

Casual Friday: American Horror Story Freak Show Review

Now that the season is over I feel like I can review the season. I enjoyed the first two seasons of American horror story, but the last two were lacking. Freak show started out strong, but then it became a mess of too many stories that didn't really make sense. The first thing they did that they shouldn't have was give the killer clown, Twisty, a back story. He was mildly scary before he had one, and after he became a character you could feel sorry for. They also took his character away from the story way too soon. The only thing he achieved was inspiring Dandy to become a killer. Dandy is another part of the show that bothered me. The bored rich boy with a taste for killing and a dislike of clothing. I wasn't among his horde of fan girls who loved to watch him bathe in blood. It seemed unnecessary to have him dancing around in his underwear all the time. The biggest issue I had was the story, or lack there of. Each of the other seasons seemed to have a purpose or mystery about them. This season was just a jumbled mess of story lines that didn't really connect. For example, Neal Patrick Harris and his doll. What was the point of his story line? He didn't add anything to the season, unless he was there to drop hints at the next season. Maybe the next season is doll house, since there have been dolls in other seasons and everything is supposed to be connected. At this point it seems like a mess of loose ends that I would like to see tied up if I keep watching.

Writing and having a life

Now that my semester of school has started and I am currently working and looking for another job, I don't have much time. My social life also takes up a lot of my time. I find myself wishing that I didn't have to sleep so that I could get more things done. I have come to the conclusion that I will have to schedule myself a little bit of writing time at the end of the day, or maybe the start. I think I should set an alarm on my phone and when that alarm goes off I should turn off the cell phone and take out the laptop, making sure not to check email or go on facebook. I have to do it if I plan to accomplish anything.

Where I expect self-publishing to take me

I haven't been writing regularly, and when I do write it's just a short blurb that barely feels like a blog. Today I had some unexpected free time, so I decided that I should spend some of it on my blog and some of it on my writing. I haven't been doing much writing lately. I have given a lot of thought to my writing dreams, but not really much to what will happen in reality. Today I took a little time to think about what I think will actually happen. The truth is, I don't expect to be half as successful as most self-published authors out there. I need to promote better. I feel like I will be lucky each time I sell a book. I've thought about how much work I'll have to put in to even sell one book. I'll have to promote like crazy, maybe spend some money on ads. I'll have to send my book out for free for reviews, and not all of the reviewers are going to like the book. It'll take the reviewers time to even get to my book. I may do all that work and not sell a single book, but at the end of the day it'll still be worth it to be doing what I love.

Casual Friday: A whole new world of writing

I know I intended the casual Friday to be a break from talking about writing, a place to share something about myself that has nothing to do with writing, but I haven't really been blogging and I have something I'd like to share. Although I am still working on getting my first self-published novel out there, I have decided to take on a second project. It has always been one of my dreams to create a comic book, and now my boyfriend (who is an artist) and I have decided to work on one together. I know it's a big risk, and it's kind of scary to work on something like this with him, but I'm excited. We have already talked about it and I think it will be easy for us to work together. It'll be cool to see what we can build together, something that belongs to both of us equally. The comic will probably be self published, and we would like to have it available in both book form and digital. We've just started working on this project, but hopefully we will work well together and be able to piece something together soon.

Check Out My Boyfriend's Art

Weekend Review: iZombie - trailer

I know I'm supposed to be reviewing books, but I haven't had the time lately. When I saw the ad for this comic-based show I knew I was interested in seeing it. I love comic books, but I haven't gotten the chance to read this one. I am really looking forward to this tv series though. A lot of the elements remind me of white trash zombie. White trash zombie was one of my recent favorites, and hopefully this will be one of my favorite shows.

To Be Read

I have a huge pile of books that I've been trying to read. I think if I put a to be read list out there I may be able to get to them quicker.


Divergent- I've actually started reading this one. It's a mix between the hunger games and the giver, but it's too slow for me.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth- zombies, enough said

Warm Bodies- Zombies and I loved the movie

Bewitching and Towering- I love fairy tales. I'd like to read more of the dark kind.

Royal Street- the name caught my attention since I am from Louisiana.

Biting Bad- It was on clearance at book outlet and looked like something I would read.

Writing when you're not in the mood.

I know a lot of writer's go through this, myself included. It's not just standard writer's block, it's where you lose your motivation. I recently lost my motivation. All the things going on with work got to me and I stopped editing my nearly finished future release. I also stopped blogging and tweeting. I didn't want to stop writing, I just lost the motivation to do so. I want to be a writer more than I want anything else, but I haven't been focused. I keep telling myself that it's okay. We all go through phases where it's hard to do what we love. In my case I've opened the word document on my computer and just stared at it for about thirty minutes. It's what I've been going through and are currently still going through, but I don't plan on letting it get me down. I'm going to write something each day, even if I don't feel like it. Even if it's just a journal entry. I have to keep the writing juices flowing. I'm going to browse writing blogs and read books, even if it's only to remind myself of my goals. I'm going to read reviews on amazon.com. I'm going to do everything that I was doing. I really need to get back on track, I can not let this set me back.

Weekend Review: Pokemon Alpha Sapphire

I know this is another video game review, and I intended to only review books, but ever since my boyfriend got me this for Christmas I can not stop playing it. I haven't played the original so I'm not sure how this compares, but I do love this game. I like the pokedex system more than I did in x and y. I like the fact that you can dress Pikachu up, but I wish you could find more costumes for him. I also would like to be able to customize my character more. Another thing I really enjoy about this game is the map system and the fact that you now know if you've caught every pokemon in the area. This game has easily become my favorite in the pokemon series.

Casual Friday: Why don't they make writing calenders?

It seems like every store I've gone in lately has calenders on sale. I've already gotten a cheap one from the dollar tree, so I barely glance at them, but today I decided to take a look. There were calenders of every kind, but there was one type I've never seen: a writing calender. Wouldn't it be cool if there were a writing calender with a writing prompt each week or month?

New Year

It's a new year, and that new year brings many things with it. Some of those things will be good, and some bad. There are things I hope to accomplish this year, like getting a new job and finally getting my book out there. I plan on setting a lot of goals for myself and becoming more organized.