Jaclyn Paul's Blog, page 3

Book review: Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder (middle grade)

When did you read your first serious novels? I remember the latter half of elementary school as a time of discovering dark stories, complex characters, books that grappled with big scary issues. Sometimes this was because I’d raided my parents’ collection of horror and dystopian fiction, but oftentimes not. When my own kiddo reached this age, I realized I’d forgotten how dark children’s literature can be.

I mean, Bridge to Terabithia, anyone?

Orphan Island

I grabbed this from the bo...

Book review: A Hand to Hold in Deep Water by Shawn Nocher

I don’t consider myself a book blogger or bookstagrammer, but people seemed to appreciate when I posted an actual review on Instagram the other day. Maybe I should get back in the habit?

If I’m going to get back in the habit, though, I want to cross post my reviews here for posterity. Feel free to follow me on Instagram, Goodreads, or Amazon. I post there because it helps lift up fellow authors (and their books). Readers also use these sites to help them choose what to read next. However, if ...

Self-publishing and print-on-demand platforms: which one we choose matters a lot

In my adult life, I’ve watched self-publishing evolve so much. These days, authors have a wealth of options to get a book out into the world, many of them surprisingly economical thanks to print-on-demand. It’s easier than ever to produce and distribute books in the same league with big traditional publishers.

This is kind of great for art-making, taste-making, and representation, but with choice comes responsibility. Because we have so many options, authors considering self-publishing now ha...

This week in pandemic history: Thanksgiving

I’m currently reading the new collection of Alan Rickman’s diaries. My writer-brain often absorbs tone and voice from what I read, and it’s been interesting to observe the melding of my journaling cadence with Rickman’s. It’s also been interesting to dig into the content itself. I suppose I expected something a little more distilled, based on reviews I’d read. However, the book so far reads much like my own journals, albeit with a much higher quotient of famous characters.

View this p...

Memorials, hometowns, and the stories we grow up in

A couple weeks ago I took a trip to my hometown, which also happens to have inspired the fictional town of Red Hill in She’s Not Home. I didn’t know how I’d feel about this visit. The book is, in many ways, a love letter to a beautiful place, and to the feeling of growing up there. It’s also full of grief and ghosts from the past.

The book, that is. But also the real-life town. While staying in my childhood bedroom I found a journal my sister wrote in third grade. “I love my home,” ...

Summer 2022, summarized in photos

I spent a lot of time offline this summer. Generally speaking, this feels like a net positive. However, I did have a few ideas I was looking forward to posting on here and now it feels awkward to do so without acknowledging my lengthy absence. Consider it hereby acknowledged.

At some point late in the summer I realized I had also neglected to take enough photos — or my definition of enough, anyway. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing a Project 365 to rekindle my photographic eye. Once upon a ti...

I’m already a successful author, and that’s why I need a pen name

I’ve hinted about this before, but over the coming weeks you might see a lot more of a new name around here: Lena George. Lena is my pen name for my fiction writing, and her first novel comes out this fall.

Fun fact: I’ll share my first social media post as Lena below, but this — if you’ll believe it — was the runner up.

I went back and forth a lot on this decision. Now, as I lay the groundwork for promotion and eventually book preorders, it feels like very much a done deal.

Writers take...

The stories we don’t want to tell

On the afternoon of April 20, 1999, my mom was driving me to an after-school activity when she told me, “I have to talk to you about something.”

I was in eighth grade. Old enough to know when someone waits for a quiet moment to say, I have to talk to you about something, it’s not good news. I glanced to her from the passenger seat of her gray Subaru station wagon and waited.

I still recall today the exact piece of road we traveled as she told me earlier that day, two students had entered t...

4 boundaries that helped me meet big writing deadlines this month

Narration on this post is made possible by my ADHD Homestead Patreon supporters

Friends, my life has been a bit of a mess lately. My current novel manuscript will finally set sail for the copy editor on Monday. That is, as my grandmother used to say, barring anything unforeseen.

Well. As an adult human with a house and a child and a telephone, among other things, I cannot bar the unforeseen from my deep dark writing cave. The unforeseen can and has happened over the past couple months...

Wandering a favorite writing spot

I’ve written often about writing at the beach, and how I would never have two finished books to my name without our humble family bungalow. And yet, I don’t pull massive word counts on every beach trip.

In fact, since our first pandemic summer, I haven’t written much there at all.

My two most recent trips have been to get together with my dad and help with the house more than anything. This feels fine. I’m finally getting more time in the office. My life finally has a more predictable stru...