I recently finished my first draft of Illuminate, which was very exciting! Don’t get me wrong—there is still a ton that needs to happen before it goes to agents in the spring. But there’s a thing that happens when you finish your draft: You have to start thinking about the next story. The way I write is by focusing my creative energies on one story at a time (“time” can be exclusive, or “per day” if I am drafting and revising two different projects). This means I don’t usually have a pocketful of future-stories I’m eagerly waiting to work on. As a result, whenever I...
I’ve been watching copious amounts of figure skating on the Olympics (this is why I missed church two weeks in a row shhh) and it’s reminded me just now much I love dance. There is so much you can tell about a person from watching how they move. Look no further than two Russian figure skating superstars: Julia Lipnitskaia and Evgeny Plushenko. Dance is a great way to discover something about a person: How they like to move, how comfortable they are with the opposite sex (yes I am from a Jane Austen novel), what sort of music appeals to...
I’ve completed my reading goal for the year! I set my goal on Goodreads back on January 1, 2013. This year I’d lowered it to 50 books, hoping to use my extra time and tackle more classics. I’m not sure how well I accomplished that, but I did pass my goal with a final count of 63/50. Not all of these books were published in 2013, but below is a list of my favorites from my reading list this year. 1. The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness Young Adult fiction. Huckleberry Finn meets Firefly. Fantastically written. Though the...
