I posted my first review to this site. I had been spamming all my friends and family with one to two YA reviews a week on our family blog. The poor things subscribed to see cute pictures of my baby girl, and I was inundating them with talk of books. Teen books, no less.

In the past year, I’ve learned a lot from you, from other book bloggers, from the books I’ve read, and just from the process of articulating my thoughts on all things YA. But mostly I’ve just learned how much I have yet to learn.

Ultimately, I started this blog to improve my writing, and to share what I learned with others. In a year, I can tell you I’ve definitely come a long way in my own writing.

But you’ll have to tell me whether I hit the mark on the other front. What have you learned from what I’ve written? (Please don’t say you’ve learned that I’m a no-nothing hack with crap taste in books.) What ideas have you gotten from this blog—books to read, ways to write, or anything else?

You are why I do this. Even if all I’ve ever given you is one good book recommendation, I’ll be happy.

No fancy first-birthday hoopla today. But just you wait til Thursday. Just you wait.

Photo by happy via.

After the craziness of this year’s NaNoWriMo, I decided to put myself on a writing hiatus for the month of December. But the thing with hiatuses (hiati?) is that one day, they end.

With January nipping at my heels, I’ve started thinking about what I’ll tackle first. The options:

• Pick up where I left off in the third rewrite of last year’s NaNo novel. Currently at 6,421 words in the rewrite, compared to 51,358 in the first draft.
• Read this year’s novel and start revisions.

Even though I have about 90% left to go in my rewrite of last year’s novel, the logical thing would be to go back to that because at least I’m on the third rewrite and not the first one.

But—please don’t tell my first novel—I’m not sure the spark is there anymore. This new hussy of a novel sashayed her way into my life, and every time I think about my first January of the aught persuasion, it’s her I imagine spending it with.

I’m just afraid that if I don’t go back to my first now, I never will.

Who should win out: Logic or love?

Photo by Anna Gay.

I’m going to take a couple days off to celebrate and sleep and say more than two words at a time to my family. But until normal life resumes, I had to share this with everyone who’s been cheering me on from afar.

I didn’t even hit 10,000 words until November 20th. But then I went and finished a day early.

Although, for future reference, I can’t say I’d recommend the “80% in 10 days” technique. Squeezing those last few thousand from my poor, numb fingers was more painful than…I don’t know what. I just wrote enough metaphors for a year, so I have none left for you right now.

Thanks to everyone who cheered me on. But a special thanks to my hubby Erik for taking the lion’s share of parenting duties these last 10 days so I could live out my dream of being a Comeback Queen.

Final official total: 50,079.

My efforts for NaNoWriMo this year have been less than ideal. A cold that traveled from one family member to another and an out-of-town work conference conspired to bring me down. But I’m determined to not give up.

Days Left: 9
Words Written: 12,159
Words Left to Write: 37,841
Approximate Number of Hours That Equates To: 38

I plan to write at least 8 hours a day tomorrow and both days next weekend, then that leaves only 14 hours in 6 weekdays. Thank goodness I have use-it-or-lose-it vacation hours I can burn next week.

After I finish this novel—and I will finish—then I can tackle the stack of finished but unreviewed books on my kitchen counter.

I’ve just hit a string of awesome books. Reviews are forthcoming, but the titles don’t really matter. What matters is that the writing is so good, it hurts.

Let me explain. I’m currently slogging away at my third attempt to rewrite last year’s NaNoWriMo first draft. Meanwhile, this year’s NaNoWriMo is reading the revisions over my shoulder, biding its time to kick my work in progress out of the way. So when I’m reading and a brilliant piece of writing makes me stop in awe, my very next thought is: “I’ll never be this good.”

Sure, no one’s that good on their first draft. What about their third draft? Does Laurie Halse Anderson see inklings of her final masterpiece by the third draft? Because in my third draft, no inklings. The voice isn’t fresh. The style is middle-of-the-road. And as I discovered in a writing workshop this weekend, my descriptions are practically nonexistent. When I do add description, it’s certainly nowhere along the lines of what I most admire:

I shiver and hustle to my sad excuse of a motor vehicle, a Yugo named Bert.

I usually drive to school on autopilot. Not today—leaving late has landed me smack in the middle of rush-hour traffic. This is bad. Bert fears traffic. Bert is a wuss, a tissue box on tires with a bulimic hunger for motor oil. I pet the dashboard as I turn onto the main road, and promise him a filter change if he can get me to school without overheating.

A bulimic hunger for motor oil? Dang.

Maybe I shouldn’t be comparing myself to the likes of LHA and Suzanne Collins and Melina Marchetta. But I want to write something that I think is great. If I think what I’ve created is just okay, why bother putting it out into the world?

If I’m being honest with myself, my writing is sometimes good, sometimes mediocre, sometimes bad. I can find the mediocre and bad patches and fix them. But how do you take yourself from good to great?

In my book reviews, I try to articulate what I admired and didn’t enjoy about each book, in the hopes that the process will help me with my own writing (and yours as well). And it is helping, for me at least. But not enough. I need to do something more proactive to take my writing to the next level. But I have no idea how to do that. Help!

Your Turn: What steps have you taken to get your writing to the next level?

Photo by timcmak.