Update: It's the 3rd of July!

Happy 3rd of July everyone!

Okay, so it's not a holiday, but it's the day before a holiday, which I think is just important. So what am I doing this 3rd of July you ask? Well....working. Oh, then what am I doing on the 4th? Well I'm...working. Yep, no fireworks or cookouts for me, kiddies. I'll be sitting at my desk, answering phones. Thankfully I only work until 8pm, so I should be able to catch the firework shows as I drive home. It's the little things in life *sighs*.

So an update on me. Yay! It's summer, no school! Yay! More sleep! Yay! More hours at work, more money! Yay! And of course, MORE TIME TO WRITE/ EDIT! YAY!

What am I writing/ editing, you ask? Thanks for asking. Well, I'm writing/ editing Deadly Caress. Wait, no, don't walk away. I can explain. Yes I've been working on this book for a LONG time, but you can't put a time limit on perfectioin *buffs nails on shirt*. But in all seriousness, I needed the time to work on finding my writing style and improving my craft. Just this past year in school, I feel I've learned so much. I can see it in my writing and in my editing of Deadly Caress. I've added things, taken A LOT of things out, chopping off 3,000 words and I'm only halfway through the edits. With this round of edits, I feel the book is finally where it needs to be. I'm really happy with the results so far. YAY!

So that's my update. Will continue to keep you posted. Everyone have a great 4th!

JS

What's Been Going On

This year is whipping by so fast. Unfortunately, I've hit a few speed bumps. A death in the family being the most prominent. It hit us pretty hard. My creative side has slowed down immensely. There's nothing worse than not being able to or feeling like doing the thing you love. That's how I've felt for months with my writing. I was producing for school, but it wasn't my best, or even something I was passionate about. It had gotten pretty bad there for awhile. I was seriously contemplating withdrawing from school and taking the rest of the semester off. Finally, I'm at a point where I'm excited again. Getting back on schedule is tough, but I'm working at it.

So, after all that sad mundane info, here's the fun stuff. I'm a little under a month away from the end of my Junior semester. One more year, and I'm done with school! I've been contemplating grad school, but I think I'll put it off for a bit. I'm doing some pretty cool things in my classes as final projects, one of which is building a xylophone (from scratch, and yes it's as difficult as it sounds) and interviewing Nina Bruhns, Senior Editor at Entangled Publishing. I'm really excited about both.

NEW ORLEANS! So not only am I a few weeks away from being finished with this semester, but I'm headed to NOLA! RT14 is something I've been looking forward to for a year. I've got my schedule mapped out--thanks to the cool phone app the convention provided sponsored by Dreamspinner Press-- and plan to jam pack everything into a hectic five days. There will be more posts on the interesting workshops and panels I attend.

Lastly, I'm formulating/ working on a new series. I've put Deadly Fury to the side, for now, and am working on a spin off of the Deadly 7 world. This series is also set in Chicago, but it follows the Rogue Hunter Society, a group of Hunters protecting humanity. The story runs parallel to D7 and the hero of this story is a character we visit briefly in Deadly Caress. I'm extremely excited about it. More on that in the future.

Working Hard or Hardly Working!

Hello world!

So, I didn't keep my promise to update once a month. I skipped May and June. In my defense, May was filled with finals and June was job searching (Oh how I loathe job searching) and interview going (how I hate you more). You don't want to know the hours I spent online applying for jobs, but it payed off, yes it did. So now I've settled into my new cushy life (ha ha, yeah right) and FINALLY have time to blog again. The people who make time for blogging and staying up on social media while juggling a crap load of other things are surely mutant superheroes.

So more Deadly Caress edits. Nic (the most wonderful agent) and I both think we're getting close to the home stretch with the manuscript. Working on Deadly Fury as well. The May and June havoc bled into my writing as well, so not much progress there. I'm planning to shut myself in a windowless room this weekend and write until my fingers cramp...and then I'm going to write some more.

I hope everyone that went to RWA13 had a great time. I was contemplating going, before May and June struck, but it wasn't in the cards for this year. You can definitely catch me at RT14, because who would pass up the opportunity to go to New Orleans, and maybe RWA14 as well.

I am going to keep my promise to post, if I have to talk about mundane crap or what crazy things my four year old has said. Come to think of it, that might be much more entertaining than anything I have to say.

J.S.

Long Time No See

I've been MIA from posting for months and I feel really bad about it. I've just been so busy with Deadly Caress edits and school. But I'm committing myself to posting twice a month or as often as I have news.

So what's been going on in the world of J.S.Walker...not much. Well, to me it's not much. If I'm not marching down State Street wearing a crown with my loyal subjects cheering behind me, my life is boring (just a little dry humor). I'm wrapping up my second year at Columbia. I love that school, but I'm at the point where you just want to sit around in sweats and do nothing all day, so having to get up at 5:30am for classes really sucks. The good thing is now I can apply to the BFA (Bachelors of Fine Arts) program. The F just means I take less general courses and twice as many in my major. I'm also debating on whether I should take a Professional Writing minor...more on that later.

In my writing...well I got one of my short stories published my Columbia's Story Week Reader. It's a cool anthology of some of the best stories (that were submitted) in the Fiction department. And I mean short story. They all had to be 750 words or less. Come to think if it, this was probably something I could've talked about on here when it happened. Yeah, my thinking isn't so smart sometimes. (Don't hold that last sentence against me. I can definitely string words together better than that....just barely.) So I guess I'll have another post about that later with the link where you can read the story.

I'm writing Deadly Fury, book two in the Deadly Seven Series, well sort of. I HAD decided to use my first advance fiction class to write as much of the book as possible. Well I didn't count on not being able to write a single word. I was as stuck as a bloated woman in her fav skinny jeans. I  couldn't string a single plot point together. Finally, after a grueling 8 weeks, yes 8 weeks, I was able to write chapter two and half of chapter three. Not much, I know, but it's a start. The great thing is that it gave me an opportunity to think and I was able to map out a lot of my story and get to know my characters better. I learned a lot I hadn't known before. My goal is to, if not finish, than get the majority of the book finished before the fall. Cross your fingers!

So you're all caught up. I'm going to post about Story Week, which was almost a month ago, some time next week with the link to my story. Don't forget you can follow me on Twitter @jswalker_author or like me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/JS-Walker/261715640513667?ref=hl

Deadly Fury on Hold!

*not my writing, just a pic*

So as the title says Deadly Fury is on hold...at least for a little while. I'm working extensively on Deadly Caress edits for the foreseeable future. Who knew writing a book would be so hard! No, but editing does suck and I see why most authors say it's the part they hate most. My agent is awesome though and helping a lot, so here goes round one of series edits. There's a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm hoping it'll pay off! More updates soon...

New Widget!

I just added a new word progress meter to the blog! I'm excited! I've always seen them around and I couldn't figure out how to get one, but after extensive web research (bless the internet), I finally found it! So as you can see I've just barely started Deadly Fury, but I'm hoping the sad little meter will give me incentive to write.

Next week, on Tuesday, I'm going to be featured on Jalisa Blackman's blog as I answer questions for her "Minority Report". So come over and check it out. The link to the website is bellow. More updates soon!

http://jmblackmanwriting.wordpress.com/

First Edits Done!

I have finally finished the first round of edits on Deadly Caress! I'm so excited.  I feel like things are moving, and I couldn't be more happy. So I've sent it off to my amazing agent, Nicole Resciniti, and now I'm waiting for her to finish and then on to round two of edits!

Also I've realized that my brain hates/loves me. I'd planned to take a little break before starting Deadly Fury, Book 2, but the ideas won't stop coming. So I've started working on it. Here's a little taste of it. The opening paragraph...

Tear-assing down a back alley after demon scum, Zorn was mad enough to spit fire, literally. Though the fire would come from his hands, not his mouth, it wouldn't be any less fucking effective. When he caught the bastard he was going to barbecue the fucker; demon nuts roasting on an open fire. And he would enjoy every damn minute of it. 

More updates soon!

Deadly Caress Ending Party!

I AM OFFICIALLY FINISHED WITH DEADLY CARESS! It's party time baby! I feel so great for having finally finished this story that I've been working on since last October. My baby has finally been born. Now it's time to watch it grow up. I'll start edits on the manuscript tonight, and I'm even more excited to get started doing that. It'll be great to read my story from start to finish, while editing it of course, to see the entire product together. So the finished result of working on this book while in school and the mad dash I've done to get it finished since school ended is a 377 page 113, 469 word manuscript! Of course I haven't edited yet so that will definitely change, but I'm still happy I accomplished something so great. All those who have done it know that writing a book is not easy. Hell, it's hard, but when you do what you love it doesn't feel so much like work.

I want to thank my mother who has been a giant help as I've written this manuscript. She's edited Every chapter  (there are 30 and a prologue) laughed and got frustrated with me over the characters and the plot. She's helped me develop the story and given me ideas when I was stuck, so thank you so much! And now she and I are going to start from the beginning and edit the hell out of it! Deadly Caress is the second manuscript I've finished, but it's the first I've seriously thought about getting published, and it's the first one that I think is good enough to publish.

On another note, I plan on starting writing the next book in the Deadly Seven serious after I finish the edits of DC. I'm really excited to start that book too! The next book will be about the deadly sin Wrath and will probably pick up a few months after Deadly Caress ends. I have a name for the book, but I'm not sure how much I love it. So right now it's called Deadly Fury, but I was also thinking of Deadly Fire. I'll post more updates on the second book soon!

Novel Countdown Update! One Week to Go!

So like the title says I am one week away from finishing Deadly Caress! I'm extremely excited to be finished. This past week I got four chapters finished instead of just three. I'd planned to work from Tuesday to Saturday and then give myself a break, but life happens and I've been kind of sick so it took be until Monday to finish. But in that time I got 15,000 words writing! So I've started writing for this final stretch today and I'm going to be done Friday if nothing else happens. My word count for the entire manuscript right now is 90K and some change! Four more chapters to go!

Novel Countdown Update!!

Hey everyone! So I exceeded my goal of 7,000+ words for the week again, coming in at 11, 418 words!!! YAY! That's a little more than last time. I finished three more chapters and I'm that much closer to wrapping Deadly Caress up! So like last time, I started working on Tuesday and finished Friday. There was a lot of all-nighters and too many cups of coffee to count, but I'm on a roll. So I'm sure I'm going to be done by the last week in May. My word count now is 76,203 which means I'm about a quarter of the way done. I'm so excited to be wrapping up the story! The next fun part will be going back over and editing the crap out of it! More updates later this week!

Novel Countdown Update!

So I was supposed to start Friday May 4th and write until the following Friday when I would give an update on my progress. Well, I went out of town until Sunday and Monday I was wrung out so I didn't start until May 8th, but I got three chapters done from the 8th until the 11th and 11,370 words written which was about 4,000 more words than my minimum for the week! YAY! So I'm on the right track. I didn't get anything done this past Saturday and Sunday and it's slow going today, but I'm hoping for it to pick up tomorrow. So know my word count for my manuscript is at 64,649 words. I'm on my way! My next update day is Friday!

Novel Countdown Extravaganza!!!!

My last day of school is tomorrow! I'm really excited to be finished with this semester, but now my next challenge is upon me. Starting May 4th I'm doing a 45 day countdown to finish my Paranormal Romance novel, Deadly Caress. Right now I'm about 53,000 words in and I'm a little more than half way done. So I figure if I do AT LEAST 1,050 words a day, about 7,400 words a week, I'll be finished in my time frame. Of course this is just to finish it/ give it an ending, not have it done and edited in that time. So I'm going to post my word count every week and talk about my progress (and probably struggle) with reaching my goal. Wish me luck!

Workin' Day and Night

So school has me pretty busy right now. These next two weeks are going to be a killer on me with a 10 page and a 15 page essay and a 12 page story re-write...yeah hectic. So I haven't been able to even look, let alone touch, Deadly Caress. I promised my lovely agent that I'd be done by the end of May, but I might have to push that back a few weeks. My new date to be finished is June 8th. That way I can account for these two weeks where nothing is getting done and I'll be finished before the 10th when TRUEBLOOD comes back on! So I'm excited to be done with my first official year of college (The previous year I attended UIC and then a community college). So yeah, yay me! Will keep you posted more on page count and the closer I get to my goal. Right now I'm at about 52,000 words! So I'm about half way done. The only thing that's running through my mind is "Stay focused, stay focused, stay focused!"

NEW WEBSITE!

I just published my first website and I'm really excited and happy. It's not super fancy, but its mine and I love it. So go check it out! Something I found out about myself is that I love everything perfect and precise. It took me hours to position and get the damn thing exactly how I wanted it, and I'm still not totally happy with it. But that's me! So go check it out at http://www.jswalkerauthor.com/ !

UNDERCONSTRUCTION

Hey everyone! My blog is undergoing some drastic changes...okay not DRASTIC, but changes nevertheless so if you click things and they don't go anywhere or that page is empty its because I'm working on it. I hope to have it finished by tomorrow night. Keep your fingers crossed!

RT Convention

So this week the RT (Romance Times) Convention was held in Rosemont, Illinois and I was very fortunate to be able to attend. There were so many great authors there and the events were fun. There was a ton of workshops, author panels, fun parties, and a giant book fair this morning with over 300 hundred authors there.

It was my first RT Convention. Actually it was my first ever convention! I really enjoyed myself and the best part of the conference would have to be that I won the American "Idol" Voice Writing Competition and now I have a fantastic agent and some prospects on getting published! I'm very excited! It all still seems so unreal and I'll be posting tomorrow talking specifically about the contest and how my life is changing.

JS

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of the beautiful Irish people out in the world today. Have loads of fun! In Chicago there's so much fun stuff to do, so I'll be downtown at around 3pm until...... Yeah, so I was thinking that I was going to write a little story specifically for this occasion (I even started it) but I have WAY too much work to do for school. So, maybe next year! Just enjoy this little joke......

An Irishman had been drinking at a pub all night.  The bartender finally said that the bar is closing. So the Irishman stood up to leave and fell flat on his face. He tried to stand one more time; same result. He figured he'll crawl outside and get some fresh air and maybe that will sober him up.

Once outside he stood up and fell flat on his face. So he decided to crawl the 4 blocks to his home. When he arrived at the door he stood up and again fell flat on his face.  He crawled through the door and into his bedroom. When he reached his bed he tried one more time to stand up. This time he managed to pull himself upright, but he quickly fell right into bed and is sound asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.   He was awakened the next morning to his wife standing over him, shouting, "So, you've been out drinking again!!"
     "What makes you say that?" he asked, putting on an innocent look.
     "The pub called. You left your wheelchair there again."  

It's 2012!!!!

Hey bloggers, Happy 2012! I had a blast on New Years Eve and I hope that you guys did too. I spent the holidays with my family as I told you in my last vlog. It was nice to go to Georgia where the temperature was awesome. The day after Christmas we went to the park and all we wore were jackets! I know right. LOL!

So there's some pretty awesome stuff happening in 2012. The first thing is that a lot of good books are coming out this year, but aren't they always. On February 28th The Darkest Seduction by Gena Showalter will be out! I've been looking for this book since I started to Lord Series and I can't wait to read about Paris! I'll have more about that the closer it gets to the date and of course I'll do the review. Also, Lover Reborn by J.R. Ward will be out on March 27th. I'm really really excited about that book! Thor is such a tortured character and I just want to see him happy. So more on that the closer that date comes too.

There's some cool dates this year too. There Comic Con that will have Karen Marie Moning on the panel in June or July, I'll have to double check that. And there's Dragon Con in Atlanta that will have tons of cool authors like Laurell K and Karen Marie etc. More on that too.

So Happy New Year guys and I'll post more soon!
JS

I'm Nominated!!!!!

Winter Madness