Farewell 2014

In 2014 I wanted to post on this blog once a week. Here we are, 52 weeks later and 53 blog posts into 2014, counting down the hours until we have to consciously remember what year we're in. I don't know when this happened, but I feel like time's rushed by since 2012. I still feel like that was yesterday and I'm still 18. But I'm not. This year I entered my twenties and I'm still not sure what to think about that.

But enough about me. What about the blog? I had some very interesting posts this year as well as a whopping 30 book reviews (with five more in draft).

My World Book Day post featured my favourite character list.

The To An Author post marked a very important milestone in my career.

My Immorality of Immortality blog post series was a first - I've never done a blog post series before (unless of course you count NaNoWriMo).

The NaNoWriMo posts  were fun to write and excellent to look back on.

They were my favourite posts but my most popular post was the Brilliant Week Featuring the #MovellasMeetUp post. That was probably thanks to Movellas retweeting it!

Speaking of Movellas, I have had a blast there this year, hitting the 150 fans/followers mark and making even more 'writing' friends. I've had some excellent feedback and advice from the Movellians and they will continue to shape my career in 2015. I'm hoping for 250 fans this time next year and their continued support on my After trilogy, the first book, Thereafter, being exclusively on Movellas for now.

While I'm on Thereafter . . . wow. What a ride that was. I wrote it in 18 days for NaNoWriMo 2014 beating my personal record. I reached the 50,000 word goal in just 12 days and surprised myself every day with not only the pace I was writing it, but also the quality of the writing. Thereafter is joint with Fire and Ice as my favourite novel I've written.

Now I have to speak about Thereafter as the Movellas advent calendar. Without a doubt, being asked to be the Movellas advent calendar was the highlight of my year and really helped me power through a very difficult December. The encouragement, support, and excitement from the Movellas community has hyped up my excitement for the rest of the trilogy which I'm planning to write in 2015 (at least book two anyhow).

Other than Thereafter, I also wrote The Fall of Us which, although didn't turn out as good as I would've liked, taught me a lot about how I like to write and what I expect from my novels now. I learnt the hard way that I'm not a present tense writer! There's a lot of potential in The Fall of Us and a lot of love for it on Movellas so I'm going to consider my options with it with a read over in 2015. Who knows, it might turn into something spectacular?

By the way, 2014 was the year I successfully wrote ten books in five years! Now how many people can say they've done that?

I also finished my second draft of my baby, Fire and Ice. I'm extremely excited about the second draft (which you can read on Movellas if you have an account - you need an account because it's set to 16+) and I think (and I know I've said this before) that it's going to take me places. 

This.

Is.

It.

So we've looked at my 2014 writing but what does 2015 bring?

Well, the rest of the After trilogy will be planned and book two at least will get written as one of my two books in 2015. I may write book three for NaNo15 but I haven't decided yet. I'm thinking I might try something new for NaNo as that always seems to do me good. I doubt I'll be able to beat this year's speed and quality though. I was on fire!

Speaking of fire, Fire and Ice is going to be my top priority and I'm going to send it around and see what happens.

It's probably at this point that I should mention Chancing the Truth. I am so sorry to everyone who expected it this year. I did too. The thing was just so huge that it took me a long time to whittle it down into something that I loved and wanted to share with you. The cover also caused me and my cover designer (the very talented James Terry jrterry95@gmail.com for all your art needs) some problems that we've overcome now.

So, long story short, it's ready. It's in its final proofreading rounds so it is FOR CERTAIN  coming 2015.

As well as writing a lot, I've also read a lot. I've read 37 books this year which is only 1 less than in 2013. I'm hoping 2015 will bring the year of 40 books but we'll see.

Here are the top ten in the order I read them in:

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, 

Boundless by Cynthia Hand, 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, 

Looking for Alaska by John Green, 

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, 

The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell, 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, 

Shadows by Paula Weston, 

Raging Star by Moira Young, 

Paper Towns by John Green,

In 2015 I'm looking forward to Haze and Shimmer by Paula Weston, books two and three in her Rephaim series and An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, the only John Green book left on my shelf that I haven't read!

So, to sum up: in 2014 I read a lot and I wrote a lot.

In 2015 I plan to read even more and write just as much.

(And maybe make some money this year)

Happy New Year to all of you,

Molly

Ambitious Author

molly.looby@hotmail.com

The Fall of Us and CampNaNoWriMo

As most of you know, I'm addicted to NaNoWriMo and for the past three years I have participated in writing 50,000 words in November and I have won! In 2011 it was ZA which is available on Amazon's Kindle for only 77p if you love a good zombie novel.

Then in 2012 it was I Dare You which was shortlisted for the Sony Young Movellist of the Year competition!

And last year it was Just a Pair of Abominations which I blogged about in detail as I was writing it.

So I've been thinking of my next story for about a year now and it came to June and I still hadn't made a move to write it. I needed a push, and that push was CampNaNoWriMo.

CampNaNoWriMo is like NaNoWriMo but a lot more lenient. You set your own word goal and it doesn't have to be a novel but of course mine is. So on July 1st I found myself writing 1,000 words a day to reach my 30,000 word count goal by the 31st of July, but more importantly, I'd have the bulk of a novel by the end of July and before my birthday in September I will have finished book number nine, well on track for my goal of having written ten books in my five years writing.

The first week of Camp I was quite happy sitting there writing away but just like its November counterpart, CampNaNoWriMo threw me week two which was a hard slog and it seemed to take forever for me to do my words. But then week three, beloved week three, came along and I was on fire again.  On the 26th of July I reached my 30,000 word goal and won CampNaNoWriMo. Winning wasn't the important part for me this time, falling in love with my story was and that definitely happened.

I'm more excited about my novel, 30,000 words in than I was at the very beginning and that's amazing. Now's about the time to tell you all about it.

'The Fall of Us' follows thirteen year old Tye and Eeli who have left their childhood home in search of their dreams.  

Here's what I wrote for the blurb on Movellas: Enter the world of Tye.  The Fall has devastated much of the world as we know it but Tye knows nothing else.  He and his best friend Eeli are ready to leave their home as soon as they reach thirteen years so that they can be off on their own and be who they want to be and do what they want to do.  At last.

Tye and Eeli could never have imagined how dangerous the real world was going to be.

I first thought up the characters of Tye and Eeli in August last year and between then and now I've been working out what exactly happened in my apocalypse and how the world would work. Once I figured that out the rest seemed to come easy, but in a random order. There's a lot of people for them to meet and a lot of places for them to explore. I've never written an adventure story like this before and I'm loving it. But as usual, I know too much about everyone's backstory (saying that, I can never know too much about my characters) and the hardest part is deciding what to include and what to leave out.

While you wait for me to finish this story, here's about half of what exists so far. 

I'll leave you with a quote from my protagonist:

"It’s wrong. The feelin of bein the happiest you’ve ever bin an the saddest you’ve ever bin all at once. I’ve never had a feelin like it. Bittersweet, Nat called it. I reckon there’s never bin a more perfect word." - Tye, The Fall of Us

Molly Looby

Author/Wrimo/Editor/Ghostwriter/Blogger/Reviewer/Movellian/ZA Ready

Contact me if you have any questions about books or writing or anything here: molly.looby@hotmail.com