a thank you to YOU

This past week my blog made it to a milestone that I honestly thought would never happen. I hit 100 followers; actually I hit 101 followers! And it blew me away! So, I first wanted to say thank you to all of you, especially any of you who took the time to comment; it was your presence especially that I really appreciated! A thousand thanks to all 101 of you.

On this blessed occasion, I want to share one thing about my blogging experience that has aided me in my blogging journey; a key factor of my blogging ethics, in fact. I’ve always blogged for my own enjoyment. My amount of views or comments has never really phased me, even though I get very excited when people leave their feedback on my thoughts. But I’m thankful that I learned quickly at the beginning of my blogging journey that blogging will never be satisfying if I’m doing it to please others. I will never make everyone happy; not everyone can or will agree with me on what I like or think  or believe. So, I’m glad that I quickly learned to blog for my own enjoyment and not let my happiness lay in how many comments people leave or if my stats go up or down by 30 percent. This policy has served me well and is a mindset I would recommend to any and all writers who go public with their scribbles.

However, I’m thrilled to pieces that there are that many of you who enjoy my writing enough to follow me, either by email or WordPress. It makes me feel very special, and once again I give my thanks to you! I tip my hat; I raise my glass; I stand; and I give a great bow; I loose my balance and follow off my stage… et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

~Jamie

Interviewed at Just Me: Writing Edition

For today’s post, I’m leaving the link to the wonderful writing blog that interviewed me about my fantasy book. Rebecca was really sweet to ask me to be her first interview and the post turned out great! Please check it out and the rest of her blog while you’re at it! If you’re a writer, leave her a comment letting her know you’d love to be interviewed in the future! You’d totally make her day!

Here’s the link or just click the picture above!

Hope you guys all had a good weekend.

~Jamie

The Next Big Thing

I’ve been tagged by Moonstonemaiden; it’s a writing/book tag, which I’ll be copying onto my writing blog shortly; whichever post you choose to comment on is up to you.

Considering I’ve done a good deal of talking about my book, already, I will attempt to not repeat myself too much.

What is the working title of your book? The working title of my most recent book is “Forever Fairy”, but I have an acute sense that the title is nowhere near what it should be, so it certainly won’t be on the published book.

Where did the idea for the book come from? Two places, from a fantasy tumblr and from my own experiences of ‘going on adventures’ in fictional books with my friend. I wanted to write a story about two kids like ourselves actually going into a book and I wanted to try writing traditional fantasy, so I combined both ideas.

What genre does your book fall under? YA Fantasy

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Oh gosh, I hate this question. I know of only one character who has an actor for his face, and that’s one of my three main characters, Ryan Evets. Cillian Murphy is the perfect actor for Ryan.

I’ve already written an excessive amount about Ryan’s character–you can read my post about him here. I will only share two things about him here. He’s extremely complicated yet sympathetic and I think he will be one of my strongest characters yet.

I really can’t think of any actors to play my two other main characters Will and Penny. It’s probably because I’m so picky…

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book? One sentence synopsis are easy, what I need to write is a paragraph one. Anyway, here it is, “Two teenagers find themselves trapped in a fantasy world inside a cursed novel and discover that they can only return home if they see the book out to the end and help steer it to an actual happy ending.”

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I’m not sure, but I’m leaning more towards self-publish. I think it takes a lot more hoop-jumping to get a agency to publish your book and I simply will like having more control over my story if I self-publish.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? It’s not done yet, but so far, I’ve written most of Part Two in a month.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Oh, I don’t know. I don’t read that much fantasy at all, so I don’t think I can point at anything.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? I’d say the main inspiration to write this story was Dylan, my best friend. In him I had already found an interesting personality that was fun to attempt writing in my own ways on paper and his enthusiasm as we read book after book over this pas year was touching in that he enjoyed reading just as much as I did and he enjoyed doing it with me. We’d traipsed through Victorian London on the heels of Sherlock Holmes for months on end, traveled Europe chasing after the vampire fiend Dracula, were bottled up in a train with Hercule Poirot surrounded by dozes of murder suspects for about three weeks and in a single evening, met the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane. I thought one day to myself, “We’ve really gone on some adventures together; how much more exciting would it be if we could actually go inside a book and live it in real life.” And the idea sprang to life in the form of a magical curse and fantasy novel where two kids much like ourselves find themselves pulled into a book and unable to leave before seeing it to the very end. Dylan helped inspire this idea, and one day when I get this book published (it will happen–it will), I’ll no doubt put his name on a page all by itself as a way to say thank you…

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? While this if in form of traditional fantasy, I’ve tried to break as many ‘rules’ of the typical fantasy novel as possible. Entering a fantasy world, characters are effected by the change. They don’t find themselves discovering they now have special powers. They don’t want to be there, they want to return home (this is usually opposite in most books). They can’t use magic without consequence. They’re foreigners in a book written by another human being, discovering that they have stumbled over a thirty year old curse and ‘by chance’ are the ones given the challenge to break that curse, even though they have nothing going for them. If this doesn’t pique ones interest even by a little bit, then I’m doomed to have a failing novel. A more detailed post about all this above can be read here.

Sooo….

I’m going to tag a few people here, including:

Maribeth

Emily

Alexandra

Grace

Can’t wait to see your posts, girls. And thank you, again, Maiden, for tagging me!

~Jamie

Quick post to say…

Well, I had an interesting Thanksgiving and we’ve had a busy weekend, but I’m here blogging about one of my best friends. I don’t usually ever blog for giveaways but this one is important and I want you all to hear the news!

A little introduction about why Rebekah is important to me: she is my dear friend from our last church, several years older then me, but we have kept in touch through moves and church transitions with email for several years. Best of all, she is my longest-standing writing partner. She has read many of my first drafts and given me good feedback on my stories and characters. I’ve gotten to read several of her stories while they were in the making, as well. It’s been good having a someone to rely on for feedback on my writing and she’s been great about that for several years at least!

Well, she published her first book, “A Year with the Potters” and is hosting a giveaway for it! I’m so excited for Rebekah, I remember reading one of the first drafts of several of the chapters several years ago and I’m so happy to see her hard work pay off! You can buy her book on Amazon HERE and visit her blog post HERE to enter the giveaway! Do it! NOW!

Well, I’m off to try to squeeze a bit of writing in before the night gets away from me.

~Jamie

November is off to a fine start

November is off to a fine start this year.

NaNo has been good so far. The reality in that I’m finally writing my story still hasn’t kicked in yet though. It feels surreal. My word count as of now is 9245 (and if you care to keep track of my word count, there is a widget on my side bar that allows you to do just that. There is one at the bottom of my book’s blog as well.)

The most perfect way to start November, though, was going to the State Fair on the 1st with Dad and Nathan. And we even got to bring The Boys along with us!

The story is that my best friend Dylan had been given four entrance tickets and 30 ride passes but since his parents has no use for the State Fair, he gave them to us. The funny thing was that Mom and Kayla didn’t want to go with Dad, Nathan and I, so Dad called Mr B and asked if Dylan and Daryck could come along with us. Their parents relented and we picked them up five minutes afterwards and drove to the fair together. This was very exciting for me because it’s very rare when we get to do things as exciting as the state fair and bring friends along. And what was funny was that they gave us the tickets in the first place. It was just becoming real dark when we got there and it made the electric lights just blaze out beautifully.

Dylan, Daryck and I got to branch off by ourselves several times over the course of the evening and they got me on several rides I’d never ridden before such as the Alien saucer-spinning thing and The Cliff Hanger. Dylan and I rode the Ferris Wheel by ourselves; Ferris Wheels are one of my most favorite things and it was fun hearing his reactions to it as it was his first time on one. The three of us rode two different roller coasters together (one which had water involved!)

We were there for six to maybe ten thirty and I think most of our time was spent standing in the lines of the few rides we rode or walking from one ride to another. However it wasn’t bad because we had each others company and it was simply thrilling to just stand under all the bright electric lights and gape at the crazy rides together. And break out into dancing; The Boys did that quite a bit. And then if the music was appropriate, the three of us walked side by side in slow motion like we were “cool”. The longest line we stood in was probably for the swings and we weren’t even sure if was going to be worth it for a while but it turned out to be one of my favorite rides of the evening. What was neat was that they were double seated and not single seated like most others I’ve ridden, so Dylan and I got to go up together. He jokingly dared me to lean over the edge with my hands out when we were up in the air but I actually did, and then we were both doing it and just screaming and whooping with our hands in the air because it felt like flying. It felt like freedom. We agreed once we were back on solid ground that it had been well worth the wait.

This was not only the best way to open up November but I think this will be one of my biggest highlights for 2012!

So. November has had a wonderful beginning for me. How about you? To my NaNo buddies, how are you doing with your word counts?

~Jamie