Kate Larkindale's Blog

I've read several other books by Jenn Bennett and have always enjoyed them, so when I saw this one, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  And I did enjoy it, despite there being a few things about it that bugged me.
Jane is the daughter of a chauffeur to a wealthy music producer and as such, she's lived a fairly privileged life in the big houses and summer homes he owns.  The summer house is at a lake town that is sleepy and quiet most of the year, but bursts into a hive of activity each summer as the...

 I managed to get a lot out of my short weekend and got everything done that I wanted to, even with having to work half of Saturday.  

I wrote the second story in my story anthology and I'm much happier with it than I am with the first one.  I'm sure I'll need to polish and tweak all of these when I'm done writing, but having something to polish and tweak is a start.

I've written the opening of the third story too, so I have somewhere to launch from when I start writing again on Wednesday.  I'm lo...

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!
Well, sort of.  I do have to work on Saturday because we're running a school holiday program at the museum.  It's going to be crazy - both sessions are sold out with over 350 kids in each. Although, the weather is supposed to be horrible on Saturday, so we may lose a few people to that.
While that's not going to take my whole Saturday, it's definitely going to cut into my leisure time, so writing this weekend might not be as pro...

 

I'm a huge fan of Gloria Chao.  I discovered her first book, American Panda, before it was published and she entered parts of it in a contest I was slush-reading for.  The voice and humor just leapt off the page.  I can't remember if she won the contest or not (I think she did), but it was not a huge surprise when the book was published.

Rent a Boyfriend mines similar ground in that it's about the massive divide between an American-born Chinese girl and her very traditional Chinese parents.

Chloe...

 I drafted my first story for this short story collection over the weekend.  It's not great.  I was on a real roll with it on Saturday, but when I came back to finish it on Sunday, I'd kind of lost what I was trying to do.  I guess I'm so used to writing fast flash fiction where the story just comes out in a burst, stopping in the middle was kind of a mistake.  On the plus side, I know what I need to do to fix it.

My goal this week is to write at least one, probably two more stories.  The timefra...

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?
It's the weekend!
I have some writing stuff to do, so I'm glad I'm not away or otherwise occupied this weekend.  I signed up for a writing challenge where you have to write a short story of up to 2500 words for each song on an album.  As someone who has been quite obsessive about music since I was young, this was a challenge I couldn't pass up!  It closes at the end of June, so I have just over 2 months to write my stories - 14, because the reco...

I really enjoyed a previous book by Amber Smith, so when I saw this on the shelf at the library, I jumped.  And I was not disappointed.
Brooke feels like her life is about to begin for real.  She's been accepted at a great school for her last two years of high school and feels like she is finally on track to live her dream: get a college scholarship and get out of town.  She has the grades and the drive and nothing is going to stop her.
Then her mother is arrested after murdering her father.  
It'...

 It's a concert week this week, so it's going to be busy at work.  Especially with the short week.  Plus, I'm teaching an extra class at a different gym as well.

As a result, I'm nt going to put a lot of pressure on myself with goals.  I planted a whole bunch of new stuff out the front of my house, so my goal is to keep it alive if I can.   I haven't had a great track record in that particular part of the garden and picked plants that I think will be hardy enough to survive the winter, but they w...

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!  And it's a long one!  Four days because of Easter.
I have a few things I need to do over the long weekend.  When my house got painted, the painters wrecked my garden with their ladders so I had to pull everything out.  This weekend I'm going to get some new plants and get them in the ground.  I also have a screenplay to read for a friend and give notes on.  Plus, a monthly flash fiction challenge to write and maybe start the n...

 It's 1 April so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for this  posting of the IWSG are Melissa Maygrove, Cathrina Constantine, Kate Larkindale, and Rebecca Douglass!

This month's question is an interesting one:

If you have a playlist (or could put one together) that either gets you in the groove to write or fits with one of your books, what is it? What type of music or what songs?

I usually don't listen to music while I'm writing, and if I do, I listen to music wit...