Honeysuckle Love by S. Walden Review & Guest Post

Honeysuckle Love by S. Walden

Upper YA Romance - New Adult

Title: Honeysuckle Love

Author: S. Walden

Date Published: 11/19/12

ADD TO GOODREADS

Clara Greenwich is too young to take on the sole responsibility of caring for herself and her younger sister. She’s just sixteen. She should be focused on school, hanging out with friends, falling in love. Instead, she’s working to pay off the mound of bills her mother left behind then she vanished at the start of the school year. Left alone with her ten-year-old sister, Beatrice, Clara discovers that she is now the parent, the provider, and the responsibilities grow to be more than she can handle.

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My thoughts: This was a very emotional book. Clara and her sister Beatrice are left all alone. Their mom walked out one day leaving Clara with all the bills and to care for her 10 year old sister. We learn that Clara's mom suffers from depression and this could be the reason for leaving the girls. Clara is in highschool and meets a nice boy Evan who is head over heels for Clara. He will do anything to spend time with Clara. Evan is popular and Clara isn't but that doesn't stop Evan from wanting Clara as his girlfriend. 

Clara starts to get overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running the house and caring for her sister. She also starts to hear voices in her head. Clara is heading in the same path as her mother but she has Evan by her side wanting to help her through the rough times. This book is about hardships, love, highschool drama and growing up. The book was well written by a teacher and faces many challenges that take the reader through an emotional journey with her characters. 

I have given this book 4 out of 5 stars.  

I also have a guest post today by S. Walden herself. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with my readers.  

Write However, Whenever. Just Write.

I’ve had people ask me how I write. Well, there’s no correct writing process. Sure, you learn
about the Writing Process in school, but it’s a bunch of hooey. Every person (who writes) writes differently, and all forms are acceptable. Now what’s not acceptable is never revising and editing your work. Ugh. Find some critique partners. Find an editor. It doesn’t matter if you’re going it alone as I am or signed with a big publishing house. Make sure you have an editor. And a good one.

My process is usually all over the place. I get an idea for a story, mull it over in my brain, take notes or make a loose (and I mean very loose) outline, and begin. Do I begin at the beginning? Never. I’ve never started a story from the beginning. I always start with whatever scene pops into my head first. But I write fiction. It may prove harder to write this way if I wrote nonfiction. Some might argue that this can mess up the whole character development thing, but I’ve never had that be the case. Sure, I end up changing scenes, sometimes a little, and sometimes altogether. Sometimes I cut them completely. But I always write whatever feels right in that moment. I don’t ever try to go Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and so on.

I’ve run into several dilemmas writing this way. You see, the good thing about writing linearly is that you seldom make mistakes in your plot progression with times, dates, information characters know or don’t know. But when you write all over the place—I like to call it the Chaotic Method—then you tend to run a higher risk of having conflicting information in your story. Take this morning, for instance. I’m in the process of writing my third novel, Going Under. I was writing a scene where a character makes reference to information she hasn’t yet discovered! And that’s because I’ve already written the scene where she discovers it, but the one I worked on this morning comes way earlier in the draft. Whoops. So yeah, that can be an issue. But that’s what your editor is for, right? (She’d love hearing that.)

Here’s the thing about it: I would never again (because I have in the past) give someone
instructions on the appropriate way to write. The correct process, if you will. I did that for a few years as a writing teacher, and felt like one huge fraud. It was frustrating for me and frustrating for my students. They thought they had to write a certain way, and I knew better. But my hands were tied—I had to adhere to the curriculum—though that’s no excuse. I should have been subversive in my teaching. It always makes you a better teacher when you’re subversive.

Remember that. In any case, I carry a bit of guilt for passing off the five-paragraph essay and Writing Process as the appropriate methods. I’m trying to atone for it now.

So write however you want. Find the process that works best for you. Maybe you are more
organized and enjoy writing linearly. It keeps you sane. It keeps your story sensible. It helps you write better. Go for it. Maybe you’re like me and ideas just explode in your brain at random. Before you know it, you’ve got an entire Word document filled with a bunch of unorganized scenes. Then it’s like a puzzle: move this around, that around, until it fits. Whatever works for you, do it. But however you do it, just do it. Keep writing.  

~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Genuine Jenn. I received the above book for review purpose. All opinions are honest and my own.*~

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