#YALLFest2014 - Recap

It's been two weeks since YALLFest. I meant to post this sooner, but two weeks turned out to be perfect. So here is my post about my experience at YALLFest.



Friday after my French class I headed over to Blue Bicycle Books. There was a buzz already in that area. The store was so full and busy, but it was neat to see! I felt into the hustle and bustle and started helping with set up. The most exciting part was that I escorted Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke and Bone) and her family to the library where she was going to be signing.

When I returned, I had a little bit of a break so I went down to the train museum to get Sarah Dessen to sign my copy of Truth About Forever. I did get it signed and my life was so perfect at that moment!

Afterwards, I went back to the bookstore and there I helped set up books for authors to sign. I helped Morgan Rhodes, Ally Condie and Lauren Myracle. Morgan Rhodes travelled all the way from Canada, Ally Condie was super sweet and has a beautiful signature, and Lauren Myracle is the craziest and has this energy that surrounds her! After I helped the authors, I helped prepare for the panels the next day.

The most exciting part of the evening was going to a beautiful, old Charleston house for a party. All the authors were there! It's every reader's dream to be in a room with their favorite authors! My goal for the weekend was to get Sarah Dessen's autograph and a picture with her. That dream came true! My life was so complete that night!

Saturday came around and it was busy! I worked the merchandise and information table during the morning and we were constantly busy! There were so many people and everyone had stacks of books. It was so cool to see. When I was done at the table I moved on to the Charleston Music Hall where some of the panels were being held. I spent the rest of the evening helping out there. I was able to listen to some really interesting and hilarious panels!  My favorite panels were the Incurable Romantics and Hollywood Stories.

I saw the closing keynote and the YA Smackdown Feat. Tiger Beat. It was an amazing experience and I hope to do it all again next year! I'm not sure whether I'll be interning, volunteering or just enjoying it as a reader.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Spoleto, Italy, the sister city of Charleston. My soul yearns to visit. To enjoy a month of Italian food, history, art, architecture, and maybe some Italian guys (Or at least fantasize about Italian boys and write tons of short stories about them).

There's more to Italy than all of that. There is the experience of being in another country and best of all having nothing to do but write. I have the opportunity to go on a month long study abroad trip to Spoleto in May of 2015. I would be writing and studying, and enjoying the sights of Italy. How amazing would that be?

It would be probably the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life thus far.

But then reality sets in, and it's a heavy one. The trip comes in at about $7,554.00, that's the trip and tuition for the classes I'll be taking. Plus about $500 for fun money. That's a lot! It's gonna take a lot of work, but I could do it.

The problem I struggle with is that there are a about a million other things I could do with about $8000.00 dollars. Buy a car, go to Disney World, pay off all of my credit cards, or some other practical thing.

But I don't want to be "realistic" or "practical". I want to be frivolous and adventurous. I want to soak up the sun in another country. I want to breathe the air filled with history. I was to walk on the ground where one of the greatest civilizations stood.

That's why I have finally made up my mind. I'm going to Spoleto, Italy in May 2015. I'll never have another chance in my life to spend a month just writing in another country. Once I come back I will have to face the reality of the world outside of college coming closer as I enter my senior year. I'll have classes to finish, graduation to plan for, apply to Master's programs, study and take the GRE, and worry about getting a car.

To prepare for the financial part of Spoleto, I've been looking up scholarships and crunching the numbers furiously. It's gonna be close, but it is doable.

Also, in preparation I have been Pinning furiously every tip for traveling. I've also make a wish list on Amazon to keep up with the stack of things I will need or want for the trip.

Ciao! Buon viaggio! (This means goodbye, have a good trip in Italian).

Gilmore Girls Taught Me To Dream

Today is the 4th of July, which means Happy Independence Day, America!

I've spent my holiday lying around the house, watching tv and snacking on Chex Mix. I might even finally clean my bookshelves! *cue the gasps*

For now, though, I'm content to lay on the couch watching The Gilmore Girls, laughing at how similar Rory and Lorelei are to my mom and I. When I was younger my mom always joked that we were just like the Gilmore Girls. Our relationship was similar to theirs and still is. 

When I started watching The Gilmore Girls I was in 7th grade, I think. My life and ideas about life have changed a great deal since then, still my love for this show has not changed. It still never fails to make me laugh, make me cry, make me daydream and wish for all the magic it makes me believe in. I want to be Rory, who is smart and driven. I also want the crazy and wild side of Lorelei. 

The reason I love the show so much is because no matter what episode you watch you still can understand and feel something. You want Rory to step out of her shell a little, for Lorelei to do something crazy and have her usual banter with Luke. You want a Friday night family dinner with Lorelei's parents and the Gilmore girls, filled with sarcasm, banter and jabs that have you rolling on the floor. There's always that little life lesson moment that leaves you reflecting and thinking. The best part is the bond between Rory and Lorelei. 

I may never be able to fully explain my love for this show, but if you've never seen it you need to. Then you'll understand why I'm so in love with it. 

Again, Happy Indepence Day! 

New Year Resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know today is the 4th day of the New Year, so I'm a tad late, but forgive me. The New Year always brings the absolute rush to make promises and goals, but 88%(I think that was the statistic I heard on the radio, can't be too far off, either way) of the people who make these goals and promises don't actually see them through.

Tonight my mom and I were in Wal-Mart when she made the observation that "Either we're attacked by weight loss books or Southern Comfort foods". She's right too. The top resolution is losing weight and getting in shape. Gyms probably make more money in January than any other month of the year.

Well this year I've decided to make a resolution and stick with it. So here are my goals and resolutions for the year.

1. Lose 40 pounds by the end of April/early May. I'm keepin' my fingers crossed I can accomplish this, even if it is only half of my goal by then. That's better than nothing.
2. Read more this year. Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, Susane Colasanti, Stephanie Perkins and many other GenFic or Romance YA writers top my list of books.
3. Get a tablet. Simple, yet difficult. I am super picky.
4. Get back into skating and really move forward with it.
5. Finish Southern Charm, the first draft.
6. Plan and start the sequel to Southern Charm.
7. Get into college. Easy enough, but picking one will be hard.
8. Decide what I want to major in.
9. Decide what I want to do after college.
10. Zach. He is an entire goal by himself. Difficult boy, but I love him dearly.

Well that's my list of goals and resolutions. Some are silly, others normal or reasonable. But all of these are important goals to me.

Publishing Dreams "Update"

I finally heard back about my story. I heard back on the 23rd of September...so its officially one month. I guess it’s a good sign that I've had no time to blog about it. Maybe that shows I have some sort of life(different topic, so I'm getting off track here.). Anyways, so I heard back.

Sadly it was another rejection, I did better this time, about twenty minutes of crying and then I made up my mind to keep trying, and I put the rejection out of my mind and went to church. Church helped me a lot, because I had to get out and be social and happy, and I can always fake a smile in a big group. It's a talent, though when you're as hyper as I am around people, it really isn't difficult. But anyways...now what to do?
Well that's easy, keep writing. I have a ton of editing to do on my first book, and I'm in the middle of my second one and onto the outlining stage of the next four books. So I'm not without work to do. But I've recently been thinking about what kind of books I want to write, I know I can write romance, anyone who has the smallest depth of emotion can write a romance, it might not be particularly good, but that doesn't mean they didn't write it.

Then this thought came to me, do I want to always write romances? The answer to that...well I love my romances, but I think I'd like to try other genres. I've written a mystery(a rather pitiful little story in my opinion), and I'm on my romance kick. I've got many different story plots, but most are for romances. I do have a fantasy idea that I'm trying to work on. Well actually I have two fantasy ideas, which isn't bad.
Now comes the tough choice. When I finish my second romance, do I take a break from romances and work on fantasy or do I do both at once. I'm not sure yet, I guess when I get there I'll figure it out. With my new mind set and deadline, I need to get to work.

Until then, thanks for reading Laney's Thoughts...
~Laney~

Publishing Dreams

August 28th, 2009 will be a day that I'll never forget. Today at 2:55pm I got my first good query letter. Now I didn't find this out until 10:00pm, but it was there. Thursday night I sent out three more query letters. It has taken me a month to gain up the courage to do it.


Last month I sent only one out and my hopes were very high, maybe a little too high and not the least realistic, but anyways I was horribly upset when it came back as a rejection. I understand rejection is part of life, but come on at fifteen most don't handle rejection, actually some adults in their thirties and forties don't. That one rejection, I'm ashamed to admit, sent me into what I call a "break-up state". I'm not exaggerating this, I cried all night and I was fairly moody the next day.

Luckily this only last for about two days, then I was back to normal, well as normal as you can be when you've been rejected. I've never gone thru much rejection of any form, and it is very unpleasant the little bit I have experienced. The rejection letter I received wasn't a form rejection, but a nice kind personal one...honestly I think a form rejection might not have hurt as much, but either way I was rejected. So my confidence was a little low, so I didn't send anymore query letters out.

Until this past Thursday, that night I sent out three. My logic was that maybe three rejections at once might hurt less than one rejection(I realize this is silly logic, but it is called Laney Logic for a reason, because only I would come up with it.) Promptly the next morning I had one rejection, actually two rejections. I still had hope of two good queries, and I went on with my day not expecting that sitting in my inbox was a gold ticket.

I worked late tonight so when I got home I preformed my normal pattern of logging into my Facebook account and my email accounts and doing the usual run thru to see what I had missed while I was gone. There in my inbox waiting to be opened was a email marked RE: QUERY. I was ready to explode then. I saved it for last and opened the other six emails first. Finally I opened it....and it was a request to see the first 100 pages of my book! I was so excited I screamed and scared my mom half to death. When she knew why I was screaming she started screaming too.

Then we started calling people and texting them and I Facebooked it. The whole world knew within ten minutes. I automatically replied with the request 100 pages, now the hardest part comes...waiting...more waiting. I'll most likely have to wait until sometime on Monday to find out. Monday feels like a year away. All day Monday I will be waiting for an email to come...this one email could decide my future. Well so now there is left to do is wait...wait...and wait. Patience is a virtue...it's just one I happened to be born without.

Well hopefully by my next blog I'll know my future...

Until then,
Thanks for Reading "Laney's Thoughts"

Love Laney