Last Disneyland Trip of the Summer

    Summer is officially over for us, but we did get one final day to enjoy it. That's right, one last Disneyland trip. Our third wedding anniversary was last week, so we used that as our excuse.

    I know I've talked before about how much I love Disney and how it helps with my creativity and writing. Believing in the impossible is fun, but actually experiencing it is indescribable. 

Free Write #12

    It's been a busy week. Sorry that I'm a few days late with this post! But better late than never, right?  Didn't have time for a lot, but I did write this short story, so I figured I'd share!

    The king held up his arms and silenced the cheering crowd. “We have our victor! Please, step forward and reveal your identity, noble knight.”
    The princess yawned.
    Her lady in waiting nudged her. “Perhaps he’s handsome and rich!”
    “Yes, because that would be a refreshing change from all the others who have come to win my hand,” she grumbled.
    The knight stepped forward and removed his…no, her helmet. Long brunette curls erupted from the helmet and settled around the victor’s waist. Finally, she looked up and smiled. “My princess.”
    “Mother?” The princess jumped out of her seat.

Query Letters

    First, a quick announcement- I was interviewed by my good friend, Krisna, as part of the Blog World Tour. You can see that interview here!
    Now, as I mentioned last week, I started working on writing my first query letter for Powerful and I've received a lot of feedback from my writing group. It's really been an interesting learning experience for me. 

    There are a few different parts of a query letter, and it can change between different agents and publishers. The most important thing is to Look carefully at submission guidelines.

Free Write #11: Hope

    I've had this idea sitting in the back of my mind for a while, so I finally decided to write it down as a free write to share here. As always, once I start writing, the story takes over and it always ends up different than what I imagined originally, but I really like this and I hope you guys do too.
    **Edit- Apparently I need to add an emotional warning to this story. Have the tissues ready.**

    He held the baby tighter in his arms. “Can’t I hold her for just a little longer?”

    Karen laughed. “I thought you had homework to do.”

    “I’ll do it later. Go back to sleep.” He looked down at the sweet bundle again and kissed her forehead.

    “Alright, Ben. Let me know when Noah gets here.” She closed her eyes.

    He bit his lip and waited for her breathing to deepen. Delivery had been hard enough. She didn’t need to know yet that her child was fatherless. He cooed at the child until she too closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. “Don’t worry, little one. I’ll take care of you.”

Making Progress!

    Well, the good news is that my new schedule has been working! I have been able to check off my editing goals for Powerful daily so far, which is really exciting. You can see my word count progress on the side! 

    It's really exciting to be able to give friends and family an official date to expect my finished product by. It makes me giddy, and it's really motivating me to continue to get work done.

    In that spirit, I'm not going to do a long post today. I just wanted to stop in and let you know that I'm still going strong, and making progress. In addition to my edits on Powerful, I've been able to put in some work on my query letter draft. I'm hoping to have that finalized pretty soon. 

    The biggest issue is that every place you submit has different requirements, so you can't really send out a single form letter everywhere. Pay close attention to what the publishers/agents are looking for and make sure you are giving them everything they want! 

    In other news, Husband of Mine started to teach me how to use Photoshop and Illustrator to help me with marketing myself as a writer. What do you think? Yes, that's my actual signature!

    ~Allie

Powerful Goals

    Now that Camp NaNoWriMo is over and I'm back to focusing on Powerful, I realized I needed a set schedule in order to motivate myself to get work done, the way Camp NaNo motivated me to work on A Fairy's Tale. 
    My writing group recently started working on query letters, and I realized that I want Powerful to be ready to query by the end of the year. So with that end date in mind, I started drafting myself a schedule.

    27 chapters left for draft 2, then I have 2 more drafts to go. And only 142 days left in the year. So what do I do? I make a checklist.

My Birthday Round-Up 2016

    I'm a few weeks behind this year because of Camp NaNo and all the family dealings that came after, but now I'm ready to do a birthday present round up! 

    First- Husband of Mine planned a super fun weekend at Disneyland for my birthday. We stayed one night in the Grand Californian hotel, which is AMAZING, and we spent two days in the parks with family and friends. I got to wear my R2-D2 dress, too. We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, which was delicious, and I picked out a new shirt. It was a great birthday weekend.

Camp NaNo: The Finale

    Well, it's August and July Camp NaNoWriMo is officially over. To be honest, I'm a little depressed now that it's over. I was so motivated to write, and now I'm coming off that high (and still recovering from Disneyland) and now I just feel tired. But at the same time, I'm ready to get back to Powerful so I can finish editing and get some beta readers.

    Remember, I started at 14,089 words, and I needed to end at 39,089 words to reach my goal. Anyway, here's how Camp NaNo ended-

Blog World Tour- Kristen Kooistra!

    Let's give a big welcome to my next guest, Kristen Kooistra! I've talked about her on my blog a few times before. Here's a short introduction if you don't remember her-

 Kristen Kooistra fell in love with reading at a young age and never resurfaced. She loved solving mysteries, riding across the prairie, and sailing on the open sea. But her favorite books were those that held the fantastical. So when the time came for her to seriously approach publishing a book, it had to be fantasy!

 Living in Michigan (her own winterland) with her husband, three kids, and two cats, she has lots of free time...Okay, so more like she squeezes in writing time late at night when only the cats are awake to pester her.