It's pretty quiet out there and I'm getting lonely, but if I close my eyes and concentrate I can hear the clickety-clack of a million keyboards as writers beat out their 50, 000 words for November's National Novel Writing Month.  Because so many of us are trying AGAIN to reach the goal, I thought I'd submit Five Randoms About NaNoWriMo.

1. NOVEMBER:  Something about November says to cozy up by the fire and write.  It might be the dark days and the cold wind, but it always works for me.  My special chair awaits and my tea has cooled off enough to sip.

2. NATIONAL:  I have a bit of a competitive streak in me.  I never let it show as a kid, but now I kind of like challenges.  Can I do as well those New York writers?  Can I beat the girls from down south?  NaNoWriMo is especially fun because it's injury free, cheap, creative, and never discriminates.

3. NOVEL:  I love my novel.  LOVE IT.   It's been in me for years and although it's not fully formed it has bones.  It can stand up enough to take me through this month.  When the contest is over I'll have enough meat to create a tasty story.

4. WRITING:  I chose this NaNoWriMo to test out Scrivener.  I'm not sure how it'll work for me, but they are offering a trial offer and it was ridiculously easy to download.  Here's the link:   http://www.literatureandlatte.com/nanowrimo.html    The download button is at the bottom of the page.

5. MONTH:  A month.  Can someone who works full time write a novel in a month?  Can I reach 50,000 words in a month?  I'm going to try.  I'll obviously have to change some habits, the worst being my prewriting ritual of cleaning up and generally piddling around while I make up scenes in my head.  This has got to change.  No more leisurely laid back toe tapping while I wait for the muse to land on my shoulder.  This part of NaNo will be good for me.  I'll just sit down and start and let it rip.  I also can't ruminate over how best to say things, word choice, and punctuation.  O.M.G.  This is hard for the teacher in me.  As I told my 6th graders, who are doing the Young Writers version, this is one time when we strive for quantity over quality.  The quality will come later when we revise.  

So, who out there is joining me?  How are you doing?

1) I signed up for Nanowrimo. Again. What's the definition of insanity again? Oh yeah--doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I think this is my fourth year, and I have yet to "win," i.e., get to 50,000 words in a bionic 30 days. But I'm MarniStory for anyone who has signed up, has a bit of crazy circling in that head of yours, and is thinking that this is the year to get your Jamie Summers' freak on.

2) I can't believe I waited so long to read STORY, by Robert McKee. It's about the inner workings of screenplays, but it works on so many levels with novel writing. It's thick enough to kill a passer by if you drop it off a skyscraper, but it's just too dang good to drop off a skyscraper.

3) I am challenging myself to brainstorm 200 scenes in the nine days that are left before Nanowrimo. McKee says that most good stories have around 60 scenes, and the ones with the saggy flab that hangs over the belt buckle are the ones that were the writer's first choice, not their fifth or twentieth. I'll see if McKee has something there. I'll report back, barring I drop the book on a passer by.

4) I recently read Neil Shusterman's UNWIND and I'm still thinking about it. It was one of the very rarest of rare books that had an ending I totally and wholeheartedly agreed with. Sorry, Stephenie Meyer.

5) I need a space heater. It needs to be beside me as I work at 1 a.m. every night, while the mice, husband, and child are dreaming of dancing sugarplums. The fingerless gloves just ain't cutting it anymore.

-Susan

It's FRIDAY!!! After working relentlessly all week on revisions, freelance projects, keeping the house somewhat clean, and managing two tots, I am SO ready for the weekend.

1.) I worked on the back flap copy for Everlasting this week. This isn't the summary of the book, but a kind of "hook" on the back cover to get someone to open up and read the dust cover copy. Editor Jen sent along an idea and I tweaked it, and then went in a whole new direction. Amazingly, she loved the new direction and sent it to production. Yay!

2.) Why oh why do some people on Goodreads insist on rating books they could not have possibly read? Someone rated my book and it's impossible that they could have read it. But, there's a good side: I got my first 2-star rating and I didn't burst into tears!

3.) I'm on a book buying binge. DEVOURED, BETRAYING SEASON, HUSH, HUSH, and EYES LIKE STARS have all made their way into my library in the recent weeks. Gah! 

4.) Freelance work is the bane of my existence. I'm almost a month late with handing it in. It's haunting me, but I *need* to get this sequel handed in first... I'm lucky the place I freelance for likes me :-)

5.) Frankfurt Book Fair is happening. Everlasting is there. I'm crossing my fingers. That is all.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Last night I realized I was reading five books at once.  This is not unusual.  When I'm deep into writing a book, I can go for hours holed up in my writing room.  During those times I don't read much.  If and when I come out it's for air and sunshine, and maybe some people-time.  Right now I'm teaching school and I'm on an after school soccer schedule, so I find myself reading different books at different times.

1.  NEED by Carrie Jones:  Actually, I just finished this so I almost didn't count it as one of my five current books, but I wanted to include it for its spooky Halloweenie writing.  If you enjoyed Carrie's Tips on Having a Gay Ex-Boyfriend, this is as good, or better, if you like a little mystery. Werewolves, pixies, and other scary things living in my home state of Maine... right up my alley.  Of course I read this at night by book-light, with the wind howling up the river...

2.  SECRETS OF TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Megan Frazer:  I'm reading this one during school when I have my fourth graders do D.E.A.R.  For those that don't know, that's Drop Everything And Read.  I'm already into this book and sneaking pages and I'm only on page 17.  Dara, the main character, is a former pageant star who is now chubby and no longer in shows.  She's also uncovered a family secret concerning a sister she didn't know she had.  More D.E.A.R. time!

3.  LIAR by Justine Larbalestier:   This is my car book.  I downloaded it from Audible.com.  I've become a picky listener.  Like, Amanda, I need the right story and the right reader.  It's very personal, ya know.  LIAR is just right for me.  The story of Mica is something all teens have felt before, like they're odd, different, outcasts.  In this case, Mica really is different.  She was born with a condition that she has to keep at bay with a drug.  To ensure she doesn't lose friends because of the condition, she doesn't let herself have any.  The only one she has ever been close to was just killed.  A very engaging story. 

4.  SHANGHAI GIRLS by Lisa See:  This is my night time book now that NEED is finished.  SG was a gift from a friend that visited last summer and because it's an adult book I figured it wasn't for me.  Usually the only adult books I read are nonfiction.  I was wrong, SO wrong.  Not only is it a culture that I'm not familiar with, it's historical fiction, 1937 Shanghai and Los Angeles.  This is a powerful story of two sisters.  If you are going to read any adult fiction I recommend this.

5.  ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE by Barbara Kingsolver:  This is the book my husband and I are reading together on mornings if we get up on time, and on the weekends.  We read to each other and we read separately and talk about it.  It's the story of fiction writer Kingsolver and her family when they decide to spend the year eating locally, grow their own food, and question the routine way people make food choices.  This is after a move from dry Arizona to lush New York state.  I feel on the brink of many changes myself, so this appeals to me.  I love sharing books and talking about them makes them better--or worse!   In this case it just keeps getting better.

It came in the mail yesterday. I've had the ARCs for a while, but there's nothing like getting the actual book to make you feel, "It's real. It's really real!"

I flipped through it and all looks good. I've made a pact with myself never, ever to read the finished product. I don't want to see all of those mistakes that I can no longer fix. I've been this was since I was a journalist, too. No reason to torture myself with the wouldacouldashoulda's.

Anyone else out there who doesn't look at the printed product? Or do I need to just slap myself silly for being such a dorkus?

-Susan

 I recently spent the weekend with a not so random group of writers.  It's a yearly thing, sort of like an anniversary, and it restores me in so many ways.  I'm always so pumped by the time Sunday night rolls around that when Monday comes I get the "day after the retreat" let down--like the day after Christmas feeling... Here's why gatherings with other writers are so important to me.

1.  LANGUAGE:  Writers speak the same language.  They understand the angst over plodding plots, muddy middles, crazy character, and the love of alliteration.  This weekend was the medicine I needed.  My character found her voice;-)

2.  MUSIC:  We also enjoyed the language of song--specifically, as the Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce write it.  It's a different language, but no less important.  It got us up and moving and expressing ourselves in fantastical ways.  I was so impressed by the dance moves I saw certain writers make, that I aim to learn them for next year;-)

3.  CREATIVITY:  Anytime a crew of creative people gather in one place unplanned things happen.  Besides the usual writing, we had a scavenger hunt featuring a character from BURIED, challenges and toasts, arm wrestling, dancing, dressing up, and breaking out of our usual genres.  There was an artist writing a middle grade and middle grade novelist writing a picture book!

4.  GOOD FOOD GOOD WINE:  Everyone contributes to the food and they all seem happy to do so, bring their best pasta dishes, cheese, wines and breads.  Writer's fuel=carbs and wine/coffee (depending on whether it's night or day.)

5.  RITUAL:  I love the ritual of the annual gathering.  It marks time.  People celebrate achievements, and we celebrate them.  Last year when I was STILL writing my second unfinished book I was boosted by my friends.

If you haven't had the good fortune of going to a retreat, make one for yourself.  Call your favorite writer friends.  It's life changing!

My editor just emailed me to say I got a "terrific" review from School Library Journal. She only sent me a snippet so I'll have to wait for her to mail me the whole review, but here's what she sent--

"The plot is fast-paced and full of suspense, gripping readers right from the start.... the book will be devoured by fans of the supernatural.”


: )

Hello. My name is Angie and I’m a cheater.

You see, every time I’m working on a story (a story I love and perhaps have even already been paid for) some new and exciting idea sneaks into my mind and does a sexy little Chippendales dance to distract me.

I don’t intend to cheat. I fully understand and respect the bonds of a publishing contract. But those new characters. That new setting. That new, fantastic plot. How can a writer resist?

Then, of course, all I can think about is this new idea. The one that’s going to be “big,” maybe even a “break out” novel. How can it not be? It’s perfect! It’s dark and romantic and the main character will be the greatest heroine of all time, and the hero will be terribly conflicted and dangerous, but equally good at heart, and not to mention smoldering.

**Um, Angie? This is reality calling. Can you please come back down to earth now?**

See what I mean?

I am in awe of writers who can focus on one book or one idea at a time. I wish I could be one of them, but I’m not. And then that leaves me feeling as if I’m not fully giving myself to the book I’m writing or revising. That if I’m not focusing completely on that, it’s not going to turn out the way I envisioned it.

This happens to me so often that I needed a way to deal with it. So this is what I’m doing now:

• I open up a new Word document and add ideas to it as they come to me. But I don’t allow myself to actually write scenes.

• I paste in web links when I feel the desire to research, but I definitely do not take the time to fully read and absorb the research (THAT would be a dangerous road!).

• During the day, I work on the current project—the one I’m supposed to be working on. Each time temptation strikes and I start to think about this new idea, I remind myself that my time to do that will be when I lay down at night to go to sleep. Thankfully, I’m one of those people who can’t just fall asleep. I lay there, mind buzzing, for at least a half-hour. That is my time to flip through the new idea without guilt.

• If I’m still excited about the idea a month or two (or three) later, when I might finally have time to get started on it, then I know it’s the right one to pursue. So I guess I could look at this process as a testing period.

So, what do you do when you have two or more ideas at once? How do you deal with dividing your attention?

Does anyone else hate inputting revisions as much as I do? I don't mind reading my work and making notes--I love that part. However, inputting those revisions into Word KILLS me. The ADHD part of me (if I believed in ADHD) wants to go watch a House Hunters while reading The Writer and talking to my mom on the phone.

-Susan

So I'm finishing a book up. It's been the hardest book to write thus far in my career and I've been wondering why.

I love the characters, love the plot--so why is it taking soooooo much longer than all of the rest?

Today I had an epiphany. I should have thought of this last week when I was thinking of my acknowledgments and realized for the first time, no one had any input into my story. This is the first book I haven't had a crit group or reading buddy read as I was writing. I think not knowing what is working or what needs fixing has been keeping me from going along at my usual clip.  I know everyone writes differently, but I think I really need feedback. I'm plugging along all the while wondering if what I've got is utter garbage. That kind of makes it hard to feel good about moving on. 

My crit group is in a bit of disarray. Life happened, people got busy, went back to work, but I need to recharge the group and hopefully we all can get back on track.

Off to email my groupl

A week and a half ago, I went on a spur of the moment trip to NYC (the hubby had to be there for a private equity conference at the Waldorf Astoria--I know, I know, isn't the financial sector supposed to be on a budget?). I almost didn't go with him; it's a five hour trip down, it was only going to be for two nights, and anyone who has a toddler knows that it's tempting to stay at home just to try to keep said toddler on her schedule.

But I did go. As did said toddler. And I'm glad for it because:

1) I finally met my editor face to face. Maureen was just as nice as she was when I spoke and e-mailed her over the last four years. FOUR YEARS. And this was my first face-to-face. And it was everything I dreamed: we talked writing and publishing, we ate at a cute cafe where they served the check in an old book, and my feelings about having such a great editor were reinforced. The other nice thing I hadn't expected? I brought the toddler with me to this meeting, and she very nicely ate her mac n cheese and played with a pad of Post Its and a pencil that Maureen so graciously gave to her.

2) I finally met my agent face to face. And just like the meeting with Maureen, meeting with Christina was also a lovely dream come true. I met her at her agency, a four-story brownstone with no sign out front. I met with her in the second floor parlor, surrounded by thousands of lovely books written by their clientele. We brainstormed, we talked publishing, and said toddler napped on me for an hour and a half with only a tiny drool puddle to show for it.

3) I've been working on a story nonstop since I got back from New York, based on those brainstorms, and it feels special, you know? Maybe the face-to-faces brought out the creative beast from hibernation. Actually, there's no maybe about it--I know they did.

4) I had a brief moment of embarrassed pleasure when a random bike messenger called out "I love you Mama" as I was pushing the toddler in her stroller on the way to my editor's. Read below to see why I maybe drew his attention.

5) I realized that you should always, always bring a spare shirt with you when you walk around New York on a balmy late-summer day, as you chew up miles of streets and avenues on foot, and then balance a toddler and a stroller up and down subway stairs. Because you never know if you'll end up at your editor's, at your first face-to-face, with a river of VISIBLE sweat from your armhole to your hem. And you never know if, when trying to mop up the mess, you'll hear "[Insert your name], is that you?" as your editor comes into the restroom where you hoped to hide with the hand dryer for a few minutes.

**By the way, there's a very nice Eastern Mountain Sports on Spring & Broadway in Greenwich Village if you're looking for an anti-sweat-stain (wicking) shirt.

-Susan

Two weeks ago my mother called me up to tell me she'd read an article about a book. She didn't remember the title but said "it's about kids killing kids" and did I know it?


Me: "Oh, that's The Hunger Games. The sequel, Catching Fire just came out! Loved them!"

Mom: "Don't you think it might encourage kids to kill other kids?"

Me: "Snort! No, I don't." I go on to explain the plots.

Mom: "I don't know, I don't like that sound of that, but maybe you should write something like it because it's a best seller."

Me: Sigh.

She said the same thing about Twilight.


Anyhoo--I really enjoyed Catching Fire! Here are five thoughts-- (keep in mind I read the book in July)

1. I was glad to get back to the world, but disappointed Gale was working in the mines so much. I was really looking forward to some romantic shenanagins. That said, Katniss being who she is, she'd pretty much closed the door to romance, so I will now look foward to romantic shenanagins in book three.

2. Part of me wanted her to love Peeta--or to at least start to fall from him. While she and Gale had such an incredible bond, because it was sexless for so long I kept thinking "Well, maybe Peeta's the one", but she shut him out and my heart broke for him.

3. I loved all the little hints of up-risings and discontent among the districts but especially among some of the Capital people.

4. I wished Katniss had been in on the rebellion plot. She's a resourceful girl and it would've been fun seeing her mind working out how to survive in the game again because she was now the symbol of rebellion. As it was, she was trying to protect Peeta--noble, but I would've liked to see her fight for both of them full throttle.

5. I figured Katniss was going back to the game--and thought it was a clever twist how they got her there, but it felt like a bit of a retread at first. I wasn't as emotionally involved with the adult characters' safety as say I was with Rue's in book one. I was really glad the arena was completely different and thought the clock motif was very cool. By the end of the book I was definitely ready to move on to book three for some all new action with Katniss hopefully taking the lead to distric thirteen.

Oh, I'd love to have a map of this world for book three. I can guess where things are, but I still can't wrap my head around how spread out each of the districts are. In book one I was thinking they were closer together, but in book two I got more of a regional feel and distance for the districts.

I'm a fussy fantasy fan. A book has to be special if I'm going to go to another world that has mutated creatures, and evil doers.  Two years ago I read Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer.  It was the first fantasy I loved.  I never got into Harry Potter.  When Angie ignored all of us and read The Hunger Games instead of socializing at our raucous party, I knew I had to read it.  I did and I was immediately hooked.  It's soooo unlike me to go to the future...  When Catching Fire, The Hunger Game's sequel, arrived in the mail I whizzed through it, then took forever mailing to Susan.  Sorry, Susan!

Five Random Things About Catching Fire:

1. NATURE: Although these books are set in the future, the world is not all steel and concrete.  Nature plays an important part of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale's lives.  They know the woods, the animals, and the plants that help them survive.   I wanted them to escape and live in the woods during this sequel.  I love that side of Katniss.

2. POWER TO THE PEOPLE:  What makes this book cool is the way the common folk are changing.  They were a character in book one and followed the president like lemmings and the he is not a good guy.  Now things feel different.  There's a rumbling in the streets.  I love that Katniss has some hard decisions to make and the reader gets to experience this with her.

3. LOVE: I appreciate the different kinds of love represented in this book.  Collins has not only shown a childhood friendship growing into a romance, but she has shown mother/daughter love, sister love, the love felt toward a fellow tribute... Oh, I could cry all over again for Ru (spelling?) in The Hunger Games.  Collins even shows us a more mature Katniss who feels a responsibility and love for her country.

4. GALE AND PEETA: I don't really want to get into this, but I should take a stand.  I choose Gale.  Gale is her heart.  He knows her and they share a true history, not a manufactured one.  They've got an unspoken language from years spent in the forest.  Peeta can bake a nice loaf, and he's beautiful to look at, but he doesn't really get Katniss in the same way Gale does.  That's my take.  I want Gale and Katniss to run to the woods--or District 13--and make new lives there.  And if Suzanne Collins is listening--a little more romance, please.

5. COURAGE: These books are courageous.  It scares me to imagine a world like the Districts;  I could never write a book with such a challenging concept: environmental devestation, mutant creatures, anarchy, poverty, and runaway reality TV.  Katniss, the main character is also courageous, and as the story continues, she grows in ways she doesn't expect.  I think Collins also asks the reader to be courageous because of the serious content.  Fortunately her story telling makes it easy for us to stay with it--even us fussy fantasy readers.

This week, The Randoms are back from a two-and-a-half month hiatus (I know, I know--horrors!) to talk about a book we passed around like a plate of diabetic cookies at the old folks home. (If we were an episode of the Golden Girls, I'd be Sophia.)

So here we go:

First of all, all I've gotta say is that it took forever to read HUNGER GAMES. Not for lack of wanting to; my library just never had it. "But Susan, you could've gone and got it off Amazon, ya cheapskate." True. But see, HUNGER GAMES is fantasy. I don't buy fantasy. I'm just not a fantasy reader.

And now let me say I USED to not be a fantasy reader.

So let's talk about what turned me--a romance and mystery and thriller lover--into a fantasy reader:

1) There's a love story, and I do mean ONE love story. Yeah, yeah, there's two. But in my mind's eye, there's only Team Peeta.

2) CATCHING FIRE doesn't forget what originally made readers love THE HUNGER GAMES. I hate when a book is totally not like the others. Think Harry Potter without Hogwarts. Or Bella without... I'll keep that to myself for those slow readers who put a contract out on me.

3) The book was a bit slow at the beginning, but that may be due to Suzanne Collins spoiling me in HUNGER GAMES with constant death and betrayal. Don't get me wrong, the beginning was still good--I think it's what's termed character development. Bah. Give me spears through the eye! See why I'm a newly minted fantasy reader now?

4) In Book 1, I have to admit I wasn't a Peeta fan. I mean, c'mon, a blonde who likes to ice cakes and spends half the games crippled? I was all for Darwinian theory to kill him off at the end of Book 1. But he wasn't. And in Book 2, I really, really understood his appeal. So may I say again: Go Team Peeta!

5) I absolutely love when a book isn't afraid to go there with a character--to make it bleak and horribly horrible. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

-Susan Colebank

Just finished Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER (Scholastic, 8/09), and I can totally understand why people are loving this book.

1) Werewolves don't change under a full moon in Stiefvater's book, and the rationale is about the best I've ever seen. Loves it!

2) You can smell the bookstore, the candy store, the crappy instant coffee Grace makes. Stiefvater has a way of taking you there.

3) I don't read books that wax poetic, and yet this book kept me riveted. Stiefvater has a way with metaphor, but I'm more of who/what/where/give me the steak and potatoes kind of reader. But the short chapters and crazy amount of tension throughout kept me flipping pages when I should've been earning a paycheck.

4) There are a lot of baddies in this book--both of the furred and unfurred variety. Not once did I ever think our young hero and heroine were in a good, safe place. And that's exactly the experience you're looking for as a reader.

5) The love story seems like it will never, ever have a happy ending. Our romantic leads are more star-crossed than Romeo and Juliet, more doomed than Hades and Persephone, more cross-species than Edward and Bella. And that's all I'm going to say.

For more on SHIVER, go here.

 I promise: this post WILL be about writing. But first, allow me to tell a quick story that ties into writing and the author’s subconscious mind at work.

In my sophomore year in high school, I took Anatomy and was learning about the human brain and the subconscious. My teacher wanted to try an experiment. He gave each of us a long list of random numbers and letters. They made absolutely no sense. And then he simply told us to concentrate on the list right before bed, and then try and remember our dreams that night.

I remember my dream that night vividly. I was on a tall, rocky shoreline with one of my friends, and below was the ocean. It was a gorgeous dream with amazing color and detail…think the Realms from Libba Bray’s Great & Terrible Beauty trilogy.

The next day in class, our teacher asked us all what we dreamed about. The common factor: water. Most of us had dreamed about water.

When we looked at the list of numbers and letters a second time, our teacher pointed out two letters and a number that had been spaced far apart from one another: H2O. Overnight, our subconscious minds had worked to find the hidden code in the list, and then showed us the answer in our sleep. AMAZING.

Back to writing now. I don’t plot. I usually have a “hook,” some general ideas, the twists and surprises maybe, and sometimes glimmerings of the ending. But when I write, the bulk of what’s going to happen next is a mystery, especially character-wise.

I started thinking about the writer’s subconscious and this experiment from the 10th grade the other morning after my mind, at long last, untangled a huge hiccup in my current YA manuscript. I am close to the end of this WIP, and have been writing it for a few months now. The entire time I’ve had my MC have an irrational fear of broken glass. I just wrote it one day, and it felt right. I knew right away that she NEEDED to have this fear of broken glass. But I didn’t understand why.

250 pages later, I still had no idea why, but I’d been consistent about weaving it into the story. When, oh when, was I going to figure it out?

And then bam—out of the blue, my subconscious spit the answers out to me. That deep corner of my mind had been working silently on this for months. I realized only after that I’d been trusting it to figure it out for me, too. And even more unbelievable, was that the reason for her fear of broken glass also ties in seamlessly with another plot thread that I’d worried was going nowhere fast. Amazing. The subconscious mind astounds me.

Has your subconscious mind has ever worked out a writing problem for you? 

 I have to admit something that I think I've talked about before, but because it seems so embarrassing that I don't know if I've said it out loud.  

Like a mother who isn't always pleased with her children, I haven't been happy with my main character.  Of course, with a book it's different.  A book is a book and a child is a child, but... I think I've gone through phases when I couldn't attach to Kendra.  Oh, how sad.  There were times I've loved Kendra, and had high hopes of totally getting into her psyche, and then for some reason I couldn't.  But here's the happy ending: Total-writing-time (meaning NO disruptions) has made us closer.  We broke through the wall!  Here are 5 random things I'm loving about my latest baby, Snapshot:

1. KENDRA:  Kendra is starting to be less of a victim and more of a action figure.  Not in the superhero way, just in the "I've had enough of this shit!" way.   I'm identifying her flaws and not glossing over them, but twisting the knife (with love;-) so we can really see what she does when under stress.  

2.  BLOGS:  Online writing is playing a major role in this book, more than I thought.  I feel a little like Sybil.  Does anyone remember that book?  It's so much fun and gives my characters a whole side that needs monitoring because it can get out of control...!

3.  KENDRA'S MOM:  I knew her dad was interesting and that I loved writing his character, but I never guessed how much I would love working on her mom.  She's turned out to fully fleshed out, which she should--OF COURSE--but I think she's turned out to be way more interesting than I originally intended.

4:  BFF AND BF:  I love what is happening with Kendra's wild and crazy best friend and her boyfriend, and I love that Kendra is now mirroring the exact thing with her new boyfriend that she hates about her father!  I think this is the most fun I've had writing this so far!

5.  2 DAY READ-THROUGH IN THE COMFY CHAIR:  This was so satisfying.  I had a huge number of chapters and for two days sat and read, and marked up and took notes, and rewrote.  Then I went back up to my office and laid the chapters out on my cabinet in order.  It helped to see them in order.  I rewrote more and then I typed in the changes.  Although I'm not done, I feel totally ready for the end!

So June was write 30,000 words in a month. Well, I wrote 500, and all of those I rewrote again and again and again.

Last week, Angie talked about endings that can make or break a book. For me, it's all about the beginning. If I can't get that right, I can't write anything. I know authors who just skip the beginning and start at, say, Chapter Five. Or else they write a crap beginning and forgive themselves so they can move on.

Well, I am not one of those people. My beginning, you see, is my way of getting to know my characters and getting them off on the right foot. If I write a crap beginning with personalities that don't fit my characters or with a tone that doesn't fit my book, I am so utterly screwed. And nowadays, I don't have the luxury of wasting 50,000 words and starting from scratch. Been there, done that, and it's a wonder I didn't go all Sarah Palin on a Moose.

Anywho, the reason I'm writing this is because I FIGURED OUT MY FREAKING BEGINNING! And I wrote 2500 words. Today. It's a sign, people! As surely as 666 and Mary statues crying blood.

Just thought I'd share.

Anyone else with news to share?

I’ve been giving some though to book endings since late last night, right after I finished Cassandra Clare’s CITY OF BONES.  I blogged about it on my personal LJ, but still wanted to explore the topic of endings further. The closing chapters of a novel are just as (if not more) important than the open chapters, and in my opinion are much more difficult to write.

The beginning of a book is filled with the fresh unknown. And while it needs to engage me straight away, I also am more open to whatever unravels from page one. Who am I to judge what’s about to happen in a book in which I have not yet given a solid chance to hook me?

Reaching the closing chapters of a novel is a totally different experience. By then, I’ve come to know the characters, and I hopefully care very much about them. I’m well settled in the world inside the pages of the book, and if the book has done its job, the LAST thing I want to do is actually leave this world. For just that reason, The End is inevitably going to be heartbreaking.

The challenge of writing an ending to a book is being able to get the reader to think, “Wow, that was great!” even as they are untangling themselves from the characters and world you’ve created.

I don’t think happy endings are the only way to achieve this. Sickly sweet and perfect endings can be just as disappointing. An ending can be sad, or mixed, or downright depressing, and still be the right, satisfying ending. It has to make sense and ring true for the book, and for the characters in it.

A great example is Cindy Pon’s debut novel, SILVER PHEONIX. Without giving away any spoilers, the ending has received some mixed reviews. Some show it love, some don't. I show it love, even though yes, it was not the happily ever after ending I usually enjoy. But it was, in my view, the right ending for the book and it made sense for the characters at hand. Besides, there's a sequel coming! :-)

The same could be said for Carrie Ryan’s THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH. The ending might be bleak, with a few light rays of hope to lead into next year's sequel, but would a happy ending really fit with the rest of the novel? I don't think so.

I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever read a book, set it down, and not had any qualms with the way it ended (even with my own books!). Have you? What endings have you loved, disliked, or questioned? What, for you, makes up a great ending?