Dos Scribblings Weekly: Be inspired! Drink in the world around you!

Hi there!

I'm here to tell you to take heart when you find yourself stuck... as I have been of late with my writing.


Even though I have not taken any direct action to act on my inspirations by writing, I have been thoroughly inspired with my new experiences lately. But when I'm feeling particularly uninspired I simply just escape for a while to the beach or my own front yard. Recently I decided to spontaneously go to one of my favorite beaches here in Northern Cali, and it was beautiful. I watched the storm clouds roll in from the ocean, poked at some sea anenomes and sea stars, felt the waves rolling around my ankles and tripped a few times by sinking in the wet sand. It was a dazzling experience!

Besides going to your happy place, I would recommend just seeking out whatever inspired you in the first place with your idea for whatever work you have at the moment. For me, many of the places I pulled inspiration from are from my favorite fantasy fiction novels. Specifically, for one of my WIP's I am writing a Beauty and the Beast fiction novel. I am not sure how well it will go, but I have a pretty solid idea for what I want this world to be like. My inspiration for that came from the story of the Beauty and the Beast, (obviously) but more specifically the Disney movie. I love the way that story version is written. In part I think the reason why it inspires me so much is because it's got a lot of beautiful music in it. For my WIP Beauty and the Beast story I drew different parts from the movie and the original story itself to make my work my own. I may be stuck on it now, but every time I watch something or listen to something related to Beauty and the Beast I get a little spark of inspiration.

If you are feeling stuck, you need to go back to the source material that brought you to this brilliant idea in the first place. And if you're in the first draft, all you need to be concerned about is letting your characters story play out and not worry to much about the giant plot holes or gaping inconsistencies.

Hope this inspires someone,

Love,

Jazmine

The Things We Want

Hi again!

Yes, this is my first post in a long-long time. I am making plans to get back on track and post at least once a week on my blog about writerly things. I think it would be good for me.
Anyway, about what I wanted to write this post for... this is something that's been on my heart lately as I've been praying about things in my life. There are many things we want in life: a wonderful job, someone to fall in love with, best friends, a great family, a new car, a million bucks. I could go on with that list but it would be lengthy, to say the least. If we bring that list into more of a writerly realm, it would include things like: more books to read, to be on the New York Times bestseller list, to have your job BE writing, and most of all have people love the stories you so laboriously put together.
Well, for me, it's been a great struggle to see people around me who I know like me as a person have great fun with their friends, yet, I don't really have as many as they do. Or more to the point, I don't have that "core" group of friends to hang out with like many people around me do. Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out at college Bible group with all the lovely people there and the other places I go where I meet people. But there as never been a group of people where I've connected with them and we become that "group of friends".
I am BEYOND thankful for the amazing friends I consider sisters to myself, but their lives don't ever intersect all that often and it's not that "group of friends". If you haven't noticed yet, I really want to have that "group of friends". I've been clawing at the wall of despair because I don't have an answer to why no core group of people have ever connected with me where it's stayed that way for a long time. There have definitely been times in the past where there have been short bursts of a "group of friends", but more often than not we've grown up and grown apart, or they've moved away to another city a hundred or more miles away.
Part of it could be me, blocking myself subconsciously because of my insecurities with my age or any other thing. Even though my age does not matter when it comes down to it, I always find myself at the top of the group age wise and not really connecting with any particular person just because we're in a different stage in life... or I find myself the baby of the people I'm around. This has been the case recently, even though I know in my heart that age does not matter, and it shouldn't.

I've been very seriously praying to God asking questions of "WHY?!" mostly. Over the past few months it seems I've been getting the recurring message of "Be thankful for the blessings you have, stop yearning for something you think you need, look to Me and follow. I will provide for you."
There is also another thing I wrote down just as a note to myself... "I need to stop looking for relationships I think I need and open my heart to God instead." What's funny is that just now something occurred to me as I was typing: my best friend came into my life long before my insecurities about friendships came to the surface. A good few years before... yet she's the closest thing I have to a sister. ( You know who you are girlie! )
That in itself has just proved itself in this moment to be a testimony to myself and to anyone reading that God provides what we truly need. When He provides he does not fail, and does it in his timing, and far beyond our expectations.
The friend I wrote about a moment ago is proof of that, she's become my closest of friends over the past 7 years (WOW! That's a long time! Awesome!) I've known her. All of that despite the fact she lives 2,092 miles away from me (I counted girl, oh yes I did... google helped a little haha).


So, whether you are upset because you haven't made your WIP novel the perfect draft ready for publishing, or if you haven't gotten published yet, or you're just dealing with life issues of any kind at all... I hope this encourages you.
I thought I would share my experiences and the things I've discovered over these past months. Things can be extremely frustrating, but God will provide and the struggle with reach the peak eventually and the thing you were getting to will finally come. If not that thing, then something equally (or more likely, greater) awesome.

Love,

Jazmine

P.S.
I'll be trying to blog post more frequently. We will see how that goes with my second semester of college coming up. Not making any promises "etched in stone". Haha.

Pens are like swords, and relationships are like glass...

If you are intrigued by the title, I'm glad, because that was the point. *chuckles*

Welcome to the book review for "The Unlikely Debut of Ellie Sweet" the sequel to "The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet" by Stephanie Morrill. 

She has a pen for a sword... but what can she use for a shield?

I got this book for Christmas from good ol' Santa Claus. 

I'm not unfamiliar with this authors work (obviously, since I read the first book in this series), in fact I read her blog fairly often (Go Teen Writers), she's also partnered with Jill Williamson, the author of The Blood of Kings Trilogy and The Safe Lands, to write with her on the blog. 

I've also read the first book in Stephanie Morrills' other series "The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt". 

Moving on with the review, the opening certainly did not disappoint and I was hooked so well that I stayed up much later than I should with a flu flying about my home. Stephanie Morrill's book starts off at a steady incline to reach the climax of Ellie Sweet's story and leaves you with a satisfactory sigh by the end. From the very first sentences I enjoyed the comic sprinkled throughout it and the iron-clad strengthening in the personalities of the characters. In case those words are a little fuzzy... I'll elaborate:

What I mean by that is we see different sides and much more is revealed about the main characters during the time reading this book. Especially Ellie. A whole new batch of troubles is opened up for Ellie Sweet in this novel and being able to go through them with her so vividly because of Mrs. Morrill's steady hand in her craft makes it that much more enjoyable. 

Ellie Sweet's story contains everything you'd think would be happening in a teenage girls' life: high school drama, boys, schoolwork... the only huge difference is that she is on the verge of becoming a published author at the start of the book. And then perhaps that there is a love triangle weaved into her life story, which was actually established in the first book to begin with, but let's just say that the triangle is continued in this one - without giving to much away. 

Mrs. Morrill balances the elements of Ellie Sweet's writerly life without overdoing it, though I could be biased since I am a writer myself and I find things about it fascinating. And moving past that I think she handled the love triangle masterfully and definitely to her own style, she clearly avoided the cliche average formula for love triangles in many Young Author genre books nowadays. That's saying something coming from me, don't get me wrong, I love romance, but I can only read truly more original romance tales without cringing occasionally. Just because it's been done so many times.

But my favorite thing about this book (and the first book about Ellie Sweet) is how tasteful yet out in the open Mrs. Morrill tackles subjects like sex, beer, and drugs. She makes no clear effort to sugar coat it, and I really admire that, because after all; every high school girl comes across conversations like that. 

If I had one complaint/critique towards this book it would only be the way she cut the scenes and timeline. During my time reading it I feel like there was a 50/50 share of it being to slow, but then to fast at times. 

As I close this post I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. A job well done! =)

I look forward to buying the other books in the Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series. ( And more books about Ellie Sweet? Please? No pressure of course haha :D )

Love

Jazmine

Dos Scribblings Weekly: Using life in your writing

Hey everybody,

It's been a long-long time. But coming this new year I'll be blogging twice a week like I should be.

Anyway, what this post will be about is certainly a little more personal for me. The idea for this post came to me only a little while ago when I was chewing on some thoughts about what's been going on in my life lately. I will not go into to much detail, but it's been difficult and very frustrating dealing with these problems and not being able to do anything about it for fear of screwing up any chance I have. And then on the flip side of things I feel I'm being far to paranoid, and that I just need to knock it off, but then I begin wondering all over again and feeling depressed. As you can see what I'm going through is just one vicious cycle of nasty feelings. As are most things in life unfortunately.
But on a happier note I have been working hard on seeing that I really don't have anything to be that sad about. Sure, the things I'm dealing with right now are difficult and irritating, but I'm a very blessed girl and I have everything I could ever need right in front of me. I may want things, but that doesn't mean I don't have everything I need. That's something I feel God has been putting on my heart lately to grow as a person.

So as I listen to The Piano Guys on my iPod I'll get down to the point of this blog post. All of those feelings I expressed above the picture of the heart (Isn't it a cute heart by the way? I just love it!) I plan on using somehow in my writing. I give credit to the book "The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet" by Stephanie Morrill for making me realize how important that concept really is for any author.
The mentor character Bronte for the main character Ellie Sweet said something like "If someone hurt you Ellie, use it. Use your anger and put it in your writing. Don't dwell on it, just use it." This is the most useful advice to date that I've received from a book or anyone.
Even though I've done it unconsciously for years during my writing career (I don't know if I should call it that?) I've never actually read or heard someone tell me to do specifically that. When I was around 12 or 13 and trying desperately to find who I was, I expressed... age appropriate feelings for the time in my life I was going through in a very excited fashion. Was it good writing? No. But now that I know consciously that using life experiences in your stories can create life in a novel, I can use it to my advantage and craft better stories. Especially now that my writing has simply improved from when I was a pre-teen. (I'm now going to graduate High School in May 2014)
My advice to you: I don't care what it is in your life, whether it be happy experiences or absolutely heartbreaking experiences you must seize the opportunity and write it into one of your novels somehow. This is, after all, what makes us writers; painting on a blank canvas for the onlookers to see and be drawn into our world.
I don't know any of you personally, but for me, this is a way I deal with pain in my life. Writing gives me a way to vent out those experiences that leave me breathless with sadness or anger. Of course you do not have to stay 100% detailed to what you experienced, but to give the reader something so raw from your own soul (whether or not the reader actually knows it) makes the characters all that more real, and the world they live in very real. I can't stress that enough.

So: use your experiences to write. =)

On a last note, I probably won't post again until after the new year. Just to get a fresh start, so I bid thee goodbye.... for now.

Love,

Jazmine