Road Trip Wednesday: Best Books of the Year

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments on YA Highway, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

You can participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.

This Week's Topic

RTW is combining with Highwayer Sarah Enni's End-of-the-Year blog carnival, and asking:
What were your top five favorite books of 2011? 

 This is such a hard question since I read nearly 100 books this year, and fell in love with so many of them. Narrowing it down to five isn't easy, but I've given it a shot. The following list is in no particular order. Each of them kept me on my toes in different ways and kept me reading well past my bedtime or "Okay, I really need to write right now time!"

 The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin 

Haven by Kristi Cook

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout 

Clarity by Kim Harrington

Where She Went by Gayle Forman

I'd love to hear what your favorite reads of 2011 were. Please leave a link to your blog in the comments.

Road Trip Wednesday: Where do you buy your books?

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments on YA Highway, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

You can participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.



This Week's Topic:
Where do you buy most of your books? No one is judging! 

I buy my books pretty much anywhere. I'd say the majority of my books are purchased from Barnes & Noble and Amazon, but if I'm in a grocery store (it happens to me more often than you'd think!) and they have a book that catches my eye, I'll buy it there. I'm one of those people who buys books on a whim, so if it looks good and it's right in front of me, I'll usually buy it right then. I'm not exactly known for my patience when it comes to books I want to read.

So what about you? Where do you buy your books?

It's Not You, It's Me

Before I starting writing I had real life friends. I wanted to go out to dinner and shopping. I wanted to get out of my house and breathe fresh air. I enjoyed their company and looked forward to anything they wanted to do. What happened, you ask?

Writing happened. Imaginary friends happened. Drafting and revising and drafting again happened. Now all I ever want to do is write. I think about my characters all day long and live for the moment I kiss my children good night so that I can perfect their story. I sneak a few paragraphs here and there throughout any day that I can, but most days I can't get anything considerable done until my children are fast asleep. This means the nighttime hours are my writing time. And my writing time is very, very valuable to me. So much so that I get annoyed when I have to leave my house to do something else. (I know it's horrible. I'm ashamed.)

But it's like I'm possessed. I have this undying, unwavering, unending need to finish this book. I absolutely have to do it. And when I'm away from my characters, I'm not even enjoying myself because all I can think about is how much time I'm wasting NOT writing. As I said before, I'm not proud of this. I know it's not fair to the real life friends. So I've decided to write them this letter, this formal apology for my lackluster friendship skills as of late:

Dear Real Life Friends,

It's not you. It's me. Honest. I have a disease, an addiction to something you can't yet see, but is entirely real inside my head. I hear voices. These voices are telling me a story and I can't seem to rest until I've written down every word of what they have to say. I know this must sound ludicrous and maybe even a little nutso, but it's true.

I know that you're wondering what happened to your spontaneous and exciting old friend, and well, I just wanted you to know that I'm still here. Somewhere inside of me is still that same friend that you know and love, she's just a little possessed at the moment. It's not that I don't enjoy your company. I do. Or at least, I did. But I know, just know with all my heart, I'll still love your company once I finish this book. I swear it.

I just need a little space right now. Some time to work things out in my head would really be helpful. I hope you can forgive me. I promise to come back to you someday. Just...not right now. I still have 66 pages to revise. And then I'll probably revise it one more time for good measure. But one day in the future, I'll show my face again. Honest. 

Truly,

Your Dear Old Friend

Do you think that will earn me forgiveness? If not, maybe a little funny from one of the most hilarious shows of all time will help? 

It's Okay to Love YA

I just spotted this on another YA writer friend's blog, and well, it totally deserves sharing. If you haven't already been following Sarah Enni, you should. She's already awesome, but some day you're going to want to say you "knew her when." 

Anyway, take a look at this sign she found in her local bookstore: 

Isn't this awesome? Be sure to check out Sarah's original post HERE.

Do you Pinterest?

Thanks to some awesome writer friends, I've discovered the joy of Pinterest. It's kind of addictive, but oh-so-fun. Browsing photos on Pinterest is like eating cookies. You can't stop once you start. That's not just me, right?

There are photos of **everything** on Pinterest and it's super duper easy to "pin" them to your own boards. You can also follow friends and watch what they are pinning to their boards. I love it lots. 

Here are few photos I've pinned in the last few days that are inspiring me with both my writing and getting into a spooky Halloween mood:

Notice the theme? Aren't they awesome? I especially love that last one.

Do you use Pinterest or another site similar? If you do use Pinterest, you can follow me HERE. 

Road Trip Wednesday

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link in the comments - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments on YA Highway.

Today's Question:

What has your writing road trip looked like so far? Excitement? Traffic Jams and detours? Where are you going next?

There are lots adjectives I could use to describe my writing road. I can't complain really. I started this road in April, 2010. I wrote and wrote and wrote the first draft finally finishing it October. Then, I took a few months off to think about the WIP and to figure out where it needed to go next. I knew it was full of plot holes and beginner mistakes. 

In January 2011, I began my revisions. I spent months fighting with the WIP. I sent it off for critiques. I fought with it some more. 

In May 2011, the story took on a whole new form. This meant that my first WIP was nothing more than a practice run to see who my characters really were and I essentially needed to start from scratch, but that I will not complain about. 

In September 2011 (last month!) I finished the first draft of this second WIP (it's really just too different to even put it in the same category as the original one). I took a few weeks off again, letting the story move through me, getting to the heart of the story once again and now......now I am revising it. Now, I'm liking what I see when I'm revising. Now, it's coming together--at least that's what I'm hoping is happening. 

In summation, I wouldn't call my writing road long, windy and dark, but it hasn't been very quick either. I'm certainly not one of those writers (yet) that can sit down, draft a novel in six weeks and have it ready for querying a month later. 

That being said, I am still proud of the fact that I've completed not one, but two first drafts.

So how about you? What has your writing road been like? I'd love to hear from you. Please leave a comment and I'll be sure to visit your blog.

The Revising Pity Party

I'm revising. I've been revising for a few weeks now and at certain points I'm thrilled with how the story is evolving. At other points I want to close my laptop and walk away. 

I'm finding that revising is an awful lot like pregnancy. You have huge bursts of energy where it seems like nothing can stop you, then you crash and want to do nothing but sleep. You are moody. One minute you're elated with the story you've created. The next you're frustrated, depressed and ready to cry from the lack of inspiration. You want to sleep, sleep and sleep some more. And then maybe, just maybe, you'll wake up and it will all fall perfectly into place. 

Okay, so maybe that's not exactly like pregnancy, but you get the idea. And there are definitely mood swings. Definitely. 

So yeah, last night I had a completely embarrassing revision pity party. I allowed myself to wallow in my self doubt and let myself believe my writing totally sucked, knowing that this morning I was going to shrug it off and move forward. This post is my way of letting go of that self doubt. 

And with that, my pity party is now over. Annnnndddddd back to revising!

The bonus of revising not actually being pregnancy is I can drink all the coffee and tea I want without feeling guilty. This I am grateful for.