Monday, October 4, 2010

NaNoWriMo

Dear Bloggie,

   It's that time of year again. You know, zombies, vampires, and witches, oh my. And how can we forget the warm juicy turkey? But first, between Halloween and Thanksgiving, there is something uber important we music take notice of.

   NaNoWriMo!

   For those who don't know what that is, well, just keeping reading. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's the time of year where you sit yourself down for 30 days and night and make yourself write a novel. Some people can accomplish this, some can't. Some can just reach the word count goal (50,00 for the teen/adult site; whatever you want for the kid/pre-teen/teen site) and some find themselves passing it.

  Last year I signed up, but I was so busy/sucked into Becoming that I was unable to pull myself away to write another book. Because, for NaNoWriMo, you MUST start off with a totally unwritten book on November 1st. OK, so if you don't they won't know, but just think of it as a challenge; wouldn't you rather do it and win knowing your really that tough, instead of lying to others and more importantly yourself?

  So for right now C.O.A.O.P. is on hold. I probably get to it until after the New Year. If I use all of November to write, I will probably not be done with the book yet so I'll continue into December. After that I will edit and if I like it enough I'm sending it to a publishing house called Medallion Press Inc. They opened up a YaYa division (Young Adults writing for Young Adults: Teens writing for teens) which really excites me.

   I was reading their "About" area, and  let me tell you, it sounds really awesome. I like that they care about covers just as much as the books. I put so much time into making my own mock covers, that one day, when I'm published, I really hope I have great covers.

  I might as well just show you the cover and story I'm working with.


   

   When fourteen-year-old Addie Baudelaire made the choice to attend art school across town, she knew she would be in for a change. While most of her friends are attending Northeast Catholic for high school, Addie took a chance to follow her dreams as a writer.

Enter Danny Moretti.

   Smooth talking and popular, sophomore Danny catches Addie’s attention the first day. Even more importantly, she catches his. Romantic and irrespirable, it’s no wonder Addie – level headed, mature, and always responsible Addie – falls head over heels for him.

   But as their relationship deepens, transformations start to take place in Danny. As her world turns to darkness, Addie may very soon have to choose between saving her love and saving her life.


   







  This story is about abusive (mentally, emotionally, and physically) relationships. I had been working on another cover Saturday night, when I cam across the pictures. Somehow, they just morphed together to a point that I knew I had a story. Even though I'm nuts most of the time, I must say I sometimes like how I think. :)

  I always have authors that inspire each book I write. Becoming it was Stephenie Meyer and Kelly Armstrong, C.O.A.O.P. it is Louise Rennison and Meg Cabot, and for The Many Scars of Addie Baudelaire, it is Judy Blume and Sarah Dessen. I love their books and love how they write about real teen problems and issues. Sex, death, puberty, suicide, pregnancy, ect. They have been there. 

  I was doing some research on real life stories of teen girls being in abusive relationship, when I came across the statistics. They say that one in five girls will be in a relationship that their partner will hit, punch, or harm in any other violent way. I couldn't believe it. Why is there not more books on this? Why is there not more discussions? One in five is a lot.

  So in a way, I am also trying to raise awareness. As they commercial (that they kept airing last week on Teen Mom because Amber was abusing -- physically and mentally and emotionally with her words -- her ex-fiancé, Gary) says, love is respect. Violence is not respect. 

  In short, respect others. Please. Pretty please with a cherry on top, just for me. **Flutters eyelashes** I hope you listen. 

~XOXO,
    Libby

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