My Most Liked Goodreads Review

 

When I post a review on Goodreads, I either take a lot of time on it or do something quick and simple. There's one review that I posted in 2014 that, every once in a while, I still get notifications of people liking it. I didn't even remember what I wrote in the review until I copied it for this post.

The review is for Deenie by Judy Blume.

Here it is:

I was diagnosed with scoliosis when I was fourteen. At fifteen I had corrective spine surgery. I remember the brace I had to wear after my surgery, and I hated it! Although braces are different now, it was still unattractive and uncomfortable. Mine actually did hurt because the most sensitive part of my spine stuck out a little and the brace dug into it roughly. The first time I had to wear it at the hospital was the day after my surgery and I cried because it caused me pain. I recall a male physical therapist snapping at me and telling me it didn't hurt. Oh, I wanted to hit him! When my doctor finally said I didn't have to wear it anymore, I drew a bikini on it with marker and slashed the padding on the inside with a pair of scissors. Hey, I was fifteen! But it felt great being able to throw it in the trash.

I've never read a story about a girl with scoliosis, and I wish I had known about this book back then. I'm thankful to Judy Blume for exploring this important subject, shining light on it, and for the young girl who inspired Deenie.

I really liked how Blume wrote about Deenie's posture, because my own posture always bothered me and still does to this day. When I was in ninth grade, one of my shoulders was higher than the other and one of my hips stuck out more. I felt like a freak! I also like that Deenie had to see many doctors, because I lost track for how many doctors I had to see to get diagnosed, to get measured for my brace, and to prepare for my surgery.

Deenie is a quick, nice read that explores scoliosis and the thoughts of a young girl who has to wear a brace to fix her spine. This story will not only help teens and parents in this situation, but everyone who doesn't understand what scoliosis is.

A couple more reviews that get some love every once in a while:

Calm the F*ck Down (1 Star)

Your One Word (5 Stars)

You can find me on Goodreads here. I also highly recommend The Story Graph. It's much more relaxed than Goodreads where things can get very heated.

A Girl from Pluto Ep. 1

 

This series will contain posts styled as a memoir with memories that I feel like sharing. I first wrote these articles in 2017 when I was suffering from burnout. I may post one or two a month. I hope you enjoy these intimate glimpses into the life of...

Episode 1

A Vanity of My Own

My oldest sister had a glass and gold vanity in her room. It had two shelves, so you could put products on the top and smaller items on the bottom. An oval mirror stood in the middle that moved back and forth if you needed it to, but it didn’t turn all the way around. I tried. 

I loved that vanity. It was classy and cool with all that glass. And it meant my sister was mature…a young woman. She clustered lotions and hair products in one corner. In another corner, she had perfume bottles. Around the oval mirror she had attached her claw hair clips. And her makeup was arranged just so on the bottom level. I enjoyed looking at it and sitting in the tiny chair, pretending I was older and beautiful. Even rich. I mean…it was gold.

At this time, I did wear makeup. I was probably ten or so. I liked to put on purple or blue eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick. In my 5th grade school picture, you can just make out a bit of blue eyeshadow on my lids and clear gloss on my lips. Being allowed to wear makeup meant I was mature, too…a young lady. I adored the feeling, and I was the only one in my class who wore makeup, so I felt privileged in a way.

But I did not have a vanity.

One day, I was with my dad in his truck. We were close to home when we passed a house with a piece of furniture on the side of the road. Glass gleamed in the sunlight. Gold sparkled. My eyes widened. The vanity! No, not any vanity. It was an exact replica of my sister’s vanity. I asked my dad to turn around and get it for me. I so badly wanted it because it was just like my sister’s. He had no problem at all fetching it for me, and I was filled with delight.

When we got home, he brought it into the room I shared with my mom and other sister. I cleaned it with Windex, paper towels, and love. It was perfect! No scratches. No rust. I went back and forth from the master bathroom I shared with my mom and sisters and took items from the counter to put on my vanity, like hairbrushes, hair spray, my makeup, which included little containers of body glittery that I’d put on my eyelids and cheeks. As I did this, I’d snuck into my sister’s room (she wasn’t home) and studied her vanity. I went back to mine, shifted things around, and hunted for specific items from the bathroom that I could add to my vanity to make it match my sister’s. I was proud of my creation, prouder more that I was a little bit closer to my oldest sister, who never really wanted to hang out with me, but maybe this would help that…show that I’m not as little as she thought.

Later, my other sister noticed the resemblance of my vanity and our sister’s vanity. More, she noted how I had set mine up in the exact same fashion. “I’m going to tell her you’ve copied her,” she said, and hurried off to tattle to our big sister.

I sat in the small chair and stared at my vanity, tears forming in my eyes. I felt as though I had done something really bad. Awful, in fact.

Both of my sisters came in then, and my oldest sister was livid that I not only had the same vanity but completely copied her. I don’t remember what was said, but I do recall that the claw hair clips were pointed out, because I had put mine along the mirror, too. I even had the same number there: three. One on top and one on each side.

By the time they left, I was crying.

My sister couldn’t see that I copied her because I looked up to her. She was huge in my eyes. In a good way. She was older, cooler, and I had wanted to be just like her. Instead of being flattered that I would mimic her with something as silly as a vanity’s spread, she was mad.

And I became mad, too. I picked up my hairbrush, laid out like hers, and threw it on the ground.

Little sisters look up to their big sisters. This is what I did. Perhaps it would’ve been fine if my other sister copied her, since the two of them were closer. Or perhaps not? Maybe she had wanted to be an individual. But what she couldn’t see is that she was inspiring me. I craved what she had, not because I wanted to take anything from her, but because I wanted to be like her.

I ended up not using that vanity. I looked at it with shame, made to believe I did something so unforgivable, and we ended up getting rid of it. I never had a vanity since, but I still think about that glass and gold vanity. If I ever find one like it, I’ll buy it and respect it in a way I wasn’t able to as a child.

Writer Friends Challenge #WritersFriendChallenge

 

Last year, I stumbled upon an Instagram challenge that takes place monthly. 

#WriterFriendsChallenge

I saw someone I follow posting daily for it, but I don't remember who it was. (Sorry, if it was you.) I'm always looking for some kind of content to do for my Instagram, a way to promote my books or current projects without being too salesy or pushy, and I definitely enjoy connecting with other writers.

June was the first month I joined in on the challenge. Since then, I've participated every month and will continued to do so as long as the challenge keeps on going.

I learned a few things along the way:

1. You do not have to participate every single day. If a prompt stumps you, doesn't work with your books/projects, or you're just too busy, you can skip it. You can skip several. It's okay.

2. When you post, add the hashtag #WriterFriendsChallenge to be discoverable, but also click "Tag a Person" and tag the challenge's account @writer.friends.challenge. This is additional discoverability.

3. When you look for people posting, don't just go to the #WriterFriendsChallenge. Also go to the account @writer.friends.challenge and click on the tag symbol with the outline of a person. (Tip: It's directly above the posts, to the right. You'll see one other option that's 9 stacked squares. Tags is to the right of those 9 stacked squares.) When you go there, you'll find the other people who tagged the account in their post. This is the best way to find the most current posts since the hashtags do not give you the option to see recent posts as they used to, so you'll see posts for months and years past all mixed up. Not ideal when you want to see new posts.

4. Just like with a blog hop, the thing to do is to like the posts and follow the participants.

5. But you gotta build relationships. Liking and following is nice, but you have to do more than that to build a connection. Comment on posts and reply back to comments that you get. Sometimes, if you don't have anything to add, a simple, "Thank you!" is enough.

6. Just like with all challenges and relationships, it takes time. So, the first few months, I didn't have as much engagement. I also think that the challenge was a bit smaller then. It has grown since I started to participate, because the more writers who join it, even more writers are able to find out about it. Finally in October, I started to get real, genuine engagement on my posts from people who sound truly interested in my current projects. That was a HUGE change. It shocked me and equally delighted me.

7. Have fun with it.

January 2025 Prompts:

These were the prompts for the last four months of 2024:

Some of my recent favorite posts:

Clickable if you’d like to read the captions.

Best of Write with Fey 2024

 

BEST OF WRITE WITH FEY 2024

Works-in-Progress:

Take a Peek into My Work-in-Progress: Find Ivy

Take a Peek into My Enemies-with-Benefits Story

Writer's Life:

My Writing and Publishing Roadmap

What Rejections Still Hurt?

Learning to Read was a Struggle

Blogging:

My Blog's Top 13 Posts of All Time

Chrys' Top 13 Blog Post Picks

Movie Love:

Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs)

How Did the Movie Pitch Black Inspire me?

How Did the Movie UltraViolet Inspire Me?

How Did the Movie Matrix: Reloaded Inspire Me?

How Did the Movie Van Helsing Inspire Me?

How Did the Movie Gothika Inspire Me?

Author Life:

This Promo Thing Is Crap

Desperate Is as Desperate Does

The "Gift" That Keeps on Giving

It's Challenging, Don’t You Think?

Listen. I'm Saying It Again.

Random:

Let's Talk Taylor Swift

The Disaster Curse is now FREE FOREVER!

Space is Hard / Writers on the Moon

Grief Work & Healing Journey:

A - ASMR

B - Beach

C - Church

D - Donating

E - Epistle (Letter from Heaven)

F - Facebook Posts

G - Grief Share

H - Haiku Poetry

I - Imari

J - Job (New Job)

K - Kitchen Time

L - Ladybug Rocks #LadyBugRocksFL

M - Miracle Moments

N - Nature

O - Our Story (Keepsake Journal)

P - Playlist + Photo Collages

Q - Quiet (Reading) Time

R - Removing and Redecorating

S - Sammy the Teddy Bear

T - Tauren Wells "Joy in the Morning"

U - Use + YOU

V - Videos of Wildlife

W - Wellness Journal

X - X Out Certain Thoughts

Y - Yahtzee

Z - Zoo Trip

Looking Toward to 2025:

I have two post ideas to share in January, but as far as any other blogging plans for 2025...I don't really have any. I won't even be participating in the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge. It seems that I do it two years in a row and then don't participate for a few years, so I guess I'm on par.

For 2024, I didn't have a plan come January, but I ended up getting ideas for posts, as you can see with the lists above.

For 2025, my 13th year of blogging, I don't know what I'll be doing here.

I still have one feature idea that I've been mulling over for a couple of years now. This feature wouldn't be for writers/authors. They'd be more for girls/women. It'd be memoir style like Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman. So that means there will be stories about my childhood and growing up as the youngest sister. I mean, I have an essay about shaving, so yeah. HAHA. There's also stories about living without electricity and without a bed, etc. I'm still not sure if I'll do this, but I don't know what else I'll do with this content. Once, I thought I'd publish a memoir, but I don't want to do that anymore. My blog is the only other place I can think of sharing these essays. I'll continued to mull it over.

To get reminders about my posts directly in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Also, please consider subscribing to my museletter. I share the blog posts for the previous month there, but you'll also get writing/author updates, exclusive content about works-in-progress, and more.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Listen. I'm Saying It Again.

 

I'm sharing a few posts for Ghost of Death and Witch of Death, the final stories I promoted this year in an effort to promote my published work that was an epic failure.

Yup, it's the broken record again.

How pathetic this made me feel makes me not want to promote my work on social media ever again. Especially when trying to get interest in works-in-progress is also an epic failure. It's a huge letdown how these platforms are run and how the algorithms ruin everything. I know so many authors/writers who no longer want anything to do with Instagram because of how their posts get buried or are never shown to our followers.

Anyway, the graphics below are clickable if you want to see the captions on Instagram.

I hope you enjoy!

Let me know your favorite quote/graphic in the comments. 😊

WITCH OF DEATH

GHOST OF DEATH

It's Challenging, Don’t You Think?

 

This year, I participated in a lot of monthly Instagram challenges with daily prompts. It was a tactic I was trying to see if it'd help my engagement on Instagram. I didn't post every day in these challenges, although I certainly tried in the beginning until...

I noticed that my engagement wasn't much different, even when I did two challenges in the month of August (with some posts tying together both challenges). At that point, I started to just do the prompts I thought looked like fun, especially if they were about our characters or our stories.

I'm going to save those posts about my characters and works-in-progress for another time, maybe when I'm closer to publishing those stories *insert hysterical laughter here*, but here are some of the posts that I did that I really liked.

They are all hyperlinked if you'd like to read the captions on Instagram. 😊

The "Gift" That Keeps on Giving

Last month, I shared a few of my favorite posts for Hurricane Crimes, Seismic Crimes, and Tsunami Crimes from my failed promo efforts in this post: Desperate Is as Desperate Does.

The annoyance I have for my failed promo efforts from this year is the "gift" that keeps on giving.

Now, I am sharing a few posts for Flaming Crimes, Frozen Crimes, and A Fighting Chance. They are clickable if you want to see the captions on Instagram.

I hope you enjoy!

Let me know your favorite quote/graphic in the comments. 😊

FLAMING CRIMES

FROZEN CRIMES

A FIGHTING CHANCE