Birthday Ups and Downs

Today is my birthday. Yay!!!! I accidentally deleted and screwed up my website webliography page. But it's all fixed now, thanks to Mr. Crist's wicked technology magic.

Not looking too shabby

I sold out all the copies I bought. I am going to order more after school today. My mom finally is reading the story. She said it was "interesting" which is her nice way of saying, "it's ok." One comforting thought is it isn't an adult book. It is more geared towards teenagers. A good friend of mine, Lauren, who is a tough critic when it comes to books and movies, said that she liked it and it's pace. Shannon also said she liked it...gonna ask her in Calculus what I did well. *Two thumbs up!* I just hope a lot more people enjoy it.

SPECTACULAR NEWS!!!!

MY BOOKS ARE IN. THEY LOOK AMAZING. 'Nuff said.

Literature Review DONE

Ok. Well, it's almost done. The thing is written, self edited, peer edited, but it has yet to be teacher edited. Yay! It's an eleven page paper but writing it really wasn't all that bad. I got to talk about a topic that I really love and find intriguing: the writing process and book publishing industry. I guess now it is time to work on my website. I think getting it done this week is a good goal. I can't remember if I said this in an other post, but my books have been SHIPPED! I got a notification from Lulu.com about it last Thursday. It's supposed to take 3-5 days for them to get here, so I should have them sometime this week. The wait is driving me crazy.

Tired

After all that excitement, I am beat. And I have a lot more to write for my literature review and it's six pages as of now. Wish me luck.

OMG

My book is published!!!!!! Currently it is selling at $7.50, plus a $1.50 fee (this will fluxiate) for me to ship the books to my house. At that price, it will take 22 people to buy my book in order for me to breakeven. I bought 20 copies (no not all for myself, to sell), a copyright, and shipping & handling fees for $196.35. That's a really good deal, believe it or not. It's just gonna take awhile because I'm selling my book for so cheap.

Book Quotes

I'm looking at three different book printers: Book Logix, Lewis Color, and Lulu.com. Early this morning, I was talking to Ms. Johnson (mentor) about getting book quotes. All that means is I was getting the projected cost for printing my book. For 10 books, Lewis Color would charge me about $62. I have yet to hear back from Book Logix but for Lulu.com, it would cost me about $55 for digital printing. The turnover is also very impressive. It would take about 24 hours to print my books and anywhere from 3-5 days to have them shipped to me. I am very excited and can't wait to get the last of my edits back so I can start getting all of this put together. My goal is to place my order with one of these printers by the end of this week, so I can have my printed books by the end of this May.

Wow. This is AMAZING

Soooo things are really going well with Dreamweaver. I have my homepage finished and the links to all the other pages done. I also redesigned my book cover. Again, suggestions are welcome. Please, let me know what you think.

Dreamweaver, here I come

I finished my outline. Its fourteen pages long and the paper is supposed to be 5-8 pages double spaced. I hope all the information from my outline will condense when I put in into sentence form...Or I'm going to have to cut a lot of stuff out :( I guess I should start working on my grad project website. Did I mention that the basic layout of the home page is due Friday? Well it is, if I haven't said already. Dreamweaver, here I come.

Updating

I spent the whole day updating: my webliography, foundation questions, blog, book edits, notes, project activity checklist, and weekly check in form. Busy. Busy. Busy. I have to update and finish my outline next. Fun. Fun. Fun. I'm not looking forward to it really. I'm all tuckered out. It's due Friday though, as well as the home page for our project website, so I can't delay.

I'm Back

I haven't posted anything for a while. It's been a little more than a year. Isn't that crazy? So much has changed. I've probably edited my story ten million times and Mrs. Watson has proofread it for me twice. I'm supposed to get her corrections back today so I can make final adjustments. I have my application filled out for a copyright. All I need is to finish my edits so I can submitt the final copy into the Library of Congress. I'm so excited!! My cover art for my book is finished as well. Well almost finished. I think I might change the font I used for the title. Please, suggestions are welcome! OH YEAH. I changed the title of my book. I didn't like Poltergeist. It wasn't very original or catchy. It's Blind Faith now.

Whoopee!!!!

FINISHED!!! I finished my table of contents and outline. It's the last day of grad project (for 11th grade at least) and the last day of school. I'm going home and don't have to come back to school until April 27th. But guess what guys!!! I'm going to Costa Rica this Sunday!!!!!! Ahhhhh, I'm so psyched!!!!!!! On the flight, I will be editing and revising my story. : )

On a roll here...

I've finished my proposal, edited it and turned it in. I've also finished the proposal's cover page and created a table of contents for all of my work this trimester. I've even edited other peoples' proposals. My next step is to complete the outline of all my notes.

Much Has Been Accomplished

First and foremost, I have finished writing my proposal and have gotten revisions. Secondly, as I am considering different publishing choices such as self publishing, I'm going to meet with Ms. Johnson this afternoon for lunch to talk about the self publishing process. I've also sent out my first four chapters to Ms. Watson and Mrs. Savido for constructive criticism. Things are looking good and I'm really excited!!

SUCCESS!

On Friday, I successfully interviewed Ms. Johnson and learned alot of interesting things. For one, she is a self published author with her own self publishing agency (Words With Wings). She agreed to be my mentor on this project and said she may have another author for me to interview. Additionally, she said that if I want to be a self published author, she could set me up for that (in case I can't get any publishing houses interested). I'm not sure if I've said this before, but I finished my prewriting and the first paragraph of my proposal. For now I'm continuing my research of the publishing process (taking notes), editing my story and finishing this proposal.

Revising

I revised a chapter of my book today and made a key change. I'm really excited over where this book is going. :)

Yay!!!

I finished the pre-writing for my graduation project proposal. Right now I'm editing my manuscript. I would like to have that fully proofread before break so I can give it to Ms. Watson...so if she wants to look over it...it's not like an overload of work (grading papers, preparing for class, etc.) I hope she'll want to read it. Crossing my fingers.

Prewriting

Today I worked on the prewriting for my graduation project proposal. Nothing else to share, except I'm taking the SAT's on Saturday. I'm kind of nervous...any suggestions on how to do well?

Grumble, grumble, grumble

I swear I don't mean to be neglectful. Updating this blog is the least of my worries when it comes to my grad project. It's hard to keep it up when I have ten million things to do for other classes. Errrrr.....

Sadly, my interview with Mrs. Johnson had to be postponed because she had to go into the hospital for surgery. I don't really mind though. I just hope all goes well. Right now I'm working on a "show n' tell" presentation of what I've done so far with my project for the rest of the class. I'm also still working on notes/research...yeah. fun fun.

Update

I've read up to page 166. Yes I know I'm far behind my own schedule but it is rough as I have other work from other classes to worry about. An interview with Mrs. Johnson has been set for March 2nd, after school and it will be video taped. Nothing much more to report right now. I have a lot more reading and notetaking ahead of me. There is a lot more to the publishing process than I thought. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm not discouraged. Writing a book and publishing it is what I dream of doing.