What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by my ever-so-lovely YA writer friends, Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk. The idea? Well, it's a great opportunity to touch base once a week with all of our blog friends and let them know what's up. Should you wish to join, head on over to Jaime's blog and sign up with the link widget at the bottom of her post!
WHAT I'M READING:
I'm still reading LOVE AND OTHER PERISHABLE ITEMS by Laura Buzo, although will say, I haven't had a chance to turn any pages over the past few nights thanks to finally being able to write again!
While running, I started and finished the short novella, DESTROY ME by Tehereh Mafi (SHATTER ME #1.5) yesterday - which of course, I loved.
Now while on the elliptical, I'm reading a great book written by a
friend of mine - and fellow YAwesome Writer - Dorothy Dreyer, called MY SISTER'S REAPER. It just came out at the beginning of June and I'm so, so very happy for Dorothy - and I'm totally excited, because Dorothy actually included me in her acknowledgments at the end of the book! That's a first time for me and I'm thrilled to know I had any part in helping her during her road to publication, however small it was. I wish her much success and can't wait to see her add more books to the bookshelves!
WHAT I'M WRITING:
I am so excited to finally be back at writing!!! Man, that kinda sucked there for a while! But, I decided to give Ready. Set. Write! a shot and see if it would bring the encouragement I needed to get my tail back in the chair - and sure enough, it did!
Because I'm so close to the end of my novel, WHERE THE WATER FALLS - and thanks to my recent bout of writer's block - I wanted to set some somewhat achievable goals last week. And they were:
1. Write at least 1,000 words.
2. Begin revisions, from the beginning, on adding two critical personality elements (AKA, flaws) for my MC - neither of which were small characteristics, and both would require a lot of thought on how to weave them in successfully.
Well? I'm so excited to say I bested both of my goals.
While I still have that very last chapter I need to get down, I have two other chapters that were falling a little short - and Monday night, the inspiration struck! I cranked out 1,100 words in an hour and now feel so much better about both of these chapters.
I also started in on my goal around character revisions, late last week - and by 3am yesterday morning, I made tweaks to my last chapter!
So, goals for this week:
1. Write the last chapter - or at least decide how it ends (I'm toying with just tweaking how it currently ends now or if I want a different version that I've been thinking about).
2. Start and finish complete revisions from the beginning.
Both are goals I really think I'll hit this week. Well, fingers crossed.
WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW:
Secret Projects: I know I've mentioned it a few times, but I am totally inspired by a secret project that Bridgid Gallaher and I - along with seven other a-mazing women - have been working on lately.
In case you missed my post the other day, we're so excited to launch this said secret project and it goes live on:
07.01.2013
Yep, that's this coming Monday! As in five days. 5
And because I can't give away any of the details just yet - eh-em, it IS still a secret! - I WILL share this grand tidbit of information: who all is participating!
I'm so excited to announce that aside from Bridgid and myself, the following wonderful ladies have been asked (and accepted!) to join us on these crazy adventures:
Sara Biren
Erin L. Funk
Kelly Loy Gilbert
Jaime Morrow
Ghenet Myrthil
Kris F. Oliver
Heidi Sinnett
The past several weeks have been filled with some of the most fantastic side-splitting laughs with all of these wonderful women - which may or may not have been induced by some badly placed facial hair, some awkwardly aligned adam's apples, and the repercussions of lightening and toenails (um, ew.).
I have had such a grand time with all of them and I can't wait to venture on this journey we've got planned. So won't you please stop on by on Monday to check it all out? I hope so!
WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO:
The husband and I went to see WORLD WAR Z this past weekend, and I ABSOLUTELY loved it! It was chock full of action and suspense and on more than one occasion I actually jumped! And I loved the different spin they put on a few things.
Of course there are also the teeth-snapping zombies, which I am totally infatuated with (and yes, I believe I do have the necessary skills to survie a zombie apocolypse, should one ever happen). And I'll close this summary with two words: Brad Pitt. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Okay, that's three.
Perhaps I should just post pictures of beautiful men every Wednesday, since this now seems to be becoming a trend. :) But seriously, would you just look at him? -------------------->
I also watched the movie PITCH PERFECT for the very first time. And that I also loved!!! Total inspiration for being young again, impressive singing (not sure how much of it was real, but I don't really care!), and lots of great humor, primarily thanks to Rebel Wilson, AKA Fat Amy.
SO WHAT'S NEW FOR YOU TODAY? WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ALL ABOUT IT, SO WON'T YOU JOIN TODAY'S WHAT'S UP WEDNESDAY???