A day in Houston

Today, Cody Underwood and I sat in the Galleria (large mall in Houston, Texas). We had about 4 hours to blow before I had to be somewhere at 5:30 today. We needed to find something to do and decided this would be the best FREE thing to do.
We went to starbucks and ordered Venti Chai Lattes ($8.43) and sat at the tables looking over the ice skating ring. It was nice to sit under the arched windows on the top floor.
I like to look at strangers and imagine their lifes. Each one has a place to be, people to talk to, and goals to accomplish. It is nice to think about why Person A is walking so fast or why Person b is smiling as they talk on their cell phone. We would look at people and make up stories about them. Fun times.







There was an older couple sitting behind us and sparked up a conversation about their digital camera. It was giving them a "protected memory card" error. Of course they asked the young people..lol. Apparently if you are twenty something you scream "electronics expert". We both were typing away on our computers and helped them out. Cody actually handed them one of his business cards! Advertising at its greatest! Afterwards they asked us about coffee makers (a young people thing again). The reason for that question is easy. Our generation enjoys drinking coffee and usually for social reasons. 50 years ago people smoked cigarettes socially.

Last night, before i went to bed, I did some rereading/editing of previous chapters. Quite entertaining. I went back and read things that I had forgotten I wrote. I am now only a little over 15k words. Almost a quarter there. I have really enjoyed being on twitter and updating regularly. I am close to 100 followers, which is exciting. I know its no where close to Ashton Kutcher or Seth McFarland but hey, its nice to know people have some of the same interests and comment on what I post in 140 or less. I am so over Facebook these days, twitter has more well rounded people that are easily accessible without all the hoohaa (silly word for spam). their pages. Anyway, today was pretty good considering the circumstances of the trip.

I found an inspirational wall. Below is a pic!





Court

to choose a title?

I am afraid you have come to the wrong place if you were looking to find a blog on "How To" choose a title because I do not have the answer! Recently on twitter i tweeted and asked all writers how they chose the title for their books that worked and made sense. The response was amazing and I enjoyed reading the different answers that were given to me. I learned that EVERYONE is different.

Below is a summarization of the responses I received
1. most waited until the book was complete and then named it
2. some still don't have titles and need help finding one
3. one person actually had the title first and wrote an entire novel around it

I am not at the halfway point and I have made up my mind to wait and name it after the book is complete.
I find it interesting how one can write 100,000 words but have problems with writing 1-5 words as a title.

Im in Houston tonight for an emergency family trip. This morning when I woke up I had no idea that I would be sitting in a hotel room tonight. Goes to show you that life can throw lemons your way. Tonight was our relay for life in our community and I missed it. I was signed up to walk but I chose family over that.

Today has been very interesting and tomorrow should be the same. I am tired and mentally exhausted. Woohoo for the weekend. HA!

-Court

24 hours is not enough time

Each day seems to be going by quicker and quicker. I seem to be running out of time to do things, mainly because I love to do SO many things.
I need to go grocery shopping but still haven't made a list. It seems silly but impromptu shopping trips always end up BAD! My refrigerator can never fit the food I buy and my pocket book hates me. I always have to go in with a plan so that way I do not stray to far away. It is kind of like writing. It is nice to have a plan, an outline to your story.



I love little notebooks. I don't know why I love them so much but I do. The one shown above is my favorite little notebook right now (I picked up 3 more yesterday at Target). Oh and the precise rolling ball pen is my favorite type of pen. When I was an undergrad I would go to class ready to write notes when I was using this pen.

Anyway, inside of the cutest little notebook in the world, I plan to write any good advice that I read/given to me about writing and self publishing. There is so much advice out there these days. I am grateful that I live in a technology age where the internet is readily available and full of great information (and social networks). It seriously only takes a click to get started. I have to admit, I am somewhat addicted to the internet. Research can be so much fun. I think I just geeked out a little. I would like to find other bloggers out there that do book reviews and such. I want to add more reads to my list but I hate downloading books that are horrible. But I love a good buy, Free - 99¢ - $1.99 books are right up my ally, especially when the content is interesting and well written. Don't get me wrong, I do spend more $ on books. The last book I bought was The Help through the iBooks store, read the whole thing on the iPad. It was a great read and I think when I bought it months ago it was $11.99, now I believe it is $9.99.

To all the self-published successful writers: - do you have any good advice that you would like to share?
To all the awesomely amazing book blogger/reviewers: What books would you highly recommend in 2011?

-Court

My life in general

I just launched my new site! Woohoo! It is called courtyoung.com

I am in the process of writing a vampire novel/series and reading a couple of other non-ficion books. I am trying to think outside of the concept of other vampire books that are on the market right now. Definatly not a rip of twilight or interview with the vampire, although it would be nice to be as successful as Stephanie Meyer. Trying to go for a more non-traditional approach. So far I have around 12,000 words written. It amazes me each time I complete a chapter, I get so excited for the characters and the events that could happen next. I write several times a week, usually a little bit a day.

I have been trying to NOT read and vampire supernatural books right now and have been interested in many different subjects.
I am currently reading "Of Mice or Men", it is not a new book that is hot on the shelfs.

Yesterday I ordered a white kindle 3G with wifi.
I am pretty excited about getting it in so I can start downloading more books through the kindle store. I currently have an iPhone 4 and iPad, but I honestly felt like I could not live without the kindle! The battery life on it is supposed to be longer than other things that I have and whenever I travel and camp it wont need to be charged. Not to mention, I can place it in my bag and read during my breaks at work.

Today I downloaded a book called Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel.
The author had it on sell in the kindle store for 99¢ and I just started following her on twitter.
Thought I would check it out and may write a review on it once I am complete. It looks like the book was originally $14.99 and most of the reviews are 4 to 5 stars.

Anyway! This is my first blog on here in 2 years and wow, alot has happened since then. I thought about deleting the old posts, but decided to go ahead and leave them.
I have had several blogs over the past couple of years but they have not been as centralized as I hope this one will be. It is directly linked on my site (I use a little program called rapidblog to update)

I looked back at my old posts and laugh at how silly they are. I raise a glass to the future and to the day that I look back on these posts and think they are silly.

-Court