Happiness is a New Book

I got two books in the mail over the last week! Two books that happened to be MUCH bigger than I expected! The first is Progeny: The Children of the White Lions, whose author, R.T. Kaelin (@AuthorRTkaelin on Twitter), was nice enough to send me a review copy and a cool bookmark to go with it.


The second is a signed copy of Tome of the Undergates I won in a Twitter contest from Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears on Twitter).


I'm kind of hoping Tome ends up being the next Fantasy-Faction book club read so I get a chance to read it sooner. It's currently winning by one vote, so I guess there's still hope!

In receiving these books I also made two important discoveries: A) I need to step up my reading quota quite a bit and B) I need a bigger book shelf! My current bookshelf is full, and I have boxes of books in the attic and under my bed. But none of them are as big as these. I may have to add a shelf over my computer in the near future, and this is a problem I am very happy to have.

Look for the reviews for both books in the (hopefully) near future!

Happy Reading! :)

Reviews and Writing

My review of The Last Unicorn is up on Fantasy-Faction! I LOVE this story. The prose Mr. Beagle uses is amazing. If you've never read it I highly suggest it! And rather than gush about it again, I'll just let you read the review.

In a forest that time wouldn’t touch was a creature who would live forever. A creature of immortal beauty and purity: a unicorn. She spent her days admiring her own loveliness and watching as the curious creatures in her forest went about their short and frantic lives. Time meant nothing to her, and the outside world was merely a dream inside the eternal spring of her forest. That was, until one day two hunters passed through searching for game, but found none. The first warned the second that they should hunt elsewhere, as this was the home of a unicorn. The second scoffed at his friend, saying there were no unicorns, they were myths that mothers told their children at bedtime, nothing more. But the first insisted that here, in this forest, was the last.

The unicorn had seen men before and listened to their stories as they traveled through her wood, but never before had she been called the last. Could it really be that she was alone in the world? That the rest of her people had disappeared from the earth? The conversation haunted her until she decided she must find out for herself. She needed to discover if she truly was the last.

She set out into the world alone, appearing to all who see her as nothing more than a beautiful white mare. But then her path is crossed by two people who know what she truly is. The first was Schmendrick, a bumbling magician trying desperately to come into his magical talents. The second is Molly Grue, a simple peasant woman who had been waiting to see a unicorn her whole life. Together the three travel over hills and valleys looking for the others where ever they may be.

Their journey takes them into the barren country of the wicked King Haggard, whose castle holds both a curse and a secret. Will they be able to learn the whereabouts of her people before they are discovered? Or will they succumb to the curse themselves?

* * * * * * * * * *
This is one of my favorite stories ever. It was the first fantasy book I ever read, though I had watched the movie many times before. The Last Unicorn is unique among the stories I’ve read, as the main character isn’t human or even humanoid, nor does she have a name until almost halfway through the book. But the thing that amazes me every time I read this book is the prose. The way Mr. Beagle puts words together is enchanting. The sentences flowing into paragraphs are as close to poetry as you can get without actually writing a poem. But the descriptions are not out of place nor too flowery either. They just feel right and add a touch of magic to even the mundane parts of the story.

The world that this book takes place in is our world, specifically Robin Hood’s Europe. But there is real magic here and real magical beasts. The people of the world believe in them, though these creatures are almost never seen anymore and are starting to fade into fairy tales. It seems as though this may be the last generation to treat the supernatural as truth rather than myth. That gives the story a very grounded feel and makes the disappearance of the unicorns that much more upsetting.

I had a hard time writing this review, as I love this story so much. While trying not to talk your ears off or go all fangirl on this book is tricky, not giving away the story is even harder. I would do a disservice to you if I mentioned some of my favorite parts or quoted the poem that cursed the king’s castle. So in favor of letting you discover this story on your own I will leave you with this. The Last Unicorn is a very unique dark fairy tale, the likes of which I think have yet to be written. If you enjoy fantasy, a good story, and beautiful prose, read this book. You will not be disappointed.

Also, if you have the means to watch the movie I would highly suggest it as well. The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle and follows very closely to the book. I would just add here, that even though it is a cartoon it is not for young children. There are some rather scary scenes and I would caution parents to watch it first and see whether their kids would mind the darker parts. I didn’t mind them, but I was a very odd child. Not that you couldn’t have guessed that part.

I started writing again last night, after a week off, and it felt great! I've figured out where my characters are headed and I can't wait to finish the scene I was working on.

Also my husband has two interviews next week, so hopefully one of them pans out and he can get back to working again! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers and I'll let you know how everything goes.

Have a great day everyone! :)

New Books! :D

This has been a good book month! I have so far won three contests for free books! :D I won two ebooks from Lindsay Buroker (@GoblinWriter on Twitter): The Emperor’s Edge & Dark Currents! I won an ebook of Soul Born by Kevin James Breaux (@KevinBreaux on Twitter) in the Fantasy-Faction forums!

And also I won an ARC of Hard Spell by Justin Gustainis in an Angry Robot Books contest! Which is great because my husband stole my Kindle to read the Dresden Files.

My new shiny book!

On top of that, Ashley Barnard (@wckdwriter on Twitter) was kind enough to send me an ecopy of her book Shadow Fox to review!

I am a happy book monkey! Now I just have to find time to read and review them all. Looks like I'm going to have a very busy July! :)

Rollercoaster of Life

There have been quite a few ups and downs for my family of late. The biggest down being my husband lost his job. Luckily at the moment he has a few leads and hopefully he'll be back to work soon. But having him around all day has thrown the household completely for a loop! Not only have I not been blogging much, but I haven't had time to write much either. I was really hoping to finish my second book by now, but it looks like that's not going to happen till next month at the earliest.

The one thing I have had a lot of time to do is think and plan. I now know where this story is going and have a good idea of how to end it. I've also plotted out the next two or three scenes. All I have to do now is write them down.

So here's hoping you’re all doing well and that the next part of this rollercoaster is an up part. :)

Rollercoaster Fine Art Print by janeheller

My First Review!

Once again I have come to this input screen without re-reading my previous posts. Apparently I have no long or short term memory to speak of. Anyway, if I mentioned this before, just pretend you didn't hear it yet.

I belong to a fantasy website called Fantasy-Faction. They have an awesome forum and do article and book reviews on all things fantasy. At the beginning of February the man in charge put out a call for people to write up reviews and articles for the site, so he didn't have to do all of it himself. I was one of the people lucky enough to get picked! So now, once a month or so, I'll be writing a book review for the site. And my first review just went live today! I reviewed Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher.

A single grain of sand can tip the scale. A single beat of a butterfly’s wings can add just enough wind to create a tempest. And the single action of one boy can change the fate of his homeland forever. Of course, that’s not what Tavi was thinking about when he shirked off his responsibilities for the evening to collect flowers at the request of the most beautiful girl in Bernardholt. But even as the ‘yes’ left his lips, the wheels of fate were already turning, propelling him forward towards a greater adventure then he could ever have imagined.

Tavi’s grandest hope for his future was simply to attend The Academy and make something of himself using his brains and wits. No one in Calderon Valley thought he would ever amount to anything. He was fifteen years old and still had no furies of his own. His aunt had a water fury and his uncle had both a wood and an earth fury. Even their simpleton slave Fade had a metal fury and some capacity to use it. But he would show them he could do great things even without an elemental fury helping him, if only he was given the chance.

However, there are consequences for every action, and his uncle’s anger for this one irresponsible act could ruin Tavi’s chances of ever leaving the valley. But how could Tavi have known the trouble that finding the sheep the next day would cause? How could he have known the great plans he was about to disrupt and the powerful eyes that would soon be focusing in on only him?

No one was supposed to be that deep in the pine hallows that day. No one was supposed to see the single Marat warrior that had crossed through the pass into the valley. And no one should have been able to escape him even if they had. However, as Tavi was about to learn, the simplest choices can have far reaching effects, and even a simple ‘yes’ can change history.

* * * * *
This was an interesting book. The plot, while not complicated, was good and the world was typical high fantasy, with just enough uniqueness to make it interesting. But the thing that made this story so hard to put down was the characters. Each person, no matter how small their roll seemed at first, had a greater purpose and their own unique challenges to overcome. They struggled through their normal lives, then when trouble came they faced danger and hardship as best they could, striving to rise above the everyday and reach their goals no matter the odds. And while most stories focus on some highly talented or gifted person destined to bring about great change in their world, the main character in this story was just the opposite.

Not only was Tavi young and inexperienced, he was also the only person in remembered history to not have an elemental fury companion. He was, as far as everyone around him was concerned, completely helpless, someone to be pitied and protected. Definitely not the type of person who normally sets off on a quest to save his homeland, or at least not the type that does so and returns to tell the tale. But it’s always more fun to root for the underdog. While he doesn’t possess the same gifts as everyone else, he still shows time and time again how a little courage and some thinking on your feet can make up for a lot in life. And unlike other books where the main character starts off magicless then awakens during story, Tavi stays furyless for the whole book. That somehow makes him even more appealing as a main character, because it’s easier to relate to him and makes his triumphs that much more triumphant!

The magic system in the story is also very interesting. It consists of spirits called furies, elemental beings of earth, fire, water, air, wood, and metal. They can affect objects of their specific element, giving the owners of air furies the ability of flight or the owners of earth furies the abilities to shape and move stone. Everyone at some point in their early teens or younger becomes bonded with at least one of these other-worldly creatures. Well, every human does anyway. The warrior tribes of the Marat that live just outside the Calderon valley do not have furies. They instead have animal totems, great beasts that they commune and speak with as brothers and sisters. They are not really human, and as such are treated like wild savages by the people of the valley, who drove them out just over fifteen years before the story begins. It is this tension between the Marat and the humans that threatens to erupt the entire valley into war.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars, mostly because of the wonderful characters and how easy it was to keep reading about them. They could grab you enough to keep reading in just a few short sentences and not let you go again for chapters and chapters. But by the end of the story it still had not reached 5 star status, simply because not a lot happened in this book. Sure it was 500+ pages long and I would have kept reading past that if it had been longer. And there was plenty going on, lots of danger and intrigue, but the plot portion of the book was very short and you get to the end of the book with a lot of, well, loose ends left. Now granted, this is the first in a series and I am definitely going to read the rest of it, but as a stand-alone book it’s just a little light on plot. But I think if you like character-driven stories and high fantasy; this would be a good book to try. I also have it on good authority that the next few books in the series are just as good, if not better then the first, but that’s a story for another day.

I'm not sure what I'm going to review next, but I'll let you know when I've decided. You can see my review on Fantasy-Faction here. There are also a bunch of other amazingly cool articles on the site, and I suggest you check them out!

In other news, I didn't make it to the second round in the Amazon contest. I was bummed at first, but I'm cool with it now. There were so many other amazing entries with ridiculously good pitches that I'm not really surprised I didn't make it. And since all they looked at was my pitch it didn't really upset me as much as if they had rejected my actual story.

Since I'm now on my own again as it were, I've started re-editing my first book. I just can't seem to leave well enough alone. I have ulterior motives this time though. I wanted to re-read it to get back into the flow of writing and even out my prose a bit (still too many adverbs).

And I still don't know how the whole story ends, but I have decided to keep the two books separate for the moment. I only split them originally because of the word limit in the contest, but I really do like the way the first book ends and the way the second book begins. So unless the story ends much sooner then I think it will, I'm going to keep them separate. The way it's looking at the moment I'm going to be running this story into a third book anyway.

That's my life at present. I have to make a decision in the near future as to what exactly I'm doing with these books when they're done. Self-publish? Submit some queries? I have no idea. Any of my readers out there have any experience and/or suggestions on the matter? All help would by much appreciated!

Have a great day! :)

Hello again! Remember me?

Okay, so I'm not very good at blogging regularly. I've been busy, but I guess you figured that out. Hmm...I guess when I'm gone this long without posting it's best to read my last post so I remember what I was talking about last time. Be right back!
* * * * *I'm back! Wow it's been three weeks since I posted last? And you are all still following me? Thanks! I promise I'll try to post more from now on.

Anyway, since we last met, our hero (me) had just finished editing her first book and submitting it to a contest. I probably told you this already, but I ended up splitting my book into two novels. The first book is done and I am now working on the second. I had thought that the second book was about 1/3 of the way done. Hahaha! Apparently I was mistaken!

I finished editing it and then broke it into chapters that were about the same length as the chapters in the first book. My first book ended up with 19 chapters and a word count of about 98K. My second book currently stands at 7 complete chapters and 44K words. So if I want the two books to be about the same length, then I'm actually about halfway done. But the story isn't!

I had no intention for this story to be two books long and I certainly had no intention for this story to be three books long! Well that and I don't think I have three books worth of story. It's more like 2-1/3 books worth, 2-1/2 at most. Now I was planning on doing a third book, but it would be about what happens after this story is over and also cover some backstory on one of the main characters.

I'm not sure how this story got away from me, but it seems to have a mind of its own. I feel like I'm stuck in Zeno's paradox. No matter how close I am to the end, I just can't seem to get all the way there! Does this happen a lot? Because I'd really like to finish this story sometime in the near future and it is just not cooperating with me. And I thought my characters were troublemakers...

Story Time Fine Art Print by elr104

Well That Would Have Been Nice To Know...

If read my last post you'll know that I stayed up till ungodly hours of the morning formatting and editing my story so I could enter it in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. I was and am very happy I got it done on time. However, it turns out that after you submitted your work you can still edit your document until the contest submission period closes. So really, I didn't have to rush like a crazy person to get it done. I had two more weeks to play with it once it was entered.

::sigh::

Oh well, if I had waited and given myself more time then the contest would probably have filled up then I would have been really annoyed!

The nice part about this realization was since I was able to go back and edit it, I was able to do one last leisurely readthrough. Now I thought I'd taken out a lot of adverbs and unnecessary words during the first edit, but apparently not. My husband has jokingly dubbed me the Queen of Adverbs and Monarch of Commas. I think I reduced my document by over 100 words just be removing slightlys and quietlys!

I am now REALLY glad I got to do one last edit as I'm sure this story would NOT have made it past the second cut with all those adverbs! And now that I know I add them too often, I can be more careful when I'm working on the second book.

I read an article someone posted on Twitter, which I unfortunately didn't save, about how every author has one thing they repeat in their writing that they shouldn't. The article's author's problem was repeating lists of three things, like "It was old, gold, and cold." I now know that no matter how good it sounds in my head, adding slightly to almost every verb is NOT the way to go.

Do you have a quirk that you've noticed in your writing that you usually end up cutting out come editing time? Let me know in the comments.

Have a great day! :)

Comma Print by papergangsterprints

Done!

Phew! I finished! Between my husband and I, we got my first book done and edited in time to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest! And I only had to stay up till 3:30 in the morning last night to get it done! In other news I am VERY tired this morning.

I don't know if I'll win, but I hope I at least past the first cut. If you're not familiar with the contest, it has four parts. The contest starts with 10,000 entries: 5,000 in general fiction and 5,000 in YA fiction. For the first stage the only thing the judges look at is your 300 word (or less) pitch. In the second stage they only get to see a 3,000 to 5,000 word excerpt from the beginning of the book. And if you make it to stage three, they read your whole novel. I'd love to get to round three, but I'd be happy with making it through round one.

I had a whole bunch of people help me with my pitch. And without their help I would not have been able to enter at all. So a giant thank you to all my Twitter buddies, with a special shout out to BethHautala for sending me some really in depth critiques. Also my NaNoWriMo friends on the Central Jersey forum, and everyone on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel boards who were willing to give my pitch a look see. Thanks everyone! Here's the pitch I submitted for the contest:

All Genevieve wanted that night was to make a quick trip to the grocer’s and have a nice quiet dinner at home. Equipped with coupons, she made her way to a new store, intent on picking up some cheap produce.

What she got instead was a trip into another dimension.

In this bleak, futuristic world, each person's fate is determined at birth and marked on their skin for all to see. But as strange as this new world seems, Genevieve feels oddly connected to it. And the more answers she unravels the more questions arise. When she finds herself caught in the center of the kingdom’s biggest mystery, the questions of ‘how did I get here’ and ‘how do I get home’ take a back seat to her own survival.

The Essence Heart, the kingdom’s missing royal mystic, has been sighted almost twenty-six years after she first disappeared. Both the King and a secretive organization known as the Resistance are rushing to locate her, for whoever controls the Essence Heart controls the kingdom. Although Genevieve’s birthmark does resemble the missing woman’s, she can’t imagine how a girl from the real world could have anything to do with this place of mystery and magic. But whether this is a case of mistaken identity or not, both groups seem intent on trying to capture her.

She enlists the help of a seedy shopkeeper and his fortune-telling sister to help her discover the answers she seeks. But can she stay free long enough to find a way home? And when she finds it, will she really want to leave?

MARK OF THE ESSENCE HEART is a 98,000-word epic fantasy novel set in a world of magic and high technology.

I also posted the first chapter of my story here if you're interested in reading it.

Anyway, it's going to be a long wait to see if I make the first cut. Well, not that long, but it will seem long. So I'll be using that time to finish up the second half of the story (book two) which is half done at present.

And here I need to devote a separate paragraph to my husband, who actually went to work yesterday so he could sit in the quiet office and edit my store the whole day! I love you honey, you're the best!

Good luck to everyone who entered and thanks a million to everyone who helped me out!

Also if this entry seems to float around a bit, it's because I'm running on 3-1/2 hours of sleep. I promise I'll be more coherent next time. ;)

Cat Fine Art Print by eringarrisondesign

Getting Nervous!

I don't think I mentioned this yet, but I am hoping to enter the novel I'm working on in a contest. There are only 5,000 entries accepted and the first day to submit is January 24th. The problem is I haven't finished the book yet! So I essentially have exactly two weeks to finish my story if I want to be absolutely sure I can enter this year! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Sorry, I'm better now.

Back in November when I started writing I figured I would be done with the story by the middle of December. Well, that didn't happen. I think I can do it, but it's going to be close!

And just finishing the story isn't really my only problem here. The other problem is to enter the contest it has to be less the 150K words. My story, if you noticed from my last post, is getting extremely close to that mark, and will be well over it by the time it's done. I think what I'm going to do for the contest is split the book into two books and just submit the first half. I'd rather not go that route, but I don't think I really have a choice in the matter. I do have a good place to split the story, but that does mean the first book in the series would end on kind of a cliffhanger. As a reader that would annoy me, but it would get me to buy the next book, so it might be a good thing as far as a publishing company is concerned, right?

We'll see how this whole thing ends up working out. :) I have no idea if I chance of winning or not, but I at least want to try. Wish me luck!


Word Count 135,440

Hard Drive Clock by TECOART

Hello!

Hello everyone, thanks for stopping by! You might know me from my other blog Autumn2May or you may have found me from some other corner of the internet. My name is Jennie and as you can see from my profile, I am a lot of things. Right now, specifically, I am a writer. I'm not published yet, but I am currently working on finishing my first book. I’ve started this blog, so I have a place to write about, well, writing, without scaring off all my Etsy buddies on my other blog.

My book is a sci-fi/fantasy story about a girl who gets stuck in an alternate universe and needs to find her way back. I got the idea from a dream I had in October of 2010 and my husband said it was such a cool idea, that I should write it down. I'd never written anything before, so I was slightly hesitant, well more like very hesitant, to try to write a story. Then I discovered NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, totally insane returning authors and unknowing first timers (i.e. me), take the challenge to write a 50,000 word (or longer) novel in 30 days, starting on Nov 1 and ending on Nov 30. This was not only perfect timing but also an interesting challenge. There is a huge possibility that if I had not found NaNo when I did, I might never even have started this book. I ended up 'winning' NaNo, but my story wasn't finished yet, so I kept going, the whole time completely amazed I was actually doing this.

For a little more background on why it's weird to me that I'm currently writing a book, let me tell you a story. In elementary school, I failed spelling class for the year. I turned in maybe two homework assignments and almost didn't graduate to the next grade. It wasn't because I was lazy or stupid, I just couldn't spell. The school tested me to see if maybe I had a problem that was causing me to have such trouble with this subject, but found nothing. Luckily for me, they let me graduate and we moved soon afterwards to a new, and better, school district. They re-tested me and found I was partially dyslexic and had a cognitive impairment that made it harder for me to learn the way everyone else did.

It was such a relief to find out that I wasn't crazy and that words (and numbers) were not really my enemy. By high school, I was in all regular classes and had figured out how to successfully deal with my impairments. But I was still a terrible speller and the nuances of grammar completely eluded me 75% of the time. I liked writing poetry. I loved reading. But writing itself was never something I really thought I would ever enjoy, never mind be successful at.

Computers are what eventually got me interested in writing, even though I didn’t know it at the time. My dad is a computer programmer and we've had at least one computer in our house since 1982. Since there were always computers, once word processors came into existence, there was always spell check. Then grammar check was added to that and I was in heaven! Now I could actually write and not have people give me strange looks when they read what I wrote. I learned to touch type in elementary school and middle school and perfected the skill on AIM in high school and college. I was ready for the next step, actually writing for fun.

I took a website design class in college so they would finally let me graduate, and as our class project we had to set up a simple website using HTML. I ended up making a family website to share pictures and stories. It was loads of fun! We set them up on Geocities (remember Geocities?), and I kept it mostly up to date, until they closed the site a few years ago. I also ended up with a LiveJournal before Facebook became all the rage and found I really loved writing lit bits of things here and there.

It all came to a head in 2009, when I gave birth to my youngest son. I found I suddenly had a lot of free time that I couldn't fill by watching TV or reading, as now it came in 10 or 15 minute spurts throughout the day. I decided to open an Etsy store and make crafts to sell online. I could create them in my spare time and sell them to make a few extra bucks on the side. After being on Etsy for a few months I found that most successful shop owners also had blogs outside of Etsy. I didn't really post on LiveJournal anymore and Facebook had made my website obsolete, I thought a new place to posted about what was going on in life would be a nice change from watching children's programming ALL DAY. So, I started my Etsy blog.

It started off a little choppy, but after I grew into it blogging became one of my favorite things to do. It didn't occur to me until after I started writing my story (almost a year later) that it wasn't the blogging in and of itself I liked, it was the writing part that had me hooked. I've had my other blog for over a year now, and except a few dead spots when we moved last February, I've posted on it every single week.

So now here I am, a writer, 130,000 words into finishing her first book and opening up a second blog dedicating to writing. This is somewhere I never thought I'd be, doing something I had never even considered liking. I hope I end up being good at it because, now that I've started I don't think I could stop if I want to.

Thanks again for stopping by, and I promise my posts from now on will be a little less rambling.

Have a great day! :)

Novels Text Bookends Bookends by KnobCreekMetalArts