Tag: books

Personal Life · Writing

Errant Plots and Acccepted Proposals

Kara Jorgensen3 Comments

The other day I received an email from the director of my graduate program that my thesis proposal was approved! Not only that, but she wanted the file to use as an example of what a proper MFA thesis proposal should look like. I beamed with pride for most of the day, and I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. In the fall, I will officially begin my thesis and finish up with my MFA in May of 2016, which really means I’ll be going into book three full force as soon as possible.

Part of the reason I hoped my proposal would pass in one shot is that I am trying very hard to separate myself from what I wrote in it about book three. For the professors to approve your proposal, you need to show that you have your shit together and are really prepared to take on a big project and actually finish it, so you have to provide a lot of info about your work even if you really haven’t thought it through yet. It’s all subject to change (thank god), but I had to do quite a bit of cooking up of ideas in a brief amount of time. Now, my very anal analytical side wants to take all of my half-assed ideas from the proposal and check them off, but I know it won’t turn out well. The ideas I wrote down aren’t forming the story I would like to read.

Because of this, I know I need to take a step back and re-evaluate my ideas and where the story is going. It’s been on the backburner for about three weeks while I was working on classwork, but now that the semester is wrapping up, I can finally go back to it. It feels great to be able to finally go back to my writing after a self-imposed hiatus, yet it’s daunting knowing that I need to figure this out before moving forward.

My writing style is somewhere between plotting and flying by the seat of my pants. I don’t like to plot the whole thing out, but I need to know where I’m going before I begin writing a chapter. This system gives me structure but allows for fluidity and for my characters to stretch their legs a bit.

At the moment, I feel a bit lost with The Earl and the Artificer. I have a few chapters done, which are shaping up to be a good foundation, but it feels like an insurmountable task to figure out where I’m going.  The good thing is, I say this every time I begin working on a new book and by 10,000 words in, I’m usually fairly on my feet. I don’t think the anxiety goes away until I’m two chapters away from finishing it.

I’m also back to reading historical fiction again, which always seems to help. I’ll be outlining and diagramming and creating monstrosities that look more like summoning circles than outlines, but now that my proposal has been accepted and my final paper is well under way, I should be able to finally get into book three. I plan to keep everyone posted on the writing process and what I discover along the way with research or writing or myself, but first and foremost, I must write.

Writing

10 Bookish Confessions

Kara Jorgensen7 Comments

To prove that I am a human being and to hopefully connect with my readers, I occasionally like to do “about me” posts. This time, I thought I would write ten book-related confessions about myself. Seems fitting for a blog about writing and books… and writing books.

  1. My favorite classic is Jane Eyre. I read it in 2013, and I was in love with Jane and Rochester (especially Rochester). Since then, I think I’ve read bits and pieces of it about four times. There’s something about a man whose ugly-handsome, scandalous, and willing to dress as a woman just to troll his date(s).
  2. I have a bracelet of some of my favorite novels. Yes, I’m a lit nerd, so much so that I commissioned an artist on Etsy to make a charm bracelet for me of my favorite books. The books in the pic are The Night Circus, The Mummy by Anne Rice, Jane Eyre, Souless, Frankenstein, and Johannes Cabal: Necromancer.bracelet
  3. My pets names have a literary theme. My dog’s name is Edgar, after Edgar Allan Poe. My cat’s name is Sherlock (Holmes), even though he’s more like a pudgy, blundering Watson, and my other cat, who passed when he was a kitten, was named Erik after the Phantom of the Opera.
  4. My favorite type of writing is that which is sensual and well-written. I love great plots and I love characters that grow, but what really draws me into a work is being immersed in it body and soul. I want to see it, I want to hear it, I want to experience every emotion that character is feeling. If the sentences aren’t good or the writing is flat, it immediately drops to three stars in my mind.
  5. My preferred format of book is paperback. I’m warming up to ebooks, but a paperback is still my favorite way to read a book. I like to hold it, display it, let others borrow it, and show it off, and with ebooks, I can’t do that. I tend to not read hardcovers because they’re cumbersome to lug around. My bag already is cripplingly heavy, and a two pound book doesn’t help. Also, I just find their bulk harder to hold. That and the ever shifting and sliding book sleeve.
  6. I’m a book-finisher. I can probably count one hand the books I’ve put away permanently because they were so bad. No matter how god-awful the book is, I feel the need to finish it. It may be cutting off my nose to spite my face, but there’s a part of me that still hopes the book will get better. Plus, no one can tell me that I missed the good part. No, my review stands because I read and finished the book.
  7. I will read erotica or romance, but I hate naked people on book covers. It’s a pet peeve of mine. I know sex sells, but not to me. I hate half-naked men and women equally. I don’t want to see your giant man-pecks or your pert derriere. An understated cover that is closer to sensual or intriguing than arousing is more my style. I tend to avoid books like that. This is also why I am on the look out for a better version of Teleny. I am embarrassed by the cover (not only half-naked but hideously drawn).
  8. Of my two books thus far, The Winter Garden is my favorite. I know we aren’t supposed to have favorite children, but I really, really love book two more than book one. There’s been so much personal and professional growth since I wrote The Earl of Brass, but I also just love the characters. Out of all of my characters, I think I connect the most with Immanuel. The Winter Garden is also a much darker story, and as a writer, I thoroughly enjoy writing twisted characters and delving into some rather complex emotions.
  9. I have a thing for fancy bookmarks yet rarely use them. I love fancy bookmarks. Ones with tassels, fabric ones, paper ones, metal ones, ones that are silly, ones that are artsy. It doesn’t matter, I want them. Oddly, I tend to use scraps of paper or folded post-its most often. Over the years, I’ve lost a lot of beautiful bookmarks, so now, I’m afraid I’ll lose them. Currently, I’m actually using adorable silicone seedling bookmarks my cousin got me.
  10. My favorite genres are: historical fiction, historical fantasy, and Gothic horror. When I say Gothic horror, I’m thinking like Dorian Gray or Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Horror with some upper class panache. If the book has a tie to the past and is able to submerge me in it from cover to cover, I’m sold.

Well, there you go. Ten bookish things about the Awkward Authoress.

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Writing

Rediscovering My Inner Reader

Kara Jorgensen5 Comments

One of the things I remember clearly about my senior year of high school was how many books I read. I devoured book after book. Mysteries, suspense thrillers, classics, it didn’t matter. If I owned it, I read it, and I plowed through my to-be-read pile faster than ever. Then college happened. A double major, papers, assignments, studying anatomy and novels, and taking between six and eight classes a semester took their toll.  When could I squeeze in time for reading? I couldn’t. Even the summers I used to get ahead in my fall literature classes. Reading for fun was but a memory.

In November, the little nagging voice in the back of my head began to call out, “Read something! Read something!” So of course, I started to sort through my books for grad school and realized I had finished my reading list early. With a pang of guilt, I picked up a book I had been meaning to read since I got it for my birthday. It was the first time I had read a book during the school year in ages. It was like a sigh of relief. No having to constantly analyze the text (though I tend to do that passively anyway), no deadlines, no books I didn’t want to read.

When the semester at the university began again, I thought that was the end of my pleasure reading since I surely wouldn’t have time for it. Most people who stop reading for pleasure say it’s due to a lack of time, but I began to find times when I could read the books I wanted. Here are some ideas for reviving your inner reader:

  1. Read during your commute. Thinking back to senior year of high school, I realized a lot of my reading was on the bus to and from school. Nowadays, I drive myself to the university, so sadly, there’s no reading during my commute, but if you take a bus or train to work or school, bring a book.
  2. Before bed. An oldie but a goodie. You know when you’re playing on your computer when you know you’re past the point of doing anything productive and even Candy Crush is beyond your capabilities? Put the computer away and settle into bed maybe half an hour earlier than usual. It’s amazing how thirty minutes can accumulate into a book or two a month.
  3. Get a Kindle or a Kindle app for your phone. It can be hard to tote around a hard cover or even a paperback novel, but with a Kindle or Kindle app for your phone, your library is always on hand. If you have some free time on your lunch break or between tasks, you can open your book and continue where you left off. You’d probably reach for your phone anyway when boredom sets in, so why not read? Some books even let you download the ebook for free if you buy the paperback, which means you can read it even if you accidentally left the paperback at home.
  4. Read a book you actually want to read. Not to be a hipster, but I rarely like the books everyone is clamoring about. Twilight? Hated it. 50 Shades? Pointless. A Discovery of Witches? Not my taste. Instead of reading what everyone else is reading or what your friend suggested, go to the bookstore (or Amazon) and look for a book that actually catches your interest. You can also preview a book on Amazon, so if you start reading it and are hooked, download it. Nothing is worse than trudging through a book you hate, and it’s much easier to get into a book and make time for it when you actually want to read it.
  5. Read in the bathroom. I can already hear the resounding ewww. Do you go on Facebook or Twitter on your phone while you’re doing your morning routine or are taking a bath? If so, then get on that Kindle app. I’m a supporter of bathroom reading. As a caveat, I only read MY books in the bathroom, no books borrowed from friends are allowed. That’s just part of the book borrower’s honor code.

Most of these are really simple and probably very obvious, but as someone who read over a thousand pages over the course of two months by reading at night, in the bathroom, and between tasks, I can say that it all adds up. At the end of the day when you think you’re too mentally exhausted to do anything, you may find that reading will actually reduce stress and help to settle you down for the night.

The TL;DR version is find a book you want to read and you’ll find that there are gaps in your day when you can squeeze in reading, you just have to want to do it.

Personal Life · Writing

The Anxieties of the Awkward Authoress

Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

Fears…

Most of us probably have a list of fears that we keep tucked close, hidden where they cannot be seen, where others cannot seek to infiltrate and destroy us.  I’m pretty open with a lot of my fears.  In the past I have wondered if there was anyone else who felt the same way I did, so by sharing my experiences, I hope I can spare someone that feeling.  This weekend, I confronted one of my main fears– social anxiety.

I feel I am getting better about dealing with a lot of people in one area.  It’s odd, I can go around New York City, moving shoulder to shoulder with the crowd, but when the crowd is vying for my attention and wants to talk (and go off script), it’s hard to deal with.  At my university, I worked two events, one Saturday and one Sunday. Sunday’s event was an open-house, which I’ve done several times already, but Saturday was my first writer’s conference.  Luckily, I was only manning the sign-in desk along with the other graduate assistant. Unfortunately, I forgot the signs I printed earlier in the week, which threw me off, but thank god, there was a script I repeated about eighty times that day.

For the rest of the day, it was smooth sailing, but when I got home, I threw myself down and took a two and a half hour nap to recharge. I should really say surrendered to the nap. I don’t think I could have stopped it.  That’s what happens quite often with social anxiety. Dealing with other people is stressful. They’re unpredictable, sometimes rude, pushy. More than often, they’re none of the aforementioned things, but one never knows when they’ll surprise you.

In May, I’m doing a reading and small seminar at the Steampunk World’s Fair, and of course, I’m worried about it. I worry about not making a good impression or that I’ll be dreadfully boring. Will I stutter or will they hate my books?  If more than a handful of people show up, will I freak out? Of course I will. I’ll bring water and coffee and possibly a bag to hyperventilate into, but I won’t stop myself from doing my reading.  Probably a dozen times I’ve asked myself why I signed-up to do a reading. I’m a nobody author with a tiny following.  I know at least two people will show up, and if more than that comes, I’ll be eternally grateful.  As a writer, my biggest fear is that they’ll hate my books. As a person, my biggest fear is I’ll make an ass of myself. Honestly, they aren’t too far from each other.

No matter how many times I read aloud or do group events, the fear is still there. I’m hoping that practicing every few days for about three weeks leading up to the reading will help to lessen my fears. Pretending not to be an anxiety-ridden introvert takes a lot of energy, and I’m beginning to wonder how long I’ll sleep after the Steampunk World’s Fair.

On the topic of the Steampunk World’s Fair, I’m supposed to have a short story in a you pay what you want bundle along with several other artists and musicians.  When I get more information about the bundle or what day I’ll be giving my reading, I will let you know, but for now, if you want to get a ticket, which is good for Friday to Sunday, please go here.

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Writing

Am I a Poly-reader?

Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

book pileFor most of my life, I have considered myself a monogamous reader and writer. I’ll plow through one book at a time, no matter how painful or long it is.  Occasionally exceptions would be made for short stories or poems I needed to read for class (one deals with these things often as an English major), but I would take novels one at a time.

Then, grad school happened.  Looking back now, I wonder how I was able to finagle it that I rarely had to worry about reading two novels simultaneously as an undergrad, but in grad school, I have found it is next to impossible to anticipate what you will end up reading for class.  Continue reading “Am I a Poly-reader?” →

Writing

March 2015 in Review

Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

Starting in January, I decided it would be a good idea to look back at each month and see what I have accomplished in my writing and marketing as well as reflect upon what needs to be improved in the future.

While February was a transitional month as I switched from working on The Winter Garden to book three of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices, March was nearly wholly devoted to my latest project.  Beginning to work on book three has been a refreshing change even if it did take nearly half a month.  I feel much better about March than I did about February, and I hope that April will be even better. Continue reading “March 2015 in Review” →

Writing

Projects, Projects, Projects

Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

Hi everyone,

This will be a short blog post before I run up to the university for the night.

You may have noticed the new banner at the top of my page.  I decided to go to Fiverr and get a logo made for the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series, which hopefully will be used in the future for t-shirts or mugs at events and down the line a table banner for when I do author events. Honestly, I love it. I have been gushing over it for the past two days and am dying to go to Cafepress and make up a t-shirt or something.  I’m easily excitable at times.

The second point I would like to mention is: The Winter Garden is still doing well on Amazon! The ebook and paperback launched last Sunday, and the response has been quite good. I have 4 reviews thus far, all 5s or 4s, and if you are interested in reading it, please check it out here. I’ll do a post about the reviews after I get a few more, so in a week or two.

On to the next: I have finished my thesis proposal! It is done! All I need to do is finish the bibliography, which I’m just too lazy to compile because it’s time consuming and I’m waiting for two books to come in the mail.  In a few weeks, I will turn it in and wait for the committee to hopefully approve it. The project will be book #3 of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series, but if you want a little hint as to what I am up to, you can check out the Pinterest board for it here. With school and miscellaneous projects, it has been a slow go, but in a month or two, my writing should pick up.

My final piece of mind vomit is, projects! I feel like as soon as I half-think of one project, another one pops up in my mind.  If you are a fan of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series, I can already let you know that there will be a third book (Eilian and Hadley), a fourth book (Emmeline, Immanuel, Adam), and a book in between, which will contain two novellas (Adam and Immanuel and one focusing on Emmeline) and possibly a few short stories that will fall somewhere between books two and four.  Stay tuned for more news down the line.  I hope you all are as excited as I am.

Personal Life · Writing

Why I Love Julie and Julia

Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

There is something that resonates with me when I watch Julie and Julia.  I cannot count how many times I have watched this movie.  Probably thirty times since it came out.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about Julia Child’s journey from housewife in France to chef while Julie Powell, a blogger, goes through a personal journey to find herself as she spends a year going through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Both Julie and Julia are told that what they are doing is pointless and a waste of time because they will never be like -insert professional-. Luckily, both, especially Julia Child, have this kick-ass attitude. Tell me I can’t do it and watch me do it and succeed. Continue reading “Why I Love Julie and Julia” →

Writing

Silly Writer Goals

Kara Jorgensen8 Comments

As writers, we all have real goals, like publish X amount of books a year or finish book three by next March.  Things that are very tangible and very practical.  I can rattle off a few of my real goals: I want to publish book three of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series in a timely manner (aka within a year), start my fantasy series soon after or while working on book three, and to get my thesis proposal accepted in April.

Then, there are goals that are a little less… professional? I think we all have the secret desire that our books will be made into movies or that certain characters will be loved by all. Here are a few of my own silly goals: Continue reading “Silly Writer Goals” →

Writing

The Winter Garden has Launched!

Kara Jorgensen6 Comments

wg proof 1kindle wgThe Winter Garden, book two in the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series, has officially launched in ebook or paperback, which can be purchased here.  The ebook is still 99 cents for a limited time.

Okay, now that the shameless self-promotion is out of the way, I want to thank everyone who pre-ordered a copy or will buy one in the future. Writers are nothing without readers, and I have been made to feel loved by my readers and appreciate everyone and anyone who has ever asked when the next book was coming out or how they could help me promote my work or left a review. Continue reading “The Winter Garden has Launched!” →