RTW: Best Book of August

Road Trip Wednesday is a weekly blog carnival hosted by YA Highway. This week's topic is: What's the best book you read in August?

Reading Love in the Time
of Cholera on Fire Island

August was made for reading. And I had a really good reading month, guys:

And Then Things Fall Apart Arlaina Tibensky

Armageddon in Retrospect Kurt Vonnegut

Stiltsville Susanna Daniel

Hector and the Search for Happiness Francois Lelord

Someone Like You Sarah Dessen

Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Mostly Good Girls Leila Sales

Libba Bray's Beauty Queens (what I'm reading right now)

Weeks after I finished reading the books, Keek's and Frances's voices (protagonists of And Then Things Fall Apart and Stiltsville, respectively) are still in my head. I miss them. I want to read some more of Keek's poetry and I would like, sofa king much, for an update on her life (including her current nail polish choices). I want Frances to tell me more about the stilt house, about how she prepared for Hurricane Andrew (okay, I wanted to know that last weekend when Irene was bearing down), and let me know how's she's been doing since the book ended. I care about them both, even though they're fictional.

I love it when books make me care for made-up people like they're my good friends. Those are always the best books.

What about you: what was your best book of August?

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Mostly Good Girls

I mostly totally liked this book. You all know I have a soft spot for YA that focuses on female friendships, and reading about Violet and Katie's dynamic duo was so enjoyable. They're smart, funny, loyal, and "mostly good" enough to always be likable, even when they are in the midst of not-so-good shenanigans. Plus, the girl's prep school they attend--Westfield--makes for a great setting. I tend to associate private girl's schools with cattiness and Mean Girls-esque drama, so I was pleasantly surprised by the undercurrent of sisterhood at Westfield. (There was some drama, too.) The girls all strive for intelligence and success, too--it was refreshing that their squabbles and competition mostly did not related to guys, but test scores and lit-mag submissions.

Random sidenote: Katie is a coxswain for her school's crew team. As a former cox, the brief descriptions of what crew and coxing are like had me rolling in the aisles of the crosstown bus during my commute. Maybe you had to have been one, but Leila Sales nailed it.

Highly recommended!

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RTW: Around the Block

Road Trip Wednesday is a weekly blog carnival hosted by YA Highway. This week's topic is: How do you beat writer's block?

Oh, that pesky writer's block. If we're talking about writer's block as in "I am being a procrastinating slacker," I turn off my Internet. Then I park my butt in the chair, and promise myself online access only once I have 1000 words. It requires willpower, I guess, but it works.

If we're talking about writer's block as in "I can't figure out how to deal with this scene/revision/character/etc.," I get my butt out of my chair. Then I lace up my sneakers and go for a run.
I can pretty much guarantee that 3 miles in, I start feeling inspired.

How do you deal with writer's block?

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Reader in Chief

If you take a look at my "Fiction" page, you'll get an idea of why I might be slightly obsessed* with the domestic life of U.S. Presidents (and their kids). Although not much is reported on the Obama family's** private life, a lot of attention is paid to their book choices: The First Family is a family of readers. Which is wonderful!

On vacation, the family recently visited Bunch of Grapes bookstore on Martha's Vineyard, and according to the LA Times, President Obama picked up Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Room by Emma Donoghue, and The Bayou Trilogy by Daniel Woodrell (author of Winter’s Bone). Sasha got Frost and Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me. (I love that book!)

Newsweek has a nifty chart ("Obama's Book Club") with all the books that President Obama has read since he took office. I remember reading last summer that he got a coveted ARC of Freedom (from Bunch of Grapes, again). How much do you think Leslie Knope wants to talk about Patty with him? Me, too.

*Dear Secret Service people with Google Alerts: in a completely curious and normal and non-threatening way, I might add.
**AS IT SHOULD BE! 

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Working Titles

One of my favorite books is The High-Bouncing Lover. Also known as Trimalchio in West Egg; also known as: The Great Gatsby. Seriously--those were titles F. Scott seriously considered for his masterpiece (along with Gold-Hatted Gatsby and Under the Red White and Blue).

Working titles are weird. As a writer, sometimes it's unthinkable to call your MS anything else. (Although what I'm calling my current WIP is totally a boring working title and I am hoping praying that some better inspiration will strike before I finish it.) As a reader, it's jarring to think of what you might have been calling your favorites. For example, Of Mice and Men, which is a skillful and lovely title, used to be Something That Happened. Well. I would hope that something happens in the book.

Some other trippy* examples:

Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway (instead of The Sun Also Rises)

Tomorrow is Another Day by Margaret Mitchell (instead of Gone with the Wind)

First Impressions by Jane Austen (instead of Pride and Prejudice)

As this post by Vonna Carter shows, a lot of YA titles change between the PM announcement and publication (E.G. Audrey, Wait! was sold as B-Side; Wicked Lovely as Finding the Summer Queen).

You can test your knowledge of classic literature working titles here.

*My favorite non-literary example of a working title is "Scrambled Eggs," the working title the Beatles used for "Yesterday." [scratches head]

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Off-Topic Tuesday: POPSICLES!

A week without refined sugar or non-natural sweeteners* is like a week without sunshine. Sorta. Do I miss ice cream?

Every. Single. Day.

But there are benefits--like a recalibrated palate. I ate a peach yesterday and it blew my mind it was so sweet and fresh and, well, peachy. When I was eating candy all day long and ice cream all night, peaches tasted sort of meh. How screwed up is that?

Anyway, I'm surviving on loads of homemade popsicles sans sugar (other than what's in the fruit). This is from a back issue of SELF magazine--I've had the clipping tacked to my fridge for years but I've never actually tried the recipes until now.

Source: SELF magazine from 2010(?) I couldn't find a link, so I am posting my
weathered fridge clipping. SELF has more great pops recipes here. (Permission requested)

So far I've made Crunchy Peanut Butter-Banana and Avocado-Mango. I add unsweetened coconut flakes to the PB ones and skip the honey. Delish, and a great, creamy stand-in for ice cream. The Avocado-Mango pops are AMAZING. Fair warning is that the color can be a little . . . off-putting, depending on the ripeness of the avocado. My fiance and I may or may not refer to them as "baby-poopsicles," which is both puerile and disgusting. It is a testament to the great taste that I eat so many of them.

And now tomorrow (or whenever I blog next)** I will return you to your regularly scheduled book-related blogging.

*See previous post
**It's August and I am technically trying to take some time off, but apparently that just means that my posts are getting random and I am getting punchy.

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Monday Miscellany: a book/food mishmash

Here's an idea of how far behind I am on my TBR list/shelf: I have had an ARC of the posthumously published Vonnegut collection Armageddon in Retrospect since February 2008. I finally read it a few weeks ago, and it's well worth reading (especially the short story about soldiers fantasizing about food). The essays are classic absurdist hilarious-poignant Vonnegut. I ought to have read it three years ago, when I got my hands on it.
Next off my TBR shelf is Love in the Time of Cholera, on the TBR since 2007, which shames me every time I look at it because I studied Spanish literature for my graduate degree.

The Great American Detox Diet: I'm kind of a dietary contradiction. I buy organic whenever possible. I eat little meat on a daily basis. I love beets and kale. I never cook with salt. I shop at Whole Foods obsessively. BUT: I am obsessed with doughnuts. I never met a Cheeto I didn't consume. I have been known to consume 5-6 desserts per day. (But I don't have cavities!) In home movies from my childhood, my dad literally has to restrain me from my sister's birthday cake as my greedy little hands grab at the frosting. I am, and always have been, a sugar freak.


Anyway, that's why I bought The Great American Detox Diet, written by Morgan Spurlock's wife, vegan chef Alex Jamieson (of SuperSize Me fame). It's not so much a diet book as nonfiction designed to educate you about the deficiencies of the standard American diet and get you to cut down on sugar, caffeine, animal protein, bad fats, and non-whole grains. I'm reading it and trying to incorporate its lessons to be less sugar-and-crap-food dependent. As a result, I have not eaten any refined sugar in a week. Yeah. You can guess how that's going. The upside is I have discovered the joy of homemade popsicles with no sweeteners (other than what is in the whole fruits). Recipes TK.
Oh, and speaking of TBR shelves: My overstuffed bookcase has had a scary resemblance to the Leaning Tower of Pisa for the past month or two. I finally took all my books off it and am tightening/reglueing as needed. No more fears of death by YA!

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My very first Sarah Dessen

I'm kinda appalled that it took me so long to read one of Sarah Dessen's books. I mean, contemporary MG/YA is my thing, and Dessen is queen of that thing.
But I remedied that deficiency this past week, when I finally read devoured Someone Like You.

There's much to love in Someone Like You, but what I love most is the ordinariness. The protagonist, Halley, is so utterly normal. She's an everygirl. Which is a great thing.
That is not to say that the story isn't compelling and doesn't suck you in--I don't want ordinariness to be confused with maybe some of the term's negative connotations. I mean that the characters and the events and the emotions are realistic and relateable.

As we read, we come to know everything that is special about Halley--her sensitivity, her sense of loyalty, her parental issues, her teenage desire and vulnerability. The title Someone Like You takes on an interesting double meaning: Halley is special, so "someone like you" could mean that she's singular. Unique. But Halley's personality and her emotions and the situations she is in--they are similar to those of a lot of teen girls. Halley's also someone like you, the reader.

I love sweeping plots and high stakes and fantasy and ghosts and magic and adventure. I love outsized villains and kickass heroines. But I also love stories about girls I could have been, and the everyday drama of life as a middle-class American teen. Those types of books don't always get the same attention, which is a little sad-making.
So if you, like me, have been remiss--read Sarah Dessen. She's fantastic. Especially because she writes about someone like you.

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Vacation Reading Report: Gold Star

Packing for my long weekend away to the country/beach, I thought, I don't want to take a full suitcase. I guess this means I can either bring 6 books or sufficient shoes and underwear. But that's okay--have I ever read more than one book while on vacation?

I've always figured that unless you are going away for the specific purpose of holing up hermit-style and reading (a lovely plan, if you ask me) it might be the sign of a bad vacation if you finish tons of books while away.

My long weekend was wonderful. Photographic evidence:

Sunny beach!

Creepy dystopian beach!

Wavy beach!

I packed Susanna Daniel's wonderful debut Stiltsville (which is so good, and you should go read it ASAP), the Little Prince-like novel Hector and the Search for Happiness (which is so charming, and you should go read it ASAP), and The Great American Detox Diet (because I eat my weight in sugar daily, and the book promises to make me eat healthier). Oh, and a copy of Whole Living magazine. 

I read all of it by Monday.

What can I say? Sitting on the porch at night, listening to the crickets and cicadas, I read. Lounging by the pool or in a floatie-thingy, I read. Under my beach umbrella listening to the Atlantic, I read.

From now on, I will continue to overpack books.

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Closing Lines

(You know you came of age in the 90s if you immediately started singing "Closing Time" after reading that.)

We writers spend a lot of time talking and thinking about opening lines. They are prime real estate; they have to hook in your reader; they set the tone for the hundreds of pages to follow. Maybe it's my need to always be contrary, but I am not a huge fan of opening lines (in general). It's not often that an opening line sticks in my head and stays there. Closing lines, on the other hand--I love them. 

The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." I would sell a kidney to have written that.

The Time-Traveler's Wife: "He is coming, and I am here." Oh, the crying that followed.

For Whom the Bell Tolls: "He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest." There goes my other kidney. (Wait a minute. . . .)

Here's the Best 100 List from Stylist. 

Agree/disagree? What are some of your favorite closing lines?

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Little Free Libraries!

I'm in love with Little Free Libraries--a grassroots effort to promote literacy and community. I'm also proud that it's from my home state (and that my hometown is the one place where you can pop in a shop and buy a prefab Little Free Library).

Little Free Library #1 (Source)

The Little Free Library mission:

To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide.
To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.
To build more than 2,510 libraries around the world--more than Andrew Carnegie!

Little Free Library next to my
 favorite Madison coffeeshop! (Source)

For more info, or to become a Little Free Librarian, check our their website: Little Free Library

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A Visit from the Goon Squad

In this week's Road Trip Wednesday post, I talked about sensory description and writing the five senses. When considering one sense in particular for that post--hearing/sound--I kept thinking of A Visit from the Goon Squad. If I was going to list everything wonderful about that book, I could fill an entire blog. It won a gazillion awards (Pulitzer, anyone?) and it seemed like you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a book reviewed who loved loved LOVED it.* It met all of my personal expectations, and exceeded them. Dear Reader, it contained a chapter told in extremely funny and poignant PowerPoint slides. PowerPoint! That. Is. Genius. At. Work.

Oh right--senses and hearing. Music accompanies every page of the book, in obvious (e.g. many of the characters work in the music industry) and subtle ways. Normally reading descriptions of music or other people listening to music doesn't do much for me,** but they were written so extremely well in Goon Squad that I loved reading them. To give you a taste: "Then the sisters began to sing. Oh, the raw, almost threadbare sound of their voices mixed with the clash of instruments--these sensations met with a faculty deeper in Bennie than judgment or even pleasure; they communed directly with his body, whose shivering, bursting reply made him dizzy." 

PS If you've read the book, check out the charts depicting the timeline of chapters and relationships of characters here. Now I want to reread the chapters in chronological order. 

*I have no idea where that idiom came from, but I use it all the time. Disclaimer: I love cats and hope nobody actually swings them. 

**Unlike reading about art and aesthetics. Or film reviews. I love reading all of that. It's a mystery!

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RTW: Sense and Sensitivity

Road Trip Wednesday is a weekly blog carnival hosted by YA Highway. This week's topic is: The Five Senses. How you use them in your writing, how you are inspired by them, pictorial essays, that character with smelly socks, books that have used them well, the ones that are currently missing from your work, etc.


It took me a while before I realized that in my writing I was largely ignoring four of them. All the details were visual, visual, visual--and therefore tiresome, tiresome, tiresome. So I started making myself fill out a little post-it note checklist before writing a sensory-loaded scene:

What is my protagonist:

seeing?

tasting?

hearing?

smelling?

touching?

I mean, duh, right? Yet it's amazing how priming yourself changes the way you write description though. A visuals-only passage like this: Collette saw the hazy outline of a ghost tease her from the corner of the dim hallway. She slammed her door shut and locked it, then planted herself in a chair to watch and make sure the handle didn't jiggle.
Can become a sensory bonanza like this: From inside her doorway, Collette caught a whiff of lavender and patchouli. She gripped the worn edges of the doorway as she leaned her head out to check the hall. She heard only the clock ticking to her left (and the thrum of her heartbeat in her ears). Then she saw the hazy outline of a ghost tease her from the corner of the dim hallway. Collette slammed her door shut and frantically locked it, slicing her fingertip on the sharp edge of the lock. She planted herself in a chair to watch the handle, to make sure it didn't jiggle. Sticking her bleeding finger in her mouth as she waited, the taste of her own blood creeped Collette out even more.
(Disclaimer: Not from a WIP. I wrote that after midnight and a glass of wine last night. It shows.)
Not to say the second example is better--it may just be longer. As a Hemingway fan, I am well aware that sometimes less description is better. However, describing all five senses to start has gotten me thinking about everything the character is experiencing in the scene, and perhaps one of those senses will come to dominate the visual as I revise.

How do you incorporate all the senses into your writing?

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Elementary-School Enlightenment

"My school day started at 4pm. 4pm rocked my eight-year-old world. 4pm = Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, Thundercats -- the best time of the day. At 4pm, unknowingly, the story elements of fiction wore a deep groove into my brain; I learned about character development, setting, story arc, problem/solution, and action. . . . This is what I knew as an eight-year-old coming to the page. And millions of kids today bring the same energy and knowledge to their writing palette. So, why isn't fiction taught in elementary school? The answer to that question has twisted and contorted my brain to utter perplexity for years. For me, it makes sense to teach it, but maybe we can pick at the knot together." From "Fantastical Enlightenment for Elementary Students"

Gaetan Pappalardo, writing at Edutopia (the George Lucas Educational Foundation) brings up a great point--why aren't we spending more time in schools teaching kids to write fiction? I know from day-job experience that the Common Core and state standards don't leave a lot of room in curriculum for fiction writing. Teachers have a lot to cover before the end-of-the-year assessments, and unfortunately sometimes they can't afford to take time away for fiction writing. Even fiction literature is getting crowded out of textbooks. Standardized tests don't often ask kids to write an original fantasy, or some historical fiction. To succeed in the real world, kids need to learn how to write persuasive essays, business letters, and other forms of nonfiction. 

I have a vivid memory of making my first "book," in fifth grade. I laminated the cover and illustrated a signature of pages about some sort of fluffy rabbit who got into shenanigans. I loved the process so much that I (very ambitiously) wrote in my class journal that my life goals were to swim in the Olympics and publish a book.

Obviously, one of those stuck with me.

I can't remember any elementary-school assignments to write narrative nonfiction or informational texts or how-to articles or biographies. I remember what I created, probably because making stuff up is thrilling at any age. Aren't I lucky that I discovered that so young? In part, I have my teacher to thank (Thank you, Mrs. Gerlach!). It's a shame that as fiction writing gets pushed out of early education, fewer kids get to discover the wonder and joy and pride and growth that comes from creative writing.

"Fantastical expression is "The Ring," "The Chosen One," "The Book," or any other metaphorical statement representing the beating heart -- the life force -- the triumph of the imagination. We have the ability and the opportunity to feed it, make it stronger, and even inspire children to set their own path for greatness. In the book, The Wizard Behind Harry Potter, Marc Shapiro states that teachers admired Joanne Rowling's talent at an early age. She took these compliments as a sign that she had found something she was good at. And isn't that what we all want?"

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Snacking and Writing

For me, it's:

while writing, butt-in-chair
COFFEE
dried coconut cubes (when I'm feeling fancy)
Cheetos (when I'm so not)

during little writing breaks to the kitchen*
dried cherries
guacamole + guac transfer device (aka chip/pita/cracker)
spoonfuls of ice cream

after I've typed THE END

doughnuts

adult beverages (mostly wine)

*not at the same time. Although. . . .

For famous writers it is/was:
espresso (Proust)
lime popsicles (Joyce Maynard)
cold toast and stale coffee (John Steinbeck)
and more.
See their snacks, illustrated, here


What about you: what do you munch while you punch the keys?

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