Jennie Bennett, Romance Author

It's November 30th which can only mean one thing, the last day of NaNo! Okay so maybe it can mean more than one thing, but you catch my drift. So the question begs to be asked. Did you win? The answer, is yes and no. Before I go into details, I will preface this by saying how much I believe in the 'something is better than nothing' mantra and I did get a lot accomplished this month. I thought this picture was hilarious. Maybe it's because I'm tired and everything is funny, but still. Ha!   I didn't write 50,000 words in the month of November. I wrote 46,000 words. I know if I really pushed myself I could write 4,000 words today and still count it as a win. But here's the thing, (I know how much you all love excuses) I finished the novel I started for NaNo, and I've been working on fixing EXISTENCE. It doesn't need words added to it so much as a slash and add and slash some more. So there you have it. I did finish a novel in the month of No...

Today I'd like to welcome a special friend and congratulate her on the release of her third book, The Tyrant King! Cheri Chesley was the president of my local writers group before she moved, and she is so fun to be around. I've only read The Wild Queen , but I do love her writing style. Here's more about The Tyrant King . Her heart paused, but Krystal remained defiant. “You lie. You would never do such a thing to my child.”             “You think not?” He laughed again and she drew back. “I’ve sworn an oath to annihilate my dear cousin’s present and future, take over his kingdom and his crown, and fulfill my father’s dreams. And you think I would hesitate to murder his offspring? Come now, Krystal. I know you are smarter than that.” Krystal’s peaceful life as queen of Fayterra is shattered when a stranger arrives with a connection to Jareth that threatens to change everything. Soon her loved ones are threatened,...

The ever brilliant Shelly and Chad have come up with a blogfest that will make all bloggers, everywhere, happy and sane people. It's called the Captcha Craptcha Day! The point? To let other bloggers know how much we hate the little word verification boxes. All we want to do is make a comment! Please, for the love of all that is holy and good, turn them off! If you don't know how, here's a post I wrote about it - Turning off word verification on Blogger . If you're worried about spam, change your settings to verify comments before they post! Truth is, Blogger has an awesome Spam filter. Even if you get a spam comment to your e-mail, chances are it never posted on your blog. You should be out of excuses now - so hop to it!    Moving on... We're almost halfway through the month of literary abandon. Here's my stats so far - Words written: 23,000 (I don't write on weekends so my Monday stats will always be a little low) Days Left: 18 I...

Hope everyone is writing away now that NaNo has begun! Today I'm doing a special review for David Farland's Nightingale. Here's the Blurb: Some people sing at night to drive back the darkness.  Others sing to summon it. . . . Bron Jones was abandoned at birth. Thrown into foster care, he was rejected by one family after another, until he met Olivia, a gifted and devoted high-school teacher who recognized him for what he really was--what her people call a "nightingale." But Bron isn't ready to learn the truth. There are secrets that have been hidden from mankind for hundreds of thousands of years, secrets that should remain hidden. Some things are too dangerous to know.  Bron's secret may be the most dangerous of all. What I liked: It was original. The concept had a few Characteristics borrowed here and there, but the twist was new and exciting.  Not to mention a young adult from a male point of view. The writing really nailed it. I kep...

October isn't over yet, but I thought it best to do the mini-reviews now since November will be filled with WriMo madness! I wish I had read a few more books this month since I don't see myself doing a lot of reading in November. But to be fair, I did Beta Read two novels. That counts, right? Anyway, here's what I read this month Goodreads Feedback by Robison Wells. I went to the launch Party for this book and it was awesome! I don't know if any of you have read Variant, but that book had a major cliffhanger so I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. It didn't disappoint. The tension was high throughout the entire thing and the end, even though it closed up a little, left me wanting more. I highly recommend it! Proof I was there, with Shelly Brown, and Marion Jensen. Goodreads Nightingale by David Farland. I'm going to be doing a special review for this in a few days, but I will say this - Awesome! Goodreads Legion by B...

NaNo is great! I mean, what author doesn't like an entire month dedicated to Literary Abandon? But it's easy to get burnt out as well. So how do I keep my Spirits up for NaNo? Twitter of course! What does Twitter have to do with NaNo, lots of things. It's come to my attention these past few months that lots of writers aren't aware of writing sprints. A writing sprint is when writers get together, time themselves, and write as much as they can in that time frame. It gets the blood pumping, and the word count soaring. Before I tell you my favorite Hashtags to sprint in, I'll explain how to use twitter to this end. You're going to need Tweet Deck, it's a desktop program that looks like this - See how there are four columns with different content on each? Well, each column is a search I've done for a different Hashtag (anything with a # in front.) I treat each column like a chat room, watching what people say and responding. You can add more ...

All of us bloggers had a 'back in the day' time when we ventured out with our naive little posts praying that someone would read them. We'll, I'm going to be adventurous and post one of those long forgotten articles, ready for a re-hashing with my new followers. So here's a post from my first month of blogging almost a year and a half ago. Enjoy! The Infernal Book List I'm sure you've all seen it, it has plagued the walls of Facebook for sometime now. It has brought on bragging airs and dismal looks. It has made your heart glow and made you want to rip it up in the same moment. It is the top 100 book list. They lure you in by saying most have only read six (a complete and utter lie for any high school graduate) so that you think if you've read twenty-four of the books you've done pretty well. That is, until you see that one friend who has supposedly read eighty of them. Then you feel like, even though you are an avid reader, you have so...