Sale For All!

I know it's not Sunday, but give me a little break. Vacations are difficult. My boyfriend and I finally got his living room in order, and we celebrated by watching the entire first half of The Walking Dead season four (although we both know there were a thousand other things better than doing that). I also had to finish reading a book, because I hate it, but it's part of a series, so I have to finish it. Yeah, I'm one of those people.

Now to the important part: the sale! All You Left Behind will be on sale started at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday. If any of you people are up at that time on New Year's Eve, I'll be impressed. I won't even have a hangover and I won't be up at that time. But if you are, head over to Amazon and grab my book for $1.99! That's almost 80% off! I feel like the crazy guy selling carpets. But, seriously, take a look and if you want it, grab it. It's on sale until January 5th, so you'll have plenty of time.

Okay, this one is quick because my boyfriend "might" have the flu and he's sleeping on the couch right now while I type this in the kitchen. My keyboard isn't the quietest is in the world, and I don't want to wake him. So, remember, Wednesday! Start the new year off right and grab my book for super cheap! Thanks guys! I'll see on the other side in 2014!

Oh, PS - check my Twitter on Wednesday. I'll throw the link up there. In case my brain stops working, here it is now:

http://www.amazon.com/All-Left-Behind-Guardian-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00G3J8Q7G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388455006&sr=8-1&keywords=all+you+left+behind

Blogging Is The Perfect Way to Procrastinate

I'm sitting in my boyfriend's kitchen right now, staring at all the trash that has accumulated from wrapping/unwrapping Christmas presents and the shiny new IKEA TV stand that he bought yesterday. I'm also thinking that the disorganization is beginning to drive me insane, but instead of actually doing something about that, I'm blogging! Wrapping paper and bows all over the kitchen table? Target bags on the counters? IKEA boxes scattered all around the front living area? Please, I have to blog about nothing! Really, though, I have my priorities in order.

I guess that's my way of saying that this might be a quick post, because I could blow up this entire condo in two seconds.

Anyway, the big surprise that I was hinting at last post is...really not as exciting as I think it is. Next week, in honor of the new year and the fact that I'm actually going to begin writing, All You Left Behind is going to be on sale for a whole seven days! I'm not entirely sure of all the details, mainly because I haven't really started the process yet. Premature excitement, I know. But this is something that I've been wanting to do for a few weeks now, and it just sounds better if there's a holiday or some reason for it. Also, it helps me remember that I have to put it on sale. The moment that I hammer out the details, you all will be the first to know. Promise (insert Benedict Cumberbatch wink here).

Maybe you picked up the hidden message in all that mess: I have not began writing yet. This week got a little busier than I expected. Well, and for the first two days of my vacation, I refused to get off the couch and stop watching Doctor Who. I think even my Netflix was done with me. But I finished editing and threw it up on Amazon, so that's something. It also helped me answer some questions before writing and helped me remember some things that I shouldn't leave out in the second book. I have no idea how authors with big universes keep everything straight. I applaud them.

Okay, the trash is getting to me. I can see a soda can in my peripheral that is just begging me to stop being lazy and start doing something constructive. Check back this weekend. I should have the sale details up by Sunday, at the latest. Or maybe I'll just post it on Twitter. Good lord. If I haven't infected the people who read this with indecisiveness by now, you're all immune. Congratulations.

I'm a Slacker...

I'm incredibly aware that it's Monday and it's been an entire week since my last post. I was planning on writing one on Thursday since we were going to be busy all weekend, but that didn't work out because I left my computer at home. Then the weekend took a turn for the craptastic and, well, I didn't feel much like doing anything.

Especially not Christmas shopping, but that's what I did yesterday. After the adventure I had yesterday, all I can say is that I truly miss having a Tower Records near me. I had to go to three different record stores to look for a record my boyfriend wants. None of them had that record. What's that? I could have called? Oh, ye of little faith. Yes, I did call (because I am my mother's daughter and I could feel her pride when I started dialing), and it would have been wonderful if any of them picked up! Well, change that. One did pick up, but that's because it's in Pomona and they're awesome. I think my favorite experience of the day was walking into a punk store and asking for a metal record. Pat on the back for both me and the cashier for keeping a straight face! So I settled with two small things which I'm not entirely happy about, but it's the thought that counts, right?

And just because I spent my day running around Orange County does not mean that I didn't spend some time on myself. I'm about 60% done rereading my book, and goodness, am I glad no one has bought it. Oh, god, that sounds so sad, but really. I've found so many little mistakes and sentences that I thought I had deleted in the last go-around, but I guess not. So I'm hopefully going to finish it up today (why is it reading/editing your own novel takes about a thousand years more than reading a regular book?) and then get started on writing the sequel tomorrow or on Christmas. We'll see. Depends on how much time I have between the Sherlock minisode and crying my eyes out because Matt Smith is leaving in two days. But I do have a surprise in store for later this week, so hopefully I can get my butt in gear and get it off the ground.

What is it about Christmas that makes people go insane? Was that out of left field? Sorry. I stepped away for a few minutes and remembered that I was in the middle of cleaning on my closet and hallway storage. There's DVD cases, CD cases, clothing, notebooks, bedding, and toys littering my tiny walkway to the bathroom. I woke up today with a purpose, and I thought that I would have that purpose completed in time for lunch, but I guess I started doing other things and kind of forgot. Maybe I'll have this all done in time so I can sit down on the couch for about seven hours and watch Christmas movies. I've already made it through a good chunk of what I set out (Charlie Brown, Bridget Jones, White Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas - both the cartoon and the life action), and now all I have left is Elf, A Christmas Story, and It's a Wonderful Life. Although, I've been rather emotional the past few days, so I'm saving Jimmy Stewart until the last second. I wish you could lose a ton of weight by crying. I'd be super skinny by the time New Year's rolled around!

I should probably go finish one task that I set for the day. It'll take me an hour just to decide which one.

In Honor of Jane Austen...

"How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!"

Man, did Jane Austen hit it on the head or what? So while I should have spent my entire day reading Pride and Prejudice (my absolutely favorite book since I was about ten) and watching Pride and Prejudice (either Darcy will do), I spent my morning making cookies and then trying to get over the diabetes I contracted from making said cookies. Well, I thought, I guess I'll just have to watch/read at home tonight! Sure, but that was before I got a flat tire on my way to work. Siiiiigh. Preparation, Jane, don't I know it.

So now I'm sitting here, writing this because I should have done it earlier, and eating my ultimate comfort food, SpongeBob mac and cheese. It's weird how SpongeBob makes this dish even better. And now I have to prepare myself for tomorrow morning, because I hate going alone to do anything with my car. I hate the fact that the guys at auto stores look at me and think, Oh, easy target. No, I do not want an oil change, because the sticker in the corner of my windshield tells me I still have a thousand miles. No, I don't want four tires when one will do. No, I would not like to purchase that eight thousand dollar package because, well, why? But they still push it on me, like one day I'm just going to lose my brain and say, yeah, what the hell, why not? Not going to happen, people.

Sure, this may be distracting all you readers from the real point: how far did I get on reading my story? The answer to that would be...not far at all. But it's not really my fault. My boyfriend wanted to get a Christmas tree for his place and then we spent most of the weekend decorating his condo, so I'm blaming this all on Santa Claus. If he didn't need such a pretty place to drop into, then I could have spent all weekend reading. Not a good enough excuse? I know, but it's all I've got. I have fifty more pages of The Crown of Embers, and then I can move on. Hopefully tonight. Because it's Monday night, and that means it's one more step until Friday.

But reading these fantasy series is getting me excited to start on my own. My fingers are twitching excitedly just thinking about the trouble my characters are going to get into. I guess that makes reading all these books okay, right? It better, because I still have four on hold at the library, and I know that they'll all come in at the same time. Because that is my lot in life, to have inconveniences like that. Not terrible, but just enough to distract me from what I should be doing.

Like right now. Windows Media Player just randomly popped up and started playing Pride and Prejudice. I guess that means I have to watch it now. Oh wells.

Books...Books Everywhere!

While I thought that buying a thousand books on Black Friday and placing a million holds at my library was a fabulous idea, the reality of it is...Well, wait, it's still fabulous, because I have all these books surrounding me right now that I get to read. But I can see them all judging me right now, telling me that I have things to do, that I should be reading my own book, because I've given myself until next Friday to get it done so I can start writing my sequel. Rationally, I know that I can set the books I own aside, because they will still be there tomorrow. Additionally, I also know that I have three weeks to read my library books and it usually takes me a day or two to read them. But...I mean...come on. I have to stare at that pile of books and act like I don't want to read them? They look so sad when I tell them, Well, guys, sorry, but I have to read my own book that I've read a thousand times and still managed to screw up the editing , and besides, I have to write a sequel and...Whoa, wait, why are you crying? I'll get to you, I promise.

Yes, that really is how my conversation goes with my books.

According to my Kindle, I'm about 14% done with AYLB, and that's been a week-long process. I just...I can't sometimes. I really do love my book (and that's not some shameless ploy to get you people to buy it), but my eyes wander easily. What's that, The Crown of Embers? You think I need to know how Elisa deals with the underground village? What, The Lullaby? I really need to understand where Remy is coming from? These books makes compelling arguments.

No. I have seven days. I'll get through it. Then I can go nuts on all the books I want for nearly two weeks. Just sit my boyfriend down in front of some video games and I'll dive into different worlds and forget that I have another book to write.

Besides books and writing, I still have to get a Christmas tree. I never understood those people who could get their Christmas decorations up the day after Thanksgiving. I like to give holidays breathing room, and I think that Thanksgiving gets overshadowed sometimes. Especially since we have Black Friday and Christmas seems to be the ultimate American holiday, what with the consumerism and fighting people for a $10 waffle iron. So I like to give Thanksgiving a few extra days to just be Thanksgiving, which means I don't even have to think about Christmas until...well, until about now. I've set up a few lights and everything, but it's the tree that's a thorn in my side. While I only wanted a two footer, so I could put it on my little bar and see it every time I make breakfast, lunch, or dinner, none of the farms around here sell trees that small. And I refuse to get an artificial tree because I like the smell of dying tree (I'm kidding!). So now my boyfriend has been kind enough to offer himself as help, because it looks like I'm going to have to get an actual tree. This should be interesting.

Also, and this isn't set in stone or anything, I may increase these blog posts Christmas week, because that's when I'm planning on starting writing the sequel to AYLB (in case you haven't heard that enough). I think that by updating constantly, it'll help me stay on task and stay excited. Also, I like to share my victories with people so they can be super jealous. Hey, as long as I get ten words a day, I consider that a victory. So if there's more activity here and on my Twitter that week, don't think I've gone insane. Well, no, do think that, because I most likely have, but, you know. Just a warning, I suppose.

Eleven Days!

Until what, Bree? Until your global publication? Until JK Rowling comes to give you your first million dollar paycheck? Well, now I've just set myself up for disappointment. Because it's just eleven days until Christmas break and about a thousand days of doing absolutely nothing. Okay, more like two weeks, but after a few days of doing nothing, it seems to be neverending. So at least I'll have something constructive to do this Christmas break.

I started rereading my book (for the upteenth time) and I'm barely into chapter two, but there's already a thousand mistakes I've caught (in case you haven't noticed, I exaggerate numbers a lot). So I'm going through it slowly, even though I have that strange deadline in the back of my head. But it is helping. I've been going back through my super rough outline for the second book and changing things, and with each change I make, I smile a bit more. I can't believe how much I've forgotten from the few months of my last editing. There was a point in chapter one where I actually said to myself, Oh, yeah, I forgot I put that guy in there. I wonder if all authors go through this when they read their earlier books or even when they're writing a sequel. Or I wonder if they have those minds like a sponge, where they retain every single word they've ever written. Because, if they do, what jerks. I can barely remember my phone number, much less what I wrote a year ago.

Then there's the beautiful problem that is my brain. And fingers, really, if we want to get technical about it. I mean, they don't have to write what my brain tells them to. If my brain says, Hey, I know that we're supposed to be concentrating on your actual book, the one that you think is pretty good, but I think that we should start this other one, okay? Right now. And my fingers just comply. Such followers. So those two tag teamed me and wrote 4,000 words over the weekend. And that's just one scene. Then there's the outline. Oh, yes, my fingers and brain made an outline of this stupid story with no real plot, but with only a couple of scenes strung together to make...something. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I should write it. I love to write every day, but it's usually just something stupid, just to keep my hand in it, so to speak. Which I guess is what this is doing. But I don't want to fall in love with it. I don't want to write more and then say, Gosh, I guess I should abandon everything I've been working on and go with this! Does this seem familiar? Because it should be.

You know what, though? I think I'm going to take a break from all the writing and do something truly constructive: decorate for Christmas. Because that is truly what I should be doing, since I just finished making mint chocolate chip cupcakes and my entire apartment smells like peppermint (the whole two feet of my apartment). Besides, the mess I've made from pulling out Christmas decorations is beginning to make me tremble inside.

The English Language

Between cleaning and working and doing nothing, I noticed something. Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess I have to reveal a terrifying secret before I go on. Well, it's neither terrifying nor really a secret. Not to those people who actually know me. I talk to myself when I'm alone. Sometimes I do it out loud, sometimes it's only in my head, but I talk to myself constantly. I tell jokes (which crack me up, thank you very much), stories, make lists, hold life-threateningly important conversations with the other half of my brain. Last night, I was watching a drama and the girl asked, "By whom?" And the first thing I thought of was, Oh my god, how did she know to say "whom" and not "who"? That's the second terrifying secret, which is pretty terrifying since I hold a BA in English literature: I suck at grammar. Okay, I know nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, gerunds, and I totally rock at prepositional phrases, but there's some thing about grammar that make me hesitate. Whom and who are two that make me cringe. Also affect and effect. Those are just cruel. Past and passed have caused me more than a little stroke. Now, I can get around using these words in my daily life, or, in the case of passed and past, use them without knowing which spelling I'm actually using. So that's kind of wonderful!

But imagine writing a book and being faced with these problematic words.

There have been thousands of times while writing that I pause and think, Am I supposed to use that word here? What about that tense? Is that one even a real word? This is why it takes me so long to edit. Microsoft Word is telling me one thing and my brain is berating me for listening to Microsoft Word. Then I try looking online, and there are some very helpful websites out there, but then there's other that contradict the helpful websites and make things a thousand times more confusing.

The best part of all this is that when I go to work, my job is to explain the English language and grammar to children, some of those children just walking into our country. Sometimes, when we're going over certain words that have a thousand meanings, they'll look at me and ask why English is so difficult. I used to tell them that's it really not, that it's very simple, but now...Now I look back at these kids and say, You know what? I have no idea. But it's difficult because we have one word with all these meanings and then another word that means exactly the same as that word, but we can only use it in certain situations. Then we have words that sound the same, but they mean other things. It's at that time that the kid is either crying or staring at me like I've gone insane. And maybe I have. But let me tell you, sometimes I hate speaking English. Because sometimes I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about, and that's because I don't.

Don't get me wrong: I love words. I love using weird words, as long they make sense in the situation I'm in. I've been known to use flabbergast instead of surprised or conundrum instead of problem. Sometimes I like the way my mouth moves when I use certain words. Other times, I like to see people's face while they try and figure out what exactly that strange word means (oh, yes, I can be one of those snobby people, and it's a wonderful thing in certain parts of Orange County).

I guess this rambling post comes about because I'm getting everything prepared for the sequel of All You Left Behind. I always get a little apprehensive when I start a new story that I plan to share with people, because I'm not the only English major in this world. I'm also not the only person that doesn't know grammar, so I guess there's that silver lining, right? But I feel that I should know these things because I write, because I'd like it to be a steady job one day. But how can I do that if the English language is so freaking hard?

Now that's off my chest. I can fully enjoy my weekend doing nothing, since it's going to be properly cold down here and I have a TARDIS blanket just begging to be used. I have tons of books (thanks Black Friday!) and three Starbucks within a mile radius of my boyfriend's place. I don't have to worry about English! I'm barely going to be speaking for two days!

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Not really, right? Yes, I'm completely aware it's not Monday, but I didn't have my computer yesterday because I'm such a good girlfriend and let my boyfriend borrow it. And then I was too lazy to go pick it up in the morning. Oh wells. I got Starbucks out of the deal, so it can't be all bad! I could have used either app on my phone or my Kindle, but do you realize how hard it is to type on those things? Especially since my phone doesn't autocorrect and sometimes I can be quite lazy on that thing. I'll take a picture of one of my texts before I read it over. It's a mess. And, for reasons I can't understand, I can't type on my Kindle. I peck away at it and the words aren't even words. I don't even know with my typing skills sometimes.

But I did need a day to really contemplate what I did over the holidays. Sure, I did absolutely nothing (on Thanksgiving, I don't think I even got out of pajamas), but it was nice to go through my emails to see what exactly I bought on Friday. I didn't go quite as nuts as I thought I did. I ended up with about six new books (which I'm dying to try to read all at once) and one movie (The Wizard of Oz was only $3.96!). So life is good. I think I spent under $30, and that is wonderful. We also went to the aquarium, because I am six years old, and Knott's Berry Farm, where we found the best soaps and lotions ever (http://www.misskittygirl.com/ in case anyone is interested, which you should be!).

Okay, now that my commercial is over, I can move on to much more important things, such as trying to get my stupid book file onto my stupid Kindle. Sigh. Sometimes I can't believe that I can turn on my computer and open this browser to write these newfangled things. But hopefully I can get that thing on my Kindle before I leave for work, and then I can get started on reading and remembering just what I wrote. I hear that's pretty important for writing a sequel. But now, of course, I've been having a butt ton of ideas for another story, and then I thought last night, hey, we should go back to the NaNo story and really fix that piece of junk up! Oh, sure, brain, I'll do all that and write a sequel. My brain really thinks highly of me, which I appreciate sometimes. But not right now. Because right now, I'd like to concentrate on one thing only. It's just so difficult.

But my life isn't filled with just books. Well, yes, it is, but not in December! December means Christmas and decorations and cookies and more vacation. But that also means I have to go shopping for Christmas decorations, and that's always a bit of a hassle. Especially when I hate going to any stores after Thanksgiving. People get a little nuts at shopping, but it's the price we pay for making our houses smell like pine and cranberries and fake snow. And you get to be melodramatic without any judgement. Isn't Christmas wonderful?

I guess I should offer a warning for the next few weeks: this blog is going to get a little random (as if it's not already) and perhaps boring. It's the lull between writing, so maybe I'll throw up some reviews of the thousand and one books I've read in the last few months. I'll also keep you all up to date about the mistakes I made in All You Left Behind, because that could be fun. If I haven't strangled the book to oblivion.