Month in Review| February 2016

Hello! 

I'm starting a new feature on the blog, called the Month In Review!

This post will go up on the last Thursday of every month, and will be a review of what happened on the blog, in my writing life, and in the book/publishing world this month! 

I will also share a writing song that I've been loving, and some of my favorite blog posts and websites of the month. 

Here goes! I hope you guys enjoy! 

Book Therapy 

There's going to be another Harry Potter book. 

*cue internet explosion* 

J.K. Rowling announced that the play she co-wrote, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" will be printed in two parts and released on July 31st, 2016, one day after the play premieres in London. 

Ruta Septys, author of Between Shades of Grey and, one of my favorite books, Out of the Easy, just released another book on February 2. I'm super excited to read this one, guys! 

It's called Salt to the Sea. 

Winter, 1945. Four teenagers. Four secrets.

Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies…and war.

As thousands of desperate refugees flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom.

Yet not all promises can be kept.

Inspired by the single greatest tragedy in maritime history, bestselling and award-winning author Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray) lifts the veil on a shockingly little-known casualty of World War II. An illuminating and life-affirming tale of heart and hope.

Glass Sword, the sequel to the immensely popular Red Queen, released on February 9.

I read Red Queen and really, really, enjoyed it, and I'm definitely going to be reading Glass Sword. If you read Red Queen, you'll know that there was a pretty big plot twist at the end (no spoilers) so the drama is real, guys. I've been wanting to get my hands on this book since I read Red Queen last February.

It's been a loooong wait.

Spolier Alert! IF you haven't read Red Queen, skip reading the book blurb below. It contains spoilers. 

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control. 

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors. 

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat. 

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

Link Therapy

I'm a huge fan of the blog Go Teen Writers, so if you haven't heard of it, go check it out!

Two pretty big announcements went up on GTW this month.

The first, at the end of August, Go Teen Writers will have a HUGE contest that wraps up their #WeWriteBooks series.

Jill Williamson, fantasy author and contributor at GTW, will be blogging her writing process throughout the year as she writes the first draft of a novel. She's posting in the #WeWriteBooks series on the GTW blog, and she's posting chapters of the book on her personal blog.

Following along with her series will help you get ready for the contest, which is geared towards helping writers get their novels prepared for submitting to agents. The first round will be require you to submit the first chapter of your novel, and a synopsis. The second round will be the first three chapters, and a synopsis. The contest will be open to anyone under 21 (since it is Go Teen Writers).

The second, a challenge for the month of March. Write 300 words for 30 days!

Signing up for a challenge like this can be a great way to give your word count a big push. Personally, when I write my name down on a form, I actually write the words. When I challenge only myself to write a certain number number of words every day, it doesn't always get done. There's a bonus! If you complete the challenge, at the end of the month you'll be entered into a drawing for a $20 Amazon gift card!


I stumbled across a writing blog that has a really amazing series going on. It's a good blog in general, but this series is something that I've wanted for a while,  but I didn't know quite how it would be put together. Victoria Howell figured it out! 

The series is called So Your Character Is and it explores various aspects of characters that you might not know all the answers to. The latest post is So Your Character Is From Australia. Past posts include, So Your Character Is: From the South, Adopted, and Homeschooled. Victoria interviews authors and bloggers that know about the subject, and then puts it all together into a blog post.

It is so helpful! Research can tell you a lot, but the day to day mundane things that you become familiar with when you live in a certain place aren't really researchable. You really have to talk to someone that lives there to find out what you need to know. So Your Character is from Australia kicked off the new series in a series, So Your Character is from Another Country. Canada, England, and New Zealand are just a few of the posts coming up in this series. Go check out this great series! 

Another post I enjoyed this month was one on creating content for blog posts. It can be challenging to come up with new content all the time, and this post had some really great ideas for how to get inspired. Nellie and Co is a blog on blogging (say that three times fast) run by Amanda. There are some really great posts on the blog, but if you're struggling with content inspiration, check out 4 Methods for Generating New Blog Post Topics and Ideas. 

Writing Therapy

I finished the first draft of my work in progress! This was a huge accomplishment for me, as I've been working (sloooowly) on this draft for about six months now. 

I moved on to the editing about five days after I finished the first draft. Yes, it was a short break, but I'm entering a contest in August (see Link Therapy above for more details about the contest), so I'm trying to get in as many revsions of the book as possible. 

I'm working on a post about my editing process, so I'll have that up in a few weeks! 

Music Therapy

Black Heart by BruhnuhVille

This song is from the album Aurora, and I just love it. I got chills the first time I listened to it. I imagine some sort of romantic scene at night. 

The melody from a music box is the main theme, but a violin comes in about halfway in. The song builds as it goes along, and explodes into awesomeness near the end. 

It would be great for any dramatic, romantic scene. I still imagine it happening under a sky full of stars. *makes unintentional Coldplay reference* 

Blog Therapy

Here are some links back to my posts this month: 

Why Not Writing Can Be Just as Important as Writing

The Get to Know Me Tag

Let's Get Real...

A blast from the past post: 

Writing What People Love Without Sounding Like Everyone Else


And previews of what will be coming up in the next few weeks:

How I Make Writing Playlists

5 Reasons to Give Your Novel a Break

The 3 Tools I Use for Every Novel

I hope you guys enjoyed this! Share your thoughts below about any of the blogs, books, or songs I mentioned, or tell me about anything interesting or noteworthy that happened to you in February. 

Thanks for reading!

The Get to Know Me Tag!

Hello! 

Yes, it’s not Thursday, my usual posting day, but this is just a fun extra post that I’m doing because I was tagged! 

Hannah@Ink Blots and Coffee Stains tagged me in the Get to Know Me tag! 

I’m not going to answer ALL the questions because there are about 25976103, but here goes….

Vital Stats

Name: Olivia Nash

Nicknames: Livie, Liv, Liver, Chopped Liver (don’t ask) 

Place of Birth: Nashville, Tennessee. I’m southern, y’all! 

Star sign: Gemini 

Firsts 

Best friend: Hard to say because I grew up with a lot of kids my age, who were my parent’s friends kids, but the first friend that I made on my own is named Caroline and she’s great! Also can’t forget Abigail, who is my bestie ’til the end.

Award: I won a spelling bee when I was ten? I think that’s the first actual award I got that my mom didn’t make for me. Because those kinds of things don’t really count. 

Sport: Aha. Hahaha. No. 

Real holiday: The beach when I was one and a half. I wore a hat and ate sand. 

Concert: I’m not exactly sure what qualifies as an actual concert. I went to a Blues Clues Live! thing when I was five or so, but the first BIG concert that I actually found myself and went to was TobyMac at Bridgestone Arena. It was awesome. (Blues Clues was the bomb as well in case you were wondering) 

Favorites

Film: Runaway Jury. Now You See Me. And I can always watch the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy never goes out of style. 

TV Show: So…hard…. my life goal is to watch ALL THE SHOWS but a few of my favorites are The Mentalist, Sherlock, The Closer, The Middle, Agent Carter, and Downton Abbey. Not sure why half of them start with the. 

Color: Blue! 

Song: Okay no. I play the piano and guitar and I’ve sang in choirs since I was six so there is no one answer to this question. To even start to really answer this I’d have to break everything into sections (Instrumental, Soundtrack, Musical, Pop, ‘70s,...) okay it’s not that bad but… Bluebird by Sara Bareilles, or anything from her, Pretty Funny from Dogfight, Samson by Regina Spektor, anything ABBA, The Cave by Mumford and Sons. I’m currently obsessed with the Matilda the Musical Album because I just saw the show and it’s A-MAzing.  I didn't even start to talk about my favorite writing music here because then I would really get off track, but there's going to be a post coming up about that soon! *grins*

Restaurant: Maggiano’s, an Italian restaurant in Nashville. Pasta. Bread with olive oil and mozzarella for dipping. Tiramisu. Enough said. 

Books: I’m a writer. This is hard. Pride and Prejudice, Meet the Austins by Madeleine L’Engle, A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck, Dangerous by Shannon Hale, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, I could go on and on…

Currently

Feeling: Slightly exhausted, but excited for future things in general. 

Single or taken: Single and ready for a Pringle, baby. 

Eating: Nothing? But now that you mention it, I am hungry…where did I put those Reese’s? 

Watching: Bones! In about five minutes. 

Wearing: Pajamas. And I’m not ashamed at all. 

Future

Want Children: Yes. 

Want to be married: If the right person comes along, yes. 

Careers in mind: I’m planning on getting a degree in Social Work, but ultimately I’d like to be a full time (published) writer. Although that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that I’ll be making any money. *sigh* 

Where you want to live: I love Tennessee, but I’ve always thought it’d be fun to live in a big city like New York or Chicago. I’ve visited both of them and absolutely loved both places. So I think it would be fun to live in a big city for a little while as a younger human bean. Probably not permanently. 

Do You Believe In

God: Yes. 

Miracles: Yes. 

Love at first sight: No. Lust at first sight? Yes. Love is an action, an everyday, no matter what, hard decision that you make to put the other person first no matter the circumstance. 

Ghosts: eeehhhhh not really? 

Aliens: The typical 21st century alien description, no. 

Soul Mates: No. I think that there is more than one person out there for everyone. 

Heaven: Yes. 

Hell: Yes. 

Kissing on the first Date: Depends on how long you knew each other before the first date = ) 

Yourself: I mean, I think so. Wouldn’t this all be a neat trick if I really didn’t exist though! But - if this question isn't a trick and means having confidence in myself- then yes, I do believe in myself! 

OK, that's it!

Thanks for tagging me, Hannah! You guys be sure to go and check out her blog, it’s really great! 

I tag anyone who is reading this and wants to to do this tag. 

You get tagged, you get tagged, EVERYBODY GETS TAAAAGGGEEEDDDDD! 

Okay, let’s end with an Oprah quote.  

Hope you enjoyed getting to know me a little better! 

Let me know in the comments if you are doing the tag (so I can come check it out), or answer one of the questions above. I'd love to get to know you! 

Why Not Writing Can Be Just as Important as Writing

As a writer, you've probably heard these two pieces of advice hundreds of times:

 Read a lot.

    and

 Write a lot.

Authors give this advice on the FAQ's page of their site a lot when people ask how to become a writer.

And it's true. 

To be a good writer, you have to read a lot, and you have to write a lot.

But that's not all you have to do.

To be a writer, you also have to live a lot. 

I realized this when I was writing in a WIP about how life changes us and tweaks us, no matter how hard we try to resist it. By simply living, we are changed, even if we don't realize it. It was meant to be comforting to my MC, but after I wrote it, I read it and was shocked by just how true it felt.

Every time we meet someone new, or go to a new city, or see a new movie or read a new book, we take in sights and thoughts and feelings. We can't shut ourselves away from these things, unless we just stopped living completely.

All these things that we experience, they change us. When you go to bed at night, you're not the same person you were when you got up that morning.

It might not be a big, noticeable change, but it will be a change. Some days it might be something huge that you learned about a friend that maybe you wish you didn't know, or maybe you just heard a new song that inspired you.

As a writer, the idea that we need to stay inside all day and pound away at our keyboards so that we can meet our daily quota of words is drilled into us.

Sometimes we forget that if we haven't lived, we won't have anything to write about.

Ideas don't come out of nowhere. You have to be inspired first.

So go outside. Visit a museum, or an entirely new city. Listen to a song you've never heard before, or to an old one that you've heard hundreds of times. Meet new people and try new things and read new books and old ones too. But most importantly, live.

The most exciting ideas often come to me when I'm on vacation. The influx of new experiences and facts and places and people is just too much for my brain to handle, and it explodes in a bunch of new story and character ideas.

Embrace the fact that you might have to stop writing to be inspired.

Step away from the computer, go outside, and take a walk. Watch a movie. Start a new TV Show. Cook a recipe you've never tried.

Live, so you can write.

What do you do to get inspired to write? Share your favorite ways to be inspired in the comments below. See you there!

Let's Get Real....

Hi guys! 

So...it's been a while. 

I kind of dropped off the face of the world there for a little bit. Okay, it wasn't kind of, I did disappear from the blogosphere. 

Sorry about that. 

2015 was a long and hard year. The highlights of my writing during 2015 were a very inspiring and encouraging trip to the Southern Festival of Books, and two good story ideas, complete with characters and plots. 

The low point of the year was the first six months, when I hardly wrote at all. 

It was hard. I felt run down, and like I had nothing left to give to my writing. Everything I tried to write seemed to be horrible. 

But then something clicked. I was focusing too much on the publishing side of writing, and not on the creative side. I had gotten bogged down reading articles and tweets about querying and revising. Everything I wrote, I thought of whether it would sell to a publishing house. 

I was trying to write something instantly publishable. 

That isn't possible, and it's certainly not enjoyable. 

So while I'm still reading about queries and literary agents and publishing, I'm realizing that using that knowledge might be a long way away. Years even. 

I'm writing again, several thousand words a day. And while they're not fantastic words, they're words that weren't there before. Shannon Hale once said, "I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles." I love that quote, because it reminds me that first drafts aren't meant to be perfect. 

First drafts are gaping plot holes and flat characters. 

First drafts are weirdly phrased sentences. 

First drafts are leaving a chapter hanging because you don't know how to write the next scene. 

So, for 2016, let's raise a glass to imperfections. 

Because you can't paint a masterpiece without first messing up the canvas. 

I'm going to try to get back into blogging. And this time, I'm serious. I'm going to schedule posts and try to interact with my readers more. I really enjoyed blogging last time, before I fell into my black hole of writing doubt. 

Thanks for sticking with me. 

I've got lots of exciting things planned!