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An Introduction to Ellie Sparks (A Week of Mondays)

ELLISON “ELLIE” SPARKS: An idealistic, ambitious sixteen-year-old junior with a lot on her plate. Those were the first words I ever wrote about Ellie Sparks. They were written in a synopsis for my publisher when I was first trying to sell them on the idea for a book called A WEEK OF MONDAYS. Of course,  … Read more


Books

A Week of Mondays, A Week of Looks!

My new book, A WEEK OF MONDAYS, hits stores on August 2 (WOOT!) and to celebrate, every Monday leading up to release week, I’ll be unveiling one of Ellie’s 7 different “looks” from the story! When Ellie Sparks realizes she’s reliving the same horrible Monday over and over again (in which her boyfriend breaks up with her), she decides  … Read more


Big News Books



A Week of Mondays – Week 11 #BehindTheBook

YAY! I’m back to drafting! If you remember from a previous post, I’d stopped drafting and went back to start revising from the beginning. I feared that I was starting to lose the trail of the story and I needed to start fixing up the first 3/4 of the book before finishing the last 1/4.  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Week 10 #BehindTheBook

I hope everyone’s having a great NaNoWriMo! I’m busying revising away and trying to fill in the countless blanks in my manuscript. Sheehs, Past Jessica! You really left me some big work! Here’s a recap of what I did this week! WEEKLY SUMMARY: Date: 11/5/14 – 11/12/14 Word Count at the end of Last Week:  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Week 9 #BehindTheBook

This week is going to look a little different as I actually stopped drafting and went back to the beginning to start to revise. So the word count is not building, it’s actually getting smaller as I start to cut things and rearrange. So instead of giving you a day-by-day play-by-play, I’m going to sum  … Read more


Behind the Book


A Week of Mondays – Week 5 #BehindtheBook

Wow! Week 5 was a surprisingly good week! As always, below is my weekly summary (with chart!) and my daily breakdowns in case you’re interested in the more day-to-day process of writing. Click on chart to see it bigger. WEEKLY SUMMARY: Date: 10/1/14 – 10/7/14 Weekly Words Written: 14,356 Total Words to Date: 57,993 Number  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Week 4 #BehindtheBook

Week 4 and more than halfway through the rough (emphasis on ROUGH) draft! As always, below is my weekly summary (with chart!) and my daily breakdowns in case you’re interested in the more day-to-day process of writing. And notice the MASSIVE drop in mood this week! YIKES! Click on chart to see it bigger. WEEKLY  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Week 3 #BehindtheBook

Okay, wow. Week 3 is already complete. Sorry for the delay in posting! I can’t believe I’ve been working on this book for nearly a month! It has FLOWN! As always, below is my weekly summary (with chart!) and my daily breakdowns in case you’re interested in the more day-to-day process of writing. Click on  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Week 2 #BehindtheBook

In case, you’re wondering, I’ve switched to posting weekly instead of daily. The daily posts just seemed a bit excessive. However, I’m still recording my daily stats and notes, I’ll just be consolidating them into one weekly post for ease of reading and following. So, in this post, you’ll find my weekly summary (WITH CHART!!!)  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Day 6 #BehindtheBook

Stats: Date: 9/8/14 Words Written: 1492 (Columbus sailed the ocean blue?) Total Words to Date: 10532 (10k! Milestone reached!) Pages Written: 7 Total Pages To Date: 43 Chapters Completed: 2 Total Chapters to Date: 10 Time Elapsed: 1 hour (speedy gonzales!) General Mood (1-10): 8 Notes: WOO HOO! I bounced back today! Bounce Bounce Bounce!  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Day 5 #BehindtheBook

Week 1 is almost over! Here’s my recap for day 5! Stats: Date: 9/7/14 Words Written: 1649 Total Words to Date: 9040 (almost to 10k!) Pages Written: 5 Total Pages To Date: 36 Chapters Completed: 1 Total Chapters to Date: 8 Time Elapsed: 1.5 hours General Mood (1-10): 6 Notes: You’ll notice my word count  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Day 4 #BehindtheBook

Day 4! Stats: Date: 9/6/14 Words Written: 914 Total Words to Date: 7391 Pages Written: 4 Total Pages To Date: 31 Chapters Completed: 1 Total Chapters to Date: 7 Time Elapsed: 1 hour General Mood (1-10): 7 Notes: I’m glad I pushed myself to go beyond my daily word count (1500) the last two days  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Day 3 #BehindtheBook

Day 3! Here we go! Stats: Date: 9/5/14 Words Written: 2622 Total Words to Date: 6477 Pages Written: 10 Total Pages To Date: 27 Chapters Completed: 2 Total Chapters to Date: 6 Time Elapsed: 3.5 hours General Mood (1-10): 7 Notes: Today was my best day so far,  word-count wise, but my lowest “mood” rating.  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Day 2 #BehindTheBook

In case you missed my post yesterday, I’m live blogging (diary style) the progress of writing my new manuscript,  A WEEK OF MONDAYS (which will be released by FSG/Macmillan in Spring 2016), to give fellow writers (and readers) an inside look into my writing process. Click here to read the first post or you can  … Read more


Behind the Book

A Week of Mondays – Day 1 #BehindTheBook

Today I started a new book. It’s technically the 12th book I’ve ever written but the 8th that will be published. (You do the math about my rejection-laden past.) The book is called A WEEK OF MONDAYS. It won’t be out until Spring of 2016. But I get so many questions from fellow writers about  … Read more


Behind the Book