My poor dash

Here’s the link to that: http://thejiaseries.tumblr.com/bonusfeatures

Includes casting for a new character in Book 2 named Luke.  You’re going to love him.

-Alyssa

But to be fair, I did have college finals I needed to not fail.  To make it up to you, I’ve compiled a list of JIA Bonus Tracks that I’ve used for inspiration in my final round of editing on Book 2 and the outlining of Book 3.  Enjoy these songs and support the artists, please!

http://thejiaseries.tumblr.com/themusic

-Alyssa

aseaofquotes:

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Submitted by kathatesmondays.

Grades aren’t in for all my classes yet, but unless my Calculus II teacher is very forgiving, I have just gotten my first C.  Ever.  Kindergarten through high school, I managed to avoid this trauma, and the embarrassment of telling my parents.  It’s a C+, but it’s still “average.”  It’s tearing at my ego, making me reevaluate my whole life.  How sick is that, that one grade for a class I don’t even need will keep me awake, probably for weeks.  It will make me doubt my ability to get into the Business school at my college, a move that isn’t happening for another year.  I’m terrified, but I’m also strangely liberated.  I’ve been dreading for this moment for years, and my dad didn’t even yell at me.  I may get a lecture when my mother gets home, but they know I’ve learned my lesson.  They know what this C+ does to me.  They know I’m a little crazy.

They knew I wasn’t going to stick with Computer Science.  Tip for anyone in college, or applying to college: if you have a good relationship with your parents, if what they’ve done for you your whole life has led you to becoming a good, well-balanced, smart, confident young person, LISTEN TO THEM if they think you’re making a bad decision.  It will save you from taking classes you don’t need, it will save them money, and it will save trees because the process of changing your major requires half the trees in South America probably.  I have a good relationship with my parents, and I’m so lucky to have that.  And they will let me switch my major ten times and stay in college for 874935 years because that’s who they are.  And that’s what they did.  (Granted, they both had advanced degrees at the end of those 874935 years and I’ll be lucky to have a bachelor’s).

Listening to people who know you very well and have benefited you substantially by being around will also save you many hours of lost sleep.  Many, many tears.  I’m not a cry-y person, but I cried this year.  Not only did all of those mental breakdowns show me that what I was doing was not what I was meant to be doing, but they also brought me to a place of self-discovery that I didn’t get to in high school.  Additionally, I started believing that people are, in fact, meant to do certain things.  I’m not sure if I found what I’m meant to do yet, but I sure as hell know what I’m not doing, and that’s almost better, because it leaves me with so many things to explore.

Finally, in case I’m making college sound like the special place in hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the movies, this year has also taught me to have more faith in people.  I didn’t have that in high school either, and I’m betting most of you feel the same way.  If you don’t, you’re lying to yourself, and high school will actually be the best four years of your life.  I’m deeply sorry.  My advice is to make college about understanding your friends on a deeper level.  It should be about asking questions that take so long to answer it’s getting bright outside by the time the conversation is over.  About finding people who love what you love and sharing with them the things they haven’t discovered yet.  About falling in love with something new.  Maybe someone.  Whatever you do, don’t rule out the idea that you aren’t the most important, talented, capable human being in the room.  You will find that 69% of the time, there is someone thinking exactly what you’re thinking with the same level of sophistication and depth.

-Alyssa

Follow my new personal blog never-get-usedtoit.tumblr.com.  It’s got (almost) nothing to do with my books, which is refreshing for me since these days it seems like everything revolves around Book 2.

Just uploaded all the documents and pictures that are going into Book 2.  Got an ISBN number, formatted the paragraphs and chapter titles, and organized the cover.  Just a few more days, I promise, and then we all have to wait for it to be distributed to retailers.

I’m so excited for this to be out.  Not just because it means I’m 66% done with a trilogy, but because Book 2 was so much more of a group effort to write.  I had more editors, more people to bounce ideas off of.  I had the chance to run plot lines and character developments by people who know (almost) as much about the series as I do.  I got to hear what was inspired and what was stupid before I wrote ten pages about it.  This saved me time, tears, and weeks of rewrites, and I owe a lot to these people.

Stay tuned for more information, and feel free to send me an ask if you have any questions about self-publishing, long-term projects, or my books.

-Alyssa

yeahwriters:

amandaonwriting:

100 Beautiful and Ugly Words

by Mark Nichol

One of the many fascinating features of our language is how often words with pleasant associations are also quite pleasing on the tongue and even to the eye, and how many words, by contrast, acoustically and visually corroborate their disagreeable nature — look no further than the heading for this post.
Enrich the poetry of your prose by applying words that provide precise connotation while also evoking emotional responses

Beautiful Words

• Amorphous: indefinite, shapeless
• Beguile: deceive
• Caprice: impulse
• Cascade: steep waterfall
• Cashmere: fine, delicate wool
• Chrysalis: protective covering
• Cinnamon: an aromatic spice; its soft brown color
• Coalesce: unite, or fuse
• Crepuscular: dim, or twilit
• Crystalline: clear, or sparkling
• Desultory: half-hearted, meandering
• Diaphanous: gauzy
• Dulcet: sweet
• Ebullient: enthusiastic
• Effervescent: bubbly
• Elision: omission
• Enchanted: charmed
• Encompass: surround
• Enrapture: delighted
• Ephemeral: fleeting
• Epiphany: revelation
• Epitome: embodiment of the ideal
• Ethereal: celestial, unworldly, immaterial
• Etiquette: proper conduct
• Evanescent: fleeting
• Evocative: suggestive
• Exuberant: abundant, unrestrained, outsize
• Felicity: happiness, pleasantness
• Filament: thread, strand
• Halcyon: care-free
• Idyllic: contentedly pleasing
• Incorporeal: without form
• Incandescent: glowing, radiant, brilliant, zealous
• Ineffable: indescribable, unspeakable
• Inexorable: relentless
• Insouciance: nonchalance
• Iridescent: luster
• Languid: slow, listless
• Lassitude: fatigue
• Lilt: cheerful or buoyant song or movement
• Lithe: flexible, graceful
• Lullaby: soothing song
• Luminescence: dim chemical or organic light
• Mellifluous: smooth, sweet
• Mist: cloudy moisture, or similar literal or virtual obstacle
• Murmur: soothing sound
• Myriad: great number
• Nebulous: indistinct
• Opulent: ostentatious
• Penumbra: shade, shroud, fringe
• Plethora: abundance
• Quiescent: peaceful
• Quintessential: most purely representative or typical
• Radiant: glowing
• Redolent: aromatic, evocative
• Resonant: echoing, evocative
• Resplendent: shining
• Rhapsodic: intensely emotional
• Sapphire: rich, deep bluish purple
• Scintilla: trace
• Serendipitous: chance
• Serene: peaceful
• Somnolent: drowsy, sleep inducing
• Sonorous: loud, impressive, imposing
• Spherical: ball-like, globular
• Sublime: exalted, transcendent
• Succulent: juicy, tasty, rich
• Suffuse: flushed, full
• Susurration: whispering
• Symphony: harmonious assemblage
• Talisman: charm, magical device
• Tessellated: checkered in pattern
• Tranquility: peacefulness
• Vestige: trace
• Zenith: highest point

Ugly Words

• Cacophony: confused noise
• Cataclysm: flood, catastrophe, upheaval
• Chafe: irritate, abrade
• Coarse: common, crude, rough, harsh
• Cynical: distrustful, self-interested
• Decrepit: worn-out, run-down
• Disgust: aversion, distaste
• Grimace: expression of disgust or pain
• Grotesque: distorted, bizarre
• Harangue: rant
• Hirsute: hairy
• Hoarse: harsh, grating
• Leech: parasite,
• Maladroit: clumsy
• Mediocre: ordinary, of low quality
• Obstreperous: noisy, unruly
• Rancid: offensive, smelly
• Repugnant: distasteful
• Repulsive: disgusting
• Shriek: sharp, screeching sound
• Shrill: high-pitched sound
• Shun: avoid, ostracize
• Slaughter: butcher, carnage
• Unctuous: smug, ingratiating
• Visceral: crude, anatomically graphic

Notice how often attractive words present themselves to define other beautiful ones, and note also how many of them are interrelated, and what kind of sensations, impressions, and emotions they have in common. Also, try enunciating beautiful words as if they were ugly, or vice versa. Are their sounds suggestive of their quality, or does their meaning wholly determine their effect on us?

From Writers Write

Learn some words yall.