Wednesday, January 29, 2014

What's Up Wednesday



What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop with other folks on this writing journey. With that aim in mind, if you want to join, visit a few other WUW blogs each week, get to know other writers, and spread some writerly love.

What I've Been Reading

Me with Author Erin Knightley, July 2013
I finished a sweet regency romance A Taste of Scandal by Erin Knightley. I met Erin at RWA Nationals last July, partly due to having watched her YouTube video on how to pack for a conference (it's amazing what she can fit into a carry-on!). She was so personable and sweet, which can make such a difference in the experience of reading a book.

I tried and gave up on a political suspense novel that I was really looking forward to because again, I'd met the author at a writing conference and found her inspiring. It wasn't a bad book, just not my thing, and I had trouble staying engaged.

Now that I've paid my library fine (leaky travel mug + book = no good) I picked up new audiobooks. I'm listening to Longbourn by Jo Baker, about the Bennett family's housestaff from Pride and Prejudice. I started the New Adult book Easy by Tammara Webber, which has an odd timeline at the start, but the writing has pulled me in. It's unintrusive (not melodramatic like some NA books I've tried). I read 50 pages in a flash.

What I've Been Writing

Waiting to hear back from my agent on a revision. While avoiding thinking about that, I'm officially onto the second draft of SUNSET SUMMER, a YA contemporary I wrote for last year's NaNoWriMo.

Run To You Part One: First Sight
image: Goodreads
I'm experimenting more with my writing software Scrivener thanks to my RWA chapter's lastest meeting hosted by YA author Clara Kensie. Not only did I learn some new features, Clara showed us one of her working Scrivener files which was fascinating! Color coded tabs, a profile for EVERY character, and all of her research and notes linked within the file. She even saved multiple, labeled drafts within the file, which I'm still not entirely sure how to do. At home, I immediately updated mine to auto-update to Dropbox (cloud storage). I had been manually exporting and saving both to my hard drive and dropbox. I'm all about work faster, not harder.


Sidenote: Clara Kensie's debut Run To You is February 1. This is Harlequin Teen's first serial series, so the story releases in three parts all during February. The first part is $1.99 on Kindle and at B&N. Find her at ClaraKensie.com or follow her on twitter @ClaraKensie.


What Inspires Me

I set some goals at the start of the year and have actually been making plans! I signed up to host a few upcoming blog tours--I'm going to be choosy about them because I am not a book blog, and I can't dedicate that much time to tours. The first one I have linked in my sidebar, for Chantel Cleeton's I See London. She's a member of YA-RWA, an online extension chapter of Romance Writers. I met her briefly at YA Day at last year's RWA Nationals. I love to help out authors I've met.

What Else I've Been Up To

Our grill, giving up.
More deep freeze weather means more hoveling out at home. I've been writing, reading, working from home a few extra days. It was so windy the other night, our grill on the porch blew over. The cat was on HIGH ALERT. He kept running to the sliding glass door, slinking around, his ears pricked up. It was cute, but there really isn't much to do for pets freaking out about storms and wind, especially if they evade petting. Poor little guy.

Hope everyone is staying warm! Go check out some of the other blogs in the link at the top. Happy Wednesday!

16 comments:

  1. Oh, that's so fascinating what you learned about Scrivner. I am using only the tiniest parts of it, I'm sure. What a great opportunity to see Clara's files. I would love to see that too. I'm going to look into the auto dropbox backup. I didn't know you could do that. Great post, thank you for sharing!

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  2. Easy is one of my favorite NA books. Hope you like it!

    I love Scrivener for drafting. Hate it for editing ...

    Happy Wednesday!

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    1. I ended up finishing the rest of it last night. I really liked how it highlighted abuse issues in a really tangible way. It's a huge issue on college campuses and the attitudes of certain characters are very common to dismiss women's stories of abuse as if they are only seeking attention. Ugh!

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  3. I've heard a lot of good things about Scrivener, though I still prefer the old-fashioned method of making notes, outlines, etc., by hand. Even though I grew up with computers and can barely remember a time before them, there's always that fear of losing everything due to a bad file or a hard drive crash.

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    1. Having Scrivener auto-set to back up to a cloud storage of your choosing is almost doing the work for you if you want to avoid a hard drive crash. You can set when you want it to back up, how often, and to which location. Writing by hand--all of that could be lost too. Not to make you paranoid or anything! I know a few writers just prefer writing by hand. I keep notebooks with ideas and notes. Clara does all of that planning within Scrivener and another related tool called Scapple, which I can't even begin to explain!

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  4. I really enjoyed Easy, it's one of the best New Adult books I've read. I've downloaded the Scrivener trial and I'm learning my way around it - it's such a great way to organise everything!

    I love blog tours, but I don't have much time for reviewing anymore.

    Have a great week! :)

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    1. My track record with New Adult books is not great. I've given up reading most of them by page 20, so this book came as a welcome surprise.

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  5. You know, I have Scrivener but never took to it. To be fair, I didn't really give it much of a shot, so I might have to take a look at it again sometime. It feels like there's such a huge learning curve, and I'm not sure how much time I want to dedicate to it. For now I'm just a Word girl.

    Our cats are so used to wacky weather, they barely flinch now lol. Hope things get a little less wild down there. Though, I imagine you get a lot more done when you really can't go anywhere, right?

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    1. It is totally intimidating at first. I have been through the tutorial that comes with it (built into the software) two full times, and I refer to it fairly often. A lot of the extra features I tend to shy away from since I don't want to mess with a full project. Even though you can easily revert to a previous save of the project if you don't like what you changed. It's very easy to move things around, excellent for keeping notes and research files all in once place.

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  6. I always feel like I should try Scrivener, but I just love Word so much ^^;

    Best of luck with the revisions :D Have a great week!

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  7. Hahaha! I always have a HUGE library fine. I was very disappointed to discover that the funds didn't go to the library though. So now I just leave dollar bills and/or little notes in books that I love(d). I wonder who finds them?

    Congrats on making progress toward your goals! Go you!

    Hope your week is love-r-ly! :)

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  8. I just started using scrivener a few months ago, so I'm sure there are tons of features I'm not using yet. Good luck with your revisions, and I hope your cat managed to calm down. Have a great week!

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  9. I recently started using Scrivner and I love it but I think I have a ton to learn still.

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  10. I never connected with Scrivener. It seems like a cool tool--it just doesn't fit the way I work best. I hope it works for you, Stephanie. And what's with this wacky weather? I think this latest winter blast is the worst we'll get this season. As much as I enjoy the snow, I'm about ready for the weather to warm up.

    Have a great week! :)

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  11. I keep trying Scrivener but end up going back to word or liquid story binder...I need to give it a good try.

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  12. I love Scrivener! Best of luck with your revisions. :)

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