Expecting more from New Adult and #writemotivation

I follow several self-pub'd New Adult authors on Facebook. All of them like to rant when they read a reviewer talking about the devolution of writing because of the self-pub'd industry. I've read many, many book blogs that recommend self-pub'd books, effusively praising the story and how amazing it is and they give them all 5 stars. Eighty-five percent of those books make me want to beat my head into a wall.

First, a disclaimer--there is absolutely nothing wrong with self-publishing. It takes a lot of work to promote your book after the hard work of writing it.

Here's my problem--the lack of editing. As I've ranted before, they don't maintain the tense. They flip back and forth between present and past and I don't think half of them have heard of past perfect. Using then versus than. And my favorite so far: "He wondered off to the other side of the club." Wondered? Wondered? The word you're thinking of is wAndered. Another author describes the MC as having her head on her love interest's shoulder. The MC "elevates her head to look at his face." I understand wanting to avoid cliches and wanting to find a different way to say what has been said a million times. However, elevate is awkward at best. Maybe it's because I'm a nurse and we elevate broken extremeties to reduce the swelling.

I'm fairly certain I've discussed those in a previous blog, so I'll stop there. Obviously it bothers me.

Now, is the traditional publishing industry jumping on the New Adult bandwagon? When I search for New Adult books, most of what I find is self-pub'd. Maybe that's because they're so much more popular due to the lower cost. I'm not sure.

I obeyed one of my September writemotivation commandments this week: read a book in my genre I'm writing. I, of course, read several self-pub'd New Adult books--those are so easy to read and I devour at least one a day. The books I read this week for my Young Adult genre are the first two books in a series: Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas. Can I just say WOW!

Throne of Glass follows condemned assassin Celaena Sardothien in her quest to re-claim the title of royal assassin. I couldn't stop reading this book Thursday night, probably finished it about 3 a.m. Deciding I wanted to see where the Crown of Midnight started, I told myself I'd read the first couple chapters and go to bed. One-hundred-and-fifty pages later, at 7:30 a.m., I forced myself to stop so I could sleep. The first book was completely and utterly captivating and amazing. The second took that farther. Her love interest straightened itself out a bit, she suffers a horribly heartbreaking loss and the ending she reveals the big secret about herself that left me speechless. Speechless. And so completely frustrated that not only is there no release date for the third book, there's no title yet. I know it probably won't be out for a year and I can't freaking wait. I haven't felt this way about a series in a very long time.

I think the thing I love best about this series is Celaena's active struggle with readjusting to life outside of the salt mines she had been condemned to the year before. Her thought processes and emotions are real and relatable and I feel them so deep in my stomach I ache for her.

So, writemotivation goals:
                   1.) Did some writing, nothing towards my current WIP. My very awesome agent decided she wants to focus her career in a different direction and passed that news on to her clients last weekend. I allowed myself the week to be in a funk and now I'm making myself snap out of it. She was such an inspiration and I wouldn't have started my New Adult without her and my YA WIP wouldn't be where it is now without her. Also, without her, I wouldn't have found the awesome K.T. and her writemotivation and I wouldn't be doing this blog. There's me focusing on the bright side!
                   2.) Read a book in my genre: as noted above, very two awesome books by Sarah J. Maas.
                  3.) Here's the blog!
                  4.) Haven't focused on sketching out a new story because I let myself funk.

Now, onto the writing, because the voices in my head won't stop if I don't.