Hey! It's J.T. Sorry that I've posted literally nothing in the Media Reviews section. I'm so busy from marching band and homework-my school's homework load is practically homicidal-that I have literally have NO downtime. Those will be coming as soon as I have time. Which will probably be in either late December or early January.
    Speaking of marching band, I have two pieces of news. 
    First, I'm going to start a website! I'm super excited! It's called "Finding Balance," which is named after my marching show this year. It's going to be like a blog about my life, both in and out of marching band. When I'm done setting it up I'll give you guys the link.
    Second, I'M STARTING A NEW BOOK! It's about a girl in marching band. I'll give you more details later, but now I'm still working out what's going into the plotline. But I'm really excited.
    I've got a lot of iTunes browsing catch up on before I have to go back to school, so I'm gonna go now.
    Love,
     J.T.

Hey guys, Morgan here and it is now August!......... ALREADY. Now I know what you must be thinking- “AUGUST?!? But that means… OH NO. School’s just around the corner! But I don’t want summer to end! I’m not ready!!!” Calm DOWN, it’s not as big of a deal as you make it out to be! Okay, well maybe it is. School starting? Summer ending? Cold coming? Ouch. But don’t let all those Back-to-School blues get ya down! This month instead of making excuses to skip your weekly writing quota, start making excuses to EXCEED your weekly writing quota! How do you expect us to do all that you say? Easier said than done you say? POPPYCOCK I SAY! (yep, poppycock. I’m feeling pretty old-timey today! :D ) This month, start up an account on ‘Camp NaNoWriMo’ which is an online writing competition that us moderators just can’t get enough of! Set a goal and start writing. THAT EASY! Now if you’re currently a member of the site, you probably already know about regular old ‘YWP NaNoWriMo’ and ‘NaNoWriMo (for Adults)’. Camp NaNoWriMo is basically the same thing, just at a different time (in this case, two months during summer vacation) and with up-and-coming school year, I think now is a better time than ever to step up your progress levels and finish up any last-minute writing projects before you get thrown into the school year and swamped with homework. Trust me, you’ll regret it if you don’t!

Here’s the link to Camp NaNoWriMo:

http://campnanowrimo.org/ 

Here’s the link to my Camp NaNoWriMo account:

http://campnanowrimo.org/campers/morgansboss 

Have a nice August!

Tootles, (See? Tootles! Told you I was going old-fashioned today)

Hey guys- Morgan here again, now back with yet another YouTuber Sunday post! I'll keep it short THIS time... (don't worry, Ill harp on yall next time...) But I just want to gloat for a few seconds... See the guy in the Youtube video I have below? Yeah, I just found this video a few minutes ago and I couldn't have been happier! Please notice that he is, indeed, a REAL PUBLISHED WRITER, and guess what he's talking about?  The BEST WRITING ADVICE he'd EVER recieved! And what is it??? A WEEKLY WRITING GOAL!!! Trust me people- this WORKS! Use the WWG, and start up that 'Dont Break the Chain' Calander... I'm telling you, this stuff works! If it's good enough for him, a REAL PUBLISHED writer, than it's most certaintly good enough for you. So keep with it and stay firm to your schedgual and you'll eventually go far! :)

Ariana here! I realized that some of the posts are similar with the Youtube video articles, so I'm starting to call the Sundays in which we post about youtubers, Youtuber Sunday. Do you like Youtuber Sunday? Do you think it needs a different name? Tell us in the comments!

Many of you may of heard of Famous Youtubers John and Hank Green, otherwise known as the vlogbrothers. Well, a couple of days ago, I had the pleasure of discovering their videos! I had heard briefly about them for a while, but never did I check out their videos until late last week. But when I did, I instantly became a Nerdfighter! (A term that means people who instead of being made up of cells and organs and stuff are actually made out of awesome. They are proud to be nerdy and intelligent, and fights to end WorldSuck.) On January 1st, 2007, the two brothers decided that they would stop communicating by text, but by vlogging to each other, making the first Brotherhood 2.0 video. To this day they make vlogs, one by John Green on Mondays, and one on Wednesdays by Hank Green. Here is a older vlog that John did, giving Writers Advice and discussing his first girlfriend, Tiffany with no last name: (click the 'Read More' button on the the bottom right corner of this post to see watch the video)

And did I mention that John Green is an author, who writes young adult books? He's written five. Here are the links to goodreads.com's reviews of the books:

Looking For Alaska (2005)
An Abundance of Katherines (2006)
Paper Towns (2008)
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

 I look forward to checking his books out, they look good!

DFTBA,
Ariana March

Sup Guys? Morgan here again with more of those writing-inspiration-tip-thinggys! Last time I told you about ‘Don’t Break the Chain!’ which I find to be a great and thoroughly efficient way to keep authors on track and writing consistently over a long period of time. But there ARE a few problems with that approach. In some cases, like mine, you go on to write with the ‘Don’t Break the Chain’ attitude and then only end up putting in a few useable sentences after a bad case of writers block. I mean, it’s better than nothing though… right? WRONG. Not writing consecutively over a period of time is one of the WORST habits you can develop as an aspiring author. What happens if you actually FINISH that first-in-series novel you’ve been working on for the last FOUR years? And then, with major luck, actually PUBLISH it? When you start on the second one in your series, do you feel comfortable making your readers wait ANOTHER four years for you to finish that next book? Hmm… Not exactly, but what can you do? That’s just the way you write. NO! Stop the excuses. Personally if I was reading a book, and it took FOUR WHOLE YEARS for the next one to come out, I wouldn’t really be very interested in it anymore, no matter HOW good the story is. A good solution to this HORRIBLE habit is to set up a Weekly Writing Goal to go along with your Don’t Break the Chain calendar. When putting together your WWG, keep in mind that it’s better to aim LOW and end HIGH than aim HIGH and end LOW. For example my weekly writing goal is about a half a chapter each week. Doesn’t seem very big does it? That’s because it’s not! No matter how long you imagine a chapter to be in your mind, you can always finish a full one in between two or three sittings. Really a half of a chapter wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to a couple hours at most in order to complete. The reason why I set mine so low though, is because of the weeks when I’m out of town or super busy. It’s a heck of a lot better to be able to say that you exceed your WWG (weekly writing goal) that was low, than to miss one that was high. And then after that, when you get more used to scheduling time around your daily writing sessions, raise the bar a bit. Make it harder as you get better, and soon you’ll be writing WHOLE chapters in single sittings.

Here’s a link to a counter you can re-set each week to show how close you are to reaching your WWG:

Hope this helps you with any of the efficiency problems you may or may not be having,
-Morgan-

 

 

    Sharing your writing is always talked about, and sharing is great for a writer/aspiring author, but no one ever talks about sharing your reading. Sharing your reading is just as important, because without it books like The Hunger Games would have never become smash hits. (Once I placed a hold on Catching Fire, and I was 163rd on the waiting list. Needless to say, the wait took forever. Sorry, that was random...) 
    Anyway, talking about what you're reading is awesome because then other people learn about great books no one might have heard of. I've read so many great books that don't receive enough credit. It's too bad, really, because they're just kind of stuffed between two books on a shelf in the library and no one gives it a second glance. You never know what kind of great literature is hidden behind the 'Harry Potter' books or encased in an unattractive cover.
    On the flip side, there are also bad books out there. You can save people a lot of time, money, and brain cells by warning them about certain book(s) that are unrealistic, stupid, depressing, boring, or a flat-out rip off (though I always end up reading them anyway to see how bad it truly is. Sometimes bad books make for a good laugh).  
    So to save you brain cells that you'd probably want for writing, I'm going to start posting book reviews. I'm always reading books I want to talk about, and I've even have index cards that I rate my books on- ten stars is "one of the best book I've ever read!", zero stars is "so bad I couldn't bear to finish it". I'll post them on the book review page (coming soon) so you can find them all in one place, so you can find some good (and not so good) reads during the summer!
See you soon!
Love, J.T.

Hope this is helpful!

Love,

Hi! Morgan here, with the first official writing-help post on the Reader Writers Notebook blog! 

This post, I'd like to talk to you about a little inspiration-thing that I learned from one of my personal favorite Youtube Vloggers, Charlie McDonnell, which was developed by Jerry Seinfeld. In the video below, he says, "If you have a thing you need to do, and you need to do it all the time..." Which basically includes writing! Now one of MY greatest issues with writing is actually finding the TIME to write and finish the story I'm working on. With this idea, 'Don't Break the Chain' can really help anybody out there with any similar issues. Charlie does quite well to explain the basic idea of the project, which I'm actually beginning to put into action myself in everyday life. I'd encourage all of you to watch the video, listen to his amazing British accent, and then start your own chain using the link I've provided at the bottom of this post to dontbreakthechain.com which is an online calender you can use to start your own chain and be inspired to set yourself a requirement and finish that story on time!

http://dontbreakthechain.com/ 

Hope you found this helpful and post any questions or comments bellow,
-Morgan-

Ariana here!

I'd like to thank each and everyone of you who have joined the site! It's nothing without the people who give advise and make us better writers. It's not just a website, it's a community! 
This being a new blog and all, what do you suggest to add on the site? Leave a comment in the comments box below, or send us a shout-out through the 'Contact Us' page!