Tales of an Anthropologist in Teen World

How Things Change 2009-2012

2012-01-17T18:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, so last week I was home for several miserable days, with sick children and then a migraine (from being up all night with sick children). The end result was monotonous mindless internet clicking. Hours of it. And wow, an author with an upcoming book can find out a lot of stuff. More, really than anyone needs to see or know.

In late 2008/early 2009, when my first book came out, I wasn't on Twitter, not sure if ANYONE was, and Goodreads was around, but not nearly so all-emcompassing.

Now, I'm not going to get into the Goodreads fiasco, (fiascos?) that happened last week except in a roundabout way, discussing how the internet landscape (the endless distractions!) for an author have evolved. Ah Goodreads, we love you and we hate you. You can be an ego-booster or a complete downward spiral into suicidal depression (joking, joking...sort of).

I realize, in my rational brain that Goodreads isn't about authors, though tons of us are obviously on there.

Goodreads is all about the reviewers. It's a REVIEW site. I am so astounded and impressed by the amount of book blogs that have popped up since 2009. The features that seem to have been designed JUST to drive authors crazy, make a lot of sense for the reviewers.They can review as they read, post status updates, connect those to Twitter, discuss the books!

Goodreads is a community of readers, not a community of authors obsessively refreshing their pages. But those writers are absolutely out there, I was one last week. It was not...healthy.

Which is not to say I haven't refreshed twice in the last (30 seconds). I've been watching the numbers climb on my contest http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/18690-masque-of-the-red-death (50 copies, enter right away!) and when people post updates while they are reading, OMG, that is pure torture. But the thing is, they aren't posting these things for ME. and I know that.

As a person who wears a LOT of hats, (teacher, author, mother) I feel for authors who also try to review. I don't, because I'm no good at it. I do put ratings on Goodreads occasionally, but I've never done a review. I have a lot of respect for people who can get to the heart of a story, but I tend to read completely for diversion, or completely for study of the writing process, with little in-between. I respect reviewers, authors or not, who give negative reviews, because it's a lot harder to say what you don't like about a book than to just give it five stars. Or than to just give one star, to actually say WHY, that's hard and time consuming. I very much enjoy reading reviews, especially after I've read a book, to see if others shared my opinions. I am so glad there are book reviewers out there.

But as an author, you have to turn off your google-fu. This power to know what people are thinking about page 12 of your novel will not help you write another book, it may stymie you, forcing you to type a mere three words at a time before you refresh your various pages and searches. It leads to madness!

On the other hand, how cool that this information is out there! It helped divert me from the pain of my migraine, that's for sure!

Ubiquitous End of the Year Post

2011-12-31T15:16:00.000-08:00

Okay, so 2011 is a year that can be summarized in writing/publishing steps and milestones. I'd like to (happily) say that there was other stuff in there too, much of it good, some of it stressful.

Overall, my kids were happy, healthy, brilliant, and beautiful, with the exception of Ezra's face-plant in his school parking lot, which resulted in a few hours at the emergency room and having his tooth repaired. We took small trips this year, two trips to St. Louis, a trip to Indianapolis. A day trip to Cincinnati. Next year I have plans for bigger trips, but this was a year of small steps.

We put our house up for sale and spent 6 agonizing months keeping it clean, only for it not to sell. Lee lost his job and started a new job. A certain amount of uncertainty there, and looking at houses, and making important grown-up decisions, keeping track of things for taxes, eating my vegetables (I put on weight this year, but this isn't a list of resolutions, so I'll just keep my thoughts on that to myself).

But all in all, writing milestones dominated 2011.

January 2011- I was hard at work on a manuscript- my agent sent me an email in December saying he loved the pages I had sent him, and asking when it could be ready. From that point, until mid February, I wrote non-stop. In February, we wrote a description of the book for the DGLM newsletter, and at the same time I was polishing like crazy.

I've just scanned over email from that time period, which was super-fun. The difficulty writing a synopsis for book 2, the agony of waiting, the phone calls, the excitement. Wow!

So, Masque of the Red Death officially sold to GreenWillow books on March 3. After that came rounds of editing, and I have to say that it's a much better book now, much better for the editing with no changes in mood or story. Lots of revision during the summer, with short stints of working on book 2. And then there was the excitement of the cover, the ARCs, so much happening (though, at the time it didn't always seem that way.

I really am amazed, here at the end of the year, I have two careers that I love. I have two beautiful children, I have Lee, who is supportive and amazing, I have good friends, and family, and 2012 seems like it will be an even more amazing year. So great, that I wouldn't be completely shocked if the world did end in 2012.

Resolutions

Eat better- exercise more
Spend quality time with the kids instead of auto-pilot time. Ezra doesn't notice, but Noel does.
Don't stress about the things I can't control.

So, goodbye 2011, I will remember you fondly.

Lots of Free Copies of Masque!

2011-12-28T16:35:00.000-08:00

Wow, got up this morning and signed into the hotel internet (we were visiting friends in St. Louis) only to see that HarperTeen was giving away 50 copies (yeah, I had to stare at that number for awhile, too) of Masque of the Red Death on Goodreads. http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/18690-masque-of-the-red-death

Is Education Broken?

2011-12-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

After blogging last week about why we even go to school, I found myself less enthusiastic to write about education than I had expected. I think because of the time of year. Finishing finals, ready for a new batch of students (we're on semesters) gave me a certain sense of exhaustion and great happiness to have two weeks off.

But as election season heats up, it's inevitable that we hear the phrase over and over, 'our education system is broken'. And that combination of words makes me furious. How can something so big, so experimental, so unique to each student, be broken? And yet, it's a buzzword that gets repeated over and over.

So, let's start with some facts. The idea of educating every child in America didn't come about altruistically. Child labor laws were written to keep kids from 'taking' the jobs of adults, and resulting in gangs of youngsters roaming the streets of big cities. That was when it became mandatory for students to stay in school until the age of 16. The moral of that story is that not all laws were made with the best interests of the kids in mind, or at least not to specifically benefit the kids. And that to this day, you have a certain segment of the population being educated who are a little more than...resistant to the idea of being educated.

I've never been one to wring my hands and lament the state of kids these days, or the way parents have changed over the years. My philosophy is to take the things you can't change in stride and to keep going. But lately I've become more frustrated than I've ever been with apathy. I understand kids who miss homework assignments and even kids who stubbornly refuse to do difficult papers. I understand students who do a first draft and refuse to revise. I've been there and done all of that. What I don't understand is kids who are not interested in anything. Who, when given a chance to research, stare blankly at the computer and ask, 'what should I do?", when asked 'what are you interested in?" their answer is "nothing."

To be fair, this response is not the norm. I love seeing classes get off tangent asking about things that interest them (not that I let them get off tangent, of course). This year when we began research, one of my Sophomore English classes was fascinated by Jack the Ripper, the other by Waverly Hills (a local abandoned sanitarium that is regularly listed among the most haunted places in America). I love seeing their fascination with events and places and people that until this point they may never have heard of. (we basically discuss papers from the past and topics and ideas in a big brainstorming session).

But, back to apathy, we have always had people in the population who were uninterested in learning. The difference today, is perhaps a push to educate them to the same level as the people who want to learn. My solution (which no one will ever pay attention to, but still) is to allow the apathetic to go work at McDonalds and then provide them with incentives to finish their education when they are 25. Not a GED test, but some actual classes that could prepare them for college. And, since that's too complicated (though I do think that a good many young people would do better in high school and college if they weren't so young) to offer more and varied vocational classes. I'm all for creating an educated thoughtful citizenship, but...when learning is what the kids decide to rebel against, and when fundamental rebellion against the ideas of others is so much a basic of what our nation is about...well, you get a segment of our young population who simply do not do well in school, and who baffle and frustrate even the most well-intentioned of educators.

I wish I had a magic want that would fix education problems, but it comes down to....every student is different, every day is different, every learning opportunity is different. And when you are fifteen, staying up all night playing video games, dieting on Mt, Dew and crackers, and using all of your brain power during class to think of ways to sneak out your phone and send a text, all seem like good ideas.

Oh, to be young again....

Teaching Wonder part 1- Why do we come to school?

2011-12-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've been thinking about education lately. My role (as teacher), the role of the students and of assessment and how and why education is changing and should change in the information age.

And what I've come up with is...(drum roll please) a sense of wonder. A sense of wonder is...what drives people to learn new things. Because let's face it, if you only learn things for 13 years (counting Kindergarten) or for six years of college (which is how long it took me to earn my five year Master's Degree) then how sad would your life be? A sense of wonder is what makes us read books and magazines and articles and sometimes look stuff up on Wikipedia and *shudder* Urban Dictionary. A sense of Wonder is what makes us want to know more, it's the basis for science and for philosophy and probably for math even though I rarely wonder about that. The math I do, however, is about wondering. How much house can I afford? How much will I be paying for it? Wonder is what makes us expand our minds, even when we don't have to. And if we as humans, weren't willing to do that, well, we'd probably still all be working little patches of farm land and never going beyond our personal horizons.

Little kids have an abundance of that sense of wonder. How many questions can a child ask per minute? The number of questions is limited only by the complexity of the question, the pause as the adult tries to answer the question, and the speed at which the child can articulate the thoughts that are tumbling about in the spin cycle of their mind. Ezra and Noel come home from their Montessori school fascinated by plant systems and parts of trees and this last week synonyms (which Noel pronounces in a way that makes me vaguely hungry for Cinnabon). But by the time students get to high school, that sense of wonder seems to mostly be gone. I'm going to argue that it's still there, albeit under the surface. I'm also going to argue that cynicism is not necessarily the antithesis of wonder. (Just a good way to camouflage it). This may be self serving because I tend to be cynical and like to be around other cynics, but I will argue in nonetheless.

This week, I'm blogging about education, with a focus on that illusive and marvelous sense of wonder, because I think it's what education has to be about in the information age. Now, there must be more tangible results to education than just the sense of wonder. Education must be about comprehension, and analysis. But in reality that's just creating a framework for understanding all of the things you discover as you wander through the subjects that entice you.

Let's take history, one of my favorite subjects, as an example. There is no possible way that your history teachers can teach you every facet and fact of American history, or Western History, much less the history of the rest of the world. And hopefully the role of the History teacher is not just to make students learn lists of dates and meaningless facts. It is to connect those facts in a way to make sense, to give students an overview of enough history that they understand how to make sense of history. So they understand the broad implications of historical events as well as the more individual repercussions of change.

The same concept applies to literature. As an English teacher, my job is not to teach all the books and stories in the world, it's to teach students how to understand literature. That's where the balance comes in, and it's a precarious one. How do you teach without making the wonder go away?

Kate wins the ARC

2011-11-27T11:35:00.000-08:00

Noel and I just spent a grueling hour (not really but it seemed like it) writing all the names on florescent yellow slips of paper and putting them in the spiderman bucket.

Here she is picking the name out of Spidermans' head.

And the Winner is...Kate. Which was obviously meant to be because she is thankful for The Talisman which is one of my favorite books in the world!

What books are you thankful for?

2011-11-17T06:33:00.000-08:00

Want one of the first ARCs of Masque of the Red Death? Read on....

Okay so, it's that time of year...Thanksgiving. One of my favorite holidays because it's relaxing and no-one gives my kids gallons and gallons of candy (we still have a huge Halloween stash, and I actually just found and threw away a sad half eaten Easter bunny). The trees have lost their leaves, and the weather is getting genuinely cold (I heard a rumor about snow soon, but I'm ignoring it).

And at Thanksgiving, the tradition is to...give thanks? So that's what I'm going to do today. Sitting in my favorite chair with my space heater at my feet...I am thankful for my books...

Most of my books are actually in storage from when we were "staging" our house, so what you are seeing is my TBR stacks, my recently read stacks, the complete series of the X-files...a few albums owned by my husband, and our "classic" shelves. Which aren't classics to most people, just to us.

I am so so so thankful for books. Most of the periods of my life that I consider most bleak are times when I did not have time to read. I need books.

One thing I realized as I was composing this, is that I have trouble gushing about books. I want to keep using the phrase blew me away, because a really good book just makes me forget everything, I can't put it down. I lose track of the world around me. And yet, describing that, it comes across a little flat.

Anyway, here are some books I'm thankful for...

Flowers for Algernon- It was a book that made me look at the world in a different way, it forced you to walk in someone else's shoes.

The Giver- It seems lots of YA writers were inspired by The Giver, at least I see the influence everywhere, it was just one of those books that blew me away.

The Time Traveller's Wife- Another book that blew me away, so imaginative, and so...evocative, and so contemporary in so many ways.

The Witching Hour- I love so many Anne Rice books, but the history in The Witching Hour and Lasher made me appreciate a different type of storytelling...

The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye- this isn't my usual type of book, I think it's considered a romance? It was a historical romance that I read as a teen, one of those sweeping can't put the book down experiences.

Looking for Alaska- this and Speak were the first YA books that wowed me, every line seemed to be pure genius.

The Road- yes it's bleak. Yes, there are scenes that still haunt me, but the writing, omg. Has any writer ever described horror so beautifully?

Okay, so tell me a book that you are thankful for, and maybe follow my blog (I don't post much, but when I do, it can be interesting...maybe?) Anyway, post and I'll sign you up for a chance to win the ARC. The contest lasts all week, and I'll draw the winners name, probably on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and mail it out the next monday! International entries are fine.

Here's what you would be winning...

There may be a few of these out in the wild, but very few. You'd be one of the first to get one!!!!

Cover Love on YA Fusion

2011-11-06T10:23:00.000-08:00

I blogged today at YA Fusion blog about cover love, post your favorite cover and be entered to win a sign copy of Kelly Creagh's Nevermore! http://yafusion.blogspot.com/2011/11/cover-as-work-of-art.html

Here is the Polish cover for Kelly's book. Totally in love with this!

In Which I Reflect and Make an Attempt at Painful Honesty

2011-10-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

It’s funny, when things are going great, how easy it is to forget (or not talk about) the times when things didn’t go so well. Last night, posting pictures of my ARC, which had just come in the mail, I told some friends that I was going to write a blog post about how, a year ago, I was ready to give up.

But then I immediately thought, how could I have been ready to give up when I was frantically writing Masque?

And I wondered if it was okay to write a post that would draw attention to the fact that not only is this process not effortless, but that I’m not a shiny new debut. My book is shiny, but I'm not shiny at all!

The first novel that I ever completed and polished was published…way back at the end of 2008. I won’t say that it wasn’t a great accomplishment; I’m very proud of it. But afterwards there was a long difficult period. I struggled to keep writing in a genre that wasn’t my true literary love. I tried to write a book that would be the right follow up to a book that had come from somewhere inside of me, and had no logical follow up. There were three complete manuscripts between Handcuffs and Masque, and one of them is, in my opinion the best draft I’ve ever written. Masque in its current state is by far my best book, but the other one, the one that hasn’t happened yet, I don’t know. I opened it the other day and read a few pages and I still loved it.

Between December 2008 and February 2011, there were a lot of ups and downs.

I frequently tell the students in my creative writing classes that if I knew without a doubt, if I could look into the future and know that I would never publish another book, that I would scrap the revision process. If my stories were just for me, then they could just float around, an ephemeral haze in my head. I like making up stories and characters. The rest of it is hard work. But with no ability to look into the future, I just kept writing. Signing with my current agent was a major boost of self-esteem, but when a book that we both loved didn't sell, that was hard.

So, looking back to the October of a year ago, I can say that I was on an emotional precipice. I couldn’t stop writing Masque. I was writing it in moments of downtime, staying up to late, getting up early the next morning…the book excited me, but there was also a little edge of crazy peeking out, and my husband said more than once, if you don’t sell this one, I don’t know what you are going to do. He knows me better than anyone, and he was genuinely worried about me.

I do think it’s possible that I need a little edge of crazy to write the things I write. But he's known me for a long time and he was nervous. If I’d had time to stop writing, I don't doubt that I would’ve been nervous too.

When I wasn’t writing, there was this hard emotion that might have been defeat. It was flat and colorless and heavy, I didn’t like it, so I didn’t give myself much downtime.

And now I’m holding this ARC. And people are adding it on Goodreads, bloggers have been kind enough to feature the cover, to say they are looking forward to its release.

It’s easy to bask in that. It’s easy to be hopeful, because this book is (I think) as dark and as beautiful as its cover. It was so well edited and polished (at my editor’s direction, I can take little credit there), that reading it makes me feel oddly giddy, and giddy is an odd emotion for me to admit to.

But as I write the sequel, I remind myself how bleak things looked last year, when this book was going forward because I was afraid of the silence when I wasn’t writing.

I’ve matured as a writer, and I’ve become less and less afraid of the dark corners of my mind. And hopefully that will help bridge the gap between shiny and effortless and…whatever I am now.

Hand Writing...that is...Writing By Hand

2011-10-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Lately I've felt...not so much uninspired, but over-booked. Too tired to write much. It makes the few hours that I have to write superbly precious, and that makes me nervous, so I sit and stare at the screen or play around online, or look for distractions.

I don't actually know if I believe in writer's block or not. Is it a really thing? A mental thing? Is there any difference?

I have a whole arsenal of things that I try to do when I'm lackadaisical about writing. But lately, what's really been working for me is writing by hand. By which I mean, actually taking a pen (preferably an expensive one)

(I own two or three of each color). I also keep a separate notebook for each project. Sometimes I jot down scenes in the notebook, sometimes I write down ideas, or work on an actual outline of sorts. I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a big fan of office supplies.

I'd say that in general I write about 1/4 of a novel out by hand. There's just something visceral about actually writing the words down, and I sort of like having sketchy first versions. Also, by the time I type a first draft, it's really a 1.5 draft because I'm thinking about the words as I put them on paper.

The other thing is that, when the words are in my notebook, there's a certain style to them...I have this childish pleasure in filling up pages with words. In a word processor you never get that pleasure, because who ever filled their word processor up to the brim? It has endless capacities to store the words you haven't written yet. Useful and daunting.

Now, I'm writing this post on a brand new MacBook Air, so I don't think anyone could say I was anti-technology in my leanings. But...especially with a scene that I've been building up in my head, sometimes I just have to put it down on paper before it reaches the word processor.

Poe Everywhere

2011-09-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I blogged over at YA Fusion about the sudden popularity of Poe. If anyone has time, check it out!
http://yafusion.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-comes-around-goes-around-all.html

Edgar Allan Bro

2011-08-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm going to use my blogger acct today to post these hilarious pictures.

A friend sent me this awhile back, and then last night when I was showing my husband I googled Edgar Allan Bro and found so much to love!

According to Urban Dictionary

edgar allan bro	63 up, 5 down
	A melodramatically depressed bro who expresses himself poetically. Listens to Snow Patrol, Thursday, and Taking Back Sunday. Josh is being such an Edgar Allan Bro, all writing morbid poems on his livejournal. Stop writing poems on your LJ, and quit being such an Edgar Allan Bro! Oh and my personal favorite. I am extremely intrigued about the Poe movie being released in 2012 with John Cusack playing Poe. And the possible Poe television show coming out this year. Will do research and see what I can discover about these this week.

World Building

2011-08-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

This is not a world building how-to, this is just me musing for a few minutes about world building in general.

In the past six months I've read a ton of fantasy, science fiction and urban fantasy novels. I read lots YA titles, including A Need so Beautiful, Matched, Wither, Divergent, Delirium, White Cat and Red Glove, The Demons's Surrender, Blood Red Road, Across the Universe, Black Hole Sun, Clockwork Angel, The Dark and Hollow Places and various others that I am forgetting, not because they are forgettable, but because it's early on a Sunday morning. I also read some great adult titles. I read Jacqueline Carey's newest trilogy, and (like everyone else in America I bought A Dance with Dragons the day it was released) and in preparation I reread the entire series, which was quite an undertaking. On the plane back from LA last week I read His Majesty's Dragon, which I loved. In fact I just ordered the next 3 books in the series. Oh, and in between books read several of the Dresden Files novels. Those are always fun.

Anyway, I have to admit that I don't notice world building unless it's bad or doesn't work. I'm much much much more aware of characters.

I think that my favorite world building is a sort of vague world building that grows as you go...so you don't have to take in too much at once. A sort of hazy fairy-tale style world building. I like figuring things out, and I guess I just open books and believe in the world...I have complete suspension of disbelief until something makes me not believe. Anyway, I tend to begin things as a vague world-builder. And I know vagueness isn't really a positive attribute when it comes to world building. Specificity and detail are the goals you want to set. As I go through revision 3.5 on A Masque of the Red Death, I find myself very grateful to my editor because she's forcing me to get a subplot that's clear in my head, clearer in the manuscript. And I'm getting a chance to scatter in a few more details to make the world move vivid, and one more chance to streamline (and what author would do that on their own?).

While I would love to be done, and to be able to focus 100% on the sequel, which I am getting pretty excited about, I'm glad that this book is going to be the best it can be.

I don't read many reviews, but I've seen some of the books from my spring/summer reading spree have been criticized for world building issues. I'm well aware that books get criticized by reviewers, and that taste is subjective. But if Masque does get criticized, it won't be because I didn't work hard enough on this manuscript. At the end of this revision, I think the world, and the motivations of the people within the world, will be as clear as I can make them.

I realized this week that the opening of my sequel, which I LOVE was working on every level except setting. I was missing the dark dreary landscape of book 1 (because the sequel starts outside the city). So when I created a new dark and dreary landscape, it all just worked together, and I'm so ready to dig in and really write this thing.

So that, is my Sunday morning musing about world building.

Teen Kryptonite- Braces on the teeth.

2011-07-07T11:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, what I really want to convey today, is that my teeth hurt. I had braces some years ago, and then I lost my retainers. Fast forward a decade or more. (More) and now I have invisaligns. And the HURT.

The thing is, as not-teens, we forgot how bad things like braces are. The first day I had these (and invisaligns are NOT as bad as the regular metal ones) I thought, how on earth would a kid focus? eat? not burst into tears. And yet thousand and thousands (probably zillions) of kids are walking into classrooms reeling with pain from braces. Do we, as adults, even consider this?

Add this distraction to a million others, and I can say with certainty that I do not ever want to relive high school, as much as I love to write about it.

You don't see much mention of braces in YA books. You can't really blame the authors, kids are getting braces younger and younger these days, so most YA characters would have probably had their braces removed...I had really bad teeth...so I wore mine until I was 16? I remember the day I had mine put on, crying because I couldn't eat pizza. But the best story by far was in Algebra...or possibly Algebra 2. It involves a ridiculous crush and an atomic fireball.

To understand my story, you would have to know that not only did I have braces, but they were hinged on the side. So if I opened my mouth too wide...well, I couldn't open my mouth very wide, and there was this youch moment when I tried. You might also know that I was inordinately proud of my ability to weather the agony of the atomic fireball. And if you've never encountered an atomic fireball, they are jawbreakers that go from sweet to incredibly, painfully, hot.

It might also help the reader to understand that I had a mild crush on the boy who sat in front of me. Mild in that, I knew in my logical mind that even if he ever noticed me, it would never work out. He was a mathematical nerd and I was an English geek. No way. He showed enthusiasm for equations and scorn for Shakespeare. We were never going to happen. But, I still was mildly in love with him...and sometimes could forget the incompatible natures of our individual uncoolness.

I hated that class. Couldn't force myself to pay attention even if I wanted to (which I'm ashamed to say that I mostly didn't). But a nice piece of candy could serve as a distraction. So, I popped an atomic fireball into my mouth. At first it was fine. I rolled it around in my mouth. The teacher was talking about something. I opened my notebook and doodled. The fireball got really hot. I spit it out and let my mouth cool down...and then put it back in. It was back to a sweet layer, no big deal...until I rolled it over to the side of my jaw, and it got lodged behind the hinge. Still not that big of a deal, except, it was getting hotter. Hotter and hotter until the skin was evaporating off of my tongue and my mouth was on fire! And it was totally stuck! Until I hit my jaw with the side of my hand, and the atomic fireball shot out of my mouth and hit my incompatible math-crush in the back of his head!

As if that wasn't bad enough, it landed on my desk, all gooey and gross. And, at least in my memory, he turned around and gave me this look of mixed confusion and scorn. Confusion and scorn...the building blocks of adolescent angst.

Have I mentioned that my teeth hurt?

New Post- YA Fusion

2011-07-04T08:50:00.001-07:00

Just posted about drama vs melodrama over at YA Fusion. http://yafusion.blogspot.com/

Going to be keeping my summer resolutions and blogging 3X a week...for the rest of eternity.

Stress

2011-07-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Today I'm thinking about stress. Right this minute, I'm waiting to see if an offer we made on a house yesterday is going to be accepted. Tomorrow I will be stressed while an inspector goes through my current home, checking to see if it is acceptable... The life of a writer is filled with stress. Waiting to see if the behind the scenes people like your work, crit groups, agents, editors. Then waiting to see how the public feels about it. I try to take the long view. Things will work out for the best. Even my long period of struggling to find the write thing to write, my period of rejection and woe, ended with better results than I could have imagined.

Teens have a lot of stress, too. Decisions they make can define, not the rest of their lives...but they can have enough impact that it seems so. Choosing a college. Picking the right classes and making good enough grades to get into that college...who you are friends with, where you go, what you do when you get there...things that seem of little consequence in retrospect can be huge when you are in high school.

Maybe that's why sometimes like books with huge stakes. We like to forget the smaller stresses, will I get the loan? will I get the grade? does he like me or not? Is someone taking about me? what are they saying? I would love to be a totally calm human being. A person who could gamble or make important decisions without being reduced to a quivering pile of self-questioning jelly. Even now, I question that metaphor. The self-questioning is bad enough, as a modifier for the jelly, but why would jelly ever be in a pile?

Revision Heaven? Or Revision Hell?

2011-04-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

Ah, revisions. I actually love them. At least, I love the product. I love to see the story get better, to be better than I ever thought it to be, or to reach the loftiness of my vision for it, or whatever. So you would think I'd be in revision heaven, since I'm doing revisions on the book formerly known as THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH but I think I'm actually in can't make enough time for revisions hell. Here's why:

A. I need more quality time to revise than I do to draft. When I'm writing, I can jot down ideas, bits of dialogue, some description, anywhere I go. But to revise I need to immerse myself in the manuscript, and I just can't do that right now. Despite daylight savings time, my weekdays seem to be getting shorter. And my weekend time keeps getting erased- my birthday, Thunder over Louisville (the opening of the Derby--and the following Derby festivities, three weeks of them!) I bowed out of the senior trip to Disney, but there's still Easter, there's Prom, and then end of school. End of school is already an issue for me because I have to make decisions about being there for my own kids or for my students. Most of the time I'm sending Lee and my mom to Kindergarten award ceremonies, because I just can't get away. Especially not when I'm administering finals. I'm still working, going from scene to scene, and I've worked out some time to really dig into the manuscript. But I want that time to be right now. Instead it seems like I'm trying to get things done so that I can immerse myself in the manuscript in the near future...I'm trudging up a big hill or something, and I mostly just want to take a nap.

Speaking of naps...which means speaking of sleeping, I woke up this morning, slept in, thought about the story, and thought of some little nuanced detail that I wanted to add. And then, I FORGOT. Let me say that I never do this. I think of ideas in the middle of the night, and I pretty much alway remember them. But this idea drifted away, leaving me with the mere feeling that it evoked in me. The feeling was a (probably incorrect) impression that this tiny little detail was going to be amazing. So forgetting it has of course, plunged me into despair. Or, rather, the despair of mild annoyance. Is that a thing? It is for me.

B. The grass is always greener on the other side. When I'm writing something new, I stare at the blank screen and wish I had pages of words to rearrange and play with. When I'm staring at all these words I wrote, I think how refreshing and wonderful a blank page is. How much I'd love to write some brand new scenes, even some new characters! I think when it comes down to it, revision is closer to the finished product, so that's what I'd rather do. But...I've figured out that there's a point in a draft, up to about 200 pages for me, where I can hold everything in my head. And then, there's a point where I can't. When I get to that point, things get harder. Luckily I know this manuscript really well. I think, to get rid of the drafting itch, I might start jotting down notes./scenes for Masque book 2. Which means time to go to Office Depot for a new notebook/folder!

In conclusion, I might be on the brink of Revision Heaven. What I have is a manuscript I love, some great suggestions for improving it, some nice pens, fancy sticky notes, and a highlighter. What I need is more quality time and a brain with a little more memory--a gigabyte would be great! Yay for revisions!

(But what about revision Nirvana...that...would be something).

Messy vs Sterile- Why I like Post-Apocalyptic slightly better than Dystopian

2011-03-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, let me begin by saying I quite enjoy a good Dystopian book. The Giver is the only Middle Grade book on my list of all time favorite books. I love that Book. I love Jonas, and Gabe, and Asher who gets a smack instead of a snack...love. And the Handmaid's Tale is also on my list of top books. The first time I read The Handmaid's Tale, I was underwhelmed. I was in college, and taking a break from reading through the collected works of Robert Jordan, I think there were like 8 of them then, and I was sort of enthralled by epically epic fantasy. The second time I read the book I had a daughter, and I cried through a big part of the book. I LOVED it.

So, I do love that YA is embracing Dystopian Literature. In the last month I read both Matched and Delirium, and enjoyed both.

But at the end of Matched, the thing that stood out to me was that I prefer the messiness of Post-Apocalyptic fiction to the sterility of Dystopian. That I wanted a book that takes place at that crossroads, at the point where things have gotten so bad that a Dystopian government would seem like a good thing! And then I realized that I sort of had. :) But I'd like to read a futuristic one. It's one of the reasons I love the first Hunger Games so much more than the sequels. Though Panem is, of course, Dystopian, the Seam, and the arena in the Hunger Games have that grim element that seems more Post-Apocalyptic...not so grim as say, The Road, which is the grimmest of the grim, and beautiful in a haunting (and grim) way. But definitely (I refuse to say grim again) dark.

Both types of literature embody my favorite motifs...being trapped, and the essence of what makes us human.

But Dystopian is just so much messier, and the messiness of humanity fascinates me. The highs and the lows. The atrocities and the acts of selflessness...the things that make life worthwhile, even when the status symbols that define worth in modern life have been stripped away. Like Larry in Stephen King's The Stand. Larry is a songwriter who has just released his first single...days before a superflu wipes out the population of the earth. So he has to figure out the new rules and how to survive like everyone else. Of course he also blew all of his money on partying and drugs, but, the thing is...he got the thing that every musician dreams of...and then the world ended. That Stephen King knows how to torture his characters. Another Stephen King example is the world of The Gunslinger in the Dark Tower series. The world has "moved on" and the old rules no longer apply. There are slow mutants who have been radiated, and machines that are running down...and a society that is likewise running down. Fascinating.

So, now I think I want to read some post-apocalyptic YA books...I recently read Life As We Knew It, and wasn't in love with it, but I ordered the sequel because it sounded more appealing to me. Anyone have any other post-apocalyptic YA titles to recommend to me? It seems I've seen quite a few on PM, but not so many are on shelves...at least not mine!

I...HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT NEXT YEAR!

2011-03-05T06:30:00.001-08:00

This is going to be a short post. Cause really, this says everything I want to say.

Children's:
Young Adult

Bethany Griffin's MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, a post-Apocalyptic reimagining of Poe's gothic horror story of the same name, in which a girl trying to escape everything holds not only her own life in her hands, but also those of two boys warring for her heart...and the fate of her crumbling society, to Martha Mihalick at Greenwillow Books, in a three-book deal, for publication in Summer 2012, by Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (NA).

I am so excited! I love this book. I loved writing this book. I can't wait to jump into the sequel (though the revisions seem likely to come before I've done more than write a few scenes). But, I also can't wait to revise and see the improvements unfold!

Here is a much longer description!

Death is impossible and living is impossibly hard for seventeen-year-old Araby Worth inBethany Griffin‘s The Masque of the Red Death, a sexy, post-Apocalyptic reimagining of Poe’s gothic horror story of the same name. The year is 1870 and a deadly virus has decimated the population of North America. Masked corpse-collectors travel the streets, removing the bodies before the contagion can spread. Though Araby tries to escape it all with drugs and parties, even at her most intoxicated she can’t forget her brother’s death-or her guilt for causing it. But things begin to change when William, the fascinating proprietor of the club where she searches for oblivion, and Elliott, nephew of the insane dictator, enter her life. One wants her heart, the other her name. Convinced that he has won over his uncle’s army, Elliott believes that having Araby on his arm will charm the populace into supporting a new government. After all, her father is the inventor of the mask which prevents the spread of the plague-for those who can afford it. In return, Araby asks that he make protective masks available to all citizens, which could save the lives of Will’s young siblings, whom she has come to care about. But nothing is what it seems. A new contagion called the Red Death is sweeping the city. The revelation that Araby’s father may have created the new virus in his laboratory puts Araby’s life in danger. The mob wants her. The rebels want her. And both boys want her. In this two-book series, what and who Araby chooses may just decide the fate of humanity.

On Writing Something Completely Different

2011-02-26T20:38:00.000-08:00

I don't really know how to start this post...so I guess I'll start by admitting that the first novel I wrote (in this case novel is synonymous with a whole bunch of dot-matrix printer paper that I put in a box) was a vampire novel inspired by Anne Rice and my fascinating experiences as a 10th grader.

With that being said, (mostly because I tried a lot of other ways to start this post and discarded all of them) :) I will address the fact that in the last couple years, I've changed many things about the voice, style, and scope of my stories.

I guess the best way to understand is to drift back to the circumstances in my life when I wrote Handcuffs. I had a one year old and a three year old. I wanted to do something for myself, to get back to the creative self that I had sort of left behind in graduate school and marriage and being an intern teacher. But I wasn't ready for intense world building. I hadn't slept for a full night in 3 years!

And there were a lot of things about Handcuffs that were cathartic. High school demons exorcised (okay that was a bit too dramatic), how about impressions about the awfulness of high school that I wanted to try to express.

And there's a lot of me in Parker, the main character in Handcuffs.

A few years later, I had an idea. I wasn't sure if I could carry it out. I questioned myself constantly. But I jumped into it, and the results have felt pretty right.

What I came up with was a mix of gothic, historical, dark, with some romantic/sexy elements. Now that my kids are older, I have enough sleep to tackle world building! I'm not planning any more big changes. I have a new idea bouncing around in my head. Haven't talked about it yet, except with my poor sounding board husband and my favorite YA librarian, but it's very gothic/victorian, dark, and sexy, with no reference to Edgar Allan Poe at all. I'm very excited about it.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering...I have less desire to ever write about the vampires I envisioned in 10th grade, than I do to try to load my laser printer with yellowing dot matrix paper... :)

In Defense of Teens

2011-02-24T18:43:00.001-08:00

This assignment was to explore three teen stereotypes. I think she did a fabulous job!

We’re Not How You Think We Are

By Leah Byars

“No!” she screamed. The door slammed shut as the mother raced toward her daughter’s room.

“Young lady you open this door right now or I’ll-“

“You’ll what? God, you’re so useless! I hate you! I just wish you’d go away! NEVER talk to me again!”

This is what most people think when they hear the word ‘teenager’. Moody, angst-ridden, unappreciative, lazy, immature idiots who can’t understand anything beyond what’s happening on their Twitter account.

Well, just in case you adults out there have forgotten a thing or two about when you were a teenager- and yes, you were one once- let me clear things up.

For one thing, we are NOT lazy, we’re tired. Let’s break down a typical teenager’s day:

· Wake up at 5 am to shower, get ready for school, and finish last minute homework you didn’t have time to do the night before.

· Spend the next eight hours at school trying to learn while keeping up with who’s dating who, why your best friend is suddenly mad at you, and trying to avoid your long time crush that you accidently spit on yesterday.

· School’s over. Now it’s time to stay after two hours for tutoring, play practice, basketball practice, and to finish that term paper due tomorrow.

· If you have a job, you spend the next four hours slaving behind a driv-thu window listening to the complaints of the customers.

· Time to go home and do at least an hour of homework.

· After your parents complain for the third time, it’s time to do your daily chores of walking the dog, doing the dishes, and taking out the garbage.

· Now check Facebook. You don’t want accidently miss something and be accused of ignoring your friends.

· Shower again and fall into bed around 11 at night. Be prepared to start the whole thing over again tomorrow.

With all this on our plates, can you blame us for wanting to take a nap instead of folding the clothes? Can you blame us for wanting to spend 10 minutes doing what WE want to do instead of doing something for YOU?

Second, we’re not unappreciative. We love the fact that you care. We love the fact that you buy things for us. The thing is, sometimes we get things we don’t want nor need. That sweater you bought us last Christmas? With the light up Christmas tree? The one that you wanted us to wear to school the day before Christmas Break? Really, we appreciate the thought, but there’s no denying the fact that that sweater is an eye-sore and you know it. Of course, when we try to tell you this, we’re called unappreciative. Spoiled. Ungrateful. We’re being honest, but you don’t want to hear it. This doesn’t just stop at clothes, though. If we say one thing that you really don’t want to hear, then you lash out.

Last, we are not immature. At least, not completely. We’re young, and still have some growing up to do. Yes, we giggle about sex. Yes, we make perverted jokes. That doesn’t, however, make us stupid. We are just as capable of making decisions as you are and we’d appreciate it if you didn’t use our age against us when we state our opinion.

Let me, the writer of this paper, provide an example. I told a family member of mine that the guy she was dating was irritating and that I didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. She lashed out, saying that I was spoiled and immature, and how did I know what I was talking about? After all, I was only 16.

Yes, I am only 16, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know a jerk when I see one. That doesn’t mean I can’t tell this relationship is doomed. Just because I’m a teenager doesn’t mean I’m incapable of having and intelligent opinion. So don’t underestimate us teenagers. Sometimes we can be pretty smart.

The basic point that I’m trying to drive in is this: Adults, you honestly don’t know what a modern teenager is like because you AREN’T one. You were one once, but you’ve grown up. I’m not trying to say that adults don’t work hard and don’t have their issues, I’m saying teens have a lot going on too, and we’re dealing with it. So before you start up with the stereotypes of what you think we’re like, take some time to actually talk to us. Then you’ll get the real story.

The Most Appalling Thing...

2011-02-22T14:43:00.000-08:00

The most appalling thing I heard today, from the mouth of a 9th grader, was If Fight Club was a book, I wouldn't want to read that! Ah, such a big if.

Reminds me of a joke my beloved spouse and his used bookstore co-workers have been known to entertain themselves with

.
Customer- brings up copy of Fellowship of the Ring.
Bookstore worker- Man! I hate it when they take a movie and then make a book out of it. Customer- Um no--
Other Bookstore Worker--I know, right? I hate that too. Like those awful Star Wars Books!
Bookstore Worker- that sucks. Why would they do that?
Customer- I'm pretty sure it was a book first--
Bookstore Worker-- so frustrating...novelizations...(sighs dramatically)

Please note- none of these bookstore workers are even close to as amusing as their (apparent) idol. Jack Black in High Fidelity (see below)

The Fight Club thing came up in a conversation about YA Lit. We were reading an article that suggests that no divisions are needed between YA and Adult lit. One of the assertions of the article was that it's actually insulting to have a separate category for teens.

For the most part, my teen readers (I have two YA Lit classes) did not feel ghettoized by their YA selections. Okay, none of them felt ghettoized. Our school is pretty non-ghetto. A few didn't see any particular reasons for the distinction, and one said he had no desire to read adult literature (this is a kid who has been eating up the books on our list, a smart kid) who said "they" should just make adult books into movies so he wouldn't have to bother reading them.

Oddly, and I know we always hear that teen boys don't read YA argument, I haven't been seeing teen boys read much else lately. My aide is reading Ender's Game, but he got from me recommended shelf. A few years ago I saw a constant stream of boys reading King's Dark Tower series, but I'm not seeing that this year.

I'm also seeing teen boys reading more books with female protagonists. And not seeming particularly worried about anyone knowing it.

Now, I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that students who signed up for YA lit are reading...YA Lit, though some of them primarily signed up for the Speculative Fiction class that I'm teaching in the 9 week term following the YA Lit class. And, it includes my sophomore English class.

We heard more complaints about classes and teachers that do not allow YA books on the curriculum, and honestly, those are mostly AP classes.

I am pleased/thrilled/ecstatic to spend my days among teens who love to read. And that is awesome enough to make the appalling thing a little...a little less appalling.

Rumors!

2011-02-17T18:28:00.000-08:00

I got a fun taste of high school this week, when I heard a rumor, about me! I heard this week that I can be counted among the ranks of pregnant (there are actually 3 of them at my school) teachers.

Since I first heard the rumor in my afternoon YA lit class, and since rumors do crop up in YA lit, I tried to follow the thing back to the source. But like most rumors, it wasn't easy (and I can't say I was particularly successful in finding where it came from).

Well, here's one tip I can give you if you don't want people to suspect you might be with child...don't carry around a baby name book if you don't want people to think you are pregnant. I was carrying my favorite baby name book, Cool Names for Babies, all last week. Cause I have this idea that won't leave me alone, and I the new characters needed names.

But...everyone in my school knows I'm a writer. Writes get to be eccentric, right? I have an entire rack of baby name books for creative writing class! So, according to my bff the librarian, a student was asking how a certain author came up with names in a book, and she mentioned my baby name book, and someone else interjected, oh, I thought she was pregnant. Case solved?

I don't know. I also said the word pregnant in my 3rd block literature class. It came up innocently. We were discussing my mismatched contact lenses. I'm stuck with a clear and a blue, because I've been too lazy/distracted/phone-phobic to call and order new contacts. One of the kids asked why I wear colored contacts. I could have given the real answer (eyes are the window to the soul so I got shutters for mine) or um, vanity! but, instead I launched this long and quite boringly true explanation of how, during my pregnancies, I did not want to color my hair, but I needed some pizazz, so, I got colored contacts. Lame? probably. Did I say I am pregnant therefore I am wearing these mismatched contact lenses? No. But, I may have said the word pregnant. So, maybe I started the rumor myself. Teens are rather famous for their selective hearing. Teens and my late grandma, who couldn't hear anything anyone said to her, but could hear anything anyone even muttered ABOUT her.

So two days after I first heard the rumor, I still don't know where it started. I do know (snuggling the baby name book) that I would have loved to name a few more kids. Naming kids was the BEST part of the actual 9 months of pregnancy.

But since there are not going to be any more kids, I guess I have to find solace in naming characters. Looking forward to starting a new book soon!

Look, a new edition of Cool Names for Baby! I can't wait to carry it everywhere!

Character Arcs- Avatar (the Last Airbender)

2011-02-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

So, I have two little kids, and a full 2/3 of the movies I see are kids movies. And, I don't really mind because kids movies are awesome. I am so impressed by the storytelling in movies from Pixar, and some others (it's no secret that I LOVED Megamind).

But I've never loved children's shows. Until Avatar the Last Airbender. I actually remember when the show came out (this is embarrassing) because I'd just learned the term avatar, and was trying to use it in as many sentences as possible. Sentences like, have you seen the rockin' avatar I'm using on Myspace? Yeah, my avatar? It's awesome, right? In my own defense, my myspace avatar was awesome...

See it, it rotates, my avatar rotates! And yeah Myspace was the PLACE TO BE. But, back to the point, I never watched the show until some friends shared it with us. And even when we started watching, I wasn't hooked. But after halfway through the first season. Yeah, I was.

Here's the thing...most children's shows have stagnant characters, and, that's probably somewhat normal...my kids understand that SpongeBob is clueless, that Squidward is mean, that Mr. Crabs only wants money. I got them through a terrible live rendition of A Christmas Carol by comparing Mr. Scrooge to Mr. Crabs...but as a more sophisticated viewer (and my six year old is a more sophisticated viewer) gets bored by cardboard cut out characters...you get introduced to something like Avatar the Last Airbender.

Prince Zuko was my favorite character transformation, but all the main characters grew and changed over the 3 seasons of the show. I do not usually love sweet goody goody characters, but Aang, is probably my true favorite character.

The conflict between Zuko and Aang, set up perfectly in season 1, the Storm, is just amazing. Because you feel for both characters and you know that however much you feel for the characters, they can never both achieve their current goals, because they are in direct opposition to one another. I...wow...I'm not a big expert on antagonist/protagonist relationships...but after watching the show from beginning to end many times...well, I know more than I did before!

I won't talk about the movie. It makes me sad for multiple reasons, but...it has no bearing here.

AS a writer, if you want to learn about transforming a character, watch for Zuko's episodes...if you want to see a wise and humorous mentor (hero's journey, anyone?) watch for Uncle Iroh. If you want to see a great example of a character struggling with an impossible moral dilemma, watch the last four episodes as gentle vegetarian Aang deals with the possibility that the only way he can bring peace is to kill the the fire lord. If you want a female struggling with a patriarchal society, watch for Katara. And if you want a funny guy who never stops being endearing, well, if you've watched the show, you know that's Sokka. The episode in season 3 where he trains with the swordmaster is so great!. And Toph? I love the season 2 episodes with the scams, called The Runaway, has great character building and relationship building between Toph and Katara.

I really can't say enough good things about the show. Except...that there should be more episodes. I'm really looking forward to the new series, but I'd love to see more with the characters that I already know and love.

Scott Pilgrim :)

2011-01-20T16:28:00.000-08:00

So, I recently watched Scott Pilgrim vs. the World with a room full of teenagers and it was AWESOME. I had seen it before, but at home where there is a constant distraction called...this-computer-that-I-am-typing-on-right-at-this-moment. And if you've seen the movie, you know that it's extremely visual, even for a movie. And my half paying attention mode hadn't done it justice at all.

And, being in a crowd that got it was fun, too. I would've liked to see this at the movies. But my days of seeing every movie that comes out ended when my children came along.

Anyway, it was a fun movie. I really enjoyed it and actually want to watch it again with other friends.

The other thing about this movie is...I OWNED THAT SHIRT. The Smashing Pumpkins one...not the one above, though I have a long sleeved t-shirt like that. The two tone green one with the SP heart on it. Okay, I didn't own that shirt, but I was holding it at a Smashing Pumpkins concert, and it turned out the shirt vendors only took cash, and as anyone who knows me can attest, I never carry any cash. Ever. But I ALMOST owned that shirt. Nearly.

People who ALWAYS wanted to write a novel and should actually, maybe, do so.

2010-11-21T14:44:00.001-08:00

So, I am challenging my beloved husband (Hi, Lee) and another friend to finish the novels they have never started. I'm giving them the following questions which I want them to fill out and save without showing them to me... these are sort of a compilation of the best elements of all the creative writing class sheets I've made, the ones I've gotten from writers at conferences, etc.

Things to think about when planning a novel
What is your story in two or three sentences?

What makes this story fresh/unique?

Character Questions I’m using he generically. 
What does your character want? (goal)
What is keeping him from getting it? (conflict)
What is driving him to keep going for that goal? (motivation)

What is the internal conflict?
What is the external conflict?

If they don’t already work together, (I envision the different types of conflict as clockwork cog thingies) how can you make the internal and external conflict work together against your protagonist to make the goal harder to achieve, to force him to change and ultimately to force him to become stronger in the way that will save the day/resolve the conflict?

What makes your character get out of bed in the morning?

What does he love more than anything that could alternate as a strength or a weakness?

How will your character change throughout the story?
Use these questions on protagonist/antagonist/secondary characters when you are ready to do so.

My next assignment to these two deep thinking non writers (both are well read and both are well versed in variety of story-telling venues, movies, television, short stories, novels of all types) is to simply write 3-5 pages. Don't stress about them. Don't worry at this point over voice, imagery, vocabulary, etc. Just get something on paper and we'll see what we can do with it.

This is an interesting project. I'll let you know how it works out.

Creative Writing in High School

2010-11-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

I (and maybe my students, if I can be so immodest as to say so) are fortunate to have a high school creative writing class. In fact, it's one of the great things about a block schedule that our students have a wide range of electives.

In regular English class we just don't have time for much creative writing. Our jobs as English teachers are to improve student reading/communication skills and to get them ready for whatever college or the world will throw at them. Even as an English major in college the only creative writing I did was in creative writing elective. So, let's face it, while I would love to have time to do short stories and poetry with every student...it simply isn't important enough in a world where our electives/block scheduling also make the classes a bit shorter than they would otherwise be.

Because the English department has limited electives (I am teaching English half the time and Young Adult Lit, Paranormal Lit, or Creative Writing the other half of the time) I will not allow Creative Writing to become a bunny class. I'm determined that students will learn something in there.

On the other hand, I don't want it to be a class that a student can't take for fun. It's a little hard to balance the two. Sigh. It's hard. The other thing is that while many creative writing classes do workshopping type activities, I find these and random weird writing activities somewhat useless. Workshopping is only as good as the collective skill of the class. And in a class with Freshmen through seniors, the skill level is very mixed.

This is the first creative writing class I've had in some time that doesn't want to use any in class work time. I try to build in class work time for students to work on whatever they need to do. Only, they won't use it. So do I do activities/lecture/minilessons/talk for the entire period? I'm unsure. Very unsure.

Tomorrow they are turning in updates on their progress with their independent projects. I am a little afraid of what I am going to learn...who hasn't done anything, etc. A little afraid.

Self Worth

2010-11-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

You know, teenagers use a lot of weird things to find value for themselves. And sometimes their values are incredibly illogical. Unlike adults who place value on the proper things...(or maybe I'm being sarcastic). Yeah, okay...this post is really supposed to compare writers to teens and to say that we are all CRAZY.

For teens it's the incrowd, or the crush or the person they most want to admire them. For writers it's the agent, and the editor...or the beta reader, or the critique partner. And once you get past that part, it's the general public...(or the reading public we should say) much like the general population of the public high school they can be harsh with their opinions.

And as writers we keep coming back to these things for validation. Criticism throws us into despair (am I exaggerating? AM I?)

Think about what you'd bargain away to the devil for your first book deal, or for a big book deal, or for a chance at the NYT Bestseller list, or to be prom queen (oh wait, how did that last one get in there?).

Pets In YA (and Life)

2010-11-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I just regaled my husband with the tales of all my childhood pets. He's heard them before, but I was just thinking about...dogs. So I talked about Pippin and Brinkly and all the insane German Shepherds in between.

Something I've been thinking about, as my son approaches the age of 8, is the importance of pets for children. And if children have pets, then teens also (unless there has been some sort of tragedy) still have pets.

But, and maybe this is indicative of the books I'm reading rather than what's out there, it seems like it's as likely to find PARENTS in YA as it is to find a pet.

Off the top of my head, I can think of the dog in Skin Deep by E. M. Crane. A great book that everyone should read. And the wonderful Manchee in The Knife of Never Letting Go. And now I'm scanning though the 65 books I've read this year. No pets. Unless werewolves are pets. No? I didn't think so.

It's a weird thing, because I am a cat lover, but I can't really imagine writing a book about a teen with a strong bond to their cat without int sounding...LAME. Still, there's always a cat on my lap when I'm writing.

So, that's something to ponder. As well as, does my kid need a dog? Do my 7 cats need a dog? Probably not. But that doesn't stop me from checking out the dogs at Petsmart and the crying over the stories they post on the crates.

Books I Haven't Read Yet, But Want to Read

2010-11-04T16:48:00.000-07:00

So, there are a LOT of books I haven't read. This post isn't about them. It's about books I want to read, but somehow haven't. Books I'm looking at right now, on my heaping to be read stack. And at the same time that I'm staring at that stack, there's a bag of books in the car waiting to be brought in, and an Amazon order waiting for a click...

I've read a few books this year. I don't think I'm going to reach the 100 book goal, but I'm well over halfway there...and considering the amount or writing and parenting and teaching I've been doing with my time, well I'm okay with that.

But there are certain books I just never get around to.

1. The House of The Scorpion- this has been on my shelf for YEARS. I started it this summer and put it down and never got back to it. I know I'll like it, but somehow (maybe reading The Ear, The Arm, and the...Whatever years ago put me off Nancy Farmer forever?) Still, I want to read it, so it's a keeper.

2. Un Lun Dun. Ordered this, want to read it. Never got past the first pages. The Rat King is on my book order list. It's also a keeper, but I suspect it's a summer read?

3. Identical- Signed copy! Actually I think that's why I haven't read it, it isn't in the to be read stack, but on the big shelf. Not to self- read Identical.

4. Shade- I bought this because it seemed pretty dark. I like dark. So far it hasn't grabbed me. Might try again in a few weeks.

5. High Fidelity- I read About A Boy last summer. I LOVE the movie (my husband runs a used music store) so I'm a little afraid I won't like it as much as I want to like it.

6. The Gargoyle- (first book on the list that isn't YA or MG!) This seemed like an awesome premise, but somehow I didn't connect with the main character. I don't know. I should read a little further.

7. Never Let Me Go- I don't think I'll finish this one. I don't know.

Now there are a ton of new books that I want to read, but these guys stay on the shelf, because I know eventually they could be worth the wait.

Things that are the Opposite of what they Should Be.

2010-11-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

Well by things that are the Opposite of what they should be, I might mean, paradoxes? Or something like that. I guess what this comes down to, is that I have a kid's illness. I'm miserable, dying, barely out of bed. And I have an ear infection. How can I feel so bad?

Another thing...parents are supposed to be filled with patience and love. I am not filled with patience right now. I am tired and impatient and possibly a little bit cranky.

And another...teens are supposed to be rebellious and avoid all stereotypes and that sort of thing, but the ones I'm working with right now seem perfectly happy to put themselves into neat little categorized boxes.

I have been using my sickly time to catch up on some reading. I'm over halfway through the 100 book challenge (I know, only 2 months left this year) but still, I've read lots of good books, and written one as well!

So, it's November. Election day is over and we are fast approaching Thanksgiving...and after that, the end of the year! I have to put this week of antibiotics and flo-nase behind me, and get some stuff done. (and that really would be surprising, even if it isn't exactly a paradox!)

On Taking a Blog Hiatus

2010-09-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

Wow...Life is moving fast. I'm sleepy and it isn't even 8 PM. (I can't really tell if I'm sleepy or if my eyes are dried out from my contacts...but to all intents and purposes...I think I'm sleepy).

Since I last blogged, we went back to school. This week, midterms went home. That means the school year is 1/8 of the way over. Really? Really? My daughter started kindergarten, my son started second grade.

I revised a book. I wrote a few pages on another one. I read some good books. Possibly some great books!

I've had some good weekends with good friends, good family, good times altogether. I just wish there were more hours in the day. If I slept less, and didn't get tired cranky and dysfunctional, I could get so much more accomplished. Still, it's good to have goals.

By next week I plan to write a new scene and participate in teaser tuesday. I plan to blog a bit over the very busy weekend, and to start shopping for Halloween Costumes. I plan to sleep more, and maybe take my contacts out. Oh, and to work out so I can get a good Halloween costume (I have something in mind).

So, welcome back, blog! Sorry I've neglected you!

Off to LA

2010-07-29T03:49:00.000-07:00

So, I'm off to my first big SCBWI conference in LA. I don't know if I'll be blogging before I get back, I'm not taking my big laptop, just a teeny tiny one that makes life very difficult. Very excited about the conference, never excited about the travel. I guess it'll be one more opportunity to read over my manuscript/read a few good books!

More blogging in about a week!

There are People who don't read YA!!!?!

2010-07-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

Yes indeed, there are people who don't read YA. This is incomprehensible to me because, I read YA because I work with teens all day. I read YA because I write YA. I read YA because I love it. And if you took any of these things away, I would still be a reader of YA.

I'm thinking of it because my Young Adult Literature elective was so popular at scheduling time that they had to add three sections into the schedule. Only problem is with my English classes, my creative writing, my new Speculative Fiction class, I can't teach all of them!

The guy who is teaching the extra YA Lit class is a good English teacher. But he doesn't read YA. I use Hunger Games and Speak with my 10th grade classes, he uses The Hobbit. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I worship Tolkien. Nonetheless, I would not teach The Hobbit as a class book.

So this brings me back to...there are people, readers! who don't read Young Adult! My mom reads it because I pass books along to her. My husband reads it, though he loves MG more. My friends read it. But some adults, particularly those my age and older, don't.

I guess because it's not for them. But, like someone on Absolute Write pointed out in a recent thread about adults reading more YA, everyone (every adult, I should say) has been through the trauma that is adolescence.

I just feel so lucky to be in contact with the world of YA literature so completely, otherwise I would have missed some fabulous books.

Anyway, because I want those kids who signed up for the Young Adult literature class that I created to have the best possible experience, I'm working on my curriculum and book list, even though I'm not teaching it until second semester.

Picking the right selection of books is hard. There are a lot of variables, for class books I pick books that appeal to a wide variety of students. For a literature class I can pick books more specific to a certain type of reader.

I don't give absolute choice because part of the goal of the class is to expose students to new books. I give a list of 30-40 books and they have to pick 3. (this is for a 9 weeks class). My hope is to find books that appeal to all the students, and also introducing them to different books that appeal to them. Last year we were wildly successful, with kids who had only read sci/fi, fantasy, and Manga falling in love with 13 Reasons Why, with kids who refused to consider non Sarah Dessen type realistic books loving Wicked Lovely.

I'm working on my list, will post it tomorrow. Any suggestions that you think HAVE to be on the curriculum for a Young Adult Literature class?

Best Books of the Summer

2010-07-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

I don't really do reviews. A. I don't think my brain works that way. B. When I read something I like I try to make everyone I know read it and I don't like to spoil anything. At the beginning of the summer I gave my friend Doug two books, Ender's Game and The Hunger Games. I didn't tell him anything about them, just, "Have I ever given you a book you didn't like?" He loved them both, of course, and has already read Catching Fire. C. I don't feel qualified to say bad things about other author's books because so much of my reading is dependent on mood, setting, screaming kids, whether I'm on an airplane or waiting in front of the school to pick up my kids, whether I have a headache...but today I'm going to blog about the books I couldn't put down this summer.

1. Hate List by Jennifer Brown

I enjoyed the structure of the book, I enjoyed getting to know the characters, and I enjoyed how conflicted the characters, particularly the main character, but other characters, too. I will be adding this to the reading list of my YA Literature class, and I've already told our library to order at least two copies.

Incarceron.
Warning, you will want to read the sequel and it isn't out yet in the states.
I have to say I love this cover, I have this one on my personal shelf, but since I'm using it in my Spec Fic class (also told the library to order this right away) I'm afraid that my copy is going to get grabbed up by students. It's hard to say no when they really want to read something.

I loved the setting and the mystery of this. The characters were interesting. And the biggest indication that it was a good book, was that when I got to the end I was like, wow, I have to get the sequel!

I'm going to be doing a lot of reading the next week or so, particularly flying to California and back, so I expect to have some favorite books of late summer, soon. What are your favorite new books?

Sibling Relationships (in My Books)

2010-07-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

So...Siblings! In my house the siblings are beating each other with miniature Louisville Slugger baseball bats. My husband was right when he said those were a BAD idea.

It seems to me, as a person who grew up without brothers or sisters, that maybe siblings are something that shapes your whole outlook on the world. Your personality...or maybe not? Like everything, I believe you have a mix of nature and nurture, so how a person reacts to a sibling with ADHD will be a mix of their own genetic predisposition and how their family/environment is shaped by that sibling.

In Parker Prescott, I wanted a character who appeared to be snobby but was really very vulnerable. I also wanted a middle child, a kid who seemed the easy well adjusted one, but in the end, wasn't. Having a "perfect" older sister like Paige set up the dynamic of appearing snobby, without Paige peers might have thought Parker was just quiet or shy, but following her popular older sister gave people preconceptions about what she might be like. And having Preston, the younger brother with ADHD just meant that her parents would be that much more distracted, that she would feel that much less important, but because she really loves Preston, his presence makes her more likable, I guess. I like snarky characters so I had no problem loving Parker!

Greedy, my book that may never be published, I started out writing a story about a bisexual character, and ended up writing a book about sisters. The difference was that in some ways their roles were reversed from Handcuffs. Molly was the extrovert, and the one who had to realize that her behavior affects her sister... I think that the sibling relationships are the heart of the book, as well as the conflict.

Sibling relationships, albeit screwed up ones, are also at the heart of The Fall. In writing it I started with what Poe had given us, isolated twins suffering from a malady. Poe's narrator was a childhood friend who had never visited the House of Usher, so I assumed that Roderick Usher had been away at school. The twins, Madeline and Roderick, had a relationship based upon intense devotion, made all the more intense by long periods of abandonment. They are also the only people who have (even a small chance) of understanding one another. This is the first thing I've written with twins or a male/female sibling dynamic.

Obviously, sibling relationships have found their way into all of my stories, and in really important, not just peripheral ways. Maybe it's fascination on my part, maybe it's plot necessity, I don't know. I also haven't noticed that I find books featuring an MC with siblings particularly more compelling that books with an only child. I guess it's something I'll be paying attention to in the future, as both a reader and a writer.

Only Children

2010-07-15T03:51:00.000-07:00

Confession 1- I have never written a character who is an only child

Confession 2 - I am an only child

What's up with that?

Time Magazine's cover story this week, discussing the myths around only children, made me think (and not for the first time) about my propensity for writing characters whose sibling relationships are extremely important in their lives. Since I have virtually no experience at being part of a sibling relationship.

Now a short explanation of my experience is that I do have a brother, he was born a month after I graduated from high school, when I was 18. So, my childhood/adolescence was free of siblings, without a hint that there would ever be a sibling. While, I'm pretty sure that my existence in no way defined my brother's life, he at least (while also raised as an only child because I was already out of the house) had the experience of always having a sister, albeit a much older one, so he is sort of a quasi-only child, and I couldn't say if he was any more spoiled selfish or solitary than he would've been without my part in his life.

Because those are the myths Time is debunking. From Time "The entrenched aversion to stopping at one mainly amounts to a century-old public-relations issue. Single children are perceived as spoiled, selfish, solitary misfits. No parents want that for their kid."

I'd hazard a guess that quasi-only children are becoming more prevalent with second families, fathers who have nearly adult children and start new families, or step families. And, the article says that families with one child and no plans for more are on the rise, as they rose during the Great Depression. Interesting.

When I thought about it, I realized that the main characters in the two biggest (YA) Literary phenomenon of the last zillion years have been only children. Yes, Harry Potter, and Bella Swan. I don't know that anyone could call either of them spoiled, selfish, solitary misfits. Or could they?

There have been times in my life when I was all of the above. But my own children, less than two years apart, have also been spoiled, selfish, and yes, I have one who could be called a solitary misfit. (I'm sure there's creative genius in there!)

So, what's the deal with only children in literature? Holden Caulfield was a spoiled, selfish, solitary misfit and he had siblings.

And, as fun as the alliteration is, (spoiled, selfish, solitary, spoiled, selfish, solitary) Time, and many sources in the past say that these are complete B.S.

There might be plot based reasons why a character is an only child, like Voldemort killing your parents, leaving you an orphan, and stopping your parents from producing any more children. Or divorce...I don't remember how long the Swan family had been divorced. As a plot device, having another sibling hanging around might have been inconvenient (or interesting).

I'm going to scour my bookshelves for YA only children (Pudge in Looking for Alaska, Melinda in Speak) and see how comprehensive a list I can come up with.

For tomorrow I'm preparing a post called The Sibling in YA literature. That sounds nice and official, doesn't it?

Teaser Tuesday again?

2010-07-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, Tuesdays come fast...

This is the opening of the book I wrote right after Handcuffs. I rewrote it three times, and I'm doing a bit of looking over it, as a writing exercise (and because I love it).

The soft cotton lining of the protective gloves catches on my fingernails as I pull them slowly over my hands. I angle the pruning shears. Snip. The rose falls. I lean forward, pinch the thorny stem between my too-thick gloved fingers. The cotton snags against my left thumb nail, the one I gnaw the most, as I drop the red rose-bud into my mom’s wicker basket. There’s a rose-shaped indention on the almost-black soil. I smooth the earth with my foot. Potting soil and little bits of mulch are dusted from my ankle down to my toes. I push my hair back from my face and feel something sticky smear across my forehead.

Tomorrow is the first day of school, the first day of my senior year. I need to trim back the roses in this walled garden behind my father’s church. Once school starts I might not have so much time, they might get overgrown, wild. There isn’t much that I can do for my family, they’ll barely notice when I’m gone, but this garden, I’ve cared for it over the years. It provides fresh flowers for the sanctuary. We can all agree that flowers are nice, even though when I look at the roses I see stems and pistons and the glorious bright green of chlorophyll absorbing sunlight during photosynthesis. They see something different, a miracle, I guess.

Current Slang

2010-07-12T07:27:00.000-07:00

So, one of the most common questions for authors of Young Adult literature, especially Contemporary Realistic like Handcuffs, is how do you sound like a teen?

The answer is NOT slang. Okay, some slang works for establishing certain characters and their speech patterns, but I'll admit there's a bit of slang in Handcuffs that actually makes me cringe and hide from the book, and I use any type of slang very sparingly.

But I do find slang FASCINATING. Because it's part of language, and how language changes is so...have I said fascinating? Yeah.

I also find some of it annoying. Here are some of the slang phrases that I hear constantly. Remember that I'm in middle America...the northernmost part of the south and the easternmost part of the midwest, so what one hears in other places may be very different.

Gotcha- as a teacher I hear this all the time, said in a good natured way, to indicate, I understand.

I know, right? I think I first heard this one on Juno, but I could've missed some other pop culture reference. I really can't say this with the right intonation, so I don't use it irl or online.

It is what it is - Meaning this is the way things are, or accept it, or some variation of that. I really hate this one because it seems very meaningless to me.

I haven't heard any words for cool that are newer than Sick (which I had heard on the internet 5 years ago, but hadn't noticed irl until 2 years ago.

What slang words are you guys hearing?

Fantastical Horror

2010-07-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

The next few posts will be related to my Speculative Fiction class, which I am planning for right now...
The class is going to be split into four (overlapping) categories, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal/Urban Fantasy. So, I'm working on the Horror section first. Believe it or not, I'm not that big a fan of horror. Yes, it's true. I get completely grossed out by anything gross. I particularly don't like horror that could really happen, like serial killer type stuff. On one level I would say this is because it truly scares me, and yeah, it does, but on another level, I think I just invest more in stuff with a fantastical element. So, I do love horror that deals with a fantasy type setting, or fantasy type creatures, just not...realistic horror? (though I do think characters have to be particularly realistic and sympathetic to work in horror).

Now, when I was in middle school, V.C. Andrew's books were placed in the horror section, and I read those, but I think the first true horror book I ever read was IT by Stephen King, and it remains one of my favorite books, one of my favorite books by King (though his only horror book that would go on that list) and one of my favorite horror books.

My all time favorite horror book, though, is Shadowland by Peter Straub.

This is the cover I had when I was in middle school, possibly early high school. The silver part was extremely shiny, and I think I wrote my name on it with an orange marker-pen (the precursor of the gel pen, I suspect). And, here is the copy I have now, just purchased a new one to see if I still love it as much...

So far, I do. One thing I remember about this book is the mix of real horror, the sociopath kid who is morphing into something else, and the fantastical. In fact, I have to admit that I'm not at all sure what happens at the end, just that I was so invested in the characters and the world that I couldn't put it down.

Now I'm trying to choose a short selection of horror books for the course I'm teaching. These will either be YA books, or fairly short books, since the students will have only 3 weeks to read them. There will be some exceptions, and I plan to have a supplemental list with books like IT, that will take longer to read, but will be interesting to some students. They only have to choose one from the list.

Here's what I've come up with so far...if anyone has some great suggestions please let me know.

I think these two will cover basically any person who wants to read about zombies. Very very different books, but the idea is to give students enough options to find something they will enjoy, while few enough that I can have some control of the content and discussions.As I look at these titles, some of which I like better than others, I think the element that it comes down to for me in horror, (besides liking the characters, which is crucial) is suspension of disbelief. So what makes good horror for you, and what horror books would you recommend?

SUMMER and the Joy of...A Schedule?

2010-07-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

Summer days are lazy and idle...in my memory. I remember those days when I was like the four kids in Stand By Me...so lazy that I would've given anything for a chance to go check out a dead body...

There's something about that movie that encapsulates the boredom of endless summer days with nothing to do. Now, I spent plenty of summer days watching movies, but my real memories of lazy summer days are mostly centered around reading in various locations, and wondering through river bottoms, and finding more books and even more places to read them. I have a strong memory of lying on the porch swing with a book, feeling the roughness of the creekstone porch beneath my feet, as I pushed off over and over. In the end, I'd get motion sick every time! I also remember lying on my bed, having an oscillating fan blowing on me, eating microwave fudge, and reading books that transported me, like this one...

After the glorious free reading time of summer, I hated the rigidity of school, it felt very restrictive to me.

But as an adult, I find that I have to have a schedule. The problems with schedules in summer is that as soon as I get used to one, things change, but...yeah, since I've had kids my life is a series of schedules.

Although I love spontaneity in theory, I find myself needing some guidelines for my time. In summer, as a full time mom, I definitely plan each day around certain activities, and during the school year I'm super-scheduled.

As a writer, I think this actually helps me. The reader in me loves long lazy days. The writer in me craves a time to sit and just create/write/revise/think.

How about you guys? Memories of summer? Spontaneity or schedules?

A Brief Moment in my Day

2010-07-05T17:19:00.001-07:00

So, at 11:30 this morning did you know what all of your minions (ahem) beloved responsibilities were up to? I decided to keep track of mine (took more like 5 minutes because my camera, it is slooooow)

Exhibit A Sphinx, Age 16, my first baby

Pictures=1000 Words?

2010-07-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

Since I talked about music earlier this week, I'm going to post pictures today. Awesome, awesome pictures! So...are they worth 1,000 words?

On Fears and Phobias

2010-07-01T10:25:00.001-07:00

Okay, just a word to the wise...if you are afraid of snakes, don't do a Google image search for fear of snakes. I'm, um, not going to use a picture for this blog entry. Sorry!

The Definition from Webster

Main Entry: ¹fear

Pronunciation: \ˈfir\

Function: verb

Etymology: Middle English feren, from Old English fǣran, from fǣr

Date: before 12th century

transitive verb

1 archaic : frighten
2 archaic : to feel fear in (oneself)
3 : to have a reverential awe of
4 : to be afraid of : expect with alarm

Main Entry: pho·bia

Pronunciation: \ˈfō-bē-ə\

Function: noun

Etymology: -phobia

Date: 1786

: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.

There are certain things that scare a lot of people. I, for example, am terrified of snakes. My mom read The Swiss Family Robinson to me as a kid, and the scene where the snake swallows the donkey...lets just say that I had nightmares for the next decade. Not all related to that book, I'm sure, but reoccurring nightmares about snakes.

I'm slightly afraid of heights, but more from a...I could fall off of here...perspective, rather than a just I'm afraid of being high up fear. Like, I'm not afraid of going up on The Sears Tower or the Eiffel Tower, but afraid of looking off the side of the Grand Canyon where there's no guard rail. I do know people who are just scared of heights.

I'm slightly claustrophobic, besides my snake dreams I also suffer from a reoccurring dream where I wake up and I can't move. Then I fight my paralysis and realize that I didn't wake up, I woke up in my dream, and wasn't really awake...see what I mean? It's a terrible dream. I think that writing my last book brought out my claustrophobia a bit.

The last thing that I'm afraid of is contagion. I am terrified of cancer. Terrified. And terrified of other diseases, particularly that my kids could catch. I'm getting ready to use this fear in a book, and I'm not sure I'm looking forward to it.

I'm not sure that any of my fears are (on the surface) irrational...but the amount of nightmares, night terrors, and anxiety that I've suffered at different times in my life makes me think that I might be a neurotic mess.

So, what are your fears, and what do our fears teach us about life, and what does literature teach us about what these fears and phobias teach us about life?

Teaser Tuesday

2010-06-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a bit from The Fall. Not because I'm not working on something else...but because it's the thing I'm thinking about (obsessing? no, not me!) this week. This was a difficult scene for me because it was one of the earliest I wrote, and because I channeled, or tried to channel, my own childhood fears into it. And then I had to take myself out and make sure it was all Madeline.

I stand and pad across my room to put my hands on the heavy wooden door. I can feel the house breathing, or whatever it does. I can feel it watching. Opening the door, I position it carefully, folding the edge of the rug with my foot and using a thick book to keep the door from moving.

I take two steps back. It still feels…wrong. Closing the door is difficult. The malaise that causes horror of closed in spaces, the one the doctors call claustrophobia, has always troubled me. The door must be slightly open, but not so much? I adjust it, nudging the book with my foot. This feels better, but still, I’m on edge so it can’t be right. I put my hand back to the door. It creaks, louder than a door should when moved only a fraction of an inch. I rest my hand against the wood, too long because the feelings that seep into me are not my own. Dissatisfaction is ever the mood of the house.

It wants me to open the door. To put the books back on the bureau, to straighten the rug.

But completely open doors are as terrifying as being closed in with…whatever might find its way into my room. There are things, living and dead, creeping through these halls, and I’d rather they creep past than linger beside me while I sleep.

How Do You Use Music to Write?

2010-06-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

I know that music is very important to us creative types. But I feel that many of us use it in different ways. I have obtained permission for my creative writing students to listen to ipods in class, though it is mostly against school rules to have ipods, because I like music, butI find that picking music myself can cause arguments...I never pick country music, and mostly either pick atmospheric things, or crazy aggressive music. Yes, I make my classes look at Tool lyrics and consider them as poetry. But anyway, when trying to tune out the rest of the classroom and write, music seems to work for most students.

But, as a rule I don't make a soundtrack that I listen to when I write. If music is playing when I write, I usually don't hear it. I can have extremely selective hearing, especially when I'm focusing.

Anyway, I do select songs that remind me of what I'm writing.

Everything I write starts with Something I Can Never Have by Nine Inch Nails, because if you don't have longing so bad it tears you apart, what's the point of any story? Sorry, longing is just the basis of everything for me as a writer.

When I started writing The Fall, the entire soundtrack was Lateralus by Tool.

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind.
Feed my will to feel this moment, urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.

See, I meant to just pick those lines but then I decided I had to post some more. I do love me some Tool.

I embrace my desire to,
I embrace my desire to,
Feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside & weep like a widow
To feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty,
To bathe in the fountain,
To swing on the spiral,
To swing on the spiral,
To swing on the spiral of our divinity & still be a human.
With my feet upon the ground i move myself between the sounds & open wide to suck it in.
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up & reaching out.
I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
What ever will bewilder me.
& following our will & wind we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end & may just go where no one's been.
Spiral out. keep going.
Spiral out. keep going.
Spiral out. keep going.
Spiral out. keep going.

Lateralus was my prewriting planning stages soundtrack, and at that time I was focusing on the dichotomy between male and female as a focus, even though as I wrote it became less and less interesting. As I drafted my writing soundtrack was Third by Portishead. Particularly Hunter. Lyrics below

No-one said
We'd ever known each other
And new evidence is what we require
In this world

I stand on the edge of a broken sky
And I will come down; don't know why
And if I should fall, would you hold me?
Would you pass me by?
For you know I'd ask you for nothing
Just to wait for a while

So confused
My thoughts are takin' over
Unwanted, arising space me instead
Won't let go

I stand on the edge of a broken sky
And I will come down; don't know why
And if I should fall, would you hold me?
Would you pass me by?
For you know I'd ask you for nothing
Just to wait for a while

Anyway, I realize that I don't use music as completely as some other authors, I love music, but I'm very able to tune it out and pretend that it doesn't exist (lyrics not so much, certain lyrics I can never tune out). But music is something I often have to focus on to even hear.

How about you guys, how do you use music?

Nostalgia, Young Writers, Experience, and Toy Story 3

2010-06-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

For the last six months I've been in this fragile place where I cry easily. It happened when my baby turned 5. It's not that I don't want my kids to grow up, I like toddlers better than babies, and small children better than toddlers. I don't think I'll even mind them being teens, though my daughter (I fear) is going to be a frightening teen. It's just that everything goes by so fast. Their babyhood is a blur. Their toddlerhood is a memory. I fear their childhood will be the same. Then I'll be like Andy's mom in Toy Story 3, boxing up their childhood.

I'm afraid to watch the videos of them as children, because I'm afraid I'll be more upset by what I missed than what I captured.

Warning. This post is going to make me look old and sappy, and not at all like a person who writes teen girls in first person present tense!

Okay, so back to Toy Story. I always thought of Toy Story as a sort of revamped, shiny, and hilarious version of The Velveteen Rabbit. And this last installment cinched that impression. It's a series of stories about love, and imagination, and childhood, and how quickly the childhood part goes by...

I am in a place in my life where I am perplexed and a little bit sad about where all the time has gone. College...the first years with Lee, the first years with the kids...how can I be someone who has driven a car more than half my life? A person who can look back on this much history.

I know I'm not the person I was at 20, but I don't feel that much more. I don't feel layered. How does that even feel? Like wearing the sweater vest of motherhood over my oxford shirt of adulthood?

This is the part where I get to young writers. I work with young writers all the time. I haven't been lucky enough to have any in my creative writing class who were at a point where their work felt publishable, but I've worked with several who were almost there. And yes, some of that was a lack of time refining the craft. And some students can have a lack of depth. a certain shallowness to their work. But I imagine that's the case for everyone.

There was a time in my mid-twenties when I might have felt a little bit jealous of those who published earlier than me. Now, in my mid-thirties, I'm so far past that. I'm happy that there are young authors, it just gives my students someone to look up to. How depressing would it be to be writing at 15 and think it might take you twice your life to get to a point of being publishable, you know? Young authors are an inspiration. I remember the first time I read something by Hannah Moskowitz, I think she was like 14 at the time (okay, 15? but she wrote it at 14 probably) and it was AMAZING. Anyway, young authors can obviously write. (Hannah has so many book deals now, it's insane).

So what is it we question in young authors. Maturity? Experience? Depth?

Here's the thing that's been bothering me. I don't know to what extent I've gained any of those things. Certainly I've lived more, been a few more places, talked to more people, read more books. But how much has that changed me? I don't know, I can't feel it. The changes have come incrementally.

And all of this seems to prove to me, that age has given me something. But it isn't something tangible. And wisdom is something we all fake.

I've heard certain criticism and skepticism of young writers over the years, and I question that. Writing requires practice, and revision (more so for some of us than for others). It requires reading and thinking about the writing in what you read (again, more so for some of us than others). And it requires a certain depth that may not necessarily come from the years, more the basic wisdom/perceptiveness of the writer.

All of this brings me back to Toy Story 3. When I watch it, I empathize with Andy's mom, amazed that the time has gone by so fast. I cry, seeing the pictures of Andy from Toy Story I, playing happily with the toys, when now he's past that. I cried a lot. I took my little brother to see Toy Story and Toy Story II. He starts college in the fall. Watching him graduate, it made me feel so sad for all the times when I made him stand on tippytoes so that we could get him onto a rollercoaster. If his shoes were too flat I had to spike his hair up a little. That little boy is grown up, and my Ezra will follow him rapidly. He's going to be in second grade next year, and that's practically high school...All of which is the wrong perspective for a YA writer to take, but I guess I'm more than a YA writer. I only get into my teenage voice and mode occasionally these days. But when I do, I think I do an okay job!

So, what is age? I am different, but I am still me. I've changed, but only in ways that I can change. When I write I won't know more about being a teen than a teen writer, and maybe I'll know more about writing and more about life than some writers, than some people, but I will also know less than many people, regardless of their ages.

Check in 20 years from now. Perhaps by then I will have achieved wisdom, or somemthing. (if nothing else, maybe I'll be able to spell something! oops!)

For the Love of Vocabulary

2010-06-25T08:01:00.001-07:00

I'm going to reveal myself as a geek right now, and admit that I LOVE words. Love them. As a teacher, I am willing to spend a small amount of time on proscribed vocab...I once observed a teacher who spent more than half her teaching time on vocabulary, and that's just...icky. Time is better spent increasing vocabulary through reading, imho.

I think I have a somewhat formidable vocabulary, but when I started writing The Fall I was overwhelmed and intimidated by a lot of things, most of which stemmed back to reworking something by Poe. Or course the vocabulary was intimidating.

The following is a vocab list of words and phrases from The Fall of The House of Usher that I wanted to use.

Dull

Dark

Soundless

Clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens (this is circled- meaning I don't think I used it)

Melancholy

Pervaded

Insufferable Gloom

Vacant eye-like windows

rank sedges (not sure I used this either as there was already some confusion on what a tarn was)

white trunks of decaying trees

sinking, sickening of heart

black and lurid tarn

unruffled luster

sullen

ethereal

ghastly and inappropriate splendor (this is the title for the sequel..kidding, kidding, what would it be about? but A Ghastly and Inappropriate Splendor would be an awesome title for...something)

tenebrous

Somewhere someplace there is a tattered internet copy of The Fall of The House of Usher that I carried around for over a year (I think it's in my desk at work) that has lots of other words and phrases highlighted. I really hope I can find that, as it seems like it almost became a part of me and my life. :)

Atmosphere

2010-06-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so in my Wikipedia exploration of Gothic Lit, one of the big factors was atmosphere. And I have to say that Atmosphere is something I love. I'm much more attracted to "dark" movies than colorful ones. I could watch Sherlock Holmes over and over, just for the atmosphere.

True Blood is a show that definitely has atmosphere...somehow the combination of vampires and the deep south is perfect for atmosphere...though there's more to it than that.

Recently I've picked up several books that claimed to be Gothic, but as far as atmosphere went, they were really paranormal. Beautiful Creatures (again with the southern thing) had a lot of atmosphere, and what I've read so far of The Monstrumologist. It's been a long time since I read Twilight (some darn kids stole it...really from my classroom library. I guess I need some kind of surveillance system) the idea of being in Forks Washington where it's gloomy and rainy does seem to be the perfect setting for some great atmosphere.

So, atmosphere is something I recognize when I see it (or listen to it, like The Cure) but how do you create it? I don't know that I'm any expert on this, but I have been looking into it for almost a year.

Imagery- What images are you creating...and do they create atmosphere? Heavy, dark brooding ruins, castles, deteriorating mansions...dense forests, places that are steamy and hot or places that are cold (mild and pleasant is great for picnics but not so much for the atmosphere) what things do you focus on or describe?

Word Choice- I studied Poe's Fall of the House of Usher for word choice, and made a list that I'll probably post on the blog tomorrow. There were certain words that I used (probably too much) tattered, dark, gloomy, etc. But in finding new variations I found some new words. Tenebrous is another word for darkness. Even sometimes when I'm focused I will have to use the thesaurus because I'll be so focused on certain words. When I wrote the first scene of The Fall, I was using the word shaking over and over. It took me a few drafts to switch some of them to trembling.

Sentence Structure- Poe ties you up and abuses you with his sentences. For a modern (and possibly lazy reader) his sentences are like some kind of hedge around the castle that is the story. You have to hack your way through. I'm a short sentence and fragment type of writer, so finding a balance was a lot of fun. Atmosphere does require some long and in depth sentences, but I think it is nicely punctuated with some ominous fragments. Here and there.

Voice- voice is such a weird thing. I keep reading that we all have a certain authorial voice that comes through in our writing. Maybe, maybe, one day I can take The Fall, and Handcuffs, and Greedy an unpublished realistic contemporary that I really loved writing and see the same authorial voice in them (the character voice is certainly very different in all of them). I do think that you could find similarity in the turn of the phrase, etc. To me, working on atmosphere with voice is about what the character notices. In The Fall, Madeline does not really know what is normal or how normal people live, if, for example (and this doesn't happen, but whatever) if the walls start bleeding, she's like, hmmm that didn't happen yesterday. Whereas another character might be freaked the hell out. I've started another Gothic haunted mansion sort of manuscript in which the main character is much more aware of what is weird and creepy and what isn't weird and creepy. Both ways are fun.

So, in conclusion, for writing things with atmosphere, I think the key is to figure out what you want, and how far you're willing to go to get it. I don't think the modern reader is willing to hack through a jungle of words (they'll do it for Poe, but probably not for many others). But I do think that the modern reader loves good atmospheric stuff.

Summer Reading- 5 copies of Handcuffs...

2010-06-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my kids drew these out of a hat. They were really excited, and then asked what they had won. I told them they had won bubblegum...tomorrow. So now I have to remember to get some gum.

I am in the process of following everyone who has followed me, so I should be able to find everyone, but if you see that you won, you could email me your address at bdgrifin@aol.com. I plan to be a better blogger/blog reader over the summer! :)

The winners are

Linda

Courtney

Sarah

Nomes

Erica

I'm going to do another give away in early August for teachers working with their classroom libraries, and students going back to school (and whoever else!)

Teaser Tuesday

2010-06-22T05:29:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I'm going to draw (from my summer sun hat) the winners of the Handcuffs contest, so if you need a copy, make sure you comment on my post from Saturday!

This is the first teaser I've done this summer. It's something new I'm working on, and I'll probably only leave it up a few days :) . Would you want to read on?

The sun is descending and it’s begun to spit a cold rain when our conveyance rumbles to a stop at a crossroad. An awkward box-like truck is blocking the road, and even in an armored carriage we won’t try to pass it. Burly men in masks, cloth ones--flimsy and useless to stop serious contagion--stagger back to the truck, carrying bodies wrapped in tattered quilts. I wonder if the people, those who are still alive, will be cold tonight. If those are their only blankets.

April gags behind her white mask. “Too bad your father didn’t design these things to keep out noxious smells as well as noxious diseases.”

The truck moves forward a scant hundred yards and stops again. The driver doesn’t care that he’s blocking traffic, even though we are running late, heading to our favorite club.

The men, so muscular from lugging about corpses, swagger up to a woman who is holding a small bundle. When they try to take it she shrieks and tries to run away. A man comes out of what’s left of a building; I see that the roof has been blasted away, probably during some useless riot, and the stone house is roofed with canvas, A sort of tent—house, I can’t imagine that it’s warm or comfortable. He stops the girl, grips her shoulders and forcibly turns her.

The man says something, gestures to the truck. He’s impatient. I try to guess how old she is. From her posture, I’m supposing that she’s just a girl. In this light, under the bulk of her cheap protective clothing, it is impossible to say.

Maybe that’s why I feel connected to her, because she’s so young.

Wikipedia on Gothic Lit

2010-06-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

I know, Wikipedia? But for the casual researcher (like me hearing some tidbit of info and wanting to know more about it), Wikipedia is where we go. If it's important I verify it elsewhere, but otherwise I just go...hmmm interesting.

So, if I were casually interested in Gothic Lit, what would I learn from Wikipedia?

Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to asGothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror andromance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto.

I am very sorry to say that I owned and read Castle of Otranto in my second or third year of college, that I sold it back to the bookstore. I believe this was because it was in a compilation three book in one type deal, and I hate those as a reader.

The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension ofRomantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. Gothic literature is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. In a way similar to the gothic revivalists' rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the neoclassical style of the Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest for atmosphere. The ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations—thus the urge to add fake ruins as eyecatchers in English landscape parks. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, characterized by harsh laws enforced by torture, and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals. In literature such Anti-Catholicism had a European dimension featuring Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition ).

Okay, I have to admit that I LOVE this whole section, because I love atmosphere. I also love that idea of adding ruins into places to add interest...that's exactly what I was writing about last week, how the ruined hotel next door to our resort added so much texture and interest to my balcony view. How I love old stuff, and ruined stuff. Takes me back to my two week European whirlwind tour, the castles, the torture museums, the castles, the catacombs, more castles...some people whom I am married to were sick of castles, but I have to admit, I have no idea how anyone ever gets sick of castles...(once my new scanner gets here I can put some of my awesome castle photos online, yay summer project!)

Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, thesupernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay,doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses.

OMG, I am so excited to report that I have all of these in The Fall (thanks Mr. Poe!) and all of them in either one or the other of my works in progress.

The stock characters of Gothic fiction include tyrants, villains, bandits, maniacs, Byronic heroes,persecuted maidens, femmesfatales, monks, nuns, madwomen, magicians, vampires, werewolves,monsters, demons, angels, fallen angels, revenants, ghosts, perambulating skeletons, theWandering Jew and the Devil himself.

Sadly, I have to report that I have no perambulating skeletons. The middle of this list could be pulled right out of the shelves of popular paranormal lit, couldn't it? Except I think that instead of falling for the vampire you're supposed to fall for the Byronic hero. Still, it's interesting to see that these elements that have been used by so many other types of fiction were stock characters of Gothic Fiction.

Summer Reads...want a copy of Handcuffs?

2010-06-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

I'm interrupting my series of posts on Gothic Literature to give away some books! Edited to add that I'm writing about Gothic because my new manuscript is Gothic...Handcuffs is actually realistic contemporary...see my website for a description/excerpt).

I just got back from the beach. When I think of summer reads, I don't think of light and fluffy, I think of books that suck me in. Cause if I'm sitting in the sun sweating, or riding on an airplane trying to forget the misery that is riding on an airplane, or whatever...I want a book that interests me. It doesn't have to change my life, just make me want to read on.

None of my adorable little copies of Handcuffs have ever gotten to go to the beach, but I'm pretty sure that someone somewhere might find it enjoyable summer reading.

Give me a comment to let me know how much you want one or where you're going to read it this summer...(and if you aren't following my brand new blog, maybe you could sign on for that, too?) I'm going to give away five of them!!!!

Winners will be announced on Tuesday Night! ETA, obviously these will all be signed. But I have to warn you, my signature won't make you much money on ebay :) Also, I changed the winners announcement from Sunday (gonna be at my dad's) to Tuesday after Teaser Tuesday!

YA and Gothic Lit- the Overlap

2010-06-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've been asking everyone I know to define Gothic Lit for me. I had one college class and read a lot of Victoria Holt novels that my mom gave me, followed by a lot of V. C. Andrews novels, followed by Anne Rice... so I have a definite perspective of Gothic Lit. But I find that many people have different opinions, or backgrounds, or impressions.

I asked Amy Ross in particular...not only did we both write Gothic YA novels, but at one point we discussed that we had both made lists of particular words/vocabulary to make sure we got into our novels. (I plan to do a blog entry on my word list sometime in the next few weeks). And, she's as knowledgeable as anyone I know about the overlap between YA Lit and Gothic Lit. She came through with something even more insightful than I expected!

So Bethany asked me to write a guest post about YA Lit and the Gothic, partly because I'm shopping around a Gothic YA novel of my own right now, and partly because I've taken a few classes on the Gothic, and so apparently I'm supposed to know something about it (haha).

One thing I have noticed in my studies is that there is a strong affinity between classic Gothic stories and contemporary YA Lit. For example, even though "young adult literature" didn't exist as a genre back then, a lot of the earliest Gothic novels (written in the 18th and 19th centuries) revolve around teenage heroines who run away from home, go on adventures, outsmart bad guys, and generally act pretty bad ass for their era – just the type of activities we expect in modern YA stories.

For another, the Big Bad Guys in classic Gothic novels – whether they be vampires and demons or hyper-strict fathers and psychotically persistent suitors – often represent the ways that young people have always felt restricted by their position in society. It turns out that even in the 18th century, teenage girls were frustrated with their parents telling them what to do, their culture telling them how to behave, and boys telling them what they should do with their bodies.

It makes sense, then, that the Gothic is starting to show up again in YA novels of today. I'm talking about more than just vampires here – ruined castles, haunted houses, dark secrets, black magic, torture, mistaken identities, madness, moral ambiguity... if you spot any one or more of these elements in a book you're reading, there's a good chance it could be classified as Gothic. It turns out that a lot of these classic motifs are just as creepy and fascinating today as they were two hundred years ago – and our heroines might be even more bad ass.

Amy Danziger Ross blogs at telepathicparanoia.com. Her current novel is about a group of contemporary teenagers who become dangerously obsessed with Gothic fiction, until it starts to become all too real.

Why are the Ruins of things SO Interesting?

2010-06-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's just me that loves ruins...but with the recent frenzy for post-apocalyptic literature, I don't think so.

Why are the ruins of a relationship more interesting than the relationship?

Why are the ruins of love more interesting than love itself?

Why are the ruins of a civilization more interesting than civilization?

Why are the ruins of a hotel all over my travel pictures?

Another question - if you could go anyplace in the world, where would it be? What are the ten places you'd like to visit before...you make your list of the NEXT ten places you want to visit (there's no need to be pessimistic here, none of us are dying).

All of mine would be sites of archaeological interest. Macchu Picchu, Rome and Venice, Egypt, Angkor Watt, Eastern Europe (Dracula tour!), I want to return to Mt. St. Michel and see more of France (the museums were on strike last time I was there!) as well as the hill towns in the Dordogne Valley (see Mom, I listen to some stuff you talk about). I'd love to visit Carthage, Greece, the entire Mediterranean, really... And since my absolute favorite parts of the natural world = a fascination with caves, well...catacombs; I would like to go anyplace with catacombs.

I do love places of natural wonder...but the ones that made the most impact on me have always been archaeological... after a trip to The Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest (okay that was a favorite, too) my very favorite thing were the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

There was a time as a kid when I wanted to be an archaeologist, though (irony alert) the only college elective I ever failed was an Archeology class.

So, on our trip to Mexico, the best part about our hotel room (we were in the older part of the building, the rest of our party in the newer part, with the huge whirlpool tubs) were the ruins next door. Now, I will say, that this trip was all about celebrating one of the world's most beautiful beaches with 5 and 7 year olds who love the beach. It was also about relaxation for the parents of said 5 and 7 year olds. So, we didn't even go to the major ruins. We took pictures at the archaeological site across the street, and we took pictures and stared at the ruined hotel, what I called post apocalyptic Mexico.

Now, my fascination led me to investigate...online I found reviews of the rubble that said the hotel was a hotbed of food poisoning and mosquitoes. A one star hotel where drunk spring break kids nursed hangovers. What's left of it is pretty beautiful, though.

It makes me want someone to write stories about all the things that might've happened there.

Cell phones in literature and life

2010-06-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I was one of the last people I know to get a cell phone. Got a pay as you go phone seven years ago when Ezra was born, upgraded to a green razr (whatever happened to those phones, I kind of loved mine) then a little white Motorola that I can check email on.

I've had some (even if very basic) cell phone service since my children were born. I can't imagine driving them around town without a phone.

Two things have brought my (shall I say our? yeah, I think the world is as dependent on cell phones as I am) dependency on cell phones. One, I reread one of my favorite books, and I went to Mexico.

The book was The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, a fabulous book that was released in 1992. Part of the action of the book is in the 2050's and part of it is in the middle ages. But the characters in the 2050's spent a lot of time ringing people up and taking messages. I was like, um, in the middle of a pandemic, people would be texting like crazy, people would be carrying their phones, they would be checking voicemail. To avoid being distracted from the story I had to tell myself it was probably some Brittish cell phone service outage.

I also remember that Guilty Pleasures by Laurel K. Hamilton came out about the same time, and that in the early books Anita Blake has to stop and call in from payphones. Early episodes of the X-files, anyone?

The thing is that after only a few short years we EXPECT to be interconnected and instantaneously communicating, and we expect everyone else to be able to unless there is some reason they can't (an asteroid hitting the earth, or whatever).

On my recent trip to Mexico I found myself without access to a cell phone. It was a huge pain. Especially with several people in different rooms. Frustrating...and inconvenient. I haven't used a hotel phone in years. It made me see how dependent I've gotten on the cell phone, and how extremely frustrating it is not to be able to report to others what is happening as it happens. Not to call up and tell someone to bring down the sunblock, not to be able to check dinner plans...and lets not talk about when our rented speedboat died in the middle of THE OCEAN and the rest of our group disappeared into the distance. I distinctly wanted a cell phone at that time.

Last two things I'm going to say...1. your average teen can text from inside the pocket of their hoodie.

2. The average teen doesn't really remember life before texting.

Isn't that amazing?

I on the otherhand, remember the Friends episode where Ross's baby was about to be born, and he was given a pager (555-JIMBO/JUMBO) a pager? Remember those?

Contemporary YA books in particular need to have some technological component. I recently asked a group of kids if they even had the experience of calling someone's house and saying, is so and so there? Calling the landline. They did, but usually only when a cell phone was dead or going to voicemail or whatever. Imagine not having to hear your boyfriend's parents' exasperation every time you called to talk to him for a few hours...oh yeah, modern teens don't! We live in fun times, don't you think?

Graduation

2010-06-06T06:35:00.000-07:00

If you are a YA writer, and you don't have any young friends, I am telling you right now, get yourself to a graduation ceremony. I went to two yesterday, because my little brother graduated from High School, and then to my own school's graduation to see my own students graduate.

In an odd (odd because I was a very cynical high school student who was very cynical and unmoved by her own high school graduation) it was very moving. And I cried.

There's just something about seeing that transition from child to adult...and the memories, and the speakers tend to be the kids who actually LIKED high school, but still...

YA writers write about coming of age, and graduation is all about that.

You can bet that there are kids in the audience who are ecstatic that high school is over. There are kids who are devastated, frightened, nervous. There are kids who bought into "these are the best years of your life" and kids who made them the best years of their lives, and kids who are waiting for the best years of their lives to start. And there are kids...who aren't really kids any more.

Books that Changed My Life (or something)

2010-06-06T05:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a weird thing. None of my very favorite books are YA or Realistic. This is weird only because my first published book IS YA and realistic.

There are a lot of realistic YA books that I love. Speak, Fat Kid Rules the World, Looking For Alaska, Good Girls, Cracked Up To Be, and Skin Deep...three of those would make my top 25. Which would go something like this...

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

He, She, and It by Marge Piercy

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

Ender's Game/Shadow by Orson Scott Card

The Giver by Lois Lowery

The Talisman by Stephen King and

The Witching Hour and Lasher by Anne Rice

The Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey

The Dark Tower series, particularly Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye

The Stand and It by Stephen King

Looking for Alaska by John Green

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Night by Elie Wiesel

Skin Deep by E.M Crane

The Vampire Chronicles 1-3 by Anne Rice

Feed by M. T. Anderson

The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick

Dune by Frank Herbert the first one ONLY :)

Yes, I cheated by including series and stuff, but I find that acceptable because there are SO Many Books...

I'll write blog posts later this summer explaining some of these choices. Some of them are dependent on when I read them. Some of them are dependent on who I was when I read them. Many of them I read at pivotal points in my life in both childhood and adulthood. All of them resonated with me. Some of them horrified me. Some of them I've taught, so that gives me a different perspective because I practically memorize them.

Has anyone out there read all of these? My husband has not read 7 of them, but of those 7 I know he started at least 3 and couldn't get into them. But having someone who has read the majority of my favorite books is sort of important to me.

Summer Reading...and Areas that I don't Know much about

2010-06-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

My summer reading list (above)

I'm speculating about this from a teacher's point of view as well as that of an author. Cause even if I have twenty students asking every day for sports books, I'm not capable of turning around and churning out a sports books. The thought...actually is pretty funny. Very funny. Extremely funny.

As I've said before, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is getting kids enthusiastic about books. (And for that I owe a big thanks to Suzanne Collins, because the Hunger Games has been a huge success as a classroom book). But besides picking out the books I'm going to force all the children to read together (the word children, I use loosely for 15 and 16 year olds---in other words, I'm getting old). I also love finding the right books for them to read independently.

And for that I spend a lot of time circulating as they peruse the shelves of the library.

One thing I know/believe is that the kids who are constant readers (and who buy books) know what they want. But I still recommend more and more books for them. These guys read a lot.

Categories I get asked for and Don't Know what to recommend

Sports Books- Even as an anti-sportite, I LOVE Chris Crutcher's Books, but the ones I'm familiar with are somewhat dated. There's Bleachers by John Grisham, but once they've read those, what else is there...why aren't more sports books? What should I be giving these (usually boys) students who ask for Sports books?

Horror- this is one I need for my new Speculative Fiction class. Not paranormal, (though the paranormal genre is great for getting kids to read, yay paranormal!) but true scary Horror. This summer I've got The Devouring and the Monstrumologist, and Poison on my reading list. What else should I get?

I'm particularly interested in Gothic YA right now. Cause that's what I'm writing.

Mystery- students are always saying they like to read mystery...and the thing is that mystery like romance is a aspect that is present in most books, but is there a mystery genre for YA?

These are some areas I want to learn more about... and read more of...this summer.

For the fall semester I'll be starting out with two Sophomore English classes and the Speculative Fiction class. Lots of fun research and reading for me to do.

End of the School Year Braindeadery(ness)

2010-05-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

Wow. Today I've been completely useless. Tomorrow I hope to get lots of hated yard work done, to grade a few papers, to refine my final, and basically get ready for a week that's sure to go quickly. We have finals on Thursday and Friday. I really can't believe it.

Later this week I want to relate our exciting fun times at Cedar Point amusement park on the senior trip.

And I'm reading a ton of books, particularly looking for books to add to the reading list for my Speculative Lit class for next year. And you know, just good summer reading.

I LOVE summer. Love it. I didn't become a teacher just for summer vacation, but I have to admit, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

The End of the Year School Year, That is!

2010-05-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Oh wow, it's the middle of May. If we hadn't had six snow days, we'd be in the final final stretch for this year. As it is, we can see the final stretch...we're almost there...the weather is wonderful. The students are restless. The teachers (some of them) are getting restless. We're ready for the end...

Summer Vacation.

The only time in my life I didn't get it was in college, when I took classes and worked during the summer.

At that time I didn't know I was going to become a teacher, so I didn't know I would end up having summer vacation for the rest of my life.

The thing about summer break, is that we really need it. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the summer, the reasoning behind summer break is sort of archaic, but wow, when you're doing creative work day in and day out, and frustrating work, and trust me teaching is both creative and frustrating, you need a break.

We're at that point right now. I need a break, the kids need a break. I can't imagine a job where I had to do the same thing all the time with only a few weeks of vacation.

Parents and Naming

2010-05-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

Well, how do you pick character names? I pick character names by thinking about the parents. Because I'm a parent myself, in fact I would have 7 or 10 more kids if all I had to do was name them and I didn't have to take them places, care for them, or buy them shoes.

I also still have lists of names from when I was choosing my kids' names.

Ezra sort of came out of nowhere. We found it in the baby name book and were like, kind of cool, but no way, and by the time he was born, there was Ezra Jude. Noel was the girl possibility when I was pregnant with Ezra, so when I found out I was pregnant with a baby girl who was due in December, well, what other choice was there? So we have Noel Jillian and Ezra Jude. Both two syllable four letter names with middle initial J. A little symmetry there, I think.

For both names we wanted unusual but not made up, classic, not frilly, with some sense of history. I think we achieved that.

In Handcuffs the characters are Paige, Parker and Preston. I named them because I felt like the parents were (before Parker's father lost his job) upwardly mobile and aware of being upwardly mobile. Those p names struck me as upwardly mobile names, and they had a sort of symmetry. The neighbors were Kyle and Marion, both fairly popular names.

I like names that sound like the same parents would pick them. What kind of names would the parents want, because the names the parents want somehow reflect the child the parents want, and while the child they get isn't always what they wanted, their desire for that kind of offspring is bound to have some impact on the kid.

So, unlike some authors, when I'm picking a name I think first of the parents, because I know how hard it is to pick a name. There are freaking checklists involved. And flowcharts, and opinions you will hear from all of your family and friends. All of which are long past by the time a YA character shows up in a story, but still part of their history.

Reflections on Motherhood

2010-05-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

I have a lot to say about motherhood and moms in YA lit, so I think I'm going to write multiple entries on this subject throughout the week. But today I'm thinking of my perspective of motherhood and the moms in my books.

Or, book, really. I'm going to focus on Mrs. Prescott, the mom in Handcuffs. First, she wasn't based on my mom at all. She was kind of based on...what I could become. My fears of myself. I have a friend who said that while you're pregnant it's like they implant some kind of guilt chip in you. And she was right. Once you have kids, everything is so intense, and it's not all good stuff, there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of guilt. Are you doing everything right? Did you do something wrong? Did you screw those little people up forever? Are you the worst mom in the world?

There's also just a lot of constant movement and action. The thing I miss most from pre-motherhood is silence. I love silence, and these days my house is filled with constant noise. You don't get to do the things that you want to do when you want, you have to think of other people before you think of yourself.

Sometimes if feels like too much, and that's the point where I just want to clock out. Just ignore them, after twenty thousand inane comments, I just want to say, "I don't really care. "

If anyone is an Anne Rice fan and read The Vampire Lestat, you might remember that Lestat's mother Gabrielle sort of gave up on her kids and locked herself in a tower to read books. There are days when that sounds like the ideal existence, to me.

And because I have that capacity, that's the part of motherhood that scares me the most. That you spend so much time caring and feeling so intensely that you overload and just want it to stop. I'm afraid of the idea of being the mom who clocks out stops caring because caring is too hard. And fear is where we go to create characters, isn't it?

And that's sort of where I started with Mrs. Prescott. I think she's mostly a good mom, and she cares, but she's overwhelmed, and Parker is the kid she's sort of clocked out on, because Parker has always been easy...except when the book takes place, which is Parker's journey away from being the easygoing always good and dependable child.

A big part of the book is the mother daughter relationship, it begins with making her mom cry on Christmas, and ends with her talking to her mother. Pretty big relationship for a YA book, really.

Parker's younger brother Preston is extremely hyper and ADHD.(as she tells her older sister in the book, the H in ADHD stands for hyper) A kid like that would overwhelm me fast (remember silence, well moms of ADHD kids might not). Having a kid like that would make me need some staring into space collecting myself time, and a mother of three isn't likely to get that sort of time, particularly when she's holding her family together financially.

Mrs. Prescott cares about Parker, but she's never able to focus on her, and her unfocused misunderstanding (of is it a misunderstanding? Parker is incensed that her mom thinks she is just like Paige, but in many ways, she is like Paige) helps Parker to define and figure herself out, because she has to.

Being a mom is rewarding, and I wouldn't change anything about my life, but man, it's hard.

How do People Learn from Literature.

2010-05-05T17:00:00.001-07:00

This question is kind of a big deal for me. Let's look at it a couple of ways...When I was in college studying education for my Master's Degree there were books that said every educated person should know and should have read certain things. I don't really agree with that line of thinking, although I do think there are things you should be aware of as an educated person...but the fact that I know nothing about musicals doesn't make me stupid, just maybe a little uncultured, I guess.

My philosophy as an English Teacher is that I teach elements of literature using good books, not the books themselves.

Okay, not take it a step further...how do people learn from literature...

This is a response to an interview I did last year

I will commit the cardinal sin of commenting upon a book I have no intention of reading- just to say that this review has confirmed my worst fears. How wonderful that teenage bondage fiction has been written by a high school English teacher! She must be a real student favorite!
According to the interview, she holds some interesting attitudes :”You learn things by reading because you learn that other people have different experiences than you and other people have similar experiences as you,” Griffin said. “It’s not supposed to be, ‘Don’t do drugs. Don’t have sex.’ While I know ( from personal experience) that misquotes and misinformation abound in such interviews, I am appalled that this is a teacher’s response.

Okay, and even though it appalled that person, I stand by what I said. Books aren't meant to moralize. Nobody ever went to a bookstore to buy a NOVEL and said, yeah I want a book that teaches me not to drink too much. You buy books because they are interesting. And, though maybe I could've said it more eloquently, the idea that you learn that people have the same feelings/experiences is important, and learning about people with different experiences is important.

So, as you can see, this idea is a pretty big deal to me.

Here are the student responses. Let me add as a disclaimer that the most popular books in this class have been 13 Reasons Why and Living Dead Girl.

1. They learn lessons and gain knowledge for life

2, It has happened to someone else, you read about it and know how their actions affected their situation.

3. Why people do what they do, and what can happen to you.

4. For me, when I read I block the whole world out. After I think of how the characters got through something horrible, I think my life isn't as bad as sometimes I make it seem.

5. By looking at the world from a different perspective

6. They let you know there are people in worse situations and how bad life can be.

7. I think people relate through literature and learn to cope with things by finding a common problem.

8. by reading and getting something out of what you read.

9. they learn life lessons.

10. By seeing how people deal with problems in their daily life.

11. Relating to others and learning through their mistakes.

100 Book Challenge!

2010-05-03T15:52:00.001-07:00

So, I'm taking the 100 book challenge and trying to read 100 books this year. Considering I read a lot more in the summer, I'm right on target/above target, so yay!

These are in no particular order, not even the order of how I read them!

1. Need

2. Crank

3. The Child Thief

4. Impossible

5. City of Glass

6. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (reread)

7. Cracked Up to Be

8. Handcuffs :) (with a class even though I swore I never would)

9. Peeps

10. Burning Your Boats (reread)

11. Skin Deep (reread)

12. Glass

13. The Dead Tossed Waves

14. The Ask and the Answer

15. The Hunger Games (with 4 classes)

16. Speak (also with 4 classes)

17. Shiver

18. Leviathan

19. Will Grayson, Will Grayson

20. The Road

21. The Tale of Halcyon Crane

22. Peeps

23. The Maze Runner

24. Catching Fire

25. The Giver (reread with Creative Writing)

I'd like to read so many books over the summer that I can take the rereads and class books off and still do 100 books. I think I can do it. I can read a book every few days in the summer, and my to read pile is insane and exciting.

Teen Readers- What do YOU Want to Read?

2010-04-30T19:15:00.001-07:00

Okay, so here are the first two questions on my survey (there are six total) Enjoy!

1. What type of books do you have the easiest time getting into?

Student 1 Male age 17, 11th grade action packed. Needs to have something new happen in every chapter. Science Fiction.

Student 2 Male 18, (12th grade) science fiction or fantasy.

Student 3 Male 17, (12th grade) fantasy/paranormal

Student 4 Female 16, (10th grade) love stories

Student 5 Female, 16, 11th grade realistic fiction

Student 6 Female 17th, (11th grade) fantasy

Student 7 Female 17, (12th grade) Love stories or sad stories

Student 8 Female 16, (11th grade) stories about friends that hang out and are funny

Student 9 Female 16, (11th grade) romance

Student 10 Female 17, (11th grade) love, mystery books

Student 11 Female 15, (10th grade) horror books and books with edge

Student 12 Female 16, (10th grade) lots of details.

2. Do you think characters should make mistakes?

Student 1 yes, to a certain extent.

Student 2 Obviously, a perfect character is hard to relate to.

Student 3 yes...perfection makes life boring.

Student 4 yes, everyone makes mistakes. We are human, you know.

Student 5 yes, people make mistakes so characters should make mistakes.

Student 6 It depends on the situation.

Student 7 Of course, if they were perfect we couldn't relate.

Student 8 yes, because it causes conflicts.

Student 9 yes, if they didn't it would be boring.

Student 10 yes, because in the end there should be a lesson involved.

Student 11 yes I do

Student 12 yes, or it wouldn't be interesting

Teen Reader Survey Results

2010-04-30T14:42:00.001-07:00

Over the next few days I'm going to post the results of a survey that I did of 12 avid readers. The teens will be numbered 1-12 so you can follow which one posted what, and the first three are male, the rest are females.

The questions are:

1. What types of books do you have the easiest time "getting into"

2. Do you think the characters in books should make mistakes?

3. How do you think people learn from literature?

4. What subject matter do you consider pushing the boundaries in YA literature?

5. Do the YA books you read reflect the level of bad language, sexuality, drug use, and peer pressure that exist in teens' real lives?

6. What is the appeal of YA fiction?

Poe...Even Non-Readers Pretend They Like/Appreciate/Understand Poe.

2010-04-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

I think about Poe a good bit. What? I'm a high school English teacher, the plant on my desk is named Edgar, and the students decorate him with origami ravens...

I read a lot about Poe last summer to get myself ready for my current writing project. Here's the weird thing, you almost never hear anyone saying that they HATE Poe. Or that they never heard of him. So, the thesis for this blog entry is... even people who don't read Poe like to pretend they read Poe. Which makes one wonder, why> Do people pretend to read Dickens? Shakespeare? Steinbeck? Well, yes, that's called High School English class. (I read all my books, thank you. It was the thing I was best at in school...still upset that I didn't see what everybody else loves about The Great Gatsby, but I do love me some To Kill A Mockingbird).

But Poe is different because it's COOL to read and like Poe. And by cool I mean emo-goth-fantabulous.
I have compiled, for your reading pleasure...some reasons why people who don't read Poe like to act like they read Poe. :)

Cool dark ambiance
The Collected Tales and Poems can be a really great fashion accessory, it goes great with black plastic glasses, black trench coats, and all sorts of hats.
Perfect for pretending to read while pretending to listen to The Cure.
It's preferable to read a story by someone who married their cousin, than to actually marry your cousin.
Ravens are creeeeepy
Nevermore rhymes with Lenore and Annabel Lee rhymes with Sea, and rhyming is fun!
Gaily bedight, a gallant knight, who says awesome stuff like that?
In theory pre-mature burial is pretty sick.
If sick is synonymous with cool, or even if it isn't, Poe is the sickest author around.

Teaser Tuesday

2010-04-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a very very short teaser for The Fall. I mostly just wanted everyone to visit my new blog :).

“What is going to happen to me?” I repeat. “Will I go mad?”

Dr. Paul smiles. He is enjoying this. “Like your mother, you will suffer fits. During these spells, your senses will become morbidly acute. The most insipid food will be unendurable, your clothing will be painful to your skin, and the quietest of sounds will inspire you with terror. You will have headaches, and you will lose consciousness.”

“I don’t believe you,” I say.

“You do. You know what happened to your mother. It has already begun.”

Peer Pressure... How Early Does This Crap Begin?

2010-04-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

Students in my YA lit class consistently rate peer pressure as one of the most insidious problems of teen students, and I find that disturbing. But when does peer pressure begin?

The picture above, is it the cutest child in the world? Why yes, it's my daughter Noel. Who inexplicably decided to get her ears pierced this week. (see red ears in picture).

She is five and has very stubborn ideas and opinions. Once she makes up her mind, don't try to change it...but somebody is changing it.

Let's start with her hair. Last year about this time, I cut off all my hair, very short. Noel was very upset, to the point of crying and saying I wasn't her mommy. (which made me cry). Anyway, though she has very thin hair, over the last year she refused to let us cut it. Since my husband gets the kids ready for school in the morning, we really wanted to push the cute shorter hair, but no, she insisted, she cried, she refused. A few weeks ago the girl next door got a shorter hair cut. When I took Ezra to get his hair cut I told Noel I wanted to get hers trimmed, I was in mid sentence going, "it will make your hair healthier, it won't look any different, we'll just cut the very ends off," When she suddenly decided she wanted to get her hair not just trimmed, but cut!

All that begging, bribery, logic, all the crying when I brushed her hair (the child has the most sensitive head in the world), did nothing, but the girl next door...yeah, sign her up for a hair cut.

And about the earrings...I have a pretty impressive jewelry collection, and she's asked me about the holes in my ears before, and I always told her that we'd have them pierced when she wanted to. Out of nowhere, last week she wanted to go immediately. I know there had to be a catalyst, and I know it wasn't some little-kid-pusher going "get your ears pierced or we won't be friends any more..." though I did have one of those in my class way back when..."wear jelly shoes or I won't be your friend anymore... you can't be in our club..." oh, the nightmares.

So, the thing is, this is my child who I would expect to be less influenced by others because of her natural stubbornness. My other one loves to make people happy, and that worries me a little.

As parents, our biggest concern is how do we instill our kids with enough self esteem that they don't make mistakes because of peer pressure. Making mistakes because of your own curiosity or desires are bad enough... but somehow less reprehensible when you look back on said mistakes (not that I made any, Hi mom!) than making mistakes because someone else wanted you to do something and you just gave in.

But how do you get kids to have that self esteem? I don't even know! We're obviously they coolest parents EVER and our 5 year old doesn't even listen to us...how do parents of teens cope with all this?

I plan to spend this summer going to Chuck E Cheese and the zoo and pretending that the teenage years will never arrive...even if they might be good for my own writerly research. It's okay, I can just use my imagination! I don't need angst in my own house!

The power of a classroom library

2010-04-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking what an amazing thing my classroom library is. Before I get started, let me say that my school library is astounding. Really, great books, a librarian who spends money on books rather than just computers or other things (we have a $400 globe purchased by the previous librarian $400!) I give her a list of books several times a year, and she buys them.

But there's something about having books in the classroom that's just so so so awesome. It's pretty expensive to keep up...I go to our local library sale and get some decent books, and I buy a lot of books...

On a daily basis students and former students stop in to see what I'm reading, and to discuss books with me, and to borrow books. It makes me very happy. Being surrounded by books makes me happy. I lose books every year, and I hate that, but I also know that the students who end up with the books probably have less financial ability to buy books than I do.

So a student asked me today to buy her an Ellen Hopkins book that she couldn't get from the library. I'm not really comfortable taking money from students, even to buy them things if they can't get to a book store, so I told her I would buy a copy for the classroom.

Having students value books is so priceless!

Another What is a teen paper/response/essay...

2010-04-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

I didn't really want to call this an essay because I didn't want to make anyone nauseous. I think you'll find this one refreshingly cynical, even if you don't agree with his assessment of his fellow teens. I love these assignments!

Disrespectful, immature, rebellious, and reckless. What might I be talking about you wonder? Well the answer is easy to see really. I’m talking about teen stereotypes. These stereotypes are how others see teens, but are it really true? I’m going to dive into this and defend or refute these statements.

First let us start with the disrespectful. While it’s no big secret that most teens don’t get along with their parents, there is a myth surrounding teens that they are typically disrespectful. Is it deserved? Or is it just part of the stereotype? The answer? It depends on your perspective. While from the parents perspective it seems that their child is being disrespectful, to the child they are only trying to test new boundaries.

The second stereotype we’ll look at is that teens are immature. I believe that some teens are immature and that some are, but I believe the immature ones outweigh the mature teens. Teens like to cuss, use bad humor, and just play pranks. Well as I said before a few teens don’t like to do that kind of stuff the majority do. So this stereotype is well earned.

Next on the list? It would be rebellious, but seeing as that almost the same thing as disrespectful we’ll move on to reckless. This one has applied to almost every teen I’ve ever known. Most teens tend to act before they speak. Although I’m sure most students wouldn’t call it recklessness. I’m sure they would prefer it thought of as living in the moment. After all if these are “the best days of your life” why not enjoy them to the fullest?

I’ve proved that some of the rumors and stereotypes about teens are true. On the other hand you have quite a few that aren’t. Not that it matters either way. To truly know someone you must get past stereotypes and give the person a chance. Which is what most teens want.

What is a Teen? from the source (a teen)

2010-04-19T03:17:00.000-07:00

What Is a Teen?

By: Joye A. Walton

There is a question that all adults and kids want answered and teenagers don’t know how to answer, what is a teen? We know that teenagers are different, but why? We know that there are activities that we associate with teens, but is it true? All are teens rebellious? Do teens think about only sex? Are teens emotional time bombs? It seems like the world has teenagers figured out, I beg to differ.

Let’s analyze the first stereotype, all are teens rebellious? This is a little bit tricky. Most teens would fit into this category. Teens are in this weird stage in life, they aren’t kids but they aren’t adults, so where do they belong? This longing to belong does make us apt to be rebellious. The textbook parent just wants what is best for their child, however not every parent is the textbook parent, and not every teen is the textbook teen. Even though most teenagers are rebellious not all teens are.

Now for the next stereotype, do teens only think about sex? This stereotype really makes me mad. I believe that adults think about sex just as much if not more as teenagers. The only reason that people seem to believe that teens think about sex so much more is because we are going through puberty. I’m sorry that teenagers are forced to go through a biological cycle, we have no choice. It is true we do think about sex, but who doesn’t. I believe that teenagers don’t think about sex obsessively, unless they have a problem. So, please give us teenagers a break, everyone thinks about sex.

The final stereotype, are teens emotional time bombs? Here we go. This stereotype is mainly aimed at girls. Being a teenage girl I do take some offense to it, however it holds some truth, but not a lot. I myself tend to be over emotional but the mainstream of girls I tend to believe are not. Girls are apt to be dramatic so they just go overboard. Usually what gets them all amped up was something stupid that is totally valid to be mad about. For a second let’s talk about boys. They usually don’t get much hassle and yes for the most part they handle themselves very well, but there are some boys that are just as emotional as girls.

In conclusion don’t put teenagers in a box and label them. Every teen is different. Some teens fit the stereotype but some don’t. Yes, teens are apt to be rebellious, but it doesn’t mean that teens don’t have any sense. Teens think about more things then sex. Teens might be emotional but it doesn’t mean they can’t think. Then next time you go to put teens in a box I challenge you to think about your own teen years. Maybe you were the stereotype, but maybe you weren’t. I can guarantee something though; you were different than everyone else.

Birthday Imagery :)

2010-04-18T05:13:00.000-07:00

So, Friday was my birthday, and while the mail guy was delivering my Amazon order,(Will Grayson, Will Grayson, the Dead Tossed Waves, and a new hardcover of The Road) and while I was eating sushi with my irl friends, I got these pictures from my online friends. My musers.

Anyway, we'll see what these pictures say about me...have any ideas?

I think what these say about me is that I have awesome online friends. And not everybody understands that. So, do you know people online who know you as well, or sometimes better than the people who you know irl? I wonder if that's going to be something we see in YA literature in the future? From years ago I remember (not a YA) Tad Williams' Otherworld series, and that some of the characters only knew each other online (and the rest met each other online since they were all trapped there). Anyway...I'm still bursting with birthday happiness, but I'll be back to the world of teens with some great essays on Teen stereotypes written by teens. A few of them might surprise you!

A Brand New Blog for my Birthday!

2010-04-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

So, is a new blog like a fresh, unused piece of paper? A word document that you open for the first time, type the name of your prospective new manuscript/paper/grocery list (yes, I type my grocery lists, so what?) then hit save as, then stare at all the white space for a few minutes?

Today is the day after my birthday, and for me, it's sort of like New Years because a. I have a bit of a headache, and b. this is the point where I reevaluate my goals and what I've done...and decide how well I'm doing.

A blank sheet of paper. My life isn't a blank sheet of paper any more. It has stamps, and diplomas, and a certain two small people that require a degree of non-blank, non-spontaneity in life.

But this blog is a blank sheet of paper.

I've decided that I will go back to my original blog http://bethanygriffin.livejournal.com/ and bring over the best posts, particularly the ones about working with teens. But otherwise, this blog is brand new, and is going to be the first step in getting more dedicated to the art of blogging, which is one that I only halfway understand at this point in my life. In all honesty I never kept a diary for more than a few days, and setting goals for myself as far as posting daily, just makes me want to rebel, run away, hide. But my new blog is so pretty and shiny, and my new resolution...well let's just say I have a wealth of teen opinion and information to share.

So, happy birthday, self, you have a new blog to keep up with!