Book Rec: DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE By Laini Taylor

You guys, you guys, you guys...I just can't say how much I enjoyed this book. The word that comes most often to mind is "entralling." And I was. Completely. Thank goodness there'll be a sequel. I can't recommend this book enough. The language, the story, the heartbreak...so beautiful and so very unique and different. Read it now. You won't regret it. This is my first Laini Taylor book, but I'm quite certain it won't be the last!

From Goodreads...
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Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
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Merry Christmas!

Sorry for the lack of posting guys, but it's been a hectic couple of weeks. But stay tuned, because I've got my first ever blog contest coming up for New Years. I'll be giving away an Advanced Readers Copy of both TEMPEST by Julie Cross and ARTICLE FIVE by Kristen Simmons.Trust me, you'll want to read both. They're fantastic.

In the meantime, however, hope you have a merry holiday. Be safe and, as always, happy writing!

The Best Revision Advice You'll Ever Receive

Okay, so the title of this blog is probably not true, but I just finished the latest round of revisions on my work-in-progress and sent it off to my Agent of Awesome (aka Suzie). And now I'm feeling very...practical. Yes, that's right. Rather than be on cloud 9, I'm more on cloud 3, also known as the "cloud of good job but we're nowhere finsihed with this manuscript yet."

So this blog should be titled the most pragmatic revision advice you'll ever receive.

Are you read? It's going to blow your mind, I promise.

Okay here it is:

Version Control

Yep, you should version your revisions. What do I mean by this? Well, when you write your first draft, label it something like "Super_Awesome_Novel_draft1. Then when you start your first revision, make a copy of draft 1 and label it "Super_Awesome_Novel_draft2." Make sense?

So why is this practical advice? Because it gives you a way to undo changes if you need to. Sometimes when I'm revising I realize that something I wrote in the first draft but deleted in the second would work really well in the third. This has actually happened in every novel I've ever written. Sometimes it's something as simple as a single turn of phrase or sentence, sometimes an entire scene. Either way, it's a great way to avoid duplicating work.

So there you have it. I guess the real title of this blog should be the most boring (but still useful) revision advice you'll ever receieve.

Happy Writing!