The Ready Writer

You can see my blog posts every Saturday here I'll keep the old site up for a while to allow people to catch up. See you in the new place!

So in an effort to streamline my writer persona I’m moving my blog to my website. This will happen next Saturday with the first blog in the new space. For me, acting like a professional writer is almost as important as actually writing. This means having a wedsite, some social media presence, and keeping things streamlined and tidy. Link next week. I think it will be awesome. Posts will be saturdays and more writing/creative process/horror focused. Until next time, B. Strong &;

Hello hello! I'm trying to figure out a blog schedule that will work best.  Tuesdays and Thursdays don't seem to be good ones for me most of the time. I might just go with once a week on Saturday's until my schedule clears up a little. Expect some more book reviews, and some specific writing updates coming up. Camp NaNoWriMo is next month! I'm preparing by participating in the #Instawrimo project on Instagram. Filling up my "creative backpack" in preparation for Camp NaNoWriMo. You can follow the tag, or follow me @bgstrong and see what is in my creative backpack. More to come tomorrow. Until next time, B Strong &; PS new sign off! This one is less depressing, and more positive.

So every once in a while I like to take a trip back in time and read something that I've read before. Sometimes its something that I read in High School and hated (mostly because I was an angsty kid and hated everything the teachers told me I had to read), but sometimes I go back and read something that I loved as a kid. This results in a few realizations: The first is that I didn't have great taste as a tween. The second though, is that through the simple storytelling, the middle school feelings, and the #deep lessons of the story, they aren't really all that bad. It's fun to look at them through the lens of an adult. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The premise of the story is that while she is drinking milk during lunch, Janie comes to the realization that it is her face that is on the milk carton. That she was in fact, kidnapped. I can tell why I wanted to read this as a kid. This was probably the gateway drug into my true crime obsession, even th...

Hey all! This week has been a little bumpy for me in regards to blogging. I'm working on my first grant! I have to submit it ASAP so I've been devoting all of my brain power on it. So, I'm gonna use this post as a quick update. I've been editing works on Scribophile . And soon I'll be posting flash fiction there to see if any of them can grow into short stories. I finished a short story! Currently looking for places to submit it. I am also writing/editing another short story. I'm 700+ words into my novel :) I'm also reading a couple of things: & Check me out on goodreads to stay updated on what I'm reading! Anyway, that's all for now.  I'm working hard, but in a frenzy.  Regular posts should resume next week. Until next time, Memento Mori &;

Okay there are so many places I want to take this post, and I'm not sure where I want to start, so I'll just start with cover art and a quick summary of the book: This story focuses on the adventures of 5 Americans on an uncharted island.  It starts during the American Civil War, where 5 northern prisoners of war decide to escape by hijacking an air balloon. After flying through a storm for several days, they finally land on some unknown island. They name it "Lincoln Island" as tribute to their president, Abraham Lincoln. The five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin (!), iron, an electric telegraph (!) a cliff side home, and even a seaworthy ship. Throughout their time on the island, there seems to be a deus ex machina at work, delivering chests of goods and rescuing them when in danger. Eventually, they find out the secret of the island and the gifts. Captain Nemo.  Yes, that Captain Nemo from 20,000...

Today's post is gonna be a short one guys. I am not feeling 100% but I am still determined to get SOMETHING out there...even if it is short and sweet, and late. So I just recently celebrated my 30th birthday.  I am no longer in my 20s! This of course means that I am full on heading into "adulthood".  Now, I don't really know what that means.  There are some adulty things that I'm good at, and have been good at, since my early 20s (doing taxes, paying bills mostly on time, not going completely and utterly broke), and there are still some things that I don't think I'll ever get the hang of (like doing the laundry on time, or what I should be doing to prepare for my retirement).  Being an adult means something different to everyone.  For some it means settling down, having a family, and for others it means not getting drunk on a Tuesday. So for my birthday I was gifted this book: If you aren't familiar with Sarah Andersen's work , I highl...

Oh my goodness y'all.  This movie is a roller coaster! It's hard for me to say that I "liked" it. But I didn't...not like it. It's a bizarre, metaphorical movie. This movie doesn't take place in any specific place or time. It takes place in a large home in the middle of nowhere, and starts with 2 newlyweds, not named, just referred to as Him and Mother. What we know in the beginning is that they are newly married, and he is a poet and she is renovating the house.  There was a fire, and Jennifer Lawrence's character is rebuilding the house from the ground up. Then, a man shows up. He says that someone directed him to this house thinking it was a bed and breakfast. "Him" says that The Man can stay the night, even though Mother seems to not want a stranger in her home (understandably). The next day, a Woman shows up, she happens to be The Man's wife. She is mostly insufferable. She pry's into their relationship, she drinks a lo...

I know I mentioned that the review for "Mother!" would be today, but since that movie is so...intense, I need a weekend to get my words composed.  So in the meantime, I'm giving you a review of Happy Death Day. Also, I know there is a lot of horror movie reviews in a row, but as January is my birthday month, it's easier to....coax? gently force? people into watching scary movies with me.  There will be a lull in scary movie reviews after my birthday. Okay. On to the review. Spoilers ahead. Plot Summary:  Theresa "Tree" wakes up in the dorm room of a classmate named Carter after a drunken binge the night before.  It happens to be her birthday.  She goes through her normal college day, being rude and dismissive to those she encounters. She keeps ignoring her father's calls, throws the cupcake her room mate makes her into the trash, and is having an affair with one of her professors. That night, on her way to a party she is lured into a tunnel wh...

Just to warn you all up front, there are spoilers in this review. Plot Summary: Anna suffers from severe agoraphobia (the fear of the outdoors) and hasn't left her childhood home in 10 years, since the death of her father.  She takes care of her brother Conrad as he suffers through pancreatic cancer and gets her food delivered to her by a food delivery guy named Dan. Eventually though, Conrad dies, but before his death he tells Anna that she needs to forgive their father.  What he should be forgiven fr isn't mentioned at that moment, we just get Anna's stern "no". After Conrad's death, Dan arrives with a food delivery but Anna, emotional and lonely, breaks down. After Dan expresses how he too feels trapped in his current situation, Anna offers him a bag full of money to help him, but he declines. On the day of Conrad's funeral, Anna finds herself home alone, too scared to leave. That is, until 3 men break into her home in search of some money. Th...

So one of my reading resolutions for 2018 is to read outside of my comfort zone.  I joined a fantasy/sci-fi book club (even though I read very little of both of those genres), and I'm specifically trying to avoid horror (though I have a couple classics on my 2018 reading list) because I don't want it to influence my project too much. I also just think that reading outside of your comfort zone can be good. Now, as a librarian and a writer OF COURSE I have the view of "read whatever you want, don't feel like you can't read something or HAVE to read something else", but for me personally, I'm trying to take in as many different kinds of stories as possible. So. My first book of 2018 is "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" by Neil deGrasse Tyson I gave this book 3 stars, which for me isn't a bad number. 3 stars in right in the middle. I liked it, it wasn't my favorite, I probably won't re-read it, but I've suggested it to a c...

Sometimes you just have to reread something to remember why you love it. I was shelving books in the little library I work at, and I picked up a collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway.  I haven't read Hemingway in a long long time and as I was holding the bookand remembering a short story that I had read in college when I was working towards my undergrad. I flipped through the book looking for the story: "Hills Like White Elephants" and found it.  I re-read it, and I realized why, after it had been 5ish years since I first read it, why I remembered it. It is just so damn good. I will do my best to not spoil it for you here, you have to read it for yourself. The premise is really simple: two people (a man and a woman) are talking at a Spanish train station while waiting for their train.  That's it.  But it is WHAT they are talking about that makes this story so powerful.  And not just what, but also how.  Again, I don't want to spoi...

2017 was a...rough year.  BUT there were a lot of good stories to come from it, so in no particular order, here were my favorite stories of 2017.  We'll start with the Podcasts: I know I've mentioned this podcast before , but it remains one of the best stories I've ever listened to. It made me laugh, cry, and just generally FEEL (which was hard to do in the numbing shock that was 2017). Even though this is nonfiction, it still influences me and helps me to think about the ways in which to tell a good story.  Told in a similar way as S-Town, Dirty John is an episodic (but limited) nonfiction podcast.  It is about love, deception, forgiveness, denial, and pretty much every other feeling you could feel. You can listen to the destruction that John Michael Meehan causes as the podcast or you can read about him on the LA Times website .  The podcast isn't quite as...lyrical? Poetic? as S-Town, but it's content will make you want to binge it. You...

The first date in the "52 Dates for Writers" book has us "Cook Something Luxurious" Although food doesn't play a major role in my novel, the setting sort of forces me to think about it.  My novel takes place in the "ambiguous south" (or at least the South is a major influence) and food plays a huge role in Southern living. My novel isn't some extravagant adventure story that is going to take my characters into far off lands, it takes place in one little neighborhood in the humble homes of my characters. My characters are middle class. Both parents work, kids go to public school, very similar to my own growing up.  Meals aren't multi-course, fine china events, but they are cooked with love and enjoyed around the table. And while my novel doesn't take my characters on grand external adventures, they sure go on some extreme internal ones. My MC is going to go on an emotional adventure, and it is imperative that my other characters notice...

I really think that in order to write productively you need to have your own space. Maybe your space is the couch or at a specific table at your favorite coffee shop, or locked in the bathroom while your kids are screaming on the other side of the door. That’s okay. You don’t need to have an office to write. This is my space: Sure the furniture is mismatched, and the view isn’t great, and it needs some better storage (and a good vacuuming and dusting) but it’s mine. I can go in there and close the door and write. I can make it smell however I want, I can organize the furniture however I want and I can put whatever I want on the walls. It. Is. Mine. And I hope to use it a lot more in 2018. I spent a ton of time in there during my grad school years doing work and writing papers, but I haven’t done a ton of creative work in there. My resolution is to change that. Words will be written in there. My words. Memento mori &;

It is 2018! There will be some exciting things happening here on the blog. New Things: Book reviews! If you're not following me on Goodreads yet, you should be.  I will be posting reviews of the books I read both on Goodreads and here on the blog.  If you wanna be a writer,  you gotta be a reader. More Flash Fiction! I'm on Scribophile now so if you want small tastes of my spooky short writing - you can find it there or here on the blog. Updates: Twice weekly posts! These will be updates, movie reviews, video game reviews, horror history, and whatever other nonsense I want to post. They will be Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am going through this book  so I will record my progress here on the blog too during those Tuesday or Thursday posts. Last thing: 2018 is the year of the (online serial) novel! The first chapters will post THIS YEAR. More teasers to my online serial novel later. Share in the comments what your reading & writing go...

I guess I should change the name of this one to "Spooky Story Sunday" since it is coming out late. I got some news earlier this week... I HAVE A FULL TIME LIBRARY JOB NOW So I was a little distracted and giddy that I totally forgot to post this, but here it is: Babysitter Wanted  Eddie wasn't much of a career man.  He preferred the spontaneity of the occasional odd job.  Sometimes he'd be cleaning houses, or watching someone's dog - the next week he might be watering a lawn or cleaning up a construction site, and some weeks he might not be working at all.  It didn't matter to his landlord so long as his rent was paid on time. At this point, Eddie hadn't had a job in a week and half. Thankfully, there had been an ad in the paper for a babysitter. He drove up the gravel driveway, past a moving truck and parked in front of the home. He was ten minutes early, so he sat for a bit, admiring how the shadows of the trees reflected on the large ...

Hello Readers! It is October, which as we know is Halloween Month!  This is any horror writers favorite time of the year for sure. I'm no exception.  But! October means a couple of other things: 1. Freaky Flash Fiction Fridays!  That's right! For the second year in a row I will be posting freaky (more like spooky, but that doesn't work with the alliteration) flash fiction stories on Fridays. This allows me to keep writing short things while I work on a novel, but it also allows you to get a taste of how I write (a little, admittedly the stories I post are unedited first drafts, but still). 2. October also means we are 31 days away from NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  This year, I am participating in Preptober (#preptober).  Now, if you participate in NaNoWriMo and are a pantser, you can disregard this rest of this post.  However if you are a plotter, or a mix of the two (which is what I am...though I want to be more of a plotter) then kee...

Happy Eclipse day Y'all! In Southern Oregon where I am we got about 93% totality.  Got to watch it with my SO and then have a nice breakfast date before we both had to head to work. I know I've been absent for the last month, but I've been working really hard on my library career. The children's librarian position is open at the library I work at, and as someone with my MLIS in Youth Services, you can bet that I'm gonna apply! Though I am a published writer, it doesn't pay enough for me to quit my day job, so I have to make sure I have the day job of my dreams so I'm not too burnt out to write. But, in the meantime, that means that I'm spending so much time prepping for the interview (and for my first time doing story time tomorrow!) that I haven't been writing like I should.   I'm using prepping for the interview of my life as an excuse. But that can't last forever. I'll elaborate later.    Also, I'm not sure it'...

Hello! I'm hard at work working on my nano/serial project (5419 words in!) but I've also been working on a vision board project for my main YA novel that is my precious brain child. No real post today, but I thought I'd share with you some pictures from my vision board. I think they are vague enough that it won't give too much away, but will give you all some fun things to look at :) Post what you think I'm writing about in the comments! I'd love to hear your guesses ;) Until next time! Memento Mori &;