Jennie Bennett, Romance Author

Fifty books in twenty-fifteen starts now! I only read two books in January, but I started my challenge late. Both these titles were fantastic, which gives me so much hope for an incredible year ahead. Let's get to it, shall we? Remake, Ilima Todd Let me just say, as an author, I wouldn't touch this subject with a ten foot pole. A lot of questions are asked through this story. What is choice? What is gender? What defines a gender? What defines a person? Does the way we look have an influence on our choices? Ilima took all these issues head on, and tackled them beautifully. More than just asking these important questions, Ilima tells a deeply personal story about girl who doesn't really know where she fits in her world, and has no idea what choices she wants to make. All the ideas presented in this novel are still floating around my head. I never once felt like I was being told how to think. Rather, I felt like the character was simply learning from the life that was ...

Honestly, I don't know what possessed me to do it. Three years ago I wrote a book poorly about a girl who could use natural disasters in an X-men kinda way. I named it Stealing the Stars, edited part of the first chapter, then gave up on it. I think the original word count was around 40K. It had all kinds of plot twists that didn't make sense, and it ended very abruptly. I'm pretty sure I even ended it in the middle of a sentence. Kidding . I wrote some other books after that one. Most notably, Existence. Which was also poorly written. And What Not to Do When You're Falling in Love. I queried both books with marginal success--meaning I received small press offers--which I ended up not taking. At the time it felt like the world was ending to turn down those contracts, but I'm glad I did. I wasn't ready yet. In between those two books, I decided to write Stealing the Stars again. The book about the girl with the natural disaster thing. Once more, it d...

I know. It's a tad late to hop on the book challenge wagon, but last year I tried to do one and failed miserably. I think I only read fifteen books last year. That's just not acceptable for an author, so I'm going to step up my game. My twenty-fifteen goal is fifty books. Two years ago, I completed that challenge by blogging mini-reviews every month.  So what guess what? My mini-reviews are making a comeback for twenty-fifteen! To some of you, fifty books isn't a lot, but I don't read that fast, and I have a side obsession Kdramas which takes up a lot of my time. However, with the right books, I'll be able to do it. Wish me luck for the year!  What are you reading?

Every writer daydreams about the perfect cover. The one that speaks to the audience and yells, "BUY ME!" Well, folks, I'd like to make that cover for you. For the past year or so, I've been interested in cover design. I've made quite a few poor attempts at an amazing cover, but I have yet to make a home run. What I feel like I lack---more than anything---is experience. I've daydreamed plenty of my own covers, but I have yet to work with an author one-on-one and think outside of myself. This is where you, dear reader, come in. I'm giving away a FREE cover design, or re-design. This is not going to be a drawing. This is going to be about whoever is interested in working with me as a serious cover designer. I want to take someone's vision, bring it to life, and tweek it until they find it satisfactory. Whomever accepts my offer is under no obligation to use the cover I create. It's about me gaining experience in a field I'd like to capi...

It's been like FOREVER since I've done a bloghop. I just happened to see this one on G+, being hosted by my two favorite Krista's , and I thought, why not? Here's the deets: Share 400 words or less to about a real villain, one you created in a novel, or a flash fiction. Your villain doesn't have to be necessarily a murderer or stalker, but any anti-hero in your writing will work just fine! I decided to go with Flash Fiction since it's been a while. Really, it's good to exercise that part of my brain. Win-win. *** “Did you really think it would be that easy?” Hunter says, dangling the watch in front of my face. I hold my breath. One wrong move and the watch could break, destroying our time. Hunter knows that better than anyone, but he swings it anyway. “I’m sorry,” I say, falling to my knees.  Dust puffs from the floor, a rat skittering to its hideout. All the clocks in the room start to ring. Their phantom song dwarfing all conv...

This past weekend, my husband's uncle and his family came to visit us. Houston is HUGE and there's a lot to see. We gave them a list of ideas and let them decide what they wanted to do. Sunday morning came, bright and clear with prefect temperatures. They really wanted to see NASA, and I suggested we could walk the beach in the evening. Not everything works out as planned. We arrived at NASA, pulled over to the little park out front, and had a conference. It dawned on us in that moment just how expensive a day at NASA would be and how beautiful the sunshine was. So instead of walking around indoors and looking at  cool space stuff, we decided to go straight to the beach. Because the excursion was mostly unplanned, we came unprepared. We didn't have food. We didn't have water. We didn't have sunscreen. None of us had brought our bathing suits. Some of us were in long pants. Some of us were in long sleeves, but we went anyway. It was kind of silly, going to ...

I don't profess to be an expert in writing. I've learned a lot over the years, but I believe there's always more to learn. Each time I sit down to write, I'm constantly asking myself questions. Do the words flow? Is this the right word? Does this make my point clear? Is there enough mystery? Is the mystery so thick the reader is lost? I have my own methods to keeping my writing strong, but my way doesn't work for everyone. The brilliant thing about reading is that there are so many differences in the way people write, you can be transported into a character's head and consider the world in a way you never would've before. However, it never hurts to have tips about how other writers improve themselves. Even if the advice isn't spot on, it can generate ideas about new ways to look at things. That being said, we'll move on to the meat of this post--visualization. I recently finished reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I got completely sucke...