Heather Anastasiu

What Contemporary YA Teaches Me About Writing Sci-Fi

2012-02-06T23:40:00.001-06:00

This past month I've gotten back into book devouring mode. Which is awesome for me, not so awesome for my budget ;) But sometimes you gotta chuck responsibility to the wind, and go with the reading mood when it strikes (and then try to offset buying books with reserving them at the library!).

Now, you might ask, why are you so obsessed wih YA contemporary when you write sci-fi, Heather? My response: ummmmm. I don't know! But other than a select few gems of awesome, I can't seem to really get into anything that's sci-fi or paranormal. I seem to have zero patience, sometimes make it half-way through, put it down because I feel like 'meh,' and then am like, dude, what's up? Did becoming a writer make me broken as a reader somehow? Then I pick up a contemporary book and disappear into it and four hours later come up for breath and let out a happy sigh.

So I've been trying to figure out what it is about contemporary that makes them such easy reads, even when the subject matter isn't light (I'm looking at you The Fault In Our Stars). I think part of it is: the setting is relatable. There's no worldbuilding you have to figure out, no trying to gear up to learn the ins and outs of how things work, no trying to decode new and strange social codes that come with a dystopia or a post-apocalyptic book. I also think part of it might be that the conflicts can be intense, but they aren't all life and death (and sometimes that's a relief to read!). There's not kick-butt action, it's lots of emotional drama instead. Because here's really what's what--those are my favorite parts of action-y life or life-and-death books--the space in between the action, where characters are learning about themselves or falling in love.

I've been working on book 3 in my series, which paradoxically is pretty chockful of big action spreads. But I've also been very careful to avoid some of the things I hate in the third book of trilogies. Like take for example, Mockingjay. There's so much action, and so little of the interpersonal relationships that made us fall in love with the first book. The personal bits seem like quick toss-ins between one trauma or another. So I'm trying my damndest to create space for my characters to really have the growth I want for them. And for the romance, which I've worked in some *hopefully* creative ways to keep fresh. It's the emotional core of any book that really hooks me and makes a book stay in my head for long after I've read it.

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows - So Worth the Wait!!!

2012-02-03T00:56:00.001-06:00

I first heard of Incarnate almost a year ago, and have been dying to read it ever since. I wait for book release days like most people do for summer blockbusters. Like with movies, I read the synopsis over and over. I read interviews with the author, sample chapters, repeatedly watch the book trailer if they have one. And then I wait. And wait. And wait for the day I can get the book in my hot little hand. If there’s anyway I can beg or borrow or enter a contest to win an ARC, I try to find it (and usually fail, lol!)

Incarnate finally came out this week, and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like being too sick to get out of bed stop me from finally reading it as soon as it came out! So like any good reader with zero patience and a Kindle on hand, I bought it at midnight the moment it released, and read into the middle of the night until I’d finished it.

And oh. My. Gosh. You know how some books suffer the sad fate of the over-hype and the over-anticipation, where you’ve waited so long to read a book it can never live up to the monument you’ve created for it in your head? Yeah, Incarnate lived up. And more.

Oh how to name all the things I loved about this book!

-The setting. It has kind of a fantasy world feel to it, but they have gadgets too. And dragons! It was unusual and really freaking cool.

- Ana, the heroine. Her mother tells her that because she’s been born new (and not a reincarnation of someone else, like everybody else in their world), she’s a nosoul. Barely even a person, really. Watching Ana struggle with this conception of herself and slowly grow into the conviction that she is a full person with as much right to live and love as anyone else was really satisfying to read, and handled so well at every moment along the journey by the author.

- The reincarnation idea. It was really f’ing fascinating to think about a world where a soul can live for thousands of years, casting off old bodies and being born anew, but retaining their memories of everything that came before. You really get a feel for how insane this would be through Ana’s friendship with Sam. Ana’s seventeen, and Sam’s thousands of years old, currently in a seventeen-year-old body. Many of the residents of Heart consider Ana to be childlike, because she doesn’t have the skills or knowledge everyone else has been able to gather over the millennia. But being that old also means people are set in their ways. Many are unwilling to accept the newness and challenge that Ana’s very existence brings. Others ignore her, because like a butterfly, her life will be so brief that she’s not even worth reckoning with. I guess I found this point especially fascinating, because it gets into questions of what a single life is worth, however short it may be, and how it would affect the way you live if you believed that your existence was un-ending, that even if you died tomorrow, you’d come back and back and back. People tell Ana that she is passionate, and it made me think about the ways that passion is so often tied to do with discovering new things, discovering things you want to fight for, and having something to lose. It’s easy to lose your passion as you get older.

- The mysteries. There are some great mysteries throughout, starting with the question of why Ana is the first newsoul ever to be born, questions about the dragon attacks and the mysterious temple with no door, mysteries about factions that are secretly working against Ana, questions about Sam’s past, and more. And my favorite part of the book was the epic ending, where we get some really satisfying answers to some of these questions, there’s some amazing heartbeat-raising action, and basically all around, big sh*t goes down! There’s nothing I love better than a satisfying ending. Some mysteries are left to be resolved throughout the series, and with the characters that I completely loved by the end of the book, I finished at 4 in the morning and about died realizing I’ll have to wait a whole nother year to find out what happens next!!!! But like with book 1, I expect it will be worth the wait.

What I Learned From THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

2012-01-31T03:28:00.004-06:00

So here's something if you don't know about me, you should know: I freaking LOVE epic stories, especially epic trilogies. I think this began in childhood (which was, I admit, in the late 80's) when I saw an assorted number of movies indelibly etched upon my brain space, especially the original Star Wars. Star Wars has always been my hallmark for Awesome Trilogy Storytelling. Which, you know, comes in handy since I myself am writing a trilogy.

I thought of Star Wars as I was plotting out my trilogy, writing those outlines for books 2 and 3 that I attached when fabulous agent man and I were submitting to publishers. I wanted big. I wanted epic. I wanted One Girl Who Can Maybe Save The World Like Luke Skywalker Did kind of epic. Although, technically I suppose, he saved the galaxy, but I digress.

So I'm writing Book 3 now, and as I'm tossing around plot ideas in my head (because as all writers know, outlines were made to be broken), I come back to the original, to the penultimate. I come back to Star Wars. I had to go out and buy the BlueRay version because last time I watched it was on VHS and I no longer have a VCR. And because I'm more concerned about the middle and end of my trilogy, I started out of order and watched The Empire Strikes Back.

Which is my favorite of the trilogy. My heart goes all racy just thinking about it. This is great story-telling. This is great melodrama. Specific things I noted as I was watching this time through:

There's lots of little mini-mysteries. Luke goes searching for Yoda, meets a funny little obnoxious creature who turns out to BE Yoda, and meanwhile, it highlights the very thing Luke needs to work on in his Jedi-training, his youth and impatience. Han and Leia drive IN to an asteroid field to hide, drive straight into a hole in the asteroid, only to find out later there's a secret we didn't know about this particular asteroid they've chosen.
A lot of story-telling weight can hinge on something as simple as a mechanical malfunction. All of Han's story-arc in this movie depends on the fact that his dang hyper-drive keeps not working!! He would have been out at the beginning of the movie paying Jabba the Hut off if it had worked! They wouldn't have had to go in the asteroid field at all if it had yet again been working. And at the end, when you hear that now familiar: waa, waa, waaaaaa noise of the hyper-drive again, NOT working after they've all escaped Vader, you're like, noooooo!
Big mysteries with Big Reveals. Then there are the bigger mysteries. We have a feeling we know why the Emperor and Vader are interested in Luke, but we don't know just how deep it goes. At first it seems ludicrous that Luke would be tempted by the dark side of the force, but then with the giant, emotional reveal that Vader IS his father, omg, I still get goosebumps thinking about it!!!!
But back to Han Solo. Seriously, Han is what makes this movie work, thirty years later. He's got so much charm, he's the cowboy/pirate character among the bunch. Luke can be a little whiny at times, but you always love Han, even when he's being a scoundrel. As he so aptly points out: "you like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life."
Chemistry between Han and Leia. Whether she's hurling insults: "You stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder!" or he's trying to corner her in a hallway somewhere, it always sizzles between them.

Review of Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally

2012-01-26T00:23:00.000-06:00

I've been on YA contemporary reading binge lately, and my most recent favorite read is Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally. This book was so much fun. I wasn’t sure at first if I’d connect with it because I’m not very much into football, but this book is all about the characters, and I was hooked from page one. My favorite thing was how real all the characters felt. When Jordan is laughing and joking with her guy teammates, it feels so natural, like you’re getting an insider look of guys hanging out, being a mixture of raunchy and rude, funny and sweet. In some YA contemporary novels from a girl’s perspective, it’s like the guys in the novel are from another planet. So it was refreshing to watch Jordan be so at home with the guys and then super awkward with other girls her age.

So many other things I liked about this book: Jordan’s a girl player in a very guy-centered game, and the book manages to be subtly girl-power! without ever getting over-the-top about it. Jordan’s character growth is natural and engaging. And then there are some seriously swoon-worthy boys!

This book was just so real. Dramatic things happened without the writing getting all drama-y about it. Places where other authors would have been tempted to get preachy, Kenneally always keeps it real. This was an excellent, super satisfying read.

Writing Book 3 in a Trilogy

2012-01-24T23:32:00.003-06:00

So I'm in this delightful lull between finishing copyedits on book 1 and receiving an edit letter on book 2. Where you guessed it, I'm working on book 3 again. Writing life is funny when you're working on a trilogy set to come out at six month intervals. Rarely a dull week!

So I haven't written, as in full on drafting, since November, when I started book 3 in NaNoWriMo. Thankfully I got a good 20k into it before other edits intervened, and I stare at those 70 pages I have already written on it gratefully. It's a good feeling to have a head-start, but I still want to make more of a dent on it while I have a bit of time here before it's due in May. I'm no good with the stress of deadlines. I like to have a first draft WELL beforehand so I can avoid stress-writing, which is generally passion-less writing.

But the trick, as always when I've gone a few months without drafting, is getting back into the swing of it. I'd compare it to training for a marathon, but then, I hate sports metaphors :) So let's just say, it always takes a few days with slow-spurt starts. Like today, I managed 1,500 words. But I cheated a little. Usually I make myself go chronologically, but I let myself skip ahead and write the epic ending scene. Which, as you can imagine as the end of a trilogy, is VERY EPIC. When I'm getting back into drafting, it's all these little tricks that help. Tomorrow I'll go back to writing chronologically, and doing responsible grown-up things like plotting out scenes before I write them.

A very good and genius friend, Jodi Meadows, gave a piece of advice I've always kept in mind for when sequels are daunting: treat each book as a standalone. As if this was the first book in a trilogy, when you're super jacked up about the idea and the characters. Because here's a secret, blogosphere: I'm having a love affair with another book idea in my head. But to get to that one, of course, I have to write this one. So every morning lately when I wake up dreaming of that book, I try to slow down, and think of what I want to do with this book. I ask myself these questions:

-What do I love in great trilogy-ending books?
-What do I hate in trilogies I feel have let me down as a reader?
-What themes and big ideas have I set up in Book 1 and 2 that I really want to give satisfaction here in book 3?
-What new things can I introduce to make this book and the characters brand new again to me?

And for me folks, I won't lie, it's all about the romance and character growth. That's what I love, what draws me to books and trilogies. I've got all the events and action plotted out for book 3, but how do I give it heart? How do I make readers cringe and yearn with epic melodrama?

On Copyedits & Coming to the End

2012-01-20T15:31:00.001-06:00

I'm almost done with copyedits. Which means, this book is finished. Like finished finished. It's another first, having brought a book through all these edits and getting it so completely polished. All that's left are First Pass Pages, and then it will be out in ARCs, and into reader's hands.

It's been quite a strange feeling, actually. I've made some bigger changes in the copyedits stage than just grammar things, but I know this is the last chance. As a writer, you can always keep perfecting, keep tweaking and changing things. But it doesn't matter, because the book will come out and it is final. So that's, you know, scary!

At the same time I'm excited to move on. I want to get back to drafting again, working on book 3. Editing can feel kind of non-productive, rehashing over the same words, cutting and re-writing small bits--but it's nothing compared to the adrenaline and pure creation stage of drafting.

Being a Writer with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

2012-01-18T14:05:00.000-06:00

This post was going to be about copyedits, but other things have intruded, namely my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I try not to talk about it much, but on days like today, where the exhaustion got so bad I could barely hold the pencil to mark up my copyedits, there's little else I can think about. I've been sick since I was a freshman in college, over ten years now. I try to spread awareness of what CFS is when I can. I know the name makes it sounds like I just get a little extra tired or take naps in the afternoon or something. I go to a support group sometimes and the best way I heard to explain it to people is this: it's like the last day of having the flu. You still have a fever, your body feels weighed down with lead, you're not very functional. Of all the things in my life--being a wife, mother, writer--it's the CFS that defines me the most. At one point I had to use a wheelchair because I was unable to walk.
Last year I was well enough to start going on short ten to twenty minute walks, but unfortunately I had to stop taking a medication that was helping and I've relapsed. This means lots of time on the couch, maybe venturing out of the house once a week for a couple hours. I go on lock-down and try to wait it out until the energy comes back little by little.

So. I try hard to keep a positive attitude. It's been this bad before. I know how to adjust my expectations and muddle through. There's so much in my life to be happy and grateful about. A wonderful family, healthy son, loving husband. Glitch is coming out this year, and people around the internet seem excited about it. I'm so lucky to be able to be a writer in the first place, a job I can do from my couch, which I know full well is a rare and precious thing.

And the copyedits are going well! I'm about a third of the way through and I have 8 days left to get done. Even if I take today off just to rest, I should be able to finish on time.

If you want to know more about CFS, here are some links:
- fellow author (Seabiscuit, Unbroken) Laura Hillenbrand talking about her debilitating CFS
- A quick overview here

Quick Reviews of Five Amazing Recent Reads!

2012-01-15T14:57:00.004-06:00

One of my resolutions for the new year is to READ MORE BOOKS! It's crazy that as a writer, you can fall out of old reading habits, and I totally did last year. But I've been slowly getting back into it, and it's been especially exciting to read my fellow Apocalypsies books!!! I've been wanting to review them all, but figure I'll never get around to it, so here's my two cents on each one (in no particular order).

Cinder by Marissa Meyer. Yay, our first Apocalypsie to bust the NYT bestsellers list!! Huzzah! And yep, this one is deserving of any all and all hype. The world Marissa Meyer creates is so fully complex and thought out, but not in that overt way we do as authors sometimes. I'm a giant fan of good fairytale retellings, so I loved the Cinderella elements, that each part of the story was clearly present, but also clearly re-imagined in some seriously awesome ways. Cinderella in Meyer's story is, after all, a cyborg! This book felt giant in scope and delivers on every front.

Fracture by Megan Miranda.

Zomg, zomg, zomg, the writing in this book will blow you away. So well crafted and lyrical. The story carried for sure, but it was the writing that had my heart. I still find myself rereading sections and wondering from a writerly standpoint, hmm, just how did she DO that??? I bow down.

Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock - Loved this book, so freaking HARD. I got to read an ARC of this, it will be out in about 4 months. With this book, it's all about the characters. They are so well drawn, they immediately draw you into the personal entanglements of a smaller town, and the prejudices and loyalties that can lead to violence. And lots and lots of secrets. You cannot come away from this without a feeling of : damn, some huge sh** just went down! And: I cannot WAIT to find out what happens next!!

Under the Never Sky - Love, love, love this book! We're finally getting to this year's crop of dystopias, and Veronica's is another that lives up to its hype, and more. I really enjoyed the way the relationship between Aria and Peregrine slowly develops. At first they consider each other enemies and it was so much fun to watch antagonism slowly grow to a grudging friendship and... maybe more ;) You'll have to read to find out. Oh, and the action in this book!!!!!! Seriously killer, and perfectly executed.

Bloodrose by Andrea Cremer - First book I've read this year not by a fellow Apocalypsie, by an author who I'm sure needs no introduction. This book is just insane. It's the ending of the Nightshade trilogy, and if I had just two words to describe it, they'd be: passionate and epic. Seriously, the characters go all over the world facing all kinds of crazy dangers, but it's the passionate central story and the characters that keep you on the edge of your seat. One thing I love about Andrea is that she never writes safely. There is always Big Epic Sh** going down, every other chapter. You can't stop reading until the end, and that too will blow you away.

Cover Reveal Week

2012-01-11T20:52:00.000-06:00

Goodness gracious, life has been busy lately. If you didn't see, I got to officially reveal my beautiful cover! I'm so excited, I've been in love with it from the first moment I saw it. Waiting on your cover is always one of those anxiety-filled parts of being an author. But then when I got to see it, with my favorite colors (purple and black) featured, everything about the girl is perfect and the glowing input port on the back of her neck... it's seriously the cover of my dreams. And my trailer, if you haven't seen it, is here.

And so many other exciting things this week. Last Friday I got to meet my agent sister, Andrea Cremer, at the release of her last epic book on Friday. She is as awesome and delightful in person as I imagined her to be. I'm halfway through Bloodrose and loving it. It's so cool going to signings now, and not just because I know the people up there, but because I'm dreaming one day of my own release party. Because it's officially 2012 folks, and that means that my book is coming out THIS FREAKING YEAR!!!! In almost exactly eight months.

It's also strange to feel so close, and to be working feverishly through the very last rounds of edits before it's gone out of my hands. Soon it will be done and done, and before I know it, strangers will be reading it. Which is totally insane and I still can't wrap my head around it.

How to Be A Rockstar, Even When You Don't Feel Like it

2012-01-04T15:59:00.001-06:00

I'll be honest, for as many amazing things that happened in 2011, it had its fair share of punch-me-in-the-face moments. So over the past month, I've been working to put things back together, personally and professionally. And I'm finally gettin' my mojo back :) So here are my personal steps to getting back the I-Can-Do-Anything-I-Put-My-Mind-To-Rockstar-Mojo.

Step 1) Dye your hair bright pink. This says: BAM, I am in your face! I am kick-ass! (if you don't feel it at first, that's all right. It's part of the point. Every time you look in the mirror you can be reminded of your kick-ass-osity).

Step 2) Get your sh*% together. Rockstars are productive. They make stuff happen. They are creative. So getting my sh#$ together comes with a few different sub-points:

Take care of emails more regularly so they don't get into the triple digits
Make sure to take time for daily inspiration. Rockstars aren't robots. They are creative and passionate. Take time for that everyday.
Do laundry. Because no one likes a rockstar without clean underwear.
Make check-lists and cross stuff off every day. Every little bit of productivity starts rebuilding confidence that screams hell yes! I can do this!
Do what you love, and foster that love in every way possible. This is what really makes rockstars. We do what we love, passionately, and catch other people up in the passion. As a writer, this means catching up my readers. But that's not going to happen if I've lost connection to that passionate place that made me want to tell stories in the first place.

Step 3) Love on your family. My family is my support, my stable center. Without them, none of the rest is possible.

Review of PASSION by Lauren Kate

2011-12-27T23:16:00.000-06:00

I just finished Lauren Kate's PASSION and I really enjoyed it. This book was very different from the previous two - it didn't have the same structure, didn't take place at a school and I liked that Luce is finally taking charge to figure out the past instead of just putting up with Daniel being cagey and keeping secrets. Really, this was what I've been wanting to see since the beginning--to see Daniel and Luce's love throughout time. It's what made this book so special and gave it epic scope.

Over and over we get to see Luce's past incarnations fall in love with Daniel, and it seems to become real to both Luce and the reader along the journey. I loved the changing historical settings and the way Luce's character slowly makes some important realizations. As Luce begins to see that she did have a choice in all this, and over and over she chooses Daniel, as she first watches and then steps into her past selves and experiences it firsthand, both the love and the heartbreak of her death in each life, it was really powerful. I'm loving how this series has developed, and I can't wait to read the epic ending when the last book comes out next Spring!!!

Snow

2011-12-21T15:35:00.001-06:00

It's snowing outside and I can't help but grinning because it's so beautiful and magical. I just moved from Texas to Minnesota, and in an odd bit of weather, it's only snowed a few times so far this winter. Everyone here assures that me by March and April, I will find little about the snow magical ;) But for right now, the magical feeling stays, and I found myself humming all morning: It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

This December has been completely insane and without going into TMI, let's just say it's been very emotional and rollercoaster-y, but good things have come out of it. On the 29th, I'll celebrate my ten year wedding anniversary, and it's especially meaningful this year. I look out the window and see the snow falling, and it feels like hope and new beginnings.

A Little Romanian Saying

2011-12-12T03:20:00.000-06:00

I'm posting this week on the Brave New Words blog of debut ya sci-fi authors, check out my thoughts on a little Romanian saying that has gone a long way: Brave New Words Blog

Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

2011-11-30T00:32:00.003-06:00

I was never one who liked poetry much. Except for Robert Frost. I read him as a teenager when I was trying desperately to be cool and like poetry, and he was the only one who resonated. I liked that he talked about deep sh**, but that he still rhymed. It seemed then, and still does, like the mark of genius that his rhyming lines rarely sounded contrived, and still managed to convey such deep, clearly imaged ideas. After a few readings, the lines would get stuck in my head.

At the time (as an emo teenager) it was "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening" that most captivated me. The repeated line at the end, so powerful, haunted me for years, maybe haunts me still: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." The short jumble of words in this poem, it was the first time I'd really understood the power of literature. He managed to say what I felt so deep in my soul. He captured it on paper. In words I could repeat over and over.

Just last week I was thinking of "Fire and Ice," (when I was thinking about apocalyptic and dystopian literature) playing at trying to remember the lines, and finally lighting by memory upon the whole poem before looking it up on the internet. Residual memories, lines memorized a long time ago popping up again when I felt a particular emotion. So strange and awesome.

And today, the lines I couldn't get out of my head: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...." Over and over, like a mantra beating beneath my forehead. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, two roads diverged in a yellow wood, two roads diverged in a yellow wood..." I want to grab Robert Frost by the lapels and demand: but how the hell do you know which is the best f'ing road to take??? But alas, he is not here, and his lines, like ice, will suffice. At least so perfectly to portray the dilemma, if not offering any clear answer.

Am I a Grown Up Writer Yet?

2011-11-27T22:10:00.002-06:00

So, as I edit this dry bones draft, I started another document called "Emotional Big Ideas" in which I write scenes, throughout the day (or the middle of the night) about the emotional zingers--scenes that help me see clearly who my characters are and what they want. I don't know exactly where the scenes will go, or if they'll even make the cut when I start pasting things into the new draft, but it's so helpful to start to get a real feel for who my characters are. This side document is now 40 pages long.

I never used to understand when writers would talk about all the pre-writing and extra character development writing that wasn't actually part of the draft. I'd think: all that wasted time! those wasted pages!

Yeah, I'm finally getting the idea. Does this mean I'm getting to be a Grown Up Writer? Lol, we'll see, my lovelies, we'll see. Meanwhile, I listen to Florence + The Machine's sophmore album, and am inspired.

When in Doubt, Double

2011-11-21T12:38:00.000-06:00

This is my newest writing trick. I'm working to bring a dry, bland manuscript to life, so as I go in to rewrite scenes, I'm trying to make every scene a double of something else (usually a big emotional theme in the book). So if there's an action scene, something in it has to double another scene or parallel an emotional theme. A conversation between friends? It too needs to have that doubleness to it - always external action that's relating to the internal drama. Because really, it's the slowly building internal, emotional action that makes us care about characters.

It's another way of saying that there is no unmotivated scene as a writer. No scene that's just there as a place holder or a way to fill space. No. Everything has to keep building up toward the climax. No plateaus. Not if you want a tension-filled, compelling book.

I think I did this more naturally with the first book. This one, I don't know. I think I was trying to keep it from being too dark and depressing or something. Or I was just kind of at a rough point emotionally in my own life. But all it really resulted in was me not digging into the characters. Emotional conflict is eternally compelling, ya can't get around it. Conflict is what makes stories.

Some writers are able to write funny books, light books that still have a driving conflict. Yeah. Not me. I gotta go for digging salt in the wounds. And then doubling it ;)

We Now Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program...

2011-11-15T15:08:00.003-06:00

So I might be interrupting work on my NaNo project of book 3 to pause and try to figure out what the hell is going on with Book 2. I got a beta read that was a perfect zinger, cutting through my crap and pointing out some of the core problems with the book - namely, that we don't feel connected to the main character, that there doesn't seem a lot of reason to care about her, that it's emotionally dry.

Underneath, I knew it. Everything I built up in book 1 just kind of fizzled here. It's like a skeleton, dried out dead bones. There's a sort of life-like structure, but not much flesh and no heart. I meant to keep working on book 3, but now that I see so clearly what needs fixing on book 2, I don't think I can go forward without pausing to dig into it. Also, if I don't figure out what's going on emotionally in this book, how can I blunder forward with the next book, making the same mistakes?

So I've spent a lot of my writing time today staring into space. Trying to feel out what draws me to a good story. How to develop an emotional core.

I think one secret to doing this is NOT to just have events occurring and your mc just being batted around by circumstance. Good TV shows have a way of doing this--creating a doubleness to the action so that it's always mirroring something going on internally with the characters. I'm thinking specifically of last season of Fringe. For example, there's one episode where they are investigating a doppelganger and Peter explicitly asks how the person's partner hadn't known the person they were sleeping with had been switched. Of course, in a perfect case of dramatic irony, the audience knows what Peter doesn't. The person Peter himself is getting close to isn't who he thinks she is either. And just like the spouse of the person in the case, he doesn't notice the difference, even when its so blatantly in front of him.

When shows do this well, it's like a kick in gut as you watch. It's so enthralling having the reinforced emotional texture rebounding at a number of different levels. The first season of Lost did this really masterfully too. Everything occurring in the present action would then be mirrored in the flashbacks of one character's life before--both stories weaving together into one cohesive emotional whole that packs far more punch.

Now if I can just figure out how to work this out in my novel. Every scene should be building on this emotional tension and speeding up to the climax. What does my mc want? What is her obsession? What is she dying in want of?

Writing vs. Revising: Grass is Always Greener on the OTHER Side!

2011-11-14T20:48:00.000-06:00

I'm amused by the amount of contortion the goat in the picture is going through to get to the greener grass. Um yeah. That's pretty much what being a writer feels like sometimes! Last month after I'd been editing for so long, I declared with complete assurance that drafting was far easier and more fun than editing.

Yeah. Until I start drafting again.

I've been NaNoWriMo-ing the rough draft of Book 3 in my trilogy, and today I was thinking the whole time: I can't wait until this gets done so I can start editing again. Editing is so much better than drafting!!

Then I remembered I'd thought the exact opposite a month ago. The thing is, to be honest, both writing and revising have their perks and downsides. It's easier to feel productive when writing a first draft. Literally productive even - I mean, that little word count number just keeps going up! It's so satisfying. I set a word count to reach for the day, I reach it, then I feel satisfied that it's been a good day's work accomplished.

Revising on the other hand, is pretty amorphous. A lot of the time you are cutting out entire sections, then re-writing, so if you're looking at word count, some days it goes down!

But here's the down-side of drafting. They're called rough drafts for a reason. Because sometimes it can be really rough. And just plain sucky. It makes me antsy to get to editing so I can fix it all up, and see the bigger picture. So I can make it STOP SUCKING! Plus I half think I'm a better editor than writer. I'm better at shaping the mass of words and plot after there's already a sizeable chunk there to start with. So I try to remind myself of that as I keep writing. I'm giving myself a big chunk of clay to work with later.

But I have the patience of a gnat, and just want it to be pretty now! I hit 20,000 words today, so then I just try to think: well, even if can't quite get hold on the process, or how best to both write and revise, even if I feel like I'm just bumbling around blindly with everything I do--at least it's still moving forward. Gotta take what you can get sometimes.

DARKER STILL by Leanna Renee Hieber

2011-11-10T22:25:00.001-06:00

DARKER STILL by Leanna Renee Hieber

Goodreads Description:
Picture of Dorian Gray meets Pride and Prejudice, with a dash of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
New York City, 1882. Seventeen-year-old Natalie Stewart's latest obsession is a painting of the handsome British Lord Denbury. Something in his striking blue eyes calls to her. As his incredibly life-like gaze seems to follow her, Natalie gets the uneasy feeling that details of the painting keep changing...
Jonathan Denbury's soul is trapped in the gilded painting by dark magic while his possessed body commits unspeakable crimes in the city slums. He must lure Natalie into the painting, for only together can they reverse the curse and free his damaged soul.

My review:
This book was so much fun. A historical paranormal mystery with a perfect sense of place and rich setting, Darker Still draws you into Natalie Stewart's world and keeps you flipping pages. The book opens as Natalie comes home from a school for the disabled and starts trying to finding her way in the world, in spite of her muteness. But the part of herself, and her past, that she's long tried to deny comes bubbling to the surface when she sees the enigmatic painting of Jonathan Denbury.

I really liked the way the story was told through journal entries. It connects so well with the story-telling tropes of novels from a similar period, like how Wuthering Heights and Dracula are narrated. It only amplified the tone of the story, completely immersing you in the period. At the same time, the characters are still relatable enough for it to feel like a modern story.

And yeah, can't forget to mention that there are some super passionate scenes in this book!!! But with that fabulous sense of restraint and decorum of the period. The mystery and action builds throughout. Loved, loved, loved it.

NaNo Wk 1--Upping Word Count & Staying Passionate

2011-11-07T22:24:00.001-06:00

I'm at 11,500 words on my NaNoWriMo project, which is book 3 in my Glitch trilogy. It's my first official NaNo, and I'm pretty much having a blast. I used to always write first drafts quickly. Funnily enough, I think this draft is actually going slower than previous drafts, but I'm glad for the motivating framework of NaNo. My deadlines used to be provided for me by the schedule of school semesters, but have been somewhat lacking since I'm taking a semester break just to write.

Yes, I do see the irony of taking time off to write, and then the actually writing being so much slower and more difficult than under the pressure-cooker of grad school schedule! But at the same time, I'm a lot saner ;) So in the end, I'll take the trade-off.

I'm reading other people's updates and watching their word-counts grow, and it's mainly encouraging. But here's the thing: I hated wasted pages worse than anything! I kinda refuse to write scenes that I know AS I'M WRITING them will have to be re-written.

This hating-wasted-pages-thing started when I was just pantsing a draft of a novel a couple years ago, a retelling of Jane Eyre. I'd just been going off the cuff without an outline, and I realized after I'd written about a hundred and fifty pages that a big plot point early on needed to change (a hundred pages ago), that would negate 2/3 of the draft I'd written.

Do you know how long it takes to write a hundred freaking pages??? A long time. A lot of wasted energy.

So now, I'm learning the fine line between plotting out every little thing to the point of being frozen on a draft because you want to make sure they aren't wasted pages, and actually just getting the shitty first draft down.

For this new project, drafting Book 3, since I'm under the auspices of NaNo, I can't just take three days off to perfectly plot out a logical escape, or the infiltration, etc. This is the cool part about being at this point in my writing career, and having so much experience under my belt. I recognize as I go which parts I'll end up re-writing. So instead of wasting energy and pages at the get-go, I just put a bracket and write a place holding message like: [kidnap programmer guy here] or [break into facility here] and then I keep on going with the stuff that I've already thought out so I can just keep writing and building word count.

As I draft this new project, my other big concern is that I not lose the passion that set me writing in the first place. I lost sight of it at times during the drafting process of Book 2, and I kind of refuse to do that again. I'm a writer because I love it. Because I love stories that move me. Those are the only kind of stories I want to tell. If I lose sight of it, if I let it turn into A Job, then I'm missing the freaking point. Not to mention that people can feel the difference when they read the finished product.

NaNoWriMo & Book 2 Difficulties

2011-11-01T17:23:00.002-05:00

For the first time, I'm actually at a place where I can participate in NaNoWriMo. I'm not in school right now, don't have many deadlines, and just finished editing a draft of book 2. My November is all free, spanning out in front of me, and after editing for so long, I've been itching to actually start WRITING again. I've missed the plain old freedom of starting a new draft and building up word count.

Writing book 3 feels different than the last one, I can already tell. I'm having more fun. I think with book 2, I felt this crazy pressure and doubts -- what if I couldn't write another book as good as the first? What if I couldn't write it in the time frame needed?? What if being under contract completely stifled my inner muse?!?!

Book 2 got written this summer, somehow. But with all the difficulty I had editing it, and the distance of a few months, I think it was partially written out of that place of fear. All those worries made me frantically produce a first draft, sure. But it wasn't as good. It was robotic at parts, where my narrator would just relay what was happening like she was reporting it. It's in first person, but still, it wasn't clear what her motivations were and why the reader should be propelled through the story. In short: why should the reader care about her? It lacked heart. And for good reason-- I didn't really know what was going on with her!!! I didn't know why she was doing things, I was just moving my characters around like a puppeteer dragging them through a show, getting from one plot point to another. This summer was also just very hard personally for me. I myself was muddled, so it only makes sense that, along with the other pressures I let myself be controlled by, it bled into my writing.

But I don't feel any of that dread or doubt about writing book 3. As hard as book 2 was, and as stilted as the product may have been at first, I did finish it. I'm not worried anymore my ability to write under contract anymore.

What I feel as I approach book 3 is a sense of freedom to explore the story and an anticipation for writing that I haven't felt for a good long while. For the past few weeks, scenes have been tumbling over themselves and playing out in my head--always the sign that I'm excited and passionate about a project. I have this spidy-sense that this is going to turn out to be a good book--it's the same sense I had when I was writing Glitch to start with. I'd faced rejection numbering into the hundreds for the other three novels I'd written and queried in the past, but this time it just felt different. I had this strange confidence that this was going to be the one. And it was!

As for book 2, I just finished a big edit round on it, so I have zero perspective right now. I suspect it's still stilted and muddled in parts, but that's the beauty of having an editor and team of readers behind you as an author. They'll point out where it's all wonky and I'll do re-writes and get it into shape. I feel confident about that too.

And in the meantime time, at least until I get the last big round of edits on book 1, I get to dabble in the fields of drafting delight. I'm so glad to be reminded again: I really love writing.

Kiersten White's SUPERNATURALLY is a Sparkly Batch of Awesome!

2011-10-29T22:24:00.003-05:00

ZOMG, I love Kiersten White's Paranormalcy series! I just devoured the second book, and it was so much fun. Like: laugh out loud funny at parts. And let's face it, YA can be heavy with heavy sometimes. Ok, a lot of the time. There's lots of family members dying and betrayal and violence and sadness in YA lit. Did you read the last Hunger Games book? It's like a non-stop PTSD trip, only barely able to breathe before something else horribly traumatic happens.

So it is just so refreshing to read a book that's so spunky, and again I say, fun! And yet it also has a deep core of great story-telling, themes, and heart underneath. You can't say Evie doesn't face some difficult *bleep* (to use her stand-in word), but the story-telling voice is still so snarky and funny, exemplified in the hilarious chapter headings. My favorite, the one that had me seriously rolling laughing: Sparkles Make Everything Better.

Yes, Evie. Sparkles do make everything better :D

Also, from a writerly point of view, I'm kind of obsessed with seeing how writers handle sequels. Can the romantic tension keep up? Can the character's voice stay compelling? And are characters not put in just such horrible circumstances that it's hard to read the dang thing? White's book is obviously a check, check, and check.

It's not lightly that I say that this series is one of the few around right now that I'm super invested in and can't wait for the third book!

Between The Sea and Sky Review

2011-10-26T22:38:00.003-05:00

Between The Sea and Sky by Jaclyn Dolamore. So, full disclosure: I watched The Little Mermaid every single day after school for a YEAR in 2nd grade. I have a special warm place in my heart for mermaid stories :D And Jaclyn Dolamore more than fulfills all those old-world mermaid fantasies and introduces a new generation to the romantic mermaid fairytale in this book!

My first impression of this book was that it reminded me of Robin McKinley's books back in the day, like Beauty and Rose Daughter and The Hero and the Crown, those epic fantasy/fairytales that completely sweep you up. The suspension of disbelief is instant--this is a novel not aiming for realism--we don't get a modern day exploration of the logistical ins and outs of being a mermaid. Instead we are presented with the fantasy world, and it is so instantly compelling you allow yourself readily to be taken to the story-realm.

Here's the Goodreads description, that summarizes better I can:

For as long as Esmerine can remember, she has longed to join her older sister, Dosinia, as a siren--the highest calling a mermaid can have. When Dosinia runs away to the mainland, Esmerine is sent to retrieve her. Using magic to transform her tail into legs, she makes her way unsteadily to the capital city. There she comes upon a friend she hasn't seen since childhood--a dashing young man named Alandare, who belongs to a winged race of people. As Esmerine and Alandare band together to search for Dosinia, they rekindle a friendship . . . and ignite the emotions for a love so great, it cannot be bound by sea, land, or air.

I liked the build as Esmerine travels into unknown lands (the surface) without knowing what's coming next. Her relationship with Alandare is pitch perfect. A girl of the sea and a boy of the sky: could there be a more star-crossed pairing? At the beginning there's that awesomely awkward stage of getting to know a childhood friend as an adult, on adult terms. And Alandare is so delightfully flawed, bookish and slightly socially awkward, but still charming. . The build of romantic tension and then the climax of the book, so powerful and so emotional and sigh! I loved it. Five stars.

Between the Sea and Sky hit shelves this week! Go grab a copy!!
*My thanks to NetGalley for providing a review ARC of this book.

Randomosity, aka What I've Been Up To This Week

2011-10-25T21:30:00.001-05:00

So this week I:

- finished editing a solid draft of book 2!!!!!!!!!!
- am working to finish a couple beta reads still out
- finally acknowledged the extra ten pounds I gained this year aren't going to magically melt away went and bought pants that actually fit. Fitting into your pants in the morning and not having to squirm like a pig trying to get into its blanket = WIN!
- cleaned out my inboxes
- am toying with the idea of writing book 3 during NaNoWriMo. I have the time. I'm not in school and don't have a job, so I guess that theoretically means I'm a full time writer ;) And drafting is a great high. There's nothing like that piling up word count. It feels so tangible, in a job that is often so not. I don't know if I'd get the whole thing done in a month, but I think I could get at least a hefty half, and I like being part of the energy of people around the country, even the world, all writing together. I have an outline, and I've been day-dreaming scenes from it the past couple weeks, a sure fire Good Sign.
- am reading the Game of Thrones series and trying to remember how to speed read ;)

Game of Thrones

2011-10-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

I'm reading the second book in the Game of Thrones series. It's quite strange to read when I pretty much ONLY consume YA lit the rest of the time. The tone is so different, the shifting point of views, the slow and drawn out story-telling. And it is taking me so long to read! I've been at it half the day and have barely made a dent in the 750 page tome. But I am just a slower reader lately, though I didn't used to be. I know I consumed Terry Goodkind's entire 11-book series last year, and each one was as long. But this has been such a strange year all around.

In this series, there is so much to like. I love the epic scale. The slow build, character storylines that never meet each other, but there's that unspoken promise that eventually they will tie together. I like that George R.R. Martin tells the story from the point of view of the outcasts of society, from that of an old man who has trouble climbing the stairs and who's counsel is no longer sought, from the little person mockingly called Imp, from the eyes of children, the disabled, from the woman who was all but sold and then holds the key to bringing dragons back to life. I like that kingdoms may rise and fall on their doings, and not those of the beautiful and strong.

As I said, it has been a hard year. I park in disabled spots and limp exhaustedly into stores. Other days I don't have energy to leave the house. George R.R. Martin's book here reminds us that people, of all shapes and sizes and abilities, matter. And matter on an epic scale ;)

When You Can't NOT - What Being a Writer is Really About

2011-10-19T22:57:00.002-05:00

A common story gets told about when a more experienced writer or poet comes to a class of new writers: when the eager young writers ask for advice, the seasoned, wizened (and one can assumed, a bit weather-worn) writer says this, "First Piece of Advice--do anything else other than be a writer!"

This was kind of novel the first time I heard it. It speaks to how hard it is to make a living as a writer, of the trials and tribulations within the writing lifestyle itself, and of how little appreciated writers may be within our society.

But let's be honest. None of the young writers listen. We all still want to be writers!!! Perhaps we think: our path will be smoother, our genius more quickly recognized, that our success can be attained! But once the rejection piles start stacking up, the young writer looses their first enthusiasm, and hopefully, their delusions of grandeur. And yet some of them will just keep writing anyway. The pack thins out.

Because here's the deal. If you're a writer, you just can't NOT write. It doesn't matter how many time rejections bury you under your covers for days on end. It doesn't matter how darling your story or novel was that has been unanimously rejected across the board. You just keep writing because you can't not.

That's what being a writer is about. And sometimes, as my fellow Apocalyspies and I have discovered, it can even lead to the impossible: a book deal.

And sure, that's a brief awesome blip in your life as a writer. But then the day of the big announcement comes and goes, and it's still back to the bones of being a writer: the page in front of you, and whether you'll write today.

Cover Reveals!!

2011-10-18T23:57:00.003-05:00

It doesn't take much to get me encouraged and back on track again, and a couple of peeps' kindness in the past few days have allowed me to do just that. I'm fired up with edits on book 2, making lists of the things left to fix, and generally being enamored with all things.

And to celebrate, let's all look at some gorgeous newly released covers of fellow 2012 debut-ers:

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Kathleen Peacock's Hemlock

Anne Greenwood Brown's Lies Beneath

Suzanne Lazear's Innocent Darkness

S.J. Kincaid's Insignia

I can't wait to read these!!!!

Discouragement & Solitude

2011-10-16T12:45:00.002-05:00

So my chronic illness relapsed about three weeks ago (right after that post about how great I was feeling, naturally!), and I’m trying to dig my way out again. I can manage about two hours out and about in the world each day, as long as there is comfortable enough seating.

Which is a problem at the Zen Center. I’m discouraged that even a group founded on the basis of SITTING still involves too much athleticism for me. I need to sit on something that has back support, and here’s the kicker: head support as well. And, understandably I suppose, there are no lounge chairs at the Zen Center. I tired more quickly than normal during the hour-long class this morning, which itself is in a room up three flights of stairs.

Still, I thought, perhaps there is a way for me to be involved at the center and to meditate during the week with others. I can manage 30 minutes of sitting on the floor if I can rest my back against something at least. I asked if it was all right if I sat leaning against the wall, and was very kindly informed that no, meditation during the week at this center is done facing the wall, not leaning against it. It’s okay, I understand—there is order and ritual involved here, and I’m not going to try to tromp in like a bull in a china shop demanding accommodations.

But I am discouraged. It all circles round to what I’d rather it not: that if I’m going to do this and really develop a meditation practice, I have to do it alone. More solitude, in all it's many textures.

Natalie Goldberg & Author Signings

2011-10-11T23:07:00.000-05:00

I talk a lot about Natalie Goldberg. I first was introduced to her when I started writing and heard about this Must-Have Writing Book: Writing Down The Bones. I picked it up, wondering if it would turn into a case of over-hype. It didn't. There is something really special about that book.

Only now, finally (though it has been sitting on my shelves for a couple years) am I reading her first memoir piece, Long Quiet Highway. The cover is gray. The name sounds slow. Quietness is not much of a hook. And we in YA circles are so very interested in good hooks ;) But now I am so eager to devour stories of people engaging in meditation, especially women. So I read Eat Pray Love (I'm still in the middle of it), and devour Goldberg's memoir, so youthful, hopeful, optimistic. She goes and lives in a tipi in a commune in Taos. She is a hippie. She loves writing. She wants to meet her own mind. The book is saturated with these loves and longings. The book is written in 1993, when she's around 45 years old.

I met her in person a couple of years ago, at a reading and signing. 'Met' is a strange word when it comes to author signings. You have a minute, maybe more, with this person you've all but idolized, and here they are, in person! but they are tired and there is a long line behind you, and all you can sputter off is some quick nonsense about how much you've been moved by your work, and they sign your book, and look you full in the face maybe, and then it is over.

And I have a crap memory, so I don't remember much about it, except, she seemed like a very strong woman. Strong, opinionated. A teacher who had so many students she didn't put up with much crap anymore. A strong woman, comfortable in her age. And I have her signature on a book in my apartment. Meanwhile, I feel far more connected to her through this memoir of hers I am reading. And this place, meeting people at the Zen center here in Minneapolis and trying out sitting in meditation, I feel more connection to her than ever.

As a writer, I wonder, when my book is published and people read it, will they feel connected to me? Will they feel like they know me? And appropriate me for themselves, as I myself have done with so many authors in my long reading history? I think this will be a funny moment, when I am the one signing books at readings.

Beginning Zen & Crumbling Idols

2011-10-09T20:42:00.002-05:00

I went back to the Zen center today for another beginner's class (the 2nd of 4). I've been sitting for meditation by myself most days this past week. It is... Well, now I don't really know how to describe it! It is calming. It is not earth-shattering. But on days that I do it, I find myself more mindful of my thoughts as they pass the rest of the day.

And I have been writing, really writing again. I'm getting ahold of the book finally, it starts to feel less chaotic, less disorienting. I have set a deadline for this draft. The self-discipline of meditation has spilled over into that of writing. When I face resistance in writing now, it is no great shock. As most writers will attest: it is what happens. I acknowledge the resistance, I gently nod to it in greeting. And then I put my pen back on the page and keep writing.

It's funny, reading Natalie Goldberg's writing books was my first introduction to Zen (though I didn't know it at the time, I just knew I liked the way she saw the world). I found out only after I'd visited the Zen center here in Minneapolis that it was founded by her teacher, Katagiri Roshi. She wrote Writing Down the Bones and Long Quiet Highway while still half-idolizing him, before she became so disillusioned after his death when she discovered he'd carried on affairs with some of his other female students.

I'm glad to hear this tale of disillusionment as I begin. Is that funny? I like to see things get real, to have the illusion debunked that there is any way of life that will keep men holy. I saw it enough in Christianity, I was not surprised to find it here as well. People are people, thier foibles and sins remain. All idols have clay feet, and tend to crumble given enough time (and power or authority). Our human-ness will out.

I feel more compassion for this condition than I have in the past. But then again, I am more compassionate with myself. Most days anyway ;)

Zen & Meditation & Eat Pray Love

2011-10-03T23:55:00.001-05:00

I have a bit of a pattern to my days now, though I hesitate to write it down, because I feel like every time I assert something lately, it's doomed to change the next day. But I will chance telling you all anyway ;)

I wake up, take my son downstairs and wait for the bus, come back up to my apartment, make some coffee and read and meditate. Well, sort of meditate. Usually I sit quietly and listen to music and try to focus on sensory input and still my wandering mind. I watch trees out the window. At my old apartment I watched the birds in delighted fascination. But I tried it 'for real' this morning, with the whole sitting quietly for a set period, just focusing on breathing. I don't know what to think of it yet. But I liked what the teacher last Sunday at the Zen center said: that this is an experiment, something we are trying out as a way to be present in our lives. He repeated part of a poem by Dogen several times: "to study zen is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to be connected to all things." I like that.

So I go write in the afternoons, take care of my son on alternate days after school, and spend most evenings reading. And lately my evenings have been spent reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. I thought this book sounded silly when it came out and became so popular. Sure, I thought, rolling my eyes, some chick going around the world to find herself and talk about some spacy God-hybrid (you know, all the religions mixed into one), complete with having heart-warming stories that sum up nicely at the end of each chapter and make everyone who reads it feel good.

But then, I watched Gilbert on a You-Tube video, and you know what, she seemed pretty great--down to earth and compassionate. And then I looked up a bit about her book and realized: a woman who hits a crisis, goes through a divorce, and talks about meditation? I need to read this book ASAP.

So I picked it up last week and am reading slowly through it. I like it. Some moments are just perfectly captured, even transcendent. I've cried several times while reading. Gilbert is very likeable, even if some of her stories do have that too-familiar 'testimony' feel--you know, that art of crafting stories out of one's daily life more according to the lines of narrative punch than actual reality, where there's always a lesson to be learned, some clear out-come to be gleaned (a good testimony even follows the narrative arc: conflict, rising action, climax!, resolution). And when Gilbert asks questions of god, she gets (or as she says, some part of herself provides), answers. Like answers answers. In words. Which always disturbs me a bit, because it was stories like this that were so confusing when I was very religious for a full decade, and so desperately hoping to hear an answer from God.

Here's the thing--I may take up meditation, I may try out participating in the community at this or another Zen center, but I am not looking for enlightenment, I'm not looking for an intense spiritual experience, and I'm certainly not looking for God.

But I would like to be a little bit less bewildered feeling all the time. I would like some peace. And I have seen the way that this lifestyle engenders compassion. That's what I would like to see organically grow in myself: peace and compassion. If there's a long history that says this kind of meditation can bring that, then I will try it out, and try it genuinely. I can do self-discipline. I face resistance and overcome it with writing fairly regularly, I think it will not be entirely foreign to sit everyday and try to focus my breathing and let go of the monkey thoughts.

We'll see. Like the teacher said, it's an experiment.

The Hardest Question in Life: What Do You WANT?

2011-10-01T22:13:00.001-05:00

The instructor in my writing class said that what drives plot is this question: what does your character want?

This is a devilish question. It startled when she said it, because I've been quite tied up with plotting out this book (book 2 in my trilogy) very externally: this happens, and then this, which leads to this. The cause and effect thing I had down. But I realized there was a problem as I was reading through the first draft I'd written this summer: it had no heart, it had no soul. There was no reason to care about my main character, because she's a muddle.

What does she want?

Oh, you horrible, very important question. And it only hit me today, because I must be slow, and because things in my life have been quite hard lately--she's a muddle because I'm a muddle. What do I want?

Believe it or not, it was this exact question that set me off on some of these Big Change Life Choices earlier this year. I read this question (or a version very similar to it) in a book and literally threw the book down as if it had burned me: "Where do I feel good? What is giving me joy?" --Joseph Campbell, in A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

My answer to what my character wants as I looked through my muddled draft today was: she wants things to start being okay, for them not to be bad for awhile. But really that is what I want. On my quest to find joy and to answer the question of what I want, all I have so far discovered is What I Do Not Want: loneliness, sadness, bewilderment. Divorce is hard.

My novels are in first person. My main character, Zoe, is both like, and unlike, me. I think she will need different motivations from me--that the motivation that drives a novel cannot just be for things to be okay. Though maybe she's a little understandably shell-shocked from some things that have happened. And I have always used writing as a way to work through and understand my own world. If I can let my main character be more honest, let myself be more honest, I think it will give soul to the book. But I don't want this to be a sad book. I'm tired of the cliched middle novel of trilogies being The Sad Book ;)

Scott Westerfeld & Plot Knots

2011-09-24T16:20:00.001-05:00

I got to hear author Scott Westerfeld speak at The Wild Rumpus bookstore today, and it was wonderful. I go to YA author events as often as I can and Westerfeld was definitely among the top speakers I've ever heard. He has an easy style, had a really interesting talk (and pictures!) prepared about how pictures stopped being popular (in anything other than young children's books) these days when they used to be so prominent, and the Q&A time was killer.

Things he said that stood out to me:

- someone asked him basically what kind of reaction he got when he came up with this complicated "weird" story idea for the Leviathan series. His response was awesome--that complicated stories are a lot easier to write than simpler ones--there's so much to explain, so many places you are freed to go with it. He gave the example of trying to summarize Season 3 of Buffy--and how hard that is to do quickly because there are so many intricate things going on with so many characters and interweaving storylines. And Westerfeld does do some seriously complicated storylines. I loved the Uglies series, but it was really his Midnighter's series that impressed me with some f'ing SMART, intricate, kick-ass storytelling. Really, Leviathan too. So intricate, so smart, love it.

-which leads to the next thing he said that totally surprised me: he says he's not a plotter! Doesn't do outlines. He just goes with it, and said he'd rather just try things out and write it several different ways if he has to. And when he comes to a plot knot that may arise, between research and his extensive worldbuilding, he always finds a solution. For example, if you've read Leviathan and Behemoth: he didn't know what kind of creature was in the eggs for a long time!!! Then it turned out to be the awesome perspicacious loris!

I am a big Plotter. But I'm learning you can only take it so far: you outline, you write, then you step back and see the story has a giant lump sticking out the side that's going to have to be lopped off (aka, I think I'm gonna have to kill this one scene). But once you do that, the whole shape is now wonky, and you have to re-think what it's going to look like. Plotting and outlining shouldn't be taken to the point where you forget to allow the story to grow organically--you are not some supreme god able to control every element of the book you are writing and the world you are creating in it. It should surprise you.

Art imitating the Big Things I'm learning about life: trying to hold onto it with a clenched fist of control isn't the way to go. Things will be a lot more exciting and spontaneously creative if you learn to let go.

So, I'm looking at this mass of words that will eventually be a book, a cohesive and hopefully moving thing. And I'm teasing out thoughts and playing around with the shape (without trying to be so immediately controlling), just digging my fingers in the clay and seeing where it goes. Some question tools I'm using as I explore:

What's the emotional core of this book?
What's the climax (and how does that connect to the emotional core)?
How are all these chapters driving towards that climax?
What's necessary, what's not?
How do I bring these characters to life?

Giveaway of Gabrielle Zevin's ALL THESE THINGS I'VE DONE

2011-09-23T10:10:00.003-05:00

Enter to win ALL THESE THINGS I'VE DONE by Gabrielle Zevin!! I've loved Gabrielle Zevin ever since I came across her freaking AMAZING book Elsewhere, and she was actually the first YA author I heard speak and do a reading (for the debut of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac) after I'd begun writing seriously.

So I have warm feelings in my heart for Zevin, and I was worried about over-anticipating this book. But I need not have worried! I devoured this book over the weekend and am reminded of why I loved Zevin's writing in the first place. The narrator's voice is just spot on, authentic, and all of Zevin's characters feel so very real. And dang, some DRAMA goes down in this book, you gotta check it out!

To enter, please COMMENT with your name, email address, and add up any extra points.
Extras:
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How To Save Your Own Life

2011-09-23T00:39:00.005-05:00

My insecurities can run away with me if I don’t watch it. I’ve felt like I’ve been walking around for a few weeks now frantic and absolutely bewildered. Time moves too fast, then too slow. I feel no control over my life or the hours as they slip by. I thought of the perfect image to encapsulate how I feel today—being caught in an riptide, being swept further away from the shore by forces stronger than oneself and not able to get control or break the surface.

There’s this lyric from Adele’s “Turning Tables”:

Next time I’ll be braver, I’ll be my own savior.

Makes me think of the title of Erica Jong’s book: How To Save Your Own Life. I hated the book, but the title is still one that’s stuck rattling around my head years later.

There are some admittedly crappy things going on in my life. Things I wanted to go one way, and the opposite happens. My health junking out on me again. There are also some very wonderful things.

It's NOT that I need to adjust my expectations, or ‘let go’ of expectations, or even pull myself up by my own emotional bootstraps—I think really it’s one of those things where I need a different paradigm. I’m asking the wrong questions about how life should be lived, and about what constitutes a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ life.

I felt the frantic and the awkward self-consciousness bubbling up before my writing class tonight, so I sat out in the car in the parking lot beforehand for awhile. I turned on some quiet music. I sat still. I concentrated to my connection and relationship to all the things around me—my fingers on the steering wheel, the air blowing on my face, the trees gently moving outside my windshield. If I am connected to the things, much less the people, surrounding me, all my self-involved concerns of awkwardness fade from the foreground.

And I suspect that control (or at least, peace) comes when I abandon my clenching fist, trying so desperately to control outcomes (which tend not to obey anyway).

How to save my own life might in this instance mean: number one, that change is possible--it is possible to stop drowning, but beating at the water more frantically isn't the way to do it. Instead, stop thinking about the self in such isolated individualistic terms and learn to exist, present, in each moment, connected to the things and people around you.

Interview with Elizabeth Richards

2011-09-21T23:23:00.000-05:00

Today I'm interviewing the fabulous Elizabeth Richards about her novel BLACK CITY, debuting from Putnam in Fall 2012!

Summary of Black City:

Deep in the heartland of the United Sentry States are the burning ruins of the Black City, a melting pot simmering with hostility as humans and Darklings struggle to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of a brutal and bloody war. A wall now divides the city separating the two races. Trapped on the wrong side of the wall is sixteen-year-old hustler Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling who’ll do whatever it takes to survive, including selling his addictive venom ‘Haze’ to help support his dying mother.

Then there’s Natalie Buchanan, the daughter of the Sentry Emissary, who feels imprisoned by her life of privilege and fame. When their paths cross, they instantly detest each other but Ash is shocked when his once still heart starts to beat. Bonded by a mysterious connection, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed. Then Haze users start dying all over the city and Ash discovers the terrible truth behind his and Natalie’s mystical connection. Suddenly, city walls and the threat of execution become the least of their problems.

You said on your website you used to review video games. Has that experience, or video games in general, influenced your writing and/or storytelling methods?

Ah, the good ol’ days. That was a fun job! Writing for videogame magazines taught me how to work to tight deadlines and not to stress about opening paragraphs. I quickly learnt that if you obsess about your opening you'll never get the rest of the article written, so I always wrote that last - and funnily, this is what I do with my books too!

It also taught me how to write for a specific age group, and I have followed that through to my novel writing. Regarding storytelling, a lot of videogames use the traditional 3-act structure, so you can learn a lot from them regarding creating an exciting adventure with plenty of twists and turns, lots of peril, and a big crescendo, all within this classic structure.

Do you do a lot of outlining, or do you prefer to just write and see where it takes you (in other words, are you a Plotter or a Panster?) Why?

I’m a plotter, thanks to my training as a scriptwriter (I studied Scriptwriting for TV and Film at university). I like to do detailed outlines, 3-act structures with all the key turning points mapped out, character biographies, scene-by-scene breakdowns, that sort of thing. Then I throw it all out the window after 50 pages and let my characters tell me the story. But I do this prep-work more for my peace of mind, so I know if I get really stuck I’ve got a solid story to fall back on. It also makes sure that I don’t write scenes that don’t drive the plot forward or reveal something about the character.

One of my favourite plotting tasks is to get my 3-act structure together. I usually do this process with my good writer friend Tracy Buchanan (www.tracybuchanan.co.uk) – who incidentally is the girl I named my protagonist Natalie Buchanan after! What we do is write up all the key scenes on post-it notes, then move them around my dining room table to decide the best order for things to happen, making sure all the key turning points are on target. It’s a very quick way to see where there are gaps in your story and where you need to add some more conflict.

What has your path to publication been like?

Well, my path to publication certainly isn’t the awe-inspiring story like fellow Apocalypsie, Gennifer Albin (http://theredpenofdoom.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/interview-with-gennifer-albin-author-of-crewel/), that’s for sure! But I think it’s inspirational in its own way, mainly because despite many rejections and set-backs I ended up with a 3-book deal with Putnam, Penguin!

Black City is actually the second book I queried. My first attempt several years ago was…well, a learning curve. We’ll gloss over this, because it was a dark, dark period in my life, filled with much rejection and humiliation (including accidentally inviting an agent along to my sister’s bachelorette party.)

However, I did learn a lot from that experience, including making sure your book is easily definable so agents and publishers know how to sell it; how to write an eye-catching query and to make sure you use a separate email account to query agents. ;-p

Black City itself wasn’t an easy journey either. I sent it out for a first round of queries, and while it received a lot of positive feedback, and plenty of requests to read the full, agents were concerned that it would struggle to find a place in the saturated paranormal romance market. So I took it back to the drawing board, and spent nine months completely redrafting the story, turning it into the dystopian fantasy it is now. And I’m so glad I did!

The second round of queries went a lot better, although funnily enough my agent – the truly amazing Ayesha Pande - originally rejected Black City. Her intern read the query and while she loved the premise and the writing, she had concerns about the supernatural element of the book. We had some enthusiastic email conversations, where I tried to persuade her that she really did want to read the full MS, but sadly she said she wasn’t sure they could take it on.

Then two weeks later, out of the blue, I got an email from her saying that she and Ayesha had been thinking about it a lot and they were very intrigued by the idea, and would I be willing to submit the full MS afterall? Of course, I emailed it over in about a nanosecond, and two weeks after that I got an offer of representation.

While it wasn’t the easiest journey to getting an agent, I’m so glad it happened the way it did because I couldn’t have asked for a better, more supportive agent. She really is the best! I’m thrilled. :)

After doing two months’ worth of revisions, we got Black City out on submission to the publishing houses and a few weeks later I got my amazing offer in from Putnam – 2 days after I got married, no less.

So it was a real rollercoaster ride, but it was totally worth it, and I hope other authors out there take encouragement from it, and realise that it can happen, as long as they keep believing in themselves.

What’s been the most surprising part of this whole crazy publishing process for you?

I think for me, I’m surprised at how quickly it’s all happening now I have a deal. I’m currently working on my editorial revisions, which are due at the end of this week (Eeeps!), the Art Team are working on my cover and I’ve got to get the next book in the trilogy written by March.

I was always told publishing took a long time, but really if it’s anything like my experience things happen very quickly!

Luckily, I’m so blessed to have a really communicative and supportive editor, Stacey Barney, who likes to keep me involved in every step of the process. She’s so enthusiastic about Black City (she calls Ash and Natalie ‘Nash’. I love it!), that it gives me so much encouragement. And my awesome agent, Ayesha, just inspires a lot of confidence; she always keeps me calm and well informed, so I feel incredibly supported by them both - which is good, because I’m a bit of a neurotic mess at times.

I think the main thing I’ve learnt is you need is stamina, and crazy amounts of it. The hours are long, the deadlines are short, and you just need to make sure you find the time, energy and enthusiasm to keep going. But it’s so worth it! I’m loving every second.

What book has influenced you, either personally, or in your writing? Why?

Stephen Fry’s The Liar had a very profound effect on me as a teenager. I was in sixth form (the UK equivalent of your Senior Year, I think?) when I read it, and his humour and masterful use of language really inspired me. I wrote a film script immediately after reading that book, and that script secured me a place on my university course. The rest, they say, is history. So I think for that reason that book has been a great influence on me.

Other books that have inspired me have been the Harry Potter series, Twilight, Shiver, and The Hunger Games, just because they have enriched my life in so many ways. I come back to these books time and time again, and they remind me why I want to be an author.

The two main characters in Black City seem to come from very different socio-economic backgrounds. What was writing that clash of cultures like?

Challenging! But it also opened up so much scope for the narrative, allowing me to tell the story through the eyes of two very different people from opposite sides of the track.

Ash and Natalie’s different backgrounds force them to question things about themselves, to challenge beliefs they’d been brought up to believe, and to find a common ground where they can learn to love and respect one another.

It was fun too, as I basically spent the whole book arguing with myself as Ash and Natalie struggle to overcome their differences, despite their love for one another.

You’ve written that your favorite book is Harry Potter (specifically Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince *that one’s my favorite too!*). Why do you think this series was such a game-changer for young adult literature?

In all honesty, it just comes down to Harry. He’s simply an amazing character. He is everything you want a hero to be: brave, kind, loyal, trusting, funny, dark, complex, dangerous.

You could drop him in any scenario, and it would still be a thrilling adventure! And I think that’s the key to his success. A lot of characters are confined to their own universe, and outside the realms of the story you’re telling for them, they simply won’t work. However, Harry feels as real to me as any living, breathing person.

Plus JK Rowling is a master at universe building. I loved learning about the wizarding world (I’m still dreaming about the day they manage to genetically engineer a Pygmy Puff), and everything is so well thought out and developed that it doesn’t require much effort on the reader’s behalf to get engrossed in Harry's world. Which I suppose is why it’s so accessible to so many people.

She’s a genius, there’s no other word for it!

Advice for would be writers?

Get some writing credentials under your belt. I can’t stress how much it helps your chances of getting an agent if you’re able to prove to them that you’re serious about writing. So start blogging, write columns for newspapers / magazines, enter writing competitions and just get out there. Like any business they need proof that you have knowledge of the industry and that you’ve got writing experience. Think of querying like applying for a job – if your CV is blank, then it’s going to hinder your chances.

Also start following other author blogs, and keep an eye out for any competitions they’re running, especially ones they're doing with agents. It’s a great way to get your name out there and there’s also a good chance you’ll be able to by-pass the query process and get your MS directly into the hands of an agent, who can give you feedback and maybe even offer to represent you. I won a Twitter Pitch contest shortly before getting my agent, and it was just the boost I needed. So keep an eye out for any opportunity to get ahead of the pack.

It's a lot of hard work, but if you want to do this for your career, you have to start taking yourself seriously and then agents will too.

Elizabeth Richards
BLACK CITY
(Putnam, Fall 2012)
Blog: theredpenofdoom.wordpress.com
Twitter: @theredpenofdoom

Revision Vs. Rewrites

2011-09-19T19:28:00.002-05:00

It's funny how much of the plotting process is about sitting and staring into space. I spent several hours today staring into space and trying to unravel a plot knot I'd worked myself into. I knew I wanted my character to get to Point B, but after getting notes back from my editor, I realized she has to get there a different way than how I'd written it.

Which means, you guessed it: Rewrites. Completely rewriting scenes makes me grouchy. I far prefer revision, just editing and tweaking what's already on the page. Rewrites mean throwing out old pages and writing new ones. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not grouchy that things need to change, but that I didn't take the time to fully think the situations through in the first place. I look at the lovely pages that will just have to be completely sacked. I think about how much time it took to write those pages. I make a grouchy face.

Then, I sit and stare into space, trying to figure exactly HOW I'm going to unravel this mess with the new angle on the scene (i.e., remove all adults, have our plucky teenage heroes do it on their own). And how to do it logically so that the suspension of disbelief can be achieved as seamlessly as possible.

So today, instead of piling up word count as I like to do, or editing through and then satisfyingly marking a chapter off my mental map, I scribbled on notebook page after notebook page trying out ideas and solutions before I commit to them. Answering questions like:

Can I get BOTH characters to point B logistically, or does it work better if one stays behind?
If only my main character goes, should she do it one way, or another way?
Is it too much of a coincidence if this other thing happens while she's there, or is there a way I can make it feel natural? Maybe if I drop a foreshadow-y feeder hint ahead of time, it won't seem so oddly coincidental. In fact, I need to make it part of the cause-and-effect cycle (A causes B which causes C, and then it's not so odd when A comes back around again and surprises everyone), and it will feel even more logical.

Some things, you just can't see ahead of time until your Very Smart Editor points them out , even if you're big on outlining like me. Rewrites (unfortunately!!!) are part of the game. But still, I'm going to make sure I spend extra time sitting and staring into space to REALLY think out scenes for the next book before I write them, especially ones that are kind of iffy (yes, I'm looking at you, opening scenes of next book, I can smell from here I haven't fully thought you out yet).

Interview!

2011-09-16T10:37:00.001-05:00

Check out my interview over at Elizabeth Richard's blog where I talk Twilight, being in a wheelchair, and my writing process :)

Confidence

2011-09-14T15:31:00.003-05:00

So, confidence is something I've been thinking about lately. Because mine's lacking. For serious. Being a stranger in a strange land = being transitioned back to Jr. High feeling all awkward and like, um, how do I make friends and make people like me?

I'm 29 years old. Haven't I outgrown this yet? Usually (well at least for the past few years), I've kicked ass confidence-wise. At least on the outside. I have blue hair! I have tattoos! I am exuberant and friendly! But wanna know a secret? Inside, I'm still that suuuuuper awkward jr. high girl. Oh dear, I feel an awkward picture coming on:

Ooooo, there we are. Hello super awkward jr. high Heather. Aw hon, you really need to cut your hair where it's still fried from the perm two years ago. And I'm so sorry you're buying into that whole 90's grunge thing with the over-sized flannel shirt. You've got a great figure, even though it feels all awkward-sauce right now because all the other girls are so tiny and you're grown-up sized already in 8th grade.

Back then, I let it drive my life--my uber-self-consciousness, my need to be liked. What I know now (at least, I know it most the time) is that confidence is something you fake until you make. Few of us are naturally confident, and certainly not all the time. Hopefully, being grown up also means caring more about the people around you and being engaged in life so that you don't concentrate so much on your awkward self stumbling through it. When compassion grows and you begin to see the world (and the people in it) for the large, complex entities they are, personal self-consciousness seems to shrink into perspective.

But dear god, I so, so understand how difficult it can be sometimes.

Body In Motion

2011-09-11T00:27:00.001-05:00

So, for the first time in a decade, I can exercise. It's kind of a big deal.
I've had this crappy illness for the past ten years, and exercise only made it worse. I got sick at 19 during my first year of college. Right when everyone else was just beginning their lives, mine suddenly ground to a halt. Working out would put me in bed for a week. Then there was the infamous year (2003, I think?) when it got so bad I couldn't walk at all. I had to use a wheelchair.

Yes, my hair is the same color as the sign, I think that's actually why we stopped to snap the picture ;)

But being in a wheelchair? Seriously. Not. Awesome. Dang, even that picture pains me to look at! And it got worse afterwards. After I birthed my beautiful son, I was bed-bound for six months. That was also just as bad as you might imagine.

But this past summer, I started a med that randomly helps the CFS. I'd tried everything and then some for years before this and given up on finding relief. Then of course, when I'm not looking, I randomly stumble on something that helps. Then I cut out gluten as well, and all the sudden I'm fucking superwoman, i.e., I can take 20-30 minute walks every day with no repercussions. And be on my feet at say the grocery store or somewhere else for an hour too. In the same day.

This is a completely insane development for me. I still can't push it too far. I still have to stop and head home from my walks when I start getting dizzy and light-headed. I still get low-grade fevers every few days. There was a day last week when I pushed it even though I knew I shouldn't and was totally stumbling and had to stop and sit on the sidewalk several times before finally making my way slowly home. But then, I rested just ONE day and was back out walking the next. And I was fine!

I've been at it for a month now, with the exercise walking (and four months since I started having more energy with the new med). The CFS isn't cured. But damn if the boundary lines on my life aren't so much larger now!!!

I walk down the walking/jogging/biking path that goes by the river each evening, breathing in the air on the sun-dappled path and I feel... young. I'm out there with all the other healthy people doing their healthy-people things. I feel my own legs pumping solidly under me, the smooth bounce of every step, all of my muscles taut under my skin. It's quite alien, and it's absolutely fucking wonderful.

Also, if you're intrested, read about fellow CFS sufferer and bestselling author Laura Hillenbrand (she wrote Seabiscuit and the recently released Unbroken) talk about life with CFS.

Writing Tips from Recent Releases: Conflict is King!

2011-09-06T13:52:00.001-05:00

So part of a writer is about plunking down as many conflicts and competing character motivations as possible into one space, then letting the sh** fly! If there’s something that can go wrong, it should go wrong. Several books I’ve read lately have reminded me of this, and I’ve been treating them as master classes in good writing.

Bloodlines by Richelle Mead. Tip learned: conflict keeps you turning pages! Just finished this one last night, and damn, Mead has still got it! This book begins steeped in conflict with the main character put in a bad position from the get-go. A VERY dislikable and horrible person is put in charge as her superior. It’s immediately tense reading, even to the point of making it uncomfortable at times. But then, the best writers make failure seem like the only logical solution. Then, if there is triumph or success, it feels that much more emotionally powerful and satisfying. I remember first reading Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule and how every chapter ends with some dire development in which the characters are headed forward while being certain they will most assuredly die.

Andrea Cremer’s Wolfsbane. Tip learned: NO SAFETY, ANYWHERE. The entire book is this wild adrenaline rush from one intense, life-threatening situation to the next. Even the places you think should be safe and secure may not be. This is a biggie for me. In real life, I like to have places that are safe strongholds, as do most of us. It’s healthy. But it’s a problem when it bleeds over into my fiction. No great story was ever safe!

Possess by Gretchen McNeil. Tip learned: dump the reader right into the conflict, and then make them laugh. Chapter 1, and we’re already seeing our plucky exorcist at work! This is a theme common to all three of these books I mention here (first chapter, straight to the action and conflict), but McNeil’s Possess always keeps an engaging humor at the forefront along with the action. Sometimes super-conflicty books can feel like TOO MUCH, like, hell, we need some banter to break this up and let the reader breathe! This book has great tension, but it’s also just plain fun.

In Which Nietzsche Makes Me Lol

2011-09-04T16:14:00.005-05:00

Nietzsche always seemed like one of those big intimidating writers. The impressions I gained growing up and in school was that he was horrible and godless, not to mention that his ideas about the "will to power" had been wedded with Nazi's and genocide.

This preconception lasted longer than others I've had simply because I really didn't have much occasion or care to investigate any of his stuff first hand. Really, I didn't read much non-fiction or theory or philosophy texts until grad school when it was required reading--and when I DID finally read primary source stuff, I found them shockingly delightful and exciting and challenging. But still, I hadn't read Nietzsche until my Form &Theory class last semester. We read a snippet of Nietzsche about art and aesthetics.

I did a double take. Nietzsche and art? Even more startling to my ignorant self--what he wrote was absolutely fucking beautiful. Finally, after friends talked about him, and in reading Camus recently, he's often mentioned. So I finally went by the big indie bookstore here and picked up a Nietzsche reader.

And then the first page I read from it made me literally laugh out loud in delight. And made me feel that sense of a resounding yes, I can tell I'm gonna have kinship with this dude's writing. He writes:

[The artist] appears to be fighting on behalf of the greater dignity and significance of man; in reality he refuses to give up the presuppositions which are most efficacious for his art, that is to say, the fantastic, mythical, uncertain, extreme, the sense for the symbolical, the overestimation of the person, the belief in something miraculous in genius.

Made me Laugh. Out. Loud. I was like, way to call it like it is, dude! He's probably right, or at least it's an interesting way of looking at it - writers and artists, while we are supposedly dealing with giant questions of truth, of discovering and understanding reality, of investigating questions about the meaning of life... um, in the end we go with what works, what's "efficacious for [our] art." We aren't scientists trying to discover and communicate fact. We aren't even philosophers in our fiction, trying to discover truth no matter what. We may think we are. Maybe something inside us is the lofty FIGHTING FOR TRUTH motivation. But really, let's be honest: what we're doing is trying to make art! That's our inconvertable drive--to make art! And we'll utilize tools that are useful and effective in making art. We want to make art that allows us to continue making art because we love it.

Now why that is, that's a much larger and more mind-bending question. As well as: what the hell is art?

After a lot of thought about these things, I think I have an inkling of why, or at least why art works the way it does for me. But that'll be for another day, another blog ;)

Can Writing Be Therapy?

2011-08-31T16:56:00.000-05:00

Check out my explorations of this question in today's vlog.

VLOG!

2011-08-30T13:38:00.000-05:00

Hey all, so I'm starting to vlog now!! I'm working out the kinks as I go (aka, next time there will be a stable surface to set the laptop webcam on, and more light) but here's my first real vlog, talking about my first impressions of Minneapolis, getting lot A LOT, and how people look funny when they jog ;-)

"Having it All" - Wisdom From WHITE COLLAR

2011-08-29T16:07:00.003-05:00

So, TV screenwriters, sometimes you can just hit the nail on the f'ing head. For example, from a recent episode of USA's White Collar, about a white collar thief, Neil Caffrey, who avoids (more) jail time by working for the FBI. Anyway, check out the wildly perfect convo from this week about what "having it all" means. I agree, Caffrey, that IS pretty much the dream:

Jones (FBI agent): Well, because choices are sacrifices. And, inevitably, that means giving up something that you want for something that you want more. So, now I have to ask... What does "having it all" mean to Neal Caffrey?

Neil Caffrey: Never having to worry about money. Doing something that's meaningful, being surrounded by people I care about and respect, you know. That's pretty much the dream.

Rejection's A Bitch

2011-08-27T22:55:00.006-05:00

The process of becoming a writer is often like becoming a Professional Rejectee. It’s a good life skill to have, and even though I’m actually experiencing awesome successful things in my writing career (after YEARS of the rejections!!!), rejection in other forms still abounds, socially and manifold other ways. There's the quiet kind of rejection – where people just don’t notice you at all and you want to shout: “I’m interesting and awesome, I swear!” Moving to a new city where no one knows you is rife with this kind of (perceived) rejection. Then there’s also the loud kind – the blunt NO. My method in general for life the past few years has been to barrel forward, face-plant into a wall of rejection, be knocked to the ground in a kind of bewildered shock (cause you gotta think there’s a chance of being successful if you’re gonna keep that kind of full-speed forward motion going), slowly and dazedly pick myself back up onto my feet, and start going forward again. I can’t decide if this is because I’m a glutton for punishment or if this is just the necessary formula to actually accomplish anything in life.

Sometimes I have such confidence in myself—that I can tackle and be successful at almost anything reasonable I set my mind too. Then there are other times when every little slight or even barest criticism seems to cut to the bone, and you cuddle up in your blankets feeling like a giant uninteresting blob of failure. You wonder how you ever felt extraordinary. Then, if you’re me, you re-dye your hair blue, drink some wine straight from the bottle, and go to sleep. And when you wake up the next morning, things always seem to be better and brighter. One foot in front of the other til you start gathering momentum again ;)

Guest Post Up at The League!!

2011-08-26T08:44:00.003-05:00

Check out my guest post: Is This a Kissing Book? at The League of Extraordinary Writers today, in which I discuss (you guessed it!) kissing, action, Twilight, and why I like it when authors show dialogue :D

Stranger To Myself

2011-08-24T20:42:00.003-05:00

I wake up at 8am each morning. I just got back from a half hour walk. Like, you know, for exercise. I've been making my bed every day. I ate vegetables for lunch today.

It's official. A stranger has invaded my life or I've been body-snatched!!!

Well, that, or I just moved to a new city and am at this very straaaaaaaaange transition period in my life! And I've finally found a medicine that, for the first time in A DECADE, helps my CFS and allows me to exercise without it putting me in bed for a week. Soooooooo. That's weird. I push my body with exercise... and it doesn't push back. I only need 8 hours of sleep at night instead of 10-12. I was always the kinda girl who woke up at noon.

I'm just so awake and have energy and keep active most of the day. Part of my freaking identity has been inevitably composed in large part by my illness and its limitations. I can't really tell if I'm happy or sad. All my rubrics for understanding the world and my happy-o-meters have been thrown out the window. Dragos and Joseph are still in Romania. I don't know a person in this city, other than online friends, who I'm slowly trying to meet IRL ;)

But I AM being productive. I do feel a bubbling creativity that's pouring into my writing. I go to the corner cafe and read some of my "deep thinking" books each morning. Then I write/edit for a few hours. In three days I've gotten through half my edits.

I come home, rest a little. Maybe go to the store to get more to set up the apartment. Read more. Eat vegetables with rice. At sunset, go for a long walk along the river, the sun shining through the giant leafy trees along the Mississippi. The trees make a canopy over the walkway. It's all so freaking green. There was a cool breeze blowing through my hair as I walked!!!! I just left 105 degree Texas last week, so yeah! the weather here just adds to my bizarre feelings, a little alienation, a little adventure, a lot STRANGE. Albert Camus talks about the Absurd as "an actor without his setting." Yes, I feel like that--like the stage crew stole off with my setting when I wasn't looking!! I'm trying to construct a new one, toss a little structure together in this chaos. Hence the bed-making and routine-creating, I think :)

I have no idea who I'll be on the other end of this when I'm able to articulate an identity in words again. But I'm optimistic about good things--both good things coming, and good things now.

All Alone in the Big City!

2011-08-22T21:57:00.003-05:00

I've been here in Minneapolis a total of 5 days, maybe 6? I've lost track, but it's definitely been one of those weeks that feels longer than normal weeks do. I went and got lost in the city trying to find a bookstore today--always the best reason to get lost :-) I broke out my street map and found myself again, eventually found the bookstore too. I've been here 5 days or whatever, and I've been to three bookstores and one library. Shocker, I know ;)

Then I went for a walk this evening. Did you know the Mississippi river runs right through Minneapolis? I didn't, before I got here last week. And our apartment is seriously two blocks from the river. I went out walking on a path along a high up bank. So much greenery! Giant old trees, and the sun was setting through the branches as I walked. Then a nut from a tree fell and landed on my head and I just laughed and laughed. Absurd world we live in! *yes I know I probably looked like a lunatic, laughing my ass off and rubbing my head as I walked down the sidewalk*

It's so bizarre not to know a single person around me. Dragos and Joseph are still in Romania for another week and a half, and it's seriously whacky being so on my lonesome. Not sad really, just STRANGE! At my old coffeeshop where I went for years and wrote my book (and the three starter-books before), everyone knew my name and I knew theirs. I had in-jokes with the baristas. We hung out sometimes outside of the coffeeshop.

Here, I've been frequenting the same cafe every day this week, but I'm not feeling up to being gregarious and trying to introduce myself. This is the first time I've moved to a new place without some mechanism in place to get to know people, like school or a church or a job. I don't know how grown-ups get to know each other and make friends without these things. Guess I'll learn and start coming up with some inventive ways!

In other news, I am being wicked productive on line edits. After two days, I'm 65 pgs through the 300 pg draft, and I gotta say, I'm SO EXCITED about what's happening with this edit round. I may not be the most objective observer, but I feel like MAGIC is going down with this draft! I read the notes from my editor or see how she tweaked a line, and I swear it's like SHE INVADED MY BRAIN and plucked out exactly what I meant but hadn't expressed well! So yeah, every edit round I get more excited about how having a great editor can really shape up a book into something excellent and exciting.

How I Want To Live: With Passion & Compassion

2011-08-20T21:26:00.002-05:00

Every new day brings so many new experiences since I've moved. I swear I haven't felt this kind of unbridled newness and adventurousness to life in years, maybe since I was a teenager. It's like, after a certain amount of time as you get older, you just stop expecting things to change. You settle into a routine. Even decorating my new apartment feels liberating--not just decorating with the old things you've always had, maybe they didn't match or weren't quite YOU, but they were there, so you just keep moving them around.

But we sold or gave away all our old ugly furniture when we moved. I've been buying little bits here and there everyday. A nightstand, a table, a bookshelf. I bought a rug today that is the kind of rug I always wanted to have--lime green and a little funky. I'm obviously invested in making the outside of my body reflect my inner personality :) but this is new to me--having my living space as a conscious form of expression as well.

And I've been reading, reading, reading. A mixture of awesome YA books and then other books that help me, well, learn about the world and how to live in it. Mainly Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, and Natalie Goldberg. Today I bought Camus' Myth of Sisyphus and started reading through some of it. I find a lot of overlap and interconnection with these writers. Watts talking about the problem of alienation and personal identity, Campbell discussing the "art of living," Goldberg with her delicious view of the world and our fabulously chaotic 'wild minds', and now Camus talking about the question of whether life is meaningless or not, and what the role of artists might be in this world. Certainly part of me seeing all the interconnectedness and relationship of ideas between these authors is my intuitive self making meaningful connections. But still, so many people and writers and authors are all asking the same questions: does our existence have meaning? how do we create meaning? what is life about? how do we live in a dynamic and fully participatory way in this world?

On the road trip with my brother, we spent a lot of time talking about stuff like this. I was able to distill my hopes for my life in a way that I think encapsulates it clearly: I want to live passionately and compassionately. I want to be passionately excited about what I do each day, and I want to love and care for others.

Here's a little of Campbell to whet and delight your appetite:

You really don't have a sacred space, a rescue land, until you find somewhere to be that's not a wasteland, some of field of action where there is a spring of ambrosia--a joy that comes from inside, not something external that puts joy into you--a place that lets you experience your own will and your own intention and your own wish [...] Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy.

What you have to do,

you do with play.

The Week of Whack

2011-08-19T21:25:00.001-05:00

This week I moved from Texas to Minnesota, from a smallish college town to right smack in the middle of the city, and oh yeah, I had some health problems hit the day before I left that made everything more... interesting. My brother helped me roadtrip up from Texas, he left yesterday, and today was the first day of being alone in a new city. By myself. It's both stressful and so amazing I can't put it into words.

I do believe this place will become my new haunt: Seward Cafe, part of what appears to be a large community co-op. There's this amazing grocery store too that's part of the co-op. Super cool, lots of hipsters inside with great hair and tattoos, chilled out atmosphere, they discourage cell-phone use and there's no wifi. Sometimes it's nice to go analog, old school, and watch the squirrels and birds in the garden out back, read a book and write in your journal instead of on the computer. And the food: to frickin' die for. I had an omelet this morning that seriously made me want to lick the friggin' plate!!!!

It's a place that will be ideal for writing I think. No distractions. Lots of peace and quiet. Greenery. I caught some peace there this morning, sitting quietly for a few hours, drinking bottomless coffee from those fabulous thick diner cups. Catching back up with myself that had been all whack during the moving week.

Muscles I didn't know I had are sore from moving stuff around in the apartment. I'm setting up this great nook in my apartment, lazy-boy chair right by the window with this gorgeous view from my 13th floor. I look around this still pretty empty room and think: "huh, when I say home now, I mean this place. this strange place in the middle of a city. this place that feels like I'm just visiting will become home."

The world is whacky. Here's to embracing my new corner in it.

View from my bedroom window, crapo quality b/c I don't have a camera right now, just my web-cam camera! and my crazy-ball hair framing on the right side :-)

Taking Leave

2011-08-15T00:02:00.000-05:00

I left Austin (moving to Minneapolis!) this morning to a beautiful sunrise and the Once soundtrack. Perfect combo of hopeful morning light and super emotive music :-)

Roadtripping w/ my eldest brother = fun times. A really good break from stress and craziness. We're in Kansas. The air is already cooler from sweltering Texas temperatures. We took a walk tonight after we got to the hotel and there was a veritable COOL BREEZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shocking, I know!! Strange world, transition spaces, but I'm looking forward to what's ahead.

May B. by Caroline Starr Rose REVIEW

2011-08-10T15:53:00.002-05:00

May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

This book is so beautiful. It’s the kind of book I would have loved when I was a tween (is that the term now? I’m so old, lol)—it’s got an intensity and seriousness to it, but it’s still so accessible. I’ve never read a novel in verse before and wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it. I wondered if it would slow down my reading. Instead though, I think it made it swifter, while at the same time, some of the line breaks would add punch to thoughts, descriptions, or emotions.

This story is intense, un-put-down-able. This book enters loneliness and darkness and hope in ways that are just almost heart-stopping. Though set in the past, it’s one of those books that feel universal, that grabs you with its raw language, stark images, and-- even though it’s set in the middle of nowhere--it still has incredible momentum and tension.

May B. debuts January 2012 (Schwartz and Wade/Random House Children's Books). My thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this ARC.

What I've been doing insead of blogging: Painting! & Vlog auditioning!

2011-08-08T00:13:00.002-05:00

So I got the painting bug again, and here's a painting that's been rumbling around my head and I finally got to get onto canvas! And yep, it is tied to my A Dark, Dark Forest post from last month.

Finished painting:

And a close up:

And vlog auditioning for the YA REBELS open spots. Wanna see me In Real Life? Check out my vid response and all the other great auditions!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCbwTB6gR8w

Next painting (which I think will happen this week), I'll combine painting and vlogging, and show you fabulous people the (sometimes ugly!) process of a painting, as least as my amateurish self does it :D

Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer: Review & GIVEAWAY!

2011-08-02T22:53:00.002-05:00

I’ve always had a special love for Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade. I tracked down an ARC of it last summer because it looked so delicious, and after I’d finished it (and been super impressed by it), I checked out Cremer’s website and noted her agent, Charlie Olsen of Inkwell Management. I was querying my own novel at the time. I’d heard of Inkwell, but not of Charlie in particular, but I thought, damn, if he repped Nightshade, this is a dude I’d have similar interests to. Sent him a query and it’s all history from there, and now he’s my agent too! [side shout-out: all the love to Agent Charlie ;) ]

And now to Cremer's sequel, Wolfsbane, which I bought the day it went on sale and devoured the next. There are some moments of serious honesty going on in this book. Several points in reading, I was just shocked thinking: damn, sh%# just got REAL!

One of the things I love about this series is the way it so powerfully demonstrates the way a particular group’s discourse can twist the supposed “facts” of history in order to hold power over others. Cremer previously showed Calla’s implicit belief in the history she was told, and it’s only in book 2 that everything is really blown to pieces and we find what really happened. And how the lies about the past so directly impact the future.

And Shay. God I loved Shay in this book. He’s just so real and roundly developed. He’s not the perfect guy. His insecurities and fears for Calla are very raw and on the surface. Both he and Calla are in these huge transition states with so much expected of both of them, so much Calla should never have had to shoulder at her young age—the way that choices you make at one point that seem the best can have unexpected difficult consequences. Is intent all that matters? Or does the actual outcome matter more? Should Calla have seen what would come to those she left behind, or was it impossible for her to because she never knew the truth about the Keepers? So many complex and difficult questions, and Cremer never takes the easy way out in answering them. If there’s an awkward or combustible conversation to be had, we get to see it on these pages!

This book is just an example of how killer and awesome first person narration can be to just pierce right through you as a reader. We get to share Calla’s intimate thoughts about all her confusion, genuinely not knowing who she is, what she feels, or what’s right to do next.

One line I loved from the book: “Lies, blood, and bones. Had our lives been made of anything more?”

And for the GIVEAWAY of a copy of Wolfsbane:
Just comment below with your name, email, and count up your entries by adding up the below:
+2 for new blog followers
+3 for old blog followers
+2 for re-tweeting (include twitter name please)
+3 for blogging about the giveaway (include url please)

on beauty that made me laugh in delight

2011-07-30T20:24:00.002-05:00

Strange, wonderful world. Every day is a surprise lately. I'm changing things in my life, and everyone reacts in surprising ways to my news. With much more grace than I expected. And this is such a beautiful, beautiful world. Of that I'm more sure every day too.

Drove through what they call the "Texas Hill Country" today--this area in the center of Texas that has these wild shrubby hills, and around every corner, another breathtaking vista. Seriously, I'd round another bend and put my hand to the windshield wanting to touch the beauty in some tangible way. And then I'd take a deep breath in like the beauty was filling up my lungs. I was breathing in peace and the powerful beauty of nature that makes everything in life seem less dramatic or worrisome.

Then stopped at Canyon Lake, hiked down the hillside to the lake and sat on a rock until the sun came out from behind a big cloud and started sizzling my skin. Watched the beautiful child play at the waterside, then traversed back up the hill, my heart pounding from the foreign exertion, so delighted even as I was heaving in in and out because I've found a medication that finally helps my chronic health condition. I collapsed on my back at the top of the hill under a shade tree and laughed.

I'm moving away from Texas in a couple weeks. Don't know if I'll take another drive through the hill country. Makes it all that much more sweet. Today was a gift.

On Mohawks & Meditation

2011-07-27T16:10:00.002-05:00

So I was watching So You Think You Can Dance (dumb name for the show, but gorgeous dancing!) on hulu last night, and every week I'm just totally crushing on Sasha's hair! She's not my favorite dancer, but she does have my favorite hair ;)

Not to mention she's just so goddamned FIERCE! Look at those arm muscles! Sorry, I digress :)

I recently chopped off most of my hair and have attempted tiny little faux-hawks, but I wanted to do a little more with it. Now, I highly doubt I would look good with the sides of my head actually SHAVED, so I just went across the sides with a 1 inch guard. And the results are awesome! I don't look like a mushroom-head anymore, and this is something I've never done before with my hair (which, you know, is rare for me since I love me my crazy styles!)

My hair lately has become symbolic to me (see also Hair as Metaphor post). It's a symbol of change, and quite simply, a symbol of freedom to me. Looking in the mirror reminds me of the inner and outer changes I'm making in my life. Even just swishing my neck back and forth without the weight of hair makes me feel liberated, like I've suddenly become taller, my neck elongated like a gazelle.

I'm also working to teach myself to be more aware of the world around me, to really experience and take in the sensory data of the present moment. And alternately, trying to let go of those things I can't control, those things in the future that I used to obsess about. This also is liberating. Taking the world as it comes, living in the present instead having my head worrying about three hours or three weeks or three years from now.

It's such a beautiful, beautiful world. It's as if I have new eyes to see it lately.

The Girl in the Steel Corset REVIEW

2011-07-24T18:34:00.001-05:00

So I've been raving all over the place about how much I loved The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross and thought I'd give it a proper review :)

This novel reinforces my love of this steampunk wave that's hitting YA. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare was one of my favorite reads last year, and this series by Kady Cross has started off just as delightfully and well deserves the comparison.

The part of the book that sticks with me most is the way Finley has to work to bring the two divided parts of her personality, light and dark, into harmony. This is just such a powerful metaphor! Like Darth Vader or Ged from LeGuin's The Wizard of Earthsea, peace is only achieved when balance is attained--neither dark or light can be entirely ignored or sublimated. Instead, both are embraced. So beautifully done by Cross in this novel. It will leave you thinking long after you finish the book.

And the second aspect that cinched the awesomeness of this novel? Perfectly timed romance and plenty of butt-kicking action! Strong heroines FTW!

Writer's Dilemma: Mediating Vs. Participating In A Moment

2011-07-21T22:13:00.004-05:00

So, part of being a writer is CONSTANTLY WRITING, EVEN IN YOUR HEAD!! A few days ago a rain-storm blew in (a rarity in a drought-ridden Texas, a veritable magical moment), and I stood outside, feeling the alternately hot and cold winds blowing my hair back, and then the tiny rain droplets driving against my skin, my eyebrows, my lips, my forearms... and immediately, even IN the moment, I wanted to be writing ABOUT the moment!!!

Now, this can go two ways. #1: You can miss participating in the moment because you are too busy analysing and dissecting what is going on. This can separate you from inhabiting the moment and simply experiencing sensation. Writing becomes a form of mediating the present, separating you from it and isolating you.

Or #2: (and what I think this moment with the rain storm was): The words streaming in your head become another facet of participating and being fully alive in the moment. It's not just experiencing sensation, it's the simultaneous desire to express and communicate the sensations. I believe this can enrich the moment without separating you from it.

Does this sound like a small distinction? Maybe. But it's an important one to me. At least as I walk in this world, trying to fully PARTICIPATE in my own life instead of glossing over or over-judging moments to the extent I forget to live them.

The World Breaks Open

2011-07-19T23:43:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was quite horrible, but today surprisingly peaceful. Things, they do expand, and hopefully, holding to beauty and integrity will count for something. Here's hoping, raising my wine glass to toast bright life in all its strange manifestations. I hope all my dear readers will pardon my emo and ambiguous tendencies lately ;) I write in riddles and metaphor what I cannot quite yet speak out loud.

Joseph Campbell, my beautiful guide in times of uncertainty, writes:

The sublime in contrast to beauty? That which is beauty does not threaten you. Even the terror of tragedy is not as threatening as something that blows you to pieces.

Have you experienced that? A moment that blows you to pieces? Those moments enlargen us, make that wild thing caught inside our ribcage expand beyond the confines of skin. "The world breaks open" Campbell writes further.

Yes, yes, yes.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

This is a profound thought.

Life got ya down? Read a book!

2011-07-16T22:18:00.003-05:00

I hadn't read a book in two months before yesterday. I've always been an avid reader, so this was quite strange for me, symptomatic of other difficult life things going on. But I started reading yesterday afternoon and haven't stopped yet. I'm on my third book, and after having no desire to read for so long, it feels like a rush of energy and life. And each of the books I'm reading is so GOOD!! Look for some glowing reviews to come! Each of these are Advanced Readers Copies, coming out later this year, except for The Girl In The Steel Corset, on shelves now!

Drink Slay Love. by Sarah Beth Durst. This book is as wonderfully tongue in cheek as the title suggests, delightfully self-mocking the vampire lit genre it participates in while also providing such a great, well-told story. Pearl's journey of awakening to having a soul works well along-side the humor--the story was fun as well as poignant.

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld. The master of storytelling at work again! Seriously, I said it of the first two books in the series and I say it again: reading Westerfeld is like taking a master class in good storytelling. The steampunk world he creates is SO intricate, SO complex, and SO perfectly executed. Alex and Deryn's story comes to an exciting climax in this end of the trilogy!!!

Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross. Also steampunk, but of a completely different variety than the one above. This has a delicious paranormal flavor. I'm only about 5 chapters in, but I can already tell from the break-neck pace of the beginning, excellent characterization, and already-intriguing romance, that I'm going to love this book :)

A Dark, Dark Forest

2011-07-15T23:09:00.004-05:00

Thinking about hero journey's lately. For my book, and you know... life. Though I feel decidedly unheroic lately, some of Joseph Campbell's (the popularizer of The Hero's Journey idea) stuff lingers in my mind, for my fiction and who knows what else.

He writes: When you cross the threshold, you are passing into the dark forest, taking a plunge into the sea, embarking upon the night sea journey. It involves passing through clashing rocks, narrow gates, or the like... You may be dismembered, lose everything you have...As you now go towards the center, there will come more aids, as well as increasingly difficult trials. You have to give up more and more of what you're hanging on to. The final thing is a total giving up, a yielding all the way...it's a move into a field of action of which you know nothing. Anything can happen, and it may be favorable or unfavorable.

Let's talk about characters and the hypothetical, a far more comfortable place of metaphor (fiction and metaphor are what we have after all, when we cannot speak directly. It's why fiction began, to touch on truths we otherwise cannot pronounce or get across our tongue). I think of Hansel and Gretel, walking into that dark forest, getting lost, stumbling upon what they think is a haven that turns into a house of horrors. I think of Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and the dark, dark forest that will imprint him for life. So many dark forests in fiction, lush with lostness.

Funnily enough, there are forests in my fiction, and they do not bode well for my heroine :) Oh, the cyclical stories that we eat up and repeat unconsciously, the "sea of stories" which we enter into and repeat and repeat and draw and recreate meaning from.

I have no conclusions. I pass from uncertainty to uncertainty. My compass is broken. I forage for food and seek nourishment. Day to day, until the light filters down through the leaves and eventually, I know again where is the solid ground.

Oh so many gorgeous covers!!!!

2011-07-15T17:03:00.004-05:00

There has been a rush of gorgeous cover reveals lately, ones that I just want to stare and stare and stare at. 2012 is going to be a beautiful year on the bookshelves!! I'm so overjoyed for my fellow writers and so excited to devour each one of these books as soon as I can get my hands on them!!! Click on each cover to go to the Goodreads page for the book!

Everneath (Everneath #1) by Brodi Ashton (Goodreads Author)
When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen (Goodreads Author)
Fracture by Megan Miranda (Goodreads Author)
Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne (Goodreads Author)
Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen (Goodreads Author)
Shadows Cast By Stars by Catherine Knutsson (Goodreads Author)
Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig (Goodreads Author)

New Tattoos!

2011-07-13T23:22:00.001-05:00

So I realized, crazy of crazy, I hadn't yet posted on my blog pics of my lovely new ink!!! I got my advance check recently, and my first stop was the tattoo parlour, natch ;) I finished up my half-sleeve (that turned mid-way through into a 3/4th sleeve), gorgeous roses and lilies down my arm and up onto my shoulder and back. And, with no further ado, voila! [uh, yeah, these angles are a little awkward, so lemme explain: 1) inner arm 2) back-ish view 3) front and inner arm again]

Yes, I am in love with my new lilies :)

Giveaway! Win a copy of DEAD BEAUTIFUL, SHADE and an ARC of VARIANT!!

2011-07-12T13:35:00.005-05:00

I just hit some follower milestones on here and Twitter, which means it's time to spread the love with GIVEAWAYS!! I'm clearing out my bookshelf before I move. I enjoyed each of these books SO MUCH and am happy to share these amazing reads with you all!

Up for grabs, one lucky follower will win all three: an Advanced Reader Copy of VARIANT by Robison Wells, due out October this year from HarperTeen, DEAD BEAUTIFUL byYvonne Woon, and an old ARC softcover of SHADE by Jeri Smith-Ready!!!

Just comment below with your name, email, and count up your entries by adding up the below:
+2 for new blog followers
+3 for old blog followers
+2 for re-tweeting (include twitter name please)
+3 for blogging about the giveaway (include url please)

WORD WAR: How Twitter Can Help AVOID Procrastination!!!

2011-07-11T20:41:00.010-05:00

So upon entering into the nifty Twitter world after I got my book deal, I've made a bunch new writer friends, figured out what a hashtag is (and also since walk around hashtagging my REAL LIFE, making a hashtag sign with my fingers like they used to do with air quotes!), and last, but not least, learned about #wordwar.

I don't know what brilliant writer person fighting procrastination came up with this idea, but I could kiss them. How it works: word wars occur when someone declares one on Twitter, and other people chime in using the #wordwar hashtag to see who can write the most words in an hour. I've only done it a few times, but it always creates exponential word count. I write more in that hour than I do entire DAYS other times.

It's not about the contest part of it, not really. It's just this wild community activity--you know that AT THAT MOMENT you and writers across the country, even the world sometimes, are all writing together. And you can't stop and crap around on Facebook or refresh your email for the billionth time that day. You just write, and the hour slowly passes and the page & word count grow and you just. keep. writing.

And that, my friends, is how I finished my first draft of Book 2 today. The fabulous Bree Despain called for several wordwars today, and after two of them, I'd written 3,000+ words and wrote through the end of the book! Very Exciting Things!!!

So there you have it. Twitter not only helping AVOID procrastination, but also AMPING UP PRODUCTIVITY. If I was hashtagging this blog post, it would be: #awesomethingspeopleusetheinternetfor

Big Brother Brain: I'm my Own Thought Police

2011-07-10T19:45:00.002-05:00

Lately self-reflection has made me realize many things about myself. Not all of which I can even put into words, but one thing in particular I realized is my tendency to self-police--not just my behavior, but even my thoughts. There is this Bible verse that I seriously internalized as a teenager: "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Taking captive every thought? Determining if it is good or bad? Check. You see, in spite of what one might think upon my crazy punky exterior, I'm highly conservative in my behavior. I was always The Good Girl. There were lines, and I stayed inside them, boundaries, and I stayed far within. What I believed for a long while was religious zeal was in actuality a serious self-discipline that I internalized early. Any "bad" thought, I captured and buried.

Which I've realized lately has stunted my freedom and expansion of thought. I couldn't be free and consider all possibilities, even for a moment! Safety first, toe the line, behave!!! It's been such a practiced internal response to "dangerous" thoughts that I still find it difficult to break, even though I'm aware of it now. But I know that not doing so leads to repression and bottling up everything inside me until it erupts. And that, in the end, leads to unkindness--both to myself and to others.

Hair as Metaphor

2011-07-08T11:42:00.002-05:00

I cut a bag-full of hair off my head this week when I was on retreat. Bought scissors at the store and started hacking (fear not, I've cut my own hair for years now, it's not that crazy!). Literally a bag full:

It was well several inches past my shoulder. First I just cut it to my jawline. But I could still feel it's weight on me. So then I cut it shorter. Still, it was on me. So then I took the scissors and did some serious hair-slaying.

You see, my hair has always been metaphor to me, I think, a way of expression other than writing or speaking or dancing. At times deep in my chronic illness in the past, it was the only voice I had available to me. Now I speak and express in many ways, but my hair is still always a way to show on the outside what is going on on the inside.

My hair has been speaking loudly over the past couple months even though I wasn't paying attention. But that was the problem. I wasn't paying attention. I was asleep. I mean, I bleached the front half of it to re-dye the pink and blue, but then just never bothered to finish the process. Not because it looked good. I walked around w/ yellow hair for a month, putting it a ponytail or a bun or ANYTHING to get it freaking OFF me. It was a hassle, not expression. And I found myself hating it. Every heavy ounce of it that I had to wrestle each morning and still feel the weight of every day. Buns are heavy when you have thick hair like mine. You never don't feel the weight.

God, how rich a metaphor for the rest of what was building up in my soul, that I was also bearing-but-ignoring. Joseph Campbell writes:

"When you wander, think of what you want to do that day, not what you told yourself you were going to want to do."

I told myself years ago that I wanted long hair. My hair started much like it is now, about an inch away from my scalp. But I've always wanted long hair, on and off since I was a kid. Like really long hair. Obscenely long. So I've been working for three years now to get long hair. It started to get annoying, but then I thought: Heather, you're moving to Minnesota! You're going to want that long hair for insulation! You can get through this last Texas summer keeping it off you!

Goals are great, commitments are important in life, but not when they are stifling the voice of everything you want today. God, what a squelching of choice, of the present breathing space and depth for change! Alan Watts is helping me to understand, probably for the first time in my life, that what matters in our thought life is not the past, or the future, but to fully live present in this moment now. It's revolutionary to me. It's freeing. It makes everything and anything possible.

I came home and re-dyed the short bleached bits. When I pass a mirror now, I smile every time. I run my fingers over and over through the short choppy hair and I smile wider.

Me, Galadriel, & Motherhood

2011-07-05T22:56:00.000-05:00

Day Two of Magical Retreat!! I am feeling 1000% percent better about everything, more centered, happy, productive, creative, thoughtful. Basically I've felt and thought so many things the past few days I know I'll never be able to get it all down in words. It was like an explosion of self, revealing all these little (and BIG) facets that I just never have the time to work through. Very Good Things.

One of the things: sometimes, being a mom and wife feels like this scene w/ Galadriel in LOTR. When Frodo offers her the ring, and she sees another explosive path she could take. She's just become translucent with darkness and power, and there's a breath where she might take it, she might do it:

... but then she takes control of herself and it all evaporates again. She closes her eyes as she acquiesces and says this, words that haunt me: "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."

Sometimes I can't decide if this is tragedy or heroism. I'm pretty sure that line's not actually in LOTR from what I remember, but it seems it would be very in-line w/ Tolkien-ism--fighting off the incredible temptation. She thinks of it as a test she has passed, but sometimes I think that is CRAP!!! I think of the liberation, the power, the unknown and adventure. An adventure that does NOT end before it begins due to the abyss of self-sacrifice.

And then, alternately, I think this is one of the best metaphors of motherhood I've ever seen. Not all of motherhood! I love being a mother! But you lose autonomy. It is the way of nurturing another being. It's impossible to avoid when kiddos are still babies. You are at their beck and call. You cannot be All About You anymore. You're serving someone else, but it's not like slavery. It's a mystery really, the combination of love, of becoming entwined with another person so that it by necessity changes who you are. Being a wife has elements of this too.

I think (or god I hope!) that by nurturing one's inner life, it stops becoming a case of Loss, and instead is emblematic of transitions, crossing thresholds and morphing continuously, always AWAKE and PRESENT in your own life. Embracing those bits of domesticity, caretaking, and nurture that yes, are partially self-sacrifice, and another part Something Else Entirely. Some part I've can't describe yet, but maybe is part of being human, of having a womb, of being part of the process of giving life. And I don't think is limited to those w/ biological wombs--it's about all us who take on caretaking and nurturing roles. Which hopefully, is all of us.

But I don't want to deny any longer that part of myself that envisions the other path, that considers it as a free and viable option. It's living for fuck sake. It's supposed to be a wide life. We are supposed to feel everything, to be so awake to the world that it is not the past or the future that fills your wild mind, but the present. There's so much here, now. Love the hell out of this moment and be open to the divergences of the next threshold, the forkings and widenings of the path.

The Wilderness

2011-07-04T17:44:00.004-05:00

I'm away! Tucked up in a bed and breakfast deep in the Texas hill country. I've been thinking ALOT. Too much-- it was tumultuous in my head as I drove up. I stopped and wept by a river that miraculously both actually had water in it and was completely deserted. Alone by a river, my favorite place to be. Then I arrived here, laid down on the bed, and stopped my own swirling chaos thoughts to read Joseph Campbell.

The tumult slowed, the chaos quieted. I'm reading Campbell's Reflections on the Art of Living and realized that another term for "retreat" (other than, you know, "run away!!"), is withdrawal or departure. Campbell writes:

The hero's journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, 'Look, you're in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that's not been touched. So you're at home here. Well, there's not enough of you there.' And so it starts.

Wake. Yes, wake. Wake up! Look around you! Be engaged in your own life!

Campbell's a romantic in the old sense, and by god I am too. Transformations, resurrections, thresholds to new life and experiences, new ways of looking at the world: these are the things of the great stories. We'll see. I haven't been alone with myself for a whole four days in... um, a decade? We'll see what restless dragons are coiled in my head and what jewels may be lying beneath.

RETREAT!!!!

2011-07-03T18:24:00.003-05:00

My advance check came in last week, and I decided to do something completely spontaneous and whimsical--take myself on a writer's retreat--just me, no responsibilities, no being a mom for a few days, no pressure. And I was thinking about the word "retreat" and the meaning of it resounds with me in the way perfectly encapsulated below:

Yes, the look on the middle dude's face, exactly. That's how I feel. Though it's not exactly running away when really what I'm running is TO something. To me. Back to me, to figuring out what is going on with me lately, to deal with some of these crisis' that have reared up and taken a chomp out of my belly, completely taking me by surprise and hurting like hell. The thing about motherhood is, it's hard when any deep self-reflection is limited to the hours between 1-5, and then you have to be ON again.

So I'm going off for four days to an undisclosed location. I'm going to rediscover the things I love and what brings me bliss, and I'm going to write passionately. I'm going to read things completely unlike what I "ought" to be reading. I'm going to watch movies completely unlike what I usually watch (I'm thinking of finally seeing some of the Bergman films I haven't yet). I'm going to listen to songs without words. I don't know if a four day retreat is all it will take for me to get my shit together, but it's a start.

Here's some simultaneously awful (in that it's tearing like a bowling ball through my stomach) and wonderful advice from Joseph Campbell:

Just think, 'Where do I feel good? What is giving me joy?'

Thursday Thoughts

2011-06-30T21:55:00.003-05:00

Thoughts in the daily life of Heather Anastasiu:

[At the Old Navy Outlet]: Dear Lady, seriously, your child is caterwauling like a tortured animal, it's time to TAKE THEM HOME FOR A NAP! You are killing my Retail Therapy Buzz.
[While editing WIP]: Dear F*&#ing piece of sh*@ scene: stop F*%&ing w/ me!!!!!!! I WILL CONQUER YOUZZZZ!
Dear SyFy Channel: I don't know why you think showing old Pierce Brosnan James Bond flicks counts as sci-fi, or "sy-fy" *rolls eyes*, but all right, I've got an hour to kill enjoying ridiculous 90's action sequences.
Dear Self: your snark factor is high today. I think it's time for a glass of wine, The Daily Show, and bedtime ;)
Oh look, I have almost blog 100 followers. Time for a GIVEAWAY!! Check back soon!

Butt In Chair: My Sophisticated Approach to Writing Novels

2011-06-28T23:48:00.002-05:00

A friend said to me today "You're a machine!" after I told him about my writing schedule and routine.

My immediate response: "Not at all! I'm an organic, spontaneous creative entity!" or you know, something a little less pretentious than that ;)

But really? I heard Jane Yolen's advice about writing that has been my guiding light since I started writing six years ago: BUTT IN CHAIR. So I figured I'd take a pic of my butt in the chair at my favorite coffee shop:

Sometimes I think the hardest part of being a writer isn't coming up with the plot or figuring out characterization--it's getting into the daily routine of actually writing! Especially after any kind of break from it, getting into it again can cause... let's call it resistance, shall we?

I hadn't written anything since about March because I was finishing a heavy semester of grad school. Then about three weeks ago, I finally found myself with the space and time to write... and I stared at the blinking icon in the Word document wondering, How the hell did I do this before?!? So I went back to the basics: Butt in chair, outlining, 500-1000 words a day, and go from there.

Then I'd meet my goal everyday and feel the most amazing satisfaction. I'd accomplished the fearsome duty for the day. Then the next day I push the word count a little higher. Maybe one day I only write 600 words. The next I try to make up for it by writing 1500. The thing is: I'm good at it. I've always been killer at self-discipline. I make goals, I meet goals. Hence the label by my friend: me as machine.

Some of this determination and routine comes from just being a mother, I think. The baby cries in the middle of the night, you HAVE to go pick them up. EVERY SINGLE MORNING they are up at 6, every single evening they are complaining about bedtime, and so needy of your attention every moment in between. And you JUST DO IT, there's no way out, no excuse, no one else to do it for you, no matter how tired or stressed out you are yourself. You warm up the bottle in the middle of the night. You just do it, end of story, and rarely does anyone thank you for it.

Thus with writing: you sit down and write your five hundred words. And a first draft starts to slowly be built up. People talk about writing like this poetic thing, or having a muse, or waiting to feel "in the moment" before they write. But for me, first drafts are often not very magical. They are rough and ugly and I'm getting plot out and dialogue drafts, but it's not going to be magical and moving until I get to Edit Land with this draft. But you can't edit what's not there to begin with! Poets might deal with a different can of worms, but we aim to be novelists. Many of us aim even to write a series of novels.

And it all circles back around to that oh so elegant advice I met and have stuck with for six years: Butt In Chair.

The Time Traveler's Wife & Loving Someone with a Chronic Illness

2011-06-26T23:22:00.006-05:00

So, I was in the mood to re-watch The Time Traveler's Wife for some reason, so I rented it, and with the opening scenes I was reminded why watching this movie is a bad idea: it makes me cry THE ENTIRE TIME, even from the bright-eyed beginning where she meets him (at least according to his timeline).

This movie is a mix of tragedy and hope--sometimes you wonder if this man ruined her entire life. She wonders it aloud at one point, after the romanticism of loving someone so unique has worn away--when his "bit of a problem" becomes so consuming. Putting up with the uncertainty and missing out when his illness makes her all alone. Missing important moments because of his "condition". It's a constant consideration in every part of his wife's life. Knowing he was going to die before it came. Knowing it might endanger their children.

The thing is, except for the dying part (thank god), some of this is too familiar. Though don't worry, my story has a happy ending:
When I was eighteen and had fallen in love with my first boyfriend, he sat me down about seven months after we'd met. We'd talked about marriage before this, but he hadn't proposed yet. We went out on a date, and I could tell something was on his mind. He told me there was something about him he'd never told me. He was afraid I wouldn't want to marry him if I knew, but he wanted to put it all out on the table before he proposed: his father had a debilitating genetic disease, and there was a 50/50 chance he would have it. Even if he didn't, any children he may have might still be in danger of getting it. It's an incurable degenerative genetic condition, onset as early as a person's 40s for some people.

I didn't bat an eye. Without pause I told him it didn't matter. I was so young then, but it was the absolute truth. I was eighteen, I was naive, and I absolutely believed he was my destiny. When I'd first met him during my freshman year of college, I was pretty sure I was going to marry him within a few weeks of knowing him. So I accepted without hesitation that whatever was in store for his life, good or bad, was in store for mine as well. What was his fate was mine too, I believed it a 100%.

I didn't realize at the time how much my reaction meant to him--how scared he'd been that I would up and leave him. He'd read stories in the preparatory material about this happening to other's with this particular disease, how their loved ones had reacted.

He underwent genetic testing a month later (we'd gotten engaged in the meantime) and it turned out he was on winning end of that 50% chance--he was safe--and what was more, his numbers tested so low that none of our potential children would inherit the disease.
What was ironic was that, though he ended up being free of chronic illness, eight months later I fell ill with CFS. I was the one in a wheelchair a couple years later. He never batted an eye. I wondered later (after some very, very difficult years), why he hadn't just left me. He looked surprised when I asked him. He said: "You didn't leave me when you knew I might have Huntington's. In sickness and in health, right?"

After ten years I've finally found some relief from my chronic illness. For the first time in a very long time, I've been able to be a true partner to him, helping with all the physical things that needed to be done in getting our house ready to sell, in taking on more responsibilities with our son, more housekeeping.

But then I watch this goddamn movie and feel so bad for the time traveler's wife. Putting up w/ his condition even in spite of all the sacrifices it meant for her. It's what my husband has done for me. And that's what people who have loved ones do all the time. In the movie at one point, she says "I think it's magical."

And that's my takeaway--loving someone is worth the magical moments. Life and haps of fate can seem so cruel, but hopefully, in spite of the painful times, we can echo the time traveler's wife at the end of the story: we wouldn't have changed a moment of it.

Restless Sunday

2011-06-26T16:32:00.001-05:00

I'm restless today, taking time off for me and bouncing around all my favorite spots in this little college town - the coffeeshop, my favorite cafe, my favorite used book store. The husband and I have been wrapping a bunch of things up, lots of endings in my life lately: we just finished all the hundred little projects on our house and it's finally on the market, my husband is turning in his thesis this weekend (which I proof-read, all 100 pages of computer science-y gobblty-goop-smarty-pants-algorithm-speak!). I got to 50k on book II of the Glitch trilogy, a dead-line I'd set for myself. Accomplishments, accomplishments abound, and I find myself suddenly very TIRED!

I think I would like to sleep for a week. Well, sleep and write. And eat desserts instead of meals. And watch Pride and Prejudice (both the Colin Firth version and then the Kiera Knightly version) about ten times each. And breathe in and then out again until I feel ever ounce of air expand in my lungs and then expel again.

WITHER by Lauren DeStefano - Review!

2011-06-22T00:16:00.002-05:00

I got an arc of this last winter on Simon & Schuster galley grab, and during my crazy last semester of grad school, I just devoured it quickly but didn't have the brain space to review it properly. I had occasion to pick up a copy at a store recently and read through at a slower pace.

This book first drew me in by it's drop dead gorgeous cover (cover lust, cover lust!) and the insides didn't disappoint. The thing that remained in my mind long after I first read it was the SHOCKING first chapter! My mouth dropped open - thinking, OMG, did that just HAPPEN?!?

Rhine's story just keeps gathering force as the reader gets to know her through her first steps into the strange new dystopian high-society DeStefano has envisioned. I found myself feeling affection for the husband who, from one perspective, can be seen as Rhine's captor, but on the other hand, is just a victim of circumstance. All the players thrown into the situation are very human, but the question is raised, in this desperate situation--with everyone facing early death--20 to 25 years at most to live, just what degrees of "civilized soceity" would go to in order to continue thier way of life, who really is to blame, and can love still be a choice in such a world?

All in all, Wither is a beautifully written book that kept me thinking about it long after I'd closed the last page. I can't wait to see what comes next!!!

Lookeeee! New Publication Forthcoming!

2011-06-19T20:39:00.001-05:00

So we just got news of the cover for the critical anthology I have an essay in! My essay is from a psychoanalytical perspective, questioning why we are all secretly attracted to the sexy tug of war between restraint and desire in Twilight!!!

I'll post more updates when we get a publish date, though it's available for pre-order now :-)

Forthcoming from McFarlands Press!!

Me and Lazarus, Baby

2011-06-18T20:01:00.002-05:00

So, I don't talk about this much here, but I have a chronic illness--Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which as fellow sufferers know, is an annoyingly petty-sounding-name for a life-changing illness. I was in a wheelchair for a year because I didn't have the energy to walk. But after ten years and trying every possible random "cure" out there, I've finally stumbled upon a medication that helps. That really, REALLY helps. Like

I went swimming for an hour and a half today kind of awesome, using muscles I literally haven't in years. It's been a month and a half on the new med. And suddenly, my life is becoming so much LARGER! I can walk more, write more, do more around the house. I think I might actually start to be able to EXERCISE again! Calling it a resurrection might be a little dramatic (but hey, I'm a writer, dramatic is my wheelhouse!), but I really do like I'm coming alive again (especially compared to the wheelchair days). I can play with my son, go on walks with my husband!! If not a resurrection, surely a renaissance. The Amazing Second Life of Heather Anastasiu.

Fear not, I'm not getting my hopes too far up. I'm pushing out my energy feelers further and further everyday, waiting to see if the CFS pushes back. But so far, it's been amazing. I'm not sure I even know who I am as a More Energy person. For so long, chronic illness has been part of my identity. It's a wild ride, but I'm enjoying the hell out of every new ounce of energy.

Cover Reveals!!!

2011-06-17T14:02:00.001-05:00

Three stunning Apocalypsies (mg/ya authors debuting in 2012) covers were revealed this week and I have to share so you can all revel in thier gloriousness! Click on each to check out thier goodreads descriptions!

Also check out my blog post on our new group blog: BRAVE NEW WORDS about the writerly joys of putting characters in deadly peril!

Out and About! & My Query Letter!

2011-06-13T12:42:00.001-05:00

Hello my lovelies!! Sorry I haven't blogged lately, I've been busy moving and setting up a new group blog for 2012 YA Sci-Fi Debuts called BRAVE NEW WORDS! Check out the link for giveaways of two recent dystopian debuts that I absolutely loved: WITHER by Lauren DeStefano and POSSESSION by Elana Johnson. Also, in the most recent post I posted my query letter that snagged me my agent! Click on the link below!

BRAVE NEW WORDS

Hitting Word Count, Finally!

2011-06-07T00:42:00.001-05:00

I was miserably sick all weekend and got nothing done. On the upside, I did have a Firefly watching marathon, and damn does that show hold up after time. I was shocked to realize it ran in 2002! Almost a decade ago! But Joss Wheadon is a master storyteller, even if he has a nasty habit of killing off beloved characters.

This morning, I still felt weak, but much MUCH better, so I hauled it over to the coffeeshop, half-laid on my favorite couch there, and wrote. And wrote and wrote. The word count was still painfully slow, but I made it to 2k today, what I used to average when I was deep in a book, but haven't been able to manage since I started writing full time again last week. It felt good to hit the milestone today. Like--breathe out, yes, my fingers and brain can remember how to do this, even if they were a little rusty at first. I'm not broken, just a little out of practice ;)

I was weary again this afternoon when I finished (probably pushed too hard after being ill), but it didn't matter how weak and shaky I felt. I'd written. There's no more satisfying and uplifting feeling in the world.

Review of AWAKEN by Katie Kacvinsky

2011-05-31T01:19:00.001-05:00

AWAKEN by Katie Kacvinsky. The writing in this novel is excellent. The word-craft of some of the phrases is so lush and gorgeous, it makes you want to read the sentences over and over. Kacvinsky really knows how to bring all of the senses to life through her writing, especially in the passages where Maddie is experiencing new things for the first time—like fire, or kissing ;)

The characters were extremely well developed too. Everything about Maddie’s relationship with Justin felt real. So many romantic leads in YA literature are one dimensional, but both Justin and Maddie felt psychologically complex, and their emotional growth throughout the novel felt natural and realistic—both their connection with each other, and their individual growth. The emotional tension of their relationship was the best part of the novel.

Also, can I just say, I love this cover! This is the perfect example of a concept cover that works well on many levels 1) it's lush and gorgeous, 2) it's unique from other YA covers and 3) the image of growing flower that is stopped up in a jar is an excellent metaphor for Maddie's life. Plus I love the greens and gold/yellow tones mix.

Body of Mine

2011-05-29T21:01:00.001-05:00

We painted our bathroom today. We're trying to get everything ready to sell the house (we're trying to be out in a couple of weeks to put it on the market *famous last words*). Anyhow, we painted today. I have chronic health problems, and if I exert myself too much, I'll be in bed for a week. So of course, I don't avoid physical things, I just am always running the edge of "too much"!!! I've come to terms with my limitations for the most part, but every once in awhile I say screw it! I'm going to go swimming or walk too far, or in today's case, help paint my goram bathroom!!!

Because really, after the Post Edit Malaise I've been in all week, staring at my computer and unable to get going on The Next Thing (it always takes me about a week off anyway, after a big project)--anyway, it felt good to use my body in physical labor for three hours, not think much, just paint, listen to music, be with my family, and help get something done that's needed to be done. A Very Satisfying Feeling.

And I think I stopped today before it went over the line of too much. I'm resting now, will watch TV or do more delightful reading now that I'm finally starting to read again. Life is busy, but life is good :-)

Waking Up

2011-05-27T22:52:00.007-05:00

Tonight, for the first time in three or four months, I sat down, started, and finished a book. This feels very symbolic to me - of how half-asleep and pulled in so many directions I was all semester, barely keeping my sh*% together, and sometimes, not so very successfully. Family. School. Book Deal. I was coming apart at the seams, barely finishing edits and being a mom to my kiddo, knowing there was light at the end of the tunnel and pushing, pushing, pushing to get there.

And this week I turned in my second round of edits, and finally, FINALLY, I'm breathing out the breath I feel like I've been holding for months. I will never do that to myself again. I know my limitations and I wash pushing too hard, for too long. Today I went to the coffeeshop--I had things that are next up on my plate to work on--a paper that's still due, all the edits from my fabulous writer's group on the first 1/3 of book II that I wrote this past winter. I made an orderly to-do list for when I have the energy again.

And then I just sat. I listened to music. I did free-writing in my journal, trying to get out the jumbled up thoughts that have been brewing or sleeping in my head for so long, sometimes just recording details of the things around me, thoughts I've had - just trying to reconnect again to myself. There are times I feel hollowed out from so much doing, doing, doing, that I feel like a shell of myself, a robotic version that still wakes up and bathes her son and manages to write papers and eat and sleep and wake up and do it all again. But whatever's supposed to be housed underneath the skin was buried and comatose for a bit, like a bear hibernating.

Well, finally, spring has come my darlings. (Metaphorically that is. In actuality, Texas has decided to turn on it's hell-o-meter early and we've had two 100 degree days of heat this week!!!). So then I sat and stared some more. Read some Natalie Goldberg, who talked about connection to all the things around me. And I think, YES. Yes, that is so good. It feels so good to draw a breath again, to breath in my surroundings and exhale again.

My son graduated from Kindergarten this morning. It's time for endings and beginnings. In a couple months, we're moving away from Texas, to Minneapolis, MN. Transition. Saying good-bye to things here. Starting new things there. I can't tell you how excited I am about this. Even before I got an agent, the husband and I had decided I'd take this year off to write. Writing was the only time I've truly felt alive and awake all semester, the only bits where time and space seemed to slow down to a meaningful speed, to sink in. Good things.

Edits are DONE!!!!!

2011-05-25T21:31:00.000-05:00

Fabulous celebration of finishing Edit Round #2!!!!! There were so many things I wanted to say about this edit round, blogs I wrote out loud to myself while I drove in between my house and the coffeeshop where magic edits happen. But now that they are ACTUALLY done, I'm basically like, spbhodiabypswefhrn! I have no wordz. My brainz are fuzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

The great thing about writing YA is that there is no place for flabby scenes. I feel like I was super-slasher this round, cutting everything extra to make super-sleek prose. Action, tension, emotional development: boom, boom, boom!

And I am emotionally worn out! Three weeks of intensely looking at my manuscript and I have no perspective on it. I think one moment: IT'S AWESOME and the next: why is my book so GODDAMNED LONG? Does it keep up tension, pace, eeeeeeeek!

Basically, I need a week of good rest and space from the manuscript! But, secretly, beyond all my self-doubt, I think my book is AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! *to bed now with me!*

My Novel in Three Words

2011-05-20T22:06:00.001-05:00

Today I was thinking about how there are a lot of YA dystopias out there this year, and more to come. I think I'll land right in the middle of the trend being published next spring (yay!), but I was also thinking, my books is dystopian for sure, but I've tried not to make it to heavy with the doom and gloom, and well, there are superpowers. Like X-Men superpowers, which is just plain fun. And kissing! I'm generally bad at describing my own book, but I realized in my mind I sum up GLITCH in three words:

Dystopia. Superpowers. Love.

Cover Reveals!!!

2011-05-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

So, several cover reveals have come out lately from my fellow Apocalypsies (MG and YA authors debuting in 2012) which are seriously awesome!!!! Be enticed and click on each cover to link to the Goodreads description of the book!

First up, Young Adult author K.M. Walton's CRACKED:

And by fabulous debuting Middle Grade authors: SEEING CINDERELLA by Jenny Lundquist and MAY B. by Caroline Starr Rose !

The Bits of GLITCH that are Bits of ME

2011-05-18T09:12:00.005-05:00

So I was doing my pre-writing or editing quiet/meditation time with my favorite Natalie Goldberg. Today this was the nugget that jumped off the page at me. It's chapter 4 from Thunder and Lightening, and it's all about the way we naturally write ourselves into our book.

I read a piece online lately and the young author was writing about the elderly, something far beyond her years and experiences, and the characters felt like bad imitations of stereotypes. No, Goldberg is right. She suggests we can't make a fictional character exactly like ourselves, because rarely are we able to be that vulnerable, to even understand or be willing to share all our motivations. But through fiction, the conscious and unconscious parts are ourselves pour out all jumbled up. This is a universe all in our own head, so naturally it is built of our parts - our hopes, fears, insecurities, life experiences.

Goldberg says: "The people we befriend usually mirror ourselves, our known and unknown parts." Now this is a very big statement that makes me look around at the relationships in my life and think, huh! she's right! But it also can be said of our characters. Characters who feel real aren't ones we picked out of a stereotype catalogue. All the formative things that have happened to me, that I've read, movies I've seen, things that seeped into my psyche slowly over the years are poured out in this book. What's funny, is I didn't think to realize it until 1) I'm a year out from writing the initial first draft 2) I'm in editing, where I really think consciously about each character's motivations and 3) the fabulous Goldberg.

Now that I look at it, I'm like, holy crap! There's the obvious--my love for 80's and 90's sci-fi and fantasy movies, the melodrama of romance novels, even watching The Little Mermaid EVERY day after school for all of 2nd grade. Then there are the less obvious, the unconscious things working themselves out--I see how that rough patch in my marriage is reflected, the deep ache of longing for beauty and hope in a hard, painful world, that time I was so sick with my chronic illness that I was in a wheelchair--especially the anger of that period. I was always such a good little girl, I'd never felt anger like that, and such a sustained anger. I woke up angry and went to bed angry for a year and so now I can draw knowingly from that texture of anger.

In a way, I see that all the characters in my novel are almost stages of myself. Zoe, naive, just waking up to the world of emotion and good and evil (something I think happens with most teenagers). Adrian, at least in Book I, is most like me now in his belief in beauty and hope, though it will be tested. And Max, dear Max, you are so many things to me. You are what I have wanted and who I have been and chaos and rule-breaking. You are Id, trying to grow up, needing a little Super-ego to come along and tame some of that into a healthy place.

I'm only 29, and maybe my book reflects that too - at 50, I'm wonder if this would be a very different book? But at 29 I've been poor to the point of impoverished, have been well off while my husband had a posh office job, deal daily with chronic illness, have lived in a bad part of Chicago, have lived in a safe pattern-stamped suburb neighborhood, gone back to school, am married, have a kiddo, have swam in a river, have gone to Romania, have pooped in an outhouse, have had older adventurous brothers that I loved and wanted to emulate SO badly, have been religious, have been not religious, have been sexy and have been plain, and more, so much more. And the key to life as well as writing: hope and compassion, always.

Giveaway!!! WIN Divergent & The Dark and Hollow Places

2011-05-16T21:12:00.003-05:00

I just hit 200 followers on Twitter, so it's giveaway time! In this lovely giveaway, here's two AMAZING recent YA novels to win: a SIGNED edition of The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan, as well as a copy of Divergent by Veronica Roth!! Contest ends May 30th!

Winner is Minas! I'll be contacting you soon about sending your books!

Just comment below with your name, email, and count up your entries by adding up the below:
+2 for new blog followers
+3 for old blog followers
+2 for re-tweeting (include twitter name please)
+3 for blogging about the giveaway (include url please)

Thanks, and good luck!
(also, sorry, but this is open to US/Canada only residents only)

Edit Land: Experiments with Language

2011-05-12T09:17:00.000-05:00

My editor mentioned on the first round of edits for Glitch that she'd like to see if we could make the Glitch time and the being Linked up time (the Link is a method of societal control, with a chip in everybody's brain) have different kinds of language. As if we could really experience through language, the difference Zoe feels when she's Linked and when she glitches out from the Link. Yeah, so I had bigger things I was focusing on in Edit Round I, and now we come to Edit Round II, and she's gently nudging me about this again. And better yet, suggesting places I could do it and some ideas of how!

So I'm editing today, spending an inordinate amount of time on Chapter 1, but I think both Edit Gal and I count this as a key chapter where we set up the world and let readers get to know Zoe and want to be on her side. I start playing around with the language for when she's Linked, how a computer controlled mind might think and behave. And then it hit me: there wouldn't be personal pronouns in a group-think setting. There wouldn't be any I or me. Also, computer-think, like sign-language, wouldn't bother as much with transition articles like "the" or "as" or even forming complete sentences. They would want to get information across in as few words as possible. Period.

So anyway, I've been experimenting with this, and having Zoe transition back to personal pronouns when she's glitching, slowly learning how to get the feel of being an individual. It's exciting. We'll see what Edit Gal thinks when I turn it back in to her!!

Image via: cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com

Cover Reveal of DARKER STILL

2011-05-11T01:38:00.000-05:00

Just got the news of a cover reveal for fellow Apocalypsie, Leanna Renee Hieber's DARKER STILL. This cover is seriously gorgeous. And the contents sound equally as exciting!!! For more about this historical/gothic/supernatural awesomeness, check out her blog post about the reveal! Squee, exciting!

Endings and Beginnings and as always, Middles

2011-05-07T23:41:00.002-05:00

Endings!

My last semester of grad school! Over! No more classes! So, other than a couple of papers left (for a class I took an Incomplete due to health problems), I'm done with course work. I'll work slowly on my thesis throughout the next year, probably fly back to Tx to defend it next May since we're moving to MN. But I'm DONE w/ going to class! Maybe forever!!
Which leads to the next exciting Ending: working on 2nd round of edits for GLITCH! My editor got back to me with edits yesterday, on my birthday too :) Happy birthday to me! I'll be diving in tomorrow and all next week.

Beginnings!
After I finish edits on GLITCH, then I move on to writing Book II for the rest of the summer. I've written about the first third of it, but the rest I get to dive into First Drafty Land. There's an adrenaline to the pure creation stage, building up word count and getting deep in the Writing Zone.

Middles...!...?
But most of my life is middles right now, probably why I'm a little bananas and have been for the past few weeks/months. For example,

Motherhood. Always a middle, an on-going drama of happy and driving-me-crazy and then cuddly and then enforcing consequences for bad behavior. Bah! Mothering a 6 1/2 yr old is constant rollercoaster land. Today was a good day though. Took munchkin to the river and we played in the small waterfalls and let him get more comfy floating and starting to learn how to swim. We are also starting to watch Doctor Who together. Very good things ;)
The House. We are trying to sell our house. Like, putting it on the market by May 30th. Hence, crazy house projects, like today: we were paying my friend to paint the walls in the living room, meanwhile husband and I worked together to put the grout in for the tile he laid a few weeks ago. After we put sealant on that tomorrow, we finally get to put the master bath toilet back in!! Which has been missing since husband pulled it out THREE MONTHS AGO (sharing bathroom w/ a 6 yr old w/ bad aim= no bueno!!) Also, we might be moving into an apartment starting in June so the house can be empty while it's on the market.
School. Yes, I'm finished w/ classes, but I still need to work w/ prof on the class I took an Incomplete for, will need to write those two papers in July.
The Husband. Oh dear, is it uncouth to call my husband one of my Middles? But really, the dude could not be MORE in the middle of transition-land. He's just starting his thesis...which has to be done by July! He's been finishing up other research projects with his research professor. He's taking his last final exam on Monday, then he's done w/ coursework. In a couple weeks, he's bowing out to take a trip to MN to try to figure out a safe school solution for our son. And he's going to be a Research Advisor to several undergrad students all summer. Seriously, the guy is half super-sonic cyborg, I swear, who goes and goes and goes on still very little sleep. Poor dude. Heather's Mission now that school is done: do as much as I can to give him all the time/energy/space he needs to get done all the craziness in the next few months. You know, along w/ packing and moving this summer to an apartment before he graduates and we move in mid-August!!!!! Bananasville!!!!

New Tattoo!

2011-04-30T02:22:00.001-05:00

So here's the final reveal (although I still have another session) of the tattoo I've been working on all Spring!!

It's also a sneak peak at the session from my author photo shoot session! More to come, all taken by the lovely Meagan McLendon!

Author Photo!!!

2011-04-28T17:05:00.003-05:00

Heather's First Author Photo:

So, today I got to fulfill a childhood dream: getting an author photo taken. Seriously, ever since 2nd grade when we made little cardboard-bound books for stories we'd written and pasted a school photo at the back (see left), I've been completely enamored with the idea of author photos. I picked out the outfit I would wear TWO YEARS AGO. Before I even had an agent! Seriously, I have thought out what angles work and how I could best show off my tattoos and funky hair and what sitting positions, and yeah, writers are neurotic, and here was another outlet for my neurosis to manifest!!!

And today was the day. I did my own make-up and hair, picked out the perfect jewelry, met up with the photographer I'd contacted through a mutual art-y friend. The weather was perfect, I felt at ease and natural, and basically all around had a blast. I can't wait to see the results. You bet your buns I'll post the best ones here so ya'll can help me decide which one is the best!!!!

Also of note: That's my original hair color, and it's probably the only time you'll ever see it!!

On Love, Libraries, and Disability

2011-04-24T18:58:00.010-05:00

There's been a lot of wicked stress in my life lately (though now slowing down), and one person who makes it all bearable: my husband. We've been married almost ten years, some of them rougher than others. We were kids when we got married (I was 19). We'd barely lived in the world out on our own before we were out on our own together. Together. It's a simple enough concept. Two as one, an infused pair, even as different as we are in our interests and temperaments. We went on a date this past Thursday at our favorite little diner where they serve un-ending coffee. Then we went and window-shopped for new wedding rings we'll get for our ten-year-anniversary in December. The ones we have now are 1) yellow gold, which I'm not a fan of and 2) Dragos' is literally going to have to be CUT OFF it's so small. I'm getting two small silver bands, one with a small emerald, and Dragos is getting a simple band, white gold. God, I love this man.

Also big on my Awesome List: The Texas State Alkek University library. I've lived in this area all my life--I grew up in the same county and my brothers went to this university. A few times growing up I walked up the many stairs to the imposing structure, seven stories tall and full of BOOKS! I was in awe of it. It's nestled in among the hills of the campus. Lately all the stairs had become a problem for me because of my chronic illness, which leads me to my last Awesome List Item. I've had CFS for nine years now, but for the first time actually got a disability placard so I can park closer to buildings and save energy.

I don't know WHY I DIDN'T DO THIS SOONER! Suddenly, I can GO to the library again, because I can park right at the back where the elevators are. I don't half to walk the half-block to my favorite coffee shop, stopping three times along the way to rest. I can take limited trips to the grocery store. For such a little thing, it has made such a BIG difference. Good things happening in my life lately. Good things. Good things, my friends.

A River Runs Through

2011-04-23T21:32:00.006-05:00

So, I happen to live right by this college town (where I go to college) that has this great river running through it. Not just running through it--it freaking springs up OUT OF THE GROUND right where the college was built - you can take these glass bottom boat tours over the springs and see the freaking river water springing up from underground aquifers. It's bananas.

Anyway, there is this river, and I have lived near it my entire life. And in the past I maybe tubed down it once. ONCE. But in the past two weeks, it's like there's an invisible magnet pulling me to the river. Well, really it started in winter. Then, I used to go, take a camping chair and sit by the river, totally desolate of humans, watching the mists swirl over the water b/c the air was colder than the river water that stays a fairly even 70 degrees no matter what time of year. But then the last two weeks I've actually gotten IN to the river. And suddenly it's like freaking crack to me. I can't stay away.

My six year old and I went today, just to walk around the river-side. We weren't wearing swimming trunks. I didn't have any towels. But as we dangled our feet into the river, I suddenly found it not enough and jumped all the way in, regular clothes and all. Then tried to coax my not-as-adventurous son to come in with me!!

I finally got him in a little, standing on these huge roots of trees that dive down into the river. It's mostly shallow there, my feet could touch and I could walk up right. There's just this delirious weightlessness to wading in water up to your neck. For a person like me who has a chronic illness, where my body feels doubly-heavy so much of the time--suddenly all that weight is lifted. I can float freely on my back in the sunshine, bob gently with my feet touching, all without much effort so I don't get easily tired out like normal. You just can't imagine how ALIVE it makes me feel. How normal. Every day now I find myself constantly thinking--hmm, how can I make it to the river today?

Pretty Rings!!!

2011-04-20T00:46:00.010-05:00

The new James Avery catalog (they specialize in quality silver jewelry) came in the mail today and I am lusting after this especially lovely ring!! It's more 3-D and cool looking in person - the flowers explode off the band!

The husband and I were also looking at the wedding rings in the catalog too. Yes, yes, we already have wedding rings, but it's our TEN year anniversary this December, and my husband's ring now cuts off all circulation to his finger :) Also, both our rings are yellow gold, which I don't like anymore. I much favor silver or white gold. For the hubster I think we'll do a simple small band that is thin enough so it doesn't bother him, and for me, a thin silver band and then this for a second band (equivalent of the engagement ring), this one:

Pretty, pretty, pretty. Of course we'll wait for awhile closer to the anniversary, because I have the patience of a gnat and I would want to wear them right away! But maybe the flower ring later this summer :)

Things This Week Has Taught Me

2011-04-15T16:15:00.007-05:00

The last two weeks has been about paring down responsibilities to avoid Heather Overload/Spontaneous Combustion. I would love to be that person who always has a deadline and is just always ON. What I've realized this week, well, this whole semester really, is that I only get excited (and therefore productive) about things I'm passionate about. Creative writing, for instance. Deadlines don't stress me out--a huge amount of work that might need to go into revisions, really digging in--this causes me ZERO stress and ALL excitement. So, to recap this week (with a helpful scale of Awesome Vs. Not Awesome):

Reading about interesting ideas (aka academic research)= Awesome, life affirming

Being forced to synthesize those ideas into specific narrow thoughts and write a half-ass paper in a week = NOT Awesome

Panic attacks = Not Awesome

Dropping a class and cancelling academic conference paper presentation = AWESOME

Attending aforementioned class on an Auditing basis just to talk about ideas with no stress= Awesome

Tattoos = AWESOME

Oh, and Tax Returns = Awesome

Conclusion: I love ideas. I love creative writing and art. I do not love academic writing, and when I go back to it for my thesis slowly over the next year, I'll do it on my terms, slowly, letting the passion for ideas manifest without hard deadlines. Also awesome this week: husbands, cute 6-yr-olds, and the internet (especially all you Apocalypsies!).

The Vespertine - A Decadent Read

2011-04-12T12:45:00.004-05:00

The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell - Summary from Goodreads - It’s the summer of 1889, and Amelia van den Broek is new to Baltimore and eager to take in all the pleasures the city has to offer. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset—visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. However, a forbidden romance with Nathaniel, an artist, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own—still, Amelia finds herself irrepressibly drawn to him. When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia’s world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she’s not the seer of dark portents, but the cause.

- My Review -

This book was so thick with longing, so achingly decadent in every sense of the word. The writing was lush--written in first person, the novel simultaneously manages to carry a strong and relatable voice and an inescapable sense of the time and era it was written about. You truly believe you're hearing the voice of a seventeen year old girl from 1889. Amelia's naive delight at visiting her relative Zora for a summer season--the only one either of them is likely to have--is easy to get swept up in as a reader. Yet the novel is framed by a sense of tragedy (this isn't a spoiler, it's clear from the first chapter), and it infects and hovers behind all of the gaiety of the girls' dances and laughter and frivolity. The growth that Amelia goes through in the novel is heart-wrenching but unflinchingly honest. And then there is the love story. The unconsummated longing between Amelia and Nathaniel is so delicious. In a time where touching bare hands was considered wanton and dangerous, every intimate look and moment they steal alone has a heightened sense or eroticism (even though all of their contact by today's standard is chaste). But the Victorian setting and forbidden nature of their longing for one another, with added tension because of the supernatural elements of the book, makes for the most exciting love story I've read in a long time. Five stars, which I rarely give.

The Function of Fantasy According to Tolkien

2011-04-10T22:55:00.012-05:00

So, in my Real Life (aka, apart book deal excitement and craziness!), I'm trying to finish my Master's degree in Literature. And I'm presenting at an academic conference in two weeks for an abstract I sent in and was accepted in December... for a paper I haven't exactly written yet... or, as of two days ago... started!!! (I'm not a giant-slacker, this is actually common, well maybe not waiting this long, but still!)

This has been remedied in a frantic last two days of researching, and really, this paper is just a small chunk of what will be in my thesis--I've thought out the theory and thesis statement and all those lovely things. I've been a giant stress-ball lately, so it was a nice surprise when I was able to chill out, read theory all weekend, and get excited about research again.

Because, the thing is, I'm writing about YA fantasy literature for my thesis. How cool is that? Reading up on theories of how fantasy functions is actually AWESOME. The paper I'm presenting is on C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian, so I got to read these lovely essays by him and Tolkien on what they thought fantasy literature actually DOES, you know, insight into why we love it and how it satisfies us. Now, I don't completely agree with Tolkien. As a good post-modernist, I can't quite. But oh I do find myself resonating with the longing he speaks of:

"The consolation of fairy-stories [i.e. fantasy], the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous 'turn' (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-story can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist,' nor 'fugitive.' In it's fairy-tale--or otherworld--setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief" (Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories").

Lewis' Prince Caspian is full of this longing--nostalgia for the Old Narnia that has been lost and become ruin. All the pages are filled at the beginning are filled with loss and ruin and brokenness and forgotten glory. Then enter the hero. Then enter the wild of the awakening Old World. I can't deny the power of this storyline. I guess I'm still moved by redemption and regeneration stories after all.