YAnnabe

I Haveth a Sickness Made of the Epic

Kelly — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:00:45 +0000

About two weeks ago, I got this cold, maybe flu, thing. Runny nose, fever, aches all over.

Just as I started to feel better, the fluey bits decided they wouldn’t be content to use my body as their own personal disco club and leave it crumpled on the floor like a dirty tissue. Oh, no. They had to leave behind a sinus infection.

But full disclosure: I don’t really know what I’m talking about because…

I’m delirious from a fever that’s lasted two weeks.
I haven’t seen a doctor yet. (I do that as a last resort, which is obviously well past now. But it didn’t hit me until Friday night during a dinner that I could not force myself to eat, when I blubbered to my husband that I shouldn’t have waited so long, and the blubbering just made me more congested. So I go on Monday.)

I’ve never been this sick for this long. So sick I’m not even interested in reading from my sick bed.

What I really want to be doing is posting about the Unsung YA giveaway I have all ready to go, but this is about the most I can bring myself to craft out of thin air. The sooner I get better, the sooner you get your fabulous giveaway.

Your Turn

What’s your favorite trick for getting over a cold/flu/sinus infection?

Or howzabout some tips for thanking a spouse who’s been taking care of the house plus a two-year-old all by his lonesome?

(Here endeth the whine.)

Photo by jamelah.

Review: Lips Touch

Kelly — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:00:24 +0000

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Lips Touch: Three Times
Author: Laini Taylor
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4/5
Why I Read It: This book was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award.

Summary: Three stories, each about a different girl and a kiss. And no ordinary kiss, either. These kisses carry a dangerous promise to forever change the girls’ lives.

Review: I must read more by this author. Soon after I started this book, I was jotting down page numbers of quotes left and right. When I hit page 100 and had filled up an entire post-it with page numbers, I decided I’ll just have to reread this someday.

These stories are weird, but deliciously so. They reminded me of Pretty Monsters, which I also loved.

The only reason this book didn’t get 5 stars from me is that the ending of the first story let me down a bit. I wanted more conclusion, but I don’t read many short stories so I’m probably just not calibrated for them.

Here’s a taste for you from the first story about a girl named Kizzy whose grandmother has just passed away:

Sometimes Kizzy imagined her grandmother knife-fighting her way down the long tunnel of death, but mostly her daydreams were of a very different nature. She daydreamed of slow-dancing with Mike Crespain and of sitting on his lap at lunch while he hugged her around the waist instead of Sarah Ferris, his knuckles resting lightly against the underside of her breasts instead of Sarah’s. She daydreamed about having slim ankles like Jenny Glass instead of peasant ankles like the fetlocks of a draft horse. About smooth hair instead of coarse hair, sleek hips instead of belly dancer’s hips. About a tinkling laugh, and a butterfly tattoo, and a boy who would tuck his hand into her back pocket while they walked, and press her up against a fence to suck her lower lip like a globe of fruit.

That’s hot. The next paragraph is even better, but I would’ve had to give you more background to the story.

So go read it for yourself!

Your Turn: What’s the last book you read where you found yourself jotting down a ton of quotes?

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7 Writing Rules Gleaned from a Year of Voracious Reading

Kelly — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:00:30 +0000

The Guardian posted a collection of rules for writing fiction from authors like Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and Philip Pullman. I read these rules over the course of a day so the words of wisdom would have a better chance of sinking in. Here’s my eloquent summary of one rule that cropped up over and over on the authors’ lists: Read a lot.

I can attest to that. A year of book blogging in which I read more books than ever has taught me more than any writing how-to book or writers’ conference.

After reading the Guardian article, I allowed myself to fantasize about one day being a published author and being asked to provide my own list of writing rules. Would I offer practical advice like Elmore Leonard? Be funny like Roddy Doyle—or a stick-in-the-mud like Philip Pullman?

I decided to find out.

My Rules for Writing…Or for Dating, Take Your Pick

1. First impressions count. This is the rule that trumps all others. If the reader doesn’t connect with your main character—if she doesn’t empathize with what your character’s going through—you’ve lost her. Some ways we push our readers away without realizing it:

Switching the point of view makes it harder to truly connect to any one character, let alone multiple.
Introducing too many characters all at once takes the focus off the main character.
Playing into a stereotype makes the character less real—less of a person.

2. Don’t be shy. In this world of instant gratification, readers want something to happen right away. So ditch the prologue and the first chapter full of backstory and jump right into the good stuff. You can sprinkle the backstory in later. Likewise, make sure your main character does something early on that involves more than just reacting to what others are doing.

3. Do be mysterious. Can you imagine if the first chapter of When You Reach Me explained who was sending the notes and what they meant? No fun in that. Our job is to create a sense of wonder in the reader. This goes for the main character’s thoughts and feelings, too. We don’t need to tell the reader every single thought that flits through the character’s head. Use their actions and dialogue to show how they’re feeling.

4. Keep the drama in check. Soap operas don’t work so well on paper, at least not for me. Cut the melodrama, or tone it down. Try reading an emotional scene out loud to find the parts that are over-the-top. Instead of having a character talk about their emotions, put them in a scene where their actions can reflect how they’re feeling. The character might still have to hint at their emotions, but at least they won’t come off like a drama queen.

5. Live in the present. Much like the person you’re dating won’t appreciate frequent trips down the memory lane of your previous relationships, the reader will get tired of frequent flashbacks. It can also quickly get confusing about what’s happening now versus then. If you do include a flashback, keep it short and make it clear when it’s over.

6. Listen to your heart. Your main character’s parents and teachers may very well have good advice. Even so, she’ll have to learn those lessons for herself the hard way. Not only does it make for a more interesting story, but a character empowered to solve her own problems is hella inspiring. Scrutinize every piece of dialogue coming out of an authority figure’s mouth to make sure they’re not giving all the answers.

7. Don’t forget to have fun. Play with language to keep your writing fresh and sharp. Do a crossword puzzle every day, or subscribe to a word-of-the-day newsletter. Pull out a writing book and use a prompt or an exercise. Stretching your brain to use language in new ways will pay off.

Your Turn

What would be on your list of writing rules? Do you disagree with anything on my list or in the Guardian article?

And if you’re looking for even more rules, check out:

Or maybe you just think all this rules business is a bunch of hooey?

Photos by Professor Bop and 365bunnies.

Who Else Wants a One-Stop Book Review Shop?

Kelly — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:25:24 +0000

I want one web site where I can go to:

Look up a book title and see all ratings and reviews combined into one list. Example: See how Google Books combines reviews from Amazon, Goodreads, and a couple other sites. But I want them all—LibraryThing, Shelfari, Powell’s, IndieBound. Everything in one place, but with duplicate ratings/reviews from one user across multiple sites culled to just one entry from that user.
Enter my rating and review for a title in one place and have it automatically pushed to all the sites of my choice. Currently, I manually post my ratings and reviews on this blog, on LibraryThing, and on Goodreads. The gating factor is my time, so I haven’t been posting reviews to other sites like Amazon and Powell’s, even though I would like to.
Get recommendations for books I will probably love, based on the ratings of other users with similar taste as mine. LibraryThing’s recommendations are okay, but Goodreads seems closer to achieving this with their Compare Books feature because you can find users with similar taste based on ratings of the same books. But Goodreads is missing the step of then extrapolating a list from all similar users of recommendations for titles you might like.

Is This Too Much to Ask?

It looks like Google is continuing to add new features to Google Books, as recently as January. And they’ve already tackled the first item on my wish list in their Google Maps interface, such as how they aggregate restaurant reviews into one place. Could they be the first to cross the finish line on that feature?

Your Turn

Have you seen any of these features on my wish list? Tell me and make my day!

Would you be interested in using these features? Or do you have other features on your own wish list?

Photo by Spatch.

Review: Fire

Kelly — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:05:09 +0000

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Fire
Author: Kristin Cashore
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: I loved Graceling, so this companion novel was a must-read for me.

Summary: Fire is part-human, part-monster. The monster part of her makes men wild and full-fledged monsters crave her blood. The human part has to cope with having the power to enter people’s minds and bend them to her will.

Review: I was a tad bit bummed to find out we wouldn’t be seeing the next round of steaminess from Katsa and Po in this book. But I need not have worried because parts of this story rivaled a sauna.

This book was a little slow getting off the ground, but it picked up in the second half. Part of that is that I had trouble clearly seeing Fire’s motivation in the first half.

What saved it for me and why I kept reading—aside from the yummy bits, of course—was that the world Cashore created is completely engrossing. I mean, monsters?! But I totally bought it from page one.

Also, did I mention the romance comes in the ever-so-delicious flavor of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet?

Your Turn: That Austen chick sure knew what she was doing. What other YA books use the Darcy/Elizabeth dynamic?

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
Buy: Your local bookstore | Powell’s | Amazon

Did You Like This Book? Try:

Review: The Last Exit to Normal

Kelly — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:00:15 +0000

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: The Last Exit to Normal
Author: Michael Harmon
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 2.5/5
Why I Read It: This book was part of the Nerds Heart YA tournament in 2009, and both judges who read it enjoyed it.

Summary: After 17-year-old Ben’s dad announces that he’s gay, Ben rebels by skipping school and doing drugs. Then his dad decides they’re moving from the city to a small town in Montana. Trying to fit in while sporting a mohawk turns out to be the least of Ben’s problems.

Review: I wanted to love this book. I did love several aspects of it, and I am glad I read it. But it wasn’t one of my favorites.

What I loved:

The grit—The tough conversations between Ben and his dad were so real they were almost painful to read at times. In a good way.
The issues—Homophobia, child abuse, abandonment. The book takes on big-ticket issues with a capital I, but it didn’t feel like a thinly veiled morality play.
The funny—Here, Ben is about to go on a date with a country girl, and he’s asking his dad’s boyfriend Edward for advice. Edward starts off with what he knows about the girl’s dad:

“If I remember correctly, he’s a very harsh man, and one not to cross.” He thought for a moment. “Yes sir, no sir, thank you, please, nice to meet you, Mr. Johan, firm handshake, look him in the eye, and for God’s sake don’t eye her boobs, even accidentally, unless you’re at least a mile from the house. Men have shotguns for a reason around here.”

I nodded, soaking it all in. Fear gripped me, but love would climb any mountain. “One more thing.”

“What?”

“What is baling hay, anyway?”

He laughed. “And you thought you worked hard yesterday. Poor child.”

“Crap.”

But here are the things that got in the way of me loving this book through-and-through:

Backstory frontloading—The first chapter was s-l-o-w. I almost put the book down. I once read a tip in a writing book that you should cut your first chapter, start with the second, and sprinkle the first chapter backstory in later only if necessary. This book might have benefited from that trick.
Internal monologue—Not everywhere, but in certain spots I felt like I was getting Ben’s entire thought process.
Melodramatic tendencies—As the story started to wrap up, a few scenes came off as a bit cheesy for my taste.
Kiss offscreen—Maybe this is just because I’m a girl that this bugged me, but the first kiss between Ben and the girl he’s interested in happened…offscreen! It’s this offhand comment in the narration. Bummer!

None of these issues were huge, but they all pulled me out of the story and got in the way of me connecting on a deeper level to the book.

Your Turn: What’s the last book you wanted to love but didn’t?

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The Second Quarter, It Is Nigh

Kelly — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:30:38 +0000

On Sunday morning, my almost-2-year-old daughter and I bundled up in jackets and hats and mittens—because it was in the 50s, and we Texans are wusses about cold weather—and we walked to the end of our block to watch the Austin Marathon. We set up camp at about the 70% mark with some neighbors and friends, cheering runners on for three hours straight.

I just passed the 25% mark of my own personal marathon: my 8-week revision plan. As I yelled out the names of complete strangers yesterday, I fantasized about getting some hot pink puffy paint to write my name on a t-shirt and walking down the street with my laptop on a rolling cart, hordes of friends and fellow writers screaming my name out and encouraging me to keep going.

But then I remembered that I can’t even stand it when my husband reads over my shoulder while I write. So that would foster some serious performance anxiety. And who really wants to be picking at pink paint stains under their fingernails for days after?

How Far I’ve Come

I started a spreadsheet to track my progress, which I know will come as a shock. But the prospect of revising my first draft has been so overwhelming that I wanted to quantify the actual amount of effort it takes from me. Then next time, I’ll know about how long a full revision might take.

Some fun stats for you:

On average, I’m spending about an hour a day working on my novel. Or, to be exact: 1.074358974.
I started out with 49,944 words. I now have 46,652. So I’ve lost about 6% of my total words.
I set out to write a 1-page plot synopsis and ended up with 4 pages.
After finishing my first read-through of the entire draft, I’m in the process of entering easy edits and recording harder ones for later. I’m about 57% through my marked-up copy.

What’s Down the Road

Short answer? A whole heck of a lot. Probably more than 75%, if I’m being honest with myself. My goal is to increase my daily effort to at least 1.5 hours to get back on track.

Your Turn

What project are you working on right now—writing, home improvement, or otherwise—and how’s it going?

Photo by djwhitebread.

Unfinished: Fairy Tale

Kelly — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:46:56 +0000

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Fairy Tale
Author: Cyn Balog
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Why I Read It: An impulse pick at the library.

Summary: Morgan and her football-star boyfriend are looking forward to their joint 16th birthday party. But then she catches him hanging out with a new girl.

Stopped on Page: 28
Why I Stopped: The main character’s voice was a little young for my taste. But the clincher for me and the reason I didn’t even make it to my 50-page line in the sand was what happened on page 27.

Morgan and her boyfriend Cameron have been dating since they were young kids. Here, Morgan is comparing her relationship with Cameron to how she sees other girls acting with guys:

I sigh, thinking of the girls at school. Most of them are going through hell for guys—playing weird head games like “ignore him and he’ll fall all over you” or seeing who can fit into the clothes with the biggest price tags and the smallest sizes. I’ve never been a part of that world, and I don’t want to be. I want to be with Cam. That’s the only thing about my life that makes sense.

This felt a little on the needy side to me, and having just come off reading about a needy, all-consuming love in Shiver, I wasn’t ready for another one just yet.

Your Turn: Should I have kept going? Or was I right to stop?

Note: As an aspiring author, I respect the extraordinary amount of effort that goes into writing a book. I did not write this review in order to be unfair or negative about the book. My goal is simply to articulate why the book wasn’t for me.

Review: Shiver

Kelly — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:02:46 +0000

Can you trust me? Compare our taste!

Title: Shiver
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: Heather’s review at Tales of a Capricious Reader was the one that snagged me.

Summary: Every winter, 17-year-old Grace watches the woods behind her house for a wolf with yellow eyes—her wolf.

Review: Love at first sight can be a pesky little thing. Especially when you happen to fall for a guy who’s missing a few key chromosomes. Poor Grace.

I devoured this story of species-crossed lovers. And unlike most stories with alternating points of view, I felt an immediate connection to both Grace and her wolf, Sam.

But it also left me wanting more. Grace’s entire existence was wrapped up in Sam, and she didn’t seem to have much of a life outside of her yearning for him. All-consuming love, I don’t mind. But for me, it’s even more powerful if a girl is her own person with her own dreams and aspirations outside of being with a certain guy/wolf/vampire.

Still, I will be reading more by this author because the writing was engaging. Here’s a taste from the opening:

I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves. They were licking me, biting me, worrying at my body, pressing in. Their huddled bodies blocked what little heat the sun offered. Ice glistened on their ruffs and their breath made opaque shapes that hung in the air around us. The musky smell of their coats made me think of wet dog and burning leaves, pleasant and terrifying. Their tongues melted my skin; their careless teeth ripped at my sleeves and snagged through my hair, pushed against my collarbone, the pulse at my neck.

While we’re on the topic of romance, be sure to check out the latest list of book recommendations over at Flashlight Worthy: The Most Romantic YA Books of All Time.

Your Turn: What makes for a better romance—an eternal love that obliterates all longing save the lovers’ desire to be together? Or a big ol’ mess of two separate people with their own wants and needs who have to figure out how to make it work on top of everything else?

Or, to put it another way:

Or…

Borrow: Your local library | Swap
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The Verb That I Hate

Kelly — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:00:53 +0000

There is a verb that is in just about every novel I read. I’ll be trucking along, getting into the story, then BAM! I run smack into that word, and my hate for it throws me out of the story. It takes a good minute or two before I’m ready to get back to the book.

This word has never done anything to me to warrant this hatred. It’s just three little letters, for Pete’s sake.

I know I’m being neurotic, although I guess you already knew that. But still, I can’t get over it. I will forever hate this verb.

So what is it? Pad.

If a character pads down the hall, outside, inside, or into a room in socks, slippers, bare feet, or shoes, you can bet I’m cringing.

I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because the verb is so ubiquitous that it’s no longer fresh. But plenty of verbs are overused, and this is the only one that annoys me.

Your Turn

Are there any words that get under your skin?

Photo by mafleen.

Review: Love You Hate You Miss You