Vanessa (V.P.) Eboneigh

When I was in middle school, a very popular book that was released in 2005 about a human girl who was clumsy and fell down all the time and was in a relationship with her very controlling vampire boyfriend. "Why don't you like that series?" I get this question A LOT. It came back to me during this semester in children's literature for my MLIS course. We were given a list of books to read Harry Potter was on the list along with that very popular series at the time. I told my professor the issues I had with those books, and she encouraged me to write about that. She said talk about what you don't like about it.  So when the reflection came, I had to give it a long thought, and it made me go back to middle school and high school. This may give away my age, but when that book was published in 2005, I read it way before it was a best-seller and became a phenomenon, I was in middle school 7th grade to be exact.  So as to why I preferred Harry Potter over that series Sim...

In 1899 South America Peru’s Adrianna Salazar is the rightful queen, and considered a thief to the throne despite being the sole surviving heir. Battling daily against the feud with her Bolivian cousins to protect her crown against the feud with her Bolivian cousin her cousins’ threats leave their calling in her home, and forcing her to flee to her fiancé Marcelo, Brazil’s future king. Too bad Marcelo doesn’t want her. While her ladies scheme romance between her and the prince, Adrianna’s feelings blossom for Rafael, Marcelo’s older illegitimate brother. To make court more interesting, Adrianna begins receiving mysterious notes in her room from someone called The Loyal Guard warning her of danger. As strange incidents with corpses are found around court threatening the alliance, Adrianna relies on Rafael, but he’s hiding dangerous secrets of his own. Her heart should lie with Marcelo, but her trust and love lie with Rafael. As she receives news of Bolivia’s desire to begin a revolution...

So this happened today! I always wanted to do CampNaNoWriMo, but I've always been too busy with summer school to do it. I drafted 40,000 words of the sequel to my middle grade series. I'm going to let this sit for three weeks before I plunge into the editing.

I've decided to take the plunge, and try do CampNaNoWriMo. For those who don't know it takes place during July, and sometimes April in which you set your own word count goal. Normally during November you have to hit 50,000 words. Some writers don't do it because November is hectic with the holiday season. I'm going to write the sequel to the middle grade series I hope to get an agent for. It's an idea I've been brewing in my head, but the agents I've been following said they are looking for a middle grade series. So by writing this sequel it will let me know if it's possible.

So a USA Today Bestselling author who is also a participant of NaNoWriMo. Her 2010 NaNoWriMo story became a bestseller. These are her tips for revising her NaNoWriMo stories. 1. Read it through in its entirety, but don’t get hung up on nitpick-y editing.  At this stage I’m looking to see what the heck I’ve written and make notes of any changes I’d need to make. Some of these are big-picture thoughts I write in the Notes section for that scene in Scrivener, or it’s a footnote I’ve added to a word or sentence.  At this point, I’m only concentrating on the big picture—the bones of the story. This is the Emergency Room stage—your story is bleeding, the plot has so many holes, or is missing an entire limb, and so you should only be figuring out what the massive wounds might be and how to fix them. Don’t worry about the small cuts. Not yet. Resist. 2. As I’m going through, I also write down a short summary of each scene  in the Synopsis “card” in Scrivener. 3. Once done, I go b...

With the year 2015 almost at an end. I decided to post my New Years Resolution list.  Writer Goals 1. Get an agent. This has to be my biggest goal that I have yet to accomplish. People seem the criticize that just because I'm young I shouldn't really try for an agent. Veronica Roth got her agent when she was in college, so it's possible. 2. Finish the fantasy series I outlined. I wrote a fantasy series that was bugging me, and whether or not it ever gets published who knows. Maybe if it was a two book series when the time came provided I get an agent. 3. Read more adult books. So far the only books I mostly read are New Adult and Young Adult. I have a hard time finding adult books since I read a lot of popular ones when I was in middle school. I'm venturing into historical at the moment. Plus an author friend of mine has a historical coming out in March which I am extremely excited about. Personal Goals 1. Lay off caffeine. As a nutrition major you would think I would k...