Wednesday, August 6, 2014

What's Up Wednesday - 8.5.14


What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what's up.

You can participate by going to Jaime's blog here. Or Erin's blog there.

What I'm Reading

I'm so behind in my reading, but I got caught up in this really awesome ARC from Simon & Schuster. The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley was so good. It's not released until 2015 but you can request from Edelweiss. I was completely swept away when I found out this was about a boy who hid out and lived at a hospital after his parents and sister were killed. He's constantly dodging the social worker (who he calls Death), but more importantly he floats into all of these peoples' lives. I just loved the entire concept.

What I'm Writing

A lot. I'm settling into a new project and having a lot of fun. Rather than set word count goals (which stresses me out), I've decided to make the goals less numerical. So instead, my goals are to write a specific scene or finish a chapter or think out the dialogue for that part. It's working well and I've found that I'm less worried about hitting a target or racing to the finish. After years of being stressed out, I'm enjoying writing again.

What Inspires Me

Have you ever categorized the stories you've written? Last week, I posted this blog about The Types of Stories I've Written, and I've been thinking about it ever since. It seems like there's always That One that felt like it would never be right or The One that made writing seem so easy.

I'd say right now I'm writing The One I Swore I'd Never Write--which is loosely based on my own childhood. Which One are you writing now?


What Else I've Been Up To

Ever since we moved into this house seven years ago, I've had this really ugly orange carpet. It was always in the plan to switch it out to something neutral--especially when I insisted on having pink walls. I mean, really? Could I write stories in any other room that was not pink?

So for the longest time, I had this really bad mismatched room. BUT NOT ANYMORE!

LOOK! (Yeah, that's a faerie statue in the corner. Don't hate. haha.)


And that meant that all of these books needed to go back on the shelf, so I finally made a rainbow shelf. I have no idea where anything is anymore and am rethinking that I might go in and tighten up the gradients, but I LOVE it.



See ya next week!

9 comments:

  1. I love the rainbow bookshelf. So pretty. One day, when I get my own place I'll do that. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. The colors are gorgeous! And I love the rainbow shelf. You'll figure out which books are where someday ;)

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  3. I had orange carpet in my first house and it was soooo ugly. We never did switch it out- we just moved!

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  4. Oh, I like your description of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley—it's now on my list, thank you. I am with you on avoiding the stress of a word count target and find that I produce more words daily without one. Love the rainbow shelf!

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  5. You say you're behind in reading, but didn't you already surpass your Goodreads goal this year? (just sayin'!). I love the rainbow shelf and the pink room. We've been in our place something like...9 years (omg) and are doing some necessary updates too.

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  6. Wow, that's a lot of books! :D

    I love your goal idea. And examining all the books I've written sounds like it could be interesting, too. Thanks for sharing :)

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  7. Love the bookshelf! Glad to hear you're enjoying writing again. I've started setting scene goals instead of word count goals, too. Have a great week! :)

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  8. Glad you're enjoying writing again. Love the colors in that room.

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  9. Hey Val! I don't usually feel that a word count goal stresses me out; as long as I'm working on something with new words I find it a lot of fun to count them, even if they're not coming fast and furious. Picking the right goal for the project is important-and that's just my process, of course.

    Intrigued by your notion of book categories. I have no idea yet what labels I'd slap on my various book manuscripts, except right now I'm thinking about The One I Need To Revise Yet Again... ;)

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