Lanelle Hall's Blog, page 4

1st Draft DONE + New cover!

 After years of coming up with a plot, writing (and rewriting), hating then liking it again I'm finally done with my first draft!  I finished it a while ago and I'm now working on the second draft, I'm going full speed ahead with this thing because I want this done before the end of the year.  
 Published and out.  
I'm releasing Mean Boys in parts as a serial, I'm actually on Part Three right now.  Mean Boys Part One will be about 100 pages, and the page count will increase with each part.  This format allows so much more flexibility.  Also to cater to my new format I had to make a slight change to my cover, it's super slight.

82726 words written...so far.

It's taking me almost four years but I'm almost near my goal of hitting 100,000 words for Mean Boys.  I'm still on the first draft, unfortunately, and I'm afraid of the editing process but I definitely don't think it'll take me as long.  I'll probably cry and have a party once I finish even though I'll still have so much to do.  My fear is i've been working on this book for nothing.  No one will buy it and no one will like it.  I fully expect to have people who don't like it but my fear is EVERYONE will hate it.  When I read over my draft I can't help but cringe at some parts, the thought of people reading it scares me, like any author I'd assume.  I've been writing out chapters first before typing them, I do this mainly at work since any electronics are now banned at our workstations. (so no mini laptop)  It's actually a lot more enjoyable for me doing it this way, it takes me back to middle/high school when all I did was write and write.
 Can you tell how battered and bruised my notebook on the left is?  And here's some filled pages, I purposely blurred the picture to spare you guys my embarrassing writing. I'm sorry this update is short, but fingers crossed my next post will be about me finishing this first draft.

Making progress...sort of

Still here!  And still making progress, somewhat, I did get a secret weapon, a new laptop.  It's actually a pink mini laptop, I bring it to work and it's really helping me get stuff done.  The past two weeks I've been distracted (work, life, superficial things) but once I get focused again I'll start making more progress.  Not only is it cute but so useful. 
 I've also started jolting down ideas for a serial.  Yes, serial, not series.  A serial is typically a set of books where each one is usually less then 50 pages, some even less then 20.  I know a lot of people hate serials because they're extremely short and normally end on cliffhangers.  But serials are cheap, usually only 0.99.  It's a new thing I'm trying.  At the rate I'm going with Mean Boys my serial might be out first, which will be annoying.  But I need to release something soon or I'll pull my hair out.  For anyone interested the serial will be a gritty New Adult contemporary with a touch of fantasy.  Not erotica but it'll definitely be sexual, as well as have some controversial themes such as abortion.  It's actually going to play a big role in the serial, I'll be curious to see how readers react to it.  So we'll see.

Where are the black young adult leads?

Writing Mean Boys has been a very difficult task.  Very.  Some days I don't even want to look at it, I was starting to seriously hate everything about it.  I was contemplating giving up on it and working on something completely different.
Until I starting scrolling through Goodreads, mainly in the Young Adult area.  There I noticed that most of the books featured white main characters.  
By most probably all.
Another thing that's super apparent is a lot of these books are being adapted into movies.  The scary thing is if you look at all of the popular book to movie adaptions all of the female main characters have similar looks (brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, etc).
I dare you to compare them, it'll freak you out.
My book has diversity, it features a black main character.
Okay, one black person, big deal.  But it doesn't end there, there's an Asian character, Hispanic, etc.  And they're not just dopey sidekicks meant to make the perfect white lead look better.  They're real, they have flaws, they have a story.  
And it's not about their race.
The media LOVES to depict black women in particular as the sassy ghetto best friend who could never upstage the beautiful white lead.  Now I'm NOT saying there's anything wrong with white leads, the first book I ever wrote had a white main character.  I'm just saying it's kind of terrifying to think in this mixed up world that we live in, full of so many different kinds of people books are still being written with one type of person in mind.
When I was in middle school all I did was read, that's it.  I read.  I especially loved books where the main character had to go on world saving adventures.  Back then it's was nearly impossible to find even one book with a black girl as main character.  And not just a book where it deals with racial struggles or whatever.  But a book where she's a normal girl dealing with teenage issues, falling in love, saving the world, discovering she has magical abilities, and so on.  Never could I find anything like that.  
And when I did it was rare.
Now as a writer I feel like as I much as I want to give up, I can't.  Because there might be a girl like me who just wants to read an entertaining book with a girl she can identify with.
 So as much as I want too, I can't give up and I won't.
On a lighter note if I had to choose someone who'd fit how I picture Bianca Wilbur, my main character, it would definitely be Kylie Bunbury from the show Twisted.  She's EXACTLY how I picture Bianca, exactly.  If Mean Boys ever got adapted into a show or movie she'd be my top choice to play Bianca.
 (look at her, so perfect <3)

Mean Boys Playlist: Songs that inspire my writing!

Here's a few songs I've been listening to as I write,in a way these songs make up the Mean Boys soundtrack if it had one.

Still a better lovestory then Twilight.

You take a a teenage girl with no personalty, dreams, aspirations, or self esteem and a generic, flawless, wish fulfilling shell of a vampire and what do you get...lots of money apparently. 
Sorry, I've never been afraid to show my complete distaste (hatred) of the Twilight books, but what actually made me write this was this article here.  Now I love Shailene Woodly.   : )

Sorry...

Well...I haven't updated in forever, sorry, but I am still working on my book.  Right now with my job (which takes up 90% of my time) it's a little hard to find the muse to write.  (Working in a call center as a billing agent really takes a lot out of you.)  I hate forcing myself to write, I feel like super bad writing is generated from that.  That's probably not true but I hate rereading parts that make no sense.  Which happens often.  Editing this book is going to be a nightmare.  But I'm forcing myself to write at least 1,000 words per night.  It's so hard finding inspiration -_-, but I'm pushing through and I'm getting this done!  I've noticed I get a lot of visitors on this blog so I'm asking that some of you please leave a comment or follow .  If you have questions about the book don't be afraid to ask.   Happy reading!

Success!

I'm so happy, my cover reveal was really sucessful!!!  My book was on at least ten blogs and even tweeted about!I'm so happy right now I could cry!

Hana Yori Dango = Mean Boys! (Boys over Friends Review)

The absolute biggest inspiration for my book is a Japanese manga titled Hana Yori Dango.  
Hana Yori Dango or Boys over Flowers is a popular manga that has been made into an anime as well as a live action.  With live actions versions from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, and now...America.  (I'll get to that later.)  Obviously Hana Yori Danga is extremely popular, EXTREMELY.  You could almost say the plots of Hana Yori Dango and Mean Boys are pretty similar. 
Both have prestigious schools.Both deals with bullying.Both have a "popular" group consisting of boys.Both have romances.
I would say mine is a bit more on the edgy side since it has cursing, sexual situations, and deals with more serious issues.  Hana Yori Dango is amazing though, to put it simply.  I remember reading all of the manga volumes in 9th grade and becoming addicted.  So soon after that I got the entire anime series from the library and watched every last episode in one sitting.  I've also watched and loved the Japanese live action version.

That's when Mean Boys begun to brew in my head.  I wanted to write something similar to Hana Yori Dango and at first I did.
Mean Boys was a carbon copy.  

A rip off.
That was back then.
After many idea revisions now I'd say they're two very different stories. Above I wrote there was an American version of Hana Yori Dango that was recently released titled "Boys Over Friends."
Holy Cow.
It was terrible.
Whenever I envisioned an American remake of Hana Yori Dango I always imagined it to be a little different then the other adaptions.  I thought it would be more daring, more..something.  Especially since we Americans love to go overboard with certain things, lol.  This version is not.  I don't think it's horrible either but it's just...weird.
That's all I can write.
It was weird.
The acting is okay, the characters are okay, but nothing really stood out.  I just found the whole thing to be just...odd.  Like some type of parody.  It all felt childish, maybe if it were set in a high school it would fit better?  I just couldn't understand why certain things would be happening, especially in that setting.  Which I think is a graduate school.
High school, totally.Graduate school full of intelligent (mostly) adults, nope, not at all.

Low budget aside, because good material could still be made with a low budget it wasn't good.  At all.  I was cringing the entire time.  I think they chose good looking actors but they should have found more expressive people, this was just...dry.

This is just the pilot episode so maybe it'll get better, watch below!

Oh look it's me >>>>>>>>>>

YA Bound & tiny Mean Boys sneak peak

Obviously I just did my own tiny cover reveal on here but I'm now scheduled for a bigger cover reveal in January.  It's going to be organized by YA bound (a book tour/promo service) and hopefully by doing this more people will learn about Mean Boys.  


For this cover reveal various bloggers will sign up to have my book featured on their blog for a post,  I'm excited but worried.  What if  my blurb is too short.  Or too vague.  I can only keep tweaking and adding until I think it's perfect.  That will never happen, I always see flaws which brings me to another fear.  Never finishing my book.  I'm so scared that I won't finish whether it be in time of my release or ever.  My outline is so close to being finished and I already have a good number of pages typed out but there's still so much I have to do.  The problem is I'm just horrible at time management.  HORRIBLE.  My mind drifts off and instead of writing I'll go online, watch YouTube videos, or do absolutely nothing.  Seriously.  I'm trying to find ways to change this.  When other authors crank out lots of books in a few months I'm just stunned at how they do it.
I wish I had that talent. 

On another note here's a tiny super random snippet I just wrote for Mean Boys.  Not edited yet so it probably won't make sense...

“Wait.” He gazed deeply into her eyes, she was instantly mesmerized. “Stay with me.”

She giggled in a high pitched voice, “Judas, what?  Why?  I'll be right back.”
“It's about Friday.” His eyes interlocked with hers,  they trapped her, “stay," he uttered in a whisper, casting an imaginary spell.  From the look of her face I knew what she thought. I'll do whatever he wants.  
It's true.
With that look anyone would.  Eyes slightly narrowed with his teeth stuck into his bottom lip.I felt jittery just imaging him looking at me like that.  A longing look.  It's like he's about to grace  you with the best kiss of your life; hard and full of tongue. Or like she's the most important person in the world.
I wonder how he sees me.
Or am I just a game to him?

~~
So what do you think?  Yes, super short.  Super flawed.  But this is only from the first draft.  I'll probably change it a lot in my revisions.  

Thanks for reading and try to comment please!