I'm Brainstorming Some Things

I know I said I'd be taking a break in July, too, but this is the only place where I can get my thoughts out in more than 150 words, so I thought I'd drop by to think.

My Blog:
I want to revamp my blog topics. My current schedule is:
Tuesdays (blog hop)
Wednesdays (what I'm reading/IWSG)
Fridays (blog hop/potpurri).

I might condense it to:
Tuesdays (what I'm reading/something writing related)
First Wednesdays (IWSG)
Fridays (blog hops/something writing related)

So then I'd only be writing twice a week and thrice on that first week, and having more content on less days might keep my mind open to my writing.

My Pen Name:
So, I have this issue where after a certain amount of time, I want a new e-mail address. I never thought that I would be looking at my pen name and thinking, "Do I still like this name?" Especially after all the brainstorming I went through just to get to this name!

Maybe, I'll use different pen names for different genres. Speculative, this name. Contemporary, maybe my own name. I hate my name, though. It's so boring. I'd use my mom's maiden name if she hadn't "not" named me after my aunt. I'd rather not add to the confusion. For poetry, I almost committed myself to S.B. Hawkins (a lady at church calls me Songbird, and I love that), but something in my head said, "Isn't there a Sophie B. Hawkins?" There is, and why do I know that? (Googling, Googling...Oh, right. "As I Lay Me Down").

My Unofficial Sequel & My one Beta:
My little sister has been my one steady beta reader since like 1994. I couldn't get her to read my Fantasy, but she made a deal to read my unofficial sequel to Octavia Butler's Fledgling, which I named Birthright. Honestly, I thought she had forgotten to read it, and I was losing faith, but out of the blue this weekend while we were sitting on the couch at 1 a.m, she said, "So, I have questions about Ruby [the original name for it]." I was bursting with glee that she had actually begun reading it. She's halfway through (it's a novella, only 100 pages), but she noted some good things that I need to fix, one of which being (and as someone who reads sequels sometimes before I read the first book, it's very important) that I have to consider the fact that the reader may not have read Fledgling, so things I left out that I knew because they were explained in Fledgling, I have to explain in Birthright.

I'm just glad she started reading it. Now, I'll have to go through and flesh it out more so I can start the process of finding out from whom to get permission to actually publish it.


So that's it. See you later!

IWSG: Enjoying This Break

Hello.

I'm writing this on Tuesday night with a little bit of red wine in me, so I don't have much energy for my normal greetings. I will say thank you to Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosts because they deserve it.

I decided at the end of May that I wanted to take a break in June. July was also on my mind, and to be honest, I'm for it. I know blogging is good to build networks etc., but it's exhausting and sometimes tedious to me. I have actually written a LOT this past month, and I feel like a lot of it is BECAUSE I haven't been blogging.

I'm also back to querying agents. One said she was drawn by my query but not hooked by my first pages, so I know if I get the same sentiments from the next couple of agents, I need to do something about those first pages...AGAIN. I have friends getting their songs on tv shows, other friends getting into the careers they want. My cousin is finally branching out and doing solo performances at churches. I'd really like to be one of the successes soon. This life of working jobs I don't love just to get by is draining my soul.