I've been spoiled by YA fiction.

You pick up a novel and you're usually hooked from the first page. The story moves quickly. In the best of them, you're not laden down by pages and pages of description and backstory. The dialogue is generally realistic and funny, and BAM! You reach the conclusion often in less than 300 pages.

I recently picked up and paid an arm and a leg for (well, I would have paid an arm and a leg without my Borders gift cert) a new, hardcover, mainstream adult novel. I read the reviews ahead of time and subject matter interested me for personal reasons. I was so excited to get this book that I actually stopped reading Picoult's My Sister's Keeper in the middle. Seriously. And I was totally into it.

The new novel started out great: on the literary side with lush descriptions, intriguing characters, and, as I said, a subject dear to my heart.

Then it plummeted into suckiness for multiple reasons:

1. Blab, blab, blab, blab, blab, blab...

2. And BLAAAAAB!

3. Backstory, backstory, backstory, backstory.

4. Everyone single minute aspect of every character's personality picked apart with a pair of tweezers.

5. Nobody talks like this. SERIOUSLY. And even if they do talk like this, why does every character sound exactly the same?

6. I don't like these people. OK, it's true--you don't have to fall in love with a main character. I've read plenty of stories where the MC was pretty obnoxious, in fact. But you have to be able to identify even in some very small way with the protagonist (or in this case, the MANY protagonists--omigod, pick one, pick one!) in order to keep an interest in the story.

7. Which leads me to the next problem: multiple main characters. I don't mean one protagonist and perhaps a significant backup of secondary characters to carry the story along. I mean a handful of main characters, alternating POVs, each storyline described in excruciating, mind-numbing detail.

Note: Some authors, YA included, can pull off this multiple POV well. To me, Picoult's a master at this b/c whenever her stories switch to another viewpoint, I never think: Oh, no! Not again! But in my current read, I can't wait to get to the next POV. Why? Because I'm praying the next one will be better than the previous.

8. Oh, and did I mention: Blab, blab, blab, blab, blaaaaab? The author takes 5 or 6 pages to explain what I could say in 2 paragraphs.

Sooo, then I thought: Maybe I'm a peasant. Maybe adult, literary novels jest ain't mah thang. There's a 50/50 chance I'll finish this book. I keep hoping it'll get better (sometimes it does take a while to get into a story, but hell, I'm a quarter of the way through. It's looking pretty bleak).

Maybe I'm one of those "instant gratification" kind of people.

Or maybe I just prefer YA.

Harpswell, Maine, photo by my husband, John 


Today I'm going to the dentist . . .but I have three much more exciting events ahead this month!

Wednesday, July 16, Literary Garden Party, Maine Writers' and Publishers' Alliance, Camden, Maine. I'm on the Advisory Board for this organization, and this event is one of our annual fundraisers. This year's party is at Don McLean's house (Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie . . .). Very cool!  I'll get to see what an ICON'S bathroom looks like!

Friday July 18-- Sunday, July 20, MD/DE/WV SCBWI Conference, McDaniel College, Westminster, Maryland. I'm giving a keynote speech and critiquing manuscripts. I haven't been to Maryland since I was a child, so it's an extra treat for me to come. Will I see any of you there?

Saturday, July 26, Norfolk Public Library Literature Festival, Norfolk, Nebraska. I'm doing a workshop for young writers and a presentation. All three authors who are coming have a book nominated to the Nebraska Golden Sower List. I'm representing the middle-grade list, and the two other authors are Douglas Wood and Han Nolan.


Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) by Don McLean
 

                                                   French novelist Colette (1873-1954)

Ernest Hemingway stood when he wrote, preferably in a pair of oversized loafers, with the typewriter and the reading board chest-high opposite him.

Robert Frost preferred to write while sitting in an armchair.

Charles Dickens always slept facing towards the North because he thought it would improve his writing. He also used to touch everything three times for luck.

Lewis Carroll wrote most of his books, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, while standing up. He composed the tale when sitting down -- in a boat with the family of the Dean of Christ Church college, Oxford, including 10-year-old Alice.

Truman Capote would only ever write on yellow paper.

Balzac believed that in order to write a great book he needed to remain chaste. Every time he spent the night with a woman, he would say to himself, 'There goes another masterpiece.'

Road Dahl wrote his best-loved works in a specially designated writing hut in his orchard.

French novelist Colette didn't just read in bed, she preferred to write there too. To make things all the more comfortable, she invented a 'bed-raft' in her Paris apartment on which she slept, ate, entertained, phoned, read and wrote.

~ from THE LITERARY COMPANION by Emma Jones (Think Publishing, 2004).

What are your writer whims, rituals or superstitions?

(If you'll excuse me, I need to get into my Egyptian goddess costume.)
            
   

Originally published at Dark Territory. You can comment here or there.

I watch a lot of TV late at night when I can’t sleep, and I see a lot of ads for:

• Male enhancement
• Timeshares
• the LifeAlert necklace with that old lady lying on the floor who is probably dead
• Girls Gone Wild

I always found the GGW ads and indeed, the entire concept, quite pathetic and sad.  They don’t outrage me nearly as much as some of the more subtle shit that women deal with on a daily basis, but at the same time they’re just…assery.  Until tonight.  Tonight, I happened to look up at the exact right moment and I saw a girl doing the GGW trademarked Drunk Booty Dance, and stuffed into her thong was…a Polish sausage.

No, it wasn’t “something else”.  It was a sausage.  It was processed meat. In her bikini. You expect to see things like dollar bills or raffle tickets or expired coupons to Blockbuster stuffed in bikinis, but that was my first meat product.

I’ll be honest.  I needed a minute to process that.  Well played, GGW.  Well played.

Until that advert drove all reason from my mind, I was making good progress on my outline for the YA project, and I continued once I’d recovered from falling off the sofa and rolling around on the carpet.  I’m about done, so I can turn it into Rachel tomorrow and get feedback.

A sausage.

Jesus.

I still have a few left to visit!

http://discomermaids.blogspot.com/2008/07/yes-post-about-pens-robin.html

I figured I could post about the state of our economy or the massive job layoffs across the country or the outrageous gas prices, but really, I’m more concerned about pens.

Since I’m in the middle of revising my middle grade novel, and since I’m the type of person who revises using the mark-the-paper-like-mad-with-red-pen method, I am very particular about my red pens. Very particular.

It can’t be felt or ballpoint or fiber or gel. And especially not quill. That’s just weird. I like my pens to be, oh…how do you say…the kind that move. You know, the ones that just glide across the page without any effort and spit out just the right amount of ink that is very visible, not too faint, and not too bold. Yeah, see, I had just that pen. Had! And I made it through almost fifty pages of revisions with such a pen. Then it up and left the planet. I can’t find it anywhere!!!

However, a new pen has come into my life. You see, my husband and I decided to take out a home equity line of credit [see opening sentence] and when the lady came to our house to have us sign the documents, she said, “Sign here…and here…and here…” Which I did, and then I realized that she had handed me the most wonderful, gliding, graceful pen on the planet! (Other than the one I lost.) I asked her where she got it and she told me Costco and then she snatched it from my hand.

So now that we have all this extra money available due to our new home equity line of credit, I went out and bought a value pack of 16 Uni-Ball Vision Elite pens. Twelve of which are black, three are blue, and one is red.

One.

Which means I’d better not lose this pen, too. Otherwise, I will be posting about the state of our economy and complaining about the lack of good red pens in this country!

-Robin

I have been super busy. Which is good and annoying at the same time, because I haven't gotten much writing done. Though that might be in part because I hate the desk top computer and miss my lap top because it's easier to work with.

I am currently working on my query letter for Bashed. I hate query letters. With a passion. I've written about 5 drafts of this one and it's still annoying me because I keep reading it and thinking "Tess, this is the definition of LAME. Fix it!."

Frustrating!

We're down to three weeks left before opening for Marriage Go-Round. Things are going pretty well. I've got a pitch meeting on the 27th so I'm assembling packets for the artistic board to look at. I am hoping to direct "The Philadelphia Story" next year.

I was going to work on the next show, but I truly think I need a break, since I will be either acting in or working on the Christmas Show (which should be interesting, because it's like a cast of 25 and a lot of kids in it). I need to get a ton of writing done before that, and four shows in a row with no break seems kind of insane. Even for me.

Plus, it's a musical and I'm not sure I can handle another one. We shall see though. I might miss the theatre.

Ten Things is going well, I haven't been writing much but I figured out the solution to my cliff hanger problem (it involves over-dramatic actors and practice swords) and realized that there's no way in heck I'll be able to finish the book in 50,000 words like I thought. The stuff that I put Anna through would be way too rushed and piled on top of each other in 50,000 words. I'm aiming for 65,000 right now, but I think it'll be more like 60,000. At least for the first draft.

Other than that, all I've been doing is eating grapes and watching a ton of Nip Tuck (even though I have to look away when they do the surgery type stuff because I am a wimp).

XOXO
Tess

Jenwaters is new to live journal. :)



She is a fabulous writer who wrote for a newspaper in Washington for about 7 years, and who has won music song writing contests in Nashville and had her songs performed at the Kennedy Center!



Pamm and I met her last year at SCBWI LA. Jen is going to be there again this year as well.



Right now she is working on a young adult trilogy, and the music and lyrics to go with it as she hopes to make it a musical. She just got done with a bunch of Disney workshops and is very inspired :)).



So please rally up and friend jenwaters

Does it sound as if I've lost my mind? My husband seems to think so. 

Last night after I wrote for hours and hours after having not written in awhile, I said I feel as if I've been relieved through bloodletting. I don't know why I chose that term, I really don't, but for some reason the memory of the word stuck in my mind and I related it to how I felt. So, I went to google and typed in Bloodletting and found this to help him understand I didn't mean it literally. 

The custom of bloodletting as practiced over the centuries might seem repulsive to the modern practitioner of medicine. However, the physician and his treatment must be judged in the light of the contemporary theory of disease. Primitive man looked on disease as a curse cast on him by an evil spirit; his treatment consisted of driving out the demon that possessed him. Neolithic man of the late Stone Age used flint tools for trepanning the skull as a method for releasing the demon; the logic of the treatment was sound, but the premise on which it was based was wrong. The premise was that the evil spirit of disease was contained within the skull and could be drawn out. (See- my book was the spirit that had to get out of my head!) I might need a few more, though :)

Then, I saw another bloodletting site:  http://www.amazon.com/Bloodletting-Concrete-Blonde/dp/B000000QFR

Concret Blond was a band I liked in the 90's. I'd forgotten all about them and they just so happened to have an album called, "Bloodletting." They had a song called, "Joey" that gave me the chills and they wrote a song with my name in it, too.

Perhaps I'll join the bunch and start writing about vampires. Naah. 

Boy read the first thirty pages of New Book today.

He likes it better than THE UPSTAIRS GIRL.  He's mad that it's not finished yet. 

That makes me happy. 

Here's our fireworks video.  The best part, of course, is at the end.

I just got a call from my mom telling me that my Grandpa died this evening. I don't think it has set in yet. I want to write about him, but it feels weird because I always mail him my blogs for the week on Mondays. I feel like what I write tonight, I'll mail to him tomorrow. I think this may take a while to sink in.

My Grandpa Bill Ferrara was really and truly a jack-of-all-trades. He worked from the time he was a little boy and had a paper route until he retired a few years ago in his 80s as a security guard. He did all kinds of work in between from being a WWII soldier to being a florist. He was the kind of guy who acted tough about life, but you could tell that right behind that toughness was a very tender-feeling man.

He was musical. He was always so excited when you talked music with him. He loved the old 1940s big band music and always talked about how his family used to sing around the piano. I met some of his sisters at my Grandma's service last month and they said as soon as they heard me sing, they knew I was one of them. I took that as a compliment.

He loved to make things grow. He said once how when he was a young man, he planted a swiss chard seed and tended it and watched it grow and that was when he knew he had found a new passion in life. He ran greenhouses in Grafton, MA when my mom was growing up. Actually, the greenhouses are still there and still working.

I think my Grandpa had a lot of unresolved feelings about his childhood and about the time he was the only survivor of a torpedoed battleship in WWII. I always felt that maybe he didn't always understand or acknowledge what he was feeling and how it was affecting his life. I'm sure part of that is generational as well. I hope he is at peace and happy now. I have to say, I am very sad, but part of me has a good feeling. I feel like he is free, content, calm and at peace.  Now he can move on and be free.

I like this photo of my Grandpa because I think it looks like his character--and yes, it is the total opposite of my Grandma: traditional, black and white, and understated.

He was a good-looking Itailan guy. My mom said he was still handsome even when he was in the hospital. He never lost his Italian handsomness.


Here is a photo of my Mom and my Grandpa with me back in 1973:


My Grandpa was always doing thoughtful things for us. In my scrapbook, my mom saved my first piece of mail and it was from him. When my brothers and I all got married, he would drive all the way out here. The thing is, we got married in the temple and only members could come in. That means he drove all that way, knowing he would have to wait outside the temple for the actual ceremony. I remember little things he did, as well. When we would visit, he would have cereal and caffeine-free soda for us when we got there. I know he never had that stuff otherwise. He and his best friend Lucy--who might as well be family--would cook for us huge Italian spreads. Not just ham, but roast beef and chicken and ham and pasta and bread and salad and everything. He was always first to do the thoughtful things--like he was first to send flowers when I had surgery as a kid, first to send a birthday card, first to acknowledge a wedding or graduation announcement.

I'm going to miss that guy.

(In blue - places I've been. I have not included "airport stops" or drive-throughs. These are places I've actually stayed/visited.)





PS - Bob, if you're reading this, I'd like to see your maps! ;)

Today's quote is, of course, from the Edgar Allen Poe poem "The Raven".

On first drafts

Bernard Malamud said that the first draft "is the most uncertain-- where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better."

On revision

Well, in a way. I just finished reading A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett. And somewhere back there in chapter 14, a wise old witch says this: "Change the story, change the world." Ain't that the truth?

On poetry

From Salman Rushdie, a sentence on what it means to be a poet: "A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep."

On adjectives

Mark Twain gave some excellent writing advice. Here, his thoughts on adjectives: "When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them - then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart."

On adverbs

Stephen King is opposed to adverbs. Sure, he uses them, and some even say he overuses them, but here's what he had to say in his book, On Writing: "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops." My guess is that his thoughts are pretty darn close to Twain's notions on adjectives.

On rhythm

I've been reading Cindy Lord's blog for years now, and the use of rhythm in writing prose is something she's discussed more than once. Cindy did an interview in 2005 with Robert Redmond for an educators' listserv, in which she discussed her emphasis on rhythm in writing. During that interview, Cindy said

I write "by ear" and read every chapter out loud many, many times, listening for the rhythm of the language, as well as the meaning of the words. My ear can hear little glitches and awkward places my eye won't see, and I keep moving words and sentences until my voice reads them smoothly.

Recently, I've been reading through a backlog of writing magazines (and homemaking ones, too; turns out its not just my to-be-read books pile that's far huger than it ought to be). I found an article in the September 2007 issue of The Writer by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre in which McEntyre wrote about the need for writers to stay "in touch with life's rhythms." Her article opened with this paragraph:

Every sentence has its drumbeat. Rhythm is one of the most powerful dimensions of language: it separates tribes, unites families, soothes children, and shocks us into new awarenesses. Every good writer, marching to his or her own drumbeat, marks out a vibrational field as home territory. The cadences of our sentences carry echoes of ancestry and influence as surely as the double helix that orchestrates the life of the body.

This makes me wonder what my writing rhythms say about me. And while I'm sure my sentences carry evidence of my influences, I'm not at all convinced they say anything about my ancestry. What about yours?

This makes me feel so sad

Have you ever done something different writing-wise because it sounded like such a good idea in your head but no matter how hard you try to get it on paper, it just never hooks you? Like you get excited thinking about it and plotting it and then you sit down to write and before you know it, you've emptied out the junk drawer, organized it and moved on to the bathroom cabinet. And a week later, your manuscript has like 2,000 words, but your house is sparkling clean.

That's me with this new Victorian fantasy MG I'm calling Bird. I reallyreallyreally love the idea, but I can't seem to sit down and write it and I'm only at the beginning! Beginnings are my favorite part! If it feels like a chore already, surely that's a bad sign!

So today, I copied and pasted the first chapter into a new document and I started completely over. And instead of using a thirteen-year-old MC in third person, I used a sixteen-year-old MC in first person. Before I knew it, I had three pages single spaced. Maybe I'm just not meant to write MG fiction?

Or it could be I need a writing break and my brain is telling me to slow down. Or it could be that I miss Ashley and Kahne from Possession. Possession sequel, maybe... 

 

http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/2008/07/weekend-reviews.html

So I was wrong about this being a slow week for reviews of children's books in the major media. It is actually quite busy! Fortunately, I found some internet access and was able to round them up for you all--along with a gratuitous picture of my favorite flower--the fuschia. This beautiful set is from our friends' garden in Broughty Ferry (Scotland). Aren't they beautiful?

Okay, now on to the reviews:

Leanne Italie recommends some summer-themed picture books for the Associated Press. You can catch her column here via The Seattle Times.

Frank Cottrell Boyce recommends a few (classic) summer reads for children in the Times.

Kristin Kloberdanz reviews teen fiction, including the Cory Doctorow title, in the Chicago Tribune.

Also in the Chicago Tribune, Mary Harris Russell reviews five new children's books including Kaimira, Book 1: The Sky Village, by Monk and Nigel Ashland.

Susan Perren reviews five new children's books for the Globe and Mail, including Canada in Colors, by Per-Henrik Gürth

Dr. Seuss is an everyday style icon in the Guardian's Art & Architecture blog.

Adele Geras reviews The Nostradamus Prophecy, by Theresa Breslin, in this week's Guardian.

On Children's Books review: Mary Dixie Carter reviews Seth Lerer's Children's Literature: A Reader's History From Aesop to Harry Potter in the San Francisco Chronicle. (I'm traveling with a copy of this one. Hope to have a review soon!)

Update on the Cedar Rapids library, which was flooded, from the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Kathleen Waldron provides capsule reviews of "children's books that have stood the test of time" in the Arizona Republic.


Rebecca Rule reviews two picture books--one old and one new--for the Nashua Telegraph.

Another gratuitous photo alert! Here Kid2 demonstrates a lovely yellow rose growing in an isolated corner of our friends' beautiful garden.

Deborah Wiles recommends summer reading for the children in the Nova Scotia News. There is a long list with books for all ages--fiction and non fiction.

Kids review children's books this weekend in the Los Angeles Times.

Julia Foy recommends books and strategies to get kids reading in the Watertown Daily Times.

Deirdre Baker reviews Would You, by Marthe Jocelyn, and One for Sorrow, by Mary C. Sheppard, in the Toronto Star.

Blogging will be light over the next few days, until I return on July 14 with next weekend's weekend reviews.

When Poor and faced with Revision, you might find yourself mixing powdered Irish Cream coffee creamer with a splash of Old Dan Tucker and pouring extra-strong coffee on top of that.

All while listening to New Found Glory.  Or Loreena McKinnett.  Or Westlife.  Or Jars of Clay.  Or whatever your iTunes shuffles up.

And then calling it a Day.