Unveil (Unveil #1) is re-releasing a week from tomorrow, so in honor of the occasion here's some snippets of the book for your reading pleasure—and some character banners. Sitting down on the side of her bed, she draws her legs close so she's wrapping her arms around her knees. Curled up like that, it's almost like she's disappearing back into her dream as she murmurs, "I didn't see anything. I rarely do. I just catch fragments and emotions. I can feel what the people in the dream are feeling." She leans forward towards me, her elbows pressing into her desk. "Your biggest battle isn't going to be with guns or knives or hand-to-hand combat," she says. "It won't be confronting Asher. It will be with yourself, when it comes time for you to face the truth." “He won’t do it,” I whisper. “He won’t.” Starting June 27, Unveil will be updated every Tuesday and Thursday on Wattpad. Stay tuned!
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It's week 5 of my summer writing goal of 233,000 words. Last week, I had a slow start but finished strong, and I managed to complete The Improbability of Forever and Paper Flowers while starting The Back of Wednesday. I'm still a little behind from the 3 weeks I was out of town/sick, but I'm going to try to make that up this week with a hefty weekly goal.
WEEKLY WORD COUNT GOAL: 35,000 words June 12:
TODAY I WROTE:
Unveil: 3,081 words
61683 / 233000 (26.47%)
I've got a long way to go before meeting my weekly goal, but it was a good start. Also started working on a schedule for my fall 2017 WIPs—I'm worried I won't have enough time to maintain consistent updates with school. We'll see!
JUNE 16:
TODAY I WROTE:
Unveil: 9,817 words Infiltration: 2,250 words {TOTAL: 12,067 words}
73750 / 233000 (31.65%)
New word count record! What a productive writing day—which is really good because I didn't write anything during the previous 3 super busy days. If I keep this up tomorrow and the day after I'll be able to meet my goal for the week, but I'm not sure if I can maintain that momentum.
I'm really excited about Unveil and think I might adjust my summer writing schedule so I finish it earlier—I need to start editing ASAP to prep it for submission to SwoonReads. I also need to finalize the outline for The Back of Wednesday. I have the detailed plot summary but haven't broken it down into chapters yet, and the lack of pacing is what's keeping me from writing more of it. Mental note for me to try and meet this week's goal: Tomorrow: Infiltration ch. 17-18; The Back of Wednesday ch. 3-4 Sunday: Infiltration ch. 19; The Back of Wednesday ch. 5-7 We'll see how this goes. June 17:
TODAY I WROTE:
Infiltration: 4,209 words
77959 / 233000 (33.46%)
It was a good day considering I was coping with a throbbing headache from spending all day glued to my computer yesterday. Edited my summer schedule to finish Unveil earlier, and started thinking about some new fall projects. I need to get back into writing The Back of Wednesday--I haven't done that at all yet this week.
June 18:
TODAY I WROTE:
The Back of Wednesday: 5,481 words Infiltration: 2,798 words {TOTAL: 8,279 words}
86238 / 233000 (37.01%)
I'm nearing the 50% mark of my goal! Super excited about that and ready to maintain my momentum from the last 3 days going into next week.
I wrote 27,326 words this week, which was shy of my goal but still a good amount. If I'd written June 13-15 I definitely would have gotten there. As always, my problem is making sure I write every day. That continues to be my goal for next week!
My summer writing goal has been a bit of a bumpy road these last few weeks! Between graduation, vacation, and a mysterious illness, I haven't had a lot of time to be writing. Now, however, I'm back and determined to still hit my 233,000 word count goal. Goals this week include finishing The Improbability of Forever and starting The Back of Wednesday. Here goes nothing!
(Note: I'm not as behind on my goal as it seems. I'd already planned to take a week off for vacation, and I've been slowly writing the other 2 weeks, although I haven't documented it on here.) WEEKLY WORD COUNT GOAL: 28,000 words
WRITING FROM LAST 3 WEEKS: 7,471 words (will be factored into meter total)
June 05:
TODAY I WROTE:
The Improbability of Forever: 3,286 words
36877 / 233000 (15.83%)
It was really hard to dive back into writing The Improbability of Forever. I'm so ready to be done with that book, so I cut an extra chapter out of the outline and I'm just trying to grin and bear the last few chapters. I can't remember the last time it's been so difficult for me to finish a book.
JUNE 06:
TODAY I WROTE:
0 words
36877 / 233000 (15.83%)
Took the day off and worked on the first chapter for The Back of Wednesday. The last IoF chapter is haunting me—I want it to be written but can't sit down to do it.
JUNE 07:
TODAY I WROTE:
The Improbability of Forever: 3,099 words Paper Flowers: 2,098 words {TOTAL: 5,197 words}
42074 / 233000 (18.06%)
Finally finished IoF, which is a major relief. Getting that book done was such a roadblock, and I feel a lot better about my future WIPs now that it's out of the way. Not that I didn't love Cody and Quinn...but it was a nightmare to write those last few chapters.
I have 1 bonus chapter for Paper Flowers to finish up and then I'll be totally done with that book! I'm working on the first BoW chapter, but I'm not sure about the vibe I'm getting from the story so far. We'll see. JUNE 08:
TODAY I WROTE:
Paper Flowers: 1,857 words
43931 / 233000 (18.85%)
I finally finished all work on Paper Flowers today. It was a bittersweet moment—I've been working on these characters since November 2015!
JUNE 10:
TODAY I WROTE:
The Back of Wednesday: 6,060 words
48134 / 233000 (20.66%)
It was a really productive day for The Back of Wednesday. I rewrote & finalized the first and second chapters and finished up the detailed plot summary. Still working on a detailed outline. Now that I have the plot for this figured out, I can go back to writing full-speed without taking so many breaks to finish books and start new ones.
Didn't write at all yesterday (not even sure why) so I didn't include an entry for that. I also have about 12,000 words to go until I hit my goal for this week and only one day left, so I'm not sure that that's going to happen unless I write 5 chapters tomorrow. Making a list for me so that I remember: Infiltration: chapters 14-17 Unveil: chapters 12-15 The Back of Wednesday: chapter 3 If I were to tackle 5 chapters for tomorrow, I'd do 2 in Unveil, 1 in BoW, and 2 in Infiltration. June 11:
TODAY I WROTE:
Infiltration: 4,223 words Unveil: 6,245 words {TOTAL: 10,468 words}
58602 / 233000 (25.15%)
What a great way to wrap up the week! I officially hit 25% of my summer goal and knocked a big chunk out of Infiltration and Unveil. I think 10,468 words is my record number of words written in one day.
I was so close to hitting my goal this week—I wrote 26,868 words instead of 28,000. I'm still proud of the work I did today, and next week I'm going to try to write every day so I make sure I don't fall short of a weekly goal by such a short margin. We'll see what week 5 brings! With the release date of The Back of Wednesday only 1 week away, I figured I'd share with you the (new) first part of the first chapter.
I took out the clairvoyance portion of the book, mainly because I wanted the story to be 100% pure realistic fiction, and I didn't want any doubt or disbelief about Devan's murder threat. Also, having a dream-premonition is cliché, and it seemed like a shortcut to kickstart the book. I also get a very different vibe writing this story than previous ones. More mature—it rings as a mix of Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl with a dash of Paper Flowers thrown in. I'm not entirely certain that I'll be sticking with this voice as I continue writing, but we'll see. A quick preview of the first chapter is before. Read, enjoy, and stay tuned for the entire first chapter, coming out June 14! I've been writing for most of my life now, and I've been writing online since 2012 (that's over 5 years for those of you who want to do the math). I've made an incredible amount of progress from 2012, moving from a fictionalized blog to a few novellas on Figment to finishing up my 13th novel in just a few days and having thousands of followers on Wattpad. I've worked insanely hard since around 2013, when I started seriously promoting my writing. Nothing has come easy for me so far, but I don't plan on stopping now! I realize I've never shared with any of you my long-term goals for writing, so here they are. The best thing about goals is that they're flexible. When I first started writing, I had plans for this to only be recreational. Then, I got really excited about traditional publishing and did some work on that. I've had an educational time delving into the traditional publishing world through a variety of jobs and internships, and I've learned a lot about marketing to my strengths. What sets me apart from most writers who try to get traditionally published is my base of followers. Most people querying or attending writing conferences don't have this, so I've been thinking about the best way to use this to my advantage. With a lot of research, I've come up with the following goals: 1. Continue writing on WattpadUltimately, Wattpad is how I continue to meet amazing readers and improve my writing skills. It would be stupid to quit now, and I'm not interested in leaving. Lots more books will be coming soon, and I'm so excited to write them. 2. Branch out to RadishFor those of you who don't know, Radish is a writing community a lot like Wattpad—except I'm allowed to earn a revenue for my writing. You can check out this link to learn more about the app, but it basically exists on a "freemium" model: I'll post a chapter every week, two weeks (whatever I decide) for free, but if you want to read before the next chapters are posted, you can pay with tokens (which convert to money for me) and read all in one sitting (or two, or three). I will continue to offer content for free on Wattpad, but updates will be posted first on Radish—so if you're a Wattpad user who's itching to read the next chapter before I post it or who wants to go on and read the whole book, you can do that through Radish. Seems like the best of both worlds, right? I may also offer some sequels/spin-offs novels exclusively on Radish. We'll see. So when will this shift happen? I'm not entirely sure—I'm still doing some research on the site and then I have to apply to be a writer—but I'm hoping by winter 2017 and if not then definitely by the beginning of 2018. Stay tuned for more updates! 3. Join SwoonreadsWhile Radish will hopefully be a way for me to finance my writing and gain more of a following (it's an up-and-coming platform that I predict will compare with Wattpad one day even though it's relatively small now), it's not my end goal. This end goal has, and always will be, traditional publication. I don't ever plan on giving up my dream of picking up my novel in a bookstore and feeling it in my hands. SwoonReads is a website run by Macmillan publishers that uses an online platform to select its books for publication. Authors have had incredible success and have been heavily marketed, so I could get a book in print at most bookstores around the world—through a traditional publisher. SwoonReads is my more immediate goal right now, and I'm prepping Unveil for submission. How can you help? Once I submit my manuscript, I will be asking you all to read over to SwoonReads to read & rate. The books with the highest ratings are considered for publication! I'm foreseeing submission of Unveil in winter 2017. It should be completed in September but I'll need a few months to edit and polish it to perfection. More details coming soon! 4. Pursue Traditional PublicationWith hopefully a novel under my belt and a large following (love you guys!!), I will start looking for an agent and more traditional forms of publishing to kick off my career. My goal is to eventually have a full-time writing career, and I'm doing everything I can to get there.
Once I get to this point, I still see myself posting on Wattpad and Radish. Wattpad will receive drafts, previews, and spin-off/novellas (they'll still be completely free to read)! while I'll offer other novellas/drafts/non-publishable material on Radish. Hopefully by this point, you will all be able to read my work in bookstores. My biggest, biggest goal of all is to have a super-successful novel turned TV show, and for me to eventually start a YouTube channel highlighting my writer life/book updates in a vlog style. Who knows where this crazy journey will lead me, though? I've made it so far in the last 5 years, and this is what I have in mind for the next 5. We'll see where I am by 2022! |
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