I'm over at Elizabeth Barone's Blog today talking about inspiration for FIERCE and Tori's struggles (following your dreams, being a girl in male-dominated areas, the culture of victim blaming) and also some other things like Shane being a hot mess in his upcoming book. Come say hi! 

And don't forget, FIERCE is still 99 cents! 

WRITE Wednesday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Poppy Simeri and Vera James. Check out their blogs to get more info about WW or to join the blog hop.









WHAT AM I

• WRITING: I've been revising a few scenes that have never felt right.
• READING: Flirting with Fire by Kate Meader. So, I'm not a huge contemporary romance reader (outside of sports rom), but I really am enjoying this book. I love the banter between the characters, that each character feels well developed, and how the hero and heroine meet.
• INSPIRATION: Friendship--all kinds.
• THINKING AHEAD: I have a writing residency project do so some work on, as well as Shane's book.
• ENCOURAGEMENT: I think this combines with my inspiration. Friendship has been inspiring for book work and also provided encouragement!

 
What have you been up to?

It's the FIRST FRIDAY OF JUNE. WHERE IS THE YEAR GOING????
Since it's the first Friday of the month, my friend Bailey and I owe you/ourselves/each other a blog post. The topic for this month? The WRITING JUNK DRAWER

So, what is in my writing junk drawer?
I'm planning on organizing this drawer pretty soon (seriously), but as of now here a few things in what I've labeled the "junk drawer"
-Stickers: I have star stickers and dot stickers in various colors. I use these for my revision process. I color code subplots. I'm planning on utilizing these for character color coding as well. Each chapter has a "card" that I put on my plotboard, and then put the corresponding stickers on. It's a nice  visual for me to see what's missing, what is silent for too long, what has too much going on etc....
-A hole punch. Doesn't really need explaining. I hope.
-Some flashdrives. One that looks like a zebra because why not.
-Staples (which have been there since I got this desk, because I don't use them)
-Post-it notes.  I have these everywhere, so I don't really have any explanation for that.
-A staple remover. See the above staple note.
-Earphones that hook around your ears. They are for running. I have not yet tried them, but think about them every time I go running and my earbuds fall out.
-These super awesome alligator clips that each have a word on them (some say 'read', some say 'keep', some say 'file'). I love these, but I'm not sure how to incorporate them yet?

What is in your writing junk drawer?

WRITE Wednesday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Poppy Simeri and Vera James. Check out their blogs to get more info about WW or to join the blog hop.

WHAT AM I

• WRITING: I wrote a little bit of a new project for a workshop. I'm also digging through my old draft of Shane's book to see what of it I want to keep. 
• READING: I finished Daughter of Smoke and Bone and am almost done with The Walls Around Us. This book is so intense.  I have to finish it tonight. HAVE TO.
• INSPIRATION: Writing wise, a meme. I know that sounds bad, but it brought back a project I work on and then force away because it's the type of book that's going to tear me apart while writing. But I think I may be ready to work on it for realsies. 
• THINKING AHEAD: I've got three...or four (or more, probably) books vying for my attention but I'll be focusing on Shane's soon. 
• ENCOURAGEMENT: Getting notes/emails/tweets/whatnot from readers who made a connection to Tori in Fierce. 

What have you been up to????????? 

I'm not the best blogger (I'm being kind to myself here, I know), but I used to enjoy doing the What's Up Wednesday blogs. I was sad to see them leave (although I sucked at times with those as well), but understand why the blog hop came to an end.
I also found a new one to (attempt) to partake in: WRITE Wednesday.
WRITE Wednesday is hosted by Poppy Simeri and Vera James, and is a weekly blog hop. Check out their blogs to get more info about WW or to join the blog hop. I really loved seeing what everyone else was up to in the WUW posts, so I'm looking forward to this. 

WHAT AM I

•  WRITING: I finished up rewriting an old project. It started as a 'revision'. It turned into a complete rewrite. It ended up taking me much longer than planned because of that--I mean, seriously, nothing of the old draft was used, and EVERYTHING was changed--but I'm happy with the end result. Now, I'm diving back into the next Whatever It Takes novel (Shane's book). Also happy to report a third WIT book is also in the works.
• READING: I'm reading The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma and Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. Aren't these covers just gorgeous?

• INSPIRATION:   My siblings. I'm just so proud of them. They're amazing.   They and the rest of my family always give me such inspiration and encouragement.  
• THINKING AHEAD: Ummmm... Shane's book. That's all I got for this.
• ENCOURAGING:  This week, I would have to say progress and feedback.  Be it in the gym--adding a rep for weights or feeling when I finally got that specific kick right or even getting constructive criticism in the gym because that tells me my coach/partner knows I can do better. The same goes for writing.  Getting that positive feedback is always encouraging, but I think the constructive criticism can be as well. If anything, it means I know I can do better and so do my friends and that's encouraging.  I know I sometimes give encouragement the same way. If I spend my time pushing you in some way, generally it means I care about you and know you can get to the next level.

I just wanted to go back to the writing section for a bit to say I am sorry that's Shane's book progress has been slow! There was another project that had to get completed. I am back at it now, though.  My break (and by break I mean decrease in hours, not stopping completely) in boxing/mma/kb happened mainly as the result of a few things going on at once (book things, job things, gym closing down things, having to find a new gym things, injuries that needed healing time things, those sort of things) but I think it also ended up being helpful. You know when you're into something so deep it's like you forget how to breathe? Or you forget how to do anything else that's outside of that realm?  You live it, you sleep it, you eat it, you breathe it? Between spending an enormous amount of time in the gym and writing fight-related books, I think I definitely needed to reground myself a bit. And, as strange as it sounds, I needed to re-find myself in regards to my particular martial arts views/expectations/beliefs as I searched for a new gym home and I had to step back to be able to dig deep. And now that I've done that, it's time to give back into the boxing/mma/kb :) Anyway, I'm feeling rejuvenated to not only get back into my gym routine but also to tell Shane's story. 


What have you guys been up to? What's your WRITE?

Hello!
NA Alley is hosting a charity auction that starts today and ends Friday. All proceeds go to benefit a girl named Queena and her family and to help pay her medical bills.
Queena's story is heartbreaking and shows levels of love and dedication. Please take a few minutes to read about it here.

The auction has lots of goodies, ranging from agent critiques (including one from the fabulous agent Sara Megibow--I had the pleasure of receiving a critique from her in the past and it truly was amazing and provided invaluable feedback, so go bid!--to signed books, editing/formatting/graphic services, software, consultations with bestselling authors and even the Plot Whisperer (I took an online webinar from her, also super super helpful!), classes to help improve craft and marketing, and so much more. Oh, like a UtopYA package! 

You can see the items here. Please spread the word! Bidding closes Friday 6 pm EDT.

Don't worry. I'm not a week behind. Since both Bailey and I had a busy last week, we decided to do First Friday on, well, the second Friday for this month. Just go with it. First Friday is a blog thingamajig my dear friend and CP Bailey and I started as a way to encourage us to blog more frequently, with the other goal being to enjoy said blogging.
Today's topic (thanks Twitter for the feedback!) is Pet Peeves of the writing kind. In particular, over blocking and the overuse of dialogue tags. 
I know we all can relate to the dream-sequence-as-introduction and the describes-self-in-mirror loathing. Those two things definitely land on my writing-related-shit-that-pisses-me-off lists. Since we all already feel the unhappiness in those areas, I decided to focus on two other pet peeves of mine:

1) Over Blocking.
Example One: He stood. He walked across his room to his door. He opened his door. He walked down the hall. He saw his dog drinking of the toilet. He kept walking and turned down the hall. He reached the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee.


Example Two:  The brick floors under his bare feet made him want to jump back in bed, but instead he made himself march to the door and down the hall. Slurping told him the dog had found the toilet again, but he beelined for the sizzling coffee pot before he even thought about dealing with the dog. 


How does example one make you feel? 
Ok, so 2 isn't a great example, but it works for my point. 
Blocking is, essentially, what your character is doing. It's the actions and movements (walking, crossing the room, opening the door etc). Writing needs blocking.  Blocking gives us context for characters and our settings, and how characters and settings interact with one another and themselves. Without it, we would have lots of dialogue and facial expressions and exposition. We would also be pretty confused. Blocking has a purpose, and sometimes it can be required to set context, and other times it can help add layers to a scene. 

The problem becomes when we get all this stiff, telling blocking movements instead of showing. See example one. Sometimes, brief telling blocking works. We don't need major detail every time a character walks across his room for example.  Too much of that, though, is when things fall flat (and annoying) and tend to tell  more than show.  Example two gets us from the bedroom to the kitchen with (a little) more showing (we can figure the floors are chilly, and we get more of a feeling for him, the frequency of the dogs toilet-drinking etc). I picture stick figures in example one, and, in the very least, slightly more dimensional clothed stick-figures in example two. If you think about characterization, senses and showing while blocking, it can help provide more natural-feeling choreography to the scene. 
PS. I got really worked up over blocking. I will be writing a post complete on good blocking. 


2) Over Dialogue-tagging 

While I'm a little more lenient on an overuse of "said" a million times in a dialogue scene, since readers tend to almost ignore that word, seeing dialogue tags when they aren't needed irks me.  Also, dialogue tags that are not "said" can get to me unless a) they are used sparingly b)the author is the shit no matter what c)the tag fits the character or scene perfectly. Anyway, while an overuse of creative tags can be irksome, my main point in this peeve is simply overusing the dialogue tags in general, when they aren't necessarily.
Let's pull some logic here:

A) The dialogue should give us an inclination to the character. This doesn't always happen, of course, but there are times when we can figure out the character based on what he/she is saying. 

B) If you have only two characters talking, and you're blocking (see what I did there) and whatever else makes sense and isn't jumping all over the place, then we don't need a "it said" (the "it" was just for Bailey- go read her peeves after this ;) ) after every piece of dialogue. THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE. We can figure this out.

C) If you have dialogue followed by an action, see above. Example:
L writes down a sentence with an ambiguous pronoun.
B grabs her by the collar of shirt and begins shaking her. "Ambiguous pronouns must die!"
I promise, I'm not going to be like "Who the eff said that?"

D)
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," her friend replied.
"I hate butterflies," she said.
The other girl said, "I know."
"They're so creepy with wings and shit," she said.
"Right," her friend said. 
"I also hate goats," she added.
"Goats or demon goats?" she said.
She said, "Both."

HOW ANNOYING IS THAT? I can't even continue the example. Also, yes, I know there is nothing but dialogue there so it's not a good example, but that's the point. Even if we blockified and facial-expressionified and leveled up that scene, all the tags would still be hair-pulling worthy. 

What are your pet peeves?

It's First Friday (where did February go?), which means a blog post. First Friday is a blog deal my friend and CP Bailey and I decided to do to help motivate us to blog while not forcing us to a strict schedule. It's meant to be fun with a wide range of topics. 
Today, we're talking about...
IMPOSTOR SYNDROME.

I'm doing something that goes against every in me, and everything I've had instilled over and over again throughout school--if you're one of my old teachers, you should skip this next part--but I'm using Wiki, because Wiki actually gets this.
According to Wiki, Impostor Syndrome is: "a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved..."


Last year, I was presented with some options on how to proceed with my novel FIERCE. 
Ultimately, I decided to self-publish FIERCE, while working toward a traditional publishing path for my YA.

I made my choice because, above all else, I wanted FIERCE to stay the story of a girl who helps herself while not relying on others to fix her. I wanted there to be romance, but the romance not be the end-all.  I wanted the story of an unapologetic, fierce, passionate, occasionally angry, sometimes violent heroine to stay just that.

I'm happy with my choice, and still think it was the best answer for FIERCE.

That being said, I still don't feel like an author. And if the subject comes up, and someone asks me "who published your book?", it makes me instantly fall into Impostor Syndrome mode.  

I'm being rather brutally honest with you, guys (brutal for me, I suppose, not you). There are days I want to pull the book down, days I question if I should tell someone I'm an author, because am I? And if I do, what happens when they asked who published me? Do I want to see their face when I tell them that I did? Heck, I've been told this book "doesn't count" because I published it. All that work just "doesn't count" because I did it--myself (and with my editor, formatter, and designer obviously)--instead of having a huge team to back me?

The fact is, self-publishing has changed tremendously over the past few years, and even with the wonderful amount of success stories and great self-published books available, it's still stigmatized.

In favor of being real here, I've picked up my fair share of unedited, crappy self-published books that read like someone achieved nanowrimo and then hit publish the very next day.  I've also picked up my fair share of horribly edited traditionally published books. The sad part is, those self-published books hurt ALL self-publishers.

Self-publishing isn't easy. Or at least it shouldn't be (publishing in any form shouldn't be easy). It takes work. The kicker: there is no team backing you. That is probably what makes me feel like an impostor most of all. That without the validation of a huge publishing house, I'm just not good enough.

My challenge to myself is to stop believing that.

So, fellow captives of Impostor Syndrome, stop. Just stop. Stop feeling like you aren't worth it, like you aren't deserving of the rewards, like you didn't just do something incredible like write a freaking book and edit it more times than you can count and then turn yourself into a business.
-Okay, that last bit came out weird, but you know what I mean.-

Also, you have guts. Publishing (again, in any form) takes balls/ovaries of steel. So. Much. Steel. 


So, say it with me: I am an author. I am an author. I am an author. I have (enter gender-specific gonands) of steel. 

Because you are deserving, and publishing a book is incredible, no matter the way you chose to get there.

 

Hi lovelies!
Just wanted to let you know I'm over at Maureen's Books today with a giveaway and a guest post. 
I talk alpha females in fiction, the awkwardness that is Max Estrada, brain cells and fighters, and stereotypes. There's also a bit on the next Whatever It Takes novel. You can enter the giveaway, and check out the post here.
AND FIERCE is on sale for 99 cents today.

"In short, FIERCE (A Whatever It Takes novel) is a challenge.  It's a challenge to stereotypes we place on women in the real world AND fiction.
I love to shred stereotypes. In FIERCE, our leading lady is Tori, a female fighter who is INTENSE. She's aggressive, she can abrasive, she can get pissed. She can react rather explosively.
Why is Tori like this? Not just because I love to destroy gender-stereotypes (cue evil laugh), and not just because I want the alpha, intense, get-pissed-off, punch-you-in-the-face-if-you-eff-with-her types to have a place in fiction..."
Continue reading. 

It's the first Friday of the month, so that means… It’s First Friday.

What is First Friday, again? Expect a page for more information soon, but in short: First Friday is a blog hop my dear friend, Bailey, and I started in order to help us get more into blogging. It’s meant to bea fun and thoughtful way for us to look at various things related to our writing. I’ll be creating a page soon, so please check it out in case you want to join us.


Today’s theme is inspiration: What inspires our current writing projects?


So, I wanted to share music that I find inspiring to a few of my projects. This doesn't mean I necessarily listen to music while writing--sometimes I do, sometimes I find it distracting--but these are songs that make me feel my project. It's insta-storyland for me when I hear these songs. 


First up: SummerTime Sadness by Lana Del Rey.

This songs fits my dark fantasy so well. Not necessarily the lyrics, but the vibe. It has a particular atmosphere, and it puts me in my story. This project is still in the way early stages, so I stay pretty tight-lipped about it. But it’s a fantasy, and it’s a somewhat dark fantasy, and this song kicks butt. 


Second: Power Trip by J. Cole.

*Please note this song does have some explicit language


I don’t have a title yet, but this song gets me in the mood for writing Shane’s book--the next Whatever It Takes novel. The novel focuses on Shane--he’s a hot mess, let me tell you--and takes place after Fierce. That being said, the Whatever It Takes novels do NOT have to be read in order or as a series. Each novel stands on its own. Anyway, Shane is just...Shane. He’s got a lot going on, he gets pushed to his max and this song just has the right vibe.



What do you find inspiring for your writing?