A Romantic Enters the World

that writerly feeling

2012-01-26T13:18:00.001-08:00

I know I haven't blogged in eons. I think that'll be my usual thing now-days...I guess it is my usual thing...but I won't disappear completely.

This is just to say: do you ever feel so much like a writer that you're too excited to actually write?

I brought my revisions to my favorite coffee shop this afternoon. I've done a tiny bit of thinking on my agent's edit notes but today's the day for serious progress. I hope. Right now, though, I'm enjoying the slant of winter sun on my manuscript pages and the hum of the latte machine and the leaf swirl in my foam - so much that I had to snap a picture. Here it is.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

revisions

2011-12-20T22:33:00.000-08:00

I coaxed myself through the whole rough draft process of Untitled with the promise of revisions. I've always liked revisions because I'm working with something that already exists, already has structure. I always thought it was easier than plucking words out of nowhere.

But.

My revising brain's still off on vacation, so this first round is a mess. Not organizationally. I use Scrivener to write: all my chapters are separated and summarized, labeled with dates and notes and to-do lists. I have a master list, a color-code system.

But my method is a disaster.

My mom and grandma play a duet version of "Sleigh Ride" every Christmas Eve -- it's a long tradition -- and this year I'm trying to learn the secondo part. It's weird because my ears know the piece perfectly from years and years of listening, but my hands don't know it at all. So I've been playing it with my mom every night, and most nights I end up completely lost at some point. But since I know how it's supposed to sound, I usually just plunk along, lost, banging out whatever chords and notes my hands find until I somehow get back on track.

This is how I'm revising right now, too. I have my sheet music -- aka my organized notes and lists -- but I'm kind of just bouncing through the manuscript, lost, picking random scenes to tweak and twist, probably not hitting the right notes at all.

I think this is a sign that I need to take a break, but I keep having this delusional daydream that I'm going to send it off to my agent by the end of the week and she's going to say "This is AMAZING, let's put it on submission right this second!" Completely delusional. I, of all people, should know (I do know) how revisions go. On and on.

But somehow, I always think this time is going to be different, and I can just skate through...

Here are two illuminating posts on revisions that inspired me this morning! One on Janice Hardy's blog about turning revision into a game, and one on Anna Staniszewski's blog about going big.

a new project

2011-12-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

I know I've been pretty quiet (well, silent) about what writing projects I've been working on in the last year or so. Honestly, that's because I haven't been working on much (read: nothing) at all. (Although my short story, published by YARN this summer, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, which is super!) Basically, I took a long break to study abroad, graduate from college, intern/work, then travel in Asia.

But now, I'm finally working hard on a manuscript again. It's contemporary YA. Here's the synopsis. It's called Untitled.

Olivia blogs. Ilona, Macy and Hayes read, obsessively, everything that Olivia posts on her soul-searching online journal. It’s their new reality show: really real and really good to read with popcorn and chocolate chip cookies. But when Olivia’s problems stray from boy problems to scarier things like loneliness and depression, Ilona and her friends must cross the boundary between their reality show and someone else’s reality, and barge into Olivia’s life. If they can find her off-line.

I finished the rough draft last week. It's a baby rough draft, only about 55k, so I plan to revise for a while before sending it to my lovely agent. Then who knows, right?

uh oh.

2011-12-13T17:18:00.000-08:00

Do you ever write so much that you don't know how to spell any more? I just spent two minutes trying to type doorbell.

dourbell?

dorbell?

Sometimes I'm embarrassed to call myself an English major...

roller coasters

2011-11-29T16:51:00.001-08:00

I'm finally on the rough draft roller coaster. I spent the last six months writing in spurts - two hundred words one week, five hundred words three weeks later. Which is not a productive way to write a book. But ever since I got back from my Asia trip, I've been speeding along. I just hit 30k, and it's all downhill from there, right?

Haha.

But I forgot how weird and raw rough drafts are - not just the writing but my own experience. Earlier today, I was having so much fun. I kept thinking, "this is so good, it's all falling into place, and I love this character development and this is going to be great." But now I'm hitting the bottom, hating the scene I'm writing, convinced the dialogue is trash and wondering what's even going on. Probably, in a few minutes, I'll be fine again.

The thing I'm leaving behind, this rough draft, will be a roller coaster of a mess. But it'll be down on paper. Which I like.

What's your rough draft roller coaster like?

it's a great wall

2011-10-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

One of the big highlights of my Asia trip so far has been seeing the Great Wall of China -- twice! It's so great that we couldn't just see it once. Haha.

The first time, we went to Badaling, a super popular and touristy spot. We'd gotten free tickets with our train tickets, so we decided that even though the location was crowded and the day was one of the worst to visit the Great Wall all year (the weekend of China's biggest holiday), we should definitely go. Badaling was beautiful, and the trees were changing colors, and the views of the wall snaking off in every direction were surreal. Plus we got to take a gondola to the top - and once we got there, the crowds weren't nearly as bad as they were on the other side of the hill. Win!

Two days later, we went back - this time to a place called Mutianyu. Even though the smog clouded most of the hills around us (the factories had been turned back on after the holiday), I loved Mutianyu. We hiked the whole day, climbing up and up, sometimes balancing on stairs so steep we compared them to the staircase into Mordor.

The history of the Great Wall is crazy, and our guide Jackie Wan (not to be confused with Jackie Chan, he told us firmly) narrated so much of it while we were stuck in Beijing traffic. Much of its history is tragic - the whole wall was built with slave labor. Some historians suggest that one person died for every foot of wall.

Now I'm in Kathmandu, Nepal, which is also beautiful - the Himalayas are insanely huge and the hills are so green. I've never seen so many terraced rice fields in my life - or eaten so much rice... I'll be here for about three and a half more weeks.

friday ten

2011-09-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

In honor of my second-to-last shift at the restaurant, here are ten random restaurant terms that are now permanently in my mental dictionary.

1. CORNER! We say this so much at work, to prevent collisions every time we blast around corners, that I say it sometimes when I'm not at work. Like when I'm at home, going into my room. Corner. Definitely a sign that I spent too much time waitressing this summer.

2. 86 tomatoes. This strange phrase, which I still don't exactly understand, means there are no more tomatoes. So if a notice on the whiteboard says 86 Jack Daniels or 86 food, we're all out.

3. Warning! As in, I've got a warning on a baked lasagna, shouted to the line cooks in the kitchen, to let them know that a ticket for baked lasagna is going to be fired soon.

4. Bar run. Kind of like a grocery run, this means a trip over to the bar to collect drinks. Except if you're slammed, and have no time to grab the drinks yourself, you shout, Can anyone do my bar run??

5. Double sat. When the host staff seats two tables in your section at the same time. Could possibly be triple sat if it's busy or there's a miscommunication at the front desk, and always means your next fifteen minutes are going to be sweaty.

6. Two-top. Slang for the number of customers at one table. If it's slow: I only have one two-top! Or if you get a table that's so huge you can't count it: This big-top is killing me!

7. Dying food. As in, food is dying in the window! meaning food has been sitting too long under the heat lamps and needs to go out asap.

8. Upsell. A big part of my job. Have you ever noticed that servers don't just take your order? They sell you random things off the menu, like appetizers or bar drinks, all part of a big marketing scam to rack in more cash at the end of the night. Would you like a glass of merlot with that?

9. Check average. Goes along with upselling. If you upsell enough appetizers and bar drinks, your average per-guest meal price shoots up from say, $10 (if they only order a basic entree) to $14 or $15 dollars. It's like a badge of honor: my check average is 16 tonight! Or a badge of horror: I had so many kids tonight, my check average is barely 8.

10. On the fly. If a ticket got rung up wrong, or if a customer thinks their pasta is too dry, you race to the window and shout, I need that alfredo sauce on the fly! and, hypothetically, the line cook drops everything and gets that alfredo out at the speed of light.

friday five

2011-09-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

1. I'm reading a wonderful book, Miles from Nowhere, published by The Mountaineers Books in Seattle. It's the story of one couple's around-the-world bicycle trip in 1979-80. It's made me laugh out loud, cringe, tear up, and (kind of) want to bicycle around the world myself. The tragic part of the story is that, after dodging seriously maniacal drivers in Southern Florida, camping in the Moroccan desert, pedaling up and down the Austrian Alps, and more, Barbara died in a cycling accident near her home right before the book came out. But twenty-five years later, her book is in its fifteenth printing! It's a beautiful, hilarious, adventurous story, definitely the best book I've read this summer.

2. I also finally read Divergent (Veronica Roth) after being on my library's e-book waiting list all summer long. So. Good. I didn't put it down for two days straight.

3. Last week, I met up with a bunch of writers who are also represented by my agency (The Erin Murphy Literary Agency). It was so great to hear about their books, talk about literary interning, and gush about our wonderful agency. Did you know that Erin and Joan's agency is the #3 seller of kid lit in the country? The #1 and #2 agencies both have six or more agents each, but Erin and Joan rake in all those sales by themselves. Hard core.

4. I have eight days left at work. Eight days, eight shifts. I'm not counting down at all...

5. And I leave the country in 11 days! Now if only I can complete my packing list, buy all the random and last-minute things I need like extra camera cards and travel-sized toothpaste, and fit everything into my backpack...

summer photography

2011-09-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

This summer, I took a lot of pictures with my iPhone. That thing is crazy. The camera itself takes great pictures (on the 4 at least, not sure about the other versions) -- and with cheap apps like PhotoForge, ProHDR, and SlowShutter, you can almost transform it into an SLR.

(Almost. My dad has a Nikon with about a million buttons and settings, so I'm the first to agree that the iPhone is a different (lazier, maybe) art form.)

But I got to thinking this summer about how easy it is too look like a pro photographer or pro photoshopper with a couple taps on the iPhone screen. Here are a few of my attempts at pro photography...

old books (b&w effect with PhotoForge2)

rusty chair outside a boutique (also PhotoForge2)

sailboat races on Puget Sound

sailboat races (b&w with DramaticB&W)

my favorite Seattle spot (with PhotoForge)

old minis at a car festival

almost an apocalyptic effect (?) at Golden Gardens (PhotoForge2)

sunset off Golden Gardens with SlowShutter

dramatic colors with ProHDR

the iPhone camera does its thing (Cascade Mtns)

This photography question made me think about writing -- how easy it is to become a published author through any number of online one-click publishing companies. And how this is a great thing for so many people, and how accessible it makes everyone's words. It reminds me of Ratatouille: "Anyone can cook." And I think that anyone should be able to cook, write, snap gorgeous photographs with ease -- but does change art form. What about traditional publishing -- will it be undermined by the easier, quicker options on Lulu or Createspace? What about traditional photography? Will it lose its magic because I can create an Ansel Adams black-and-white effect with a 99 cent app?

I have no answers. But I do like my iPhone camera :)

end of summer

2011-09-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

The comics this past weekend were all about summer ending. It's not a super funny topic, although this year I thought I'd be less nostalgic since I don't have to go back to school. (And since September, so far, has been 80 degrees and sunny).

But today, I got really sad about summer ending because it means my two internships are ending, too. I guess this sadness means that both internships were extremely valuable and that I learned a ton -- otherwise I'd be cheering as I walked out the door. But I'm sad. I'll miss both experiences -- and, also, I think, the security of having two internships, the relative security of knowing I was off the job search for a while and could relax and learn. What I did learn: that I want to pursue a career in publishing as either an editor or agent! Love it!

But the reason I'm leaving these internships is actually really exciting.

Drumroll.

I'm giving my two week's notice at work this Friday and then flying to Asia for a two month trip to China and Nepal. I am SO thrilled. I'll be seeing Beijing and Shanghai (the Great Wall! Forbidden City! Terracotta Soldiers!) for a couple weeks, then working in an orphanage in Kathmandu with my best friend. Maybe doing some trekking in the Himalayas, too. It's the post-college trip I've dreamed about for my whole life: we're just bringing backpacks, we're staying in hostels and traveling cheap, and we're seeing a vastly different part of the world.

The Great Wall (from Wikipedia)

Kathmandu (photo credit)

Still, there's something slightly terrifying about quitting a good job and leaving two wonderful internships for the world beyond. Terrifying in a good way. A fragment from a favorite poem (by Paula Meehan, Irish poet, taken from Liminal, part of the series Six Sycamores):

I've always loved thresholds, the stepping over,

the shapechanging that can happen when

you jump off the edge into pure breath

[...]

trends that tire me

2011-08-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, even though I'm just an intern, I feel like I have my fingertips on the pulse of the publishing world. It's easy to pick up on present trends. Some trends are silly, like one day, I read five queries with heroines that had the same name -- and it wasn't a normal name, either! Other trends are not so silly, and lose their unique flavor when every other query uses the same idea.

So this is a completely subjective post (like the whole industry, I guess...), and I hope it doesn't sound complain-y, especially because I'm guilty of using all of this tropes myself, but it's the run-down on what I see too much of

the high school cliche. example: the heroine isn't a nerd, but isn't popular, either; the lunchroom is split up into groups, the goths are all dressed in black, and the popular people are nasty. My thoughts: Basically, we all went to high school, and we all know what high school looks like. I would love to see those halls with new eyes, because sure, things were cliquey, but there was a lot more going on. The same old descriptions of that divided lunchroom bore me after a while. And. About the not popular, not unpopular, not pretty, not unattractive heroine: I don't know what to say, other than that she sounds like a pretty boring person to read about. Harsh? Hm.

the parent cliche. example: the hero's parents died in a car crash a year ago, or die in the opening pages in a traumatic car accident, or died in a car accident when the hero was little, or ... My thoughts: This is a tricky issue. Obviously grief is a horrible and painful subject, and I don't want to be callous about it. Especially because one of my friends was just in a serious car accident, and especially because these things happen -- and hurt. But when this shows up all the time, everywhere, in nearly every hero's painful past, it makes me wonder if grief is maybe the easiest roadblock for a writer to throw up in her character's face? Maybe it's harder to write about the struggles and pains that don't come from some past trauma, but from just being a human, and so we fall back on more tangible, more explainable scarred histories. Or maybe we are so terrified and intrigued by death and its mysteries that we write about it obsessively. Either way, I think I've seen too much of it.

the new town cliche. example: after traumatic occurrence, heroine is sent/is forced/decides to move to a new town to start over. usually a small town. My thoughts: The funny thing is that I'm totally guilty of using this one in The Inbetween, and I still think it's a great idea. It promptly sets the heroine up with a bunch of conflict and uncertainty, plenty of new characters to meet as the reader meets them, and an easy mystery for the readers to solve (why did the heroine move??) -- but the sad truth is that every other query uses it. Not an exaggeration.

the snark cliche. I'm talking about voice here. I like snarky humor and sarcasm, but, like the grief thing, I wonder if snark is a fallback voice, an easy way to make the heroine sound unique without trying too hard. Because not a huge number of people are constantly snarky (at least, not a huge number of people I know), but it seems like a huge number of fictional characters are. Snark is easy because it has an instant fingerprint, an instant cadence and an instant character that forms beneath it. But the easy is often overused. Other voices, voices that use other types of humor and other ways of describing things, might be more difficult to shape, but sound a lot fresher and, ultimately, more unique.

Thoughts? Disagreements? More cliches?

y.a. extravaganza

2011-07-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, my sister and I went to the Young Adult Extravaganza at Third Place Books in Seattle. Six local YA authors (Mandy Hubbard, Kimberly Derting, Lisa Schroeder, Suzanne Young, Cat Patrick, and Eileen Cook) hosted a panel and Q/A session full of advice, silly stories, and joy. Lots of joy - these ladies love writing! (And books with making out.)

It was infectious and fun to listen to them share about their new novels, their writing processes, and their advice for other writers (my favorite: don't be afraid to fail). And my favorite Q: where and how each of them got their inspirations for their books. Kimberly said The Body Finders sparked from one of her husband's many, often crazy story ideas that he throws out at random times; Cat said Forgotten (new June release that sounds really unique, by the way!) popped into her mind when she forgot what she was doing in the middle of a household chore. Mandy said she discovered the paranormal element for Ripple while link surfing on Wikipedia. Inspiration everywhere!

Overall, I just loved hearing from these new and established writers who are passionate about words and YA. And get some new ideas for my summer reading list...

RTW: best book in july

2011-07-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't participated in RTW in forever, so I'm super excited that I finally remembered, even though Wednesday is almost over. Today's topic: the best book I read in July. Actually, I've read a lot of books in July, mostly on the bus to and from work. Two books stand out...

an old favorite
I've been re-reading all of Jasper Fforde's books recently, and I forgot how much I love his Jack Spratt series. It's hilarious, and adventurous, and silly, and full of literary/nursery rhyme puns. Fforde's writing is plain brilliant. If you've ever wondered why Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, you should definitely read this book. Because it wasn't an accident...

a new favorite
After waiting most of the summer, I got my e-copy of Lauren Oliver's Delirium from the library. And...stayed up half the night to finish it. Lauren's writing is vivid and crisp, full of imagery that makes me shiver; her dystopian world makes me shiver, too. I didn't like the weird re-written Bible verses, or the concept that God says love is sin, because that's not true. But, theology aside, I did love the gripping plot, the main character's growth, the love story (Alex!!), Lena's the first quiet and then loud rebellion, and the descriptions of the humid Maine summer that made the streets of Portland all the more confining and terrifying. SO GOOD. I'm really bummed that the sequel doesn't come out until March.

What about yours? What books did you read in July?

in reply: anomymous

2011-07-20T09:23:00.001-07:00

So someone commented on my most recent post this morning - I'm not going to reprint it here, but you can all go take a peek in the comments section. And I just wanted to respond with one thing, for the record: I definitely don't consider myself a failed writer. I hope that no one who's been out on submission, and been rejected, but told to keep writing and resubmit, has to be labelled a failure. Right? That would be a sad world.

Since I don't blog much anymore, let me also clarify for the record: I have an agent who loves my work, a recently published short story, and a new novel in the works. And besides all that, I'm 21 - which seems way too young, all the rest aside, to fail at anything.

I think any age is too young to fail at anything.

post-grad

2011-07-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

"So what's it feel like to never have to go to school again?"

I get this question a lot, as a recent post-grad, especially since most of my friends are still in school (I graduated a year early). And I didn't know how to answer that question until just a couple weeks ago, when something clicked.

(iPhone app: halftone)

When I'm not working at a restaurant (my classic post-college job!) I'm interning at a literary agency, where I read and edit and critique and fall in love with YA/MG queries and manuscripts. I'm also interning at a local publishing company, where I get to proof and format and read acquired manuscripts in all stages.

So the other week, I was sitting in my cubicle at the local publishing company, drinking coffee and proofing this amazing new book (in galley stages right now), and the perfect answer clicked in my mind.

It isn't too weird or sad or terrifying or crazy to never have to go to school again, because the jobs (well, internships) that I'm doing right now are real-life extensions of the stuff I loved at school. (Reading, editing, writing, being nerdy and excited about books with an office full of people who share the same passion.) It's school in the real world -- I get to use my training/practice/schooling at the next level. It's just an extension (an exciting, new extension) of the subjects I fell in love with in college.

And I'm so happy to have discovered this revelation just a couple months after graduating, and to know that while I'll never be in college again (although I may go to grad school...), I still get to do what I love. Read. Write. Edit. Hang out with books.

the intern talks (I)

2011-06-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

So sometimes, I might post as an anonymous literary intern. Kindly, spontaneously, occasionally. Because honestly, there's a lot of stuff out there - online, in bookstores, everywhere - about querying and agenting and publishing. So I doubt I have much to add. Still, I will talk anyway. Two thoughts today.

one do your research. Seriously. Use the information that's out there. Read a blog post about structuring a query letter, ask a friend to read your query letter, learn what's okay to say and what's not okay to say. There is so much knowledge, help, and expertise available -- so use it! You've gotta stand out somehow, and it starts by looking like you know what you're doing.

two when you include sample pages, don't stop in the middle of a sentence. Say the agent's guidelines ask you to embed one page (or five or twenty) in the body of your email: this probably does not mean strictly one page. End naturally. Like, including one extra sentence isn't going to get you an automatic rejection. Or even including one extra paragraph. One time, an author attached about fifty pages, and I read the whole thing before realizing that it was way more than our guidelines request. Not that I'm suggesting you send fifty pages, but anyway, page guidelines aren't an exact science. Just please: don't stop in the middle of a sentence. It leaves me really

Exactly.

happiness is...

2011-05-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

...a $6 bookshelf (from Goodwill) filled with all my favorite books. See!

it was meant for me!

It's not really organized alphabetically. I decided to organize it by subject and genre. So there's the YA and other non-literary fiction section:


some of my faves

I do have other YA books, but some of them live in my sister's bookshelf. On the second shelf: my beautiful (small) collection of Shakespeare; my study-abroad collection, which includes Roddy Doyle, Robert McLiam Wilson, and my Irish poetry books; and some Steinbeck. All of which I read for school this year.

all RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) editions!

I love Irish poetry. Love.

also growing to love Steinbeck. Especially East of Eden

Bottom shelf: some classics from high school. The good (Too Kill a Mockingbird), the bad (Faulkner - but only in my opinion), and the ugly (Lord of the Flies - although it still makes my favorites list). And my random non-fiction collection:

Bird by Bird, anyone?

proof that I have a BA in English

The only problem with this bookshelf is that it's full. But if worst comes to worst, I can toss Faulkner and Camus, maybe even Kafka and Tolstoy, and free up some room for the new stuff. Or take another trip to Goodwill...

i'm published!

2011-05-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

My short story "Road Trip, 1977," which I wrote in a fiction workshop at school this semester, is live today at YARN! It's a reflection on memory, on aging, and on growing up. And it wouldn't be as polished and pretty as it is now without my creative writing class and professor, and the editorial genius of YARN's editor Kerri. Thanks to each of you!

YARN (or Young Adult Review Network) is an exciting new(ish) journal for all things YA: fiction, poetry, interviews, essays. It also just won the "Innovations in Reading Prize" from the National Book Award Foundation! I'm so happy to see my story there.

So. Run on over to www.yareview.net. Or straight to http://yareview.net/2011/05/road-trip-1977/ for "Road Trip, 1977." When you're done, check out the excerpt from Allen Zadoff's new novel, or the inspiring Kody Keplinger's story "Before We Were Lost." Actually, I owe this whole thing to Kody, because I heard about YARN through the link on her blog. Thanks, Kody :)

announcing

2011-05-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

Three things:

My graduation from college with a B.A. in English
My new internship as a reader for an awesome literary agency!
My job search

And some notes on those three things...

I'm still in shock about the whole college-is-over thing. What?
But...I'm super excited about my internship: an opportunity to gain an insider-perspective on the publishing industry, and hone my editing/critiquing skills.
Finally, if you happen to have any connections to any technical- or copy-writing relating jobs, I'm your girl. On that note, if you have any connections to any job, I'm also your girl.

Happy summer!

old manuscripts: dump 'em, keep 'em?

2011-05-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a massive deep-clean of my room today, and I keep finding scraps and pieces of old manuscripts lying around in drawers, closets, folders. They're everywhere: ideas scrawled in notebooks, character and plot notes on loose-leaf paper, whole drafts of edited manuscripts in stacks or three-ring binders.

And I have NO IDEA what to do with them. Part of me wants to be nostalgic and keep them, because maybe someday I'll have fun reading through the old stuff, the unpublished stuff, the really bad stuff that no one else ever saw.

But the other part of me wants to chuck it all in the recycle bin -- because honestly, if I kept every print-out or notecard of every draft I ever wrote, I wouldn't have room for a bed in my room.

What do you do with old manuscript copies and writing notes? Should I be nostalgic or realistic? Help!!

happy moments

2011-05-09T18:08:00.001-07:00

For the first time, I got to hold the final copy of a book I've watched grow from rough draft to ARC to hardcover novel (with a blurb from Sarah Dessen on the front page!). And it was so, so exciting to rip open the Amazon box today and lift out a finished, published, glossy book. Wow!

Jessi's debut is beautifully written, the perfect beach read for this coming summer. Anna, the main character, and Crystal Cove State Park, the setting, are vividly narrated - the prose makes you feel beachy and sunburnt and sandy all at once. And the best thing: it's waiting for you at Barnes and Noble!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

cliche college moments

2011-05-04T10:53:00.001-07:00

I was thinking last night about my most embarrassing moments in college, and for some reason I couldn't think of too many. I could think of plenty of embarrassing moments that happened to other people, like the time my friend's long hair got caught in an upperclassman guy's backpack and they had to mutually untangle it, or the time another friend realized she had a huge hole in the seat of her pants...

But my embarrassing moments weren't too bad. Just forgetting to spray nonstick stuff on the waffle maker in the cafeteria and having to scrape my waffle off the grid in front of a line of impatient people. Or throwing a donut on a dare at a late-night finals breakfast and unintentionally beaning someone in the back of the head.

But. Today. Ironically, the day after I decided I couldn't think of a super embarrassing moment at college. It happened.

I had an 8:00 a.m. physics final. Stayed up kinda late studying. Set my alarm for 7:00 so I could get ready, eat breakfast, get coffee. My roomie had an 8:00 a.m. too, so she set her own alarm. And I woke up to my phone ringing, and knew right away (you know when you get that feeling?) that something was really, really wrong.

Friend: Where are you??

Basically, neither my alarm nor my roommate's alarm went off. We had this moment of total panic at 8:01, leaping out of bed and throwing on some clothes, and then we ran out the door. Ran.

The physics final was in full swing when I got down to the classroom, and the room was dead silent. It was so horrible - half because I'd so obviously just jumped out of bed, but mostly because it's all so terribly cliche. 8:00 a.m. final. Physics class. Faulty alarm. Maybe I hadn't filled up my quota of sufficiently college-y moments and needed, in my last week before graduation, to make up for being on time and responsible for three years (ha). Maybe I needed a new embarrassing story.

Or maybe I just need to buy a new alarm.

the royal wedding

2011-04-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did stay up until 4:45 a.m. to watch Will and Kate get married. It was a fairytale! The British really know how to throw a royal party. Some of the guests' hats were quite ridiculous, and I thought the crowd in Westminster could have been a little more STOKED about the whole affair, but Kate's dress and the horse-drawn carriages were lovely. As was John Rutter's anthem, "This is the Day", commissioned specifically for the royal wedding! I love choirs.

Least favorite part: Did William ever smile during the service?? Um, no. My friend reminded me that he was probably trying not to pass out, but still.

Favorite part: the 9-month-old baby girl in Hyde Park with a sign on her stroller that said Will and Kate's future daughter-in-law.

Then I got up at 9:30 to study at a coffee shop. C'est la vie of finals week.

here comes the bride

2011-04-28T13:26:00.001-07:00

Is anyone staying up for the royal wedding tonight?

I was in London when the engagement was announced (I have souvenir newspapers) so I feel like I'm a part of the whole thing, and need to fly to England to go to the ceremony at Westminster. But since I need to hang around here for finals week (and my last college class!), I'm going to stay up until 3 or whatever crazy hour the time difference makes, and watch the royal couple get hitched.

So. Excited.

reposting

2011-04-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

I cannot recommend this post strongly enough. (Linked from Alexis Bass's blog, which you all should read!). I've heard Sarah Zarr's name before, haven't read any of her books but definitely will now. In this keynote address (notes by Candy Gourlay), Sarah Zarr talks about waiting and the creative life. Favorite quotes below, full post here.

"It's not about a book deal, a good review, a big advance. It's about a life."

"A creative life is engaging"

"Your creative work expands your world. It does not reduce you down to your screens and word counts."

And I think, reflecting back on my study abroad experience and the break I took from writing and the break I'm still kind of taking from blogging (I'm trying to come back, I promise!), that this is what I learned.

A creative life does not happen solely on the computer or in a work-in-progress. It happens in the world, living. And when that creative life explores the world and grows, writing becomes way more than book-deal-book-deal-book-deal. Which was the trap mindset I'd fallen into. Writing becomes something deeply personal, something that persists beyond rejection or restructuring: because writing is the way you see and experience the world, not the way you want the world to see you.

rtw: best scar stories

2011-04-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

rtw:

what is your best scar story?

Here's an interesting fact about me: I don't have any scars. I've always been kinda bummed about it, cause it makes me sound like I've spent my life inside a glass bubble. On the contrary, I've broken my leg and my arm, sprained my ankle badly enough to get a golf cart to drive around campus (rock climbing), twisted my elbow (backpacking), and dislocated my right shoulder twice (inner-tubing). Those all probably left internal scars...and I'm pretty sure my shoulder is still messed up, because the last time I dislocated it, I was putting on my coat. Pathetic.

But back to scars. I guess the weirdest "scar" I got was a bruise that lasted for almost a year and a half in high school: I was playing soccer in Slovakia with a bunch of hardcore Slovakian kids, and got kicked so hard in the shins (no shin guards) that I almost fainted. But the bruise is gone now...

An interesting side-note: we were talking about scars in my Steinbeck seminar the other day. Charles in East of Eden has a scar on his forehead from a crowbar -- a gnarly black mark from his hairline to his eyebrow. Apparently the literary significance of a forehead scar implies a fierce inner battle: think Ethan Fromm -- and Harry Potter of course.

Anyway, what about your best scar story?

moonglass book tour launch!

2011-04-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

My good friend Jessi Kirby's debut novel is coming out in less than a month!!

To launch her book tour, YA Highway posted a great interview with details about Jessi's writing process, about Moonglass's setting, and about her favorite YA novels. Check it out!

I've read this novel several times, first as a draft, then as an ARC -- and sooooooon as a beautiful hardcover novel. I can't wait.

Here's a link to the schedule for the rest of Jessi's book tour: http://theteenbookscene.weebly.com/moonglass-tour-details.html.

book news

2011-04-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

After over a year, my agent and I decided to take my first novel off submission.

I could say a lot of things in this post, about why and what and everything we plan to do next. But mostly, I want to talk about failure.

After the news, a final no from an editor we worked with on revisions for about two months, I called home to tell my parents. I felt ... weighed down ... even though it was sunny and springy outside, like my heart had fallen past my toes into the ground. And not just because I was sad. I was sad, but I mostly just felt like a failure.

But my parents are the most supportive people I know -- they sit with me on the phone when I cry, and share the heaviness of failure, and tell me that they believe I can do this -- which is more than I can say for myself sometimes. My dad wrote me an email, and this line lifted my heart back out of the ground:

"No one can argue that it wouldn't have been nice to have all your work recognized by an offer to publish. But since it wasn't, the recognition will come from the fact that you persevered."

Then I told a couple friends at dinner. It was hard to get the words out, because I'm such a perfectionist and I don't like saying that something didn't go the way I planned. But my friends shared the heaviness, too, with a moment or two of quiet and a general agreement that that sucks. And then, the best part: they went around the table and shared the things they've failed at this week, too, so we could be uplifted by the knowledge that we all fail. It's a people thing.

So even though I'm disappointed, I'm also encouraged by the people who know I've failed and say, well, we think you're awesome anyway. Like another one of my friends, who basically said you are twenty years old. you wrote a novel. that's probably enough for now.

And then I was thinking about failure, and the connotations of that word, and I realized that actual failure would be giving up. I'm not giving up. I'm going to write another book and try again. And there's so much hope in that.

norton anthologies

2011-03-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Freshman year, I sold my Norton Anthology of British Literature 1800-Present.

For $20 at textbook buyback.

If you want to yell at me, please do. I've been yelled at for this before (by fellow English majors) ... and I yell at myself whenever I remember. I'd just spent four months in Brit Lit. I'd romanticized nature with the Big Five (Wordsworth's Preface, anyone?), totally fallen in love with Keats' Odes. I'd discovered Matthew Arnold. I'd learned all about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's crazy father and secret romance with Robert. I'd shivered at Christina Rosetti's "Goblin Market." And then Tennyson. I'd always thought of him as a cliche for some reason, but no one can call him that without reading "In Memoriam A.H.H." from start to finish. Including the magnificent epilogue hymn.

The Lakes District

Wordsworth's cottage

And then I'd wrestled with the twentieth century modernists, those boundary-pushing and difficult guys and gals like TS Eliot (yes, American, but also British enough to make the canon cut), Virginia Woolf, Gerard Manley Hopkins, WB Yeats, James Joyce.

V-Woolf herself in Tavistock Square, London

Yeats' Tower, Ireland

So I'd taken all these margin notes, in tiny pencil scribbles, and underlined all my favorite lines. Made sarcastic comments about the things I didn't like. This Norton was my treasure, worth its weight in liberal arts education gold.

Then the end of Freshman year came, and somehow I'd accumulated way too much stuff. I shipped a box, packed my suitcases (3 of them) bursting full of clothes and random things that freshman think they might need at college. At the very last moment, I realized I had no room for my Norton. Literally no room. Now, looking back, I probably could have shipped it. Or carried it onto the plane. But I was stressed: it was finals week, it was boiling hot outside, and my suitcases were already overweight. So I booked it down to the bookstore on move-out day, stood in a long line in 95 degree sunshine, and sold that Norton for $20.

I cried later. And when I think about all the stuff I'm going to take away from college this May, I wish I had that Norton. It taught me how to sit with a poet for a while, count their meter and consider their form and taste their language like ... something old and rich and deeply human.

All this brings me to two things. One, an article on NPR about the tarnishing of the reader/book relationship by marginalia (or all those things I scribbled in the Norton): http://m.npr.org/programs/all/2/134342235. Or an alternate take in the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2014295345_bookmargins22.html.

And two, what books would you buy back if you had the chance?

going to bed at 10

2011-03-22T22:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.slmetalworks.com/tree%20bed.jpg

So I've kept a variety of sleep habits throughout college. Freshman year, I went to bed around 12:30 (I think? that was a long time ago...) and napped every day. Being a freshman is just exhausting. Sophomore year, my roomie and I made a pact to go to bed earlier, but I think we turned out the lights anywhere from 11:00-1:00.

The doozy (aka "the big one" -- is that a normal word? my friends use it all the time, but I'm starting to wonder if we're the only ones) was studying abroad last semester. Ask my family: I'd call around 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. some nights to talk, and they'd basically tell me to hang up and go to sleep. I guess I went to bed anywhere from 12:00 to 3:30 a.m., but never any earlier. The average was 1:30. The weird thing is that I almost never napped -- there was no time.

http://www.busyboo.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/cradle-bed-okooko.jpg

I dunno how I did it. This semester, I can barely make it to midnight. Like right now, it's 10:00 p.m. and I'm getting groggy. But the thing is, I feel so much more rested when I get less sleep. Does that make any sense? I got ten hours last night and woke up exhausted. But when I get like six or seven hours, I wake up feeling pumped. Well, not quite, but definitely more pumped than this morning.

In case you're wondering, this post has no purpose other than to ramble about bed-time and pose the question to the peanut gallery: what time do you go to bed? And wouldn't you like to sleep on the beach in that bed-boat?

the future-train

2011-03-21T21:51:00.001-07:00

From the Financial Times, an awesome and forward-looking quote about the future of the publishing industry (and it's not doom and gloom, I promise! It's hopeful!):

"Josep Lluis Monreal, founder and president of Planeta, Spain’s largest publishing group, seems undaunted. The rise of new technologies, he says, “confirms to me the good health of books and the excellent health of the publishing sector.” Publishers, he believes, are simply creators of content: “Should we worry, then, about being offered the chance to present those contents through new platforms and transmit them through new channels? We ought to worry, instead, about being short-sighted and missing our train to the future.” "

Here's a link to the rest of the article (bottom of post). Pretty sure you have to register with FT to read it, but if you don't want to, don't worry, the gold is in that quote. I'm a recent e-book convert - my iPhone allows me to download library books and basically store them in my pocket. So cool. I haven't read that much this semester because I'm too busy and the books keep expiring when I'm only halfway through them, but the concept of having a book available all the time (in line at the cafeteria, on the bus, anywhere!) is kinda revolutionary.

Let's not miss the future-train!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bf30b998-535b-11e0-86e6-00144feab49a,s01=1.html?referrer_id=yahoofinance&ft_ref=yahoo1&segid=03058#axzz1HFh0seUr

graduation

2011-03-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

The nearness of graduation (May 7!) is making me nostalgic.

About weird things like JSTOR and research papers.

Before you laugh, consider this. I've spent the last fourteen years of my life doing school. And getting really good at it. If school was a career, I'd be at the top of my game right now. I've spent hours writing papers on so many topics: most recently, Irish Poetry and Shakespeare, the contrasting concepts of god in Hinduism and Christianity, and symbiosis in Steinbeck. I've learned my study and writing habits -- and okay, while I wouldn't advocate them to anyone else, they work for me. I can do this thing called school.

And today, as I finished up my World Religions paper in a coffee shop and logged out of JSTOR, I got swamped by a wave of nostalgia. What am I going to do when I have no more papers to write?

your local library: closed?

2011-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

From npr.com: A revolt in defense of books:

Economic cuts aren't just affecting jobs and schools in the United States and abroad: local libraries are shrinking and downsizing to fit monetary restrictions, too. This story (read it!) narrates the efforts of a hardcore group of people in Britain who are committed to keeping their local libraries in business.

These book lovers' dedication made me especially happy in light of the recent closure of both major chain bookstores in downtown Santa Barbara, where I live. Barnes and Noble and Borders closed their doors a couple months ago -- I'm not sure when, since I spent the fall in the UK -- leaving papered windows and boarded-up doors and a book-less city behind. So I can relate to these protesters in England. I, too, am wondering where am I going to get my books now? Books aren't just entertaining and informative: books are freedom. Get this: "There was a time in Britain, say 160 years ago, when some in Parliament didn't believe in public libraries at all. The worry was, if the working class read books, it would get dangerous ideas and rise up against the government." Maybe the situation isn't quite the same now, as books are available online in mass quantities, but they're still radical -- challenging -- culture-shaping -- questioning. Libraries are centers of knowledge, places where kids learn to love to read and where people of all ages gather to share that love, to read words aloud, to meet as a community.

Definitely worth saving.

Are your libraries and bookstores suffering as the economy and publishing industry re-adjust? What does your library mean to you as a writer, reader, and global citizen? Are you willing to max out your library card and check out 16,000 books to save your library?

one day at zoma

2011-02-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

So last Saturday, at a coffee shop, I overheard this great snatch of dialogue. It was so funny that I wrote it down (on my iPhone, such a stalker). Apparently my friend heard it, too, and we were both trying so hard not to laugh out loud right in front of them.

In my fiction workshop, we're talking about dialogue. The assignment was to eavesdrop in a public place and transcribe dialogue into a journal, then work it into a scene. Goal: figure out how dialogue actually sounds versus how it needs to be shaped in fiction. Warning: your coffee shop conversations aren't as private as you think...

Of course, I chose this conversation to rework. The dialogue is 100% real, (and so are the raspberry mochas) but the rest is all me.

* * *

Zoma, on State, is a Saturday homework spot. College students and post-college students fill the tables all day, slogging through physics or Milton or chemistry with endless cups of black coffee. Or Zoma smoothies. Or raspberry mochas served with whipped cream in clear-glass mugs. The grad students in the corner, two Americans and one Brit, had been tapping away on Mac computers. Conversation sprinkled up every now and then, but mostly, they worked. Kerry, the British guy, was writing a philosophy paper. Brian was texting. Carly had a butt-load of biology reading. They drank coffee, they typed, they flipped pages. Then Carly whipped a thermos out of her backpack. More black coffee. Kerry looked up from his laptop.

“What’s in your flask?” He pronounced flask like floh-sk. The table was silent for a second.

Carly wrapped her hands around the silvery, sleek thermos. “My what?”

“Your floh-sk.”

Carly’s eyebrows jumped up her forehead. She glanced at Brian and, for a moment, looked legitimately terrified. Like she was thinking, he’s speaking English, obviously, so I can’t ask him to repeat himself again but -- “I really have no idea what you’re talking about right now,” she blurted.

Brian, not looking up from his phone, said, “He’s saying flaaaaask.”

Carly snorted, relieved he wasn’t actually speaking American English. Snark replaced the terror. “A flask is what people drink alcohol out of, Kerry.”

“I thought --” Kerry scratched his head, “you called it a flask.”

Still floh-sk.

“It’s a thermos,” Carly said, giggling as Brian winked at her. She went to fill it.

Kerry babbled for a couple minutes about flask versus thermos, and how he thought the Americans called it a flask. No, Kerry, everyone said. A flask is what you drink alcohol out of.

RTW: literary loves

2011-02-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

This Week's Topic:
Who are your favorite literary couples? You know -- the ones you like by themselves, but LOVE together!

Jane and Mr. Bingley (said with a British accent)

Elizabeth: "He loves you, Jane, do not give up!"

Mr. Bingley: "First, I must tell you I've been the most unmitigated and comprehensive ass."

Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy usually take the cake (understandably) for best romantic couple in P&P, but I love Jane and Mr. Bingley. They are so real, so raw, so awkward, so shy. And, okay, when Mr. Bingley practices his proposal speech with Mr. Darcy (in the new movie, not literature, I know, but ... still) -- I die. Adorable. Plus his red hair just gets me every time.

Who are your favorite literary couples?

RTW: Groundhog's Day

2011-02-02T12:41:00.000-08:00

From YA Highway...

The topic:

In the movie "Groundhog Day," Bill Murray has to relive the same day over and over. What books would you pick to read over and over for the rest of your life?

groundhogs can be kinda cute. i want to hug this guy.

So at first I thought of quite a few books I could read over and over again. But then ... I thought more and decided there are actually very few. I like books that break my heart, challenge my mind, change my opinions, but I also just like books that entertain me. Maybe this sounds pathetic, but the books I read over and over again are usually for pure entertainment value. I feel good when I finish them. So I'd probably pick things like Calvin and Hobbes or the Shopoholic series if I was being totally honest. But, to preserve my self-image as an intelligent and well-read human being, I'm breaking this down into categories:

*A book to read when I want to feel sad: The Sky is Everywhere

*A book to read to expand my mind: Three Cups of Tea

*A book to read for pure entertainment: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

(PS - haven't seen that movie yet, but it's on my list. I hear it's good)

What about you? What books would you read over and over again?

RTW: where would i live?

2011-01-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

The Road Trip Wednesday topic this week is: If you could live within the universe of one book, which would you choose?

Hm, okay, I'd have to say -- purely because I'm obsessed with this book right now -- the world of A.J. Jacobs's novel The Know It All. And yeah, it's non-fiction, which makes it kind of weird, but I would just like to live in the hilarious humor of A.J.'s life. Clarification: I would like to be as hilarious as A.J. It's the kind of book that you can sneak little bits of throughout the day, because it's in short essay-ish form, so I've been snatching pieces of it for the last couple of days. Not that I technically have the time...but I can't help myself. He is so. funny.

words for chewing

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

I am bursting with words -- other peoples' words. Like Steinbeck's. Like this:

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses.

...

How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise -- the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream -- be set down alive? When you collect marine animals, there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book -- to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.

From Cannery Row.

unpredictable 2011

2011-01-05T12:07:00.000-08:00

Last night, my dad and I were laughing at some old, silly predictions people made for the future. We found them here, on a technology blog by Cody Willard, and I thought I'd share the best.

In 1876, the Western Union said in an internal memo: "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."

Also in the 1870s, a celebrity scientist: "Do not bother to sell your gas shares. The electric light has no future."

In 1943, the chairman of IBM said: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

And in 2008, Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO), said about the future of apps: "Let's look at the facts. Nobody uses these things."

Hilarious, right? The Western Union had no idea. That celebrity scientist just looks crazy now. And...okay, I'm definitely an Apple person, so I have no qualms about saying that Steve Ballmer is obviously no visionary.

But I'm not, either. Neither are you -- probably. We have no idea, absolutely no idea, what the future's going to hold, and I'm not just talking technology here.

This is good and bad. Bad in that we can make all the resolutions and goals that we want, and nothing will go as planned. But good in that there's hope. And endless possibilities, and endless question marks, and endless new starts.

It's like that Tom Petty song: "Into the great wide open..."

2011 is wide open. Happy new year.

four christmas break book recs

2010-12-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

My list of things to do over Christmas break looks like this:

read
lounge on the couch
read
and read

It's been a pretty awesome break so far. I checked out tons of books from the library last week, and while some haven't been worth finishing, others have been keepers. Four in particular make my christmas break must-read list for all of you!

First up, Looking for Alaska by John Green, which I actually bought and read in Belfast -- I just had to buy a book at the Queen's University bookstore and John Green called my name. But if you haven't read it yet, it needs to be on your Christmas break list. It's hilarious, touching, and so so real: Pudge's journey to find his Great Perhaps at boarding school in Alabama is beautiful and always surprising. Basically, I didn't want to leave my hotel room to explore Belfast because John Green WINS the prize for best writing ever.

Second on the list, a much different book: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Think...the craziest images smashed together in startling prose, a story about a young girl who loves books but lives in Nazi Germany -- all narrated by Death. Not a cynical, creepy Death -- but a gentle and tired Death who's scared of the violence of WWII and looking for a reason to hope for humanity. I cried. Many times.

Third, back to the present day, Saving Francesca by Melissa Marchetta. One morning, Francesca's mother doesn't get out of bed. Francesca, kind of a nobody at a mostly boys school in Australia, has to learn to cope without her energetic mother -- and discover who she is. It's joyful, it's real, it's funny, it's also one of the best books I've read in a long time. I'm going to reread it before I bring it back to the library. It's a life book, you know, one that makes you want to fly to Australia and be bffs with Francesca.

And fourth, Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. This road trip story is pieced together by narrative, pictures, playlists, doodles, gas receipts, hotel bills, maps, and a sweet romance between two people who need the open road -- and many crazy detours -- to heal. Read it. Now.

Still in my stack: Thirteen Reasons Why, The Dark Divine, Cracked Up To Be, and Jellicoe Road. Also My Name is Asher Lev (a reread) and some Steinbeck to prepare for my seminar class next semester! So much reading. Life is good.

i am alive.

2010-12-16T16:58:00.000-08:00

St. Paul's, London

No really, it's true. I'm back from the UK, recovered from jetlag, halfway unpacked. Rewinding from four months of pretty epic adventure.

A quote from my best friend: "Life isn't always as exciting as studying abroad."

Elephant and Castle, London (not as cool as it sounds)

Sometimes, life is just life, and I'm back to that life. The real world. Hopefully, though, I've come back different. For example...

More people follow this blog! Which is kind of silly, since I did nothing -- zilch -- for four months. But somehow, the follower-box says 120. Cool. Welcome. I'll try to be more interesting.

I have the travel bug. Is anyone surprised?

I'm newly obsessed with Tom Petty.

I look right-left-right when I cross streets.


A foggy day in London-town

I'm taking a break (a really long one) from Twitter. I'm threatening to take a break from Facebook (although the addiction might be too strong). And I'm not going to blog as much as I used to (before August, I mean). Synopsis: I'm shrinking my online presence. Maybe a result of four months of sketchy internet access -- which made me realize that the internet is not as necessary or cool as I used to think. Obviously it's still necessary for some things, and cool in general, but I liked being away. It gave me perspective.

And, biggest for last, I'm re-evaluating my identity as a writer. Haha, don't worry, I'm not quitting. I'm just re-thinking. Processing. Re-prioritizing. Once upon a time, my life-formula was this: I am Kirsten, therefore I write. Fast-forward four months of perspective: I am Kirsten. I also write, but mostly I'm just Kirsten. It's a good thing, I promise.

Cambridge!

And sometime soon, I'll be back to rave about a couple life-changing books on my post-trip reading list. So don't disappear.

Around the World: Michelle Ray

2010-11-22T06:06:00.000-08:00

Around the World: Michelle Ray is one of my agent sisters! Actually, I first talked to her on the phone about a year ago about signing with Joan (our agent) -- Michelle said Joan was the best, and she's totally right. Now Michelle's debut novel is due out in July 2011 (Poppy). It's a spin-off of my favorite Shakespeare play, Hamlet. Goodreads says:

"Falling for Hamlet retells the familiar Shakespearean tragedy from the point of view of a feisty, empowered Ophelia, who is neither suicidal nor anybody’s pushover. In a glittering world of celebrities, paparazzi, and reality TV, Ophelia navigates the minefield of teen life in a royal family gone crazy."

I can't wait to read it! Here's Michelle on some of her favorite fictional settings -- and the art of crafting her own from Denmark to North Africa.

***

What's a fictional place that has stuck in your head even after you closed the pages of the book?

Three books come to mind right off

The Age of Innocence. Every bit of clothing, daily objects, homes and streets were described so specifically that I could picture Edith Wharton’s 19th century upper class NYC world perfectly. The fullness of detail was practically suffocating just like the main characters were suffocating within it.
Harry Potter. I’ll be darned if Rowling didn’t describe the places so well (like the dining hall and the classrooms) that when I saw the first movie, all I could think was, “Exactly! Look at the snowy ceiling! The moving staircases! Wow!"
The Thief Lord. Ah, Venice. Give me a book set in Venice and I can’t help but read on. Add an adventure with kid thieves and a little mystery, and, well, call me hooked.

To answer the opposite question, I’ll tell you a book I can’t stand because I couldn’t picture it: A Wrinkle in Time. I know, I know, you want to kill me now or tell me I’m ignorant, that I just don’t get it, blah, blah, blah. As an elementary and then middle school English teacher, I’ve had dozens of kids recommend it to me and they are absolutely devastated when I commit the hideous literary crime of saying it’s not my thing. Unlike Harry Potter, which mixes magic into a world I already understand (school, English countryside, castle), A Wrinkle in Time felt like it floated in nothingness. And the characters: Whosits and Whatsits – gah. Where are we? When are we? What’s going on? If I can’t picture it, I don’t like it. I’m all for filling in the blanks, but not chasms. I know you probably hate me now. Sorry. But books are art, and I’m allowed my opinion. Even though it’s a very unpopular one.

Where do your characters travel? What's your current setting, and what makes it live and breathe?

In my upcoming novel Falling for Hamlet, the characters are in “Denmark” but not the real Denmark. It’s American, it’s urban, but nowhere in particular. I had to imagine each place, and it became a combination of places I’ve been and places that (and I’m not sure how this happens) built themselves in my imagination out of nothingness. As I typed that last sentence, it made me think of “Inception,” where places are built around characters to fit the necessary story. Why did Ophelia’s apartment have her bedroom to the left of the kitchen and her father’s to the right? I don’t know. Why did the shelf in her sitting room have exactly five framed photos? No idea. But that’s how they lodged in my mind, and having those details there, closing my eyes and being able to picture the room so specifically, really helped the writing. That way, the characters aren’t floating in mid-air. When Ophelia is annoyed with Hamlet, she grabs for . . . the mushy pillow that was sitting on her bed all along. When he goes to leave, he throws a magazine he finds on . . . her bedside table. Having the room in mind helps me quickly fill in these meaningful details.

It’s hard to know how much of what’s in my mind to write down, though. My struggle in writing is to balance moving a story along with putting enough description. As I just said, the characters can’t float in nothingness. I don’t write literary fiction so propelling the story is key. But how much is too much and how much is not enough? I do my best then let my awesome agents and editors give an assist on that one.

Sometimes I’m working from a real place, like when Hamlet and Ophelia go to Florence. Why did I pick that city of all places? Mostly because I had a vivid childhood memory of my parents taking me there, and back then I thought it seemed like a romantic place to go someday . . . if I ever had a boyfriend. We had this amazing view of the Ponte Vecchio from our room that I’ve never forgotten. As a prince, Hamlet’s hotel got to be fancier, but that view remained untouched. I’ve not been to Florence in the last 20+ years, so I used internet images to help with details. Then I used my remembered fascination and excitement to build the emotions Ophelia has as she looks at the view.

I’m visual, so I’m hugely influenced by movies. There’s a fabulous scene in “Pride and Prejudice” (with Kiera Knightly) where she goes to Mr. Darcy’s mansion and tours his art collection. She is fascinated by the marble statues -- something I’m obsessed with, too. In Falling for Hamlet, Ophelia is an artist so Hamlet takes her to a gallery. When writing, I began with the “P&P” image of the statues glowing in the soft gallery light, but when the view got wider in my writing, the place was modern and specific to Ophelia’s world and my imagination.

Now I’m working on a manuscript that is set in 1497. It begins in Lisbon and ends up in various places in North Africa. The problems are multiple. First, I have to research every single detail because I have been to neither Lisbon nor North Africa. Second, even if I had, it looked very different five hundred years ago. I can’t rely on photos, obviously, and when I use paintings, I have to be sure they are of the correct year, not just the century. For instance, I was researching furniture and got really excited about “Indo-Portuguese” design, which is ebony and ivory inlay introduced in the “late 15th century.” “Woo-hoo” turned to “uh-oh” when my research revealed that Vasco de Gama didn’t even leave Lisbon for India and beyond until August of 1497, meaning that the character couldn’t have that object yet. I began research again. Nevertheless, the work is paying off, and with luck, I’m getting most of it right. It will never be as perfect as Edith Wharton, for she lived the world of her books, but there is information out there. Plus, as my agent and an editor have said, “It’s fiction, Michelle. Make it up.”

I guess that’s the key then. Do your research, picture it as best you can, and when in doubt, make it up. It is fiction, after all. The glorious world of make believe.

london

2010-11-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

Hyde Park at the "magic hour," 4 o'clock

I think I'll be MIA for most of the rest of November ... but here's a little update on life in the UK.

I love fall!!

We spent this last week in London: did a lot of walking, had a picnic in Hyde Park, took the tube to Highgate Cemetery (where Karl Marx is buried in a very ostentatious monument...), spent three hours at the National Gallery with Van Gogh, Monet, and Raphael. And saw three amazing plays at the National Theatre: "Men Should Weep," "Hamlet," and "Blood and Gifts."

The road to Buckingham Palace

I also went to Ronnie Scott's jazz club -- two nights in a row! -- to see Stacey Kent and Brian Auger. Awesome nights. Plus, Ronnie Scott's is THE London jazz club, so it was super swanky and fun to be there.

Highgate Cemetery - definitely the coolest, oldest cemetery I've ever seen.

Now we're in the countryside of Southern England doing homework. Can I write 17 pages of essays before Friday? Hm. Probably not.

Camden Market, where we got fresh hot calzones to eat in Regent's Park

But next week, I'm going on a backpacking trip in Wales! So life is good. I'll be back in December, and I promise I'll take better care of the blog.

PS: to you NaNo writers, you are awesome and brave. Can't wait to hear how it goes!

Around the World: Emilia Plater

2010-10-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

This week in Around the World: Emilia Plater, a super cool blogger and YA writer (who is also in high school!) talks about finding beauty in desolation... Check out her blog here.

Beauty in Desolation

Hypothetical situation time! Imagine you're a cast member of The Jersey Shore. Uh, wait, wrong situation. Okay, imagine you're The Creator Of Everything - God, Mother Earth, a combo of geological and evolutionary forces, whatever floats your boat. Sweet! Now, what materials would you use to create the most stunning, beautiful landscape setting ever?

A. Sparkling waterfalls, lush trees and vines, brightly-colored foliage
B. Gleaming skyscrapers, the dawn sun, the silver machines of humanity
C. Golden sand, scattered white shells, and an endless ocean, OR...
D. Rocks.

Veery interesting. A, B, and C are all great. But if, as Creator, you chose D... you're my kind of all-powerful being.

Why? To answer that, let's take a quick trip to the American West, historical land of cowboys, gunfights, ghosttowns, and tons of other less stereotypical stuff. Yay!

In 2007, I traveled through the area on a road trip with my dad and sister. It's also one of the settings in my YA road trip novel (go figure!), Autochromatic. Most notably, the landscape itself is home to rocks. Looots of rocks.

Rocks. Dirt. Desert prairie. Canyons. Distant mountains. In the huge majority of areas, it's hot, dry, and desolate. Heck, the roads can last for miles and miles without a single sign of life. Unless you're visiting the Grand Canyon during tourist season, in which case... be prepared to stomp on some little kid feet to get a good view! (I wish I was kidding.)

It's no wonder the towns that popped up during the Gold Rush had to struggle to survive - and, little kid stomping aside, it's no wonder the Old West of the 1800's served as the backdrop to some authentic man-on-man violence. In a place with no life, what choice is there but to declare yourself alive? The sun beats down. Everything is hardened. Nothing is beautiful.

Or is it?

Rocks are dead and, when they're not selling for millions as jewelry or encasing dinosaur fossils, pretty boring. That's a generally accepted fact. It follows that in a book, a setting made up of rocks should be boring, too. Not fascinating like a rainforest, or awe-inspiring like a city, or soothing like a beach. But what if a bunch of rocks could create the most beautiful setting of 'em all?

That's the kind of thing writing makes possible.

In Autochromatic, protagonist Riley starts her drive through the West just when her life has taken a turn for the suck. She's lost a friend and found out a ton of stuff she didn't want to know. Her attention on her surroundings is limited, for sure, but what she sees strikes her hard. And when she visits the Grand Canyon, the emptiness gets to her like crazy. Along with that, though, she sees something else: beauty in desolation.

Sit down to write a book, and setting tends to present itself as a dang tricky thing. Even the most beautiful backdrop can be rendered a dud by off-the-mark usage or description.

But on the other end of the spectrum, all settings - even ones as desolate as a rocky desert, or an abandoned suburban parking lot, or the Jersey shore (!) - can be made to come alive and be beautiful. It's all in perspective. Not just of the characters - of the writer, too.

I can't know for sure whether I succeeded backdrop-wise in Autochromatic, but it was deff one of my favorite parts of the book to write. Setting is an awesome tool. So jump on that horse and... uhh, I mean, open that Word doc, and start making things beautiful! What's your key to injecting beauty into a setting? And have you ever ~~been in a shoot-out~~ traveled through the West?

***

northern ireland

2010-10-20T09:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we took a much-needed vacation from homework/classes/papers/reading to goof off in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ireland: we stayed in tiny little cabins, cooked our own food, and curled up by our fireplaces and drank tea. I also fell in a creek, but that's another story.

One day, we hiked to a faery fort (see above), a circle of trees and rocks in the middle of a cow field that was supposedly built by faeries. Kind of creepy, because the cows HATED us and kept walking closer and making weird noises.

Inside the faery fort (see above), where we took refuge from the cows. Didn't see any faeries... although I did say "You guys. Faeries aren't real," when everyone else was nervous about stepping inside the circle -- which might be why I fell in the creek. I'm faery cursed.

It was beautiful and cold (really cold), and we didn't want to leave. I think I could have stayed there for another week.

But we left on Monday for Belfast. The first thing we did was tour some of the Troubles murals and drive along one of the Peace Walls -- I've never been to a city where conflict and violence is so fresh.

On the one hand, it's awkward to be a tourist, to snap pictures of this sectarian hatred like it's a castle or a pretty field. On the other hand, it's a good thing that tourists feel comfortable coming here -- a sign that the peace process is progressing.

Although there have been some bomb threats recently, and our bus driver told us, "your flak jackets and tin helmets are under your seats." There's definitely a joke-y/silly varnish coating everything -- as a coping mechanism, I think -- but the conflict is still very present.

Over 80% of the city's population still lives in segregated Catholic/Protestant areas. And even as an outsider, I know when I move from one area to another: Protestant (or Unionist) areas have red/blue color schemes, and Catholic (Republican) areas have green/orange color schemes. The buses are pink -- because pink is one of the only colors that isn't associated with the IRA, UVF, or any of the paramilitary groups.

But the one thing that's stuck out to me, as we've studied the Troubles, is the purely political nature of the conflict -- it ceased being religious a long time ago.

To finish: a quote from Sinead Morrissey (an Irish poet of the new generation). Travel is a "window, wall and mirror." I think what she means is that travelers gain both insight into other cultures and the realization that we are all so different...and so much the same. To quote my professor from class this morning: "We have our own Troubles, too."

RTW: Favorite First Lines

2010-10-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

Over at YA Highway, the Road Trip Wednesday topic is:

"A novel's opening is like a pick up line. If it's good, you might take it home.

If it's bad... well. You know.

What are your favorite first lines? How do your own WIPs start?"

Photo credit: YA Highway

I gotta say, I used to read every book I started all the way through to the end, even if it wasn't that great. I'm way more picky now -- as in, if the first paragraph doesn't knock me onto my face in the middle of the bookstore, I check no. Sound harsh? Maybe it is. But (cliche but true) today's market is way crowded, and if something doesn't stand out, it's going to mold on the bookshelves.

So anyway, that was unintentionally depressing...

Some favorite first lines (or paragraphs):

The Sky is Everywhere: Gram is worried about me. It's not just because my sister Bailey died four weeks ago, or because my mother hasn't contacted me in sixteen years, or even because suddenly all I think about is sex. She's worried about me because one of her houseplants has spots.

And because we saw this crazy mansion in Ireland last week and subsequently watched a bunch of Harry Potter movies (if that isn't Hogwarts, what is?), here's another great first line:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Around the World: Alexis Bass

2010-10-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

Around the World: I love this guest post specially because it's about the Pacific Northwest -- my home! Alexis Bass is a blogger and YA writer -- we met at the PNWA conference this summer while we were waiting by Deb Caletti's autograph table to get our books signed. Deb Caletti never showed up, but we talked for like 45 minutes and then exchanged blogs. I love Alexis' descriptions and pictures of the Northwest in this post (gotta admit it makes me homesick). So jump on the next plane to the PNW (or just let this post transport you - it's cheaper!)

***

My favorite non-fictional place for a novel is the Pacific Northwest. Yes, I’m completely biased because I live there, but there’s something else – something more mysterious, fresh, and fleeting about stories set in this gorgeous region.

Small pleasures in Northwest life – a view of the mountains - a rarity, only available for view on a clear-sky day, but when visible, it’s breathtaking; hot coffee - the smell not only warms your hands, it warms your soul; full, tall, green trees; houses with their 1920’s-look intact or at least mimicked; and the salty smell that lets you know you’re near the edge of the earth, around boats and house-boats that make you dream about letting yourself explore the other side.

By the time I trudged down to the ultra crowded Starbucks, my hair was a heavy, wet mop and my mood matched the weather.
Whisper (pg 151) By Phoebe Kitanidis (set in Beaverton, OR)

It’s always raining. Or cloudy. Green has taken over everything (including the way we build houses, eat, and conduct our politics). Winters are dark and wet. Summers are hit or miss – and brief. Summers are a fleeting moment of something fresh before the northwest will be hidden by a ceiling of clouds and drenched with water.

Summer generally arrived late in her part of the world, usually waiting until July was well underway before making a regular appearance, so the persisting summerlike temperatures were welcome for as long as they wanted to stick around.
The Body Finder (pg 44) By Kimberly Derting (set in Buckley, WA)

“Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years, and all the myths and legends of a hundred different lands seemed much more likely in the green haze than they had in my clear-cut bedroom”
Twilight (Pg 137) By Stephanie Meyer (set in Forks, WA)

While setting is a useful tool for visually enhancing a story, moving it forward, and creating a distinct tone, it also builds symbolism and drops the reader in the atmosphere and the character’s thoughts. It creates a very specific Northwest mood. Usually Northwest moods are manic – high with the sun, low with the rain – yet mellow and constant with the perpetual contented feeling that comes in knowing that the weather won’t be too hot or too cold. There is also comfort in the consistency of the gray skies and wet streets.

I could tell something was in the air, change – I could feel it. It wasn’t just the clouds although they had stayed around and then got heavier, bringing cool air and occasional drizzles from the waters of the straits.
The Six Rules of Maybe (PG 293) By Deb Caletti (set in Parish Island, Washington)

Tall trees, cascading mountains, a sky darkened by clouds, crevices, valleys, a coastline – all of these factors contribute to the mystery and fortitude surrounding the northwest. Wild. Untamed. Yet – hidden. Private. Sheltered.

The air was moist and thick with the kind of misty precipitation that was common this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. It seeped through Violet’s clothing and her shoes, until it was pressing itself damply against her skin and chilling her all the way to the bone.
The Body Finder (Pg 192) By Kimberly Derting (set in Buckley, Washington)

The forest spread out around us in a boundless labyrinth of ancient trees, and I began to be nervous that we would never find out way our again.
Twilight (PG 258) By Stephanie Myer (set in Forks, WA)

The northwest has some distinct traits that, even to those not familiar with the area, transcend to a place where secrets have a place to stay hidden, the sun is a treasure, and ‘a dark and stormy night’ is almost always a guarantee.

Also note that Kirsten’s up-coming novels (both of them – even the unfinished) take place in the mysterious northwest – hiding bewitching secrets in the forest of Oregon, and hinting at the vastness of the ocean via the Puget Sound.

flaneuring: or fall in dublin

2010-10-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

Explanation: This is a paper I wrote for my Metropolitan Anglophone lit class (which basically asks the question: how does literature write a city and vice versa?). It's called a "flaneur" paper--a flaneur is someone who walks a city and writes about it reflectively. (If you've read Virginia Woolf's "Street Haunting", that's a flaneur essay.) It's a long paper, around 4 pages, but I thought I'd share it because it fits the guest-blog theme, and also gives a kind of update on my semester abroad. Plus I added pictures of fall in Dublin! Who can resist??

***

Another city, another pattern of streets, and I don’t know where to begin. Where to trace my finger along the map, trace my shoes along the pavement to dig deep into Dublin. How do I start to know a city when its history creeps back layers into the asphalt of O’Connell Street and the grass of St. Stephen’s Green?

***

Trinity College Dublin

At Trinity, those yellow and blue buses whip around the corner, blaring horns at crowds that think they’re better than the crosswalk. It’s colder than England, and windier, and the chill nips at my toes and nose. I walk fast. All around -- bustle. It makes me invisible. I’m a tourist-status wanderer with a moleskin notebook and hungry eyes. I’m searching for Dublin: meat and heart.

Grafton Street: the buildings squeeze the sky, the street squashes the soil. Glass shop fronts bulge with swanky clothes, fancy haircuts, lacy bras, high-heeled shoes. This isn’t Dublin. At least, I don’t think it is, because it looks like any city anywhere with a McDonald’s and a Marks and Spencer.

Grafton Street

Dublin lurks somewhere up the street in the middle of Stephen’s Green, where the wind turns the park into a shaken-up snow globe of fluttering leaves. The sky sears crispy-cold blue above (Have you noticed the color of the sky in the fall? It’s sharper somehow). The sun is sharper, too, almost as sharp as the wind that whisks down mazes of back streets, pushing leaves into piles with its chilly fingers. Fresher leaves scuff yellow on the cobblestones, yellow and red, and older ones huddle in the gutters, tinged with brown and sopping wet like pieces of paper plastered to the ground.

St. Stephen's Green

Here (and in the promenades of O’Connell Street, the midnight stampedes of Temple Bar), something else exists besides Starbucks, H&M, a city bulldozed by consumerism. Something...grittier and prettier. Something more unique.

But then, as the sky shivers bluer and darker, the street sweeper spins the leaves away, clearing fall from the pavement. Clearing season from the city. Because the city is fleeting --Dublin in autumn is rushed and reddened by the cold: picnickers in parks pretend it’s summer, nightlifers in Temple Bar spill out into the streets. But everyone’s wrapped in scarves and huddled in coats, leathered in boots.
This is Dublin in the fall.

But -- what is Dublin in the spring?

***

So I’ve been thinking about seasons and winds and fashions -- all those things change. I don’t know what Dublin looks like in the spring, but I imagine it’s softer and -- well, yeah, still rainy -- but gentler. Colorful with the pastels of growing awake, not the fire of burning out.

And the city is like this shell for the shift of seasons. A shell even for the shift of days, because Grafton Street flows different directions every day: different musicians jam, different crowds flux, different traffic thunders. Stephen’s Green might be packed with bundled-up lunchers on a sunny day -- like me on Monday, eating a tuna-fish sandwich beneath a sycamore tree -- but empty and wind-swept the next when it’s cloudy and rainy.

The Liffey (looking @ financial district)

Tourists change.

The stops and starts on O’Connell Street change.

Okay, and even the buildings change. Before the Celtic Tiger, I kind of doubt the financial district looked as glossy and shiny and high-end. The city is constantly metamorphosing, but somehow it still stays Dublin. Dublin fading in the fall. Dublin hiding in the winter. Dublin basking in the summer. Dublin trees falling down, growing up. Dublin buildings falling down, like that ruin down the river blocked off by a barbed-wire fence (Dublin was a different Dublin when that building lived). Dublin during the Celtic Tiger thriving and exploding; during the Easter Rising burning and exploding. Dublin during the famine times…

Yet it’s still Dublin.

What grounds it?

***

Layers.

These layers of Dublin leave marks and stains, but time and rain and wind wash them away. Or clean them up: like the filth of the famine times shined into bronze statues, the bullet holes in the GPO rubbed into random pockmarks. In 1916 the Liffey swelled with blood. In 1974 the streets fractured with bomb blasts. The city remembers … but the memories stretch spiderweb-thin with time …

I know Dublin remembers somewhere what it’s been, where it’s come from, the cracks and pains of its growth. But the city sweeps away the past like the street sweeper sweeps leaves. People died here -- but people lived here and live here, and the city lets them heal and breathe. The city folds memories into fresher springs and fierier falls. The scars fade.

Dublin’s always morphing into this shouting bustling breathing dying healing city of the present of the moment.

It’s river flow: the city sifts water and silt over its old bottom until the old is something new. Down below, the old soil might stink of blood and groan with memories of another Ireland… but the river rushes with new reflections. Then catches them and whisks them out to sea so the newer ones can glisten and flick on the surface of the Liffey for another day.

***

Does a city have to remember?

Or can it build over itself, layers and layers of dirt and memories and conversations and walks-to-work and bus-routes-home?

Can it be old Dublin (the scarred rebelling one) and new Dublin (the modern dancing one) at the same time?

Can it be Eavan Boland’s Dublin of misty mornings at Trinity college, Paula Meehan’s Dublin of Georgian tenements, and my Dublin of autumn wanderings -- and not be a contradiction, or a forgetting? But, instead, be a mass of summers/falls/winters/springs, so many stories happening and finishing and vanishing on the streets -- like leaves born green, written with the stories of fall, scuffed with the feet of the city, staining the streets for half a week before melting into the gutters and rolling away with the Liffey.

***

Around the World: Rebecca Latimer

2010-10-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

This week in "Around the World": traveling to the setting of Rebecca's YA novel -- with pictures and quotes! Visit Rebecca's blog, Long Ago and Far Away, here.

***

My favourite settings are often the ones that harken back to the realms of folklore, fairy tales, and myth. I adore “other” worlds, and so the best stories are the ones that take place in highly imaginative surroundings, like the intensely magical world of Michael Ende's “The Neverending Story” or the mystic fairy realm Stormhold in Neil Gaiman's “Stardust.”

photos by Rebecca

But realms of fantasy aren't the only settings I enjoy. Some of my favourite books take place in very real locations, like the reclusive writer's manor in Diane Setterfield's “The Thirteenth Tale.” This story in particular makes clear to me the one common denominator between all my favourite fictional settings --- a specific, consistent, and sweeping atmosphere. It's sort of an indefinable quality, but it's something that takes me away and makes me feel part of a whole other life.

My novel “Greyling” is finally complete, and I've done my best to write my characters into settings just as vibrant as the ones I love: a Nightmare Kingdom where dreams and reality blur, where trees are sentient and you can walk through the night sky; a grim metropolis no more bizarre than a crowded collection of office buildings, skyscrapers, and ever-present lights, surrounded by a haunted wood where one beautiful ghost exists solely to warn mortals of lurking evil. Stonehouse and Afterton are two worlds warring for superiority in the heart of a boy who hates (and obsesses over) them both, which makes setting pivotal to the telling of my story.

Quotes from Greyling:

In the distance, over the tops of gleaming trees and jagged cliffs, a mountainous, tumour-like mass of land shot straight upwards, off-balance, menacing and dark. The tower stood at the very tip of the mountain, perched on giant spider legs, staring down as if hungering for bone and blood.

The city was smoggy and smelled of litter and fire; somewhere, someone's house was burning down. A helicopter buzzed against the underbellies of dark yellow clouds, between spiking black buildings and overhead walkways. The men and women on the streets were all dressed in dark coats and scarves, their faces ghostly under the flickering light of static-lined display screens and security lights.

So how do you make such strange and surreal worlds feel real to the reader? I have no idea. But I suspect it's something to do with pure, vibrant language, and the ability to shape prose by walking that narrow line between barrenness and fields of purple. I truly love words, and sentences woven to be just as beautiful as the things they describe are, in my opinion, the best treasures of fiction. That's what draws me into a story and makes me love it, and so it's what I strive for in my own writing.

RTW: September's best book

2010-09-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

In this slightly unconventional "best book of the month" post, I'm going to say two things:

I didn't read any books for fun this month. Zero. None. But I did read a lot of stuff for school and enjoyed it all very much. Top choice: "The Lonely Londoners" by Sam Selvon, a groundbreaking 1950s novel about the Windrush generation in London, written entirely in the Creole dialect, detailing the stories of a group of West Indian men living in a London that didn't want to let them into its heart.
I didn't read my "best book" choice this September. Actually, I read it about a year ago, but it got its cover this month from Simon & Schuster and, by golly, I'm insanely excited to see it on the shelves next May! Here it is:

Moonglass by Jessi Kirby (from goodreads): A contemporary YA novel about a girl who, years after her mother's death, gets a fresh start in a new seaside town. She seems to be outrunning the past, but discovers that the sea glass she wears around her neck is not just a token of her mother's memory but a connection to the very stretch of water she now calls home.

Isn't it just beautiful?!

Soaking in your setting: Christina Farley

2010-09-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to introduce Christina Farley for post #4 in the "Around the World" guest blog series. She's a talented writer - her YA novel, called Gilded, is set in Korea. I've had the privilege of reading a little bit of it and it's completely unique and exciting! Christina blogs here.

* * *

I’ve just recently relocated to the States after living in Asia for 10 years. And even though I’m curled up on the couch typing on my laptop, there’s a part of me that’s still balance-walking across the rice patties and hiking up smoking volcanoes.

That’s why I’ve decided my next book will be set in Indonesia, a place I lived for two years. But that was a long time ago. Like 8 years ago! So to help me relive the sites, the smells, and the feel of Indonesia, I’ve done a couple of things:

1. Sights- I’ve always believed a good writer should take pictures. Okay, I’m not so hot when it comes to photography, but it’s enough to trigger a memory. So for this book, I dug out my Indonesian photo albums and plastered my walls with the pictures.

2. Smells- I’ll never forget the smell of Paris- fresh baked bread and flowers. Smells trigger memories and emotions. I like to eat food, burn incense and candles, and set up flowers that are found in the country my story is set in. I’m just not sure I want durian in my house (a very smelly, popular Indonesian fruit).

3. Sounds- When I wrote my book set in Korea, I filled up my i-Pod’s playlist with Korean music. I found it pulled me into the mood. Right now I’m on the hunt for good Indonesian tunes, sounds of waves, and writing under the fish chimes that I bought in a Bali market for inspiration.

Ultimately, all of this ‘stuff’ helps me recreate my experiences. But it won’t get that book written. Only hard work and sleepless nights do that. But that’s an adventure of its own, isn’t it?

RTW: BFFs?

2010-09-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

So...I haven't blogged in a while, and I was feeling bad about it, and then I remembered that it's Wednesday, which means it's Road Trip Wednesday, and the topic is "if you went to high school with your characters, would you be friends?"

Here's a handy list of my characters and responses, which might not be interesting to you since you have no idea who they are (they're from TIB):

Ian (football qb, hottie): I don't think I'd be friends with Ian. He's kind of out of my league. Just saying. But I would definitely have a crush on him... yum. yes.

Sophie (the star main character): I'm not exactly sure. I'd like to say yes because she's funny and (I hope) a cool person...but possibly we would not be friends either. What does this say about the characters I write? Hm.

Noah (the ginger): Noah is just a sweetheart, so yeah, I'd definitely be friends with him. Everyone is.

Now your turn: would you be best friends with your characters?

RTW: my time-travel machine

2010-09-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

This Road Trip Wednesday topic fits so perfectly with the blog theme this fall (which is travel and setting, if you're new or just dropping by). I used to be obsessed with historical fiction; I loved my high school history classes; I even started researching the American Revolution with the intention of writing a historical fiction novel about it...until I realized that I didn't feel like turning writing into a history assignment. So I love history. Probably because history is one twisty and complicated and exciting story, and I love stories. But after living for a month in a country where history is so deep and old and present, I'm not sure I can give this question one answer. I want to time-travel everywhere.

So I'm going to use this topic as an excuse to post more England pictures that have to do with history...


this wall is old. (st. andrew's, scotland)

peeking out of edinburgh castle

ruins rising (coventry cathedral)

tumble-down graveyard (edinburgh, scotland)

Ta da.

I guess I'd currently travel to the Globe back in Shakespeare's day to compare it to my experiences last week. (I did the groundling thing, stood inches away from the actors, right in the line of action.) It'd just be for fun -- not really for research -- purely for the joy of feeling part of the play. OMG you guys have to go to the Globe. It changed my life. Not really, but it was some of the funniest and funnest theater I've ever seen.

Where do you want to travel for research (or should I say *when*)? What historical era particularly captures your imagination?

Around the World: Ashley V

2010-09-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Around the (fictional) world: Our fall series continues with an awesome guest post about setting and memory by Ashley V. Check out her Tumblr here: http://seattlebooks.tumblr.com/

***

Sometimes it's not so fun writing what you know. I've lived in a small farming town all my life--so small that we only have one road running through it. So small that the biggest event in recent years was the opening of a Safeway.

When I was a little girl and first started writing stories, my characters got to escape. They left the cow-scented riverbanks for sparkling oceans, and the abandoned antique stores for darkened cathedrals. I just couldn't imagine what appeal my city could hold for any reader.

As I transitioned from short stories about heartbroken princesses and kid spies to the beginnings of a poetry collection, I discovered a device for livening up my prose without leaving my hometown: memory. Maybe you think this is a way of cheating the system... after all, it's still technically writing "what you know." But writing from memories--the deeper-seated the better--can often be a fresh, welcome challenge from trying to squeeze inspiration from ordinary life.

Writing from memory keeps writer's block away. Well, at least some of it. Instead of trying to conjure up subjects for stories, poems, or novels, you have it all there in your head. How did you feel when your best friend in kindergarten smashed a frog in your driveway one summer afternoon? (True story... I can still hear her mother yelling, "Honey, we don't kill God's creatures!")

Writing from memory lets you travel across states, countries, and time. My family used to love traveling. Hawaii, New York City, and the Cinque Terra are all places I long to revisit. Even more, I long to write in foreign countries and faraway cities, recording strange new experiences and impressions. Since I'm now a broke college grad, I can't afford to jet off to Europe or South America just to vacation and write poetry. Instead, I try to reimagine the time I've already spent there. What were my first impressions of Maui? Did I enjoy the Louvre more than Disneyland Paris?

Writing from memory brings out the emotion in your work. In poetry, I feel like simple observations need to say something deeper about life. If I look at a flower in the middle of a junkyard, I want to express a sense of loneliness or hopefulness. Oftentimes I'll find myself struggling to pick an emotion that fits whatever scene I'm describing. But when turning to a memory, the emotion is already there--in fact, emotions strongly color just about every memory I have. It's a lot easier to recall the anger I felt when my sister lost my stuffed puppy at the fair than it is to pretend I know how a flower feels.

Whether you are looking for new ways to describe your characters' lives or are simply disenchanted with your own city, try writing from your memories for a change. It can open up new ideas, remind you why you love a familiar place, or inspire you to reexamine your favorite stories.

four weeks

2010-09-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

Today is my four-week anniversary: I've been in the UK for almost a month. And it's impossible to reflect on four weeks of travel in one blog post -- that's what my moleskin journal is for. But I thought I'd give you all a short update on my adventures in England since Edinburgh, which is when I think I last posted? I don't remember. Anyway. Story in pictures.

sun in field, Arthur's Seat, outside of Edinburgh

me, Hadrian's Wall (built by Roman Emperor Hadrian way back when)

the moors; near supposed site of inspiration for Wuthering Heights

let me tell you, I'd go crazy too if I lived up there

beautiful, but lonely

the view from my window (note socks -- laundry day) in the Lake District.

Pride and Prejudice, anyone?

York Minster, the largest cathedral north of the Alps.

I went to Holy Communion there on Sunday --

the majesty of that place is stunning

dark thunderclouds, St. Paul's

I'm in London now!

seeing plays

(Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe,

Earthquakes in London at the National Theatre,

Tiny Kushner at the Tricycle --

three of the best plays I've ever seen)

sightseeing

(Hyde Park after a rainstorm,

gross mummies at the British Museum)

and having a lot of fun.

more soon!

Magic, Moscow, and Masochism

2010-09-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

Around the (fictional) world: This week, Kristin Otts takes us to Moscow, which is the setting of her novel Strange and Beautiful. She also gives some great tips on researching settings -- don't miss them! You can check out her blog here.

***

About a year ago, I decided to write a book set in Moscow, Russia – because I am a complete masochist. Three thousand words into the WIP, I was neck-deep in Wikipedia and Google Earth, muddling my way through Russian colloquialisms, wondering why old babushkas have issues with things like shaking hands across a threshold. STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL is YA urban fantasy, but I quickly found that even the humans in the book were completely foreign to me.

So exactly how do you write about a culture you know nothing about? How do you make the streets and the shops and the people come to life on the page?

Honestly, I have no idea – but if you ever figure it out, let me know, because I’d like to finish this dang book sometime in the next decade.

In all seriousness, I wish I could say I’m an expert on this subject – but I’m not. Far from it. But I have figured out a few tricks that have helped me with WIPs that have unusual settings.

Write with the understanding that your rough draft will be really, really rough. You don’t have to know everything about your setting during the first draft. All you really need is a cast of characters and a plot. Don’t obsess over the nuances of the culture until you’ve got the story down.
In between the first and second drafts – RESEARCH. Read books on your WIP’s setting – history, language, politics. Contact experts on that country/city/state. Study maps. Talk with people who have lived there or at least visited. And if you possibly can, go visit that country/city/state yourself. If your book takes place in a fictional world, make sure you have all your bases covered. Know about the political system, the religion, the climate, the geography, the languages. Study up on real-life cultures so that you can have a strong basis for your fantasy realm.
Revise the cuss out of that mothercussing book. This is the part where you take your plot and your characters and you mash them together with all that research – and, hopefully, the end result is an exciting story with interesting, culturally accurate details. And if you haven’t gotten there yet – well, you can ride the revision-go-round for as long as you need to.

It is not easy to write a book about a place you’ve never been, but it’s worth it. Because when even the setting excites, it adds a new kind of vibrancy to the WIP. It’s an adventure to write even the most mundane scenes. So if you have a messy, beautiful, frightening new story that is burning in the back of your head – write it. Write it, in spite of the fear and the foreignness. Write it, because wading through that strange new world is half the fun.

I'm on the GLA blog!

2010-09-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

Check it out - I'm on the GLA blog talking about how I got my awesome agent Joan: http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/

Hello to all the new blog and Twitter followers who came over from GLA! And big thanks to Chuck for running an awesome blog.

Come back Monday for a guest post by one of my favorite bloggers, Kristin Otts. Have a good weekend!

RTW: August's Best Book

2010-09-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

I bought Jandy Nelson's The Sky Is Everywhere for my transatlantic plane flight. Here's some advice: if you're not a fan of crying in public, don't read this on a plane. I was crying by page 20, and then I cried until the end. And I'm not even a huge book-crier.

But Jandy's novel combines a heart-wrenching exploration of grief (through both prose and poetry) with uplifting hilarity and joy. I'd cry and laugh at the same time. This story is about grief, yes, but also about the goodness of life and the beauty of nature and the honest rawness of relationships. And about hope.

Plus Jandy is possibly the most talented writer I've ever read. Ah. Her sentences make me insanely jealous and happy at the same time, and sometimes I'd just pause to soak up her words... reread whole paragraphs and chapters to revel in their beauty.

Now I'm making everyone else on my trip read this book. Don't miss it.

Around the World: Sumayyah Daud

2010-08-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

Sumayyah Daud kicks off our guest blog post series called "Around the (fictional) World" with a post about the setting of her novel. She's even included a couple pictures that make me really want to read her book! More writers will be posting about every other Monday on fictional settings that they love. Check out Sumayyah's blog here!

***

When Kirsten told me she wanted a post on fictional settings I was pretty excited. Fictional settings are, more often than not, my thing. I write fantasy and since April I've been doing nothing but dreaming up fictional settings for my current work. I love creating worlds by piecing bits of things that I'm familiar with and adding things that (I like to think) are wholly of me. So I wanted to introduce you guys to Morag's Glen, the setting for my current work in progress.

Morag's Glen came to me with it's physical aspects already fully formed. For months before I started planning, I could see it. A town, built at the mouth of a valley, surrounded by all sides by mountains that rose into thick, never ending clouds. The sky was always overcast, winter was long, summer was short and life was simple. With this valley came one character: Behzad.

I already knew Behzad. She was a character that had been inside my head for three years by the time I wrote this story, who had already seen one incarnation of herself in a contemporary fantasy and who I thought would flourish in a world that was designed specifically for her.

She was also half Arab. And I didn't want to take a character that was half Arab and then dump her into a European setting, which Morag's Glen most decidedly was. I basically had a lot of translating to do. And map drawing. And culture designing.

What happened was that I created Angelline. Angelline is one very large kingdom, split into two territories: Sardis, the southern, desert territory, enclosed on one side by Aldar and the other by an ocean. The northern territory, Aldar, is rolling hills and mountains and lakes. And Behzad has a foot in both worlds - she is Aldarin and Sardissian.

And so are the people of Morag's Glen.

For me, Morag's Glen isn't just dark mountains, and mist and a glittering river cutting through it all. It's the people who make their home there. It's flowing qaftans, and snow and sharing tea and sugar cubes. It's a New Year's winter festival that blends Aldarin and Sardissian customs. It's meat filled pastries, and frost covered cakes, and muted colors.

Morag's Glen was living when it was just mountains and mist, but it came alive when the people settled there. When it formed as a mix of immigrant and native culture that produced something that was new and beautiful. And it wasn't just a valley. It was a place that my characters could call home.

Living on the Fringe

2010-08-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of it, the Fringe is the crazy theatre festival that takes over Edinburgh in August. At the same time, the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival and the Edinburgh Book Festival bring even more thousands of people to the city. We've been immersed in it all for the last couple of days. The energy in the city is touchable, taste-able. Highlights:

Wandering the Royal Mile, listening to street performers like "Out Of The Blue" (see picture - I tried to upload a video but it didn't work...) who blue me away with their harmonies, eating fudge, collecting fliers for free shows, talking with the actors.

Seeing Caledonia, a satirical musical about Scottish imperialism with blatant connections to our modern world -- and seeing A Midsummer Night's Madness, an adaptation of Shakespeare's play told with hip-hop and contemporary dance, rap, singing, and endless energy by a young dance troupe.

Hearing Hanif Kureishi, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Roddy Doyle, and Paul Muldoon speak as part of the Book Festival -- and gathering writing wisdom from these talented writers/poets.

Oh yeah, and I bought Mockingjay. Note my cool UK cover.

I'm still recovering from the shock... or Post-Traumatic-Mockingjay-Syndrome, as someone on Twitter dubbed it. I won't do a spoiler-y review for a while, until more people have had a chance to read it (because, as my friends are telling me, I read freakishly fast). But let's just say I need some upbeat entertainment tonight...

Shakespeare Rambling

2010-08-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

Our first week in Stratford-Upon-Avon was, to quote my professor, the theatrical dessert of our trip. We saw seven Shakespeare plays:

The Winter's Tale, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, and Antony and Cleopatra at the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre in Stratford -- and As You Like It and The Tempest at Old Vic in London. (We also saw Morte D'Arthur at RSC for a grand total of eight plays in seven days).

Such Shakespeare immersion does things to peoples' heads. By the end of the week, we started to think and dream in Shakespearean English. "Fie" and "dost thou" and "wherefore" just slipped into our vocabulary. I had a dream (nightmare?) the other night about Bella Swan, who was speaking Shakespeare and trying to kill her children. (The Bella Swan angle is probably because the actor who played Ferdinand in The Winter's Tale, the eunich in Antony and Edmund in King Lear totally looked like Taylor Lautner). Anyway, immersion.

My mom asked me yesterday if practically living inside these Shakespeare plays has helped me grasp the language quicker. I'm not sure it has. I mean, I understand all of As You Like It after seeing and reading it several times in the last week. But much of Antony and Cleopatra went right over my head. I did Spark-Notes King Lear -- knowing the plot gave me freedom to focus on the words, the characters, the set. Still, that style of English is difficult to grasp, and I'm by no means an expert. It takes reading and rereading, thinking and deciphering to soak up the meaning of every monologue and turn-of-phrase.

In a rambly sort of way, I guess I'm trying to get at the meat of Shakespeare -- the element that we relate with so much it's like a zing of electricity.

And it's not the words.

One time, I saw a production of Julius Caesar that only used one or two lines from the text; the rest was mime and dance, but still Shakespeare. Shakespeare's words catch us up with their beauty and hilarity and awkwardness -- but what ultimately resonates and lasts are the patterns of story and humanity beneath the words.

(If anyone wants to argue, please do! This is just my thesis, and I'm not totally set on it. I'm just processing on the five hour train ride to Edinburgh).

I'm thinking of Leontes' struggle with jealousy in The Winter's Tale. Rosalind's precarious scheme to win Orlando in As You Like It. Mercutio, Benvolio and Romeo's friendship in Romeo and Juliet. Gloucester's determination to be loyal to his king in King Lear, which costs him his eyes. And (also in Lear,) Edgar's return to sanity as he fights to save his father's life, a madman leading the blind, the weakest of the weak.

It's this humanity that draws us to Shakespeare again and again. Somehow this random guy in the 1600s managed to capture the universal qualities of our humanity in plays that make us shiver and gasp and laugh and cry. These stories span time, nationality, ethnicity. The words might change, might never be said, might be said in different ways by different actors -- but the stories and struggles stay with us. Because while we might not understand what the heck Lear is babbling about in the middle of the storm, we understand the people. Somehow they're us.

In Which I Meet...

2010-08-19T02:14:00.000-07:00

Everyone remembers this guy from Jurassic Park, right? Jeff Goldblum?

Okay. Get ready.

We took a day-trip to London yesterday to see Shakespeare at the Old Vic theatre in the West End. The matinee of As You Like It was hands-down the best production of that play that I've ever seen -- in my opinion, least. Our group is divided. But it I thought it was beautiful. Anyway, at intermission, I was down near the bar under the lobby (not at the bar but near it) with my friend Stefanie. Suddenly she grabbed my arm.

"Kirsten, there's someone super duper duper famous right over there."

We did the nonchalant she-looks-away-I-peek-over-her-shoulder trick. And there he was, trademark glasses and everything, Jeff Goldblum in the flesh, with a group of people at the bar. We actually couldn't remember his full name, but we knew he was definitely the Jurassic Park guy. Our next conversation went like this:

"OMG what do we do?"
"Is it really him?"
"Should we get a picture with him?"
"IT'S THE JURASSIC PARK GUY!"

We were kind of starstruck... And as we were giggling and staring, wondering if we should take a stalker picture, Jeff waved at us.

"He just waved at us!"
"Should we go over there?"

We waffled around for another minute or two, and then Jeff sauntered right up to us. It was a beautiful moment. We had a whole five minute (maybe ten?) conversation about As You Like It, where we were from, why we were in England, his current show at the Vaudeville in London (he invited us to see it and come backstage after the show). At one point, he grabbed my hand and said, "Do you play the piano?" I was like, "Yeah, I've played for ten years." And he said, "I can tell. You have perfect fingers."

I wish I'd written the conversation all down right after, but the gist is that Jeff was super duper duper nice. We never once talked about how famous he is or why we were giggling and staring at him. Then we pleasantly said goodbye and nice to meet you. We were too chicken to ask for a picture until we were all the way up in the lobby again, and Stefanie called out --

"Hey Jeff!" (Note the first-name basis). "This is totally cheesy, but could we get a picture with you?"

The Usefulness of Jetlag

2010-08-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I started writing this post this morning when I woke up super early (as in SUPER early) and couldn't fall back asleep. But now it's later afternoon and we're drinking tea in our guest house, talking about literature and England, and listening to the watery/clicky sound of our fingers on our Mac keyboards.

So far, we've gotten caught in a rainstorm in Windsor, explored Stratford-Upon-Avon, seen As You Like It and A Winter's Tale at the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre. (See my spelling? Theatre? I'm already British. Haha.) Both productions were amazing. Absolutely riveting. The tragedy in A Winter's Tale gave me goosebumps for the whole first half, and right before intermission as Macmillius and Queen Hermione die and Leontes realizes what he's done, the set's bookcases (probably 20 feet tall) tipped over and crashed all the books onto the floor -- and a chandelier slammed into the stage, symbolizing the destruction Leontes' jealousy and tyrrany had caused. It was terrifying.

Love plays. Love literature and the power of words.

Today we went to morning Eucharist at Coventry Cathedral, the only UK cathedral that got bombed out during WWII. A new one was reconstructed next to the ruins in the 1950s. It's a powerful place of forgiveness and reconciliation, and I loved listening to the liturgies and music that have been said and sung for thousands of years.

Basically I'm obsessed with this trip already, and not just because we're in England (cool) but because the people in my group are so awesome -- and I have four whole months to get to know them. Yay.

Adventures at Elliott Bay Book Co.

2010-08-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to Elliot Bay Book Company, this awesome bookstore that used to be in a creaky old shop down in Pioneer Square, but now fills a shiny new space on Capitol Hill.

I'm obsessed with this place. It's light and airy and stuffed with books. I spent ages in the YA section trying to decide what to buy. I recognized so many books I've read about online -- and lots of books by authors I follow on Twitter or blogspot. So fun!

Of course, I Am Number Four was displayed on the new-hot-book shelf. Anyone read it yet?

And I smiled at the Sarah Dessen section -- and then cried because I've read almost all of her books. It's gonna be a sad day when I have no more Sarah Dessen to read.

Eventually, I picked The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. I've heard lots about it online, plus I was hooked after reading the first chapter in the store. It's my plane/layover/travel book for today. My sister picked You Wish by Mandy Hubbard, which looks hilarious, but I guess I'll have to read it over Christmas break now. My parents picked a bunch of random books and a new Cook's Illustrated cookbook. Between the four of us, we basically bought out the bookstore. Or at least upped their profits for the next quarter. I can't wait to go back!

Happy with our books!

RTW: That one drawer

2010-08-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

this question cracks me up: what does your main character keep in her underwear drawer? besides underwear. it seems silly, but it's actually revealing.

The Inbetween
Sophie: a picture of her family's lake house. She keeps it face-down.

Ian: the travel guidebook to Austria that Sophie gives him.

Fell
Birch: I think she and her best friend papered their drawers with pictures of them and the twins (their other besties). Not so secretive. But very revealing. They're like family.
Harley: doesn't have an underwear drawer, but he carries his guitar pick in his shoe.

what about your characters? what secrets hide in their underwear drawers?

My underwear drawer is empty. Departure Day is tomorrow!! My suitcase is packed, your guest posts are scheduled, my camera is ready to take thousands and thousands of pictures. My dad got me a "gorilla pod" -- a tiny, flexible tripod that grabs onto signposts, benches, railings, basically anything. Sample shots from our practice photo shoot:

I want to win this.

2010-08-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

In Which A Girl is hosting a massive, humongous blogoversary contest. To prove just how gigantic it is, here's a screen grab of the pictures of only some of the books you can win. I want to win.

Plus Choco is one of my favorite bloggers ever. Happy blogoversary!

Around the (fictional) World

2010-08-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm not allowed to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Isn't it fun to do things like that?

A while ago, I called for guest blog posts about the "Writer's Journey." I got some lovely replies, and if you're so excited about your post you just can't bear to switch to my new topic, that's totally fine.

But, as I get ready for Departure Day and drool over pictures of England like these two (photo credit: my dad), I've decided to switch up guest post topics. I think the new theme will be less broad, more fitting for my semester, and more unusual. The theme is...

Around the World. In it, I'd like to explore (with your help) all sorts of settings around the fictional globe. We're always told to write our settings as characters: to develop them into living, 3D, believable places that our readers can travel to again and again.

Some settings are closer to home, like the beach town Colby in Sarah Dessen's novels. Some settings are far away, like Victorian England in A Great and Terrible Beauty. Some settings aren't even in this world, like the kingdoms in Graceling.

But all of these places let us travel and explore without ever leaving our hometown. Or couch. And that's a gift.

So my questions for you are:

What's a fictional place that has stuck in your head even after you closed the pages of the book?
What's a fictional place that seemed, to you, like a living character?
Where do your characters travel? What's your current setting, and what makes it live and breathe?
What fictional place do you really want to travel to?

You can answer one question or four questions, or none at all -- and answer your own questions about traveling around the fictional globe.

Posts will start soon, so shoot me an email if you're interested. If you've already expressed interest in guest posting, I'll email you to ask if you want to switch to this new topic.

Let's travel! You'll even get a souvenir token from the U.K... who can resist that??

Packing Light

2010-08-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

I'm in the throes of packing right now. It feels like a math class:

one 30x15x14.5 inch suitcase

+

one backpack

=

definitely not enough room for 4 months of stuff.

See, I need about a thousand things. Sweaters and jeans, raincoat and boots, shorts/t-shirts for random sunny days, cute clothes for seeing plays on the West End, layers for windy/cold days, jewelry, camera, laptop, journal, plug converter. Add shampoo/hair straightener/hair dryer and shoes to the list, and there will be no spare inch in my suitcase. I repeat: No. Spare. Inch.

So as I pack and stress and listen to music and watch Departure Day loom closer, I obviously relate this mess to writing. Because I relate everything to writing. Here's another equation:

main plot

+

subplots

+

character development, plot arcs, tension, bad events, romance

=

so much to fit in one novel.

I'm re-outlining and almost completely rewriting FELL right now (well, contemplating it...), and like my suitcase, this new outline wants to bulge with extra stuff. Like the extra sweatshirts I want to pack in case I get bored of the other ones.

My problem solver is the motto PACK LIGHT. My family lives by that motto when we travel: we like Rick Steves' one pair of pants, two shirts and a jacket philosophy. Obviously that's not going to be helpful for four months, but packing light fixes a lot of problems -- because less is always more. I can pack one gray sweatshirt instead of two colored ones; I can combine those two characters into one person; I can cut all but the most pivotal subplots to my characters' development.

My suitcase might still be hard to zip up, but at least it'll weigh less than 50lbs. I hope.

What are your strategies for streamlining your WIP? (And what are your tips for packing for a 4 month trip??)

Summer Reading Review: Linger

2010-08-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Besides Mockingjay (21 days!), my most-anticipated-book-of-the-summer was Linger. I absolutely loved Shiver: Maggie's writing is lyrical and magical, and Sam and Grace's romance is refreshing and sweet. The werewolves, too, are unique and scientific and mysterious. Love, love, love. So I pre-ordered my copy of Linger, stalked Maggie Stiefvater's tweets for teasers, and read the preview pages on Amazon several times.

But Linger, while just as lyrically beautiful as Shiver, didn't get as much love or fan-girl-squealing from me. I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way. First, though, I want to share what I did love about the sequel...

- The cover (duh).

- The green text.

- The new POV characters, Cole and Isabel. Both of them are passionate and struggling, believably conflicted and so real. Especially Cole. Their relationship kept me turning pages -- but more than that, their inner struggles made me want to race through the book.

- The new werewolf science, which I won't spoil if you haven't read the book yet. But wow. Totally world-changing and exciting. I love the realness of Maggie's wolves: they aren't CGI-awesome like Twilight, but they're wolf-people with tragic stories who I want to know.

So I definitely liked this book. I just didn't love it, I think mostly because Sam and Grace's relationship and story don't have the same tension that I felt in Shiver. Number one, do they ever actually fight or argue? Number two, the sweetness of their relationship (that we all fell for in book one) is way too sweet and kind of annoying. I mean, I'm sad for them, but I would have liked to see more growth in their relationship. Instead, it felt stagnantly sweet. Or am I just cold and heartless? Number three, both Sam and Grace's character arcs seem like flat lines compared with Cole and Isabel, who grow and writhe and fight in full-color 3D.

Overall, although Linger didn't live up to my expectations of kleenex-box-emptying, heart-wrenching sequel, I did fall in love with new characters Isabel and Cole. Sam and Grace, though, definitely took backstage.

Have you read it yet? What did you think?

PNWA Day 3: Marketing Tips and Wrap Up

2010-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

Saturday, the third day of the conference, was as full as Friday: four sessions, split by afternoon breaks and a fun lunch break at the YA table, then a delicious dinner with keynote speaker C.C. Humphreys.

But first.

marketing tips

Alice Acheson, a publicist and marketing guru, delivered an amazing session on being your own PR person. I took like seven pages of notes. She says...

"Success is not just for the talented, but for the tough."

"The human voice is the greatest marketing tool of all."

The six secrets of success

Start locally, grow globally. Your greatest impact is with your friends, family, and community.
Try, try again.
Visit a bookstore twice a month to make connections, learn about new authors in your genre.
Incorporate your PR into your daily life.
Read Publisher's Weekly -- weekly!
Remember selling and marketing is YOUR job.

series and sequels

Amber Kizer is a local YA author and her most recent title is Meridian, the first in a paranormal series with Delacorte. She's hilarious and energetic and so passionate about YA. The session actually didn't focus much on series or sequels, but Amber took tons of questions about the nitty gritty of the publishing process, which a lot of people appreciated.

But she did talk about keeping a "Story Bible:" a document that acts as your reference source for character eye color, habits, past history, etc. As you dig deeper into sequel territory, it'll help you keep everything straight.

c.c. humphreys on magic

I loved C.C. Humphreys' keynote speech. He's a British writer and actor with a talent for making audiences laugh hysterically while telling random travel stories and getting off topic -- and he wore a black velvet frock coat. I didn't take many notes because I was too entranced with his story-telling skills, and laughing too hard, but here's a couple things that stood out:

Magic happens to those who believe in magic. And magic, for writers, is the written word -- and those moments that bring us back to our imagination.

Then he shared one of Duke Theseus's speeches from the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and his British accent combined with his acting talent (combined with the delicious chocolate moose that I was eating) made it a magical moment. I wish I could have recorded him reciting the Shakespeare, but here's the text:

The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination...

RTW: July's Best Book

2010-07-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

I'm interrupting the PNWA recap to ramble about July's best book. And if I read more books in May than April, and more books in June than May, then I read WAY more books in July than June. Probably because my sister and I ransacked three libraries before we left on vacation.

And now I can't even remember all the books I read, but three jump to mind so I'll call them the best books of July.

3. Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston

I usually dislike books about faeries. Number one, that spelling annoys me. It sounds pretentious. Number two, faerie lore confuses me to no end. I feel like all the faerie books I've read have tackled too much mythology and names, and left my head spinning.

But. Wondrous Strange completely surprised me. I really liked it! And get this: the part that I really liked was not the romance between Sonny and Kelly (which was okay, but not super developed), but the faerie lore and adventures. I found it totally approachable, understandable, and intriguing. My other favorite part was the incorporation of A Midsummer Night's Dream's beautiful text and familiar story. The Shakespeare seemed to root the other faerie stuff more firmly in a world I could relate to. Plus I was a fairy in that play once, so it brought back good memories.

2. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

This boarding school saga combines feminism, pranks (BIG ones), secret societies, romance, and coming-of-age into one of my new all-time favorite reads. The third-person narrator reminded me a little of C.S. Lewis (?) -- detached and witty, telling the story as a nameless third party. Frankie is intellectual and curious, and the narrator treats readers as intellectuals, too, smart enough to handle her struggle with the exclusionary boy-world of secret societies -- and her desire to prove to everyone that she's smart enough to belong.

1. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Yup, I'm a huge fan of Sarah Dessen. I think I've read almost all her books this summer. But The Truth About Forever was my absolute favorite. I connected with the main character, Macy, in a way that only happens every now and then: I got the way she acted because it reminded me of myself. This is one of those books that, for some reason, cut deep and made me cry. All of the characters felt so human and raw, and I personally love the way Sarah Dessen writes -- more thoughtfully, slowly. Macy's journey to recover from the grief of her father's death and reconnect with her mother -- and also find new joy with a wacky group of friends at her catering job -- is one that I'll read over and over again.

Plus Wes is adorable. Enough said.

What were your favorite July books?

PNWA Day 2: Searching for HP, the Myths of YA

2010-07-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Get out your notebooks and pens! Here's a recap of day two of the PNWA conference:

searching for harry potter

...taught by Laura Rennert. We all know her name: she's the mega-agent who represents Maggie Stiefvater, Jay Asher, Kimberly Derting, and Ellen Hopkins. To name a few. She's a powerhouse, basically, and when she pitched Shiver I practically started crying. She loves her books!

Laura's definition of YA (the best one I've heard): the genre "Young Adult" refers to books that speak to the universal realm of teen experience. That means anything that deals with issues that teens deal with -- which is everything. Edgy, angsty, nasty, scary, funny, romantic: this is YA.

Laura's 5 secret ingredients for successful YA novels:

Voice: "Practicing voice is like looking at your feet while riding a bike" -- I thought this was a perfect simile for the vague concept of practicing voice. It's really hard. It comes best through tons and tons of reading and writing. Does that sound vague? Well, it is. As the agents say, "either you have it or you don't."
Memorable and dynamic characters: Readers must, above all, believe the characters. Not like them, but believe them in order to connect and identify with them. Also, it's the writer's job to know her characters completely. Inside and out. As Laura said, "it's like an iceberg: know what's below so the surface shines."
Compelling and cohesive narrative structure: Starting with the beginning, in which the reader should feel like she's throwing a door open on a party. Don't arrive early, cause that's when parties are boring. Arrive in the middle, when people are having fun and being loud.
The universal and idiosyncratic: Put universal concepts of humanity, life, etc., into highly specific situations. Don't be vague or sweeping. Instead, anchor your book's questions in slices-of-life that will resonate with your readers.
Literary voice and commercial conception: Successful books combine beautiful voice with high-concept and compelling what-if questions. Elevate the commonplace by extraordinary circumstances.

the myths and misconceptions

of writing for young readers

Unfortunately I showed up late to this session, lead by Deb Caletti, Joni Sensel, and Samantha R. Vamos. I'd been at one called "The Author-Agent Relationship", but it turned out to be more about querying than post-contract-signing, so I left. Anyway, this question-answer panel with three lovely authors turned out to be great!

Deb Caletti's journey of publication is super inspiring. Her agent stuck with her through (about?) four adult books that just wouldn't sell: they'd try one while she was writing another, then try that one...for a really long time. But her agent never gave up on her, and her fifth book sold as YA in a two-book contract. Now she's a National Book Award nominee, bestselling author, and great speaker. Plus her covers are amazing. I want to read her books!

I came away with this: most writers hit rock bottom sometime during their journey to publication. We struggle with dark moments of wondering is it worth it? Should we give up?

But eventually we realize that the process is joy without publication -- that we'd write forever without being published.

That it's who we are, what we do, how we see the world.

This is why conferences are amazing.

PS: If you've signed up for a guest post this fall, I'll be emailing you soon. Thank you! And sign-ups will continue -- or else I'll just email you myself demanding that you post for me.... so watch out!

PNWA Day 1: Writing a Novel and Pitching un-Pushily

2010-07-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I went to PNWA's annual writers conference in Seattle!

If you talked to me there, you might have gotten one of these:

Isn't it beautiful? My dad photoshopped it up for me.

I loved every minute of the conference: all 12-hours of each of the four days. If you can attend a conference, DO IT! They're priceless (and pricey, haha) opportunities to meet writers, make friends, learn from workshops, and pitch to editors and agents. I definitely enjoyed the workshops and appreciated the chance to practice my pitch with agent Amerbly Finarelli, who looked so relieved to hear that I already had an agent and just wanted to ask her questions -- but the hands-down best part of the conference was connecting with other writers there. We practiced our pitches, talked about our WIPs, debated Twilight, frowned about ebooks, argued about the definition of urban fantasy vs. paranormal romance, talked about *gasp* non-writing-related things, and agreed wholeheartedly that YA is the place to be. I felt encouraged, refreshed, and uplifted by all the lovely people I met.

Over the next couple days, I'll be sharing about what I learned and hopefully encouraging all of you with writing tips and wisdom from some pretty cool speakers.

day one, part one

On Thursday, NYT bestselling thriller writer Bob Mayer taught an all-day seminar on writing novels. He touched on everything from your original idea to character arcs to POV to selling your book to marketing yourself. And he's an ex-military man, so his seminar was full of words like "tactical strategy" and "strategic goals" -- because writing is a battle. Here are some highlights:

"You are in charge of your career"

The original idea:

What makes it necessary for you to write your book?

Communicate your idea's shiver

"Trust your subconscious"

Conflict:

Build inner, personal and universal conflict.

Set characters against each other at every level of conflict.

Change:

Change begins with a moment of enlightenment, leads to a decision (either good or bad), and results in sustained action.
Characters faced with change undergo five stages (like the five stages of grief): denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance

POV:

There is no one reality.

POV is like a camera: with stops and starts, shots and cuts

An MIT study shows that the normal human brain can handle three POVS, max.

The voice that's easiest is the one you should avoid. It's too close to you. The voice you fear is the one you should experiment with.

"Once you finish your novel, it becomes a product."

"Perseverance and grit are more important than talent"

Selling your book:

Communicate the passion (the shiver)
Know your goals
Understand why you want to achieve them
Reality: out of 1.2 million books printed in 2004, approx. 950,000 only sold 99 copies

day one, part two

After Bob Mayer finished up his session in mid-afternoon, I attended an awesome session on pitching without being pushy, taught by non-fiction writer Janna Cawrse Esarey. And I'm not going to give away too much because she's agreed to write a guest post on pitching this fall!

But I did finally synthesize a pitch for FELL, which I shared with a few seatmates. I always feel ridiculously canned when I give my pitch, but Janna told us to "get over it." So I did. Kind of. I'll video it later...

Tomorrow: Searching for Harry Potter with mega-agent Laura Rennert and more!

What's in a line?

2010-07-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

...particularly the last line.

I'm so close to finishing the rough draft of Fell: probably no more than a sentence. Which means I'm SO close to reading Linger, my prize for finishing that arrived the mail yesterday.

But I'm stumped.

When you write a book, put your characters through all sorts of nasty stuff and make sure they grow because of it, you say a LOT of things -- in Fell's case, about 72,000 words. So then what do you say to finish off?

Are last lines the culmination of 72,000 words? Or are they just a leaving-off place?

The way I see it, there are two options for ending a book:

End with a bang: an epic line that will change your reader's lives forever.
Just end: with something simple, definitely not the most important sentence in the book.

I can't think of either for Fell. What do I say when I've already said so much?

What do you think? (And yes, all of these questions are begging for answers; they're not rhetorical! Help!) End loudly or quietly?

Mostly right now, I just want to think of something, anything to say so I can type THE END and read Linger!

Teaser Tuesday

2010-07-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

I know I said I'd stop posting FELL teasers soon because I don't want to give away the whole book, but I can't stop myself. Mostly this is a procrastination tool for me: I can skim through the already-written parts of this draft, searching for something to share -- instead of coming up with the 63,042nd word of the rough draft. (I'm not making up that number, actually; it's exactly where I am right now. And the final climax is beginning!!)

This little chunk takes place while Birch and Harley are eating breakfast together.

***

“Tell me about yourself,” he says once he’s scarfed two bowls of cereal.

I blink. “I’m more interested in you.”

“Well, I’m more interested in you. You know all sorts of things about me, and I know absolutely nothing about you besides your name…and your address.” Harley watches me wrestle with this, and that lazy smile lights up his eyes when I finally laugh.

“What do you want to know?”

“How old are you?” he asks.

Oh yeah. Important detail. Ivy would have found that out right away. That whole illegal thing, she’d say. “I’m seventeen. You?”

“Seventeen. And a half.”

That half is important: I like that he’s older than me. It makes me smile, and it makes him smile, too. We avoid each other’s eyes for a minute.

Then he says, “Okay, what else?”

“I’m not that interesting.”

“Come on.”

“You’re probably the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me," I say.

He twirls his spoon in his fingers. “Well. You’re welcome. But you’ve been doing something for almost seventeen years.”

“I hang out with my friends,” I say. “I have a job, I go to school… Oh, and I dance.”

“On tables or dance floors?” The naughty twist to his smirk makes me blush, and I scoot my chair back from the table to get more coffee.

“I dance ballet,” I say, sticking my nose in the air a little, “and sometimes I dance hip-hop and jazz.”

Harley snags my cup before I can get up. “I’ll get that.” If it’s meant to flatter, it does, and I forget the snarky comment as he pours.

***

Okay, I'm going to go figure out that word now. This rough draft is almost done!!

Ten Things for Monday

2010-07-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

1. This is Kirsten again -- I'm on dry land (a.k.a. home)!

2. Thanks to Jessi for dropping by while I was gone and roping in two more followers to the blog!

3. The world still feels tipsy/wavy when I close my eyes. Ocean hangover.

4. Also, my hair is three shades lighter. My skin is three or more shades darker (thank you, sunshine).

5. I'm not quite ready to be home, as usual, because vacations are so refreshing and different and lazy.

6. Lazy? Yes. One day, I spent half the afternoon and all of the evening reading the second and third Shopoholic novels by Sophie Kinsella.

7. I also read Need by Carrie Jones, The Truth about Forever by Sarah Dessen, and Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston. Loved them all!

8. Fell bypassed the 50k mark over vacation, although I didn't work on it much since computers+outside don't really mix, and I basically lived outside for the last two weeks. But it's downhill from 50k, right?? Ha.

9. This Thursday is the first day of the Pacific Northwest Writer's Conference!! I am already drooling over all the amazing session topics. Don't worry, I will share the juice with you next week.

10. Tomorrow's post will be less scattered, I promise. But for now, happy Monday!

Betwixt and Between = Stalled Out

2010-07-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

Confession: The last time I sat down and worked on my WIP was June 23rd.

*Cue cringe*

That was before a 10 day trip visiting friends and family, and before another whole week of friends and family visiting me. The last of our visitors left yesterday, and now, well, I'm in writing limbo. Can't seem to decide what to do. I'm hoping if I give you the background, you can help!

Here's the deal: Since March, I've been working on my second novel, IN HONOR. It's gone well, I love the story, and I'm about 20k in. BUT. I'm supposed to receive my edit letter for MOONGLASS, my first novel, by the end of this month, so I've been trying to prep my brain to switch gears from writing mode to revision mode as well as getting ready to jump back into a whole different world than I've been writing in.

SO.

I sat down to write last night and realized I need to back up and read the last few chapters of IN HONOR to get the flow of it again before I could actually write anything. Instead, I watched the very first episode of Friday Night Lights while making sea glass snowflakes. Yes, really. Then this morning I thought maybe I'd go through my MOONGLASS outlines and old notes to see if anything sparked all the intense feelings I had while writing that one. And, uh, if you look at the time this post was put up, you can probably guess what I did instead.

And that brings us to my (slightly desperate) question: What do I do??? (I'm a little freaked out here!)

Do I start re-reading to get back into IN HONOR just in time to get my edit letter and have to set it down again?

Do I read over my MOONGLASS material and listen to the soundtrack I made on my iPod to try and get in the mood again?

Do I just relax and finish reading GONE while I'm waiting?

What would you all do?

Steppin' In!

2010-07-07T04:59:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Jessi Kirby here, hoping, after Kirsten's super-sweet intro, to keep you entertained while she's on vacation. Her blog shoes are definitely big ones to fill, but I'll do my best! I have a few topics lined up, but I'm also totally open to questions or requests. In the last nine months, I've queried, chosen an agent, gone out on sub, been part of an auction, gotten started working with an editor--you name it. So ask me anything!

As an intro, I thought it may be fun to answer the "Me In 3's" questions Kirsten did a while back, so you have a better idea of who I am. In little snippets.

So here goes:

3 Names I go by: Jessi, Mama, Mrs. Kirby

3 Jobs I've Had: Lifeguard, English Teacher, Librarian

3 Places I've Been: The top of Mammoth Mtn. in a snowstorm, beneath the ocean, on the reefs of Crystal Cove on a crystal clear day, and Fresno. Hahaha...

3 Movies I Love: Say Anything, Saint Ralph, and Almost Famous

3 Shows I Can't Miss: I actually do miss a lot of shows, but if I could catch up, they'd be Friday Night Lights (mostly to watch Tim Riggins), Modern Family (which makes me laugh out loud), and Glee.

3 Books I Recently Read That I Love: Can't answer this one without mentioning Hunger Games and Catching Fire, the first books to make me stay up all night in forever. Shug, by Jenny Han, and The Six Rules of Maybe, by Deb Caletti.

3 Spare-Time Hobbies: Running, sea-glass collecting, and coming up with various creations to use all the sea glass I find

3 Things I'm Really Looking Forward To: An upcoming "research trip" to Sedona, fall--the best season in California, and actually seeing my story as a real book in a real book store.

So there it is. Now that we've been properly introduced, I look forward to hearing what you all have to say and keeping you entertained. Have a beautiful summer day!

On Va-cay!

2010-07-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

I'm out for the next two weeks on vacation. Wheee!

We're going to my favorite place in the WORLD on our family boat. I'll have endless time to read, write, hike, sail, kayak, lie on the cabin top and bake in the sun... also eat s'mores and hot dogs.

But don't worry, my good friend Jessi will be keeping this blog from getting too dusty while I'm gone. Be excited for her posts! She's one of the coolest people I know, and I'm sooooo lucky to have her as my critique partner and writing buddy. Her debut novel Moonglass will be published by Simon and Schuster in Summer 2011!!

*cue fangirl squealing*

I read an early draft of this novel and I can't wait to see it on shelves. When you read her descriptions of California beaches, you'll hear the ocean and feel the breeze and really want to take a spontaneous trip to the coast. Check out her website here.

So she'll stop by every now and then to keep everyone entertained and happy, and I'll be back sometime later this July. Be sure to click on the top side-link if you want to guest post this fall. Oh, and my girls Rebecca and Amna both started new blogs recently, so check those out, too!

ciao!

Jacob is hot, Edward is pale: ECLIPSE gets two stars

2010-07-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Our Eclipse adventure was its very own saga. Not kidding. We faced excitement, danger, crazy people -- and conquered it all. This is both a story and a review, and the review is non-spoilery, so don't worry if you haven't seen this, um, epic movie yet.

the story

My sister and I went downtown around 7:30, remembering the insane lines of HP6 last summer when we got there around 7 and everyone else was already there. But no one was in line, so we hung out in a bookstore and then a coffee shop, played cards, got screamed at by a crazy homeless lady. Around 9:30, there were about 10 people in line, so we joined them, even though we were majorly outside of the demographic: not tweenage, not screaming, not wearing bright colored tutus and homemade Team Edward t-shirts. Their enthusiasm, though, was great to watch.

Anyway, we hung out in line and took a bunch of pictures:

Jacob is so HOT!

Edward is such a creeper.

Bella...is just Bella.

Also, this homeless guy asked us for a smoke, got all sad when we said we didn't have one, and then told us "You are..........astounding." And a lot of strange people walked by. Then, around 11, we decided we wanted coffee, so we asked the lady behind us to save our spots. She said she would if we bought her an Americano :) But the coffee shop was closed! Amazingly, this girl was still working behind the counter cleaning up, and said she'd make us tea even though it'd been like 40 minutes since close. Woohoo! She told us to say hi to Edward for her.

We did say hello to Edward just after midnight with the rest of our enthusiastic theater -- and the couple boys (who were there why??), including a Justin Beiber wanna-be with his posse of middle school girls.

The "danger" part of the night was getting stalked by some weird guy at 2:30 am on the way to our car, but we survived. Lesson learned: the safest place to be at 2:30 am is at home in bed.

the review

Overall, Eclipse was definitely the best Twlight movie so far. Much less unintentionally hilarious and much more serious/violent than the first two, Eclipse proved itself to be a legit movie, not just a cheesy summer blockbuster.

The movie glanced at the history of the vampires and the Quiliut tribe (complete with historical flashbacks to the first settlers, the Civil War, and the 1920s), providing solid background for the final vampire battle. It built up the story of the newborn vampire army with convincing acting by Xavier Samuel (who is super cute even with bright red eyes). And the movie souped up its special-effects big time -- although if you're not a fan of watching vampires get torn apart limb by limb, you might want to close your eyes.

I'm not Team Edward in any way, but some of his scenes with Bella actually did convince me that they sometimes have good chemistry, even if Edward is creepy and controlling and annoying. I'm very much Team Jacob, so I enjoyed his shirtless scenes, his big grin, and his mega-testosterone-charged run-ins with Edward. He definitely had the some of the best one-liners in the movie, too. I won't spoil them for you, but he made me laugh out loud.

While most of the movie, as I mentioned, was more difficult to make fun of than the first two movies, the opening voice-over of Bella reading an angsty quote (about fire and ice) to a shot of Forks's mountains made me laugh hysterically -- probably not the intended reaction. The "helicopter" views of Seattle, obviously computer generated and SO FAKE also made me scoff.

And Bella, as usual, just didn't grip me with character development or...anything. She proves she has some spine in parts of this movie, but she babbles at the end about character development that I didn't see. I guess Kristin Stewart is just really good at looking angsty and beautiful while her two hotties fight around her. And that's my main problem with these movies: so much happens around Bella, but she never gets too involved while other people fight for her.

I still enjoyed this movie -- a lot. Something about this saga is so addicting and entertaining, and I would definitely see it again. Both Team Edward and Team Jacob fans will leave satisfied, even though, as my sister said, "I know the ending, but I still hope every time it'll turn out differently..."

RTW: June's Best Book

2010-06-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

This time around, I can honestly say that I read a lot of books in June -- and it's gonna be hard to pick the best one. Will I choose...

Wake by Lisa McMann for its awesome third-person present-tense storytelling?

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen for its slow and thoughtful character development?

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (yeah, been reading lots of her lately) for its angsty but unstereotypical love interest?

Can You Keep A Secret by Sophie Kinsella for its hilarious protagonist?

Or Graceling for its -- oh yeah, my favorite was Graceling.

This book's heroine kind of reminded me of Katniss from The Hunger Games: an independent, off-the-beaten-track heroine who knows what she wants, and yet is relatable and human and weak at the same time (unlike Bella in Eclipse, which I saw last night at midnight and will review tomorrow...). Way to go, Katsa. Plus, Prince Po won me over completely, despite his silly name.

I loved the magical characters in this book: the Graceling's abilities are both blessing and curse, something Katsa struggles to define and come to terms with. I loved the world: so different and well-developed, yet not confusing to grasp like some fantasy books (speaking of which, I love how this was the first truly "fantasy" novel I've read in a long, long time -- and it was so fresh). Also, I loved that Katsa wasn't the only character with an arc: her sidekicks developed and changed, too. Not sure I'm going to read the sequel, Fire because I think it features a character that I really did not like, but I'll definitely pick up Graceling again!

Oh yeah, and check out YA Highway for more best books in June!

Inspired at 9:00

2010-06-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

Q: How do you start writing again after ignoring your WIP for a week?
A: Get your butt kicked into gear by your commenters.

Your responses to yesterday's post were the straw that broke the camel's back: the camel being stubborn me, ignoring my book for a whole week because it wasn't behaving.

Amy: i think it was hemingway, who when asked if he only wrote when he was inspired, famously responded with, "yes, i only write when i'm inspired, and i make it a point to be inspired every morning at 9:00." writing must be inspired, but as you know, it is also definitely a discipline. :)

A.k.a: Kirsten, stop being lazy and BE DISCIPLINED.

Christina: I guess with kids and having NO TIME I'm a Beethoven. I have to write at certain times of the day and every day or nothing will be written. It's a bit annoying because I think my personality is more like Mozart but then I suppose my obsession to write overcomes the NO TIME thing.

A.k.a: Kirsten, maybe you have endless time to write this summer, but if you don't write every day, nothing will ever get done.

Then my dad read me this quote from a NYT article that mentioned Proust: "His aspirations to be a writer were hampered by his lack of discipline." A.k.a: Kirsten, your current lack of discipline is majorly getting in the way of your aspirations to finish FELL.

So I made myself write again yesterday, and it actually wasn't like pulling teeth or running over hot coals like I thought it would be. It was addicting and fun and I got a lot done. Here's a tiny teaser:

***

Today is one of those Seattle days we don’t tell any non-locals about, just so we can keep them to ourselves. The sky’s so blue and the wind’s so brisk; it smells like rain and asphalt, wet leaves and sunshine. On days like this, Mount Rainier hovers over the city like a mirage, and the lakes ripple with whitecaps, and across the Sound the Olympic mountains hold the first snow to the sky.

Sometimes it doesn’t rain in Seattle.

But that’s a secret.

***

Fits and ... fits

2010-06-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Supposedly there are two kinds of artists: Mozarts and Beethovens.

Mozarts work in fits. Never on schedule, always sporadically, always obsessively.

Beethovens work in scheduled segments. Always frequently, always directedly... (Photo credit)

I'm sure everyone's a mix-match of Mozart and Beethoven, sometimes working on schedule, sometimes not. But I think I'm mostly Mozart. Here's my general writing schedule (kind of reminds me of a roller coaster):

Day 1: OBSESSED
Day 2: Still obsessed. Can't think about anything else.
Day 3: Obsessed. Still.
Day 4: Running into problems, slowing down, but still obsessed.
Day 5: More confused, burnt out, slowing down even more.
Day 6: Disgusted with story. Obsessed with other things like reading and ignoring my computer.
Day 7: Still bored, but starting to think more and more about the story again.
Day 8: Contemplating diving back in...

And repeat. It's kind of annoying: I can pound out 10 or 15 thousand words in those four good days, but then I waste four more days waffling around, moping... until I throw myself back into the story.

What about you? Mozart or Beethoven? Can I cure myself of my fitful Mozart habits and become a disciplined Beethoven? Or is this just how I work...?

A Trip to the Library

2010-06-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

My sister and I seriously scored at the library this week. Behold our loot:

We're in our summertime, gobble-down-books-like-ice-cream phase, and we're also recently obsessed with chick lit: Sarah Dessen, Sophie Kinsella, anything with a boy and a girl on the cover.* Somehow I also snagged a copy of Kristin Cashore's Graceling and Melissa Marchetta's Jellicoe Road, even though both were supposed to be on hold into eternity according to the library's website. Don't tell.

writing the unknown

2010-06-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Something that discouraged me most when I first started writing was that ol' saying "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW."

I knew high school, friends, homework -- but I didn't want to write about that. Too familiar. I wanted to write about pirates, the East Coast, thieves, high adventure, magic, crazy romance. But WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW made me back off. It was a brick wall across doors I wanted to open, a stop sign on roads I wanted to travel. It was everywhere. Everyone said it -- and I listened. It made sense to me. How can you write what you don't know? And wouldn't you write what you do know better?

I've been learning, though, (from all my years and years of experience, ha) that writers have a gift that makes WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW kind of laughable and stupid. Did Tolkien know about hobbits and magic rings? No, but he wrote them. Did Stephanie Meyer know vampires? No, but she wrote them. Does Hannah Moskowitz know what it feels like to break a bone? No, but she wrote Break (see third to last paragraph; link c/o @kbotts). Did ... um, I think I've proven my point.

So I'm going to do a little magic trick. Drumroll, please. When I say abracadabra, that annoying phrase

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

becomes

WRITE THE UNKNOWN

Imagination makes the known a moot point. Our gift and calling and duty is to imagine things we've never experienced, to tell stories that have never been told. Hey, it might be helpful to meet a werewolf if you're going to write the next Shiver, but you definitely don't need to hear his howl to know it's going to be creepy.

THE INBETWEEN's main theme is moving on after tragedy. I'm the first to admit that my life has been pretty tragedy-free. I've never lost a brother like the main character, Sophie. I don't even have a brother. Some people might argue that this disqualifies me from writing about grief, but I don't think so. Through writing, I can explore anything. I can delve so deep into Sophie's head that I feel my throat clench up when I think about losing Luke (her brother). I've never found magic keys in the woods like she does, but I can imagine her shock and disbelief and excitement.

I picture writing like a road trip. We travel places we've never been and see things we've never seen. We explain them in new ways from perspectives that no one's heard before. We stretch our imaginations -- blowing new air into them like balloons, filling them to the bursting point.

I know that what we do know definitely shapes our perspective and voice. But the unknown shouldn't be a brick wall or a stop sign. Instead, I think it's a green light, and it tells us to rush forward.

What do you think about WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW?

Fall 2010

2010-06-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

I know this seems way early to be talking about fall (isn't today the first day of summer?), but this fall is going to be different -- at least for me and this blog.

I'm going to be studying in England, Scotland, and Ireland for a whole semester with a program led by my school's English department! I know, I can hardly believe it myself. I'll be studying Shakespeare, Irish Poetry, and Metropolitan Anglophone Lit (I'll tell you what that is once I know). I'll be seeing hundreds of plays (including at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which has 2,453 shows and 40,245 performances!), eating lots of pub grub, visiting castles and monasteries, frolicking through the hills, and practicing my British accent.

And while I read literature, write papers, and sight-see, I will also be co-keeping the group's official blog. Also journaling. Also writing some poetry and literature of my own. Also trying to stay sane. So what does this have to do with the blog?

I'm not going to disappear. I'll probably post once a week, maybe twice if I'm lucky. But I'm fishing for guest posts. Lots of guest posts. The theme will be "the writer's journey," and perhaps between now and August I'll figure out a more creative title, but anyway I'm dividing it into four parts (for the four months I'm gone): drafting, revising/editing, querying, and beyond (aka the submission process, publishing, etc.) Phew. It sounds complicated, but I think it'll be fun

So. Here's the easy part. I'm looking for volunteers. If you want to help (I'll love you forever if you do!) please fill out this form... (you don't need to tweet, especially if you don't have twitter... but kudos if you do).

I don't know what the response will be like, so I can't guarantee that I'll pick everyone. But if you want to bring your unique perspective to the blog, I'd love to hear from you!

Posters will get cute little British souvenirs, too, like pencils from the Globe Theater and erasers with Shakespeare quotes and who knows what else!

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Templates, FAQs, & Narnia

2010-06-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

So blogger came out with all these new templates, and I finally caved and changed the blog design. Yesterday it was the bookish one, which I liked for a while until I decided it was too busy. Now it's this one. Everyone in my family says it's way too boring...but I kind of like boring. If I could, I'd change it back to the old template, but apparently blogger's eaten that one. I CAN'T FIND IT! I'm sad.

But anyway, what do you all think about this new template? Too boring? Too...white? And if it needs to change, what should I change it to?

In other news, the FAQs are up on the website! I love all the questions, so thanks for participating :)

Oh AND. Have you seen the trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader? I have no idea what to think. Some parts look deliciously like the book, and other parts (Edmund and the White Witch??) look so dumb. It's my favorite book of all time (ALL TIME) and I'm kind of scared to see it. What if the movie ruins the story forever?

Friday!

2010-06-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to sit down with all my new FAQs this weekend and pound out some answers. Thank you for helping me get my website up and running! You gave me a perfect mix of funny and serious questions. And there are plenty of them, so the FAQ page will be very full and happy. I'll let you know when the questions are up, so you can see the answers to yours. If you have any more, well, comments are open!

Now I'm directing you to a life-changing (or plot-changing) post over on Cynthia Jaynes Omololu's blog about how to write a book. Yes. She tells all. I got the link from YA Highway's Field Trip Friday, also known as my favorite thing to read on a Friday morning. (Oh, and Cynthia is one of my agency sisters! Cool!)

Driving home today with the windows down, I finally felt like it was summer. And then Unwritten came on the radio (Natasha Beddingfield) and it was a perfect moment. The music video is kind of weird, but just imagine it's Bee and her hot soccer coach running on the beach in Mexico... (if you didn't get that reference, it's Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants).

I haz a website and I need your help!

2010-06-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

So this summer, I made myself a little website. I'm not a masterful web designer (although I did get an A in my computer science class last semester, and I'm still wondering how the heck that happened), and I messed around with a template to make this. But I think it's cute.

Here's the link: http://kirstenrice.com/

But...you'll probably notice that the FAQ page is blank. That's because I don't get asked questions very often, and I felt like a poser making up questions to ask myself. This is where you come in. Do you have any questions to ask me? They can be silly, serious, writing-related, or not. But I will add them to my FAQ page and answer them very honestly.

Ready ... ask away!

PS: If you want to be super cool, you could use the contact page to ask your questions...then they would feel more legit and less like I'm being all sneaky about filling up the FAQs :)

RTW: Abracadabra poof?

2010-06-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

So the topic today is: when and how did you become a writer? This could be a really long story, but I'll spare you the details. There are two parts:

Part 1: Room 5/6

In first and second grade, I had two amazing teachers, Ms. Matthis and Ms. Shields, who taught a split class of squirmy children and made them write. They called it Writer's Workshop, and every day we had to work on a story. I still remember we couldn't throw anything away, even if we thought it was bad. Once we finished the stories, we'd publish them -- laminate them and bind them.

I still have mine. I wrote a mystery series, a horse story, a series about my cat, journals about my family vacations...

Part II: Summer spark?

So then fast-forward to the end of my sophomore year of high school. I hadn't written a thing (except in eighth grade when our English teacher made us do creative writing exercises to warm up and I realized I was horrible at poetry) since second grade.

So why did I start writing a book? Why did I finish writing that book two months later? I have no idea. I guess it was kind of an abracadabra-poof thing. All of a sudden, I started writing. And then I loved it, and I knew it was what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

The end.

Teaser Tuesday

2010-06-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

Today in Teaser Tuesday, we have a scene from FELL (the evolving, partially re-written FELL) with a new character, Emery, who is one of Birch's BFFs. Right before this scene, Birch was chased by these nasty guys who she thought were after her, but then realized were after Harley (the boy on the bus, if you forgot). So anyway, Birch escapes, but she's obviously creeped out.

***

Emery’s on speed dial. He picks up right away.

“Em?” I pause for a second, clear my throat. “Can you come over?”

“Yeah, sure," he says. I don’t think he hears the desperation in my voice. He’s probably playing video games. “Want me to get Ives and Nolan?”

“No, just you.” I let myself inside the apartment. “Please come fast. I really —”

I hear him sit up. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just —” My voice cracks.

He comes. He folds me into a wet-raincoat hug and I breathe and breathe until I’ve kind of stopped shaking. And when my heart’s stopped fluttering, I realize that I can’t tell him anything about what happened. He’d tell my mom and my mom would never let me ride the bus again, and then I’d never see Harley again. A minute ago, I would have been okay with that. But in the light, with the doors locked, I know Harley was right: he was trying to keep me safe. It was those guys, those bad guys, who might have hurt me. And if they’re the bad guys, then Harley must be a good guy.

Emery shrugs off his raincoat without really letting go of me, then leads me to the couch. “What happened?” he says.

“Bad day on the bus.”

He tugs me down next to him, wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Tell me. Please. I’m worried.”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re not.”

I pick up his hand. “I wasn’t hurt or anything. I just got — freaked out.”

He snuggles me closer. And I squeeze my eyes closed and try to forget about Harley, those men, running, the fear — at least for a minute. Emery smells like home, and I’m home, and I’m okay. But I can’t forget about Harley. I point to the TV with my toe.

“Will you stay for a while?”

He turns it on with the remote. “Long as you want.”

“I just don’t want to be alone.”

I hear him swallow. “You know you can call me if you’re ever feeling — threatened.” His voice trembles and I realize that he’s going to break the remote he’s clutching it so hard. Angry. I rest my head against his shoulder.

“I know, Em.”

“I wish you’d tell me what happened.”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“You still haven’t stopped shaking.”

I close my eyes. He’s right. My fingers, clenched into fists in my lap, are still trembling … I wonder if Harley’s still trembling, too. He was scared. I remember the thunder of his pulse in his wrist. Those guys, whoever they were, wanted him bad. And maybe he’s still out there, still running. I make myself open my eyes. If he’s still running, that’s his problem. “Oh look,” I say, grabbing the remote from Emery. “Seinfeld reruns. Let’s watch.”

He probably rolls his eyes, and he’ll probably ask me again what happened, but for now he’s distracted. As soon as he starts to quote all of Kramer's lines, I know I’m safe.

***

(See the new contest sidebar for super cool giveaways and such in the blogging world!)

On Poetry

2010-06-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to write poetry.

Well-rounded writers seem to be able to craft both poetry and prose fiction. The Bronte sisters wrote classic fiction like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and poetry like Remembrance, which always makes me cry. JRR Tolkien and Dorothy Sayers, Robert Frost and Edgar Allen Poe, Ruyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson, Roalh Dalh and Dylan Thomas wrote both poetry and prose fiction. I think the list could go on forever -- I have to add Maggie Steifvater for a modern, YA example. Also Kristin Briana Otts, whose Saturday poems I love to read, especially this one.

The lesson seems to be this: mastering poetry makes prose musical, and mastering prose makes poetry...well, I can't figure out the right word. But I think it helps add flow and sense and story to poetry.

Or maybe the lesson is this: you can't just be a poet or a writer. True poets are writers and true writers are poets. We are so obsessed with words that we use them however we can. As artists, we explore genres and styles as we figure out how to "dislocate, if necessary, language into [our] meaning" (T.S. Eliot). Sometimes it doesn't work too well; sometimes we slink back to our comfort zones and vow to never write another line of poetry (or prose fiction) again. Sometimes, though, the dislocation strikes a chord and makes a noise.

I've shared some half-attempts at poetry on this blog: my coffee shop poem and my ode to my mother's college quilt. But usually, when I write it (not often), my poetry rises out of frustration, romantic angst, or typical teenage things. It starts out as "poetry" and then turns into rants broken up by random line breaks. You will never see those poems, not even if you ask nice.

My main issue with writing poetry is that it takes so long. Rhyme and rhythm make my head ache, and iambic pentameter makes it spin. When I ditch those for free verse, I feel like I'm breaking every rule about enjambment and line breaks, and every real poet is going to point at me and laugh. It all seems so tediously wrong!

But I stick by my thesis: to master the written word, I must practice prose and poetry. I must let myself be stretched (and embarrassed), and I must dislocate language into iambic pentameter, sonnet form, free verse, no matter how much it makes my head hurt.

Me in threes

2010-06-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

Blogger Claire Gillian tagged me to do this blog chain a while ago. It's called let-me-tell-you-about-myself-in-threes. Which seems suitable for a writer, since books often come in threes.

Three names I go by: Kirsten, Kirsty, Kiki

Three jobs I've had: Babysitting (I am a pro). Data entry at a plastic surgeon's office. Data entry at my college administration office.

Three places I've been: Prince Edward Sound (Alaska), Koh Samui (Thailand), and the Alps (Swiss, German, French, Italian, Austrian...I think that is all).

Three movies I love: Lord of the Rings, She's the Man, and Horatio Hornblower

Three shows I can't miss: I don't watch much TV. Actually, I think I've only ever watched three shows... Veronica Mars (LOGAN ECHOLLS FOREVER!), Chuck, and Roswell.

Three books I recently read that I love: WAKE by Lisa McMann, CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins, and CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC by Sophie Kinsella

Three spare-time hobbies: beach volleyball, cooking, hiking

Three things I'm really looking forward to: family vacation this summer, seeing my best friends from college again, and seeing my book in print.

Three people I'm tagging: Sandy, Kelley, and Kari

Summer Reading Review: WAKE

2010-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

My sister can read my mind. Well, she at least reads my blog, and she knew that I've been wanting to read WAKE by Lisa McMann this summer. So she got it for my b-day! I didn't really know what it was about, but I had serious cover envy and it sounded intriguing:

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody- notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....

So I read this in about two hours. I couldn't put it down. The prose is sparse and tight, and Lisa uses lots of choppy and fragmented sentences (have you noticed I'm a big fan of those?). It's lyrical, too, in a weird sort of way, with wild line breaks and clipped dialogue. Some pages are only half full of text, and the chapters are minutely short. Key word: brevity -- and I was constantly in awe of how much so few words can convey. The craziest thing is that it's in third person present tense, which can be jarring, but Lisa is so talented that it only took me a few sentences to fall into the flow.

Janie's character isn't as intriguing as her predicament (she seems too much like a typically troubled and hardened heroine), but Cabel is very well-developed and swoon-worthy. His character is real enough that you can't pin him down at first, and I really liked him. Favorite part: he runs through a drive-through without a car. Made me laugh out loud -- I guess I needed some comic relief. In the end, they make a beautiful pair because they both find home and understanding in each other for the first time in their lives. Some of those passages are lovely.

My least favorite part was the swearing. The f-word was way overused, and yeah Janie and Cabel are not from the easiest pasts, but we understand that without tons of cursing. If you want to argue that YA is edgy blah blah blah, debate in the comments, but I'm going to stand by my opinion that it wasn't necessary.

Still, I loved this book. It's so fleeting that it almost feels like a dream itself -- and I can't wait to read the next two in the series.

RTW: Seeing Stop Signs

2010-06-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

Today at YA Highway, the question is: how do you know when a project will work out, and when it won't?

I've been pondering this all morning, trying to come up with a definitive answer, and I've been realizing that there isn't one. Who knows? There's no formula like a+b+e+z = uh oh, better trunk that novel.

On the flip side, it's important to know when something isn't working. If I sound like I'm contradicting myself, hang in there. I don't think I am...

Two quick stories:

1. When I started THE INBETWEEN about a thousand years ago (well, two years, but I think that's a long time), I knew the story I wanted to tell: grieving sister, dead brother, new town, key to the past (oh, and a hot boy or two).

So I clung to that story, but the plot changed. Many times. Three times, actually, and each time I wrote about 70,000 words before realizing that something wasn't working. But it wasn't time to quit. The characters wouldn't get out of my head -- and I knew that somehow the project would eventually work. It took about 200,000 words (I don't think I'm exaggerating), 2 years, and a lot of frustration and joy.

2. Now I'm working on FELL. I'm remembering that TIB took a lot of work and thought and a try-try-again attitude. But FELL is not working. Everything seems to end in a train wreck. Is it going to collapse into a pile of rubble -- or at least be exiled to my trunked novel graveyard?

I was talking to my agent about it a little, and she said that it's important to know when an idea isn't working. Some writers try to force ideas, get so obsessed with them that they spend a million years on something that just isn't working. It's actually a good and necessary quality to be able to push stop.

All that said, I'm not giving up on FELL. For me, the difference between a plot that isn't working and a story that isn't working is vital. The plots I'm trying on for size aren't fitting so well, but the story won't let go of me. I can't get a girl named Birch and rainy Seattle and metro buses and one lonely kid on the run from .... something ... out of my head. It's not time to stop.

If the story fades away, though, and the characters dry up like last night's rain on the sidewalk, then it will be time to see the stop signs.

What do you think? How do you know when something's going to work and when it's not?

Writing is a Journey: Claire Gillian

2010-06-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today, Claire Gillian guest-posts about her bumpy and joyful writing journey. Claire writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense. When she's not writing, she loves to work out with one of her hundreds of exercise DVDs. You can read more on her blog or follow her on Twitter.

As I leave the sophomoric phase (I hope) of writing, I enjoy assessing how far I've come. I think back on how much I've learned in a little over a year and a half and am impressed, invigorated and even a little embarrassed by my journey.

I started writing for my own amusement, little scenes here and there that provided immediate gratification for the type of story I wanted to read. Eighty percent of the rules of writing from English 101 I could recall and apply, but an elusive twenty percent still dogged me--punctuation, run on sentences, dialogue tags and adverbs (all still in evidence in this post). I bought a fresh copy of Strunk and White and soon remembered why I hadn't paid it much heed the first time I'd owned it. Like vegetables, it's good for you, but I'd rather skip straight to dessert. Who cared about a misplaced or omitted comma? I knew what I meant.

Then something wonderful happened; I pieced together enough of my vignettes with transitional mortar to qualify as a novel. I did it in a month and told myself I'd achieved my own version of a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) win. I was a Writer, with an upper case W.

Intoxicated and enamored by my success at crafting something so complex, I soared to goddess heights in my mind. Surely the world wanted to read the heartwarming story I'd written. Somehow, I'd deliver my masterpiece into the hands of the teeming masses who shopped at Costco, Target and Walmart. A cinematic adaptation would follow shortly thereafter--no idea how, but by golly I would do it. How hard could it be?

Somehow I found a little humility and decided I'd run it past a few strangers for critique. Rule Number One--head hopping is bad. I'd never heard of that rule but once a fellow writer patiently explained it to me, I corrected the manuscript.

Rule Number Two--voluminous back story and infodumps make bad first chapters (and don't do much for subsequent ones either). I fixed that too.

Rule Number Three-- conflict is a mandatory ingredient to a good story. Hmmm, I thought I had conflict, but a couple of beta readers disavowed me of that notion, one with a pretty pink pen and one with a baseball bat.

Those experiences all taught me Rule Number Four-- to graciously accept and grow from criticism is a necessary but painful part of becoming a writer (back to lower case w). By chapter three, my second beta reader annotated how she wanted to burn the manuscript. By chapter four, she referenced jumping up and down on the ashes left over from the bonfire. By chapter twenty (bless her heart for making it that far), she begged me to mercy kill the characters so she could call it a day. Ouch, but she was right. I discovered the adjunct to Rule Number Four--earliest works are warm-ups. I lined my writer's trunk with that first manuscript.

Novels two and three I trotted out in rapid succession, then moved into the next phase of publishing--the search for an agent. Over the past year, I collected a long list of agencies and agents, do's and don'ts for querying, etiquette for soliciting (stalking), a handful of talented writers with whom to commiserate and share, and dozens more to emulate and applaud.

My goals are more realistic, though no doubt more wistful than they'll be a year from now. I've collected a gaggle of rejection emails, done several rewrites, entered many contests, and written thousands more words. A good writer friend and I discussed the formula for achieving a third party published novel. Her theory was: good story plus good timing plus right agent equals published novel. I added luck, perseverance and willingness to expose your tender underbelly, and clarified "good story" to embody not only a fertile imagination but many, many words of practice writing to showcase your story. I've read that your first million words are expendable. By my count, I'm a third of the way there. I'll still buy the figurative lottery ticket to pay homage to the luck part of the equation, but I'd be a fool to plan my retirement on such a strategy. I'd be a fool to plan my retirement on any writing strategy. Thankfully, that's not why I do it. For me, the joy is in the journey.

Something different

2010-06-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, guess what?

I'm 20 years old today!

I don't feel much different, like usual, but I do like being able to say that I'm not a teen writer anymore. Yeah, the awe factor I'd get when I'd say I was a 19-year-old agented novelist was cool, but now I feel a little bit more legit. Not that my talent has exploded overnight or anything, and not that I'm any different today. But I'm more of an adult writer, and that's exciting.

Do you think teen writers have to work harder to prove themselves and gain acceptance? Is "teen writer" a stigma that you've got to prove wrong before others take you seriously? I kind of think so. Back when I was querying, I'd get some comments like "maybe your writing needs to mature a little" ... which might have been true at some point, but still. Ouch. In my opinion, teen writers are the coolest, boldest, and most ambitious group of people who work hard to make themselves accepted and recognized, and I'm glad I was one (yesterday. ha).

Or is that "underdog" thing an antique idea...and I'm just dating myself by bringing it up?

Some news

2010-06-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Remember a while ago when I said that THE INBETWEEN was going on submission with my fearless agent Joan? You're probably wondering what happened with that.

Finally I can say a little bit -- not good news, so save that champagne for the future -- but here's an update on where things have been going.

I've been keeping a lot of secrets for the last four months. Believe me, it's been very hard. Back in February, in the early part of the submission process, we heard back from an editor who was intrigued by TIB and wanted to work with me on revisions, with the interest of making it something she wanted to acquire. So after talking with the editor about direction, vision, etc., I got to work.

By the end of April, TIB was so much better. I can't stress enough how this editor helped me transform TIB into a more streamlined and fast-paced and focused manuscript. Even today, after getting this sad news, I still get this silly thrill when I think about how great the manuscript turned out.

So Joan and I resubmitted and waited. Today, we heard that editor decided to pass on the revised version. It was pretty disappointing. I had had high hopes, of course.

Now we're kind of back at square one, but it's a better square one. We have a stronger manuscript. I'm a more patient person. I'm more experienced, too -- I talked with a big shot NY editor on the phone! I can do anything now, haha. And we're both still so excited about the future of submission batch round #2! I'll let you all know when it goes out.

I'm reminded of this quote from Anne of Avonlea:

MARILLA: You set your heart too much on frivolous things and then crash down into despair when you don't get them.

ANNE: I know. I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset. It almost pays for the thud.

Ode to a College Quilt

2010-06-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

In half-silliness, half-seriousness, here is my ode to my mother's college quilt, sadly bound to Goodwill...

***

"My mom and I went to JCPenney

and picked it out thirty years ago.

There's nothing exciting about that."

Nothing exciting about a college quilt...

just there to keep you warm and

add color to white cement walls,

then used for naps with a lazy kitty

who kneads her paws in your hair and

purrs in your ear as you doze on the couch,

then mourned by one silly daughter who

remembers those naps and that kitty,

and the dark blue darkness underneath its

speckled floral print.

There's nothing too exciting about my college quilt...

it's brown and sheds fuzz on everything it touches,

but it's cloud/heaven soft and

carries about a thousand stains:
that whole spilled water bottle,
drips of Ben and Jerry's,
salt and butter from bags and bags of popcorn;
and carries about a thousand memories
now folded up on my bed at home.

There will be nothing too exciting about my college quilt...
stashed in the closet in my future home,
maybe used by my daughters and
dozed on by their kitties,
and mourned by them when I
cart it off to Goodwill.

***

Me, my mom, and the college quilt

RTW: May's Best Book

2010-06-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

Road Trip Wednesday: blog carnival hosted by YA Highway. Enter their contest!

At the end of April, I had to admit that I hadn't read any books. Tragedy! But I read books in May. Not lots, but enough to pick a favorite:

Katie Ellison is a liar. Her long-time boyfriend Seth, football stud, has no idea that she's cheating on him with Eric, drama king who is mostly just a good kisser. Neither of them know that Tommy Sullivan is back in town... and Tommy Sullivan got run out of town by the football team back in middle school. He's also hot. Katie can't help being attracted to him, especially since they were BFFs in middle school. Add some New England charm and a beauty pagent to this love...quadrangle, and you've got Pants on Fire. Can Katie stop lying long enough to straighten everything out?

Oh yes. This is your usual fast-paced YA chick-lit novel with an angsty, boy-crazy heroine whose voice is hilarious and ridiculous, but lovable at the same time. Basically, Katie is so over-the-top that you can't help but love her. She analyzes everything. She lies about everything else. And she kisses a lot of boys.

I think I read this in one day -- mostly because it was just so amusing, but also because I didn't want to put it down. Katie's lies create this disastrous web that I wasn't quite sure she'd get out of -- and yes, she has to face the consequences, but I still loved her and her strange friendship with Tommy Sullivan. Plus, what the heck happened in middle school that made everyone hate him so much?

So the consensus is: perfect beach read, get ready to laugh, don't be surprised if you fall in love with Tommy Sullivan, too.