Hello, readers! Teatime Tuesday will be delayed until next week, so that I can focus on editing some new posts about writing. I’m almost finished with my next one, which will be up in a day or two.
Thank you for your patience!
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Welcome to 2015!
Happy New Year, everyone! My regular blog posts will resume in a few days. For now, I thought I would share some of my goals for the coming year, in the spirit of holiday resolutions.
- Write more. I hope to draft one, maybe even two novel-length manuscripts this year. (This process also includes research and outlining, and hopefully a round or two of revision, if all goes well.)
- Query more. This is a hard one for me, but I’m in a good spot as far as preparation goes.
- Read a book a week.
- Continue posting on this blog, semi-regularly if not regularly.
- Get back on Twitter.
That’s it! Not especially ambitious, perhaps, but it should be more than enough to keep me busy. Here’s hoping that 2015 is a happy and productive year. I wish you all the best of luck with any resolutions you’ve made.
See you in a few days!
Site Changes
I will be updating the site over the next few days, mostly to add a static front page and bring the “Current Projects” section up to date. My blog should remain online during this time. If there are any problems, I’ll announce them on Twitter.
If all goes well, my blog entries will no longer be visible on the front page of the site. Instead, you’ll be able to access them through a link on the menu at the top of the page, labelled “Blog.” I’ll make sure to test that the subscription feature still works, once I’ve finished making changes.
I have also tweaked the look of the site, and will probably continue to do so. I like it so far! With any luck, readers will too.
This is My Story
Hello, Internet! I’m returning to this blog after a two-year hiatus. I stopped posting for many reasons—some of them too personal to share here—but one of the biggest was a lack of direction, as far as blogging is concerned. To be honest, I’m still struggling with the question of what I want this blog to be. I’m an aspiring writer, and this is my professional website. But I don’t want to lecture fellow writers about the writing process… I’m still learning, and other writers give better advice about it than I can. I also don’t want to post too much about my daily experiences. My life is pretty boring, generally. I drink tea and I edit manuscripts. Not exactly post-worthy stuff.
But I do want to talk about stories. Stories are what excite me, what inspire me. I became a writer because of my love for fiction, and narrative in general. I’ve loved stories since I was a kid, and they define me—who I have been, who I am now, and who I want to become someday.
So I want to talk about why I love stories, and how I came to love them. I want to talk about my experiences with story—as a girl, as a geek, and as a writer. In the process, I hope to take a few trips down memory lane, and by exploring my own journey with story, become more enlightened about my views on it.
Most of all, I hope it will be interesting—both to myself, and any readers out there who might be curious.
Well, here’s hoping!
In Which the Wayward Writer Resumes Her Blog
Has it really been seven months since I last posted? That’s hard to believe. I spent the previous week debating what sort of thing I ought to write here, after such a long (and mostly unplanned) absence. I even began a terribly serious essay about birthday goals and the inevitable passage of time and all sorts of philosophical contemplations. Then I remembered that I’m only capable of so many serious sentiments per day before I realize how boring I sound, and decided to scrap it.
So here is the gist of that entry, minus the lengthy musing…
Two weeks ago, I turned twenty-six. The number still seems a bit surreal, since I feel the same as I did when I was in college. All in all, though, I’m reasonably satisfied with what I’ve accomplished in the past few years.
But I also realized how much more I want to do, especially when it comes to writing. So I drew up a few goals for myself. I now have a reading schedule, which means I’ll be reading more books—and that’s a relief, because aspiring writers need to read the same way we need oxygen. Published books help us to remember that yes, it is possible to write a whole bunch of sentences that eventually come together to make a beautiful story, and yes, it is important to have fun with your work and create something you love. Other writers have managed to do it, and so can we! (If that sounds obvious, and also a bit pathetic, that’s only because it is.)
I’ve also resolved to be more diligent about blogging. So from now on, I hope to post here on a bi-weekly basis. It will be nice to write something without having to watch how many adverbs I use. (Although my inner editor has become so particular that I’ll probably end up deleting most of them anyway!)
As for what happened in my absence, I’m afraid don’t have much to report on the writing front. It was a long and busy spring, during which I finished another revision of my current novel, followed by a difficult summer. I received a manuscript request from my dream agency, followed by a rejection with surprisingly positive feedback—which I took as a good sign. Later, I received the most brutal critique of my first ten pages that I’ve had to date, from a very different source. So like many writers, I’ve had a mixed bag of feedback so far. I don’t know what will happen next, but in the meantime, I’ve been brainstorming new projects and tweaking old ones.
I do have happier things to report, mostly involving the SCBWI Summer 2012 Conference in L.A., where I got the chance to hang out with my incredible critique partner Kourtney Heintz. But I’ll save those thoughts for another entry. In the meantime, I’m glad to be back, and I’m hopeful that the next twelve months will be productive and positive ones.