 Hello and Welcome my Scripturients to another writing update.
If you are new here Hello! My name is Kayelyn Costello. I am the author of the Young Adult Fantasy novel The Frituals. This is the blog I started nearly two years ago for me post writing updates, book reviews and the occasional educational piece. We are headed into my favorite time of year. It is a combination of the holidays (happy Hallothankmas) and writing. This time every year for the past 8 years I have dedicated my November yo creativity. Through high school and college I dedicated myself to writing at least once a day with the goal of 1,667 words a day for 30 days. And this year will be no different. For the past month or so I've been combing through my Nano document from 2016. From these plot lines I started to develop then I will write an additional 50k and finish the second book in my series, Rebellion. A tip for Nanowrimo. Set clear goals. I am telling you all I am going to do this. Even though I am working every day, co directing my first play which comes out this month, and managing my author business. But by telling you all I am holding myself accountable. Tell people what you are doing. Have a public play you post word counts. You will be surprised by how invested people will get in your journey. I will be doing weekly nanovlogs again this year over on my YouTube channel but I am also going to try to post blog posts here with number updates weekly. So today as of 12:03 Am my word count is 39,753 only 50,247 words to go. I also have some news! On November 15th 2018 I will be releasing to new versions of The Frituals! I plan on releasing a hardback of the first book! The Hardback will retail for $17 or $20 for signed. I have signed editions available for preorder on my website and there are copies for pre order on amazon. BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE! Starting on November 15th I will be holding a giveaway!! Reviews are a huge part of the writing industry in that they help to promote our sales, so I want to educate the reading community on it! Keep an eye out for that content! I want a way to give back to my community and educate people on the benefit of reviews. Anyone who leaves a review on either amazon or goodreads will be entered into a contest for a signed hardback, and 6 chapters of Rebellion. This is an INTERNATIONAL giveaway. Must be 18+ or with Parental approval 11-15-2018 - 12-15-2018 Post a photo on social media of you reading, your reading progress, whatever but mention the frituals and use #thefrituals Leave a review on Goodreads and/ or Amazon.com If you have already reviewed the book than you already have half your entry done! Just post a picture and use the hashtag and you are all set! I'm really excited for the beginning of NaNoWriMo and the continued growth of The Frituals. As always I love you and thanks. If you haven't yet please follow my social media links below and see what I am working on. Love, Kate Be my Writing Buddy https://nanowrimo.org/participants/katelyn-costello Order my book: Signed: https://www.katelyncostello.com/store/p1/The_Frituals_%28Book_%231_The_Frituals%29.html Print: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1981463097/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 Ebook: \\https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DW8P33P/ref=sr_1_2ie=UTF8&qid=1529540545&sr=8-2&keywords=Katelyn+Costello Follow me on the interwebs: amazon.com/author/katelyncostello https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53086148-katelyn-costello https://www.patreon.com/katelyncostello Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @authorkatelyncostello Facebook: Author Katelyn Costello Youtube: The Scripturient 101 www.katelyncostello.com
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Hello my Scripturients, March... March was the month that I told myself I was going to come forward full force for my blog and for my youtube channel... instead I fell off the face of the earth. I didn't read that much that month, I didn't really get to write or edit all that much, however I did have a really great month. I have started the apartment hunting process with two of my favorite people, I have gotten another job which should make me a bit more moolla $$ and make it easier for me to meet my publishing goals... after I pay the bills. This month I stepped into another management roll in the theater for my old high school and have a few new avenues coming up for me. So while I haven't been as productive as I wanted to, and I can't check the box for that goal I can check the box saying I took care of myself and felt genuinely happy. And I personally think that that is all that matters.  I do still have ideas for several videos that I was going to put out, and I still plan on putting those videos out. So you will see newer videos on my youtube. I am also going to be doing Camp NaNoWriMo again, and I will be doing weekly vlogs again this time around. I did want to work on a different project but I will be using it as a push to get my edits done. I am creating a cabin for it similar to what Kristen Martin and Vivien Reis did last year. We all have our own projects and goals but doing these little daily check-in's makes all the difference. It really holds you accountable. If you would like to join my cabin click HERE to go to my account and send me a message and I will add you! This has been open since Monday so I want to apologize in advance if you miss that chance, we could still do buddy messages.
So Katelyn how did your editing actually go for the month? Wellllll.... I finished editing the physical proof *wooooooo* *Insert crowd noises here* Butttt I only transcribed three of those chapters. *Whomp whomp whomp* While it doesn't take me to long to find edits and write them into the book, it takes much, much longer to put those edits into the computer. Much longer than I anticipated. So if you again, if you wanna be able to yell at me if I don't edit join me for Camp Nanowrimo! I am going to try much, much harder to be more active, even with jobs and moving in two months.... HELP Goal: Have book edited and in beta process by June 1st. Make me do this people! Love, Katelyn Find me on the interwebs https://nanowrimo.org/participants/ladykate100/novels/wip-1233502 Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @Scripturient101 Facebook: The Scripturient 101 Youtube: The Scripturient 101 www.thescripturient101.weebly.com https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53086148-katelyn-costello https://campnanowrimo.org/campers/ladykate100  Hello Scripturients, I know February is a fast month. But it felt like a really fast month this year. I have been incredibly busy finishing a run of a musical, subbing at school, and working on finding another part time job. But I did manage to get a few of the goals done for February. 1. Edit through page 357/ Chapter 37 This was a pretty loft goal for myself seeing as I only edited up to page 103 in January. That being said I did get edited up to page XXX. Down below you will see a vlog from last weekend when I spent all day editing and managed to get up to page 245. 100 pages in one day. Now if I edit at least 15 pages a day I will make my goal of getting edits done by 3/15. 2. Continue to Outline ISS Project I sort of did this. I made a great list of outline and scene ideas... but it got lost. :( So I have quite a few different bits and pieces of scenes but that structure I had, fell out of my bag, or my notebook. I have an idea of what was down. But losing the paper took away a lot of the confidence that I had. I still need to do quite a bit of research on military training before I start writing. 3.Print proof copy of Silver Manor for future edits. Check I did this! I plan on working on the edits for this when I get The Frituals out for edits in April. My March Goals: 1. Finish Edits in physical proof by 3/15 I need to finish the edits of The Frituals. I have a few things planned out for it which I will share in a later video or blog post. So I need to get through the last 200 ish pages in 15 days. 2. Transfer edits and format for beta's and crit partners Starting 3/1 I need to start transferring the edits into my computer document so I can send out for beta edits starting April 2nd. If you think you want to be part of that process check back here 3/15 where I will have more information on how to get involved. 3. Order a new proof, once create space, one Ingram spark Once I get all those edits transferred over I want to take advantage of the NaNoWriMo winning goodie of getting to upload a free file to Ingram spark and get a free proof. I want to compare the books from create space and Ingram for myself to make a decision for my future books. To see more updates from me follow me around on social media the links will be down below. Love, Katelyn Find me on the interwebs https://nanowrimo.org/participants/ladykate100/novels/wip-1233502 Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @Scripturient101 Facebook: The Scripturient 101 Youtube: The Scripturient 101 www.thescripturient101.weebly.com https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53086148-katelyn-costello Hello, my Scripturients!
I am excited to announce a project that I have been contemplating starting for a few months now. I get urges like these every so often these urges were the same as the kind that created this blog so, since I trusted the urges then, I decided to trust them now. So Katelyn what is this project? Well, I need your help for it, in particular, I need my fellow writers. I am launching my editing service. I will be working in the developmental editing business. If you don't know what this is, a developmental edit is an edit most of us do once we finish writing the draft. It is the process of going through and reading the manuscript finding plot holes, examining character development, the overall arc of your story. I believe that the developmental edit is much more important than the copy edit. GASP right? But in my head, you can have a book that is spotless, but if you have flat characters and a ton of plot holes, I am not going to want to read it. I think we can all think of a story that we could just feel in our soul could have been better if someone else had just given it a small nudge in the right direction. So what services will I be offering? I will have four different services: 1. First Chapter Critique- $30 2. First 50 Pages- $75 3. Reader's Report- $.005 Per Word 4. Full Critique- $0.010 per word Head on over to my editing page here for more details as to what each package has. Katelyn when are you going to start offering editing services? I am glad that you asked. I am starting to take submissions today February 9th! That being said while I will be open for submissions I know based on my month I will not be able to start working on submissions until March 1st. So if you are looking into getting a project done quickly, please keep that in mind. If you would be interested in being some of my first clients, please fill out the contact form below and tell me about your project to see whether or not we would be a good fit. I am really excited to begin this next step, and I hope you are excited to have another option in the sea of people out there. If you have any questions, you can fill out the contact form below or send me a message on Twitter at @scripturienting. Love you all, Katelyn Find me on the interwebs https://nanowrimo.org/participants/ladykate100/novels/wip-1233502 Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @Scripturient101 Facebook: The Scripturient 101 Youtube: The Scripturient 101 www.thescripturient101.weebly.com https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53086148-katelyn-costello Hello my Scripturients!
So, it is the last day in January. 2018 huh... I don't know about you but for me, 2018 has started by digging in it's heels and refusing to budge. That is to say I feel in some ways I have fallen flat on my face. What can I say? Adulting sucks! I haven't been able to work on the my projects just as much as I would have like to but I am getting there. Like I said in my last update I have been plotting and planning several different books while editing my book. I still want to try and get the edits for this draft formated by March 30th, it just means I need to try to make more time for myself. So how have I been doing? The Goals of the Month: Edit To page 200 - I have only been edit to page 103 so far. Starting work as a substitute teacher, and working on my the musical has caused my life to be locked into a cycle. Sleep, go to school, drive, rehearsal, drive, sleep. I don't have much free time in between. I am actually writing this on a day when rehearsal was cancelled, I am not really sure when I would have written it otherwise.... Start Outline for ISS Project I did this! I am working on a Sci-Fi project and it has been blooming and building in my head everyday. I have been able to make major headway in this due to Evernote! I definitely recommend using Evernote if you are always on the go like I currently I am. So I really only had those two goals for January, and I am going to have similar goals for February. 1. Edit through page 357/ Chapter 37 2. Continue to Outline ISS Project 3.Print proof copy of Silver Manor for future edits. Thank you for all the motivation through out the month. To see more updates from me follow me around on social media the links will be down below. Love, Katelyn Find me on the interwebs https://nanowrimo.org/participants/ladykate100/novels/wip-1233502 Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @Scripturient101 Facebook: The Scripturient 101 Youtube: The Scripturient 101 www.thescripturient101.weebly.com https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53086148-katelyn-costello Hello Bookworms,
I come to you in a weird moment of freedom and relief. If you follow me in other areas of social media, you will have seen that my thesis is done. It is done. I finished my requirements for college. I have an overwhelming sense of relief, fear, all mixed up with a feeling of loss, and the fact that it is done feels almost anticlimactic. I knew there wouldn't anything like sunshine and rainbows. But for something that I have been working on since May, that has gone through several drastic changes, I don't know. I just wanted more I guess. It could be coupled with the fact that this was the last thing I had to submit to complete my degree. There is so much pressure put on this one 30 page file. Without it, I will not graduate. And with it? I don't know. I don't plan on continuing part of the project, doesn't interest me anymore and I know it is not my best work. But as one of my friends said, the fact that I kept going with it even though I did hate it, is a feat in itself. I am proud of what I put out, don't get me wrong. I did a lot of work to make the story what it was. I started my thesis with a 70-page draft. I scrapped that within two weeks of coming back to campus, changed the point of view, format, and the tense that I was writing it in. I wrote something that I have never even tried to write before. An epistolary novel. Did I do it perfectly? No. I didn't research it thoroughly because I scrapped everything I had done over the summer. But I created a cohesive piece that several people say they love and want more of. I have put so much work into these 30 pages. I keep saying that. But I don't know what else to say. I am going to do a more in-depth reaction maybe next week but right now... I just feel sort of out of it. I don't really know how to think about it besides relief that it is done. So I guess that is all for today? I am sorry I am so out of it, I almost feel like I don't know how to function now that everything is completed. It is weird. I will just have to blog ore to get into another structured habit. Until next time Katelyn Find me on the interwebs https://nanowrimo.org/participants/ladykate100/novels/wip-1233502 Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @Scripturient101 Facebook: The Scripturient 101 Youtube: The Scripturient 101 www.thescripturient101.weebly.com https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53086148-katelyn-costello  Hello my scripturients,
November sure has been a roller coaster ride hasn't it? As you can see by today's image I am a Nanowrimo winner again this year. This marks the 5th year that I have won Nanowrimo, yay for five years. I do want to say that I feel slightly torn over my win this year. If you don't know, I used NaNo as a way to get back into my novel and do a first rewrite of my novel draft. Not every word or every sentence was new. Some of the sentences stayed the same while others change complacently. But that is the nature of a rewrite, not every word is going to change. And that is something I have had to keep telling myself. Part of the reason I have felt so bad about it, is that I know that I would not have been able to get though a new draft this month. But for me this month rewriting The Frituals was my escape from work and school and everything else that has been getting me down. It has really been good for my own mental sanity and productivity to escape into my world. This week I have been working on planning out the last few chapters and then branching out into outlining the next book in the series. As a present to myself for winning NaNo I have spent the last few days working on formatting my novel in order to print out a proof copy from Createspace to annotate. I will be filming my unboxing of it FOR SURE. I am very very excited about these next steps and to actually hold my book in my hands. I have some thoughts about the next steps for it but that might be a more in depth video/ blog post for next week when I get my thoughts together. I have a lot of thoughts I need to correlate together before I can explain them in detail. But I hope to share my plans for future projects soon as I am sure I will need all your help. My final thesis workshop is tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day to receive edits. So this weekend I will be hiding and editing. I am also hoping I can set up my office space at home... a bit at least. So my thesis will be done and submitted by Wednesday at noon, but do to my schedule it has to be done a bit earlier. I have one other paper so I need to hide and write, sorry if I am not nearly as accessible as normal. Finishing this semester feels bittersweet. I am really excited to be done, but am also feeling lately like I am not prepared enough but I know I am. It is a struggle. HOWEVER since next week I submit my final papers I will be free. I am working on getting a day job but in the mean time I am going to be throwing myself into this. I am going to be posting whenever I can but at least Wednesday and Fridays. So I will be shifting my reviews to friday's and they may not be every week but there will be more books so be sure to follow me on twitter to know whenever I am going to be posting. I think that is all of the thoughts that I have together for now. Send me a message on instagram or twitter and be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel to hear my ramblings out loud! Katelyn Find me on the interwebs https://nanowrimo.org/participants/ladykate100/novels/wip-1233502 Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @Scripturient101 Facebook: The Scripturient 101 Youtube: The Scripturient 101 www.thescripturient101.weebly.com https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/53086148-katelyn-costello  Camp Nanowrimo, the event that happens twice a year that for some reason I can never win.
Bookworms, I come to you again on the side of defeat when it comes to Camp Nanowrimo. I talked with a few people in my writing cabin this year and we all felt the same. Camp Nanowrimo in April and in July has no where near the same feeling as it does in November. There isn't the same urgancey to write when you make the goals, and sometimes no matter how high the goal is, you just can't seem to reach it. There were several days last November where I was writing close to 3000 words. This past July? I couldn't get down more than 1000 a day sometimes every two days if I was lucky? Why is it different? I don't really have an answer for that. I had plenty of ideas in mind for the story since it is my thesis. I had a start of an outline, at least a general path I could mosey my way though, and I had a cabin filled with some wonderful people including Kristen Martin and Vivian Reis on youtube. But for some reason when ever I sat down to write the ideas would hit a wall and refuse to flow. My goal for the summer is to write 55,000 words by August 31st. As of right now I am on my way, trying to sit down and write a few hundred words everyday, but it has been a struggle. I have changed things as I went and thought of new things for my characters that requires deleting and rewriting several scenes. But progress doesn't always have to be linear. That is something I learned this past month. Even if I can't get through a scene I can still write others. It is taking me weeks to get through one plot point. It just won't come out, but I know others will so, I bounce around. Editing me may absolutely HATE this action later. But for now it is what I need to do to get the words on the page. I want to get back into doing these writing updates more regularly if this is something you want to see too, let me know on twitter at @scripturineting or on instagram @scripturient101 Thesis Stats Start of July: 3,000 (ish) words End of July: 16,771 words Words left for summer goal: 38,229 Katelyn Costello Twitter @Scripturienting IG: @Scripturient101 Facebook: The Scripturient 101 Youtube: The Scripturient 101 Hello Bookworms,
I don't know about you but I woke up thinking it was Friday! It is in fact not Friday! This week I wanted to share with you something fun! This Friday ( you can see why it is on my mind) my thesis proposal is due. Now this is going to be a fluid document, that is going to be changed and edited over the summer. But this first round is a sort of guideline for what I want to do. So what is my proposal? Working title: The Last Fritual Genre(s): Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy Topic:For my senior thesis, I want to create a prequel to a fantasy series that I am currently writing on my own. This piece is a first-person POV story telling a story of an elf named Matron who is born with a natural affinity for all five elemental magics (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit), powers he doesn’t really wish he had. These powers, make him a fascination and an outcast in the city. On top of these powers that exile him, there is a war between elves and man that has ended. There is still an underlying level of tension between the races. This tension causes some people to be uncomfortable with his friendship with a human girl names Serena. I am currently outlining a draft of the story to write it this summer after I complete this draft I will decide which section I would like to focus. Research Plan: Reread:
Read: The next few books are YA or Adult novels that are fantasy and have elemental magic as a “element” (hehe) of them. So far I have found it to be a small niche in the the writing community. Something that would be helpful for me would be any books written from a male perspective. I was talking with a friend the other day and realized many books on my radar YA/ Middle Grade wise are female protagonists. Aside from Rick Riordan and a few more, most of my male protag are in military fiction like Clive Cussler.
I am currently working on outlining this bad boy, then as it says come June 1st I wanna start writing!!! Katelyn https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSEeWBRSsR2aTwC8rDjAXkA twitter @scripturienting or on Facebook The Scripturient 101 and Follow me on instagram @scripturient Long Time No Writing Update huh Book Worms? I am really sorry for the lack of post the last couple weeks. But we managed to go 16 weeks before really missing blog posts. (I can't believe I have been doing this for 19 weeks already) I wanted to give you a writing update. But it isn't much of a actually writing for fun time. I have a lot of final papers in process that are due in the the next two weeks. One of the main things that I have been working on is my senior thesis proposal. I might post it on here in a little bit if you are interested. So you may have noticed I haven't been posting about Camp Nanowrimo.... That kinda failed. I just have been so overwhelmed with school and shows so I decided to stop. I will link my videos below where I talk more about this. I am working on an outline for my summer projects. I have a lot of summer goals that I am excited to start once school ends. I can't wait to spend the summer, reading and writing Katelyn https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSEeWBRSsR2aTwC8rDjAXkA twitter @scripturienting or on Facebook The Scripturient 101 and Follow me on instagram @scripturient |
Katelyn CostelloA lover of words, reading and writing. Archives
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