Life: Hello all! Sorry for being a day late on this posting. It’s been a good week for me writing wise, so consequently…. I got distracted from most life things, like blogging. Ooops. But basically – had an awesome time in Boston, as mentioned last week. Since then I have pretty much just been working on my book… so here are a few more Boston/Vermont photos for you!

And since wonderful my critique partners Akshaya and Janella have put all the dignified pics up already… guess it falls on me to put up the ridiculous ones. You’re welcome ;).

Reading: On the Boston Teen Author Festival note… I now have piles and piles of books, but I haven’t actually finished any of them this week with the mayhem of Boston and travel and rewriting…. but included on my list of up next are:

Sara’s Ice Like Fire

Adam’s More Happy than Not

Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows

Renée Ahdieh’s The Wrath and the Dawn

Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Kim Liggett’s Blood and Salt

Mackenzi Lee’s This Monstrous Thing

Lori Goldstein’s Becoming Jinn 

…and many others! Can’t wait to give updates about these awesome new books in YA over the next few weeks :-).

Writing: Ok. So. Here we go – biggest update writing wise also may be the scariest thing I’ve done all week month year. Ready for this? Here is a quick view of my giant cork-board, and the change I put it through on Monday, before and after.

Before:

After:

So, as you can see, figuratively and kinda literally…. I have a blank slate! As mentioned before in my updates, I’m about to dive into another rewrite of my book and as such, I am repotting it out, from the ground up. So, rather than try to patch up what I already have, I am starting from scratch now and will add in any old scenes/plot as I go on. At least I have a friend who has camped out amid my mess to keep me company as I rewrite!

So anywhooo… that is my life in brief for the week! Sorry for another short post – seriously, next time I will discuss some of my world-building methods. But for now I am still figuring them out, as I’m doing a bit more world-building (and plot planning) this week. But next week I’ll be back to drafting, so I’ll hopefully have some retrospective insights about world-building for any interested writer buddies! Until then, be well all.

❤ Maddy