As promised, here is the book review of The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard.

Colt and Julia had secretly been dating for a year when Julia is killed in a car accident. Colt has to continue to keep their relationship secret and can’t properly grieve his loss. When Julia’s brother finds a journal she had written to a ‘CM,’ he figures out Colt’s identity. He gives Colt the journal, which enables Colt to relieve their relationship through Julia’s perspective. As he nears the end of the journal, he hopes to come to terms with the loss and have closure. But not all secrets can be kept…

The male point-of-view was authentic, the story was full of tension and the cast of characters added depth. When you thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. I could sympathize with Colt and his struggles to find himself, come to terms with his loss and get through the grieving process.  

On the MDW scale, I’d give it 4 clouds out of 5:         

In preparation for an assignment for my class, I decided to create a spreadsheet of my WIP to figure out just how many words I have to date.  I created it in MS Excel so I can keep adding chapters and it will total the word count for me.  So… as of today – I have 76,014 words and 370 pages.  I also included a column to keep track of the conflicts by chapter.  I have successfully included a conflict in every single one, although some might be internal conflict or romantic angst, the tension is there.  I posted part of my creation, edited for public consumption here.

In other news, I finished The Secret Year, by Jennifer Hubbard a few days ago.  I hope to write a review in the next few days.  But until then, it was a great read, told in an authentic male POV.   I pre-ordered Linger by Maggie Stiefvater which won't be released until the summer, but I am anxiously awaiting it.  I have a lot of books on my shelf that I need to get through.  Next up, The Witching Hour, by Anne Rice which came highly recommended (and borrowed) from Mel. 

It’s almost Friday!!! 

So I am watching LOST as I write this.  It's a very insightful episode that is providing a lot of answers.  It's not all that surprising.  Still, it's nice to have some definitive answers.  I am still waiting for the big GOTCHA and here it comes... 

I'm not feeling all that bloggy today.  So while I rediscover my blogging mojo, you might be interested in checking out DGLM's post with a link to an article regarding editing.  I'm almost to the editing stage and found the information helpful.

By the way, are you correctly using the words peak/peek/pique?  I have already found a couple places in my WIP where I used the incorrect form.  Today I found an errant "their" which should have been "they're."  Oh how I can't wait to EDIT, EDIT, EDIT. 

Now to get writing... so I'll have something to EDIT.