Fail

I realize that I completely failed at least at one of my new year's resolutions. The one where I would post at least twice a week. Yeah... I guess I should've said once every other two months or something. But I have an excuse! You probably saw this coming, but I swear that it's a semi-valid excuse that will hopefully get me in the clear.

The past two months have been pretty crazy for me.

Sounds like an everyday doctor's note, right? But I'm serious. I've had work (which you already know about) and I started school on January 18, so that added to the time suckage of my life. Then when you add in a social life and a wildly active reading/writing life, you find out that all of the other little things you always wanted to do just don't seem as important as sleep at the end of the night. It's really been a crazy start to 2011.

But with that excuse out there, and a sincere apology to those who have probably already forgotten about this blog and will be confused when they suddenly get a notification that the rambling author's journey has just posted another entry about what she PLANS on doing, I hope that it will be enough to draw you back in.

If you follow my other blog though, Suspiciously Apt Book Reviews, you've probably seen several posts since I normally don't cut reading time out of my life. There are a few good book reviews from the past couple of months that might interest some of you. I just put one up that covers BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver. It's one of the greatest books I've ever read, I'm not kidding you.

But back to what this blog is SUPPOSED to be about (this will be short for tonight):

I have finally made a decision on which idea to write a novel about (only took me what? a year? And that's only as far as any of you have been reading this). I can't tell you much about it yet since it's still a tentative development, but I know that it's definitely what I want to do. The real journey starts tonight. Who has time to wait for NaNoWriMo, right?

See y'all next week! (Double dog promise you!)

The Stylish Blogger Award

Well, I'm a bit surprised to say the least. I didn't know there were awards for stylish blogs being given out. But it's nice to be thought of as such! Thank you, Ryning Books for honoring me with this award.

So! I'm supposed to start off with 7 things you probably don't know about me... There's no snooze button here, so bear with me!

1. I'm 20 years old. For now.
2. My cat's unceremoniously pregnant. (Anyone want a kitten?)
3. I named my second Siberian Husky after one of my own characters. It was a werewolf character so it could easily have been a family name passed down.
4. My favorite movie is Rocky. Because I want to go the distance.
5. I have a separate blog for reviewing books. (Suspiciously Apt Book Reviews)
6. I am majoring in English at Northwest Vista College and hope to transfer in the fall to Texas State University.
7. I'm horrible at checking facebook, my blog, and messages on Goodreads. It's okay. I'll get better at it. Hopefully.

Alright so the last thing I'm supposed to do is reward 15 recently discovered bloggers! I don't think I know that many yet, but I'll list a few I do know.

1. To Review or Not Review
2. Lacey of the Lake
3. Ryning Books and thank you again for this award!
4. Babbling Flow
5. Carolina Valdez Miller

I love all of those blogs. They're awesome! I say we toast to having stylish blogs! Champagne for the lucky ones that are 21 and older annnnd... how about some good ol' hot chocolate for us minors? Yeah! *toast*

Special Review

So, about a week ago I was asked to review this great book I've been anticipating for months now. INTRINSICAL by Lani Woodland debuted in late August and I am really quite flattered that I was asked to read and review this one. It turned out to be an amazing read and I would like to interrupt my special writing time, and blogging time, to ask you all to go check out said review on my other blog:

My Review of Intrinsical

If and whenever you get the chance, I suggest that you really give this story a chance! It's definitely worth the risk. Happy reading!

Alpha Reader

Yeah, that's right. I have one. What is it, you ask? Let me explain...

Alpha Reader: A cool phrase designed to identify the initial reader of an unpublished novel/book that critiques and offers feedback to the author/writer of said novel/book.

In other words, my best friend reads my stuff first. From my book that is.

Now, honestly I can't take the credit for this idea. Kiersten White, author of the upcoming debut novel Paranormalcy, gave me the idea for an alpha reader on one of her blog posts. This one --> Back to the Beginning to be exact. And at first, I was thinking, "What? Let someone read my stuff before it's copyrighted? Are you insane, woman?!" But then, I thought about it some more and it made perfect sense. I find that I get writer's block QUITE often, you see. However, when I feel like I have a deadline or an audience I can make myself write better and not fret about editing it or just wondering if someone would like what I'm writing, because now I have someone to tell me what they think. I have an alpha reader that can give me feedback when I'm stuck, tell me what they think works and what they think doesn't work. I mean, you can't ALWAYS go with what your alpha reader suggests, but it doesn't hurt to have some help along the way. This is a journey, afterall, and there's nothing wrong with picking up a few stragglers for your own companions.

It works out, considering she's writing a book herself and I'm her alpha reader too. There's a lot of perks to having a critique partner. For one, you can honestly tell each other when you're not feeling a certain scene in the book, or when you're not getting enough out of a chapter. The only downside is getting a reply screaming for "I want MORE now!!!" And seeing this face -->

So, you see... That's not exactly a face you can turn down.

A few suggestions for choosing an alpha reader of your own would be:

1. Choose someone you trust.

2. Choose someone that has time to read your stuff.

3. And make sure you have time for them as well.

Pertaining to suggestion one, if you can't trust someone with your writing you shouldn't let them read it.

Pertaining to suggestion two, don't ask someone who doesn't have a lot of free time to read large quantities of your book. Odds are, their email will get backed up with unread messages by the annoying author.

Pertaining to suggestion three, if you're not willing to help them out in return or you don't have time to read their critique, then for one you probably shouldn't even be looking for an alpha reader, and two you need to save all of your free time for writing anyway.

Those are the big three suggestions when browsing for an alpha reader. And no, I don't think you can find one on Match.com. Luckily, I have one now and it's been working out pretty well for the past few weeks. If you can't find just one, then the only other thing I can suggest is a critique group. Cassandra Clare suggested this on her website when she gave advice on writing and I believe Holly Lisle has as well. I don't have the exact articles, so I'll just leave the links to their sites at the bottom of this post.

Tagline:
Alpha Readers can save lives... or at least unfinished books.


Los Links!
Cassandra Clare's Site
Holly Lisle's Site