Monday, February 29, 2016

My Journey as a Writer

Hello everyone! I decided to take the last week and focus in on writing and relaxing. So far, it's been really successful. I thought that this would be a great time to reflect my experience as a potential writer and share my plans for the future. I'm also planning on releasing more informative posts (such as book cover websites, what platforms I hope to release an e-Book to, etc.) soon.

My writing career started when I was in 8th grade. I actually finished my book, the first time I had done so, but what had motivated me the most was my friends also writing as well. I believe it was a spy book but I haven't looked at it in a long time. During high school I wrote some stuff as well but I wasn't too serious with any of my work. I remember being inspired by Maximum Ride series by James Patterson and a few of the main character names.

Now that I've been in college I didn't get serious until my Junior year. The book idea I had thought of kept nagging me to write it. While it's no where close to what my first thoughts were I've certainly had a lot of fun writing it. I technically wrote the second and third book but, I can't really use much of it, since I decided to change my story line a bit. I've drifted away from this book several times with stories in different genres but I wasn't able to focus in as much as I had wanted to.

So, what are my next steps? Well I intend on letting my first book sit for at least another week before I do a serious comb through and massive editing. Last week I was focused on getting reacquainted with the story and look for things I wanted to expand on. I also found where I want to end my first book (Leaving me with 40 pages into my next book!) so I feel much better about what's to come.

My advice to anyone writing is to find a story you're passionate about. It may change a little from when you first get started or quite drastically. But, if you're not passionate about your story, it makes it a lot harder to write. And you should take some time away from your story. It's difficult but it helps give a fresh perspective and helps you think of new ideas for your book.

I hope that my experience has been helpful! If you want to talk to other writers I highly suggest joining NaNoWriMo and prowling the forums there. Also, they have Camp versions of this challenge in both April and July, which are also really helpful. That's all for now. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or send me an e-mail!

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Close to the Finish Line

Hello everyone! I hope you're doing well. I've decided that for my upcoming blog posts I'll be changing my approach. I won't comment quite as much as I currently do on my personal life. I'll instead be focusing in on what I'm doing with my book and posting links for affiliates of products I like.

While I have not worked on my writing recently I hope to start up again tomorrow. I will be free until March 7th after my presentation tomorrow. I have been waiting for a very long time to get back into the swing of writing! I've set a new goal for myself to have my book finished and ready to sell (either by harassing traditional publishers or going the self publishing route) by this summer.

This upcoming term I have an awesome schedule but my class load will still be intense (but hopefully not like this term). I also plan on posting more blog posts in the near future. I may go through the 5 books I purchased from Writer's Digest (over the summer) and haven't gotten a chance to read. And for one of my upcoming classes we'll be going through several different books geared towards entrepreneurship so that would be helpful as well.

So I shall end on a promotional item. Check out Audible and get two free Audible books. I've gotten The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and Dragon Blood- Omnibus by Lindsay Buroker. I currently have The Dawning of Power: Godsland Series by Brian Rathbone that I haven't gotten to yet plus some other credits on my account. If there's a book you think was a great audio book comment below!