2015 Goals and To-Do Lists

It's a new year and it seems like for some reason everyone is more excited about 2015. I'm feeling that excitement too. This year I will finish out my junior year of college and begin my senior year. There's so much pressure and excitement, there's also this seemingly never-ending To-Do list.

Here's just a peek at some of the things topping the various To-Do lists I have.

BLOGGING TO-DO

• Rebrand my blog, which is a HUGE process. 
• Set a schedule and write more!
• Find my niche and a tribe. 

WORK TO-DO

• Improve my department. I made so many changes last year and this year I have a few more changes I want to implement to make it the smoothest year we've had! 
• Keep up with the changes I've made. 
• Find a balance between my work life and school life. 

SCHOOL TO-DO

• Set up a spring and summer internship, possibly a fall internship.
• Get a 3.0 GPA! (Sooo close!)
• Get more involved around campus. 
• Start getting serious about Graduate school. 

LIFE TO-DO

• Exercise more and try to skate more!
• Read 50 books. 
• Watch at least 50 movies and complete 6 different TV shows. 
• Complete the remaining seasons of a few shows I started last year. 
• Keep up with a day planner. 
• Try to do devotionals or bible reading every day. 
• Write more and finish Southern Charm! 

#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.

New Year Resolutions - 21 Things Before I Turn 21

Happy New Year!

It's been 2014 for fourteen days. I've spent the past three weeks thinking of what I want to accomplish in the next year. Some are simple goals, others not so simple. I did decide that I want to accomplish 21 different things before I turn 21. I've been contemplating what things I want to accomplish, some are ridiculous and highly unlikely, others quick and easy.

Here's my 21 before 21:

1. Finish Southern Charm
2. Do something all by myself. Whether it be going to a movie, a concert or dinner at Olive Garden. I gotta do it by myself. Don't ask why, it's just a weird thing I gotta do. 
3. Go away for a weekend. 
4. See the sunrise or set at the beach.
5. Go on a road trip. 
6. Volunteer to help others. 
7. Lose weight. A Lot. 
8. Get back into ice skating. 
9. Land a loop and flip jump. 
10. Compete in two skating competitions. 
11. Save $500.00 for my trip to Spoleto, Italy. 
12. Plan a trip to Disney World.
13. Read 21 full books. 
14. See a concert. 
15. Complete 3 full series. 
16. Do an internship.
17. Pay off my Macbook Pro (I have until October 31st to pay it off in full, or it will no longer be interest free). 
18. Learn a skill. Whether mechanical, crafty or other. I will learn a skill. 
19. Make a real effort towards deciding what I wanna do after graduation. 
20. Keep up with this blog. 
21. Fall in love. 

The last one is a bit misleading. I don't mean to fall in love with another person, not that it wouldn't be nice to be in love again. I mean that I want to fall in love with myself. I want to be happy with who I am as a person. It's hard work, but I've come to the conclusion that to be able to love others, I must be able to love myself completely. This is a psychologically sound theory.

From Pinterest. 

Writing and Soulmates

"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it."  ~Neil Gaiman

 

So being a writer is a wonderful and painful experience. Constantly being flowed by plots and ideas, yet never being able to make them flow or stick. Spending years on a story, knowing it will be amazing when you finish it, only to realize that this isn't the "One". It isn't the story of stories, the one you want to be remembered for.

My writing has been suffering for a while. I had ideas and plots, but no focus. I'm hoping to change that as I begin another rewrite on Southern Charm. I have to finish this story. Even if it is the worst story ever written, I have to finish it. I haven't completed a story in 3 years. It's kind of depressing.

But now for a happier side. I have found my writing soulmate! Her name is Tabatha Vargo (Check out her blog here;  http://tabathavargo.blogspot.com/) and she is amazing! We just clicked and her writing is awesome! We have writing dates on Mondays, whenever possible. Even if we only talk about writing for a few minutes it's still amazing!

Very soon we'll be going to YALL Fest and participating in NANOWRIMO. It's great to have someone who can understand and sympathize with how difficult it can be to be a writer. With her on my side I think I'll finally get the support and shove to finish Southern Charm, and maybe even to find my "One".

Celebrate with a Competition

Hey y'all! One of my dearest writer buddies is holding a competition on her blog! Why is she hold this competition? Because she reached 50 followers! An amazing and awesome feat! So check out her competition, where she is offering five very wonderful prizes! Enter for a chance to win! Here's her site:

http://www.happyowlbooks.com/2012/04/fifty-follower-giveaway.html?showComment=1334182833394#c2818142889885605500

Even if you don't enter her competition, please subscribe to her blog. She writes amazing reviews about all sorts of books.

Enjoy!

~Laney

Nicholas Sparks Opinion on Writing Love Stories

So this week I heard some buzz on Twitter about an interview with Nicholas Sparks. Author of 16 novels, of which 9 have been or are being made into movies, he could be considered an expert on love stories. Here is the article: http://www.usaweekend.com/article/20120406/ENTERTAINMENT06/304060011/Love-story-lessons-from-Nicholas-Sparks?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage

What caused sparks(haha that's punny!) is this comment from the interview, “Age informs dilemma. If you’re going to write a novel about everlasting love, the characters can’t be teenagers,” Sparks says.

Well, considering that many of Nicholas Sparks novels do indeed deal with teenagers and love, this might seem like it's a hypocritical comment. Here's a few example of his novels that deal with teenagers in love.

The Last Song: The story of Ronnie and Will. Both teenagers in the summer between high school graduation and their first year of college.

A Walk To Remember: The story of Jamie and Landon, 17 year old kids in high school.

The Notebook: The story of Noah and Allie. The book covers their first summer together, when they were teenagers.

So 3 out of his 16 novels deal with teenage love. It does seem weird that an author who has written 3 novels dealing with teenagers and love would say that teenagers don't fit everlasting love stories. Well I'm gonna play Devil's advocate here and show both sides of this.

Pro Teenage Everlasting Love Stories

Who says teenage love can't last? Many people fall in love as in high school and their early college years and go on to get married. Many stay married, others divorce. But still teenagers fall in love and can stay in love for a long time. Teenagers tend to be less damaged towards the ideas of love, they want that happiness. They may still see it through rose-colored glasses, but that's wonderful. Early love is one of the most beautiful and purest things. Think of grandparents and great-grandparents who fell in love young and stayed together. That's everlasting love right there. These are some of the greatest love stories because of how long they've been together and everything they've gone through together. Now let's here the other side of the argument.

Against Teenage Everlasting Love Stories

A lot of people say teenage love can't last. Anyone listened to some parents talking to their teenagers recently about their current boyfriends or girlfriends. Those parents would obviously say that teenage love doesn't last. In most cases, they probably are right. What can a teenager in their early relationships really know about love? They have very limited experiences, in life and love. It takes years for teenagers to grow fully into their adult identities and figure out how they feel about relationships and what they want out of it.A teenage relationship might look like it'll last but things happen all the time between the start and finish line.

My opinion on this matter is this: Both sides have good points, but neither is better than another. As a young adult writer and a teenager in love, I do  think young love is strong. It can last, but like anything else it takes hard work. I don't really think that everlasting love is reserved for the early 20 crowd or the after college crowd or heck, even the 30s crowd. Love can be found at 16 and a 99. And everlasting love doesn't have a real time measurement either. It could be a few weeks or years. Love can last longer than you think. I leave you with a quote that fit this well.

"True love doesn't have happy ending because true love doesn't end..."

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