oh, look, it's been another year (more importantly: updates on "Roslyn" and a new page to BI)

 

Hello reader,

Yet again, I have forgotten that Bleeding Ink's anniversary exists (well, more accurately the anniversary of when I first posted; I can't remember the day that I officially considered the construction of the site"done"). It was back on December first. 

I am quite late. 

And I am still not doing anything to celebrate it. But I'll wear a party hat while writing this to pretend that I am. 

Instead of doing anything festive (because I don't see reason to), I want to have an intellectual conversation regarding various events this year that are related to Bleeding Ink. 

A Book Collection + Recent Indie Reads

Early last year, I began an exciting adventure to collect all of the books from certain indie authors. Those authors include...

-Miranda Marie

-Mattie May

-Melody Jackson

-R.M. Archer

And I did it. Almost. I got all but two. And I didn't just get them, I read them. I read all of them. Which isn't saying too much, as that's only nine books, but I still did it. And a fair amount of those books were books that had been on my TBR for years before hand, so this is quite the personal accomplishment. 

These writers all have very different styles and themes and genres, but in good ways. I enjoyed all of them, and I'm very happy to have been able to support them. I also acquired the respective signature for almost every one of them. I only have one that's yet to be signed and I hope to remedy that erelong. I also intend on getting those last two books quite soon. 

I highly recommend you read as many of their books as possible, starting with any one of these authors and with any of their books (though if it is in a series of some sort please for all things decent start with the first book). 

Another indie author I've really been enjoying (thanks to R.M. Archer's recommendation) is Hannah Heath. I've read all of her The Terebinth Tree Chronicles, and I absolutely loved them! I also read her short story Skies of Dripping Gold, which was also very good. 

I also read Healer's Bane by Hope Ann recently, and it was pretty good as well. I did a review on Goodreads, but I may do a more thorough one here explaining why I wasn't a huge fan of Kynet's. Maybe. I don't want it to seem as though I'm dogging on Hope Ann, because I really enjoyed the story, but I think it would make for an interesting discussion. 

A New Page to Bleeding Ink

I was going to hold off sharing this one until I'd read all of the indie books on my TBR, but it's been over a year since I dreamed up this idea and so I'm going to share it now. It's a birthday (sort of) after all. 

The new page will be called "Independent Book Recommendations" and (if you couldn't tell) it'll be a page of indie recs. I'm going to update it every time I have a new indie book that I recommend, and you will be able to give me recommendations, which I will read, and if I like it I will add it to the list in the proper genre and whatnot. 

The goal of this page is to support indie authors, especially (but not limited to) younger authors. So, that page will be up no later than a half hour after this post if it isn't up already. Then tomorrow I will release a post concerning it that I'd appreciate your help with.

Booktube?

A family member suggested that I start a booktube channel (a YouTube channel in which the host talks about books, reviews, releases, interviews, and in some cases their own books). As you can likely tell, I have a hard time keeping up with posting here, so I'm not sure if I'd be consistent on booktube. 

But it might be fun. So I'm tossing the idea around. If you've got any thoughts on this, please do voice them. Well don't voice them, because I can't hear you, but write them. 

The Path to Publication

Would you believe it, I actually have made genuine progress. My novel Roslyn is officially in its second draft! I didn't finish the story all the way through in the first one - so much had changed that it was driving me crazy to continue on. 

So, per a certain wonderful writer's advice, I said "forgeteth this" and promptly began the second draft. Now my alpha is no longer swamped with 119,648-ish words that she has to plow through, and is instead taking it scene by scene as I write it. Which is more fun for me personally, because it's easier to talk about that way. It's also helping me stay accountable with writing, because I'm supposed to have a new scene for her every day. Which is much easier than writing the first draft, because I have something to go off of (though as I said, many things have changed). 

With the momentum I've been carrying, I believe that I may have the rewrite portion of the draft done a little over a month. For finishing the actual story, I'm not sure, but I'm hoping it won't be over a few weeks. For the sake of having something to work towards, I'm going to try to have it done in two months and one week. 

Before we move on to the next subject, here's a comparison of word counts between the first and current drafts as of chapter four:

Draft One: 19,749

Draft Two: 23,144

That's an extra 3,395 words. They literally grow up so fast.

Another Anniversary

Recently, it was also Maple Quill Penning Magic's birthday! So go check that out and wish Maple a happy-belated blog birthday, *or else! 

(*Or else I will be very sad that you didn't because Maple is wonderful and her posts are always lovely and deserving of attention.)

Other Bloggers:

Last year (well actually not "last year" because we're in the new year, but the last anniversary), my anniversary post said something along the lines of

"So let the day go on, and if you can find a spare moment, think of this humble page and use it to remember and appreciate all the writers and authors who started small, and all the writers authors who are, now, still small."

(actually it wasn't "something along the lines of" this, this is exactly what I said, typos and all.)

Well this time I'm not asking you to think about them. I'm asking you to actually go support them. By buying their books (when applicable and if you can), by sharing their blogs, and even just by leaving them a nice comment on their blogs. 

So for that, here's a list of writing bloggers worth your time.

Sarah at The Sarcastic Elf

Christine at Bright Words In Darkened Worlds

Julia at LitAFlame 

Mary at Wild Writing Dreams 

Ariel at Scribes & Archers

Maple at Maple Quill Penning Magic 

Allie at Rainy Days and Stardust Veins 

Adria at The Works of Adria Avalon

Elyra at A Beautiful Journey (Wandering To Find My Way Home)

Mattie at The Blossoming Writer

Jane Maree at Jane Maree Author

A Surprise 

There's something BIG - *clears throat* sorry, I meant BIG - coming this July! July 1st, to be exact. So please do make sure to come back then (or possibly the day before), because I mean it, it really is a pretty big thing (for this Bleeding Ink, at least), you may benefit from it, and I really truly am going to post it on July 1st. 

So.

Come back then if you don't come back tomorrow. 

Conclusion

So I actually didn't wear a party hat while writing this because I did not have a party hat. I did try balancing something on my head for a bit to pretend that was a hat, but it didn't work. So this anniversary goes very much so uncelebrated on my end. Oh well! 

Do you have any thoughts about the above matters? Do you also forget/don't care enough to celebrate birthdays/anniversaries? Do you follow any of those writers I mentioned?  (*eyes you suspiciously* Are you one of those writers I mentioned? If so, you are a good writer/blogger human! Carry on being your awesome self!) If so, I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Ever, 

- Edna Pellen (author of Bleeding Ink for two uneventful years)

P.S. I sadly didn't get any spam comments this year (not one), so I don't have any of those to go over. Please share this blog and post and whatnot so that we can get the attention of scam companies and bots so we can review their comments next anniversary.