More BEA Bounty

I'm back! I missed you! Once I'm a little less jet-lagged and discombobulated, I'll post about my trip.
In the meantime, I'm ready to give away the rest of the ARCs I picked up at BEA in June (or otherwise acquired last spring). I have for you:

Skinny

Origin

The Friday Society

I'm throwing in a few hardcovers, too:
Audrey, Wait!
Keep Holding On

To enter, just leave a comment with your name -- and your email address, so I know how to find you. Please let me know if you live outside of the U.S.--I will ship to one international winner (the first one that Random.org picks).

Extra credit (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
+2 New follower on Twitter (@rebeccabehrens)
+3 For posting about this giveaway on your blog.
+2 Add me to your blog roll

The contest will end on Friday, August 17th at 11:59 pm Eastern time. I'll randomly select the winners from all the entries, and announce them on Monday, August 20th. Good luck!

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From the Archives: Popsicles!

In this August 2011 post, I shared my favorite healthy popsicle recipes, courtesy of a back issue of SELF magazine. I was trying to not eat any added sugars at the time, and these healthy treats were a lifesaver! Bon appetit :)

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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From the Archives: Looking in all directions

Here's a July 2010 post on real-world realistic versus world-building realistic. It includes an embarrassing picture of me at Disneyland as well as one of my favorite big words, verisimilitude. Enjoy!

People are going to turn around and look up

I was at the Happiest Place on Earth on Monday, and it occurred to me that Disneyland is sort of live-action fiction. You wander through all of these very detailed, distinctive fictive neighborhoods, waiting in line to get on rides that simulate space or fairytale lands or somewhere under the sea (cue Sebastian), etc. The whole park is actually built above ground level--you're walking over a series of tunnels that "cast members" use to travel to and from the different lands (in order to preserve the magic element of the park). I think the word for it is verisimilitude: everything has the appearance of truth but isn't really true. It can feel a little like walking through a book.

But even if you immerse yourself totally in the experience, it's easy to get to reminded that what's going on around you isn't real. All you have to do is turn around (or look up at the rafters) and you see carefully concealed emergency exits, strings of lights, security cameras, animatronic ghosts and pirates and animals repeating the same canned movements. Most rides depend on the rider keeping his or her butt in the seat (and hands safely inside the ride at all times!), facing forward, never turning to look back behind. Of course, people do turn around and look up.

Maybe there's a lesson for writers in this: you need to assume that your reader is going to turn around, look back, glance upwards. Disneyland does a remarkably good job of creating an alternate world (except for It's a Small World, which kind of looks like it was set up in an empty hotel ballroom, with track lighting on the ceiling and exposed staples and exit signs everywhere) but if you look closely, you can always see little signs to remind you that this is all Made Up. When you're writing, you need to try to make sure that you conceal those types of signals. Sometimes that's making sure you don't miss continuity errors ("Jean" becomes "Joan;" a 14-year-old neighbor celebrates her 12th birthday, etc.); sometimes it's making sure that your protagonist's actions and emotions make sense based on how you have established him/her so far and where his/her arc is going. Make sure your readers aren't asking (unintended) questions along the lines of, How come I can still see Captain Jack Sparrow inside the Pirate's cave while directly in front of me he's locked up in a jail cell? Such as, Why is Rachel suddenly attending the dance that she spent the last 30 pages trashing? And at all costs, avoid slowing down the pacing to a stall (the equivalent of the dreaded "The ride will be moving shortly" announcement); you don't want your readers shifting in their seats, waiting for something to happen.

I am clearly not "waiting for
 something to happen" here.

Not all works are striving for verisimilitude with the real world, but whatever environment you are creating should be as seamless as possible. You want your reader to believe in its authenticity. Whether you're building the world of a suburban high school or the kingdom of the Mer-people, remember that your readers will be looking in all directions.

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From the Archives: Prescriptive/Descriptive

In this February 2011 post, I linked to a thought-provoking Forever YA piece on whether YA is, or should be, prescriptive or descriptive. What are your thoughts? Do you write to describe teen life, or prescribe it?

Prescriptive vs. Descriptive YA

Katie Coops wrote a great post at Forever Young Adult last week: YA Books: Prescriptive or Descriptive? Coops applies the "two camps of grammar nerds," prescriptivists and descriptivists, to start a discussion about whether YA is describing how teens act or prescribing how teens should act:

In my thoughts about YA lit, the two camps of grammar nerds came to mind: prescriptivists and descriptivists. In case you’re not as much of a language nerd as I am, the simple way to define those two views is this: prescriptivists want to prescribe the right grammar or spelling based on history while descriptivists want to describe grammar and spelling the way it’s being used now. For example, a descriptivist would blithely write “I’m going home to happily read on the couch” and never think twice about it, while a prescriptivist would never accept splitting an infinitive, instead writing “I’m going home to read happily on the couch”. (An infinitive, just FYI, is when the verb form is “to” something. To mix, to bake, to devour…) [Sidenote: Wow, I love her. Grammar nerds FTW!]

So where does descriptivism and prescriptivism come in to play during our leisure reading when the last thing on our minds is grammar? I’ve been thinking about whether young adult authors are prescriptivist or descriptivist about the lives of teenagers and what the answer to that question means for me and other readers of the genre.

Being part of the YA writing community, I'm fairly confident that most writers come from a descriptivist viewpoint--we are are observers and storytellers first and foremost. Personally, I've never written anything with the end-goal of readers emulating what my characters say or do, although sometimes I might want to draw attention to an issue or viewpoint. I see this as more of a [Comp Lit nerdiness warning] reception theory question. Some readers might read a book and think, This is an interesting story about a girl who decides to have sex with her boyfriend. That's a different choice than I've made. Others might read it and think, This girl is having sex with her boyfriend. Everyone on Skins is having sex. I wonder if I should be having sex, too. But by no means should content be altered so as to avoid a prescriptive interpretation--books don't make choices, people do. I firmly believe that YA lit shouldn't shy away from any controversial issue that teens face or actions that teens do. Yet I do think it's important that overall in the category, a variety of choices and lifestyles are portrayed. Not everyone dates in high school; not everyone goes to wild parties in high school; not everyone fights with his/her parents in high school. Sometimes those people are underrepresented. 

This is a topic that hits close to home for me. I definitely read for empathy as a teen. While there wasn't nearly as much YA lit available when I was a young adult, I had trouble finding a YA character I could relate to in a sea of books about eventually getting the boy/getting popular. I distinctly remember the hopefulness I felt each time I found a protag who shared my bookishness and general inexperience--and I remember the twinge of disappointment wallflowery 14-year-old-me experienced when the MC got invited to the dance or kissed by her dream guy at the end. Crap, I thought she was going to show me that the path my life is taking is okay, too. [And for the record, I turned out just fine, thankyouverymuch.]

This post isn't intended as a critique on YA, which I love and read and write. I think YA writers do a fantastic job of inclusive writing as it is, and that's something of which I'm very proud. And it's important to remember that there is realism and then there is good fiction--hence all the wonderful heightened adventures our characters have that wouldn't necessarily be likely in real life. Katie Coops's post just resonated with me, as a former prescriptive reader, and I think it's something useful to remember while we read and write.

What do you think? Do you read for "research or empathy," as Coops puts it? Writers, do you worry about the prescriptive/descriptive issue with your writing? 

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From the Archives: Chunk It.

In this March 2011 post, I explain why I like to make my revising chunky, which sounds gross. But is actually helpful, and has nothing to do with soup or barf. I swear.

Chunk It.

I adopted a nifty, new (to me) process while revising my WIP: chunking.

chunking • \chung' king\ v. 1 the processing of splitting an overwhelming MS into "chunks," or parts, in order to revise the whole by parts.

I didn't set out to chunk my MS on purpose, but it was already split into distinct parts because it has two POVs. I wrote the two POVs separately, mainly because I don't like switching back and forth while writing and also I wanted each narrative to stand on its own. I am about to finally stitch the two together, once I go through POV #1 one more time with my little red pencil. 

Because the story alternates between those two POVs, each narrative already has distinct breaks. This meant that when I started revising I had 2 narratives, one with 4 parts and one with 5. 

(All these numbers are confusing me already. TOO MUCH MATH FOR WRITING! And I even like math.)

Anyway, I've been revising each part on its own, in preparation for revising the story as a whole. And you know what? Chunking was super-helpful! Focusing on sections of the story on a micro-level was so manageable. I had none of those,OMG, what am I going to do with the end of this book?!? moments because I was just focusing on the chunk at hand.

Of course, chunking can only be part of the revision process, otherwise the larger story arc will likely not work. That's what I'm about to start working on, smoothing over the story on the macro level [bites nails]. Knowing that my chunks are pretty solid [that phrase . . . makes me think of barf. Sorry.] makes me feel refreshingly confident going in, though.

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From the Archives: Impostor Syndrome

In this November 2010 post, I tell you why you don't need to worry about the writing equivalent of a lip-synching scandal. Even if it feels that way sometimes.

You are not like Milli Vanilli.

How many of you writers have found yourself thinking any of the following:

• I only got an agent/got published/won an award because of luck, or because I wrote the right thing at the right time.
• So what if I wrote that book, now I have to write another. And it has to be better.
• I can't believe nobody has picked up on the typos in Chapter 7 or that terrible passage I didn't cut in Chapter 19. Eventually, someone will and then they'll all see what a hack I am.
• I didn't deserve to get so much praise for that book/attract the attention of some agents/get published. What I do isn't half as good as writers X, Y, and Z. It's not even a thimbleful as good.
• If [insert your favorite writer here] had written what I wrote, maybe then it would be decent.
• I'm not a *real* writer.

Persistent self-doubting thoughts might be fleeting bouts of insecurity, or they might be a sign that you're suffering from impostor syndrome. Which is a real thing:

Do You Have the Imposter Syndrome?
Imposter Syndrome--Feeling Like a Fraud
[Note: Apparently "impostor" and "imposter" are both accepted spellings? Merriam-Webster was a little confusing on this one.]
I should know. One of the speakers at my grad-school orientation gave lecture about the dangers of the impostor syndrome in academia. Sitting in the audience, after a couple of stress-filled days in which my internal mantra was What the hell am I doing here?!?!, I had an impostor-syndrome epiphany: You mean I'm not the only person who feels this way? Who thinks that eventually everyone else in my department will figure out that I'm the village idiot who slipped through the admissions cracks? Apparently, I was not.

It's easy to slip into impostor thought patterns as a writer. It's easy to overlook the laudable and successful things you've done (no matter what stage of the publishing process you're at) and write them off as flukes, luck, frauds. If you ever receive a compliment for your writing and your response begins withbut/actually/no, I really just/or some other modifier instead of "Why, thank you. That's so wonderful to hear"--congrats, you're acting like someone who thinks s/he is an impostor.

Being humble is good. Being realistic is good. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is good. Being open to criticism that makes you grow and evolve and improve is good. Thinking that you are an impostor is bad. It's not productive, just stressful.

If you write, you are a writer. If you've experienced success, you most likely deserved it. Ignore impostor-y thoughts and focus instead on enjoying the writing process, which always involves occasional mistakes, usually followed by growth and improvement.

Girl you know it's true: you are not like Milli Vanilli.

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From the Archives: Are Book People More Sensitive?

In this December 2010 post, I talk about a highly scientific Marie Claire article that suggests readers and writers are more sensitive than the average person. After reading the original article, I felt better about my tendency to sob while reading.

Highly Sensitive (Book) People

Browsing the December issue of Marie Claire (I am shamelessly addicted to glossies) I came across this article on "highly sensitive people": Are You Too Sensitive?

My first response: I totally agree with the doctor opposed to the new label, who said "Why should we have to label everyone who doesn't fit like clones into the mainstream?" I bristle at calling it an "emotional disorder" in all cases. It's always a fine line dividing what we consider normal and disordered, and the line is always moving anyway. This is just a fancy term for a real, *normal* personality type. [I am now dismounting my soapbox.]

My second response: That being said, I definitely must be a highly sensitive person. (I took the quiz, and I think there were maybe five things I answered "false" to. Not exaggerating.)*

*In general, I do not recommend using women's magazines to diagnose one's self. This includes when they tell you which swimsuit will heal your butt-size issues because let me tell you, boy shorts are NOT the answer.

Subsequent responses (the ones relevant to this blog): I started to wonder how many other writers and book-lovers fall somewhere in the HSP spectrum. This quote sparked my interest: 

An HSP doesn't just cry while watching a film like The Notebook — she experiences actual grief symptoms. 

I have been known to actually go into mourning when I finish reading a book and take days (once in a blue moon, weeks) to "get over" what's happened in the story. I'm kind of relieved that other people do that, too, and it doesn't mean that I'm particularly cray-cray.

And this is a bright spot in an article that otherwise takes the argument that being a HSP is problematic:

It's not surprising that HSPs tend to be creatively gifted, and that a large percentage have become famous because of their particular talents (many HSPs consider creative types as diverse as Michael Jackson, Johnny Depp, and Winona Ryder to be one of their kind). And given how beautifully they describe the pain that comes with feeling so intensely, both Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf were almost certainly HSPs.

Interesting. So, let's do a completely non-scientific assessment. How many of you book-lovers and writers out there see yourself as a HSP, based on this article? And do you think it affects your reading or response to literature?

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Aloha

This dude and I have been together for ten-plus(!) years.

 

Tomorrow we're headed for Hawaii so we can exchange some leis and make it legal. [Happy face]

Needless to say, I'm taking a blog hiatus. I've scheduled some reposts so my blog doesn't look abandoned--kind of like leaving the lights on a timer when you go away for a vacation. (Not that a blog has a risk of being burgled.) But I probably won't be replying to comments, etc., until the end of July.

Actually, I plan to be pretty quiet on Twitter, too. I'll see you in a few weeks!

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Independence Day (and Idleness)

Happy 4th of July!

Since most of us (in the US, at least) have the day off from work to celebrate, here's some food for thought from an excellent essay on busyness:

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done." --Tim Krieder, from "The Busy Trap" NY Times 6/30/12

It's a really great piece.
Hope you have some freedom to be lazy or wander or shirk obligations and play today! And enjoy the fireworks, too.

(Flickr Creative Commons)

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Mermaids and Monstrous Beauty

I've always kind of loved mermaid mythology. Yes, The Little Mermaid was probably my favorite Disney movie (I even had Ariel sheets on my twin bed). As a kid I used a diving ring around my feet to pretend I had a mermaid tail in the pool. I tried to convince my mom to make my a mermaid costume for Halloween. Thus I was sad to see that, according to this Slate article, NOAA has taken an official stance on the existence of mermaids:

But are mermaids real? No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found. Why, then, do they occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring peoples? That’s a question best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists. ("Are Mermaids Real?" NOAA website)

That news is also disappointing because I would love to believe that the mermaid story in Elizabeth Fama's wonderful book Monstrous Beauty is real. From Goodreads:

Fierce, seductive mermaid Syrenka falls in love with Ezra, a young naturalist. When she abandons her life underwater for a chance at happiness on land, she is unaware that this decision comes with horrific and deadly consequences.

Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect . . . or a curse? With Ezra’s help, Hester investigates her family’s strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean—but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago.

This is one of my favorite YA reads of the year so far: gorgeous writing (and in third person, to boot!), inventive and exciting mythology, and a touch of historical fiction. It's mysterious and sexy and sophisticated and simply great. Katy Upperman posted a great review at YA Confidential; check it out here.

Pub date: 9/4/2012 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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