The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

Oh loyal blog readers, just a week ago, I was gushing about my big plans for NaNoWriMo and how I just couldn’t wait to get started and I already had a plan and how this was going to be the book to get me my deal… oh wait, I don’t think I said that out loud, but was thinking this would make three for the series and who doesn’t love a three-book deal?

Unfortunately, this book isn’t going to write itself and I haven’t typed a word so far this year for NaNo. Not even a title or my name.

I had high hopes this year for NaNo, but have recently added a few activities to my hobby list and focused on them instead.

Last year during NaNo, I went back to my quiet room around 9 p.m. I wrote for an hour and then read for an hour.

This year, that hasn’t happened one time. Instead, I’ve been knitting, shopping, button sorting and doing everything I can possibly get my hands on but write.

Yes, I know I could start now and POSSIBLY make up for lost time, but as much as I was feeling it before November actually got here, I’m just not feeling it now.

I know to be a writer, it’s simple: YOU HAVE TO WRITE! But I have to be in the mood, at the right place at the right time and with what’s going on the paper to be at the tip of my tongue.

Do I have to do NaNo in November? Obviously I can’t partake in the festivities if I do it another month, but I can set my own goals and I’m sure a few of you will cheer me along, right???

For those of you who are participating, I congratulate you and pat you on the back for pushing forward and just doing it!

Whoah! Where did the year go? I can’t believe it’s almost time for NaNoWriMo already! For most people, today is about ghouls and goblins and scary movies and fighting off Michael Myers and eating their kids leftover trick-or-treat candy. Today, for me, is about preparing for a major month of writing.

For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s short for National Novel Writing Month, which is held in November. The goal is to start November 1 at midnight and write 40,000 words before the end of the month.

This is my second year participating. Last year, I didn’t finish in the month of November, but I did complete the book that I started and it’s in my editing process, which for now means it’s taking a little snooze on my computer.

I haven’t really been in the writing mood lately. Earlier this year, I hit the writing life hot and heavy. I finished edits on my first book and sent out tons of queries to agents. I finished the second book in the series and started edits, then I fell short. I started a third book, completely different from the first two and was going strong for a while, but then I lost interest in it.

But I am planning on writing my little heart out in the month of November. I always have a hard time deciding what I want to write about for NaNo, but for the second year, am tending to fall back on what I know. I will be writing the third book in my YA murder mystery series. I’ve had an idea for this book since I started the first one. Now it’s just time to make it come to life.

Maybe NaNo will also give me the push to get back to the grind and send out more queries and maybe even do some editing of the second one (although I will probably spend all the time I have on WIP on the one that has a deadline).

I do have a lot more going on this year than I did last year. It’s nothing like raising a kid, or working two jobs or anything, but I have taken up knitting and making button lampshades. I got my first order for lampshades this week, so when the buttons come in, I’ll have to spend some time on those, but I still plan on writing every night.

The goal is 1333 words a day. If I can get that many a day, I’ll be right on track to meet the 40,000 word goal. If it’s anything like last year, I’ll start out strong with 2-3K a day, then fall off, hardly reaching 100.

But, I’m going into NaNo with a positive outlook and the plans for at least a 3-book deal

Are you participating in NaNo? Want to cheer each other along????

I tried to review movies here on The KariAnnAlysis, but was watching way more movies than I could review. Recently I recorded Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story.  JK Rowling is one of those authors that I would love to get inside of her head and see what goes on and where her stories come from. This movie gave me a little insight and answered a few questions I had about the amazing author.

The movie follows Joanne from the time she is a little girl until her movie for Harry Potter premieres. It shows her ups, her downs and everything in between and how Harry Potter was born.

If you don’t know all of this and want to be surprised when you watch the movie, quit reading now! I am going ot talk about a few parts and don’t want to be the spoil sport for you!

If you are an inspiring author, you need to watch this movie. That’s it. Plain and simple. Joanne knew from day one that she wanted to be an author. She tried to go to college for writing, but didn’t get in and ended up with odd jobs throughout her life. She got the idea of Harry Potter when she fell asleep on the train one day. And just like that, BAM!, magic was born! Joanne was married, had a baby and then her life changed. She up and left her husband and one day got the nerve to show her sister her writing and finally got serious about it. Oh and did I mention that while she wrote Harry Potter, Rowling was on welfare? She went from being so poor that she needed help raising her baby, to being worth $1B. How about that?

I always like to see how other writers do their work. Joanne had a box full of notes, pages, chapters just strewn about. I couldn’t do that. I am very OCD and a perfectionist. I always think that I can take notes here and there and write down ideas on napkins and random sheets of paper, but I just can’t. I read twitter feeds of authors who do this and kind of admire them for not being so uptight. I do all of my writing on my laptop. I always save it to my desktop and to my little flash drive. I have a little red notebook that I keep track of everything in. It had all of my notes for my books, ideas and the days that I write and how many words I get in. But it is very organized and if it gets out of order, I have to get a new notebook and transfer. I need help, anyone agree? Maybe one day I will have that idea that just comes to me and the different parts come, like they did with Joanne and Harry, and I won’t be able to help it. Fingers crossed!

One of the things that I loved about this movie was that I learned that Joanne didn’t just write Harry Potter overnight and it become  a success. It took her a few years to get it all down and get that box of hers organized. It’s been over a year since I’ve started writing. I have completed a YA novel and am in the Kari-edit stage of the second one in the series. I have also started a love story, but am not sure where it’s going to go. I loved it when I started it, but am now losing steam. I feel like I have a few ideas that are swimming around in my head and here pretty soon, one of them is going to take me by storm. I hope it happens sooner rather than later. I need a great idea for NaNoWriMo.

One of the things I disliked about this story was, and I don’t know if it’s really the case, Joanne only sent Harry Potter to two agents before it was picked up. Granted Harry Potter is a work of genius, and spectacular compared to my little YA murder-mystery, but still, TWO agents? C’mon! It looked so easy. I have sent requests out to nearly two dozen agents and ZILCH! I understand Joanne’s book came at a time where children’s books were still a budding genre and now everyone has a YA book, but STILL!

And although I felt a tad inadequate about my writing compared to miss JK Rowling, like I’m sure most authors do, this movie inspired me. She wasn’t some little rich girl who had an “in” and took advantage of it. She started with an empty box and filled it with her ideas that formed to be Harry Potter. She worked her way from rock bottom to the top of the literary world.

Have you seen this movie? If so, did you find it as inspirational as I did??

I love my blog, I really do. It’s like my little own piece of venting paradise. I can write whatever I want, whenever I want. So what is my problem? I am not being a good blogger.

My blog was born on MySpace, then grew on to Blogger, then to Wordpress, then I got my own little domain. I started the blog because I fell in love with Jane Eyre. I wanted to scream it to the world and let everyone know how I felt, not that they would care. My blog became a book blog naturally, because I love and know books and love to talk about them. And what a better place to do it than on the Internet? I can talk/write and if you don’t want to hear it or read it, you can click away and not hurt my feelings by rolling your eyes at me or blatantly ignoring my chatting.

I have been blogging for, geesh, three years now I think. I have had a lot of phases and trends, which is a constant in my life. I have been on meme kicks including Wordless Wednesday, Teaser Tuesday, In My Mailbox aka On My Bookshelf, etc. etc. etc. And I have been all over the place with posting book reviews from on time and often, to few and far between. There are times, like now, when I have a list of posts I need to work on, but they are just sitting there, gathering dust and losing steam.

I don’t want to say I am in slump, because I have the content, I just need to get it out there. So it’s a slump of sorts, I guess.

So what am I babbling on about today? I need to be a better blogger. If I want people to stop by and read, I need to give them a reason to do so. I need to be a stickler about getting my content on here and I need to be diligent about posting topics people will want to read about.

Yes, I have been busy lately, with work and life in general, but I need to quit making excuses.

I am asking for a little help from you, my readers, while I am working on getting back on top of my blogging game. I am asking you to be patient with me. I need to not only fine tune what I know and what I am good at, I also need to find out what I want my blog to say about me. A lot has changed in my life since I have started blogging. I am moving up the ladder at work, gaining more responsibilities daily, I am married, and even though I know I am in no way old, I am not getting any youner. I need to decide where I want my blog to go from here. I want to keep it based on books, but I want it to be more.

I have a few ideas up my sleeve on how to make this happen, but please stick with me as I am figuring it out.

I also want some advice. How do you keep up with your blogging game? As you grow as a person and blogger, how do you move forward and make changes to fit your personality and your life without making a complete overhaul? Do you have a blogging schedule? Do you do posts daily? Or take a day and knock out a whole week’s worth?

I am going to be positive here and hope on lots of responses and give you all a pre-Thank You for your help!

Since I have started this blog, I’ve become so much more than a reader. My passion for books has grown immensely but so has my passion for writing. And through both of my passions, I have met tons of new friends. One of those friends, Dana Kaye at Kaye Publicity has been sending me great books for a couple of years now.

And now, she has also introduced me to a whole new world and a bunch of new friends. It’s called Book Country. At first when Dana told me about this site, I was swamped with work, just getting back from vacation and not really sure if I wanted to join another online community. But once I finally got to sit down, sign up and check it out, I’m hooked!

Like with any other online family, you sign up and tell everyone a little about yourself. Since this is a bookish website, you get to share your favorite authors, books and what kind of reading and writing you like. Right up my alley!

So, I’m sure you’re asking “What is so great about this site? What makes it different?” I have heard of a few online resources to help with writing and actually signed up for one to help me with my query, but this one is completely different from any I have seen.

Some of the things you can do on this site is “Read and Review”. Under this tab, you can search genres and find books that authors have uploaded to read and review.

You can “Write”, which is why we are all here in the first place right? You can upload your book, or what you have done of it and people can read and help you with it. That’s the thing I am looking forward to the most. I have been done with my book for a few months now, but still have not let anyone lay eyes on it. It makes me nervous. I am afraid of what people I know will say about it. For some reason, I don’t care what strangers say, only the people I know. So, I’m getting involved with a whole new community of strangers to help me out.

You can also start discussions and get to know writers who like the same genres that you do.

I am an Internet junkie. I stalk on Facebook all the time and have to get in my daily spins on Bejeweled, I am a Twitaholic, with more than 13,000 tweets under my belt, I have a handful of fashion websites I check on a daily basis, not to mention scouring the real estate websites, waiting for the perfect house to come along. And I’m always up for a good Google search to prove a point. I honestly didn’t feel like I had any more time to give to another site, but even after a few minutes of looking Book Country over, I’m really excited to get uploaded and get going.

I’ve learned, in the short time since I’ve started writing, much like with a child, it takes a village. My husband is my rock and very supportive of my writing. He keeps telling me to keep trying and keep sending out my letters and keep writing. But this business can be cold and lonely and the more buddies you make, the warmer you will be. I have great su[ort from my writing group and am looking for much more on this website!

So, there’s my pitch, now here’s a few words from my pal Dana about the site:

Writing is a solitary practice, but revision requires feedback. Most aspiring authors send their
manuscript to friends and family, others meet with a critique group, and some enroll in an MFA
program.

In April, Penguin Group (USA) launched Book Country, a website dedicated to genre fiction
readers and writers. Focused on romance, fantasy, science fiction, mystery and thriller, Book
Country helps new authors hone their craft as part of a genre fiction community.

Users upload their novels (or a portion of their novels) for peer review. Book Country’s unique
genre map helps writers categorize their novels, and lets readers find books similar to ones they
love, which they then read and provide detailed critiques. Book Country brings the peer feedback
and community feel of a critique group, online.

Another key feature is discoverability. If you’re working on a novel, publishing professionals
won’t see it until you begin sending out query letters. Book Country gives agents and editors a
place to discover new talent; for this reason, many publishing professionals have already signed
up. Book Country also allows avid readers and bloggers to discover budding talent and use their
reading experience to offer helpful feedback.

As the world continues to shift online, Book Country creates a community that was once only
available in metropolitan areas. Now, genre fiction authors all over the world can come together
online to exchange feedback, engage in discussions, and have their work discovered.

Join us at www.BookCountry.com and follow us on Twitter @Book_Country

Alright friends, I hope this has been enough to persuade you to check out this awesome site and tool for writers and readers alike.

Now I want to hear from you. Have you heard of this site? Are you a member? If you’re joining after reading this, please let me know what you find that you love because we are both learning the ropes together!