Book Review: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

I feel the need to preface this review with a discussion on genre. The assignment of a genre to a book is little more than a marketing strategy whose purpose is to place the book in the section of the bookstore where it will sell the most copies. There are those who live and die by their chosen book genres. Some book snobs wouldn’t deign to read young adult novels, thinking those books are for kids and kids alone. But the truth is, a book can be many different things to many different people. A fantasy novel can also be a literary novel, and a YA novel can also be for adults. This is one of those rare novels that – in my opinion – is for everyone.

I first discovered The Girl Who Drank the Moon on one of the many literary blogs I troll for book recommendations. I added it to my Goodreads Want-To-Read list without realizing it is a children’s book. I then placed an online hold on the book, still unaware that my local library houses this particular text in the juvenile books section.

The importance of style in college writing

Once upon a time, a young high school graduate signed up for two courses at her local community college extension center. She was eager to be the first person in her family to go to college, while also not wanting to commit too fully to something she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to do. She also wasn’t quite sure it was something she was even capable of finishing.

Typewriter image made using Sandbox app in Android.

So, the young woman took a computer class, which she enjoyed, where she learned all about a new phenomenon called the internet, and chat rooms, and all manner of exciting new things. And she also took an English class, which she thought she would enjoy because she loved to write, but instead she ended up in an unwinnable argument with an ignorant instructor and soon dropped out of college altogether.

Kindle eBook Giveaway: Valley of the Bees #1

Hey, all! I’m running a Kindle book giveaway over on Amazon right now, and I’m hoping you’ll check it out! I’m giving away 10 free copies of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1. There’s lots to go around, so be sure to share this opportunity with all of your reading friends!

Enter to Win!

Book Review | Canine: A #werewolf story with a twist

I recently did a book swap with author Kaitlin Bergfield at the Bloomington Public Library’s local author fair, where we were both featured authors.

The book summary for Bergfield’s novel, Canine, piqued my interest right away. The premise was really unique, and that’s hard to find! Werewolves are everywhere in fiction these days, but this story comes with a twist (a few of them, actually!) In most of these stories, the average werewolf character is a human who happens to turn into a dog sometimes, usually around the full moon. But the protagonist of this story chooses to live life as a dog. And not just any dog, but as a pet dog!

Congratulate me on my 500th blog post!

This post marks my 500th blog post on Write on the World! It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for almost seven years now. Thank you for sticking with me!

 

How to organize your first draft #novelwriting

The past few weeks, I’ve been working on my second “real” novel, and it hit me this morning that I’ve finally figured out how to organize my work in the first draft stage so I can keep track of what I’m doing. Because organization can be a key element of being an efficient writer, I thought I’d share my system in case some other writer might find it useful. I think the easiest way to explain my system is to paint a picture of it for you, so I took a screenshot of the first page of my actual document:

And now, I will explain what I have done:

If you’re ever driving through Blytheville, AR and need a hotel…

Avoid the Days Inn like the plague. Literally. There is a good chance you’ll catch the plague (or at least bring cockroaches home with you when you leave) if you stay here:

The Days Inn logo used from 2007 to the present (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Days Inn Blytheville
102 South Porter Drive
Blytheville, AR 72315
(800) 329-1073

Check out my Yelp review to find out why I will be skipping over Blytheville, Arkansas completely based on this single bad experience:

Now available for pre-order: With Envy Stung | Valley of the Bees #1

It’s official! I just set up my novel, With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 for pre-order on Smashwords! I completed the first draft of the third and final book of this trilogy, and I finally feel confident that Book One will be ready for publication by its September 1^st release date!

With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 is now available for download on iTunes and Kobo. It will soon be available on your Nook as well! See the links within this blog post for more info.

This is such a huge milestone for me. I have been working on this trilogy for about three years now. With Envy Stung has been critiqued and revised until I can’t imagine what else I might possibly do to make it shine any brighter. That is, until I sit down to read through it again and find a few more lines that I could write *just a little bit better.*

Update: I now have direct links where you can pre-order your copy of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 from the retailer of your choice:

• Order from iTunes.
• Order from Kobo.
• Order from Barnes & Noble.
• Order from Kindle.

As with any work in progress, I will probably always be able to find something else that I could tweak a bit more. But, as with any other work in progress, the time always comes when it’s time for the author to let it go as it is. I feel confident that With Envy Stung has reached that stage in the writing process. The time has finally come to complete my final line edits and format the book for publishing!

8 best books of 2015

It’s that time of year again! Time to make our “top however many of whatever of the year” lists and post them on our blogs. As a writer, I am of course obligated to post my top books of 2015. I read a lot of books this year, but only eight of them really stood out for me.

School is back in session: Creative Nonfiction

It’s that time of year again, folks. Time to go back to school. I don’t know about you, but I would be perfectly happy not to send my kids back to school. I’m going to have plenty of homework of my own! I just downloaded my syllabus for the creative nonfiction course I’ll be taking this fall, and it looks like I am going to be doing a LOT of writing. That’s a good thing though, right?


Embed from Getty Images


I have started reading the “recommended text,” In Fact, which the professor mentioned we might like to look at. I already have a list of ideas for topics that I have been meaning to write about. I am excited to have deadlines in place to force me to put the pen to the paper and get the words out of my head already! I’ll be sharing my work (and probably griping a bit here and there too, if I know me!) throughout the semester. It will be a lot of work, but I am excited to get started!