Hey y'all, I'm and welcome to my little bit of the Block Party! I am so happy to be participating in my very first Wattpad Block Party and am excited to share a few things with you all.

First, I will be giving you an informative look into a writing tool I use called Scrivener. I am so eager to share the greatness of this tool with you and hope to help more writers do what they do best, WRITE!

Next, I'll be giving a much anticipated (by myself and my amazing readers!) sneak peek into Axel and Lacey's world before the chemistry.

Before Lacey was paired with Axel on that fateful day in Chemistry class they lived separate lives and it's Axel's turn to tell his side of how things went down before that day. The story is set to start updating the week after today and I am so excited to share it with you! (If you have not read my story My Chemistry Partner this story will still make sense but the characters from that story are in this story. It takes place a few years before My Chemistry Partner)

Since I don't want to keep you waiting for why you're really here any longer, just let me say thank you for stopping by and I look forward to chatting with you and hearing your feedback. Enjoy!

Have you ever been in front of your computer (or phone/tablet) wondering just how writers write? How they plan, how they remember all of the details of their stories, or how they organize it all? Or where you even start with writing yourself?

I've had my fair share of trials in this crazy world of writing, but I've come an extremely long way from a million pieces of loose leaf paper and notecards all over my bed and spiral notebooks filled with notes and my writing. When I first started writing on Wattpad, I didn't have much of a plan as far as keeping track of my thoughts and story ideas. All I had was a spiral notebook, a pencil, and Wattpad.

I would write out my thoughts on a thousand pieces of paper and use Wattpad to store my stories until one day one of my chapters got eaten due to me working on more than one device at a time. Losing over two thousand words was a nice wake-up call to figure out a way to back up my works on another platform.

I started using my google drive to store my stories but when I tell you I was doing it the complicated way, I'm not lying. I worked hard to create something that my OCD driven brain would accept as sufficient but I wasn't ever really satisfied. It worked for me for the most and I never had any issues with lost work after that, but it just felt like something was missing.

I was more organized than before, but if I'm being completely honest, I was still all over the place. I'm not much of a planner in general and since my system wasn't very appealing as far as planning went, I just kind of went with the flow. My stories were what I'd like to call neat messes.

You know, those messes that don't pose a huge threat, but are still pretty annoying to acknowledge? Storing my stories in google drive was like having a bunch of piles of paperwork on a table and while they were all sorted, they still didn't quite have a proper place to be in the filing cabinet yet.

Google was like ...

I was working hard to figure something else out when I started writing my novel for CampNaNo (www.campnanowrimo.org) in April 21018. I researched so many programs for both my phone and computer until I stumbled across a program called Scrivener. The reviews were amazing and after combing through their site, I was pretty sure I was going to buy it.

When I completed CampNaNo I found out that the company behind the Scrivener was actually sponsoring camp and was giving half off of the software for the campers that completed their goal. I took this as a sign that I HAD to have it, and I pushed hard to meet my goal.

By May first, I was buying my very own copy of Scrivener for half off and it has been one of the best decisions I've made for my writing since deciding to finally post my work on Wattpad back in 2015! The possibilities of this program are endless and it makes the task of writing and staying organized so much easier than before.

If you've ever read any of my stories on Wattpad, you may have noticed how details about characters change throughout the book. I mean, I've basically given a dude rainbow eyes before because I couldn't remember what color I'd set for them to be in the beginning. I couldn't find the right details in my google docs and because it wasn't easily accessible, I just went with whatever color I was feeling at the time.

I've also butchered the spellings of character names and even forgotten if a couple said I love you already. LOL. Yes, I'm aware my memory is not all that great.

This is where Scrivener has come into my life and turned things all around.

Once I got over the initial shock of how much this program truly offers and dug around a bit I was blown away. I now am able to have everything neatly placed in the right folders, labeled correctly, and the best of all is that ALL of it is easily accessible from one spot.

No more clicking through google docs, hoping to find what I'm looking for. I can even use a word search function if I need to do an eye color check *smirk* ...

So now that you briefly know what Scrivener's done for me over the last few months, I've decided that I'd show you around the software a little bit, just so that if you're not already sold now you will be. In the video below, I show you how to create a new document, how I like to organize my stories, some basic software functions, and a few tips and tricks that I've learned over the last two months in using this powerful tool.

I hope you enjoy the video and afterward please scroll down to read the highly anticipated sneak peek into Axel's world Before the Chemistry.

|| f o u n d a r t w o r k ||

Lacey,

Do you remember when I told you that I used to draw? It was the night that I caught up to you when you worked at the bookstore. Watching you draw that night reminded me so vividly of how I drew before Meredith ruined all of that for me.

I still have all of my sketchbooks from middle school and freshman year. I drew non stop and my father hated it. He said it would never help me become a better soccer player, but I didn't care what he said. I was already good at soccer and drawing gave me an escape that I desperately needed during that time.

I drew you. I drew you a lot. We had art together our seventh-grade year and after that all I could think about drawing was you. Sometimes it was only your eyes, your dainty hands, or you're long brown hair. You just came to me all the time.

One afternoon at the end of our freshman year, all of my drive to create in that way was stolen away from me.

I was in the art room late, working on my final project of the year when it happened.

The art lockers were mostly cleaned out, but I hadn't cleaned mine out yet because our summer soccer conditioning started already and I'd been busy with that after school. When I finished my final on the last day, I turned it in and went straight for the lockers that we'd used all year to store our artwork safely.

I used the art lockers for more than just the work I did at school and as soon as I pulled my it all out of the locker Meredith came into the room looking for the teacher. She found me instead and took something from me that I didn't think I'd ever get back and put in motion a chain of events that would change my life forever.

"I'll be back shortly, Axel," Mr. Harrison, our art teacher told me, making me look up from my desk and nod in response.

I wasn't up for much talking and he was always respectful of me with that. It was something I could appreciate, since the number of people always curious about what I was doing or thinking was more suffocating than not. People were curious about me because I left so much up to their imaginations. I was always plotting something in my head and when I wasn't doing that, I was watching my surroundings and waiting on the day that someone thought I would ever be someone to bully again.

My thoughts bounced around in my head so much, and art always helped me clear all of the bullshit from my mind. Mr. Harrison knew that and during freshman year, he would let me come in before school sometimes just to use the art lab and supplies. I had plenty of supplies at home, but I felt like our home was suffocating too, with Mila not there and our family dynamics shifting so much after we almost lost her.

I knew I was going to miss the escape that the lab provided me with over the summer, and I still wasn't sure where I'd keep all of my artwork now, but I guessed I'd figure something else out at some point. I couldn't worry about it much at that point because I had soccer conditioning in twenty minutes, and it was my last chance to get all of my work out of the lockers so I had to hurry.

I walked over to the lockers and put in the combination into mine before gathering all of the pieces of paper, canvases, and supplies and tossing them into my soccer bag. I hoped my bag would be big enough to hold it all but I really didn't have anything else on hand.

When I have almost all of my sketchbooks in my bag, the door creaks open and I look up again, expecting to find Mr. Harrison. Instead, I was faced with Meredith and I let out a sigh as she spotted from across the room.

"Oh, Axel, please, don't be so harsh. I'm not that bad, am I?" She asked, smiling as she walked closer to me.

I started moving faster, not wanting to be in the room with her any longer than I had to and I knew she wouldn't be the first to leave.

"What are you doing here, Meredith," I asked her, already annoyed.

"I actually came in here to beg for a better grade, but Mr. H isn't here and you're way more interesting anyway," she told me, running her hands through her long red hair before pulling it all over her shoulder and letting it fall down her chest, taking my attention right to her cleavage.

I frowned. "He'll be back soon, and I've got to go."

"Oh yeah, I forgot you have conditioning today," she giggled, literally making me want to vomit up my lunch. She touched my bicep and gave it a little squeeze. "It's not like you need it."

"If you don't work hard in life you get mediocre results. I'm not mediocre, so there's always room for growth and practice," I told her, zipping my bag and throwing it over my shoulder. "Now I've got to go, try not to get Mr. Humbarts balls in your mouth when you suck him off for an A."

I moved past her glare and I couldn't help the smug smirk that overtook my face. I didn't like Meredith and she was one person that I never tried to be nice to. She always took advantage of the tiniest bit of niceness that anyone showed her and I hated it. She went out of her way to be mean to everyone else, so I made sure to go out of my way to be mean to her, too.

I knew Mr. Harrison wasn't like that and she'd likely have to do quite a bit of groveling to get any kind of grade improvement, but I still liked getting under her skin by saying what I said. She didn't follow behind me when I went out into the hallway and I should've known then that something being up with her, but I didn't care enough to try and figure it out.

I had to get to conditioning.

Coach worked us so fucking hard that day. A few of the guys even passed out, so when I was walking out of the locker room and saw Meredith waiting for me, I thought I was going to lose my shit. I was beyond annoyed with what I was about to go through and it had not even started yet.

"Wow, you look beat," she chuckled as she pushed herself off the brick wall.

Her pink mini skirt swayed back and forth as she walked over to me and her hair put up which only brought out the features of her petite frame more. Her bones showed more than most girls our age, but I think she liked it like that.

"Why are you even here," I clipped out, making sure she knew I was in a bad mood from the start.

"Coach must've gotten the team pretty good for you to be this pissy," she laughed.

"No, I just don't want you in my face right now," I tell her bluntly as I begin to move around her.

She reaches out and catches my t-shirt between her fingertips, the white nail polish on the ends of her nails drawing more attention to how polished she liked everything to be.

"You might want to hear me out first."

I gritted my teeth and turned my head so that my eyes were trained on her long fingers.

"Let go of my shirt," I told her as I brought my glare up to meet her eyes.

She didn't flinch. She didn't for one second think about letting my shirt go and that enraged me even more.

"Are you going to hear me out?" Her voice was soft, but I knew behind it sat venomous plans. Meredith was far from sweet.

"If you let me go," I growled out, making her release me quickly. "Now what do you want, my driver is waiting."

"I think we should date."

A mixture between a laugh and a scoff escaped my lips as I shook my head. I move to step around her again, "no thanks. Sounds like a death sentence."

She didn't stop me with her hands again, but what she said next stopped me dead in my tracks.

"No, it would be a death sentence — at least socially — if these got out." The sweetness in her voice was completely gone. It had vanished with my declination to date her.

I turned on my heels and looks over at her with a glare, wondering what the hell she could be talking about.

"How do you think Ashton Washington would feel about you being obsessed with his little sister?"

I looked at what she was holding up and my heart damn near stopped beating. My sketchbook.

"Give it back, Meredith."

She laughed. "No way. I have something you want and you can give me something I want, which is you. If you agree to date me and forget about this ugly little twat then I'll think about giving you your creepy ass love book back."

My teeth clenched so hard that I cracked one of my back teeth that day, but unless I found a way to get the book back from Meredith I really didn't have many other choices on what I could do. I figured I'd have a better chance getting it back if I was with her more so I agreed.

"Fine, Meredith," I growled out, stepping up close to her to get into her face. "We can be together, but the second any of those drawings get leaked I will make sure your life will never be the same. You may think you can ruin me, but I'll ruin you so badly you'll have to move school. So you better think about your plans carefully if you know what's good for you."

When I turned around and walked away, I was so pissed. More than pissed, but I knew I was doing what I had to do to make sure that Lacey or Ashton never found out about how much I really did care about Lacey and how no matter how hard I tried not to draw her, I could never get her out of my head. I knew how it would look from the outside and I didn't want to go through that, but most of all I didn't want Lacey to have to deal with any of it either.

With my sketchbook in the wrong hands, I had to do whatever it took to ensure that she wasn't affected by any of this and in the end, I think I did a pretty good job.