Monster High 2–The Ghoul Next Door

Ok, so from reading another blog I learned about the 2 chapter sneak peek at the new Monster High novel.  Granted I’ve yet to read the first one but I wanted to see how this one was.  The blog owner said there wasn’t much brand name dropping in this book, but I found that that simply wasn’t the case.  There are a lot of brand names in this sneak peek.  I’ve sense found this to be kind of cute since reading the last book’s sneak peek.  Not sure why really.  I guess because I realize this is what the story called for and although I haven’t read Lisi Harrison’s other novels I feel this is her style of writing, and who am I to say anything about her style?  It’s her vision and her way of telling the story, so more power to her.  This sneak peak makes me want to hunt down the first novel and read it.  I hope it’s at my library…which I still need to get a new card for.  Oops.   But yeah, it looks like it will be a cute novel.  It seems to pick up from a cliffhanger from the last novel, so seems like some questions will be answered.  If you are interested in reading the sneak peak for yourself, click here.  Enjoy.

Writing away,
M.

I think I need a do over.

So here lately I have been in this weird funk. There are so many things I need and want to do but I just can't stick with anything long enough to do it. I don't know why. I'm not really a lazy person. Once I start something I am dedicated to it until I finish it. So I don't know what this funk is. It might be related to things going on in my life that I can neither control or change and it's frustrating to me. This frustration is sucking the life out of me along with a few other things that I actually can control and change but for some reason I just don't have the dedication to do it. It's so weird. On some things I will do what I need to do until it's done. But on the one thing I need to do in order to change my life I just can't be dedicated enough to do it. Maybe I will be blog about it in my main blog later...if I can be motivated enough to do it.

So why am I writing about this in my writing journal? Well, this funk I am in has also affected my writing. I have not be dedicated to it in a long time even though writing is all I can think about. So for the past couple of days I've tried to get back to writing with little to no success until this morning. I got back to "Jumper" and tried revising chapter 6 when I just saw that the story was lacking something. I've let it sit so long that it's no long the story I want to write. Don't get me wrong, I still want to write Andrea and Maxwell's story, but there is honestly something missing as well as the story seems like a tango done by two people with either two left feet or they've only had one lesson. So I've been tinkering around in my head lately on what to do with it. Do I just keep going? Do I chuck it all together? What do I do? Well, it was two seconds ago that I finally decided what to do.

I'm going to rewrite "Jumper" and I'm going to do so in first person. I've been reading a lot of first person YAs lately and I think this story might be better told in first person. There are so many people in the story that it's easy to lose sight of who the story is about. It's about Andrea and what happens to her and Max. So instead of me telling her story, I will simply let her tell it herself. I think that's what she's been trying to tell me all along.

I will be starting on chapter one tonight to see how I like it. Fingers crossed tight that it will work. I want this novel done and ready for submitting by Fall. The way I wrote her story first time around it seemed to only warrant two books, but perhaps writing it in first person will warrant several books like I originally intended it to do. She was suppose to go through several time periods fixing certain events so that her life would go in a certain way that would better the world. To give you a better idea of what I mean, think the Terminator and how he went back in time to kill Sarah and John Connor to fix his time. So yeah, we will see how this works out. Wish me luck. :-) Off to write now.

Writing away,
M.

Chapter 4 is done.

Now that I've finished chapter 4 I am seeing where chapters after this are going to need some filler. I feel I should really be taking away from the story instead of adding to it, but I'll just do that in the 3rd go round I guess. Gotta get ready to take off for a bit, but I will work on chapter 5 when I get back. More later.

Writing away,
M.

Chapter 3, done.

I wonder if I am moving to fast through my chapters? I mean I don't know how this all really goes, but I am thinking I am ok for now. I don't really need to add anything in as of yet. I do see where I may need to add some more bulk to the story later but for now it's "ok". Going to chapter 4. Hoping to finish it and chapter 5 today. Ok, I'm off.

Writing away,
M.

Chapter 2, doing a little better.

So I just finished chapter 2 and it wasn't as painful as chapter 1. I know chapter 1 will have to be reworked, there is no getting around that, but chapter 2 was actually witty and funny and it didn't kill me to reread it. Now moving on to chapter 3, but I may need to take a break before getting to that. I'm not feeling well as of late and have been napping a lot. I think another nap is in my near future. I'll try to hit chapter 3 first. More later.

Writing away,
M.

My return to writing. About freaking time!

So today is my official return to writing. I've been thinking about it for months and I finally opened one of my stories today. I was working on a story a while back while I waited to return to "Jumper" and now I'm back to working on "Jumper". I just went through chapter 1 and honestly it I feel it didn't get good until the last page of it and it's 9 pages long. Ahhh!!! I mean I feel I am putting to much fluffy filler stuff in there when I just need to tell the story. And I am having problems with actions my characters could do in between talking. Do I even need to focus on that? I now see why writers need to be readers as well. I need to get back to that. I always take long lapses in between reading and I hate that. I actually love reading, all stories, good and bad. I have some book reviews coming to show you what I mean.

But back to "Jumper", it's just such a slow start, but then again I am worried that it's just my negative side speaking to me. Oh, for those who don't know, I am working on my second draft of the story. Taking it one chapter at a time. Chapter 1 is done, for now at least. I know I will be revisiting it again very soon. I so need to get to the library and check out some young adult novels. I used to buy them all the time when I was a little younger but now I haven't done it as much. But if I am going to write young adult I need to know what they are interested in reading. So it gives me an excuse to order some or buy some at the store. I have some in mind that I want to get actually, so perhaps I will look into that later on this week.

I have this nagging need to share parts of my story to get some advice on how I'm doing so far, but without showing the full story I don't think I will be giving myself a fair chance and my story is just not ready to be seen in full yet. So I guess I keep pressing onward and just give myself some slack so I don't delete the whole thing. I love writing but it's so hard on my confidence at the same time, I hate that. Oh well. I'm off to work on chapter 2 now before I do some exercise. I'll let you know how that goes, hopefully I'll feel better about the story by the time I reach the end. Bye for now.

Writing away,
M.