Kaylee Baldwin's Blog, page 13

Countdown to Love Review

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From back cover:
Kelly Grace Pickens is an excited bride - until she's abandoned at the altar. Desperate, she accepts an offer to appear on a reality TV show, Count Down to Love. Her country ways are a stark contrast to the mysterious bachelor from New York. Wading through hurt and betrayal both on and off screen, Kelly discovers that being true to yourself is essential to finding happiness and love.

My thoughts:
If you've been following my blog for a while, then you know that I love The Bachelor, so when I got the chance to review this book, I was really excited. I started reading it the day I downloaded it, and finished it in one evening. So much fun. I really enjoyed this book. Kelly Grace is an extremely likable character and she works through her hurt and trust issues--something that is especially difficult when she finds herself falling in love with a man that several other girls are chasing as well. I highly recommend to those who are looking for a fun, romantic comedy with a little more depth than usual or those who love The Bachelor. I will be reading this one again.

Here is the author's website:  JulieNFord.com

And here is the author's blog: Queries2Reviews.wordpress.com

An Email Obsession

I just discovered this interesting little feature on gmail. Down in the very bottom right corner there is a tab that says: Last Account Activity: Details (and you can click on the details link). I'm sure this feature is to make sure you haven't been hacked or that other people aren't getting into your email.

Not mine. It shows that I logged in all at the same computer. And these are my log in times:

Jul 6 (18 hours ago)
Jul 6 (18 hours ago)
Jul 6 (17 hours ago)
Jul 6 (16 hours ago)
Jul 6 (15 hours ago)
Jul 6 (15 hours ago)
Jul 6 (11 hours ago)
**then I must have gone to bed**
Jul 7 (1.5 hours ago)
Jul 7 (58 min ago)
Jul 7 (0 min ago)

I'd label this a wake-up call for my obsession for checking my email, but I already knew I had a problem. I can't walk past my computer without logging in and checking my inbox. I guess that's what happens when you're querying and waiting to hear back from agents!

How often do you check your email?

My Birthday Winner

Congrats to Julie Coulter Bellon for winning my birthday prize! Thank you all for entering. I'll be doing another giveaway in a few months, because I love giving away books :)

Just waiting around for me to come

My feelings were hurt the day I did the math and figured out that my parents waited NINE MONTHS after getting married to get pregnant with me.

Up until this point, I figured that they got married just for the sole purpose of getting pregnant, and therefore having...me. What else would they want in life but a beautiful daughter? What were they doing in those nine months that were better than having a newborn baby? I guess I always just pictured them sitting around, yearning for me, never really living until they had me.

Pretty self-absorbed, right? (My sisters, if reading this, will not be surprised at all that I felt like the whole of our parents' younger lives were just a series of angst-filled, empty moments until I came along to give them purpose and joy.)

Since then, I often wonder how many children believe that they're parents' lives started when they were born.

How many authors feel that way about our characters? Like our characters have been sitting in some dark place somewhere, just waiting for us to discover them, and the only moments that really matter in their lives are the ones that we put down on paper. Anything before that? Insignificant, because it's not a part of their time with us.

I recently read a book where I felt like the love interest was created for the sole purpose of giving the main character someone to hook up with. His past was alluded to, but never explored. He didn't have any identity outside of the context of the main character. He pretty much could have been substituted for anyone and it wouldn't have made that much difference.

I love when I'm reading a novel, and I get this sense of knowing the characters, their pasts, what led them to the point in this story, where I don't feel that the characters were just sitting around, only existing when the plot conveniently says they exist. I want them to feel like REAL people, ones that I could be friends with, fall in love with, or, in some cases, hate. Ones that I'll talk to my husband about and he'll ask me, "Wait, are you talking about real people or book people?" (To which I respond, "Does it matter?")

I love even more when I'm writing and a character's voice comes into my head, and I have to discover who she is and what made her that way. My story may only cover a few months in her life, but I love finding out what existed BEFORE that time that she came into my mind.

What makes a character real to you? What helps you connect to a character?

Nerd vs. Dork vs. Geek

I went out to dinner last night with my husband and several of his co-workers (all electrical engineers) and my husband tells our dinner companions that he likes classifying everyone at work under three categories: Nerds, Dorks, Geeks. He then proceeded to inform everyone at the table where they fell. (He, of course, is the rare exception among engineers and claims that he does not fall under any of the three).

So, being engineers, they couldn't just leave it at that. They had to define what made a nerd vs. a dork vs. a geek.

Since the other popular topic at dinner that night was robots (I know, robots, but my husband had to go to a writers' award gala with me and listen to writing talk all night long, so it was only fair) so they decided to define nerds/dorks/geeks in terms of robots. Here was my interpretation of what they said:

Nerds would build a simulated robot.
Geeks would build an actual robot.
Dorks would dance like a robot.

I have always considered myself a nerd, so I didn't like this definition of nerd (because I had to ask my husband what a simulated robot even was) so I have to add that I think a nerd would READ about robots, too.

And even though robots are not my reading topic of choice, I will read about almost anything else, so I am a nerd.

Do you consider yourself a nerd, a dork, or a geek? (Or are you the "rare" exception like my husband seems to think he is?)

**Don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway for a chance to win in any book you want.

***If you get a chance, head over to Jolene Perry's blog and congratulate her! She's one of my favorite critique partners and has some awesome news.

My Birthday Giveaway!!!

[image error] I am turning 28 on Sunday, and in addition to watching the casino shoot off fireworks and spending time with my family, I want to have a giveaway here to celebrate my birthday!

And since my absolute favorite gift to recieve is always a book I haven't read (which my family complains is hard to find), that's what I want to give away.

The rules are simple:
1--Just make a comment below and tell me what YA book you really, really want to read.

2--Include your email address so that I can contact you if you win.

3--Be a follower of my blog.

Bonus--You can have additional entries if you tweet or blog about this (just let me know.)

That's it!

The contest will end Tuesday, July 5th at midnight.
I'll draw a winner a week from today, Wednesday July 6th.

**Thank you Chantele Sedgwick for this giveaway idea. :)

Lovin' the Language Blogfest

I (barely) survived my girls camp experience this year. Turns out I prefer the mountains and sleeping in a tent, and yes, even outhouses, to being crammed with seven other people in a 12'x12' room. Once we worked through all the drama (would it be girls camp without drama?) and had our shower day, everything went a lot smoother. Also, I was so tired from staying up late the first few nights, that I discovered I can sleep through almost anything (noise, lights, laughing, talking, crying....)

Now I'm back just in time for Jolene's blog fest!

I love beautiful writing. Nothing can draw me into a story more than the ability to put words together in a way that just makes me sigh.

In the novel I just finished writing, FALLING, Brenna (my main character) goes to group therapy for siblings of people who have a traumatic brain injury. This is one of my favorite journal entries that she writes for therapy (we're only supposed to do five sentences, but I've been following rules all week, and feeling an itch to break one or two, so here you go):

I think about that last day a lot. The last day that Brian was normal and how we teased each other and were so comfortable and didn't ever think that anything could change that. I remember closing my eyes and letting the air conditioner blow in my face, and pretending that I was climbing outside, wishing I had the courage to do it.            But I was too afraid of falling—afraid that the anchor might give, that the ropes could unravel against the hard rock, that one mistake could cause me to plummet to the unforgiving ground. I didn't realize then that there were other ways of falling, ways that were even longer, scarier than literally falling from a great height. Like falling in love with someone you didn't even like before. Falling between the cracks in a family you thought you belonged to. Falling into a life you never wanted to live. Completely falling apart.            Who knew all along I was afraid of the wrong kind of fall?Brenna's Sibling Support Journal
Can't wait to read what you have!!

Spending the week...

with teenagers at a church in New Mexico. I think I've mentioned before that I am the youth (girls) camp director for our local church unit and we were supposed to go camping up in the mountains for a week, but the entire Catalina Mountain range was closed due to fires. So there's this old church that does family reunions that we're going to sleep in (can I tell you how happy I am that we're going to have flushing toilets? See this post to really understand my complete joy.)

So, I am gearing up for a week of crafts, swimming, hiking, learning first aid, skits, firesides, archery, staying up late, and lots of inside jokes. And maybe even some ideas for my next book. :)

Documents Galore

While saving my writing yesterday, I noticed that I have a lot of documents for each book that I write. This wasn't a new revelation, since I save something to those folders almost everyday, but I started scrolling through my folders and just realized there were a ton. Maybe more than one person should have for one book (or maybe it's normal, IDK.)

I think my husband's engineering ways are starting to rub off on me, because I decided to add them all up and see how many saved documents I have for each of my finished books (stalling, anyone?) I stopped short of making a pie chart of the results even though I knew it would've made him proud.

For Meg's Melody:
48 documents

For Falling:
67 documents

Document titles include:
Alternate beginnings 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5
Element of Blank (the original title) installments 1-7 (when I was sending sections to my mom as I wrote them—that way she'd keep asking for more, so I had to keep writing in a timely manner)
Queries 1-8
Synopsis 1 and 2
TBI outtakes (TBI=traumatic brain injury--from before I'd even titled the story)
TBI treatment, information, interviews
And all of the critiques that my crit partners have sent me. (More about their awesomeness later)
I need to know if there are others out there like me! Do you have a a ton of documents saved for each book you write?

Throwing out a scene

Tossing a scene can be really, really hard. I know. I've tossed a ton of them.

With Meg's Melody, I have a deleted scenes folder that is as long as the book. Sometimes I cut scenes because they weren't adding Meg or Matt's emotional journey. Sometimes I needed to show a concept or growth or past about a character, but decided that the way I'd originally told it wasn't the best way. And some scenes, I had to cut because my publisher needed it to be a certain word count--so I looked for my weaker scenes.

Right now, I am in the final, final editing stages of my ms and there is one last scene I am tightening up. Last night I rewrote the scene, but decided that I didn't like my rewrite at all. It was an experiment that succeeded because I now know where I don't want to take that scene. So around midnight (since I'm just obsessive enough to not be able to sleep when I have a scene that needs finishing) I made a list of what I need to accomplish with my scene.

It looked like this: (picture scraggly handwriting since I wrote this in the dark before getting in bed)

1. Gabe=Tim (a replacement for the lighthearted/normal friendship she's been craving)
2. We learn more about Philip from Gabe--get inklings of Philip's past so "the past" revelation isn't so surprising
3.Give Brenna a fun, lighthearted night (she needs it)
4. Establish that Brenna and Philip are friends now--not just people that hang out because they have a connection to Brian
5. Hint at Philip's deeper feelings for Brenna (very slightly)

So, this list probably doesn't make sense without knowing who my characters are, but I wanted to give you a sense of how I edit. If a scene just isn't working for me, I make a list of what I'm trying to accomplish in that scene, and think about how to rewrite, bringing those ideas out even more--while conveying the tone I want for that section (in this case, everyone needs a break from all of the heavy stuff that's been going on in the book so far) in addition to making sure the main theme of the book is still being supported.

Then I save my original scenes in a folder called "deleted scenes" (original title, I know.) Always save those scenes. You might end up using parts of them somewhere.

How do you decide which scenes to cut and which to keep when you're editing?