Sign up for Melanie's newsletter --> Sign me up!
The first step in setting goals is to figure out what you want to accomplish. You probably already have ideas knocking around in your head, so WRITE THEM DOWN. It doesn’t matter if these goals feel too lofty or aspirational or impossible. If it’s what you want, make it a goal. Want to learn to knit? Get it on paper. Got hankering to play the guitar? You know what to do. Need to lose the quaran-fifteen? Set down the Cheezits and add it to the list.
Christina Herrera has always loved romance. Even as a child she would make up romantic plots with her older sisters as part of her bedtime stories. As she grew up, she remained fascinated by storytelling. When she was nineteen years old, she authored her first book. Ever since then she knew what she wanted to do in life: read, edit, and write down all of her romantic stories.
I’ve heard it said that people with high-functioning anxiety—like myself—did really well the first few months of the pandemic and shelter-at-home orders, but by the end of the summer, it all caught up to me (which I discussed a bit in my last post.) While a lot of it can be blamed on the constant, low-level stress that’s been a part of all of our lives, quite a bit of it is because of bad habits I’ve allowed myself to fall into. I know we’re supposed to be cutting ourselves some slack during all this, but we don’t know how much longer our lives will be in this altered state and I feel like my options are to either keep floundering or adjust to this new normal.
In January 2020, I declared this to be The Year of Being in the Moment. Today that feels almost prophetic, but at the time it was nothing more than a reminder to myself to focus on what’s truly important. My friends and family, my health, the little things that bring me joy. I started the year by training for and then performing in my community’s Dancing With the Local Stars, then in early March we vacationed in Key West with our best friends. We traveled home (BY PLANE!! ON MARCH 12!!) as the country slowly came to grips with what we were facing.
Like the rest of the world, our world suddenly shrank to within the walls of our house.
We were very much living in the moment.
Kelly deVos’s work has been featured in the New York Times as well as on Vulture, Salon, Bustle and SheKnows. Her debut novel, Fat Girl on a Plane, was named one of the “50 Best Summer Reads of All Time” by Reader’s Digest magazine. Her second book, Day Zero, is available now from Inkyard Press/HarperCollins.
Stephanie Scott writes young adult and romance about characters who put their passions first. Her debut ALTERATIONS about a fashion-obsessed loner who reinvents herself was a Romance Writers of America RITA® award finalist. FALLING INTO PLACE is sweet second chance romance part of a multi-author series. She also has a short story in the YA anthology WELCOME HOME from Flux Books and a holiday romance in TIS THE SEASON FOR LOVE, a limited release box set out on Oct 14. She enjoys dance fitness, everything cats, and has a slight obsession with Instagram. A Midwest girl at heart, she resides outside of Chicago with her tech-of-all-trades husband and fuzzy furbabies.
Writers’ block is as much a part of writing as actually writing, and the reasons for getting stuck could fill an entire book (eh, see what I did there?). For centuries writers have commiserated over the shared misery of being stuck, or not knowing what comes next and having no idea how to work themselves out of a proverbial corner.
Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event gives readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! On this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize—one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team!
KEVIN CRAIG is the author of contemporary young adult fiction (Summer on Fire, Burn Baby Burn Baby, Half Dead & Fully Broken, and, Pride Must Be A Place) and contemporary adult fiction with young narrators (Sebastian’s Poet and The Reasons). THE CAMINO CLUB is their seventh novel. It is forthcoming from Duet Books, the YA imprint of Interlude Press (October, 2020).
It should not come as a shock to anyone who knows me that I’m terrible at resting. Pausing. Catching my breath. (And that’s despite having the word breathe tattooed on my wrist.)