Author: byjehunter

I'm the author of the Black Depths and Artifacts of Avalum series. I'm also a reader and I love posting young adult book reviews and blogging about everything related to books. In the morning, I can be found drinking coffee and wishing it was still dark outside. In the afternoon, I'm stuck at my day job, and in the evening, I'm probably working on my latest creation.
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Stories and Adventure

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Yesterday was one of those beautifully warm spring days, so I took the kids out for a mini-adventure. It reminded me that as a writer, how important it is to never stop experiencing, even if the experience—or maybe especially if—the experience is just around the corner. I put on my white mukluks, and off we went to the gutted truck I’d been seeing from the road for months.

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Not far from my house, the city is in the process of building a new dog park, which meant that in the fall they stripped out some of the natural woods to make a few walking paths. We used to go adventuring in the woods, when they were a bigger, more mysterious tangle, and never came up on the truck cab that was revealed during construction.

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Adventures come in all shapes and sizes and I’ve done a lot of traveling and a lot of adventuring. Some of these adventures have made it into my writing, and others are waiting to be spun into tales, and some are just journal entries in my photo books. But there are so many adventures I’ve had that just make me who I am, that make my characters who they are, and that just make me love life. So, we had a little adventure, I love it, I covered my boots in mud, and we came home and had a snack.

Yesterday was a great day, not just because of the adventure but because I bought myself that reward I discussed in my previous post for making it to the halfway point in my writing 365,000 words in a year goal. I bought myself a copy of Carve the Mark, by Veronica Roth, which happened to be on sale at Costco. Yay, cheap books! And a sweater. Just don’t tell my husband. Wait, my husband reads this blog… too late! So, I have a new book on my shelf, which I likely won’t get around to reading for a while. It has a nice cover, but and even nicer cover if you take the wrapping off. If you haven’t done that and check it out, do. I won’t ruin the surprise by posting a picture here.

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I’m just going to look at it and smile.

JEH

Writing Goals

Writing 365,000 Words in a Year Update #20

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Well, yesterday I reached the official halfway point… And I’m currently only 3,400 words behind my goal!!!! *Celebration dance* *Throws flowers in the air*

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I never planned on rewards for this challenge. Writing almost 180,000 words in six months feels like accomplishment enough. Especially when I have a near full-time day job, two crazy monsters and one crazy cat to look after the rest of the time. Let’s be honest, it can be very difficult most days. But this goal has taught me so much, even though I’m only halfway through. For instance, I’ve learned that I CAN write 1,000 words a day every day if I really set my mind to it, though writing over 600 words feels like a challenge on the busy days, but is really easy on the weekends (unless it is a jam-packed fun weekend of ice fishing).

This past week was a great week. I even had one 3,000 word day that I wasn’t expecting, though it was on a side project instead of the main project I’m working on drafting, which is MF. A lot of my word count lately comes from rewriting Under Jupiter. Since I drafted UJ about ten years ago, there is a lot of rewriting to do. I’m a much stronger writer now, and have an easier time picking out the plot gaps and character weaknesses that need to be filled in. In other words, there are a lot of missing words. Here’s a shot of my tracking sheet for the past week. You can also see that there were a couple days slightly under the 1,000 words. But at least I averaged out well!

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When I set this massive goal back in September, I said I would be focusing on five major projects, and nothing else. That goal has definitely changed, though I did initially wrap up the Black Depths Universe, which was one of the projects. I’m currently working on drafting MF, which for now all I will say is an adult fantasy novel. The rewriting project, Under Jupiter, wasn’t initially budgeted for, because I didn’t take into account all the effort of rewriting, and all the new words I would be adding. These words will likely only count for the rewriting process, and when I get into third and forth drafts, that word count will disappear and I will have to go back to drafting new things to get my 1,000 words a day. After I finish drafting MF, I’m hoping to write a new adult fantasy. I’m pretty excited for this but I don’t think I’ll get around to it until at least June, and that will probably be the last project of this year long goal, and hopefully by then I’ll be at my 365,000 words.

So, while I wasn’t planning on getting myself rewards, I feel that this halfway point is deserving of a little something, mostly because there is still a long way to go! I’m thinking a book or a chocolate bar or something. Nothing big. Just a little something to put an even bigger smile on my face.

How is your writing going?

JEH

book review · Young Adult · Young Adult Books

What I’m Reading: The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas

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Young Adult Book Review: The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, then you know that I’m a fan of Sarah J. Maas and the Throne of Glass Series. After reading The Assassin’s Blade, I feel like I have a better background to those years Caleana spent in Rifthold. I love Rifthold, it is one of my favourite parts of the TOG world. To me, it is a magical Victorian kind of place with a seedy underbelly. I mean, who wouldn’t love that?

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My favourite book in the series is still Crown of Midnight, The Assassin’s Blade didn’t change that for me. Nor was it a true stand in for the last book in the series, which is currently slated for a 2018 release. As I blogged the other week, the next book in the Throne of Glass Series is the Untitled Chaol book, which I’m excited for, and is due out in September. The Assassin’s Blade was released between Crown of Midnight and Queen of Shadows, but I didn’t read it until after I read Empire of Storms. If you aren’t that far in the series yet, I would recommend reading The Assassin’s Blade before Empire of Storms, because I think it would have added something to Empire for me. I also read the Maas is recommending that The Assassin’s Blade be read before the Chaol book too, so if you aren’t caught up in the TOG series, you have from now until September to do so. And I highly recommend it as a witty, fast paced fantasy series.

4/5 Stars

JEH

 

book review · Young Adult

What I’m Reading: Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

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Young Adult Audiobook Review: Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Late last year I listened to the first book in this series on audiobook, and it was fantastic! The second book did not disappoint, but I will say that there were fewer surprises.

Laini Taylor’s world of Eretz, on the other side of the portals from Earth, is full of mystical creatures and angels, and lovely, fun, lively, and sometimes hilarious, characters. Zuzana is the primary comical relief character, and like in the first book, she is my favorite with her sparkling personality. Things grow darker in the second book, and things are more difficult for Karou as the narrative pushes forward.

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My favorite thing about Laini Taylor’s books is her amazing way with language. She fills the page with surprising word pairings and description that brings the world to life. The audiobook, narrated by Khristine Hvam, is also brought to live through her wonderful reading and embellishment of character voices. I love how Hvam performs each character in a subtly different way, though, like in the first book, I don’t like the voice of Razgut, mostly because it creeps me out.

I can’t wait to listen to the third and last book of this trilogy, Dreams of Gods and Monsters, which I’ve already checked out from my local e-library. I highly recommend these ebooks, but be warned, each book clocks in at over fourteen hours of goodness, which for me means an awful lot of time at the gym.

5/5 Stars

JEH

Covers · Self-Publishing · Young Adult · Young Adult Books

Novel Title Reveal!

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Alright, I’m finally ready to tell you all the title of my new project. This is a Young Adult Science Fiction Mystery the I’ll be releasing in Late April or Early May of 2017. I has a few rounds of rewrites to go through yet, but I look forward to sharing tidbits with you each week as the launch gets closer.

So, here’s a mock cover I did when I drafted the book a number a years ago (yes, years). The actual cover is still being worked on by the amazing Leah Keeler. But don’t worry, I reveal it sometime before the launch.

So for now, the title: Under Jupiter

It’s going to be awesome.

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JEH

Self-Publishing

Self-Publishing: Formatting E-Books

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It’s been a while since I did a post on self-publishing. Most of you are probably here for the book discussions, but hopefully a few of you are interested in the writing and publishing process too.

Recently, I decided to make a pretty major investment. I bought Vellum. And it has changed my life! So what is Vellum, you ask? Vellum is an E-Book formatter, and it’s lovely. No longer do I have to spend hours working out my indentations and page breaks, section breaks, or chapter breaks. I can just import my Word file to Vellum and let it work it’s magic! So far, I’ve reformatted the first two Black Depths books, and I hope to do the others soon. The reformatting does take a bit of time, as my old files were formatted really strangely in order to get them to import onto Kindle and Smashwords correctly. So far, the Vellum files seems to import onto Kindle and Smashwords with ease, and I haven’t come across any problems.

Now Reformatted!

Now, Vellum isn’t perfect. It doesn’t format paperbacks, which means I still have to do that myself. And there aren’t a ton of style options, but there are enough. At least for me. And there are pretty ornamental breaks, drop caps, and chapter headings.

Really, in Self-publishing, it’s nice to be able to save time wherever possible. And if I can save time formatting so that I can spend a bit more time marketing, drafting, or re-writing my next project, then I’m pretty happy. But like I mentioned, Vellum was an investment. But I think it was worth the hole it put in my purse.

JEH

Blogging · Self-Publishing

Writing 365,000 Words in a Year Update #19

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Ah, let’s just start this post off with a nice cup of tea, shall we?

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Ah, that’s better! *refreshed*

Right, well. What have I been up to lately? Writing, writing, writing. Though I still haven’t got up to my target word count. I’m almost exactly halfway through this personal challenge, and I’m feeling pretty darn good about what I have accomplished so far this year. As you can see from the table below, I’ve begun tracking which projects I’m working on when. Hopefully this will help me develop more consistency with projects, and not jump around so much. I’m supposed to be focusing on UJ, which is a rewrite, which means that somedays I have to write other things to get my 1,000. The good thing about my rewriting process is that I tend to add words. I write clean, plain first drafts, and fill things up with detail on the second go around. I started rewriting UJ at around  63,000 words, and already I’m up over 67,700 words.

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As for the gym, I know I haven’t updated that one in a while, but I have been going more regularly, usually at least two times a week. I’m still listening to audiobooks when I’m there, and I love it. I’ll have an audiobook review up this weekend.

As for my GoodReads goal, I set it for 60 books this year and I’ve so far finished 9 books, and GoodReads tells me I’m one book ahead. Yay, me! I’m also nearly finished two other books so I should be at eleven books soon.

Going back to the abbreviations above, I’m sure you’re all dying to hear the name of my new novel. Well, it’ll be here on the weekend, too. I can’t wait to reveal it.

JEH

I love books · Young Adult · Young Adult Books

My Top 5 2017 Young Adult Book Releases I’m Waiting For

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There are a lot of series out there, especially in the young adult reading world. I’ve started reading a lot of series in the past couple years, a lot of which aren’t even finished being written yet (or maybe they are, and the publishers just haven’t released them yet!). Hurry up, publishers! Below is a list of the top 5 Young Adult Fantasy books I’m waiting for this year. Only one of these isn’t part of a series I’ve already begun reading, but is instead a new series by an author that I love.

1.The Savage Dawn (The Girl At Midnight #3), Melissa Grey, July 11th, 2017

I’ve loves this series since I first read The Girl at Midnight. Melissa Grey’s lively characters really bring this world alive for me. Especially Jasper, lovely funny Jasper. I also love the world building and the unique mythology in this trilogy. The Savage Dawn in the last book of the series. So if you’re the kind of person who likes to read a series all in one go, you’ll be able to do that come July 2017.

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2.  Throne of Glass 5.1 Chaol Novel, Sarah J. Maas, September 5th, 2017

If you’re a Throne of Glass fan, then you’ve probably already heard that book #6 has been bumped to a 2018 release date because Sarah J. Mass instead wrote a 100K novel regarding Chaol’s exploits, currently titled Throne of Glass 5.1. I’m acutally pretty pumped for this because Chaol is one of my favorite characters and he wasn’t in book 5 at all. Where did Chaol go? What is happening to Chaol? Maas has advised fans to read The Assasin’s Blade before TOG 5.1 is released, which I’m currently doing. I think I know how the novellas are going to fit into the Chaol novel. It’s going to be a good one!

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3. Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands #2), Alwyn Hamilton, March 7th, 2017

I loved Rebel of the Sands when I read it in 2017. I loved the world and the characters and the mythical beasts. I can’t wait to discover what happens next in Alwyn Hamilton’s world, and it looks like I’ll be able to do this right away with the March 7th release date.

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4.Strange the Dreamer, (Strange the Dreamer #1) Laini Taylor, March 28th, 2017

I still haven’t completed Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series (I’m almost done audiobook #2), and I have to say, I love these audiobooks! Daughter of Smoke and Bone actually won Best Fantasy Audiobook in 2011, which does not surprise me. The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series is one of those that are classified as Young Adult, but I think that’s pretty iffy. Barely any of the characters are teens (I think most of them are like, 50-200 years old, and there is enough gore and violence to make me cringe). Anyway, Laini Taylor is such a great writer that I’m sure Strange the Dreamer will be just as fantastic as Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Also, a bonus fact, this book is scheduled to be released on my birthday! I think I might pick this one up in hardcover. Happy Birthday to me!

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Waiting for those birthday cupcakes…and Strange the Dreamer!

5. The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl From Everywhere #2), Heidi Heilig, February 28th, 2017

This entry is a bit different, as I haven’t even finished reading The Girl From Everywhere. You see, what happened is that I borrowed the book from my e-library and began reading it, but got really busy, and my loan expired before I got all that far into the book. This happens with a lot of books that I borrow to try. Most of the time I forget about those books, and never borrow them again. But I keep thinking about The Girl From Everywhere, and I keep wanting to know what happens. i need to know how this time traveling ship and these maps work. I need to know what happens to these characters! So I’ve waitlisted myself for this book again, and this time I’ll finish it. The sequel is out next week, so maybe I’ll even be able to read them back to back.

What books are you looking forward to this year?

JEH