Excerpt from Crossed by Ally Condie

Last year I wrote a review for Ally Condie’s fabulous book Matched. The second book in the Matched trilogy, Crossed, comes out November 1st, but you can read the first two chapters right now. Yay! (As a side note, make sure you notice that the first chapter is in Ky’s perspective and the second is in Cassia’s….I missed that the first time. )

Back and Ready for Writing Motivation

I’m baaaack! And impressed to see that my blog still gets hits. That’s encouraging.

In all honesty, I’ve thought about blogging for a couple weeks, but really had nothing to say. I haven’t worked on my writing, read blogs, or done anything writerly since the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference in June. I decided that I needed to get blogging though, because it gives me some accountability.

I just moved back to Georgia, so I’ve been in this transition period. But now, even though I have the time to write, I have trouble finding motivation. My writers group is now across the country and I have nothing keeping me accountable for me writing except for me.

While I should be enough, I’m obviously not. So now I’m going to blog once a week. And if I don’t write, where will I find my topics for posts? I won’t. So I have to write. See my logic?

Anyone else have good suggestions for ways to motivate yourself to write?

Blogging Hiatus

I’ve reached the point where I have so many things going on that my brain is shutting down. I think of something I need to do and then forget what it was only a minute later. So at this point, I just need to cut down on the things I’m doing.

So for the four people who actually read my blog, I am sorry to say that I’m taking a break. I hope to be able to write regularly again starting in August, though I may post a few things during Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers in June.

Thanks to my readers for being so great.

Writing Log

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how I needed to make a plan to complete my draft of WoAS so I can get to querying. Well, I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it and it just kind of fell to the wayside.

But then my genius-and-wonderfully-organized friend Chersti posted how she makes and keeps her writing schedule. So I am trying it.

My life is too unpredictable to make out a very long term, day-to-day plan, but I do know that I’d love to have my current draft finished by next week so I can print it out and read it out loud, make more changes, etc. I want that all finished by the WIFYR conference on June 13. So I took Chersti’s advice about keeping a writing log, and planned out the things I need to do this week. It looks something like this:

I’ve scheduled in all the writerly things that I need to do that day, color coded (see Chersti? you’re not the only one) by which task it is. I also took Chersti’s advice on keeping track of how long it takes me. I hope in the future, it’ll help me figure out just how long it takes me to do things so I can schedule better.

As you can see, I’ve already had to change things around. I didn’t finish revisions on Chapter 28, so I went through and edited my plan. Things come up, so even having a plan means flexibility. But this way I feel more accountable for the things I need to do. And somehow, it seems more doable seeing everything right there in front of me. (Good for excitement too–look! I’ll have a finished draft by Friday!)

Do you have another way you keep yourself on track with your writing goals?

Book Review: Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith

Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith

“I know you miss him. But Joy, Zan didn’t die.”
(Smith, Emily Wing. Back When You Were Easier to Love [uncorrected galley]. New York: Dutton, 2011.)

Reading Stars:  * * * *
Writing Stars:  * * * *
(For an explanation of my rating stars, check out my Book Review page.)

Joy’s boyfriend Zan is gone and things just aren’t the same without him. She and Zan’s ex-best friend Noah take a road trip to find Zan and get some closure, which for Joy means winning him back.

I really loved this book. It was a fun, clean read with a fabulous voice. And I think I really enjoyed reading a book with a main character who is a Mormon growing up in Mormon Utah. The culture is really a world all its own, and Emily Wing Smith did a great job at painting that picture. Another thing I enjoyed about that aspect was that the Mormonism wasn’t the key focus of the story. It was just the setting. Joy’s beliefs reflected the fact that she was Mormon (like she plans on waiting until marriage to have sex), but it wasn’t beating me over the head the whole time. It wasn’t preachy.

Another thing that was well done in this book is that it captured the “woe is me, my boyfriend is gone and I miss him” teenage thing without being too annoying or obnoxious.

This was a fun chick lit book, and I totally recommend it. Finally one of us Mormon YA authors writing about a Mormon main character in mainstream fiction. And Emily Wing Smith does it perfectly.

*news about back when you were easier to love*

Author connect: Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook |
Sequels: None
Similar books: The Way He Lived by Emily Wing Smith

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*for writers*

Agent: Michael Bourret from Dystel & Goderich

A Page from Emily Wing Smith’s Book: She does a fabulous job writing a character who has religious morals/beliefs that are a part of the character but that don’t come off sounding preachy.