Monthly Highlights - October

HAI GUYS, I'M BACK.

The two week hiatus went WAYYYY faster than I expected it to. But, I'm slowly catching all of the falling leaves and life is finally piecing itself back together again. Except the fact that NaNoWriMo is tomorrow, hahahaha.

But, here's the October "monthly highlight" installment as promised.

                    T h e    H i g h l i g h t s 

- I got a haircut! It was needed, too. Long hair looks nice and all that, but it drives me crazy so there's no more having that urge to tear all my hair out because it's all in my face. So this is how you'll be seeing me over the internet from now on:

- I FINALLY saw Age of Ultron and, um, excuse me. Ouch. Help. Nonono they weren't supposed to kill THAT character. *pouts forever*

- I also saw The Martian in the theaters (thank youuu, Mom and Dad for the surprise. xD) which I think was better than I expected it to be. I laughed a lot. :P

- I babysat these two adorable children and one of them said (prayed) the funniest things:

Me: *to little boy I was babysitting* You want to pray before dinner? Boy: *nods* *folds hands* Dear Jesus, thank you for Batman.

— Katie Grace (@KatieGraceWrite) October 11, 2015

- Also, I have been exchanging chapters of Song of the Desert with my critique partner to start getting it ready for beta readers, and she gave me just about the best compliment ever. *looks pointedly at her who's probably reading this*

My critique partner just read my chapter and said: "Dude, I feel like I've been hit by a train."
#bestcomplimentever

— Katie Grace (@KatieGraceWrite) October 20, 2015

- Our youth group set up a harvest festival at our church as an alternative for Halloween. Each grade sets up a themed room with decorations, candy, and games. Our theme this year was "Under the Sea." The earliest I can post pictures is the 1st, so I'll edit them into the post if you want to check back then. ;)

- And of course excessive listening to Twenty One Pilots was a thing. Cause why not. 

- *whisper* I um have NINETY-ONE OF YOU GUYS reading my posts and honestly that just makes me so happy. Like, there are no words. So thank youuu. <3 -

B o o k   T h i n g s

So, this month was literally the worst month of reading so far this year. Guess how many books I read.
Go.
In your minds.
Take a guess.

(No, I'm not being sarcastic in that this was the worst month.)

I READ NOTHING. 
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. 

Okay, that's only a tiny bit of a lie. I did read some things: 65k of my novel, beta read chapters for two writing buddies, blog posts, the first couple chapters of Gregor the Overlander, and all that.

BUT I DIDN'T READ ANY REAL BOOKS. 

So excuse me while I go cry because this is a tragedy. And since NaNo is stinking TOMORROW I doubt I will get any reading done during that month. Which only means that I'm going to read a bazillion books in December. :3

GIVEAWAYS: 

- win six Enclave Publishing books! (only open for a few more hours, so enter quickly!)

- you can win a copy of Radical by David Platt AND A Time to Die by Nadine Brandes here!

- Cait @ Paper Fury is giving away two ebooks... one you get to choose, and the other she picks FOR you. (Neat idea, right?)

-

  R a m b l i n g s   o f   t h e   M o n t h    

I actually had a pretty good month of posting despite my two week hiatus and crazy insane schedule.

I posted about the stresses of life in general and trying to catch a bazillion falling leaves at once.

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Aaaand here I wrote about all of the end of the year goals I have. (One of the goals may or may not include pizza. Surprise, right?)

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Go and stalk all my secrets behind writing a novel. Mwahahaha.

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Aaand lastly I shared the first post in my new series: Easy Blog Tutorials for the Blogspot Blogger. Want to learn how to off the annoying Navbar at the top of your blog? *points to post* I share it there.

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O t h e r   A w e s o m e   P o s t s

This post by Zachery of "alternate titles for sci-fi and fantasy" post is quite hilarious.

MY VERY GOOD WRITERLY FRIEND SIERRA STARTED A WRITING BLOG AND GO FOLLOW IT BECAUSE I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

So I read fast. Very fast. Like I can read five-books-in-two-days fast. Cait @ Paper Fury posted a lovely post about the dire agonies of being a speed reader. (There are lots of problems. o.o)

Aimee made me laugh (as always, let's be real, here) with her very truthful post about NaNoWriMo. In her words: "NaNoWriMo is awesome. There are no survivors." *nervous laughter*

I found this book review blog that reviews books from a Christian perspective. (and lists the content) Yass, I needed this.

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T h e   W o r l d   o f   W r i t i n g

*whistles innocently* ...

*is researching third degree burns* *sees a picture* Me: I'm scarred for life. Character: And so am I. Oops.

— Katie Grace (@KatieGraceWrite) October 23, 2015

I'm about three-fourths of the way down with my third draft for Song of the Desert! As I mentioned above, as I'm line editing/adding new scenes, I'm sending them to my critique partner who's *very* helpful. I succeeded in my 65k editing goal (yesss) and so I'm just relived that editing is over. xD (until December, but I'll just ignore that.)

So NANO starts tomorrow. I'll be staying up until midnight (because why wouldn't you start off a month with little sleep with sleep deprivation?) to celebrate the start. I'm writing the sequel to Song of the Desert and it's titled The Sand Dragon's Song. 

(I'm so happy that all these titles are working out for me -- does someone else understand this wonderful feeling? :P)

But even though ALL I'm going to be doing is writing these next weeks, it feels weird to not be writing, so I'm okay with it. ;)

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T h i n g s   t o   C o m e!

What you can expect in November: 

• weekly posts on NaNo! I'll be linking to other NaNo posts, sharing progress, rambling on about NaNo in general, *maybe* snippets and all that sort. i promise it will be more interesting than it sounds.
• november monthly highlights. 
• a TAG or the second post in BLOGSPOT BLOGGER design. (I'll do whichever one has the most votes down in the comments. ;)

- Katie Grace 

So which post do you want to see in November? Did you read more books than me? (I wouldn't be surprised if EVERYONE did. xD) 
Are you staying up until midnight for NaNo? ARE YOU EXCITED? IF YOU AREN'T, GET EXCITED! 

When All the Leaves Fall at Once

Summer ends. 

Autumn comes, and it lasts for about two seconds. The leaves change colors, and then it seems like all the leaves just blow away. 

And then they're just gone.

Then I stand there on the ground, watching as the leaves swirl and tumble. I lift my hands up, trying to catch them, but there's just so many and there's only one me. 

So down they   d

                            r 

                               o

                                  p.

And I can only catch one. 

I feel like that right now -- trying to catch everything and do everything at once. Because BOOM - autumn hits and...

...School comes. Not only does school come, but it gets a lot harder and longer because school is annoying like that. And with school means less time (a lot less time) for other things so that means I'm "trying" to catch all these leaves tasks at once:

I'm trying to keep up a consistent schedule of blogging.

I'm trying to plot and become prepared for NaNoWriMo.

I'm trying to read more books.

I'm trying to connect with my writing buddies.

I'm trying to read their work that they so graciously give to me. Not only read it, but critique and give my opinion because they trust me enough to do that. 

I'm trying to stay caught up with my editing. I'm nearly 8k behind, which means I can't take the weekend break I so wanted to use for reading.

My reaction to this whole list:

So you see the problem? I have a bazillion leaves that are falling and I can only chase a few. The rest will be left on the ground until I have time to pick them up again. Like reading. I've come to the conclusion that reading is just a far-away fantasy during the school year, so that leaf will have to wait to be picked up until December at the earliest. 

All this to say: I won't be posting next Saturday. hahaha like I've been doing that regularly anyways. I'll post a monthly highlight on the 31st, so you can look forward to that.

Otherwise in November you can look forward to LOTS of NaNoWriMo posts where I'll be doing a weekly series on the struggles, excitement, and sleeplessness of the crazy month. (I'm starting to become reallyyyyy nervous about Nano. o.o *screams quietly*)

So with this two week break I'm also going to visit more of your blogs because I haven't had much time for that, either. If you know of any blogs that I absolutely need to be reading, link them below and I'll check them out in the next week!

And because I know a lot of us our struggling with juggling everything right now, just read this. (You're not alone.)

Stay encouraged. Try not to be overwhelmed with the insanity of life even though it's hard and there's just TOO MUCH and too many expectations and responsibilities. 

Take a break if you need to. 

Your fellow writers and bloggers will understand. 

And I'm here to pray for you if you need that. <3

YOU GOT THIS!

*group fist bump*

- Katie Grace

How are you coping with the school year? You're not alone if all your leaves are falling at once. 

Also, NaNoWriMo is in FOURTEEN days(two weeks if you didn't want to do the math). I'M NOT READY AHH. Are you prepared or... no?

I'll be back and posting on the 31st!

And here's my NaNo profile if you want to add me.

Easy Blog Design Tutorials for the Blogspot Blogger (#1)

Blogspot is a great blog platform for beginners. It's free, easy to learn, and has plenty of design capabilities and built in plugins. 

BUT, if you use one of the original blogger themes or backgrounds, they can start blending together, and every Blogspot blog looks the same. I visit a lot of blogs -- I know this from experience. 

You want to to stick out from the whole band of bloggers. You want people to keep visiting your blog, right? Content is key, but so is a professional looking blog design. 

I'm going to help with that. Today I start the first post of a new series: easy blog design tutorials for the blogspot blogger. 

Each post I'll focus on something different. I'll gather a bunch of links from the internet (today is more me talking than rounding up links. Links will come later, don't you worry.) and round them up in one post for your convenience.

We're going to start with the bare minimum basics today. Basically, what you see when you first arrive a blog.

image

a header

Basically, the header is the first impression of a blog. If you have a professional looking header and overall blog design, I'm 1,010% more likely to stay around (and especially follow). Even though it sounds selfish and weird, I like reading blogs that are pleasing to look at. 

Here's a post on blog headers. (this blog actually has a bunch of awesome blogging tutorials, so do explore.)

I gather my images from my Pinterest and created the header using Picmonkey.

What you want in a header: 

- Easy to read fonts. Swirly fonts are fine (I have one myself), but make sure it's readable. 

- Pair your fonts (Search for "font pairings" on Pinterest and you'll find a bunch of ideas.) so they don't fight for attention.

- Quality images. No fuzzy ones, please. We want to see what we're looking at.

- People to get a good idea of what your blog is about. You don't want dogs in your header if you have a writing blog, and vice versa. 

- Simplicity is best. 

- Leave white space.

posts 

(Haha, Katie. Obviously we want to see the posts.) 

I'm talking about the general post page you see when you arrive at a blog. Two possible questions that you might have:

how many posts should I display per page? -- I have mine set at four posts on the home page right now. (before readers have to click older posts.) I wouldn't go anymore than five. The more posts you have on your home page, the longer your blog will take to load, and readers won't ever reach your footer.

should I have a "read more" option? -- No. Nope nope nope. I asked people this question on my Twitter, and the answers were unanimous: People don't like wasting time clicking around. 

Yes, the read more option might get you more pageviews, and yes, it makes your home page look cleaner...

...BUT don't do it. Resist. It will ultimately keep people from reading your content. (*raises hand guiltily*)

fonts

I cannot stress enough how important readable fonts are. I see this advice all over the internet, but yet every one out of ten blogs I visit has an unreadable font.

WE CAN'T READ YOUR POST WITH A CURLY FONT. It's not cute. I'll  leave. 

Leave your fonts black or a dark grey (like mine). No yellows. Or even blues. Colorful fonts aren't the way to stand out. 

For the background of your blog, a white is best, or a very, very light color. Simplicity is best.

footer

The footer is the place at the bottom of your blog where half of readers never see, but the other half happens to scroll down far enough to see that ugly white space. 

So make use of that ugly white space and put something lovely in. A few ideas I've seen people use: 

- Social media widget. (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook...) 

- Contact email. 

- List of some of your favorite blogs. 

- Blog button.

- A widget tracking your novel's progress.

navbar 

The navbar is the transparent/colored at the top of a Blogspot blog that looks like this: 

You'd be best to get rid of it if you want to look professional. I just figured out a month ago that I even had this thing. It's really easy, too: 

go to layout in your blogger dashboard.

click edit where you see the navbar.

this will pop up:

click off and then save. 

Boom. Simple as that.

colors

Every blog should have a color scheme, whether it's pastels or bright red and oranges. (I would advise not going crazy on the colors.)

Simplicity is best. 

You can find awesome color schemes for a blog on Pinterest. I would advise finding a color scheme you like and sticking to it: don't add in any extra colors.

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Aaand that's it! I promise others in the series will have more tutorials and helpful links. View this one as an introductory post of sorts. ;)

- Katie Grace

Sooo, do you have a navbar at the top of your blog? Did you even know what it was or were you guiltily unaware like me? 

What would you like to see next? 

a. sidebar.

b. post footer. 

c. pages. (tabs.)