A Year of Writing and Reading

I know I haven't blogged in four months or so. Kind of depressing.
I hope you all had happy holidays, and that you have a wonderful new year! My resolution is to stop procrastinating. It's been that for two or three years now, but I've never managed to keep it.
Right now, I feel the need to look back at 2011, what I read, what I wrote. As far as writing goes, I finished my first novel, attempted NaNoWriMo for the first time (and failed miserably), won my first writing award, filled a poetry notebook, and wrote several short stories.
My top five books for this year are, in no particular order:
-Saving Francesca
-Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie
-I Am The Wallpaper
-The Hunger Games (re-read...)
-The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly, Completely Lost It

I unfortunately didn't read too many books this year. Summer was consumed by a library reading list, none of which I enjoyed (save Sleeping Freshmen), plus a summer AP World History project (and, well, Guns Germs and Steel didn't make the top five). But two great things did happen- One, I made a goodreads account, which has lead me to a few great books (listed above) and I also got a Kindle. Since my library has an e-book lending available, I've already borrowed and read two books since Christmas. So, many good books in the future!
I'll start posting book reviews on here as soon as possible. I've already written a few for goodreads, so if you want to check them out, my page is here.
Besides reading great books in the last week, I've become addicted to Plants vs. Zombies and Portal.

I'll leave you with the chorus of a song I wrote during a stream of consciousness at one in the morning-

Tell me what happened to the days of

orange popsicles and lemonade, before

winter formals and tuxedo rentals.

Tell me what happened to the days of

sticky fingers, and sandy toes

smudged sunglasses and fingerpaints

painting a heart around our names.

Have an amazing 2012!

NaNoWriMo

It's only October 10th and I am so excited for National Novel Writing Month.
This is my first year, so I might end up being a total failure, but I'm willing to take the risk.
I've got an idea and a title, for once, so I went ahead and set up my account today! My username on the website is rainbowwaffles (as it is just about on any writing site..) so you can add me if you want :)
Unfortunately, these last couple of months have been pretty disappointing on the writing front. I had aimed to finish The Fame during the summer, but only ended up writing six and a half chapters out of the... twenty eight or so. I've kind of been re-reading all my old poems and laughing at them, writing about a sentence of The Fame and then putting it aside. The only thing that I've written in the last month that I've actually been proud of probably will never be shown to anyone, so...

And I really feel a need to rant about this for a moment... I am TIRED of predictable, cliche books. Really, really tired of them. I read ten pages of a book over the summer and predicted the ending. A day later, I finished the book, and I was right about every single point. That happened again with the next book I read.
Somebody, anybody, please give me suggestions for books to read that won't have me throwing them across the room (especially when they're not mine...) because I really need a break from the standard literature written for teenage girls these days.

Anybody else doing NaNoWriMo? Have you done it before?

I Haven't Blogged Since When?

Um... about a month or so.
I'd like to have an excuse like, "I'm super busy!" or "Soooo much time taken up with that stupid AP World History assignment!" or something, but truth is.... I forgot.
I kind of forgot I even had a blog, and when I went back here I found out I now have seventeen followers. No idea how that happened...
But, I figured I might as well share the one important piece of news I have-- Civilized Sabotage: The Fame is now up on inkpop.
It's the sequel to my first book, and you can click HERE to read it! It's in the 1000s in terms of rank, which really stinks. I really only have a few fans, divided up as so-
Approximately three on inkpop
One on Teen Ink
One in real life.
Not exactly what I'd call impressive.
Also, my book is sadly listed under "General Fiction books" and "Romance books." I seriously think they should call it "Realistic Fiction" because that makes it sound a lot less lame than "General" which just sounds like "Boring." And besides, Romance was the closest I could get to any of the other categories- Dystopian? Fantasy? Sci-Fi? Paranormal? Vampire Book? I nearly screamed when I saw that they actually made that a genre of it's own. So sad.
Back when inkpop was it's normal self, and I released the first book, it was listed under General Fiction, Romance, and Comedy, because I think the book has its funny moments. But they took comedy off the list to replace it with vampires. That's just depressing.
Okay, I'm rambling about stuff NOBODY cares about.
Um.... well. I guess that's all I have to say.
WAIT. No, it's not!

Okay, so I saw the Harry Potter movie! Yay! It was really awesome! I thought it was pretty accurate to the books, besides they messed up a certain death (don't want to include spoilers for any potential future fans!) and a certain kiss (which was adorable anyway!). But I will say that I definitely approved of the way that Neville said, "Anybody seen Luna?" "No, why?" "I love her. Thought I might as well tell her now!" I realize that is totally NOT word for word... and I know that totally never happened in the book, and Neville gets married to Hannah Abbot and Luna gets married to some Lysander guy, but hey, I had been rooting for that relationship the whole time. :)
Annddddddd, I got early admission to Pottermore! Sadly, I couldn't do the clue thing until the sixth day, so I'll be getting in during the second or third week of September :(
Soooooo. That's it for now, I guess.

OH, one more thing! I found out about this amaaaaaazing band called He is We! Anybody else ever listen to their music? Just wondering. :)

This was the most random blog post ever.

Here I Am Again

So... long time no blog.
Considering nothing much is going on in the writing world for me, besides struggling with The Fame (6K, woot.) I've decided to blog about... well, I guess I'll just ramble about some random stuff.

Harry Potter.
Although the books have stopped, the fandom never died. And now, the movies are coming to an end as well. So... what else is there to look forward to?! Will the HP fandom die? I certainly hope not. And I really hope that wizard rock never dies. I just went to an Alex Carpenter/Jason Munday/Mike Lombardo show about a week ago and got to meet them, and was introduced into this amazing community of geeks. And sure, there's a bunch of other stuff to go crazy over- The Hunger Games, Doctor Who, so on and so forth, but none can ever live up to Harry Potter.
But guess what comes out on the same day? WINNIE THE POOH. OH YEAH. I have waited so long for this! I'm psyched!
Summer.
It's been pretty awesome so far. Volunteering at the library, practically inhaling books, procrastinating on an AP World History project, going to the beach, the water park, attempting to write again... doesn't get much better than this.  
Those book reviews I was talking about.
Maybe I'll get to one later, but instead for Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie. Started last night, finished this afternoon. I couldn't put it down.
I don't have much else to say.

Links!
My novel, Civilized Sabotage: The Formation Like fiction? Music? CLICK HERE!
My contest-winning short story, Particles of Dust it takes two minutes to read!

The Fame Covers

So, guess what?
Guess!
I finished the first edit of Civilized Sabotage: The Formation! I'm gonna put it aside for a while and start working out the plot line for the second book, The Fame. This will be my inkienowrisum book. I have some ideas for it and started to outline, but I'm looking for more conflict.
A while ago I asked about a billion people on inkpop to make me covers. This is because i wanted a bunch to choose from and I like having promotional images for my books.
SOOO, here they are:

There are a few more, but I'm having trouble finding them all... and blogger's being really slow with uploading. So...
I'll probably rotate these covers when it goes up on inkpop- leave a comment letting me know which one you like best!

Marching Band, Procrastination, and The Like.

Hey! I actually have time to blog today, since my after-school stuff was all cancelled. And even though I have a bunch of history homework I should be getting to, that could be put off a little longer.

So, update on CS: The Formation... nothing much going on there. I'm still editing, and I'm about to completely demolish this part in a Lillian chapter and rewrite it, considering it made no sense.  This big event of re-writing should take place sometime today or later this week.

Memorial Day weekend is coming up! This means catching  up on homework, writing, and, of course, the Memorial Day parade! Which means marching band!
So, I have marching band rehearsals all this week, and today we marched in the rain for the last five minutes or so. My drum was a big puddle by the time we got back inside.
Do any of you guys (readers, existent or not) have any good marching band stories? Or whatever kind of music you do? Leave a comment -- something a bit rare to me.


If you haven't already read it, please sacrifice three minutes of your time for my contest-winning piece, Particles of Dust: http://www.inkpop.com/projects/107442/particles-of-dust/

I'm thinking of doing book reviews! HOpefully sometime this summer. My first one will be for You Wish by Mandy Hubbard.

Currently:
Writing: Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editing
Listening to: ALL CAPS
Reading: The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein (still)
Procrastinating on: English and History homework
Waiting for: summer (and the new Nancy Drew computer game, because I'm a nerd)

Stuffs.

Here I am once again to blog. It's been a hectic week  and is about to get even more crazy tomorrow. Awesome.
Well, anyway, I just thought I'd post something about my short story which is now up on inkpop. It won the NCTE Promising Young Writer's Writing Competition for my state. (Gosh, that's a mouthful.) Soooooo, here are the pitches and the like (or summaries, or whatever):

Particles of Dust

I've decided not to care anymore. You're just particles of dust.

Your feet stepping on mine, your eyes like daggers, your hands pushing me down in the hall.
These are the things I hate. These are the things you do not stop doing. These are the things that I cry about each night.
Your words. Your crueler words. Your even crueler words.
These are the things I hate most.
 
http://www.inkpop.com/projects/107442/particles-of-dust/

So, who wants to sacrifice three minutes of their time to read it? Any takers?
Seriously, it won a contest. How bad can it be?

Oh, I finally found the right picture I was going to use for that Maddie intro, but totally couldn't find it before, so here it is now... yeah, how exciting is that?
(Answer: not very.)
I am doing some extreme editing on CS: The Formation. Although the last time I even looked at my book must have been sometime last week or something.  I just realized all these stupid plot holes, for example:
In the first Violet chapter, she walks to school, clearly stating she does not get a bus.
In chapter eight, Griffin's second chapter, Violet magically appears on her bus.
Genius.
So I was going to have Violet say something like, "Yeah, I don't usually ride the bus, but I hitched a ride..." but realizing that sounded extremely stupid, I am now going to edit the first chapter so she does take the bus, as that first Griffin-Violet meeting on the bus is pretty important, as it gives Violet a feel for who Griffin is. This later makes her feel less awkward to run on stage during the convention, as she knew Lillian from their locker row, and then would have known Griffin from the bus.
So... um.

Currently:
Writing: Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editinggggg
Listening to (obsessively on repeat): Satellite by Lelia Broussard and Daylight by Matt & Kim
Looking forward to: SUMMER.

Character Intro: Maddie

I've decided it's time for another character intro. Which means more fishing around my computer for where I stored these things.

Ever since Maddie was six, her fingers have danced across the keys of her piano and the strings of her violin, forced upon her by her mother. When her parents get a divorce and her father leaves, her mother tries everything she can to hold Maddie down.
Now all Maddie wants to do is escape her mother's clasp. Sooner than she thought she would, she gets some help. Marc, a boy from her bus, comes up with the ultimate plan to rebel, and she goes through with it. But of course, nothing goes as planned, except for one thing...
The bass. She loves playing, but she knows her mother will never approve. She meets three girls at a music festival, and they instantly click, forming a band, giving them a sense of security in their hectic lives.
But Maddie can't keep her mom in the dark forever. She'll have to know eventually. How can Maddie keep this secret?

I don't really have a good picture for Maddie, unfortunately. :,,,( But these are kind of like her (or the hair at the very least.)
I think the mood of the pictures- the fact that she's alone in the first one, totally alone in the second with a guitar, not a bass, (GRRR) and then running in the third one, like she's trying to run away from all constraints her mother holds on her...
So, a little dramatic, maybe?
And cuz I just HAD to make one of these:

Maddie :) by rainbowwaffles featuring a heart tee

Next up is Lillian, one of my favorites. I'll be posting her intro sometime this week, or more likely, next next weekend, sadly.
Thanks to anybody who actually read this or followed!  

Character Intro: Violet

Hey, again!  I feel an urge to blog some more. Specifically about one of the main characters of my book, Violet.

I wrote up a little bio for her a while ago.. let's see if I can hunt it down on my computer.

The only home Violet has ever known is the House for Poor Souls. There, she keeps the other girls in line when the orphanage owner, Jayne, leaves them repeatedly for her boyfriend's apartment. Although she's constantly fighting with her "sister" Abby, and trying to comfort the younger girls while on the lookout for where the two oldest girls have disappeared to, school sometimes seems worse. She's known as that "goth loner girl" who sits i the back of the room and writes poetry.
So when she finds her first guitar and learns how to play, how can she resist a set of three friends, willing to talk to her, willing to make music with her, willing to just... be her friends?
But when the orphanage takes a turn for the worst and Violet still hasn't told anybody about it, how can she not take the money the band is making, even when it's not hers for the taking?

That's not really what she looks like, but it's the mood of the picture that does it.

Violet :) by rainbowwaffles featuring lace tops

Just something I made to sum up Violet's style. :)

Currently:
Writing:  Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editing TENSES
Reading: The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen and The Hobbit for English class.
Procrastinating on: Science homework
Listening to: "Mean" by Taylor Swift
Watching: Tangled
Looking forward to: summer.

Welcome!

Well, it seems like you've had the great (mis)fortune of stumbling upon my wee little blog here. If you haven't read that giant big header at the top of the page, I'm a teen writer.
First order of business: is my blog title correct? Should it be "Teenage Writer" or "teenaged writer" like it is? I think teenaged is an adjective, while teenage is a noun for the age of teens. But maybe I'm wrong. All I know is that it's not going to look too smart if I say I'm a writer and I get that totally wrong. So, please correct me if I'm incorrect.

So, basically, this blog is all about my adventures as a teenaged writer. The social networking, the publishing (or probably in my case, self publishing) writing tips, editing, and so on and so forth. I guess it's time to officially introduce myself. You can call me EJ,  and my one goal in life is to have as much fun as possible.
I am:
A writer, a reader, a nerd, a science olympian, a runner, artistic, a woodshop-aholic, a shopaholic, a chocoholic, crazy, informative, sarcastic-at-times, welcoming, and friendly.
More importantly, I should introduce my novel. It's called Civilized Sabotage: The Formation and is a realistic fiction novel for girls between 11 and 15, approximately. It centers around four eighth graders who find themselves through music and friendship. It's the first in a trilogy. That's a very basic summary.

Want to find out more? Read the pitch here:
http://www.inkpop.com/projects/100908/civilized-sabotage-the-formation/

Want to read the mostly un-edited version? You can read it here:
http://www.inkpop.com/projects/100908/civilized-sabotage-the-formation/
Haha, those are both the same link. XD Just thought I should ease in on that whole "here's my whole book!" moment.

If you could comment there or here about it and give me feedback, it would be greatly appreciated. I know it's not perfect yet, and I'm revising the tenses so please only briefly mention that in your critique (if you ever leave one) because I'm working on it now. :) Thank you.

You can look forward to basically more stuff about my book here on this blog of mine, so... hopefully I have somebody reading this besides myself right now?

Currently:
Writing: Civilized Sabotage: The Formation
On the process of: editing
Reading: The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
Procrastinating on: Science homework
Listening to: "Rooftop to the Street" by Tonight Alive
Watching: Avatar: The Last Airbender. What else?
Looking forward to: summer.