I'm Back! Seriously!

So, in my last post, which was in mid-July (I'm ashamed to say) predicted exactly what happened to me this past summer. I said that once I got my job, I'd be too busy and less focused on my writing... and like I said, that's exactly what happened. I enjoyed making money this summer and I certainly don't mind having some money put away as I work my way into my sophomore year at UMass Amherst, but I'm still bummed that the roll I was on quickly came to a halt.

I'm living on campus now and I have classes and two jobs, but I haven't forgotten about Catching Up to You. I've had so many ideas not only for Catching Up to You, but also for the sequels to it. I've already got a clear plan as to where Kendall and Colt's stories will go through their respective high school and college careers. And I'm just itching to finally get it all written down.

NaNoWriMo is coming up and although you're not supposed to use work that you've already started, I think I'm going to use the opportunity to just get some of Catching Up to You cranked out. It's going to need more than 50,000 words to finish it anyway... so it's not really cheating... really.

So, I'm off to rewrite an outline... and next Tuesday, I'll hopefully have a brand new teaser!

A Butterfly, a Job, and an Outline...

First off, look at this butterfly I saw in my front yard! I took this picture on my cell phone and I was pretty impressed with the quality... not going to lie. :-)

I live way, way, way in the boonies of my city in Massachusetts where we don't have cell phone service AT ALL. We're in the middle of the forest, so I come outside often to the chirping of birds and butterflies (and moths, and beetles, and ugly little fly things). So that's why I snapped this!

So, in other news, I finally found a job! My aunt hooked me up with the company she works for and I'll be starting as a temp (just doing filing and what not) sometime next week!

On one hand, I'm excited because I need the money hard core, but on the other hand, I'm kind of worried about "Catching Up to You". I was hoping I could get most of it, if not all of it, done this summer so that I could just worry about editing/revising while at school next semester. But I'll be working from 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM... Yeah.

So, I thought I'd finally give in and create an outline for my story. It's something I've never done before, but I figured it would help me keep track of where I want my story to go and ultimately help me get it done faster. I used this method by Rachel Vincent that I found through Ellen Faith. It's super fun and easy and I like the look of it hanging on my wall!

So, there ya have it! I wrote a little over a thousand words yesterday and I'm hoping to get a little bit more than that cranked out today (maybe 2000?) now that I have a clear idea of where I'm going with it. I also hope to finish up my swaps on Inkpop today. So... wish me luck!!!

Catching Up to You

Catching Up to You is the reason I'm starting up this blog. It's the first novel I've ever felt confident enough in to begin the process of trying to get published. Here's a quick synopsis of the book!

~*~

The greatest love stories are long and historic.

Next-door neighbors Kendall Marks and Colt Benson have been friends forever and for Colt, being four years Kendall's senior, this has always been good enough.

But Colt is having a bad year. He finds out there may have been something more behind his father leaving his mom than needing some space. He gets arrested and his acceptance to Berklee is revoked as a result. And to make everything worse he finds out his girlfriend, Stacy, is pregnant.

Kendall's life, on the other hand, is peachy. She's chosen to be one of the first test students in the high school's accelerated academics program and boys are actually giving her the time of day for a change.

So when Colt unexpectedly ends up attending the local community college instead of going off to Berklee, he and Kendall become closer than ever. As Colt begins to suspect that Stacy's baby isn't his and his mother may have been misleading him for years, Kendall begins to seem like the only stable force in his life.

Will Colt start to see Kendall as more than a little sister just as Kendall is overcoming her childhood crush?

~*~

What do you guys think? Does it sound like a page turner to you? If so, feel free to go and check out the first batch of chapters! I've posted it on a YA site for aspiring writers called Inkpop! Click HERE to read them and be sure to let me know what you think!

A New Author's Home

So, what great author today doesn't have a blog where they lay down their life story and the random musings of each day? None. Except me before today (yes, I like to refer to myself as a great author... hopefully one day others will feel the same way).

I thought it was about time I joined the author's blogosphere. Who knows? I may have some fans out there... and we all know blogging is a great way to keep everyone updated on the latest that's going on in an author's life and how their writing is going!

So I'm doing it! Welcome to Aspirations in Writing, my blog dedicated to chronicling my journey to publication (hopefully). My name is Noelle and I'm an eighteen year old college student currently majoring in who-knows-what. I've wanted to be a writer ever since I read the amazing book "The Truth About Forever" by Sarah Dessen a few years back. That book really showed me how powerful YA writing could be and that I wanted to write YA fiction following in those footsteps!

I hope to emulate, but never overshadow, the likes of Sarah Dessen, Susane Colasanti and Jenny Han; three amazing YA fictional romance writers. And maybe one day I'll see my books sitting on bookshelves right next to theirs!