Adventures in Crafting with Words

Something about this book caught my attention.  The adorable cover?  The unique title?  The book blurb? All three.  The trio promises a quirky ride through one senior's brain. Sally Spitz (unfortunate name that) is unlucky enough to have a boy crazy best friend determined to help her find Mr. or - in the opening set up's case - Ms. Right.  It doesn't help that her own mother is willing to help out Hooker (poor best friend with another unfortunate last name).  This didn’t actually make sense to me.  We learn early on that Sally's mother divorced Sally's father because he was cheating on her.  Would she be so willing to set up her daughter repeatedly while the girl is in high school?  I doubt it.  It's more likely she'd be content to let her daughter not date or find her own boyfriends.  Especially since she hasn't moved on and started dating again herself...  Maybe if Sally was 30-years old... But th...

My Facebook news feed is filled with images of reminders about what Monday is really about.  My grandfather is a veteran.  He was in the Navy during the Korean War.  All my life I was aware that he was medically discharged. It wasn’t until recently that he told anybody (me) what happened during the hurricane that resulted in his medical discharge.  But that is not my story to share. Someday I will end up connecting Memorial Day with him.  Remember those who lost their lives to protect our freedoms.  Toast a hamburger or hotdog in their memory.

Oftentimes how I pick my next read - or review - isn't complicated.  In this case I was scanning titles on my kindle.  I don't often go into the Young Adult section on my kindle.  There are mostly big names and I'd like to support the new, not-big-names authors.  But The Yearbook by Carol Masciola caught my attention.  It might have been the cover.  It was definitely the blurb. Lola, an orphan in foster care - a group home at that - manages to find herself in the library reserve room at school.  She took over a job of throwing out fire and water damaged books out of self-preservation - she's trying to hide from someone.  In the room she finds an undamaged yearbook from 1924. Falling asleep, she finds herself transported during a Fall Dance in 1923.  There she meets Whoopsie, Thumbtack, and Peter the professor.  Not wanting to leave her new friends and the feeling that she's finally found where she belongs, Lola goes back to get ...

Sometimes you sit down and realize something. Okay.  I sat down and realized something as I was writing Jennifer's part of the Bookworm story. The Bookworm Next Door wasn't finished when I self-published it.  It's a disturbing reality that faced me with two difficult decisions.  I could close the door on The Bookworm Next Door and leave it imperfect or I could rewrite it and make it perfect. I decided to do exactly that.  Perfect is better. So then I was faced with the daunting task of piecing everything together exactly the way it needed. There was also the fact that I was faced with continuity issues with some of the characters names.   Last night I finished The Bookworm Next Door.  It has all of the short stories combined.  It has new material.  It has a never before seen ending that only I knew was going to happen. Is The Bookworm Stories Series over?  No.  There's still Aimee Kirkland's story.  Grace and Kyle....

It's been a few weeks since I've written a blog post of any kind.   I've been diligently working on my own manuscript and it's getting closer and closer to being finished. There...  moving on. Gryphon's Heir written by D.R. Ranshaw has been on my kindle for weeks.  It was a big part of my #gymandbooks routine, but getting about an hour read at a time takes a while.  It became a habit that took a little while to break.   This is decidedly a 'boy' book.  There is no obvious romantic interest; actually, this grabs my attention even more because I'm already trying to decide who Rhiss (Rhissan) will end up with at the end.  (I am a hopeless romantic after all.)   World creating is extremely important, even more so when creating your own world for your characters to live, work, and love in.  I believe that Ranshaw did a superb job of creating his world.   More on that later. When we first enter the story we...

Sometimes time catches up with you.  I haven't finished a single new book this week.  Not a single one.  My intended review for this week is - according to my kindle - 36% read.  That actually kind of disturbs me because sometimes reading, for me, is like breathing.  I need it. Like with writing or creating something out of jewelry findings or polymer clay.  The urge to read and create are fundamental urges for me; necessary for life.  At 31 years old it might seem silly to be chasing a dream with very little financial stability, but there you have it. My dream is to write and I'm going to try it.  Anyway, I first encountered this book when I was a junior or senior in high school (2001 or 2002 - it definitely wasn't 2003 because... well... I'll finish my story.) I was in theater class (which was not taken my last semester of high school, thus the not 2003 part) and one of dear friends, at the time, surprised me by suggesting a book....

Sometimes things get frustrating over on my side of the laptop.  Keep watching reviews and determining ways to bounce back, to create better.  Watching the numbers and wondering if those handful of bad reviews are just pulling the rest of the potential readers down where they don't want to read, not even with Kindle Unlimited.  I have to watch the day by day because at the end of the month if I don't hit minimum page reads and sold books then I'm losing out. I'm running out of time.  I'm running a gamble here by wanting to be a full-time writer.  A crafter of words. But this and etsy don't always pay the bills.  They certainly aren't paying me enough to get out of my parents house. Who am I? I am a writer.  I've been a writer since the seventh grade. And Yet... It hasn't even been a year since I've started.  I really need to not lose hope. A