KRISTIN CASHORE, STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CRY

I just read this on the blog of my favourite author, Kristin Cashore.

I don't quite know why this moved me, but it did. The first thing I'd like to say is that, Ms Cashore, the author does matter. Without the author, there would be no book. And when somebody falls in love with a book, the likelihood is that they do actually think about that person who sat down and spent their time and effort to write that book.

Secondly, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't use your books for coasters, Ms Cashore. I don't use any books as coasters, I have too much respect for them. I may have realised my love for your books a little too late to stop a few slightly dog-eared pages and broken spines on Graceling and Fire (my copy of Bitterblue is a hardback. And I did try very hard with the spine of Fire, so I'm sorry I still broke it), but I most certainly do not and never will use them as coasters. :)

Thirdly, one day, one of those letters in one of those piles of fan mail will be from me. One day. :)

New Account, New Start :)

It's not really that much of a new start. It just sounded good.

So, this isn't exactly the solution I had in mind for changing the accounts on my blog, it's slightly more stressful in that I shall now have to reapply all the settings that, in my eyes, make my blog MY blog. But it's a solution. I definitely didn't just waste an entire evening doing this.

I'm not deleting my old blog (for now, I need it as a reference to get this one looking exactly the same), and you can find a link to it in the sidebar thingy on the left. I don't see why you'd want to go look at it, I have all the posts from it right here (I know! Magic!), but still.

I have changed the name of my blog again, mostly because of course there cannot be two blogs existing at the same time with the same name. So I took a step back in time to rename it the original name, "The Authoress And The Voices". Except without the "And The Voices" bit. Because I didn't like it.

Well, that's that, I suppose. Eventually I aim for this blog to look exactly like the other one, but right now I have things to do and quite frankly I've had enough of sorting out blogs today. I'll be posting the same sort of stuff as I was before: book reviews, short stories, rants, etc... So there we go. Please enjoy my blog! :) Goodnight, readers... goodnight...

GOOGLE, WHY?!

This is a little bit complicated. I created a new Google account specifically so that I could link this blog to it. Turns out, I can't do that. Unless I can. Somebody educate me please?

Basically, if Google lets me have things my way, I want to connect my blog to Google+, except that I don't particularly want to do that on this account, hence why I created a new one. I think I've linked the accounts, and I sent an invitation to my other account to be a writer on this blog. The theory behind this is that if my other account can be listed as a writer on this blog, then I can promote myself to admin, connect my blog to Google+ on my other account (because apparently blogs are so much easier to use on Google+, if you believe what Google tells you), stop blogging from this account, and voila. I have no idea if this is actually possible. I haven't got past the first stage yet. This account tells me that I have sent off the invitation for my guest writer, but my other account has no idea about it. Has it just quite simply not come through yet - and I just need to wait a bit longer? Should I try again?

I have no idea why I'm bothering to ask. It's not like anybody's actually reading this. Which was the idea behind connecting this blog to Google+, to connect more and actually get a couple of readers, because apparently Google+ is so much better.

But anyway. Long story short, if things go my way, I'll be blogging from a different account, on Google+. That account is beththewriter.librarymouse@gmail.com. I have the same picture as this one. I will be rather difficult to find, unless this blog magically shows you its followers, because I followed it in the hopes it would help my predicament. It didn't. I am also my only follower. Yay, popularity...

Blog Neglect: A Notice To Those Few Who May Be Interested

I'm aware I've neglected my blog over the past couple of weeks. I have a few more book recommendations I want to post but mostly what I want to do with this blog is to post short stories on it, like I originally intended to. One day I hope to read a few things aloud to post as a video, but that may never happen; it all depends on whether I have the time, and the energy, and the resources (I do own a camera, but the charger went walkabout. As in, I think it may have hiked to the other end of the country or something), and whether or not I remember the idea when I do have all of those things.

Either way, my blog has to fight for priority, and unfortunately the more important stuff like school work will inevitably in out; therefore it doesn't bother me so much when a "deadline" for posting something passes. In conclusion, I won't be setting dates for posting anything anymore, you'll just have to wonder and wait, and my next blog post will hit you when you least expect it.

In the meantime, I'm tired (it's only 7PM) and have things to be doing, and when I've done those things, then I have addictive computer games to play and funny cat videos to watch. Auf wiedersehen!

To Read Or Not To Read: that's a very good question...

I'm going to start posting a weekly, um, post on the subject of books, namely ones that I would recommend and ones that I would not. This will begin next Sunday.

In the meantime, the Red House Young Writers Yearbook competition is open until July this year, and this is the last year I will be young enough to enter. If anyone ever read Part One of When I Turn Forty, posted on this blog a good couple of months ago, it will never be finished but I have started a new version which I should hope is greatly improved (it's certainly a lot shorter). I intend to send this to the competition once it has been completed and sufficiently edited (and greatly edited it will be). If however I change my mind, I will post it on here instead. :)

Also, I am considering starting a blog in which I post a small amount every day from the point of view one of my characters, like a short fictional diary entry. However, this idea only entered my head today, so it probably won't ever happen. It's looking less and less likely by the second. And I'm very busy. Revision is holding me hostage and it won't let me go till June. Until then, my friends... :)

This is still not a good time to be blogging

You guessed it, I have other more important things to be doing right now, although for once not many other things. But I figured I'd still like to say a little more about why I'm blogging, as I've been meaning to for a bit now. There are four main reasons, really.

Firstly, editing. I know from my previous posts that if there is a written form of verbal (and here's a word I hate having to spell) diarrhoea, I have it. But you guys don't want to read seriously long posts with no point to them. So I know now from taking part in NaNoWriMo (mentioned/explained a few posts back) that I can make things really wordy when I want to, to seriously increase my word count; let's see if I can learn to write things in as few words as possible instead. Or at least edit things down to as few words as possible. :)

Secondly, purpose. What's the point in me writing if nobody's going to read what I write? I lost confidence in writing websites such as FictionPress after hearing that some people have had their work plagarised, and there was nothing to prove that the writing was mine. After all, only me and my friends know that Lady Scarlet of Stormhold (my penname on FictionPress) is me; that could be anybody. Of course, just as on this blog, all my writing is mine. I just needed somewhere to post my writing where people can read it after I stopped posting on FictionPress, where I feel more secure that it is obvious whose work it is: mine.

I hope that makes sense.

Also, if nobody reads your work, then you don't have anybody to give you constructive criticism, you have nobody to help you to improve, and that's not going to get you very far. Writing is one of those things where you kind of need feedback, otherwise you have no way of knowing if what you've written is any good or not. And that's a very important point.

Thirdly, confidence. I think sharing my work will help me with my confidence, and yes I do have confidence issues, I have struggled with them probably since I was about eleven. I am considerably better than I used to be, but currently these worries have been changing - ie, before, I worried about not having friends and things, but I have a lot of good friends and have done for a while and am much happier than I used to be; the worries now are about the future (I won't go into it; this is not my journal). If I can feel confident in my writing, then I can feel confident that I always have that to fall back on if any other career plans fall through (although of course, I'd love for my writing to be my first career not my backup plan, but unfortunately life doesn't work like that).

And finally, experience. I remember at the creative writing club at my school a few years ago, a girl in year 13 was telling us how she was trying to get her novel published, and how difficult it is for young writers to get published just because of your age and therefore lack of experience. You don't need qualifications to be a writer, but you do need experience - practice makes perfect, as they say. So if one day this blog helps me get published in some way shape or form, brilliant. :)

I'm sorry for the length of this, I hoped I'd be able to keep this short, but... Oh well. Have a nice evening, everyone! :D