With that in mind, I’m taking a leaf from some of my fellow blogger’s books and starting a weekly themed post. My theme? Harry Potter, of course. Every week – or as weekly as I can – I’ll post something Potter-y that I love. It’ll either be fanart (properly linked back, of course) or a quote or even something someone has made that you can buy! I have a wealth of material to go on here, so it should be a fun adventure!

Accio Potter!

I solemnly swear I am up to no good…

I have been in lust with this item of clothes longer than is technically sane.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I am reserving my credit card for EMERGENCIES ONLY, then I would have already snapped this baby up.  This, my fellow Hogwartians, is House Brawl.

WOULD YOU JUST LOOK AT THE PRETTY?  You know well that this would be the perfect accessory to any Hogwarts student’s wardrobe.  You wouldn’t feel the draft in those Hogwarts corridors in the winter if you were snuggled up inside this hoody, and better yet, you’d be showing those pesky Slytherins exactly where they belong – under your Gryffinpaw!*

House Brawl comes in both men and women’s sizes, in t-shirts and hoodies and zip-ups, and ranges in price from $20-$49.  Which, luckily for me, is less in Euros.  Even less in Galleons!  Ah, the joys of being a Witch. Click here to get one for yourself!

For more Potter-y fun, check out my Harry Potter tag on my tumblr.

Mischief managed!

♥ Serena

*Yeah yeah House Unity blah-di-blah Snape is awesome etc.

DETERMINED!

I believe that the story I have to tell is a good one, that it will be entertaining and funny, exciting and endearing, and hopefully, different to anything else that is out there. It just hasn’t gotten to that place yet. I was going to just soldier on and finish the first draft, add around another 50k onto the part I had written for NaNoWriMo, but when I read a tweet from Nancy Kelley, a fellow Wrimo, saying that she was having a read-through of her novel before she finished it, I thought, “That makes sense.”

Now I don’t know now if it was a very good idea for me. I printed* out the first chapter of my novel, tweeted some hi-lar-i-ous instagrams to coincide with the OMG amount of work that was involved, and quickly spiralled downward into a slump. My pages were bleeding.

Instead of just reading the story and taking into account the notes I had made for myself in the handy Scrivener sidebar, I started editing. THIS WAS NOT THE RIGHT TIME FOR THAT. All I set out to do was re-familiarise myself with what I had written so far, and to get up to date with what I needed to do. Instead, my errors glared accusingly at me from the page. “Why did you write me?” They scoffed. “Funny? Exciting? Different? Don’t make me laugh!” I was slapped in the face with the spur-of-the-moment things I had decided to throw in on a whim, like the ridiculous made-up surname I gave my FMC, and a plethora of clichés for good measure. And this was in the first three pages!

In my day-to-day life, I am a far cry from a perfectionist. When I was a child, I wanted to be the top of the class, but when peer-pressure took over in my teens, I got used to being a middling sort of student. That hasn’t really gone away. I was so-so at the guitar. I’m pretty good at cooking and baking. I sometimes put an effort into my appearance. The one area in my life where I am making an active effort to be a perfectionist is in my writing. From what I can gather from the community of writers I’ve found on twitter, they feel the same way. This is a part of ourselves we are putting out into the world at large, and we want to put the best foot forward.

So imagine my surprise when a very well-known writer (whose book and name I shall not reveal) I read for my family book club started out a certain book of theirs with a disclaimer, stating that it was not their best work, and not to judge them on it. The author insisted that it was an old story, one of the first they had written, and they had not bothered reading back over it before it was re-released. Then the author suggested that the reader go read one of their other books before trying out this one.

When I read that statement first, I thought it was sort of adorable. I figured the author was being modest, and that even though there might be some truth to it, that it couldn’t be that bad. I have to stress that I actually wanted to like this book, having read and enjoyed so many of their other works, but I couldn’t. As the story went on, it became this preachy, half-assed story that was chock full of stock, one-dimensional characters who were either sexy as hell or repulsive trolls. Funnily enough, I’d have watched it if it was a TV show, but only as one of those that doesn’t require you think. In fact, it insists that you don’t.

Never mind all the flaws with the plot and the shallow characters. What insulted me was that the author thought it was okay to put this out into the world. A flimsy little disclaimer does not justify taking €10 from a person for a book. The whole thing smelled of money-grubbing, and the upshot is that I won’t be reading anything by that author again. I know that writing can become such a conveyor belt of reused stories, but if I ever get to that plateau of success, I hope I have the good sense to know that my earlier stories that were woefully bad do not deserve a place on a bookshelf beside the ones that I am going to be proud of when they’re finished.

And I will be proud. My pages might be bleeding right now, but I will staunch their wounds. I’ll reinvent the clichés. I’ll remove the surnames – because as I tweeted during the week, characters don’t necessarily need surnames, least of all stupid ones. I will make this story good, imaginative and special, and I won’t feel the need to preemptively apologise to readers for making them suffer through something that is subpar.

So if you’re like me and blushing at the thought of reading your own rubbish, I invite you to tell the writing slump ot go take a hike. As writers, we need to remind ourselves all through this first step that this is very much a draft, and not only is it allowed to suck, it’s bloody well entitled to. In fact, I INSIST that it suck. It has to suck, because if it starts at its lowest point, the only thing it can do is improve, and we’ll have all of that embarrassing suckage out of the way. You know I’m right.

And because this whole blog post is a bit unfunny, have a gif of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey being amazing.

♥ Serena

*Little tip – if you are in the same stage as me and are re-reading your novel, you should definitely print that sucker out, even if most of it needs to be changed.  You will not spot the mistakes if they are on your screen.  Believe me, your eyes will scan right past them.  Print that sucker out!

At first, I wasn’t sure if I should blog about this sort of thing here on my blog. I didn’t know if I should expose stuff about my life where this is meant to be about writing, but I need an outlet for this rage I’m feeling or I’ll cry or scream or both.

You might or might not remember when I blogged about how nervous I was before laser eye surgery. I was terrified that something would go wrong. I imagined the worst case scenario of going blind 30 days before the final Potter installment, or not being able to read again, or heck, not ever seeing my first book cover. Somewhere inside I knew I was being ridiculous, but I was scared. And no, they didn’t give me something for the nerves. There was no valium, much as I’d have loved it, just an anaesthetic for my eyes.

I had good reason to be nervous. That blog post was written in June, and my eyes still aren’t right. I didn’t go blind, I did get to see Potter, and I’ve designed my own book cover. I can see, but I can’t see properly.

I knew right away after the first surgery that it hadn’t worked. One eye was perfect, but the other was blurry. I had this irritating halo all around the left side of everything, reading was a nightmare, and I couldn’t drive. I bought a Kindle because there was no way I was NOT going to read for an extended period of time. I was told I had to wait and see if the eye fixed itself. It didn’t.

I waited the necessary three months and nothing had improved. In September, I had a second top-up surgery. It still didn’t work. But, there was a little improvement. The halo was different. Anyone who has ever worn glasses will know what it’s like to see out of a smudged, dirty lens, and that’s what it looks like now. I told my eye doctor this, and I was told again I had to wait and see if the problem fixed itself. So I was patient. I thought it was getting better, but it peaked. Except, as that sharpened, something else did too. I now have double vision. It’s not constant, but it’s daily, and there’s no amount of eyedrops or squinting that’ll get rid of it. I can sometimes see two rows of text when I read, and it is probably one of the single most irritating thing you can do to a writer.

In December, I had more eye tests. Crazy as it sounds, I was told that that I had perfect, 20/20 vision. Crazy. How can you have perfect vision if you in fact have double vision? I can read to the bottom row of text on those delightful eye test lists, but I can see two rows of them. He took some more scans and said he’d show them to another consultant, and I’d hear from him then. I had to wait a month.

That was today. Guess what I was told?

I have to wait.

I am not a patient person at the best of times, so this is really trying for me. I have some sort of stigmatism that isn’t settling, and since I’ve had two sets of laser eye surgery on this eye, I don’t have enough tissue left to do another. So, I have to wait another four months to see if the problem fixes itself – I think we can tell from experience that it won’t – and then, if it doesn’t (which it won’t. I’m not being pessimistic, it’s just statistics at this rate.) then he’ll have to do Ye Olde Laser Surgery, which is just on the surface and not the only snippy one I had done before.

I understand why I have to wait. It’s better, in health, for your body to fix itself sometimes. Forcing a change when a change will come eventually could lead to more complications. I know too why I can’t have more of the surgery I already had – if I risk it, I could lose vision in the eye, and that would be far worse than the mild irritation that I’m experiencing now.

The thing is though, I’m just frustrated. People often ask me, “Do you wish you didn’t get the surgery, since it hasn’t worked out?” And I have to say no, I don’t regret it. If I’m wishing for things, I am going to wish that it had just bloody well worked in the first place! By the time four months rolls around, it’ll be May. I first had surgery in June. So, all told, I’ll be close to a year like this. It’s not something I can ignore; I haven’t hurt my leg or arm or something. I can’t just rest my eyes the way you could one of your extremities and have the irritation alleviate for a few minutes. It’s constant. It’s all the effing time. It’s right now, as I’m blogging. Everything has that horrible soft-focus that I viciously hate. I can drive now, but there are times when my eye is so unfocused that I wouldn’t dare risk it, so it’s an imposition on my life, too. There are times that I am reading, and really enjoying it, and I have to stop because the frustration of having to read with one hand over my eye is just — I can’t even put it into words. I’m mad all the time because of this.

The worst part is not that I have to wait, however.

It’s that it doesn’t matter if I wait. It’s that even if I get more surgery, it might not fix it. The worst part is that I could be stuck like this forever. I know there are worse things, and I’d sooner not do the whole “at least I’m healthy!” spiel, because you know what, fuck it. I am allowed to be mad over this. I am allowed to be upset that I can’t see properly, despite paying for the best surgeon and doing everything right. I am allowed to feel sorry for myself that this, along with many other things, just didn’t work out for me.

I’m giving myself this blog post to let out my frustrations, and I’m giving myself the remainder of the day to be angry. Tomorrow, I’m going to go back to ignoring the situation and waiting for May. I’ll save the rest of my rage ’til then, just in case this goes the way I think it will.

As an aside, I’ve no problem with my surgeon, or the staff at the hospital. They’re doing the best they can. It’s not incompetencies that are causing this problem, it’s just my own bad luck, my own weak eye. I’m just frustrated.

That’s all. Rant over.

- Serena

I can’t tell you the number of times someone has exclaimed at me “How have you not seen [insert popculture here]?!?!?!?!” with a look that says if-you-were-sitting-closer-I’d-slap-you-in-disgust. It’s altogether too easy to blame my mother – and I do, for the laugh – but honestly, I think after sitting through all the stockpile children’s movies with my four older brothers, no-one wanted to see them any more.

I haven’t seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I just about know that it’s about a car. I also haven’t seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks, E.T., and The Goonies, to name a few. I can hear you gasp from here.

Worse still, I haven’t seen some movies which are cult-classics, the sort of movies that everyone has seen and swears by. A lot of the reason behind this is that these relics of Popculture have in fact been ruined for me by Popculture! Believe me, you don’t have to tell a writer that the story is what matters, the journey from the beginning to the end and not just the dun-dun-DUUUN moment, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that I know that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, that Baby had an abortion or something, and that George doesn’t commit suicide after all.

That’s right, blog. I have not seen Star Wars. SORRY, OKAY? My brother took me to see Episode I when it came out in the cinema, and I bothered him all through the movie with questions like “Who’s that? Why is he talking weird? Where are they? Where’s that Han Solo guy that is so popular? What the hell is a Jar-jar?” I know I should watch them. I know this.

And yes, I haven’t seen Dirty Dancing. I’m not even sorry about this one, though. My other brother has been subjected to watching it and told me the basic plot. I have it on good authority that you have to be a teenage girl to like it, so at twenty-seven, I think I’ll be too jaded for Patrick Swayze’s charms.

Maybe I’m alone in my way of thinking, but when you know the essence of the story, the OMG moment that makes all the difference, I feel like the experience of that movie won’t be the same as it was for everyone else who got to see it in its virgin form. SPOILER ALERT! I’m sure this will be true in a few years time for anyone who wants to see Harry Potter and knows that Snape loved Lily, and that was his motivation for everything and pivotal to the story. END SPOILER! I had A Beautiful Mind ruined for me by a big-mouthed DJ who dropped that bomb without any thought, and I won’t be able to forget that part, so surely the movie won’t have the same impact on me.

Here’s a bit of horrible perspective for you. I haven’t seen Indiana Jones, but I’ve seen The Room. I haven’t seen Back to the Future, but I’ve seen Bring It On. Nor have I seen West Side Story, Pulp Fiction, Schindler’s List, but I’ve seen Final Destination, Little Nicky, and My Little Pony.

You are tearing me apaht Leesah!

That said, I want to fix this little impairment of mine. I want to cross things off my list so I can be in on the joke and stop people from making that face at me, the one that’s a bit like Kristen Stewart’s face when she’s mad. Or happy. Or hungry. Or, you know, just her face.

While I have seen plenty of good movies, I really need to start picking and choosing more wisely. Here’s what I want from you. Tell me your absolute favourite, must-see movies. You don’t have to stop there either! I want book recommendations, TV recommendations, bands and songs and anything you want to share. I mean, how can I grow as a writer if I haven’t experienced the absolute gems of stories that have been loved dearly for generations? How can I hope to create something that lasts if I haven’t seen it all?

I need to build a cultural foundation. You’re my only hope, reader.

♥ Serena

This blog post will be one in a series of posts about my recent trip to Krakow, Poland.

Last month, I went to Krakow. I promised I’d blog about it soon, but I’ve been struggling to come up with the words to describe the experience, mostly because I am still stumped and haunted by Auschwitz. So, like any good memory-suppresser, I am ignoring that part of the journey for now and concentrating instead on the happier experiences. I’ll confront the grim one at the end.

On my last day in Krakow, I decided I would take it easy and explore the Old Town. The previous day, before the bus picked us up for a tour of the Saltmines, I had some time to explore the Vistula River, which has the best view of Wawel Castle.

It was then that I saw these two people feeding the birds, and I thought YES, THAT is what I am going to do TOMORROW. I am going to CHILL and I am going to FEED BIRDS and I am going to have the most TRANQUIL AND LOVELY OF TIMES. NONE of that needed to be capspazzed, but such was my enthusiasm to have a whimsical day in this medieval town.

See how lovely that looks? Here they are, these two lovely calm people with lovely calm birds sidling up to them for the feed. I imagined I’d be able to take tons of photos while I fed the birds myself. My dad used to take me to feed the ducks down at the canal here when I was a little girl, and it still is one of my fondest memories from my childhood.

Look at the lovely, polite birds. See how good they are?

You know that Hitchcock movie, The Birds?

Yeah.

A photo, especially a photo taken by me, cannot convey completely just how utterly terrified I was that next day when ALL THE BIRDS IN KRAKOW decided that they wanted my loaf of bread.

This is but a fraction of the crazy winged beasts that followed me all along that path. Did I mention that I’d travelled to Krakow alone? THIS is where I went wrong. Those two people up above feeding the birds? Two of them. Me and my dad by the canal? Two of us. There is POWER in numbers, and these damn birds can smell the fear and know when to take their advantage.

I love birds, honestly I do. I have them flying across the wall in my bedroom – see on the very purple picture of me in the sidebar, the birds flying there at my head in a far more beautiful manner than the ones in the photo above? Yeah, those are the birds on my wall! I had a birdcage lamp, I intend on getting a bird tattoo, and swans factor largely in my novel.

I blame seagulls.

There was a moment there while I was walking briskly away from the ravenous hoard of birds that I wished that the dragon in the Wawel Castle’s Dragon’s Den was real, so I could hop on its back and wing my way safely away from the real-life Angry Birds. Vegetarian or not, I figured a fire-breathing dragon would come in handy.

Luckily enough, once the birds realised I had no more bread, they reluctantly backed off. I know they could sense I favoured the swans and ducks over the pigeons and seagulls, but what I deducted from that experience is that birds are crazy. They were biting each other and flapping at each other and completely immune to me shooing them out of the way, so fearless they were in their mission for a scrap of bread! NEVER AGAIN. At least, never by myself.

So, after all that stress, I treated myself to a day of browsing in pokey, colourful little shops, a horse-drawn carriage ride around the town while sipping on hazelnut hot chocolate, an exquisite Italian dinner, and a bonafide Russian-style muff to save myself from the teeth-chattering cold. Can you believe it was hard to find fake fur? They had entire pelts of the real stuff just thrown on tables over there! Madness!

♥ Serena

I’ve left you waiting long enough, so here we go!

The winner of the SIGNED COPY of INFERNAL DEVICES Clockwork Angel is…

Marissa!

Hooray! Congratulations, Marissa! You have won a signed copy of CLOCKWORK ANGEL, seven Harry Potter bookmarks, the short story Magnus’s Vow, and a Cassandra Clare tote bag! E-mail me your address at solawlessbooks@gmail.com and I’ll post them to you a.s.a.p.

♥

Serena

Someone else is celebrating a birthday soon – a book birthday, in fact. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare is coming out on the 6th. Before you go getting too excited, no, I don’t have a copy of Clockwork Prince. As I understand it, only very few ARCs were made of that book, so it would be impossible for me to give away that one.

I do, however, have something for you. Remember NOVEMBEROSITY; when I gave away signed copies of MORTAL INSTRUMENTS last month? Remember how last week, I said it was the last chance to win a signed copy of MORTAL INSTRUMENTS?

Well, that wasn’t a lie. I don’t have any more MORTAL INSTRUMENTS. But I DO have INFERNAL DEVICES! I have a signed copy of CLOCKWORK ANGEL! I know, it’s been out for a while now, but hey, it’s SIGNED.

If you’ve just finished MORTAL INSTRUMENTS and need something to fill the gap, I would definitely recommend INFERNAL DEVICES. There are not enough Steampunk novels out there, and this one is sexy and exciting, just like what you expect from Cassandra Clare!

From Goodreads:

Magic is dangerous–but love is more dangerous still.

When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London’s Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos.

Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What’s more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa’s power for his own.

Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by–and torn between–two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm’s length…everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world…and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all.

Entering is easy. The rules and guidelines are exactly the same as my MORTAL INSTRUMENTS giveaway.

To enter:

• Subscribe to my blog and comment below to say you’ve done so.
• Already subscribed?  Nice one, thank you!  It totally counts.  I don’t mind if you subscribe with WordPress, by email, Google Reader, smoke signal, whatever.

As well as that, I am going to allow extra points for entries if you do any of the following things:

• Follow me on twitter +1
• Already follow me?  Just let me know, and it counts!  When you reply here, let me know what your twitter @handle is so I can check.
• Retweet about this competition +1
• This only counts for one RT, so don’t go retweeting this every day.
• Follow my tumblr +1
• already following it?  Still counts!  Just let me know what your tumblr is.
• Blog about this giveaway +1
• If you’d like to mention this giveaway on your blog, I’ll happily give you another point.  We can be blog buddies! This also counts if you reblog my tumblr post about this giveaway: click!

So, if I’ve done my maths right, that means you can have a possible 5 chances at winning this book.  I have a short list of rules:

Rules:

• If you are a lucky winner of one of these books, you cannot enter any further giveaways for the rest of the books.
• Let’s be fair, people.  I want to be able to spread the love as far and wide as I can with these, so there can only be one winner for each book.  It would be really unfair if someone won two or more of them.
• Please do not make extra twitter/tumblr/blog etc. accounts to forge your way in.  It’s not in the spirit of the giveaway.
• Do not put these books on e-bay or any bidding site for further gain.  I’m giving these away with the hopes that they will reach fans of Cassandra Clare.  If I see them up on e-bay, I will totally internet-kick your ass.
• Rules are subject to further changes as the giveaway continues.

Now that the grr-faced part is over, on to the fun stuff!  This giveaway is international, so anyone can enter.  Like my last giveaway, I’ll also throw in a full set of Harry Potter bookmarks, and if I have some extra swag lying about, you’ll get that too!

Copy and paste the following form into your comment to enter the giveaway. PLEASE use the form, it makes it so much easier for me to add up how many points you have to enter with.

NAME:

COMMENT:

The giveaway will CLOSE on SATURDAY 10TH DECEMBER @ 9 PM GMT!

Good luck!
♥
Serena

p.s. – I am going to Krakow, so if you comment and it takes a while for it to show, don’t worry. I’m not sure what sort of internet availability I’ll have while I’m over there, but I’ll validate comments as soon as I can.

Do not adjust your monitors, readers, that IS snow falling and it will be there until January somethingth.  If I had my way it’d be there all year long.  I’m one of those rare crazies that people pretend not to like but secretly love, because their infectious love of Christmas is as irritating as it is endearing.  I’m pretty much wired in November, but I have to contain myself until December or someone will push me in front of a bus.  I’m that person who requests Christmas songs on the radio.  I’m the one with the Christmas ringtone –

[The brrrrrripdipdepedep bit, jsyk]

– I even have jingle bell earrings.  I’m all about Christmas.  When I turned 25, I decided I’d start going to Christmas Markets for my birthday at the start of the month, so in a few short days, I’ll be headed to Krakow for another one!  I can’t freakin’ wait!  But for once, it’s like the Universe is on my side, because last year, when I turned 26, for the first year EVER, Galway got its own Christmas Market.  And this year, it’s even better. They have a wider variety of food (most of which I can’t eat – sometimes I wish I wasn’t a vegetarian) and lots of lovely shop-hut things, and this magical, wonderful old-style carousel.

This is one of those times of year where I actually like the place where I live. It’s the time when I can see it as a beautiful city, the sort of one that has semi-inspired the location in my novel. I say semi, because like I said, I’m going to Krakow in a few days. Those are the real magical places, the ones where everything is old and looks like gingerbread, the ones where stories happen. I can’t wait to take ALL THE PHOTOS and get really inspired.

I’ll keep you posted!

♥

Serena

p.s. I’ll post the details of my next giveaway tomorrow!

The winner of the SIGNED COPY of the fourth book in the MORTAL INSTRUMENTS SERIES, City of Fallen Angels is…

Sofia Dalesio!

Woohoo, congrats Sofia! You have won a signed copy of CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS, seven Harry Potter bookmarks, the short story Magnus’s Vow, and a Cassandra Clare tote bag! Please email me your address to solawlessbooks@gmail.com and they will be in the post to you asap

♥

Serena

Ah yes, how I wish there was another giveaway…

Oh wait.  

There is another giveaway!  STAY TUNED.

to me you are perfect

For the third year in a row, I have earned one of these bad boys right here:

NaNoWinner!

I think part of what I love about NaNoWriMo is that they don’t just go “Yay, you finished!” No, nonono, it’s more fantastic than that.

You Are A Winner!

I have entered into battle against a blank document to earn the right to my novel, and I have won. It is not over — this enemy will need to be vanquished at another time — but the battle is won. I won this round. I am a WINNER. I went ahead and kicked The Fear in the ass, and it feels good. It feels DAMN good. You know how it feels?

It feels like I had a devil on my back, and I shook that little fecker out of my system.

Thanks Florence, you get me.

It feels like I am the most badassiest of all the badasses, and that I am a writing champion

Know what I mean?

If any of you are still on the other side of that winner’s line and you feel like you can’t make it, all I can say to you is to make the most of your next few hours. PERSEVERE. Don’t let negative thoughts come into it, do a ton of @NaNoWordSprints (there should be someone there for the next few hours!) and keep going for as long as you can. It’s a euphoric feeling to win.

This guy gets it.

I’m sad that NaNoWriMo is over for another year, but I am so much happier with my end product than I’ve ever been before. Planning really is the key. I can see big gaping plotholes that need to be filled in, and loose ends that need to be tied before they trip me up, but I can SEE them, and they are few and inconsequential in comparison to the actual content of what I’ve written. My story is good, it just needs a bit of fixing. I do wish I had been able to finish the 75k I had envisioned doing this month, but it’s okay. I have gotten myself out of that ugly place where I am too scared to write, staring at my screen for hours just willing myself Not To Suck and falling victim to my own crippling fear. It’s wonderful what a deadline can do to you, and the accountability of Other People. It feels like something that can happen for me again, something achievable. I can do this.

And so can you.

Happy writing!

♥ Serena

p.s?  I am really looking forward to reading. I am going to read me some story and be calm and it will rock.

p.p.s?  My Novemberosity giveaway is ending in like, half an hour.  Go enter it!

p.p.p.s? Everyone should go congratulate Claire Legrand on her latest book baby being born, and if you’re in the US/Canada, you should enter her giveaway.

all the p.p.p.p.s’s: I made myself a book cover and all!

The Girl Who Plucked The Stars From The Sky by SO Lawless

You will exist. Oh yes, you will exist.