E-Book of IDEAL HIGH now available

http://www.amazon.com/Ideal-High-Valerie-Ipson-ebook/dp/B00U1Q0QO8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1425013170&sr=1-1&keywords=ideal+high

ROUGH DRAFT--REPOST

This post is reminiscent of the crazy days of novel-writing. Just one crazy day in a long line of crazy days, actually! Now that IDEAL HIGH is finished, I'm reliving the journey...

For the first time ever, I have placed my manuscript completely into the hands of another. Sure it screams ROUGH DRAFT so loudly you have to cover your ears, and I've given the receiver of it a jillion disclaimers about how it's not all there because it was printed without my supervision, and I have so many scenes not assigned to a chapter number yet--like the entire ending chapters since when I wrote them I didn't know what chapter they would be--and it didn't all get copied, and I'm still rewriting some stuff...

But nonetheless, it's out there.

I needed a deadline and she gave me one, so I worked like crazy moving sticky notes around my storyboard and then moving scenes around in the manuscript and spent a good bit of time wondering what the fajita I'm doing.

I'll have to admit though when I read my opening paragraphs I got a bit emotional...then about halfway through the chapter I was so tired of it. I've read this chapter a thousand times before, people. I had to skip ahead, but I'm hoping when you get the chance to read it, you won't want to skip ahead. You'll want to be there with Taryn every step of the way.

I thought after the grand printing of the manuscript I would lay off writing for awhile. Maybe get a spa pedicure, read the stacks of books on my TBR list, and make toast with abandon. My daughter's getting married two days after Thanksgiving, so with all of that and then Christmas, it's a great time to take a break.

But, no.

I haven't written since I dropped off the manuscript a week and a half ago and last night I had another baby dream. You don't know how much I was priding myself for not having any baby dreams since the Baby Terror Dream Weeks of August--Ha! I thought. I'll show you who's nurturing her creative self! And then, boom, it shows up again, and it's hungry and needs nurturing. (Click on "babies" in the archives to see my baby dream history)

So today I wrote 1172 words.

Take that, creative self/baby person in my dreams! I'm going to go make myself some toast.

Dreaming.... REPOST!

I'm reposting some old blog posts this week to show various moments in my IDEAL HIGH-writing journey...here's one from January 2011

I had a sweet dream last night. It's the second time I can recall having a dream about writing.

Well, I have a dream about writing 24/7...but this was a real asleep dream.

In it a critique group was gathered at my house. I was surprised and confused that they were at my house because it was quite the illustrious group of men and women, all successful writers. One of them was Janette Rallison, or at least the essence of Janette Rallison. You know how dreams are. Things are often skewed, but definitely in my mind in the dream it was supposed to be Janette.

Anyway, everything was going wrong. I kept trying to turn on lights and they wouldn't go on. I had trouble getting my family to leave so we could have our meeting. I was stressing out. Then I went over to where the critique group was seated in the living room. While I had been busy with lights and kids, one of the men had printed off a portion of my story and read it to the group. They began to talk about it and praise it and give me good ideas for it.

Like I said. Sweet.

It must be because I ranted by email yesterday to friend and critique group partner, Tamara, about writing/publishing, which is a topic for another post, but I'll dedicate this one to her.

Thanks, Tamara!

Note: Click on Tamara's name and it will take you to her blog. Janette's name will take you to her website.

BOOK RELEASE! IDEAL HIGH!

So, yeah, it's been almost a year since I've blogged here. It's definitely time to breathe some life back into OF WRITERLY THINGS, I think.

What better reason than to announce the release of my young adult novel, IDEAL HIGH. It's been such a long time coming that I think it's worth looking back a bit to some of my old posts where I talk about my writing journey. Then I'll need to catch you up to speed because over this last year that I haven't been blogging, much has happened to advance my book to THE END. I'll do some of that looking back and catching up later in the week, for now: the BIG COVER REVEAL!!!!!!! (Of course, if you look a little to the right, it's there classing-up the sidebar!)

          Niles Giberson designed the cover and it is A-W-E-S-O-M-E-N-E-S-S!

My back cover blurb:

There’s no way I’m taking Blake’s place as president of the student body. As soon as the memorial for him and six of our friends is over, I’m resigning as VP. Really.

Except people say the fire was no accident.

(I say it’s way too easy to blame someone who’s dead.)

When I read the writing on the wall, literally, the bathroom wall, I know what it means. To get to the truth I have to come out from under my paisley comforter.

But, seriously, what stage of grief says I have to be the one to fix what’s wrong at Ideal High? Maybe I’m the one who’s broken. 

RELEASE DATE SET FOR THE END OF FEBRUARY!!!