Abby Elissa's Writings

First off, I'm sorry I didn't get a post out last week! It's been a crazy few weeks - or, rather, months. And it's not gonna get any better. I'm finishing up high school in the next two weeks, leaving for college in a few months, trying to balance a sometimes-frustrating job, and working to get Like a Warrior  ready to go into the world. (a few months later than intended, sadly. But I want to do this right, so I'm willing to wait a little longer) And, so, for right now, I'm going to have to step back from blogging. This isn't permanent. This is just me trying to focus on my priorities and do what God wants me to do. Goodbye for now, y'all. Without worrying about publishing posts myself, hopefully I can be more active with reading and commenting on other blogs. And, if all goes as planned, I'll be back later ready to go full-steam-ahead with launch plans for LAW. Thank everyone one of you so much - for reading, commenting, encouraging me. I love y...

 Hi, y'all! I'm back for a special announcement today: SawyerMarie and I are hosting the 7 Days of Hope Blog Tour again! You might remember about this tour from when we did it last year. Then, it was spur of the moment. This time, we've been planning it for a while, and we're giving ourselves and everyone else some extra time to get ready. And we're doing things a little differently (but in a good way). For one thing, we're adding an exciting giveaway with two winners! If you'd like to host a day, you can sign up here ! We might not be able to accept all applications (due to the space we have available), but we'll sort through and consider all responses. If you don't have a blog (or just don't want to host a day), but still want to share about this blog tour, you can fill out this form ! After you do, we'll send you a media kit with images ready to share on your blog, Instagram, etc. I'm so excited for this blog tour, and I hope you'...

I promised an update for my novel, Like a Warrior  - and here it is!!! * * * I finally have a timeline and roadmap for publication!!!!!! To all of my beta readers, who signed up months ago and have put up with all of my shifting timelines and long messages - thank you!!! You can expect your e-copy of LAW on or before February 19th! After that, I'll sort through beta feedback, make my revisions, send it off to an editor, and then . . .  It'll be time for a cover reveal! I'm aiming to do the cover reveal in early May, and I'll put more information about that out closer to time. After that - blog tour! I'm planning to run the blog tour from June 11th-18th.  And then, on June 18th - Publish my novel!!!! 💙 I know that's nearly five months from now, but, trust me, I have a LOT of work to do. 😂 Not only on revisions, but with publicity and marketing and such. And putting a hard date out there for the world to see . . . scares me. But it also gives me a lot  more acco...

  Welcome to 2021!! I could go into the long, well-researched ramble I had started about New Year's resolutions (the statistics on those are interesting!). Or I could list out some of my goals for 2021. But, I'm not going to do either of those. Instead, I'm here for a short post: my word of the year. I don't know how exactly y'all took this word - but I don't mean trust other people. I don't mean trust myself. I sure don't mean trust everything I hear. I mean trust God .  I mean that I want to learn how to trust God with everything in me. To not worry when everyone else is worrying. To not turn away when everyone else is turning away. To not stay silent when everyone else is staying silent. To not back down when everyone else is backing down. To not be afraid when everyone else is afraid. And so, this year, I hope you'll join me. Joining me in trusting God. With everything. 💙 Love, Do you have a 2021 Word of the Year?

2020 was probably the biggest year of my life for changes. And not all bad changes, either. Actually, there were more good than bad.      And, despite the fact that I'm not always an optimist, I'm going to focus on just the good changes here. 😊 I met my best friend. 💙💙 Actually, I met a ton of new friends. My two closest friends (not sure how I would have survived 2020 without you two! 💙), my writing support group, my email buddies . . . All online. I'm not sure I've ever been so grateful for technology! In March, I started my own NaNoWriMo writing group. From there, I joined The King's Daughters' Writing Camp. And . . . wow. That has been so amazing! 🤩 Actually, I'm chatting and "word crawling" (I'm not even going to try to explain that, but it works 😂) with them as I write this! I can't even describe how amazing it is to connect with writers all around the world. I discovered that I am an INFJ and I've become obsessed with MBTI ...

Well, as you (should have) gathered from the title, I don't have just one thing I'm posting about today. 😊 Instead, I have a—well, a bunch of random announcements. Let's begin, shall we? My New Work-in-Progress I'm excited to announce my new WIP! It's called Edge of the Shadows , and, if things go as planned, it might turn out to be a good bit longer than Warrior . Though I LOVE the dystopian genre (dystopian stories: futuristic stories set in a society that's pretty screwed-up; aka, probably just about every futuristic story you've heard of), I've never written much in it. The idea for Shadows  came to me one night, and I figured it would be just one more of those stories I thought about for a few weeks and then tossed aside. But I made the "mistake" of telling a couple of my friends and writing buddies about it . . . and one of them, especially, was crazy supportive of the idea (and she's still this story's biggest fan and has read h...

 Look what showed up in my inbox!     Early next month, some amazing bloggers are starting a fun book "party," full of book recommendations and even a giveaway.     I followed this party last year, and it was awesome! I'm looking forward to it, and I hope y'all can find some fun new books there, too! ---     Also - stay tuned! I'm working on a three-part blog series that I'm hoping will be fun and helpful! The first post should be up a week from today!

 All gave some, some gave all. - Howard William Osterkamp

 Hey, y'all!  Short post today, but I had something I wanted to share with y'all! 💙      My amazing friend SawyerMarie had an idea...and we worked together on it until it turned into something awesome: a week-long blog tour! We're calling it "7 Days of Hope."      As you might guess from the name, this blog tour’s purpose is to help give hope - even when everything seems dark - and to point our readers to Jesus, the Giver of Hope.     It runs from Sunday, Aug. 16 to Saturday, Aug. 22. We have five wonderful bloggers who are helping us with this (listed below).     Are y'all looking forward to this? I know I am! Blog Tour Stops! Day 1 - Aug. 16 - SawyerMarie at Sundrop Girls Day 2 - Aug. 17 - Brooklyne Elysse at Showers of Blessings Day 3 - Aug. 18 - Katja at Little Blossoms for Jesu s Day 4 - Aug. 19 - Brooklyn at Five Sheckels Day 5 - Aug. 20 - Emma at Seven Billion Smiles Day 6 - Aug. 21 - Ellen at Ellen's Musings Day 7 - Au...

Welcome, y'all! I'm Abby, and I'm so glad you dropped by!      You can read more about me here . I spent a lot of time working on that page, and I don't want to go through that again...      I made this blog to mostly be about bookish stuff - book reviews, behind-the-scenes looks at my writing, blog tours for online friends, etc. And tags. Because I just love tags.       Now, to be honest, this blog wasn't even my idea - my dad suggested it. And it wouldn't have been possible without his help - and a whole lot of encouragement and suggestions from my incredible friend, SawyerMarie (she's also a great blogger - you can find her blog, Sundrop Girls, here ). Sawyer, this probably wouldn't be happening right now without you. Thanks, girl. I'm so glad God let us become friends. 💙     I'm hoping to post at least once or twice a week, but, never having done this before, I'm not making any promises. 😊     Also - this blog i...