Tag: Book

Top Moments of the Decade

This is not an easy list. So many things happened that could have been the most memorable of the decade. Well, there are the DBS surgeries, I think they’ve had a huge impact on not just me, but my whole family. But, I want to focus on non-medical, non-traumatic moments.

April 14th, 2016

My first post was published on justinsmithwrites.blogspot.com. It was part of a school assignment, but don’t hold me to that, and I just kept writing after the class was done. I love sharing life as I live it in my new and improved WordPress blog.

Graduation

I gave the graduation speech that same year and well, I’ll leave links to the video and the blog post down below.

Writing the first book

I have not read it since trashing it. It has never been my priority to get it out in the hands of the readers, not like this novel about a teen girl who has CP. I proved to myself that if I put my mind and heart into something, I can get it done.

April 2019

I began writing this beautiful book and I like this narrator and I like the characters who I have gotten to know.

Little moments

My favorite moment was the little moments. The hour before the first DBS surgeries when I was put on my mom’s lap, to the moments I had in school, trip to Boston with my WBUUC Youth Group, nerf sword fights with my brother, baseball games with my dad (Twins, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Toronto), reading the book Paper Towns and being stopped dead by the last paragraph, and to the moment when I decided that my current book might be done by Valentine’s Day.

Here is to the next ten years. Happy New Year’s and New Decade!

Looking Towards the Future High School Graduation Speech

The novel

I’m feeling fantastic about how the novel I’m writing is panning out and the characters…OMG! Awesome!

I’ve set a deadline for the first draft and it’s literally on Valentine’s Day. Might finish it sooner than that, but my goal is Valentine’s. The reason why I picked that date is because my book is a romance, mostly. It is about human relationships and what we do when a relationship doesn’t work out.

I’ve got to finish what I hope is a brilliant book and step away from it for a month or two (break for political season – caucus, primary, legislative session, ADVOCACY!). Then, I have to self-edit the thing. Then send it to critique partners. Edit some more. Send it to beta readers. Edit some more. And maybe send it to sensitivity readers. And maybe, edit some more.

My book is a mystery romance novel narrated by a young woman with cerebral palsy and she is searching for a former friend. The reason why I wanted to write this book is because I never really attempted to write a novel about how I was feeling when I was fifteen or sixteen. This is when I went through multiple deep brain stimulation surgeries, had a surgical site infection, etc. It was a somewhat confusing time in my life, and I can bring some of those feelings and experiences into this story I created. I have never attempted to write about how I perceive my disability and I needed to write a realistic story about this.

Back to work on my book.

p.s. NaNoWriMo Report: wrote every day and ended up with 5 more pages than my goal.