#jennfswrites

If you could meet your favorite author, what would you ask her/him? . I’m fortunate to live in a city where I have opportunities to attend book signings and book festivals, so I’ve met several of my favorite authors. I wish I could say I was charming and cool. Nope. I have no chill when I meet authors who inspire me! I’d like to think my awkward exuberance shows how much I both love them and their books, but I think maybe it just comes off as frenzied fangirling. 😅 I’ve met Sabaa Tahir (a few times), Laini Taylor, and Roshani Chokshi. They were all so nice and put up with my fangirl flailing. 🙈 . Featured below are my inspiration canvases. I take one with me to signings. I like displaying them in my office so when I’m writing, I have a visual reminder of how these authors were successful—if they can do it, so can I! . A few more authors who inspire me that I’d love to meet are Tomi Adeyemi (I plan on going to Y’all West to see her!!), Nnedi Okorafor, and Hafsah Faizal @hafsahfaizal who owns @_iceydesigns and her debut novel We Hunt the Flame comes out in 2019. . Any favorite author signatures you see? Enlarge and let me know! . #marchlitwrit Authors who inspire you . #amrevising #writerswrite #pinaywriter #jennfswrites #readerlife #readersofig #readersgonnaread #becauseofreading #writerswhobookstagram #momswhowrite #booksofig #bookflatlay #diversebooks #diversereads #weneeddiversebooks

It's been a while since I shared my progress on my novel! I finished my draft in August and took some time off before revising. And to be honest, when you do a thing for two years and you finish the thing, it kind of messes with you and so I had to spend some time sorting myself out. As an aspiring author, you're goal is to finish the story. It's different for everyone but the message is to don't give up. But when you finish, it's like, now what? 🤷🏽‍♀️ . I had to spend some time rethinking what I wanted for my story and how I could fix it. It's not easy because when you finish a draft (that took two years to write), it's hard accepting that there's still a lot of work to do. . Once I came to terms with the fact that I needed to revise (because a part of your brain wants to be done with the thing), I took out a new notebook (because any reason to use a new notebook is the bee's knees) and did a brain dump of all the things I wanted for this story. I spent some time hemming and hawing at the audacity of my demands (if I were the drinking type, copious amounts would have been consumed) and when I decided it was time to get down to business (read: talk myself down from the very high ledge I put my self on), I began to systematically break down my wishlist for this book into actionable tasks. . Basically, I Hermioned the hell out of what needed to be done. . I printed index cards summaries of each chapter (compliments of Scrivener's index card feature), then I created an index/list in my notebook with each chapter, noting the Acts and Climax points in the story and now I'm book mapping my story--a developmental editing strategy to show where themes and other details show up in the story for consistency and pacing. . If your eyes are crossing at this point, it all means I'm kicking ass on this revision. . I'm actually excited for October (and not just because it's my birthday month and Halloween 😜), but the light at the tunnel does not seem so far away now. I'm setting a goal to be done with revisions by the end of this month! . Anyone else get excited about doing things that involve notebooks and lists? 🤓 . #jennfswrites #writerswhobookstagram #pinaywriter