Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's Topic : What themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work? I'd love to say that I'm so freaking original that nothing from Story A shows up in Story B because as a writer's it's my job to make sure everything is fresh and unique and non-redundant. However, I can't. Some things just show up no matter what. One parent is always either dead or missing from the protagonist's life. And when I say missing, I do mean that in a "they've never physically been here" kind of way*. Sometimes both are gone. Project count: 4 The F-bomb shower. Found in early drafts only**, my love for this four-letter word gets showered across all dialogue and exposition. Project count: 4 Blonde girl who is e...

The following has been shamelessly poached from the following people: Kiersten White , Pam , and Quita . (Though I did first see on Kiersten White's blog and thought, "Hey, this is a wicked good idea. *I* should do the same.") Credit Title: Phoenix Rising Genre: Urban Fantasy Pages: 330 Chapters: 20... ish Word Count: 66,500 Draft Time: I've done two drafts, totaling about 3 months. But I did spend a lot of time being proactive and outlining and letting the idea germinate in my brain. Origin: I had the idea of everyone talking about the new boy on campus, but there had to be a reason why he was drawing so much attention. I definitely didn't want to do another YA contemporary so close to finishing revisions on my last one and NaNoWriMo was coming up, so I thought it was time to do something different. I read a lot of paranormal and UF, so that seemed to be the logical choice, but I didn't want to deal with the usual suspects found in t...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's topic : What is the most inspiring setting you’ve ever visited IRL? As I get deeper into my writing journey, I pay more attention to things I should have paid attention to a loooong time ago. One of these being location. But Alicia, isn't setting an important piece of fiction? Erm, yes. *whistles* In my earlier pieces, my setting was laid out soap opera style where there were only certain pieces selected and described in detail. Everything else was the sound stage of my mind. You'd be happy to know that since then I've gotten MUCH BETTER. Last year, during The Real World Cape Cod, Season 2, I decided that I have to have a story that takes place on the beach. This story will also have to have sun, cute boys, and kissing. So at some point down t...