Cake & Connections

I am involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters, a nonprofit devoted to providing children facing adversity with a strong, supportive relationships. Through BBBS, I have a little sister and we get together to do fun things like go to the aquarium, kayak, watch scary movies, study, and other fun things. On Sunday, after attending a BBBS event, we decided to bake a MASSIVE cake.

My little found this great ombre cake design on Pinterest so we decided to something similar. We hoped to cover it in icing roses, but our icing wasn't firm enough to hold the shape so we are freezing the whole thing until we can figure out what else to add to it to make it AWESOME.

Needless to say it was a great day. Haha, but we need to figure out how to put the finishing touches on this thing. Does anyone have recommendations?

In writing news, I have been working most of this weekend to establish a Twitter account and start meeting new bloggers on Wordpress. I'd love to start getting to know other writers so please feel free to reach out and tell me about yourself or make some book recommendations.

• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/talesoftrying
• Twitter: @talesoftrying
• Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/1/110920957951564181001/
• WordPress (Tales of Trying): https://talesoftrying.wordpress.com/

Looking forward to meeting new people and living new stories!

Starting over

Hello to all aspiring and accomplished writer and authors out there. I am S. Meadows, and I am here to write, read, share, and learn with you.

My favorite genre to write is dystopian fiction. Authors and their works that inspire me include: Chaos Walking (Patrick Ness), the Red Rising trilogy (Pierce Brown), Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card), The Giver (Lois Lowry), and Wool (Hugh Howey).

What books and authors inspire you to write?

I started attempting to write as an undergraduate in college, during a very snowy, very boring, winter break and ended up writing a 100K + word novel in two months. Needless to see it was awful, but I solicited agents anyway and was beyond excited to get 1 full manuscript request after handfuls of rejections. The full request also ended in a rejection, but the agent called me personally to give me the news and encourage me to continue writing.

For me, failure is motivation. If you fall down, always get back up, otherwise accepting failure and trying again becomes habit. I kept all of my rejection snail mail, emails, and even the old query letters and that first manuscript. Sometimes I read them, because it gives me that spark I felt when I first pursued writing to be published. That spark of excitement and dream of what could be.

So today I am starting over. I used to network with other writes on Blogger, under the pseudonym T.J. Carson: http://tjcarsonsblog.blogspot.com/ and now I am starting a new writing blog on WordPress http://talesoftrying.wordpress.com/. I will post in both places to rekindle old connections, and make new ones in the writing community.

And while this is a big starting over to undertake (i.e., rebuilding connections and making new ones), it is not the only starting over I am referring to...

Getting down to writing business, for a week now I have been starting a new WIP over and over again. Balancing your eagerness to begin something new with creating something of quality is definitely a challenge. I cannot wait for characters and story to whisk me away, but I also need to be aware of my strategy with each word I type.

Where is this going? How will this story line fit in with the other characters? Do I need to create illusions that will set up future plot twists?

It is easy to get lost in the fantasy world and forget about the actual words you are writing, which is why I have started over several times. And I do not want to jinx it, but I think I am starting to find that balance.

What are some struggles you have experienced with starting a new WIP?