Jen Hayley

Well, there goes 16k words. I’ve spent the past week or so really plotting out my current WIP. Like, REALLY plotting it out. In the past, I’ve been halfway between a pantser and a plotter, but I always get really annoyed at myself when I get 25% into the book and have no idea what I’m doing. This time, I wanted to approach things differently and try a different process.  [ Read More ]

Recently, my writing friends, Chandler Baker and Shana Silver, answered the NYT By the Book section questions, and I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and answer them myself. What was the best book you read last year? Insurgent by Veronica Roth. When and where do you like to read?  Two places. If it’s daytime and sunny, I like to go sit by the sea and read. Otherwise, in my bed just  [ Read More ]

It’s super early here in the UK. Well, 7am, which is earlier than I usually roll out of bed. Where’s my coffee? Anyway, my to-do list for this week is terrifying, and I need to get going on my daily workout, heading to my PhD office for serious thesis progress and some first drafting on my WIP. Plus, I’ve been accepted to speak at an academic conference later this month,  [ Read More ]

I made the mistake of beginning the draft of this novel with a very vague outline, the first four chapters the only ones fleshed out in detail. Now that I’m 15k in, I have no idea what I’m doing. So, I’ve stepped back and have spent the past couple days outlining. And now I realize a bunch of things are in so the wrong place, and I’m going to have  [ Read More ]

Well, it certainly has been awhile since I updated. So, what have I been up to for the past how many months now? The big postgrad research paper I did over the summer got high marks and is now bound and available in The National Library of Wales! I doubt anyone in the entire world will ever want to read it (à la Ross’s thesis from Friends) but hey, I know  [ Read More ]

PARTIALS by Dan Wells Humanity is all but extinguished after a war with partials–engineered organic beings identical to humans–has decimated the world’s population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island. The threat of the partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to  [ Read More ]

Jessica Love posted something on her blog earlier today that really spoke to me. It was about insecurities and her own struggles with a particular insecurity. I think it really said something to me because I never would have guessed it. Often times I think most everyone around me is confident and beautiful and strong, never letting an insecurity getting the better of them. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there  [ Read More ]

So, here we are in the middle of the great TEN (by Gretchen McNeil) Cover Reveal Scavenger Hunt! In case you’re just tuning in now, here’s a quick recap of the scavenger hunt. Each of the ten days, a new clue is revealed on a new blog. Follow the trail to gather all the clues, leading to the final cover reveal on February 24th…and also giving everyone the chance to  [ Read More ]

Hey guys! For the past several weeks, I’ve been doing reviews of new YA and MG releases, and it got me thinking of older books that I truly love and that have really been instrumental in getting us to where we are today, a point in time with so many great YA books on the shelves. Specifically, I was thinking about Madeleine L’Engle. Her Time Quintet books are just amazing. Guys,  [ Read More ]