Still Alive

I am finally back at work. I started on April 1st and it's been a grind. We've got a lot of papers to score. It's one of the only long projects (it's expected to go until May 14th). The good part of that is that I know I'll be working at least 4 weeks in a row. The bad part is that it's at least 4 weeks of continuous work. This job is simple, in many ways, but it can quickly get you down.

I am glad to be earning a nice paycheck though.

I will be attending my first book fair, The Teen Book Fair, in New York next month with a friend from school and a couple other people who also went to the same college as me. I've never been to New York, which is one of the reasons I wanted to go. Plus it's nice to spend time with people you don't spend time with, if that makes any sense. Mia and I had math together for a semester and became friends. Since I graduated, we've bonded over our love of reading. She was a big support last year when I released Farther Side of Away. Going to NY should be fun!

As long as my car keeps it together, I have a few things I want to do this summer. I'm hoping to go to Michigan in July for my aunt's 50th (but that will be with my parents, so it'll be cheaper for me). My bff's got her birthday in August and we're planning on going to the Dublin Festival. There's a few concerts I'd like to go to, but it depends on work and money.

Really though, I'm just hoping to buy some new furniture for my room. I want to buy a new bed, dresser, and bookshelf. My poor bookshelf has no space and yet I just keep getting new dvds, cds, and books.

I am currently working for Camp NaNo on my short stories for Farther Side of Away. I've only got one and a half stories left to write, so I'm really happy with how this week has gone. I only set my goal at 10,000 words since I'm working on short stories. I had already written three or four, so I only had like 6 left to write. I'd like to finish that for a summer release, but we'll see how things go because of work.

Because of work, I read a lot. I've read World War Z, Spirit Bound, and I'm almost done with Job: A Comedy of Justice. I just got Last Sacrifice from the library, so I hope to read that next week.

I released If You're a Princess, Where's Your Crown in February and although I've only sold maybe 20 copies, I have gotten a lot of positive feedback on it. I'm so glad people like it.

And so that's what I've been up to.

Version 21 of Within Demise

I've finally gotten around to finishing the new look for the blog. Eventually I'll do a new layout, but for now I like how things are set up.

I'm still working on The Immortals, slowly. I've been reading a lot lately. I read Divergent by Veronica Roth. It wasn't a bad book, but not exceptional. A decent story with ok characters. Some of the plot is a bit eh at times. I'm not a fan of the special snowflake syndrome, but Roth handles it decently for most of the book. Sometimes it really sticks out and makes you roll your eyes, but luckily that is few and far between. I am looking forward to reading the second book.

I started reading The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones the other day. Having seen the movie, all I can say is that the changes made were sometimes good and sometimes bad. There are parts of the book I prefer to the movie, but only barely. The writing is so sugary. Cassandra Clare makes the mistake of using food to describe skin tones. Who the hell has maple colored skin? No one, CC, no one. She also uses metaphors way too much and the ones she uses are so overdone. The main character, Clary, is an ok character. A lot of the supporting characters are cliches, and even Clary is a lot of the time. The clumsy, yet super special girl trope is far overdone. I think if CC reeled it back a bit, Clary would be a much better character, but constantly having it harped on that Clary is so special, but she's so average and clumsy just makes me roll my eyes. It's cliche and overdone. It's not a terrible book, like I was expecting, but it definitely could have used a heavy hand in editing to make it less cliche and it could have been a good book worthy of praise. Of course, none of that even touches how terrible of a person CC has turned out to be, but that's another story.

I went to Columbus earlier this week to see Kamelot, Delain, & Eklipse. The concert was amazing. I had such a good time. And I got to meet the singer for Delain after the show! This is Delain's first tour in the US, so it was really nice to be able to see them finally.

Still trying to figure out ways to get my book out there. One of my brother's friends has bought a copy and has been getting his friends to buy copies as well. I'm just waiting on the money and then we'll see how many I've sold so far. It's tough to get my name out there. I don't have a built in readership and I just can't convince people to buy it.

I'm doing what I can though. Maybe it'll turn around soon.

Heinlein

My dad loved my book and then suggested I read Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice as the topics of my book and Job are similar. I've only gotten a few pages in and so far it's...weird. I should preface this by saying I've never read Heinlein before. I actually read fiction a lot less these days because of my degree. I've been wrapped up in politics and history for the last seven years that fiction has fallen by the wayside. I read the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin in the past year and that's about it for fiction (as well as Project Death: Resurrection by Danielle Thamasa). Oh and how could I forget I've read Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, and Beautiful Chaos. I still need to read the last book.

I tend to spend most of my time online and writing, so I don't do a lot of reading. I read books 2-5 of ASoIaF at work during my breaks. When I'm not working, I don't read as much. I know it's bad, but I just don't have the drive to read. I'd rather write.

I co-run a royalty blog on tumblr called Royal Watcher and that takes up a lot of my time. I tend to focus on the posts that involve lots of picture finding and research. I plan on writing a guide to royalty book sometime, but it's a lot of work. Writing fiction is so much easier. Plus all of the sourcing reminds me of writing papers in college and I get these awful flashbacks and have panic attacks. Last thing I want is to be sued or anything for copyright infringement, etc. So it's a slow process.

So reading is pretty far down on my list. As I said, I've never read Heinlein before. I don't know if the rest of his books read like Job, but if they do, it is such an interesting way of writing. Basically, everyone should read at least one Heinlein book.

And mine. You should definitely read my book.