Longtime No Hear---5/6/2013---1:32 pm

Hey Guys!

Wow, it's been a longtime. If I would've waited any longer it would have been a year between posts. Let's just say a lot has changed since my last posts. First of all, writing is not the first thing on my mind anymore...my degree is. Don't get me wrong I still love writing, I just haven't found my balance yet. My college schedule is a mess and when I'm not doing anything school related I want to catch up on my rest. It's finals week right now and after this I will officially be a Sophomore.

As far as my writing goes, my YA book is still only one chapter deep and What it Takes to Keep Her is still unpublished....yeah I know. I haven't had a chance to do any writing since I've been out here and I'm probably going to have to reread both of my books before I can start writing the third just so I can make sure my story line is on the same page.

The main reason I didn't self publish that second book was because I didn't know what I wanted to do. Honestly, even though I'm over 200 miles away from my hometown I just wish everyone would leave me the hell alone about my books, but that's my fault cause I got it published in the newspaper. People from my town irritate me to the utmost irritation. Also, I'm thinking of taking a different route with my second book. I was going to be late self-publishing the book anyway, but when I actually sat down to do it I found out that one of my favorite authors has made her own publishing company so I sent her a copy of both What it Took to Get Her and What it Takes to Keep Her. Anywhoo, it took me another couple of months to get to two copies of each manuscript. I mailed them about a month ago. Even if she don't accept my book, I don't really want to self-publish anything else until I at least have a rejection letter. I hope that's not the case though. She is obviously my first choice but I will be expanding my search to other publishers. The whole independent everything was great when I was in high school and I had the free time. Now I barely have time to write, so I'm trying to put myself in a situation where all I have to do is write and then let someone else handle everything else.

Last month, I read one of Yahoo's new headline articles about Amazon censoring erotica or something like that. I really did have something to say on the article but it's pretty useless now since I can't even find the link.

Anyway, I'm thinking about taking this blog down and starting another, but I'm not sure and this also means I may come up with a different pen name, who knows. I'm not sure what's gonna happen with Hardcore Awareness. I'm thinking about trying something new...don't exactly know what it is yet, but we'll see. My first step is getting picked up by a publisher and go from there.

Until something new happens...
B.

Updates---8/30/2012---10:30 p.m.

Hello Hello Hello Everyone!

I am posting this live from the BR...finally. I came here on the twelfth of this month and I have been her every since. I am having the time of my life and I haven't even thought to be homesick. Anywhoo, on a more serious note. Classes have just started and I am still adjusting to things. Not to mention, Hurricane Isaac hit yesterday and it put us out of class for a few days. I just found out that the school has canceled Fall Break to play catch up. It's just taking a little longer than I thought it would be to get settled. With that being said, Hardcore Awareness is being postponed until further notice. I need to take some time off to find that perfect balance between everything that I have going on right now. This break does not have anything to do with What it Takes to Keep Her. That is still set to hit within the next couple of weeks, so tell a friend. I still will be working diligently to complete the first book to my YA serious as well.


Until next time...
Queen B

I Need Suggestions---8/3/2012---1:33 pm

Hey Readers!

August is almost here and is a lot that is going to be happening. I am moving next week, so after I am all settled, I can get down to business. For one, I should have What it Takes to Keep Her on sale. Then my new blog will be up and running properly. Speaking of that blog, now that everybody knows what it is about, I need suggestions. By the way, if you don't know, go back and read my last post. Anywhoo, I want to know what stories you'd like to know my opinion on and what topic you want me to create and awareness story on. I'd rather you send me your comments to my email at hardcoreawareness@gmail.com. Although I will be writing about what I want, I do want to include some of what you want to read about.You are the readers so your opinion matters to me. Give me some feedback or don't have your lips poked out when I don't talk about stories you want to see.

Even though I haven't official done any real post yet, I went ahead and posted my introduction post. The blog is under contruction, but it is up at http://hardcore-awareness.blogspot.com/ so you can already be follwing me. I want that blog to be more popular than this one so follow me and tell all your friends to. Trust it will be worth it.
Thanks!

Queen B.

My Moment of Clarity---7/26/2012---3:16 p.m.

Hey Readers,

I know you have heard me say this many times, but it has been a longtime since my last blog post.  By now, we are way past me apologizing for it as I’ve done numerous times in the past. So as you probably guessed, this post is going to be extremely long. Now, since my last post I have been taking some time off from everything…including my book. I know you guys are thinking, “How could you take off at a time like this when you wanted to be done with your book in two months?” I know there’s only like two weeks left in that deadline, but I am so over that now. I just started on my second chapter in this book, but I had to, once again, calm down and take a breather. I rush things way too much and that is why I decided to take a break in the middle of my goal deadline. On the other hand, I did finally pull out What It Takes to Keep Her and finished editing it. The only thing I have left to do now it create all my files and get the book on Amazon, which is still set to happen late August or early September.

I finally moved out of my house and in with my sister for the summer until I leave for the south. That was step one of my break and everybody around me who knows my situation can see that I am genuinely happier now. Not to mention, I finally finished my Calculus test with a 94%. I will be in Honors Calculus in the fall! People always complained about how hard Calculus is, but try teaching yourself Calculus and then you’ll actually have something to complain about. Math at my school sucked almost as much as the science did. I hadn’t seen a Calculus problem until after graduation and going into college. Believe me, after all that, I needed a break.

 Anywhoo, my point is I have discovered some things about myself. First of all, you all went through my little breakdown after my article in the newspaper came out. That is also the reason I rushed to get my YA novels on sale. I got people in my hometown waiting for copies of a book that isn’t finished yet…crazy isn’t it? Let’s just hope they don’t Google my name alongside the word book. Heck just Googling my name will bring up all my accomplishments plus a link to this blog and they can find out all the information they need to know from this website. Anyway, in my rush to get out my YA novels, I pushed back the deadline to the second edition of the Boss Bitch Chronicles and I didn’t finish editing it. Well, as I said earlier, I finished editing it and as I finished the last two chapters, I remembered why I started writing in the first place. For some reason, I tend to forget what I wrote, so it was very entertaining to read the ending and I can’t wait to write the third book of the series. I can honestly say that I fell in love with writing again.

Second of all, I was riding around with my sister last night and she was listening to some Christian Rap cds. Well the singers and rappers are a girl that I went to school with and her older brother. She is a friend of mine and they both work with my sister. Anyways, they are making a name for themselves and I’m really proud of what they are doing. It got me to thinking about what I want to do. I admit, I can be over the top and too honest at times, but I’m a realist and I like to speak my mind. For example, a lot of people may feel offended that I chose to portray Khloe Shelton as a Madam who enslaved underage girls for sex and that I actually went into details in some scenes. Well in reality, people are kidnapping young girls and pimping them out to older men, but nobody likes to entertain that thought. It doesn’t mean I support it, but people should not be ignorant about what goes on in today’s world. I was thinking about the documentary that I made for my senior project on Alzheimer’s. It was basically fifteen minutes of the real truth behind caring for an Alzheimer’s patient and having an Alzheimer’s patient in your family. Even though it was my family that was being documented, it was a start and I actually enjoyed making the film. The judges gave me a 95% and the loved it. They even told me that they knew of the disease but they had no idea the emotional and physical effect it had on people. So basically, I’m in that stage where I’m back at square one again. During my ride, I got to thinking that I wanted to do something different with my writing. I love controversial literature and Khloe’s story in the Boss Bitch Chronicles is definitely controversial. The audience loves to respond to controversy so I am just going to feed off of that, which brings me to my next decision. I want to bring reality to the public and I want to speak my mind on whatever subject that arises. That is going to be the topic of my next blog. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not gonna’ start one of those blogs where I dog out something the next hottest celebrity is doing. I’m taking about shocking breaking news and other controversial issues like corporal punishment, marriage, girl code, and etc. The only issue I may shy away from is politics, because I’m not a huge political person. I try to avoid it as much as possible, but I guess I never had a reason to care. Heck, I only registered to vote because my sister felt that it was important. Who knows, I’m older now and I should probably get educated on that subject. Anywhoo, I am in the process of creating a new blog and it should go public around the time What it Takes to Keep Her comes out. This is just going to be a trial run to see if I can actually find the time to pull it off and to see how the pubic takes it. If it doesn’t work for me, I’ll stop and find another subject. By the way, I’m letting you all know now that I will be posting the link to my other blog and it would mean a lot if you follow me on that blog.

I think that’s all for now so…

Until next time, tell me what do you think?

Queen B

My YA Book Is Off To A Great Start!---6/25/2012---10:25 a.m.

Hey Readers,

Since my last post I've learned one thing, I need to have a little more faith in my work. When I was reading some of my comments from the last post, I realized how nervous I am about everything all the time. I think it all boils down to first impressions. People are entitled to have their opinions about everything, and some people really let you have it. I think my nerves boils down to making the right first impression for me. I don't care about having negative comments, but I'd rather have good ones first. You know, being a new name has a better chance if you have good recommendations and a few dislikes. It's harder when you start off with terrible comments and then you try to improve later. Well, the latter is something I don't want to be faced with and I'm sure every new author has been nervous about their first review.

Anywhoo, I haven't been home since Friday and I've already gotten a lot of work done. I stayed up until two a.m. this morning just to finish Chapter 1. I have been procrastinating for the past month. At first, I was always distracted with my sister and her horrible kids living in my house, but by the time I get two hours alone, the last thing I want to do is write since I be screaming for sleep by the time they leave the house. Thankfully my other sister let me crash at her house and I slept half of Saturday. Then, I got up to cook dinner, because I was expecting my mother and I wanted to at least have everything on the stove by the time she walked through the door. I got a little housework done and got kids squared away. Folding clothes is not something I do often. I hate it with a passion, but I actually washed and folded my clothes and washed my mother's clothes too. After we ate, I slept from then until Sunday. Now I actually woke up pretty early Sunday. My church traveled to Dallas yesterday, so I didn't have to worry about missing service. I'm still a kid at heart, so I watched cartoons until about noon. I have to watch my Smurfs and Winx Club on Sundays. After that went off, I grabbed my laptop and said I have to finish this chapter. I had promised myself that I would finish it, but the weekend was almost over and I was about to break another promise to myself. Of course, I had to procrastinate one last time, so I played one of the yahoo trial games. Ya'll know those trials only last an hour, so I didn't actually start writing until one. I actually got a little buzz going on and that's when my other sister's boyfriend called my mama. He was like, his daughter called and said somebody was trying to break in the house and both my sister and she were out of breath. He was talking to her and the phone cut off. He tried calling back but the line stayed busy and that’s when he called the police. He doesn't have a car so he's stuck at his parent's house. That's when my mama, my other sister and her kids, and I drove down there. Before all of this, my granddaddy had left like at seven that morning and my sister had had her car broken into while at work. She's even heard people messing with her car and our dogs barking frantically when my mother and I aren't home. My sister gets involved with strange people, so I thought she had pissed off the wrong person. We stay deep in the woods so it seemed ridiculous for somebody to break in our house. I mean, first of all, somebody had to find us and where we live, you won't find us if you aren't looking for us. However, with the past instances, to me, it made sense that if somebody was after her they would wait until she was home alone with her kids.

Now we get down there and we meet the cops coming out of our road. We get to the house and my sister came back to the car and said our niece and nephew had been playing on the phone. I come in, my oldest sister is fussing and my granddaddy is sitting on the arm of the couch. I didn't even know he had come home. You see my sister was in the bathroom taking a bath. When she came out to get dressed, her youngest son told her that the cops were outside. Of course, this was the very first time my sister or my granddaddy was hearing anything about this alleged break in. It turns out that my oldest nephew had lied to his other grandmother and he was acting like he was his sister. Ya'll know the bad girl that I told ya'll about in a past post that I got into a fight with. I told you she lies, so it made sense that she would've done it. Everybody thought she had done it, but the one time she was telling the truth nobody believe it until she started explaining her case and her story matched ours. Anywhoo, my nephew told they granny that somebody was breaking in so she past the phone to her son, which is their father. Our phone lines are nigga rigged so one wrong move can unplug the lines, which is exactly what he had done and didn't know it. Therefore, he didn't get a chance to tell his daddy he was only joking. That explains the phones mysteriously cutting off during the conversation. It also explains why the line stayed busy when we were trying to reach them, which is why their father called the police. Our grandfather said that the police wanted them to talk to the children, because if our number shows up for real the next time it would seem like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. You know the law doesn't condone whipping your kids, but being from a southern black family we read the bible and we firmly believe in the scripture that says, "Spare the rod, spoil the child." To each it's own, but I am glad my mother whipped me. I turned out perfect fine, so did my sisters, so did my mother and her siblings, and their mother and so on and so forth. There is a difference between chastisement and child abuse, which is where most people get confused...end of story.

Anywhoo, I finally made it back to where I was staying for the weekend around three something. I went to the store and made it back to my laptop around five. I stayed on my laptop from five until two this morning. Counting the hour I wrote before I was interrupted, I spent a good ten hours working. Now you see what I can get done when I'm not bothered?

Finishing my first chapter is, for me, the most important stage in writing a book. Finishing the first chapter is like signing a contract for me. You know once it's finished, I'm stuck until the contract expires, or rather, the last chapter is finished. The first chapter is the most difficult for me because it determines how the rest of the book will go. It's like my road map, and after I finish my map, the rest just comes naturally. I have nine chapters to go and if I work at this rate, I will be meeting my two month deadline.

Now the second most important stage for writing a book, for me, is the cover. I usually start working on my cover anywhere after the hallway point, but a ways before the ending. Then, I release it. Releasing a cover creates your "buzz." It also serves as motivation to complete your book. Of course, it's tempting to throw your book out, or ideas rather, when you haven't finished chapter one. However, I find it just as easy to throw in the towel when you are chapters into a book, but you just happen to get stuck. You can end up with writer's block anywhere from a few days to a few years. It took me a few years with my first book, but everything after that I only had it for about a week tops. Anyways, when you get stuck and you know you want to continue, just create your cover and release it. The cover not only makes it seem real for you, but it makes you feel like you have to finish because if you don't you'll look like a quitter to your fan base. Then at that current time, your fan base is so small that you'll do anything to keep them, so the last thing you'd want to do is release a cover and a book summary, and then rip it all away as soon as the public gets excited about it.

Anyways, that's my advice for the day. Of course, when you accomplish one thing, another problem arises. I am beginning to tap into a whole-nother genre and I feel like I am starting over with everything, but I'm willing to take that risk. With that being said, I am going to start another blog, but I don't know what it should be about. It is solely for my YA author image, but I'm not looking to do any type of review. I think review blogs are too common and starting one would just give me more work. I barely have time to write, let alone read and critique. And then there is this blog, my followers from here knows that I talk about whatever comes to mind on this one, so the last thing I need to do is start another blog just to do the same thing. After all, things would become sort of redundant and that's the last thing I want. I still want my topic to be YA fiction related, but I want it to be out of the box. If you have any suggestions, please let me know in a comment or just email me at qbreean@yahoo.com. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

Until next time, tell me what you think...

Queen B.

I Scored My First Book Review---6/18/2012---2:40 p.m.

Good Evening Readers,

In my attempts to increase my number of followers, ya'll know the old trick, follow for a follow, everybody does it or has done it in one point in time...well I got in touch with a blogger who does book reviews. She is the writer of http://curseofthebibliophile.blogspot.com/ but that is just one of the many blogs that she manages. She volunteered to do this review and I immediately agreed. You guys should know by now that I jump at things and then think about the consequences later. Well, about an hour after I agreed to it, I got really nervous; after all, reviewers can be brutally honest at times and if she didn't like it, I'd be screwed. This was a few weeks ago and I never saw the review. My friend said he saw it, but that was during the time that I took my books off sale. When I realized my review could've went away with my books, I panicked and I immediately contacted Kate earlier last week.

Anywhoo, a few minutes ago I logged onto my email and I had an email from Kate. She had posted her review in four different spots:

1) Her Blog:  http://curseofthebibliophile.blogspot.com/2012/06/what-it-took-to-get-her-part-1-boss.html

2) Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/books/26697037/What-It-Took-To-Get-Her-%28The-Boss-Bitch-Chronicles%29/reviews/3632108

3) Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3E5MS1WKOINVO/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0066CAPC4&nodeID=133140011&store=digital-text

4) Librarything:  http://www.librarything.com/work/12701493/book/86825735


They all, of course, have the same review, so if you want to, just click on one of the links to see it for yourself. Thankfully, she loved the book and I'm sure you will too.

Until next time,

Queen B

What's Going On---6/13/2012---10:06 a.m.

Hey Readers,

First of all, What it Takes to Keep Her is finished, minus a few editing issues. For those of you who are new to this site, What it Takes to Keep Her is the second book in my Boss Bitch Chronicles trilogy, so in the meantime, you can pick up your copy of the first book, What it Took to Get Her, on amazon. Just type in Boss Bitch Chronicles and they all should pop up. You can expect the second one to be release in August or September, because I am thinking about publishing this one through Lighting Source. Until then, my manuscript is literally on the floor in a binder behind my bed.

Anywhoo, in my last post I informed you that I am working on my first YA fiction novel. Well, I am still on Chapter 1 of that. I'm still living in a noisy house, so it gets pretty hard to concentrate at times. My only real issue is is how to promote. Queen B has a blog, a twitter, a facebook page, and several blog networking accounts. I'm trying to decide whether or not to create separate accounts for my YA persona. I am stuck on that, so will you guys please voice your opinions on that one.

Things are slowly picking up for me. I finally have a somebody to handle my PR. She doesn't start until August, but I'm happy to at least have somebody to do it. Now all I have to do is focus on writing.

Until next time,

Queen B.