Jen's Blog
Cat Tales
Get it? Cat Tails…
Okay, pretty lame, I know. Anyway, I don’t usually talk about my cats on my blog because there are already plenty of blogs dedicated to cats without me getting involved. But, lately, my cat, Kiki, has been having some problems.
I adopted Kiki four years ago this month. I was told by the woman I adopted her from that she was eight years old at the time. So, that makes her pretty old now. But, she hasn’t changed much. She still likes climbing inside cardboard boxes, perching on the window sill, sitting on my lap, rolling around in catnip and chomping on kitty treats.
Lately, she’s lost some weight and can’t keep dry cat food down. And then when I gave her a bath the other night because her hair has been a little oily, I noticed just how skinny she is. And I got worried. So, she got to go in her least favorite thing ever–the cat carrier–to the vet yesterday. They did some tests, and it turns out she has an infection.
We have some antibiotics now, and it sounds like this will probably clear up the problem. But, it turns out, that medicine is Kiki’s second least favorite thing in the world. Or at least the dropper is. If I so much as get it within a few inches of her mouth, she tries to run away. And since I have only two hands, this creates a very difficult scenario. Just imagine me doing the cooing baby voice thing with a dropper of milky medicine, taking a single step toward Kiki before she darts away and flies over the couch like a furry bullet.
And this was just the first dose. I have to give her two doses a day until Thursday. I’ve been trying to come up with some alternate solution, but the only idea I keep coming up with is the addition of an extra arm.
Saturday Six
1. This past week was a pretty busy week for me. My parents came into town, and I played tour guide, taking them into Times Square, on ferries and to Ellis Island. It was a great visit, just packed with things to do!
2. I had a promising development in the Day Job Search this week. Hoping to hear more next week. Fingers crossed.
3. I’m still working through revisions on BONE DRY. I’m through chapters 21 out of 34, so I’m getting there. My CP has already read through the first nine chapters and had some excellent comments and suggestions. I can’t wait to go back and start working through those, but I’m forcing myself to finish the second draft before touching the third.
4. Summer has finally started acting like summer. Warm, sunny days. It’s kind of sad to think we’re already into August when I want the weather to stay like this for months and months. I’ll take the heat over the stinging cold any day.
5. This week is SCBWI in LA, and I wish I could be there! It seems like such a fantastic conference for YA and MG writers. There is a NY conference in January, and I’d really like to make it to that one.
6. And huge congrats to fellow AWer, Kody Keplinger, for selling her debut YA novel, THE DUFF!
Birthday Weekend
Sunday was my birthday. Another year older. In the past, I’ve celebrated kind of big. One year I had a fun karaoke party with a private room, the next I spent the day with a group of amazing friends I rarely get to see. This year, I felt like being a little more low-key. I guess it’s because I’m getting older? Anyway, despite it being low-key, I had a really great time walking around and hanging out in the city with Joel.
We went to see Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp which was just okay. I enjoyed it, but it might be my least favorite movie of his. Also, went to Forbidden Planet, Barnes and Noble, The Strand and Rice to Riches. If you’ve never been to Rice to Riches and you’re in the NYC area, go now! Amazingly delicious rice pudding.
I got a nice stack of books and some ARCS this weekend.
- My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
- The Eternal Kiss Anthology
- Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine
- Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich
- Ghost Huntress by Marley Gibson
- Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
- Sea Change by Aimee Friedman
- Give up the Ghost by Megan Crewe
- As You Wish by Jackson Pearce
Needless to say, I have quite a bit of reading ahead of me! I plan on posting reviews of the ARCs I got and maybe do a couple of giveaways.
Anyway, it was a great day. I’m looking forward to the next year and hoping it brings great things!
BONE DRY Revisions
This week I started on the revisions for BONE DRY. I was able to make it two weeks between typing “The End’ on the first draft and starting on the revisions. I’m just so excited to get going on this, I couldn’t wait any longer!
Things are going well so far. Mostly smalls tweaks, a little more here, a little less here. I’ve sent the first few chapters to a couple of early readers. So far I’ve gotten positive feedback. Fingers crossed it stays that way!
What are you working on?
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BONE DRY: Second Draft
4 / 34 Words (11.76%)
Liquid Story Binder
I’ve mentioned Liquid Story Binder a few times lately, and I wanted to give a little more info on it in case anyone was interested in checking it out. Basically, it’s a great, reasonably-priced piece of writing software. Free for the first 30 days, and I think 45 bucks if you decide you want to purchase it. But it’s definitely not for everyone. It’s a great way to organize and plot, and if you’re a “pantser” then it probably isn’t worth it for you, at least for first drafts. I do think it could be a very useful tool for revisions though.
Here are some of the features I’ve been using that I find useful:
- Full screen writing mode
The internet is distracting, and I have a bad habit of multi-tasking when I’m writing…or doing anything really. Which is why full screen mode is cool. It does what it says, takes up the entire screen. I can’t see any other windows or tabs. It’s just me and the page. And it works really well for me. I set a word count goal–usually 500–and don’t exit out of full screen mode until I’ve reach it.
- Timeline
I mentioned awhile ago that I was looking for some timeline software that didn’t cost a gazillion dollars. Well, I found it! Basically, you can create a timeline for the entire plot with a line for each character. So, you can see what all the major players are doing at any given time. I think it’s really useful, especially for my first person stories, because I can get a good visual display of what other characters are doing off-page. Here’s a screenshot for an example. This is actually easy to do in Excel, but I like the visual aspect of it.
- Dossiers
Love the dossiers in this program. You can create a dossier full of important facts for each character and location in the novel and attach pictures. Since I love visuals, I always go around the internet searching for pictures that remind me of people, places and things in my manuscripts. Plus, I can’t keep everything straight. I have a tendency to forget last names and eye colors. So, I love this feature. Once again, this is something you can do in Excel or Word, but I like the visual aspect and the organization to it. Instead of a jumbled Excel doc or a bunch of random Word files, it’s all in one program with several little uniform windows. I don’t know if the whole uniform window thing is important to anyone else, but being very organized helps me concentrate.
So, that’s what I’ve been mostly using. There are lots of other tools that come with this program. Storyboards, outlines, mind maps, repetition visualizer, automatic backup, typewriter mode and journals. It’s a whole lot of stuff, and you probably won’t use it all. In fact, using it all would be a little overkill. Does anyone really need a storyboard, timeline, mind map and outline for one novel? Probably not. But it’s the kind of program you can experiment with and find the right combination of tools that’ll help you get organized, if that’s what you need.
Plotting Maniac
Somewhere along this crazy writing journey, I became a plotting maniac.
Up until last night, I’ve done most of my plotting on the computer. But I’m contemplating a pretty extensive rewrite of CLASH, and I wanted something big and visual to help me organize my thoughts and changes to the plot. And just the very act of doing something with hardcopy material ignited some creative brain cells. So, I made this:
It’s the plot board for the rewrite, but not actually the finished product. I’m changing a lot. Pretty much slashing the middle of the book and going in an entirely different direction, slashing a subplot and adding in two new subplots. The plot threads shown right now are the major plots that were in the previous version but with the changes I’m making accounted for. Now that I have an awesome visual display, I’m going to go in and add the two completely new subplots that are being added into the manuscript. Need some other post-it note colors for them though!
I was feeling a little overwhelmed at first, but having this neat and organized board makes me feel much less…scared. Once I’m finished with it, I’m going to go into Liquid Story Binder and write the new chapter outline. And then the hard work will begin.
I also have the revisions for BONE DRY to do before sending that off to my CP and beta readers, and then agent. I’m trying to let it sit, but I’m itching to get back to it. I’m also going to create a plot board for it, but thankfully, I don’t think it needs any major revisions to the plot. I’m giving myself only a few more days before I cave and get started. Patience, what’s that?
Edited to add: And here’s the final version of the CLASH rewrite plot board. It’s so pretty. 
BONE DRY, First Draft, Done!
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BONE DRY: First Draft
65,479 / 65,479 Words (100 % Done!)
Just typed “THE END” on the first draft of BONE DRY! Very exciting. This is the idea I fell in love with and have been pounding away at the keyboard ever since. I’m happy to say I still love it, and can’t wait to dive into revisions, although I’m going to try setting it aside for a little while first.
Random info:
Total words of first draft: 65,479
Chapters: 34
Time spent: 8 weeks
Coffees consumed: A gazillion
Music listened to: The Academy Is, Mayday Parade, Minus the Bear, Paramore
Genre: YA UF, heavy in the mystery
Happy 4th!
I took a little blog break for awhile, but now I’m back! I’ve been busy with some non-writing life stuff, but things are slowing down now for the long holiday weekend. After checking the weather, I see it’s going to storm tonight but actually be sunny and warm for the rest of the weekend!
To that I say, it’s about time.
No weekend plans for me yet. Maybe some fireworks. Maybe a trip to the beach (even though it will be crazy crowded).
If you need some great reading material, I highly suggest picking up Rachel Vincent’s new release, PREY. I devoured this yesterday, and it’s the best book I’ve read in the series so far. It is suspenseful and heartbreaking, and the stakes have been really raised for the rest of the books. Faythe has grown so much in this series while still staying true to who she is. I’m amazed at how strong she can be in the face of so many obstacles. Her character arc over the entire series is amazing, and I cannot wait to see how she grows in the last two books, SHIFT and ALPHA.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
DULL BOY by Sarah Cross Video Review
Big Writing Weekend
Hope everyone had a great Father’s Day weekend, even if the weather wasn’t particularly great. I’m ready for warmth and plenty of sunshine.
So, I got a lot of writing done this weekend.
I’d been feeling a little stuck all week after hitting 40k. I really don’t know what it is about that point in the story that makes me feel overwhelmed and like everything I’ve written so far is pure crap. So, on Friday, I downloaded some writing software on a free 30-day trial. I actually want to write an entire separate post about it later, so all I’m going to say is that I love it.
I spent several hours on Friday organizing my thoughts, my ideas, the world, the characters, everything. A lot of what I knew I wanted to do with the last third of the book was up in my head, parts scribbled down in a notebook and parts scribbled down in various Word files. It felt good to get it all organized.
I have this thing about organization. If the desk where I work is cluttered, I cannot concentrate enough to get anything done. I actually have a lot of things on my desk, but every single thing has a spot and is exactly where I want it to be. My post-its have a spot. My Wolverine glass has a spot. My coffee cup has a spot. And if there are things on my desk that are not supposed to be there, they must be moved.
Anyway, after my day of organizing, I was able to pound out 5k words that night. Then, yesterday, I wrote 8k more words. I was on a roll, in the zone, whatever you want to call it. I don’t think I’ll be able to write that many words in a day again anytime soon.
So, I’m estimating about 15k more words to go until The End. And while I’m feeling very excited about finishing this book, I’m also a little sad about it being over soon. I’ve really loved writing it. At least I’ll have revisions!
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BONE DRY: First Draft
53,263 / 70,000 Words (76.00%)