ROW80 – Round 1 – Final Check-in

March is coming to a close, and so is the first round of 2013. It wasn’t a spectacular round in terms of accomplishing my goals, but I’ve been busy. Regardless, I’m still working toward the things I want to accomplish and doing some things I truly love to do.

This round has been a productive one overall, and it definitely showed me what I’m capable of. Writing 1,000 words a day is tough, but I’m going to try to carry that goal into all subsequent rounds. It definitely allows you to get some serious writing done. I’ve started a lot of projects and even finished a few of them.

Here’s to a solid round 1 and an even better round 2!

Here’s a list of my accomplishments for this first round:

-Decided to rewrite some major plot points of L1.

-Got Google Verified, which means my picture will show up next to articles I’ve written for Hypable!

-I wrote 5,000 words in one day. Considering how busy I’ve been, this is pretty amazing to me.

-Finished writing W1!

-Started writing W2!

-I decided and started implementing working at home more often. I can’t even begin to tell you how appreciative I am of my boss. It’s been such a life-saver to have more flexible hours.

-Saw Warm Bodies and LOVED it!

-Finished Divergent, The Darkest Minds, Beautiful Creatures, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

-Hypable hit 20,000 published articles, and I’ve written over 100!

-I went to Philadelphia to catch a pre-screening of The Host. I also went to a book signing with Stephenie Meyer, Jake Abel, and Max Irons. The best part, though, was meeting two of my Hypable coworkers – Mitch and Laura!

-Hypable was at the Oscars. THE OSCARS, PEOPLE.

-I AM GOING TO COMIC CON IN JULY. No, I can’t write that sentence without putting it in caps. It’s against the laws of the universe.

-Hypable started up ReWatchable and Book Hype, two new and totally awesome podcasts that I’m particularly proud to be a part of.

-I have a friend working on a cover for my short story collection. It’s going to be awesome.

-I got a signed George Watsky CD, which is kind of a dream come true.

-I got an interview with one of my favorite authors and an artist I really admire. Both of those should be going up sometime soon.

Total points earned in Round 1: 580

Total words written for this round: 57,514

Total words written since January 1, 2013: 57,514

This round really didn’t feel like anything spectacular, but looking over my list, I’m pretty happy with it! Especially considering I wrote almost 60,000 words in just a couple of months. That’s insane!

What surprised you about your final check-in/round 1 recap? Who’s going to be around for round 2?

What makes art last?

It’s kind of a loaded question, isn’t it? There are a lot of factors. How well known the artist was. If he had backers that chose to endorse him (or her!). If he got a lot of commissions. If his work was preserved well enough. If he had a lot of friends or a lot of money. Even trivial things like what city he worked out of, whether or not he was a menace to society, or if he had powerful enemies.

But, then again, all of that could be thrown out the window. Van Gogh was never quite in line with the other painters of his time. Michelangelo and da Vinci hated each other. Marcel Duchamp is quite widely hated by those that don’t appreciate modern art, and yet he is one of the most recognizable names of that period.

La Guernica by Pablo PIcasso

I guess my question is more based on opinion and less based on fact. Why do certain artists and works speak to us after all this time? Some of them are no longer immediately relevant, like Picasso’s La Guernica. And it takes someone who has studied art to understand what is being depicted in this particular painting. It isn’t exactly for the layman.

And yet people flock to museums every day. They enjoy looking at these works, even if they don’t necessarily understand them. I have a B.A. in Art History, but I wouldn’t even begin to know the meanings of half the paintings I’ve seen. But they still speak to me. I still appreciate them. I still find them beautiful.

But why?

Is it because we’re meant to? Is it because we know that Michelangelo was an incredible artist? Or that da Vinci was a brilliant inventor? Or that Gauguin was truly ahead of his time? Is it based on fact, or is it based on opinion?

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

If you were to look at a painting by Botticelli, without any preconceived biases or notions, would you still enjoy it? Would you still appreciate its beauty? Or, compared to what we can do with computers these days, would you find it primitive? Say it was The Birth of Venus. Could you still relate to its story? Could you understand the meaning?

I guess the notion is a morbid one. Do we appreciate art because we were told to? Because certain people in history, due to influence or money, preserved the works they liked the best? They say that history is told by the winning side. Can the same principle be applied here?

What do you think? Do we appreciate the Greats because we were told they are great, or do we appreciate them because we still connect to their artwork? If it’s the latter, what makes them still relevant to our modern world?

Some people just don’t get it

I’m sure you guys will, because you’re a lot like me. Avid readers, avid writers, avid TV and movie watchers. Those characters, they’re real. Not in the physical sense, of course. We’re not crazy. But in the sense that we’ve spent time with these people, we  know their stories, we understand their pain, and we want to see them succeed.

That’s what makes them real. In some ways, we know these characters better than some of our friends. There are no walls when you read a book. There are no secrets once you reach the end. You’re like an invisible watcher, able to sit back and see the events in their lives unfold.

So when someone dies, when someone is rescued, when someone succeeds, it’s sad and exciting and thrilling. Those are real emotions that fake characters produce in you. And if the only reason they’re not real is because they don’t exist in this world, then I don’t buy that.

When you know someone that well, when you care about someone that deeply, when you understand their story so much that it inspires you to be a better human being, that person takes shape and they become real to you.

But some people don’t understand that.

I was having a conversation with a certain someone the other day, and she just didn’t understand why I got so emotionally attached to things. We were talking about StarKid and their latest play, A Very Potter Senior Year. For me, and a lot of other StarKid fans, it was an emotional thing to watch. It was the final installment in their Very Potter trilogy. It was hard to watch because it was over, and I knew those characters would never be coming back for something new. I laughed and I cried in equal measures.

This person just looked at me and said, “Why?”

I didn’t bother explaining. If you don’t get it, you never will. If you’re not invested, you won’t understand how incredibly powerful seeing those characters reach the end of their stories is.

Since I know a lot of you aren’t into StarKid, I’ll put it into perspective. It’s like someone asking you why you’re upset that Fred died. Or Dumbledore. Or Sirius.

If those character deaths didn’t bother you, then there’s no point in explaining. It won’t help, and you won’t feel the things we felt.

(And if those character deaths didn’t bother you, by the way, then you’re doing it wrong. So very wrong.)

What I don’t understand is how you could not get invested in stories like this. This person reads for entertainment, which is fine, but I think she misses a huge part of what it is to be a reader. That investment, pain, and joy that comes from living a character’s life through their actions on the page.

I read for a deeper meaning. I read so that book can change my life. I read to forget about the world, to be sure, but also to understand it.

As corny as it sounds, I think reading is a serious business. Not everyone is meant to be a deep reader, but I struggle with the concept of not reading a book for meaning, depth, and understanding. If I didn’t do that, it just…wouldn’t seem worth it.

What do you think? Do you read for entertainment only, or do you want to take something away from what you read? Do you get so deep into the story that you feel like the characters are real people? Do you feel pain or joy when they do?

ROW80 – R1C11 – Strong Finish

I actually had a pretty solid week this week, you guys! Lots of writing and lots of reading. Much better than I’ve been doing recently. I wanted to make my final check-in count, and it definitely did!

Main Goals

1. Write or edit every day. 6/7 I edited one day this week, and wrote on the remaining five. I finished up that second short story I was working on, but I don’t like the direction it went it. I’ll have to go back and rewrite about half of it, but it’s not long, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ve been pumping away on W2 these last few days, and I’m less than 10K away from the end!
2. Read every day. 6/7 I not only managed to finish Beautiful Creatures, but I also started and finished Perks of Being a Wallflower too! Beautiful Creatures had a great ending, it’s just too bad we had to muddle through 500+ pages to get there. Perks was not at all what I was expecting, but by the time I got to the end of it, I really appreciated what the story was about. I’m now reading City of a Thousand Dolls by Miriam Forster for our next Book Hype book.
3. Exercise twice a week. 3/2 The week started out strong, but I dropped the ball halfway through. Still, I’m pretty happy I managed three days.

Bonus Goals

1. Rewrite chapter 1 of L1. Believe it or not, this was on my agenda. I was so busy writing W2, however, that I didn’t get a chance to work on it. I’m looking forward to jumping back into this though.
2. Keep writing W2. Yes! Lots of words!
3. Update my contests doc. This was also on my list, but I didn’t have time to get to it either. Writing trumps pretty much everything though, so I don’t feel too bad about this.

List of Awesome

1. As I mentioned on Friday, Affliction Z: Patient Zero is now live! Check it out if you like zombies. 🙂
2. StarKid is coming up with a new musical called Twisted, and it’s like Wicked but for Jafar. They used Kickstarter this time because they just didn’t have the money to do the production themselves. They wanted to raise $35,000, but they’re already at $85,000 with most of the campaign left! I think this is going to be one of their best musicals to date, and I’m so excited for it!
3. We got the first images from the Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters movie. AND I AM SO EXCITED.

Points and Words

Each of my main goals gets FIVE POINTS. Bonus goals get TEN POINTS if they’re completed.

• Week 1 – 95 points
• Week 2 – 100 points
• Week 3 – 50 points
• Week 4 – 90 points
• Week 5 – 60 points
• Week 6 – 10 points
• Week 7 – 0 points
• Week 8 – 5 points
• Week 9 – 50 points
• Week 10 – 35 points
• Week 11 – 85 points

This week I wrote:

• Week 1 – 8,284 words
• Week 2 – 13,697 words
• Week 3 – 5,365 words
• Week 4 – 9,310 words
• Week 5 – 2,777 words
• Week 6 – 0 words
• Week 7 – 0 words
• Week 8 – 0 words
• Week 9 – 2943 words
• Week 10 – 537 words
• Week 11 – 4,978 words

That brings my total words for the year up to: 57,514 words written since January 1, 2013

What books have you been reading lately? Has there ever been a book that you didn’t really like, but kind of appreciated anyway?

Book Recommendation: Affliction Z – Patient Zero

If you like zombies or stories of the zombie apocalypse, I highly recommend you check out Affliction Z: Patient Zero.

The cool thing about this book is that, while zombie stories are nothing new, the concept is still fairly unique to its genre. The zombies are truly frightening. Some of them are those slow, steady shufflers. But others can move faster than you would ever think possible. They keep you on your toes, and this makes the story truly unpredictable.

The story is well written and the characters pop on the page. The beginning was my favorite. It really grabs you and never lets go. The mystery starts right from the first chapter, and it’s a quick and action packed book.

This will be a series of books, and the end of this one sets up its sequel perfectly. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next one and find out how our main characters deal with the zombie apocalypse!

Introducing Book Hype: A podcast every reader and writer should listen to

As most of you know, I write for Hypable.com. I’m also on several podcasts that cover a variety of TV shows. However, one of the podcasts I’m on, Book Hype, actually talks all about – you guessed it – books!

Our first episode was an introduction of sorts, but we also covered the book The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. In the second episode, we covered both New Adult and self-publishing. It was an interesting thing to talk about, especially given that two of the other hosts are more readers than writers. It gives you a nice little insight into a reader’s mind, and I think all writer’s could benefit from listening to this.

And readers too, of course. The podcast is ONLY bound by the world of books. We’re going to be talking about anything we can come up with, both specific books like in the first episode, general topics like in the second episode, and so much more.

I hope you guys will give it a listen. We’re all just a bunch of book worms that happen to be addicted to podcasting. I think you’ll really enjoy it, both from a reader’s POV and a writer’s POV as well.

And, hey, if you’ve got book or topic suggestions, send them my way and I’ll pass them along!

If you did listen to either episode (or both!), let me know what you thought.

Related question: How do you guys feels about New Adult?

Featured Video: After Ever After

I just couldn’t help myself as soon as I saw this video. I had to share it with you guys.

Hilarious and obviously talented, this guy is spot on with the lyrics to these songs. I love the way he executed it too!

 

Which one was your favorite? I’m pretty particular to Pocahontas’. I hope he does a second one!

(P.S. This guy is really clever. Check out his YouTube channel.)

ROW80 – R1C10 – Some Progress

Not a whole lot on the writing front this week, but a couple of really exciting things in the works!

Main Goals

1. Write or edit every day. 2/7 Twice as good as last week. I edited one day (that new short story I wrote) and wrote a little bit on Friday for another short story I’m hoping to finish this week.
2. Read every day. 3/7 Seriously trying to get some chapters done every night. Hoping to finish Beautiful Creatures soon! I’m just starting to get to the part with some real answers.
3. Exercise twice a week. 2/2 Not quite as good as last week, but at least I met my goal.

Bonus Goals

1. Rewrite chapter 1 of L1. Nope.
2. Keep writing W2. Didn’t get a chance to.
3. Update my contests doc. Nope.

List of Awesome

1. I wrote a column about how amazing George Watsky is, and how he’s an artist for the people. He saw the article and RTed it. 🙂
2. I’m also going to be interviewing one of my all-time favorite authors, T.A. Barron. AHHHHH. I sent my questions off to him last night. I hope this allows Hypable some exclusives and to get to work with him more closely. THAT WOULD BE AMAZING.
3. I’ve also got some other neat exclusives in the works for Hypable. I hope they all pan out because I’m really excited for them!
4. Very grateful to the friends I have, both IRL and online. You guys rock. You totally deserve a spot on my List of Awesome.

Points and Words

Each of my main goals gets FIVE POINTS. Bonus goals get TEN POINTS if they’re completed.

• Week 1 – 95 points
• Week 2 – 100 points
• Week 3 – 50 points
• Week 4 – 90 points
• Week 5 – 60 points
• Week 6 – 10 points
• Week 7 – 0 points
• Week 8 – 5 points
• Week 9 – 50 points
• Week 10 – 35 points

This week I wrote:

• Week 1 – 8,284 words
• Week 2 – 13,697 words
• Week 3 – 5,365 words
• Week 4 – 9,310 words
• Week 5 – 2,777 words
• Week 6 – 0 words
• Week 7 – 0 words
• Week 8 – 0 words
• Week 9 – 2943 words
• Week 10 – 537 words

That brings my total words for the year up to: 52,536 words written since January 1, 2013

Have you ever gotten a chance to speak with one of your idols? What was it like? Did you freeze up, or were you able to tell them how important their work has been to you?

Series vs. Standalone Novels

I’m a series kind of gal. Blame Harry Potter. I just love picking up a novel and knowing that, when I finish it, there will be another one waiting for me. The more, the merrier.

Some of my all-time favorite books are series. The Hunger Games. Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The Lost Years of Merlin. It’s nice to know that when you fully immerse yourself in a world, as we so often do when reading, you don’t need to let it go so quickly. Because that can be painful. Sure, you can re-read a book, but there’s nothing quite like that first go-through when you just have no idea what’s going to happen.

However, I’ve been finding more and more lately that I’m looking for standalone novels. They’re faster to get through – a one and done, if you will. You don’t have to worry about finding the other books or ending on a huge cliff-hanger. The story is open and close, and it allows you to move on to the next one.

There are some drawbacks to being a series reader. First of all, my bookshelves are starting to warp from all the weight. Then there’s the expense. And the inevitable “this wasn’t as good as the first one.” And just like move sequels, it sometimes feels like an author just does a follow up not because the story requires it, but because it’ll put more money in their bank account.

Then again, standalone novels have their downfalls too. Sometimes the story seems incomplete, and you’re disappointed by the lack of answers. Sequels often allow favorite secondary characters to get some time in the spotlight. Single books can’t afford to waste the space on a character that inevitably won’t be getting their own storyline later on down the road.

I’ve come to realize that both have their merits and both have their shortcomings. It depends on my schedule, on my wallet, and on my mood. I still stand by the fact that I prefer series over single novels, but I’m beginning to enjoy the freedom that comes with being able to finish a book and not having to worry about when the next one comes out. (Because, let’s face it, waiting a year for a sequel is pure torture.)

Are you a series person or a standalone person? Do you like trilogies or do you like books that really go for it and have, say, twelve novels in the series? Does it depend on your mood, or do you usually stick to one or the other?

Featured Video: ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ Inside Joke – Tapioca

Ever since the news that Whose Line would be coming back to our TV screens (praise!), I’ve had a driving need to rewatch this show. Luckily, you can find almost every episode on YouTube! Not only that, but there’s a whole host of accounts that put together great videos of your favorite games or your favorite hosts or even the best inside jokes.

This one is about tapioca of all things. My favorite part is when Ryan can’t even talk he’s laughing so hard.

Enjoy!