Hey Everyone! I've been gone for a little while to get my personal life under control for a few weeks now and I took a little of a unannounced hiatus but I'm back and am going to start posting a little more now. Today though, I have a guest post from the wonderful Dani Hoots about her writing process for her newest book Trapped in wonderland. All links and info will be below her post: Thank you Brooke for letting me have the chance to write a post on how I got into writing and my writing process. I am very grateful for reviewers that ask me to write a post or do a Q&A with them, so thank you again. Ever since I was very young I found myself making up stories to pass the times. I didn’t have many friends growing up and lived up on a hill in the middle of the woods, so there were only a couple of kids nearby, and even then they were about half a mile away. Things like mythology, especially astronomy related mythology, inspired me. I used to look up to the sky and think about the moon and how there could be a princess living there (like Sailor Moon) and believed in witches and ghosts and gods and vampires and so on. That belief in the supernatural really inspired me and that is probably the main reason I usually always write fantasy or sci-fi. I love the mythical and creating stories that I wish were reality. I never lost that growing up, so here I am. Throughout growing up though, I wanted to be a lot of different things, such as an astrologist, anthropologist, architect, and aerospace engineer, but thorough it all I still always wanted to be an author (and some reason everything that started with an “A” and ironically I also married an accountant). I went to college originally for engineering, then physics… then astrophysics and then got a degree in anthropology. But right before graduation I got diagnosed with Sjögrens Syndrome and decided to fulfill my life long dream of becoming an author. That was five years ago and I have never looked back. I did still end up getting a Masters in Urban and Environmental Planning as a back up plan, and I definitely don’t regret doing that. So now I spend my time volunteering for the library system and writing full-time. A lot of my inspiration comes from mythology, folklore, and from dreams actually. For example, in The Quest, the Sanshlian world was inspired off of a dream and song by Escape Key called Shadowbeast. I also get inspiration from songs and sometimes just out of thin air to be honest. A lot of things inspire me and I feel very lucky to be like that. After I get inspired I start to think out plot and what I want my beginning and ending to be, then the characters seem to fill in the rest. I sometimes outline, sometimes don’t. It really depends on the story. I research during this time as well. For Trapped in Wonderland I want to say I outlined but went off course a few times. There is definitely a lot of rewriting in my stories as some characters decide they want a bigger part in the action and go a different way. My main piece of advice to authors starting out is to really listen to your characters, as they will tell you when a scene is wrong. You can definitely not force them to do anything or they will put up a fuss. From there, I mainly focus on dialogue and character development, then go back to add descriptions. This is probably why my scenes tend to be dialogue or monologue heavy versus description heavy. After I finish my manuscript, I go back through to put what I need to edit, then edit from the last chapter to the first. The reason for this is that I found that I always got drained by the time I reached the end, so if I start there in my second or third time through, I know it will be as strong as my beginning. I hope you enjoyed my guest post about my writing and writing process and hope you enjoy my new book, Trapped in Wonderland. If you have any questions or comments, please check out my Facebook page or website. WONDERLAND CHRONICLES: Trapped in Wonderland by Dani Hoots Rerelease 02/01/17; Dani Hoots; Genre: YA Fantasy; Word Count: 65,000; ISBN 978-1-942023-45-6 Description: Meredith Alice Hughes has found herself falling through a portal and into Wonderland. There, she finds some of her classmates, who are actually fictional characters from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, and they use a potion to make her forget everything. Everything would have been fine, that is, until the White Rabbit tries to murder her and she finds herself in Wonderland once more. Apparently, according to a prophecy, Alice is the only one who can save Wonderland from the Cirque de Rêves, a group that is trying to destroy and takeover the world. Little does Alice know that not only is Wonderland in danger, but her home world as well, because all the citizens in Wonderland represent the dreams of every living human in the real world, and when they start to disappear, so does the hope of every living thing. Will Alice believe in herself enough to defeat the Cirque de Rêves? Or will she fall victim to the dark thoughts that reside in her heart? Goodreads/Amazon/Amazon UK/Website So what do y'all think about the book so far? I had planned on posting the review along with this post today but due to recent events I just didn't get a chance to finish the book or write the review. I will have an updates post for y'all in a couple of days plus another review so keep your eyes peeled for that! Comment down below your thoughts/what you want to see or find me on social media @BrookeEvans2001 on Twitter and @thecozylittlebooknook on Instagram. ALSO!! If you didn’t already know, I have another instagram account that I’m currently using @OfficialBrookeEvans to post pics of what I’m doing, outside of the bookish world (there's a lot of more professional photography on that page). Let me know what else you want to se!
~Brooke
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About me!Brooke's a high schooler who loves to read all sorts of books. She's happy to be able to share all the books she's reading with all of y'all. Archives
June 2020
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