Sharpening Sentences

I'm finishing a rewrite on a book that I have been picking at for basically forever and I'm doing edits on another with Canda. The thought that keeps coming over and over to us is sharpening sentences.

There are two ways, specifically that we are talking about:
1- Getting rid of all sentences repeating what was already said or done. No echo's needed. :)
2- Strengthening the sentence with descriptive language to provide emotion/tension to a scene and paint pictures in the readers mind. Using more similes, metaphors, and all together lyrical language. This provides a distinction from amateur writing to professional writing.

This is what polishing is for us. Once we have the characters, plot holes covered and questions answered we look at sentences and how we can make them richer, giving the reader a more complex story to enjoy.

Book Trailers

I posted about anamoto as a possible use for homemade or fan-made book trailers HERE. But I also really enjoy the ones on authors websites that have a more polished feel about them, not so drag and drop. Here are a few great books with their trailers.
The first is DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth
Read the books soon because the rights have been snatched up by Summit and they are already casting for the movie.


The next is STOLEN by Lucy Christopher

And the last one, SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater



Have you read these? which are your favorite?

The Beginning of the End

Hubby has one more year of school left! YAY!! :) It's hard to think that just one year ago he was freelancing graphic design and considering not doing college any more and now he has a year left in game art and design. Yes, that's a different degree. But it's absolutely perfect for him and the most important part it that he will love his job. So one down, one to go, which for our family mean big changes.

1- He won't be working his "day job" anymore. the normal 401K contributing, insurance providing job doesn't let him get the classes he needs to graduate. Too much scheduling conflict means goodbye normal, hello unknown.

2- Hubby will not be at work he will be at school, as in all the time. Once he comes home it's homework time. Which is fun for him since he loves the course work but everyone will need to pitch in and help mom out, weeding, cooking, cleaning and laundry. Thank heavens they are old enough to actually help :)

3- The hardest one for me: No new car. We were planning on trading in the car I currently drive for a different car but due to budget cutbacks it's not happening.  Also not happening: any vacations out of state. Shoot! Stay-cations here we come!

We'll be dipping into savings and tightening our belts, and cruising pinterest for free fun ideas. Luckily we don't have any credit card debt and a great interest rate on our current car, and awesome family support near by. So I'll update yall on our new adventure as the year goes by.

What about you? What are your favorite cheap or even better free thing to do by yourself, dates, or to entertain kids?

Picture from: http://www.nasriatallah.com/tag/typography/