Blogcation

I'm off to America's Dairyland after work tonight, via my second home the Second City. I'll be spending the next week pool-partying, farmer's marketing, theatergoing, fireworks-watching, and cheese-eating. Hopefully I can work a little writing and reading into the mix (and maybe my Vacation Reading Report will show improvement from last term). But I won't be blog-posting while I'm away, so I'll see you all July 8th!

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Bud, Not Buddy

I just finished reading Bud, Not Buddy, the Newberry-winning picaresque-y MG novel by Christopher Paul Curtis. It has one of the most charming, distinctive, and fun voices I've read in a long time. I also loved the protagonist Bud's "Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself," some of which he shares throughout the book. A few of my favorites: Rules and Things Number 3: If You Got to Tell a Lie, Make Sure It's Simple and Easy to Remember. [So true.] And Rules and Things Number 16: If A Grown-Up Ever Starts a Sentence by Saying "Haven't You Heard," Get Ready, 'Cause What's About to Come Out of Their Mouth Is Gonna Drop You Headfirst into a Boiling Tragedy. Bud, Not Buddy is sweet and moving and really quite funny; it's worthy of all the many accolades it's received.

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Off-Topic Tuesday

An experimental something new on the blog--Tuesday posts where I go a little off-topic and blather about stuff not directly related to writing, reading, editing, publishing, etc. This may or may not become a regular feature.

So, the off-topic topic for this fine Tuesday is: Flying! (The airplane kind)

If you want to go off topic, meet me after the jump

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Winners!

Yes, plural!

Only one lucky person was selected (from over 1,000 entries!) by the Research Randomizer to win my ARC of Delirium:

Linna at 21 Pages! Check out her great blog. Congrats, Linna!

Now the part where plural comes in. Because so many people entered and I'm grateful for all the new followers, I decided to give away an ARC of The Mockingbirds and a partial ARC of Bright Young Things as an extra thanks-for-reading (my thoughts on The Mockingbirds are here).

Ky won The Mockingbirds. Check out Ky's blog!

Jenna won Bright Young Things She's got a great blog, too!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

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Nemesis

Writing about anything Philip Roth has written makes me think of a phrase my mom sometimes uses: "not having a leg to stand on."(Which in turn reminds me of "not having a pot to piss in." End tangent.) I write YA and commercial fiction, not Serious Literature. But I did study it, so I will now attempt to make a few coherent comments about Nemesis. I've read Everyman but I confess I haven't read anything else by Roth, although American Pastoral and The Human Stain are always somewhere on my TBR shelf. 

The jacket copy (from Amazon):

In the "stifling heat of equatorial Newark," a terrifying epidemic is raging, threatening the children of the New Jersey city with maiming, paralysis, life-long disability, and even death. This is the startling and surprising theme of Roth's wrenching new book: a wartime polio epidemic in the summer of 1944 and the effect it has on a closely knit, family-oriented Newark community and its children.

At the center of NEMESIS is a vigorous, dutiful, twenty-three year old playground director, Bucky Cantor, a javelin thrower and weightlifter, who is devoted to his charges and disappointed with himself because his weak eyes have excluded him from serving in the war alongside his contemporaries. Focusing on Cantor's dilemmas as polio begins to ravage his playground--and on the everyday realities he faces--Roth leads us through every inch of emotion such a pestilence can breed: the fear, the panic, the anger, the bewilderment, the suffering, and the pain.

Moving between the smoldering, malodorous streets of besieged Newark and Indian Hill, a pristine children's summer camp high in the Poconos --whose "mountain air was purified of all contaminants"--Roth depicts a decent, energetic man with the best intentions struggling in his own private war against the epidemic. Roth is tenderly exact at every point about Cantor's passage into personal disaster and no less exact about the condition of childhood.

Through this story runs the dark question that haunts all four of Roth's late short novels, EVERYMAN, INDIGNATION, THE HUMBLING, and now, NEMESIS: what kind of accidental choices fatally shape a life? How powerless is each of us up against the force of circumstance?

I didn't think Nemesis would be the type of book to make me miss a subway stop, but as thought-provoking and serious as it is, it's also very readable. "Tenderly exact" is an excellent way to describe how Bucky Cantor's story is told. Nemesis leads the reader to confront deeper, philosophical and theological issues, but remains a work of fiction, one with characters whom you really feel for.

One line stuck with me, in reference to the 1940s--"that decade when it seemed that the greatest menaces on earth were the war, the atomic bomb, and polio." The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? One could easily substitute "chemical and biological weapons" for "the atomic bomb," "swine flu" for "polio" and make that statement about today. Another line made me turn down the page's edge: "Any biography is chance, and, beginning at conception, chance--the tyranny of contingency--is everything."It's terrifyingly true, but also a thought that makes you grateful for what luck, chance, fate, faith, or whatever you wish to call it has brought into your life.

I was reading an ARC of Nemesis. It will be available October, 2010.

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Dream Writing Spaces

My writing space is currently the very sweaty back room ("den") of my apartment. Note to self: Fifth-floor walk-up brownstone apartments with a southern exposure get HOT in the summer. I still love it, though--for the first time since college I have a room big enough for a tall bookshelf, large writing desk, and a comfy couch. There's even a wall that doesn't have any furniture contiguous to it--I seriously have enough space for a furniture-free wall! Plus, I have a window seat that looks out on the mulberry tree below. At my last apartment, I had a view of a concrete wall, no sunlight, and my dingy room was so small that I couldn't stretch out my arms without touching a wall. I couldn't even fit my books in the room with me; it barely fit a bed. I am very happy with the bright and happy space I now have to do my work in.

Maybe because I grew up in a place where most people don't share all of their four walls with neighbors, I still dream about having a freestanding home or vacation place. I don't like big houses, so I'd love a little cottage or cabin, somewhere quiet, where I could just focus on writing and/or relaxing. This tiny cottage featured in the NYT would make a great writing/getaway space (even if shabby chic isn't particularly my style). The slideshow is pretty cool.

If you could have any space to write, where would it be/what would it be like?

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Running and Writing

I never do my best writing at my desk. I don't even do it at the computer.

I write best when I'm running.
I get my best ideas while running. (Running outside, at least. When I'm running on the treadmill I can't think anything other than God, I hate this. Can I stop yet? Please? This is torture.) It's while I'm doing laps around the reservoir or traversing the park loop that all of the things I can't seem to figure out about my characters or the plot or the setting get solved. Whatever the knotty issue is, it perfectly untangles while I'm running. I've always loved how running can be meditative and that it has a unique ability to help you organize your thoughts. It has always helped me get creative, but it wasn't until I started writing that I realized what an incredible tool running is for a writer.

My only problem is that by the time I get back home and take a shower, I have often forgotten certain truths uncovered while on the path.
Solving that is tricky. Obviously, I don't run while holding a laptop or a notepad. I suppose I could get a voice recorder and tape any important thoughts that come to me while running, but really--that's kind of insane. (Sorry if anyone does actually narrate to a Dictaphone while jogging--no offense.) I think it would make running less productive, too. I highly suspect that part of the reason why running helps me think so well is that while I'm doing it, I can't be checking my phone, responding to an email, glancing at the TV, hearing my neighbors play Grand Theft Auto, getting interrupted by the oven timer, etc. While running your body is consumed (i.e. distracted) by the activity, so as long as you don't run into a tree (which I've done) or trip and fall (also have done) or get crapped on by a bird (yup) or realize that you have to pee really badly and there are no bathrooms for 3 miles (uh huh) or pull a tendon in your foot (also yup), your mind is free to wander and ponder.

So I try to jot down any epiphanies when I come in the door, and if something still gets forgotten, I know that I can always go for a run the next day. Feet permitting.

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How a Book Used to Be Made

The Westing Game was my favorite books from fifth grade to--well, it's still a favorite. If you haven't read it, please go find a copy because it's an amazing read.

I was perusing the [Cooperative Children's Book Center] CCBC's site today and unexpectedly discovered that they have an online archive of the manuscript of The Westing Game. Author Ellen Raskin donated her manuscript materials and provided audio and written commentary in 1978, around the time the book was published by Dutton. Her goal was to inspire those who used CCBC's services, because she "often remarked during her career that she wished she had known 'where children's books come from' while she was a young UW-Madison art student."

Link to The Westing Game archive at CCBC

I think this archive is really, really cool even if you don't adore The Westing Game. The process Raskin describes for book production is very, very different from how it's done today, so it's a kick to see how publishing used to work. There are scores of her handwritten notes, outlines and planning (such as her notes on potential titles), research materials (such as a letter about Wisconsin Judges), marked-up drafts, and even her book cover designs. If you have any interest in manuscript history/the history of publishing, check it out! If you don't care about book production, you still might be inspired by some of her methods for the writing process.

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Before I Fall

First things first: I'm not an obsessive Lauren Oliver fan. Please don't misinterpret that statement--I think she's a fantastic writer--but it's coincidence more than anything else that I read an ARC of Delirium, received a copy of Before I Fall a week later, then decided to give away my Delirium ARC. So no need to put me on stalker watch.

That being said, I thought Before I Fall was excellent. Others had warned me about how "intensely dislikable" the protag, Samantha, is in the beginning. They weren't exaggerating. It was difficult to read her story early on because she was such an unsympathetic figure, but thankfully the plot is so intriguing that one can get hooked anyway. Of course, as the book progresses Samantha really grows and gains agency and she becomes likable, to the point at which you do care about what happens to her. It's interesting how her development over the seven re-lived days somewhat mirrors the "seven stages of grief:" disbelief, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, and hope.

Samantha's life and world are meticulously documented and universally recognizable by former teenagers (sloppy high-school parties, soundtracks you create for driving [e.g. "No More Drama"], TCBY fro-yo trips with your best friend, weird parental dynamics). I loved how observant the writing was and how every character, minor to major, seemed completely real. Oliver creates beauty while describing even the most mundane parts of high-school life. For me, that (more than the plot) really sets Before I Fall apart. It's one of those books that makes you constantly think, Damn. If I could write a paragraph like that. . . .

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Eureka! moments

I've decided that I don't really like doing research for a WIP. (Can I even call it a WIP if I'm not really writing yet?) This is strange because I tend to be a little obsessive about topics I'm interested in, and I am definitely interested in this topic. I like learning. I like history. Obs. I like reading. So why am I so antsy to be done with this step?

Probably because I want to be watching that word count climb. If the rest of writing is like scaling the steps of the Sears Tower,* right now I'm on a treadmill at the gym and doing a lot of work but going nowhere. Yeah, yeah yeah--it's necessary preparation. Whatever.

Thankfully, I have little Eureka! moments when all this groundwork becomes worthwhile. They happen when I uncover some little nugget about the historical figure that makes total sense for the story I want to tell about her. You could say that occasionally I strike factual gold.** My best example so far: my fictional version of a real person has a diary. That's how she features into my otherwise not-historical-fiction WIP. Last night while reading up on her, I came across this:
[Character] had once caught her maid reading her diary and ever after, in order to hide confidential information, [Character] slanted her handwriting to an extreme and unreadable degree.

Maybe that's not that interesting to you, but my reaction was: OMG! She really did keep a diary! And that little factoid is just one more interesting, complex, quirky thing about her that I can draw on when I write her character!

And just like that, slogging through some rather dry biographies and rambling primary-ish sources stops being such a slog, and I get excited about this stuff all over again.

*It will never be the Willis Tower to me! NEVER!
**We are now departing from the stair-climbing metaphor and moving along to gold-rush metaphors. Mom, I apologize for mixing metaphors in this post. I know you hate that.

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The Mockingbirds

I picked up another very buzzy ARC at BEA: Daisy Whitney's debut YA The Mockingbirds (Pub date: November, 2010). Here's the jacket copy:
Some schools have honor codes.
Others have handbooks.
Themis Academy has the Mockingbirds.
Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way--the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds--a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers.
In this honest, page-turning account of a teen girl's struggle to stand up for herself, debut author Daisy Whitney reminds readers that if you love something or someone--especially yourself--you fight for it.
The opening line certainly gets your attention: Three things I know this second: I have morning breath, I'm naked, and I'm waking up next to a boy I don't know. There's a lot to like in this book. It explores an issue (date rape) with honesty and sensitivity. It features a slew of unique and lovable characters. It's full of great cultural allusions. Having studied piano for most of my youth, I loved how classical music played a huge part in the protagonist's life (she's a star pianist). The title is an allusion to the Harper Lee classic that just turned 50, and details and ideas from To Kill a Mockingbird crop up throughout the story. The themes of finding one's voice and fighting for justice are excellent, and I love the idea of students setting up their own code of conduct and (very fair) justice system.

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The New Yorker on the dystopian YA trend

The New Yorker has an interesting piece on the boom in dystopian YA fiction: "Fresh Hell: What's Behind the Boom in Dystopian Fiction for Young Readers?"                                                  

Laura Miller makes some interesting points about the trend, including this idea about high school as dystopia:

If, on the other hand, you consider the games [The Hunger Games, specifically] as a fever-dream allegory of the adolescent social experience, they become perfectly intelligible. Adults dump teen-agers into the viper pit of high school, spouting a lot of sentimental drivel about what a wonderful stage of life it’s supposed to be. The rules are arbitrary, unfathomable, and subject to sudden change. A brutal social hierarchy prevails, with the rich, the good-looking, and the athletic lording their advantages over everyone else. To survive you have to be totally fake. Adults don’t seem to understand how high the stakes are; your whole life could be over, and they act like it’s just some “phase”! Everyone’s always watching you, scrutinizing your clothes or your friends and obsessing over whether you’re having sex or taking drugs or getting good enough grades, but no one cares who you really are or how you really feel about anything.

A note of caution: the article might contain some spoilers about The Hunger Games, so you might want to skip this is you haven't read it and don't want to know details about the book. (I haven't read The Hunger Games yet, so I can't really judge if the article is spoileriffic or if it doesn't disclose any more info than the jacket copy.)

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Welcome to my humble a-blog

Hello new followers! I am 100% not-surprised that so many people want a copy of Delirium. Even though only one of you will eventually get my ARC, and I feel really, really bad that everyone else will have to wait in agony, I will tease you by saying that it's worthy of the buzz.

Before I Fall has been on my list of books-to-read for ages, but I actually got a copy on Thursday. Even though I was in the middle of reading another book last night, at one point I set it down on the couch, walked over to my shelf, picked up and started reading Before I Fall. I couldn't help myself. Eventually I made myself stop, because I am a little nutsy about reading one book at a time. (No disrespect to the other book.) Anyway, my point is that the writing in Delirium made enough of an impact on me that I wanted more right away.

Now it's time for me to find some remedial math worksheets because I'm going to have a lot of tallying to do on the 25th. . . .

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My first giveaway!

Those of you on Twitter might know that I made a very brief stop at BEA and (shamelessly) snatched all the ARCs I could find while there. To share the wealth, I'm giving some away!

First up is my ARC of Delirium by Lauren Oliver. (See what I thought about it here)

GIVEAWAY


I'm following the giveaway format my omnipotent agent Suzie Townsend uses. Just comment below and leave your name -- and your email address, so I know how to find you.


Extra entries (please let me know in your comment if you qualify for any of these):
+1 New followers
+2 If you're already a follower
+1 Tweeting this giveaway
+3 For posting about this giveaway on your blog.
+2 Add me to your blog roll
+3 For referring someone to the giveaway
+3 For being the person referred


The contest will end June 25th at 11:59 pm Eastern time. I'll be randomly selecting the winner from all the entries. Winner will be announced June 28th. Good luck!

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Delirium

First, I'll give you the warning I so carelessly did NOT heed while reading Delirium: When you get to the last 100 pages or so, make sure you are at home. DO NOT TRY TO FINISH THIS BOOK ON THE SUBWAY! (Or any other public place, or any place where you can't absorb the experience) Unless, of course, you enjoy crying in front of other commuters, shoppers, people in the waiting room, etc.

I was so lucky to pick up an ARC while stopping by BEA. Here's the back-cover copy:

Love. It kills you both when you have it, and when you don't.

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn't understand that once love--the deliria--blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold.

Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Haloway has always looked forward to the day when she'll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

Lauren Oliver, author of the incandescent New York Times bestseller BEFORE I FALL, shows us a world as terrifying as THE HUNGER GAMES and a romance as true as ROMEO AND JULIET.

Comparing a book to The Hunger Games, which is so popular, and Romeo and Juliet, which is, well, Romeo and Juliet!, seems dangerous. Except it's actually a fitting comparison. The dystopian world of Delirium is terrifying. It feels suffocating to read about it. Lauren Oliver creates an incredible mood in her story and her descriptions of dystopian Portland, ME, are chilling, visceral, and incredibly beautiful at the same time. The love story is absolutely heartbreaking. That's all I'm saying, because summarizing the story won't do it justice. You need to read it--the writing and language is beautiful and strikes a fine balance between literary and accessible.

Delirium sucks you into Lena's world and won't let you go. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night with the book in my hand. I'd fallen asleep reading it--not because it couldn't hold my interest, but because I was so caught up in the story and absolutely beautiful writing that I refused to put it down, even when it got so late that I could not stay awake any longer. That is the mark of a good book.

Delirium's on-sale date is February, 2011.

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Miscellany

--The big news from me is that I am finally *done* revising Fumped and it's in the hands of my wonderful agent, Suzie Townsend. Hurray!

--Now that I don't have anything to revise I'm forging ahead with research for my WIP, which isn't really historical fiction but features a fictionalized historical figure. That's all I'm saying for now, mainly because I'm still figuring the project out. Every now and then I sneak in some actual first-draft writing. My goal is to be done with any research I need to do by the end of the month. I can't wait to be writing this story for real.

--I'm reading an ARC of Lauren Oliver's Delirium, and it is very, very good (understatement). I would like to add 3-5 hours to the day just so I have more time to read it.

--Finally, just because I love to talk about food: Do you like cheese? (I'll forgive you if you say no, although I can't vouch for my home state.) Do you ever think, Gee, I really wish there were some sort of Cheese Cupid who would shoot those little heart-tipped arrows to unite me with the perfect cheese. Well, friend: dreams come true. (Alcohol is not even necessary for those dreams.)

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This query nails it

Read Kirsten Hubbard's fantastic query on the YA Highway blog:

YA Highway: Query Series: Kirsten Hubbard & Michelle Andelman

And tell me--by the end of it, were you getting off your chair and heading the general direction of Borders/B&N/your local indie to buy Like Mandarin (even though it won't be out until 2011), as though you had been hypnotized? Because I was. It sounds fantastic.

Her query does exactly what it is supposed to: it completely sucks you into the story within three paragraphs and leaves you clamoring for more.

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What makes a writer?

I have a confession, dear readers:
Possibly the best most important writing advice I ever got came from a Starbucks cup.
(A little embarrassing to admit, but whatever)

While I was slogging through grad school and not enjoying it much, I thought all the time about how much I wanted to be writing. I had all of these stories and characters and ideas bouncing around my head (taking away precious space that I needed for memorizing Latin, damnit!), but I didn't have time to do anything with them. If I wasn't writing academic papers, or going to evening classes, I was editing at my day job. Or sleeping. Or eating, because I really love to eat.

I always enjoyed reading the slightly cheesy "The Way I See It" quotes on Starbucks's cups, even though I managed to get the same one about mountain climbing repeatedly. Well, one day the quote was different, and it read: A writer is someone who has written today. What's stopping you?*

I was like, Huh. Now that you put it that way--what is stopping me?
Of course, I didn't run home and open my MacBook and stay up all night writing the pages of my first novel. I probably nuked a frozen Trader Joe's entree and cursed at my Latin homework and wallowed in my stress-related funk. But I remembered that quote.

And when I finally had the time in my life to start writing fiction again, seriously this time, that quote was my mantra every time I had some sort of insecure moment or self-defeating thought.A writer is someone who has written today celebrates what I love most about writing and language and reading. They are open to everyone. Anyone can write. You don't need a degree, or a license, or training, or a certain amount of money, or a minimum (or maximum) age. You don't need permission. You don't need an agent or a teacher or a mentor to write. Sure, formal training can help you grow as a writer, as can critique groups, beta readers, agents, editors, readers, critics, other authors. Practice is essential but luckily it's free, too, so long as you have some time. There is no upper limit for growth as a writer, and that is wonderful. We all want success, of course, but there is value and fulfillment in writing no matter where your career goes. If you write, then you're a writer.

*It wasn't attributed to anyone on the cup, and I was unable to Google the source. But if you know who said that--so I can give him/her credit--please let me know!

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The Writing Class

So, the branch of NYPL that I go to has a little used bookstore in the basement, staffed by (friendly, entertaining, mostly elderly) volunteers. They are amazing, and so is the shop's selection. There are first-edition books and rare books(!). A VHS tape graveyard. There are also current bestsellers. And off to the side is a room filled to the ceiling with paperbacks, from romance to crime fiction to chick lit to literary fiction. All the novels are a dollar. Sweet.

I was in there a few Saturdays ago and picked up a copy of Jincy Willett's The Writing Class. It's kind of embarrassing how the title got my attention: "The Writing Class". . . . Hmm, I'm a writer. Got me. The back jacket was intriguing and heck, it was only a buck. I bought it, not expecting it to be anything special.

Somewhat to my surprise, I adored it. The book blends humor, a mystery (not too scary, which is good for a wuss like me), engaging characters, and interesting tricks with voice and narration. Because of the writing-class conceit, much discussion about literature, the writing process, writers, and the writing life is woven into the story. It's a little meta, in a fun and thoughtful way. Amy, the "once promising writer" now teaching the titular class, is both a wonderful character and a good writing teacher to the reader.

The Buffalo News's review sells it well: "It's a mystery written for book lovers, and books like this are what caused book lovers to fall in love with books in the first place."

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Duuuuuuuuuuude

For someone who stopped being in her "mid-twenties," um, a while ago, I use dude too much. Way too much. I'm not talking about while I'm writing YA, but in general conversation.

For some reason, I just really love that word. I'm not even a Lebowski superfan. It's just so all-purpose, and fun. Inserting it into many remarks can add a welcome dose of levity.

Anyway, I read this passage in the book I'm currently reading (and loving), The Writing Class:

She used to keep a notebook, long since misplaced, devoted solely to overheard dialogue from children and teens. For instance, she loved the music in the various inflections of "dude," from its use as a noun of direct address, to the expression of complex thoughts, from Hey, You! to What the hell did you do that for? to That was seriously cool to So sorry you just screwed up your entire life. (p.221)

Thank you, Jincy Willett, for validating my appreciation of dude.

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