tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11507461995989585692024-03-12T01:48:28.701-06:00Margo BerendsenDelusions at High AltitudeMargo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.comBlogger392125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-56124058185992181082018-04-30T08:08:00.000-06:002018-07-10T16:05:37.497-06:00Zen and the Art of LifeThis last "temping top ten list" for the A-Z blogging challenge is a wonderfully
fitting end, a compilation of 10 ways that I have found to live life in a
fulfilling way (reposted from 2012).<br />
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When I was in college, I had a friend give me a copy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance">Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</a>, a philosophical journey by Robert Pirsig, and that book made me take a really long, thoughtful look at life - what was really important to me, what defines a quality life.<br />
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The "zen" in the title does not refer to specifically to Zen Buddhism, but rather to general philosophy of living life "in the moment", versus an approach to rational analysis and planning (the maintenance part of the title). A quality life is a balance between the two approaches, but in the end, the author acknowledges that quality is basically undefinable and we each must find our own path. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I wonder if that's why pictures of paths always appeal to me, like this one. </td></tr>
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Since then, there have been many other influences on my outlook on life, some of which I have listed below. I also recognize that everyone's path is
different.In fact, I love to read about other people's ways or
discoveries along the path of life, so after reading my list, please share a thing or two you've learned on your path to life.<br />
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10. Life can be ridiculously complicated, if you let it. Simplify. Here's a short, sweet post from Zen Habits on <a href="http://zenhabits.net/brief-guide/">how to start simplifying your life</a>. This gives you more time for the essentials - the people you love, the passions you want to pursue. <br />
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9. De-clutter. I will never be an extreme minimalist, because homes filled with beloved things: there is something so homey about them. But I've also discovered that de-cluttering (I spend about an hour a week working on this) brings me such a massive feeling of accomplishment and organization in comparison to the<a href="http://zenhabits.net/zen-mind-how-to-declutter/"> relatively small amount of time it takes</a>. I also believe that materialism - accumulating more and more things - just breeds discontentment. <br />
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8. Resist <a href="http://zenhabits.net/monitor-your-impulse-spending-urges/">impulse spending</a> and instant gratification. Waiting has its own wonderful reward, and even better, here's a great post how to <a href="http://zenhabits.net/enjoy-life-now-and-save-for-later-or-why-delayed-gratification-is-a-false-dichotomy/">overcome the apparent contradiction</a> between enjoying life NOW and avoiding instant gratification. <br />
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7. Put things in perspective. All that stuff that is stressing you out right now - it probably won't matter in 5 years from now, let alone 15.<br />
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6. Make mistakes, don't fear failure, don't beat yourself up if you mess up. Our mistakes teach us, and grow us in ways our successes never can.<br />
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5. Keep learning. Always keep learning new things - technical things, artistic things, new words, new languages - even trivia. It keeps us young and wise at the same time. <br />
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4. Seek creativity, even in the ordinary everyday tasks. A short, sweet <a href="http://zenhabits.net/the-little-but-really-useful-guide-to-creativity/">guide to creativity.</a><br />
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3. Enjoy each moment. Continued happiness and fulfillment is <a href="http://zenhabits.net/the-single-secret-to-making-2009-your-best-year-ever/">in the little things</a>, not the big things. Especially with your kids. <br />
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2. Love deeply and unconditionally and always, always forgive (a <a href="http://zenhabits.net/how-to-let-go-and-forgive/">post from Zen Habits on forgiveness</a>). Forgiving another person when they don't deserve it is the hardest things in the world, but the secret to happiness in life (along with #3). <br />
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1. You can't do this alone. We're not strong enough 100% of the time, or even 80%, to tackle life and wrestle the best of out it. Even scarier, if you lived for very long in this life, you discover that people always let you down in some way. So how do you reconcile this problem?<br />
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The miraculous thing I discovered is that there is a God who never lever lets you down, who is always there for you, who even died for you - and even better, conquered death and came back to life so that we can too. I don't believe in forcing my religion on anyone, but by golly if I've found something wonderful, I can't help but to share it. I've been a follower of Jesus since I was 23 years old, even though I don't follow very well and am always getting lost. He still stays with me, every step of the way.<br />
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Again, everyone's path through life is different, and I can't wait to hear what other wonderful ways you guys have found to enrich your lives. Please share!!!Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-67811947131066771382015-07-30T18:30:00.003-06:002015-07-30T18:30:47.765-06:00Devastated but not destroyedMy 8 year old daughter, one of my twin girls, was killed in a freak accident on June 4 this year, exactly a month after I lost my father.<br />
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I was at work when my husband took our four girls riding (I would have loved to join them. Horses are our family thing. All six of us ride and love horses, love them deeply). The horse my daughter was riding started acting up on her. This was a horse owned by another family that are close friends of ours; my husband had trained the horse, we had both ridden him and felt he was safe for our daughter to ride, with help, as she's still inexperienced. Her dad was helping her teach the horse to "yield" when he started tossing his head and hopping. My husband let go of the horse's head and backed off, taking the pressure off the horse. Instead of calming, as he normally did, the horse reared, slipped, and went over backwards, crushing my daughter instantly. My husband and two of my daughters witnessed the accident up close. She was at a hospital within six minutes, but they were unable to save her.<br />
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Our family has been surrounded by a tremendous outpouring of love, care, and financial, physical, mental and spiritual support. Many a night when it's time to tuck my three girls into bed and the tears threaten to turn into sobs of agony because of the fourth girl who should be there and isn't, one friend or family member or another has texted me encouragement and scripture right when I needed it most.<br />
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I've been living on prayers.<br />
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I haven't been able to imagine writing again, especially since the story that I've poured my heart into the past few years was a story about twin girls, one of whom was supposedly killed in a freak accident. In my story, her sister finds her twin and rescues her.<br />
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If only that could be true in real life.<br />
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To our amazement, my husband's and mine, our girls wanted to keep their horses and continue to ride them, and even show them in fair. (The horse my daughter was riding has since been sold to professionals who are watching him closely to see if there is any more dangerous behavior).<br />
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Friends lent us their very well trained Shetland pony for my other 8 year old daughter to ride, and she also fell in love with a miniature horse, Buttercup, that has been a great source of both smiles and comfort to us.<br />
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My 11 year old rode her horse Tuffy in the trail course at fair, and my 13 year old rode her horse Spring in all her usual events. She not only won first place in the barrel race and pole bending race, but had the fastest overall time, even faster than high school senior riders... and she's going on to compete in state fair.<br />
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The three girls also put together their own "Ride to Music" program for fair, which is where you pick a song and theme and design your own riding patterns and costumes. They rode in memory of their sister and their costumes were designed after their sister's favorite things: horses, dogs, unicorns, Pegasus, Pokemon, Minecraft, and butterflies.<br />
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The girls didn't do as well as they had hoped in many of the events in fair. They hadn't had time to practice much this summer, for a very painful reason. But they stuck with it, and learned good sportsmanship, and in the process I found I could start to breathe again, I could start to live again.<br />
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I haven't been keeping a journal, just short notes, incomplete sentences, bursts of bitterness, anger, agony. But also memories of my little girl that I don't want to forget. Moments when my girls made me smile. Drops here and there of hope, fragments of the painful but powerful talks my husband and I have had, my mother and I, my friends and I.<br />
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Slowly these tiny notes have been expanding. Full sentences. Paragraphs. I am writing again.<br />
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My life was changed in an instant. My heart was crushed along with my daughter's, except I was forced to keep living. For weeks it was hard to even breath. I cried out to God, Why? He gave no answer. I begged him. I doubted him. One moment I believe with all my heart that she's safe in heaven, and I'll see her again someday, and the next I'm tempted to believe it's just random madness in a random, hateful world where terrible things happen everyday.<br />
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Finally a few days ago, God answered me. Romans 8:32 says "<span style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-family: Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">He did not even spare His own Son but offered Him up for us all." </span>My daughter was not spared. God did not spare his own son. But the hope of Jesus is that he went through death, and rose again, to give us hope of resurrection, of eternal life.<br />
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I am going through the worst possible trial a parent can have, but I find strength and comfort along the way, and courage to share my faith. Thank you for letting me share.Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-22245423513704138162015-06-03T08:41:00.002-06:002015-06-04T06:29:59.667-06:00Insecure writer: changing point of view<br />
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Right now with my writing I'm debating which point of view to use in my next project, after I've heard rumbling from several different places (such as Authoress at the <a href="http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/2015/05/friday-fricassee_22.html">Miss Snark's First Victim</a> blog) that the publishing industry is getting tired of first person present tense. A famous example from a book that probably influenced a lot of writers in recent years to choose this tense (including myself):<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas over the mattress.</span><br />
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Authoress says she might rewrite her entire work-in-progress from first person present into third person past tense. Wow! Re-writing an entire book to change tense?<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s1600/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #73b2d0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s200/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The first Wednesday of the month<br /> is time for <a href="http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/" style="color: #73b2d0; text-decoration: none;">Insecure Writers Support Group</a>,<br />hosted by Alex Cavanaugh and his<br />excellent team. </span></td></tr>
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Ironically, at the same time I'm hearing this talk about how first present tense (made famous in Young Adult by The Hunger Games) is no longer in vogue, I started reading Dodie Smith's coming of age book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/341896.I_Capture_the_Castle">I Capture the Castle</a>, written in 1948.<br />
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And written in first person present tense! (In the form of journal entries). And here I thought this point of view was a fairly recent innovation. But it shows that no matter the time period or current trends in publishing, a really good story will trump anything.<br />
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I think it's a good exercise to play with different points of view when you are getting started with a new story, finding which one is the perfect "fit" for your characters and the style of the book. I've never really given much thought to which tense I use: for my last story, I just jumped right into first person present tense instead of picking what was the most natural fit for my story, I was reading a lot of present tense in other books at that time. To be honest, all my most favorite books are written in third person past. (Though now that I've fallen in love with I Capture the Castle in present tense, I wonder....)Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-56170116679925391662015-05-31T05:31:00.001-06:002015-05-31T05:32:51.858-06:00My favorite summer vacation spotThis post is making me misty eyed, because I haven't been to my favorite summer vacation spot for over 30 years, but my memories are as vivid of <a href="http://www.chippawaresort.com/index.html">Chippawa Lodge</a> as much more recent vacation spots. I think there's just something about your childhood favorites that stick with you. One of my greatest wishes is to go back and stay in one of the cabins along Lake Kamaninskeg in northern Ontario, and swim along the beautiful white beach.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjFz-uaV3p46bSKDcJaA6rtbw_KiDzWxUMfLeylxZiBJy93vo6FXAdF35wqO7LovYMZZG3qZidEVqz5gryZgV5xaFXfDgRHQMQBCo9q-vmY_VQqynl9kR5UsdJT4B11c5mwTuFTF9LCUSK/s1600/chippawa+lodge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjFz-uaV3p46bSKDcJaA6rtbw_KiDzWxUMfLeylxZiBJy93vo6FXAdF35wqO7LovYMZZG3qZidEVqz5gryZgV5xaFXfDgRHQMQBCo9q-vmY_VQqynl9kR5UsdJT4B11c5mwTuFTF9LCUSK/s320/chippawa+lodge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We spent a week every summer along this lake from when I was 4 to 12 years old (we stopped coming when the management no longer allowed guests to bring their pets: that was one of the special things about this resort is that you could bring your dogs; we even brought our cat along!). I swam for hours a day, or kayaked, or went sailing on our little sailboat that we hauled up every year. One of my favorite memories is fishing with my dad, except one time I didn't catch a fish, I managed to hook a giant snapping turtle that terrified me when my dad helped me pull it up on shore!</div>
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Another favorite memory was swinging on the "Tarzan rope" off a tree into the river. It would take me a long time to work up the nerve to jump!</div>
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Here's a picture of little me with my kayak. </div>
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I could go on and on about this place (the pony, the sunken steamship, picking berries, picking wildflowers, the scent of sun-warmed pines...) but I think the best way for me to revel in great memories is to somehow work them into one of my stories one day. </div>
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Many thanks to Lexa Cain and her co-hosts for dreaming up this blog hop and now I'm off to visit more wonderful summer vacation spots!</div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10994" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10993">"My Favorite Summer Vacation Spot" Blog Hop is sponsored by Summer Reads that Thrill & Chill!</b></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10990" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10989">For the Linky List and Book Giveaways visit the 6 Co-Hosts:</b></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10986" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Lexa Cain</b>: <a href="http://lexacain.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10985" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://lexacain.blogspot.com/</a></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10982" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Melanie Karsak</b>: <a href="http://www.melaniekarsak.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10981" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.melaniekarsak.com/</a></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10979" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>T.F. Walsh</b>: <a href="http://www.tfwalsh.com/blog/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10978" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.tfwalsh.com/blog/</a></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10974" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Vanessa Morgan</b>: <a href="http://vanessa-morgan.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1433069295490_10973" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://vanessa-morgan.blogspot.com/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Jolie Du Pre</b>: <a href="http://www.preciousmonsters.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.preciousmonsters.com/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>Stuart R. West</b>: <a href="http://stuartrwest.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://stuartrwest.blogspot.com/</a></span></div>
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Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-62926482099325617362015-05-21T05:00:00.000-06:002015-05-21T05:00:01.128-06:00Throwback Thursday: coming homeI love to travel and visit new places. Not all the time, but at least three or four times a year if I can, and it doesn't have to be far away or require a plane ticket, though that's certainly a bonus.<br />
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One of the things I love about travel is coming home. After a few days seeing new places, sleeping in different beds, living out of a suitcase, filling my senses with new sights and sounds, it's wonderful to cuddle back into the familiar. Being away for a little while makes you see the familiar in a new light. I remember how my first semester away at college was sensory overload, but when I came home it was sensory overload all over again: processing all the familiar things in light of the different perspective I'd had to adjust to.<br />
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December 23, 1988<br />After my last exam, Mom & Melissa came to pick me up from Oswego. Before I knew it we were back in Buffalo, in my old familiar territory and I was craning my head out the windows to look at everything – all the ordinary streets, stores and houses I’ve taken for granted for most of my life. As we drove up to the corner of Morris and Parker on the way to Melissa’s house, I was too excited to wait and I jumped out at the corner and ran the rest of the way home while Mom dropped Melissa off. Leia was right there and so was Dad and I hugged her, then Dad, then her, then him, I was so happy. </blockquote>
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Something I'm facing right now is the familiar, the coming home, has forever changed. My dad died a couple weeks ago. Now I am processing the familiar in a different way. Coming home is now bittersweet. Walking into my parents' home and seeing his chair empty. Hearing something that I know he would've have quipped about - except he's not there anymore with his ever-ready quips and puns.<br />
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I've been going through old photos and journals and crying over memories. Even though the memories are precious, they've become much more fragile without being able to share them with him anymore.<br />
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In a sense, I'm not really able to "come home" right now. I'm on this new strange journey where I circle endlessly around the familiar without being able to cuddle into it anymore.<br />
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Writing about it helps.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUeuuPX6BlcDfgto9YHNKq-qP0zmYYeA7m4rVb4ezSsdS3LU8rwqxs9orGFI67gIkzNDzxWKq2pwEqXUz7uOKGlcm9HLjzNwHlN3fgcoLQyQgxNIiC8KMYk1iogEepUda6FwxU_QxzFbTu/s1600/search+for+moments.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUeuuPX6BlcDfgto9YHNKq-qP0zmYYeA7m4rVb4ezSsdS3LU8rwqxs9orGFI67gIkzNDzxWKq2pwEqXUz7uOKGlcm9HLjzNwHlN3fgcoLQyQgxNIiC8KMYk1iogEepUda6FwxU_QxzFbTu/s320/search+for+moments.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Also, the cards and memories friends and family shared have helped. My mom and I received a letter from one of Dad's friends for over 50 years. He listed memory after memory, and I was so grateful. Some of his memories overlapped my own (making them less fragile!) and some were entirely new to me, new insights into my father. It's amazing how you can know someone your whole life, and never completely know him. There's always more to discover - and does death end this? Absolutely not, I am convinced. Our bodies wear out, but our souls are eternal.<br />
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But when this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Corinthians 15:54-57).</blockquote>
One of my favorite photos of me and my dad from 1992:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsYAkEZK9SsQOdKVCacJG8m8EnXfrgpQIy9cCNd4a4W3JyHiWmc-dLpzZ9N6yDwP9HfqtSxWnCLFfBKdPUPh0PoXjMYWCU0hPMxJglzfjbQDo6OqcsMv1zUQTSQTMp2jLG-78xu-7l5YB/s1600/1992_tremain_falls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsYAkEZK9SsQOdKVCacJG8m8EnXfrgpQIy9cCNd4a4W3JyHiWmc-dLpzZ9N6yDwP9HfqtSxWnCLFfBKdPUPh0PoXjMYWCU0hPMxJglzfjbQDo6OqcsMv1zUQTSQTMp2jLG-78xu-7l5YB/s320/1992_tremain_falls.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-66690981543242795982015-05-19T10:35:00.000-06:002015-05-19T10:42:08.253-06:00Five ecstatic stars to Uprooted by Naomi Novik<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">As a huge, huge fan of the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/43272-temeraire">Temeraire </a>series, I am so excited to share my review for Naomi Novik's new book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22544764-uprooted">Uprooted</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">(releases today). </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> 5 ecstatic stars! </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><img alt="Uprooted" height="320" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1420795060l/22544764.jpg" width="217" /></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Temeraire is a re-imagining of the Napoleonaic wars if dragons were used in combat. Like a mix of Master and Commander and How to Train Your Dragon. Now, there's only an occasional reference to dragons in Uprooted, and it</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> was a lot scarier than anything I've read in the Temeraire series, but oh my goodness I loved this book! It had the classic feel of my favorites: it had a feel of Lord of the Rings in it, especially the forest parts (Old Man Willow!); it had the awkward, strong girl hero like in </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/407813.The_Blue_Sword" style="background-color: white; color: #666600; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" title="The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley">The Blue Sword</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">; it had the darkness and danger and complicated magic of </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518848.Sabriel" style="background-color: white; color: #666600; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" title="Sabriel by Garth Nix">Sabriel</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> in it; and it's got an interesting romance and a wonderful story of the friendship of two girls, Neishka and Kasia. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And that ending, oh, it had a surprising, beautiful, soul-wrenching quality to it that reminded me of the climax of </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18131.A_Wrinkle_in_Time" style="background-color: white; color: #666600; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" title="A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle">A Wrinkle in Time. </a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The main character Neishka is so unique I can't think of another heroine to compare her too. I loved that she was at one point mistaken for a young (and more trustworthy) Baba Yaga; she had that orneriness about her. (Speaking of Baba Yaga, this book had the wonderful feel of Eastern Europe and Russia about its edges and in its names). Neishka also reminded me of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, or Anne of Green Gables always getting into one of her scrapes, if these girls had been a little older and allowed to run more frequently barefooted through the woods and track mud back into the house. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Which brings me to the Wood, and what an enigma it was. It was evil, oh so very evil, and I really struggled with that because, you know, Ents!! And even Huorns (scary things, but they used their dreadful power to destroy evil). This Wood was like that scene of Snow White running through the forest with the trees snagging her dress and trying to grab her that terrified me endlessly when I was 5 years old. This Wood made you feel five years old again, surrounded by trees with horrible eyes staring out of them. This was much worse than the Old Willow trying to swallow up Merry and Pippin. This was so WRONG. But there's a reason for the wrongness that finally makes sense in the end. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Then there is this interesting tangle of a - romance? - not quite the right word! about it too. I expect a lot of people to go up in arms about 17 year old Neishka taking advantage of 150 year old Sarkan; I expect even more outrage over the horrible way he mocked and name-called our heroine, but I've thought about it carefully and I think the author took care to explain the complicated creature that was the Dragon (Sarkan). He was like an army drill sergeant in charge of shaping a spindly raw recruit into a fighting machine, only to discover she was his equal, but in an entirely unexpected way. It was when they discovered that their magic was so different but complimentary that I truly fell in love with this story. And Sarkan's crankiness is so very adorable (in a sort of Gandalf way), because along with it we'd get these tantalizing hints that under all the crusty salt he was golden:</span></span></span><br />
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I darted a quick glance at him. He was staring down at the dough trying to keep his scowl, and flushed at the same time with the high transcendent light that he brought to his elaborate workings: delighted and also annoyed, trying not to be.</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Oh another thing I loved about Sarkan are all the spells he planted in his tower. Neishka is creeping down one of this hallways when this really cool, scary thing happens (see my longer Goodreads review if you want hint of it). </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And oh gosh there is so much more that I love about this story. There is a wizard's library, the Charovnikov, and Sarkan has a</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> library too in his tower. Neishka isn't like Belle in the Beast's library, though. She's too unique. She goes after a book about Summoning the Truth, and how she and the Dragon summoned Truth in this story gave me happy chills. </span><br />
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I had the feeling the Summoning wasn't really meant to be cast alone: as if truth didn't mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn't come and listen.</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">This was just one of the themes running through this book like the river Spindle running through the valley and the Wood. Of all magic spells, Truth is the strongest but how many people actually want truth? How many of us seek illusion instead? And how hard it is to face Truth in another person, how they REALLY see you? What Neishka and Kasia had to face in each other? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Note: this is not a young adult book, even though Neishka is 17 years old. There are two extremely violent battle scenes and two sex scenes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I received a digital copy of Uprooted for my honest review. I was not paid or in any way compensated for raving about it. I truly, honestly, deeply enjoyed this book. I plan to buy myself a copy to always keep, but thank you to Del Rey and Net Galley for giving me a sneak peek.</span>Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-54280038082677103042015-05-06T10:54:00.000-06:002015-05-07T11:32:11.456-06:00Insecure Writer: supercharged descriptionsWhen I'm insecure or discouraged with my writing, I tend to go on a reading binge. (Truthfully, I can use any excuse to go on a reading binge!) I've read a bunch of great books lately, and they've inpsired me with my own writing, and taught me a few new things too.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s1600/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #73b2d0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s200/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The first Wednesday of the month<br /> is time for <a href="http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/" style="color: #73b2d0; text-decoration: none;">Insecure Writers Support Group</a>,<br />hosted by Alex Cavanaugh and his<br />excellent team. </span></td></tr>
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The young blind protagonist of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18143977-all-the-light-we-cannot-see">All the Light We Cannot See</a>, by Anthony Doerr, caught my attention, especially since one of my stories is about a girl who has lost her sight temporarily. It's a tremendous World War II book about two children: a girl in France and a boy in Germany and how at their lives intersected even though separated by enemy lines. I'll be posting more about the book soon, but right now here's three things I learned about writing descriptions:<br />
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1) Even if your protagonist isn't blind, it's a powerful exercise to pretend she/he is just as an exercise. When you are forced to describe everything by sound, scent, touch and taste and can't use sight at all, it actually deepens your descriptions and makes them much stronger. The descriptions in this book were vivid and transporting, like I could almost put my hand through the page and touch the things Marie-Laure touched.<br />
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2) A description "flipped" can have a powerful impact. Here's an example of Marie-Laure's father observing German and Allied planes fighting in the sky:<br />
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<i>...in a moment of disorientation, he feel's that he's looking not up but down, as though a spotlight has been shined into a wedge of bloodshot water, and the sky has become the sea, and the airplanes are hungry fish, harrying their prey in the dark.</i><br />
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3) Take a natural phenomena and transpose it upon a traumatic event for another powerful description:<br />
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<i>The notion occurs to her that the ground beneath Saint-Malo has been knitted together all along by the root structure of an immense tree, located at the center of the city... and the massive tree has been uprooted by the hand of God and the granite is coming with it, heaps and clumps and clods of stones pulling away as the trunk comes up, followed by the fat tendrils of roots...the ramparts crumbling, streets leaking away, block-long mansions falling like toys.</i>Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-56084575612684779512015-05-04T07:58:00.000-06:002015-05-04T07:58:57.052-06:00The Girl At Midnight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">A book that promises mythical creatures always makes me prick my ears, and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20345202-the-girl-at-midnight">The Girl at Midnight </a> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">(debut young adult fantasy), </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">by Melissa Gray, had a really unique take on the firebird legend. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The firebird doesn't actually show up, or any other true mythical creatures, but instead you get two magical sort of half-human races, one descended from dragons and one half-human, half-bird, each person with some similarities to different kinds of bird (owls, peacocks, ravens, etc). The two races, the Drakarn and the Avicen, live on the edges of contemporary society, hidden by their magic. And they are at war with each other. In the middle between them is Echo, a potential bridge to peace, a young human girl. The girl at midnight. </span><br />
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<a href="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403891131l/20345202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Girl at Midnight (The Girl at Midnight, #1)" border="0" height="200" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403891131l/20345202.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">It's wonderful when you have so many things you love in a book that you start numbering them because you're so excited to see how high your numbers will go: </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">1) A secret room in the New York City Public library where Echo lives and hoards books. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">2) Echo's whip-smart but vulnerable character: "she had the unflappable compsure of those who have lived too long in too short a span of time"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">3) the interesting use of travel via the "in-between"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">4) The collection of foreign words that don't have equivalent meanings in English (but should). "Kalverliefde. The euphoria you experience when you fall in love for the first time. For a word that contained only four letters, love felt like a monumental leap"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">5) Wonderful characterization! "Echo did not giggle. She chuckled. She cackled. Occasionally, she even chortled. But giggling? Heavens, no." </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">6) Laugh out loud moments! "If her hormones had a face, she would slap it"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">7) A Lord of the Rings reference! "Greatness is not always good." "Yeah, yeah, one ring to trule them all, I get it"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">8) Real life truth for teens. Actually, great advice for any age. "The young always think they are invincible. Right up to the moment they learn otherwise. Usually, the hard way" "To know the truth, you must first want the truth"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">9) a delicious new mythology developed out of the real Serbian mythology of the Ala, a female spirit associated with bad weather, sometimes seen as a raven, whose traditional enemy is the dragon. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">10) The clever reimagining of the firebird as the only possible bridge for peace between two warring mythical races: the bird-like Avicen and the fire-breathing dragon-descended Drakhar. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">11) the symbolism of the magpie and the mirror!</span><br />
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<br />"They make excellent thieves, you know."<br />There was something unbearably sad about him. For a brief moment she saw the person he might have been long ago, before the war had taken its toll. "They're smart, too... they are the only birds that pass the mirror test... The humble magpie is the only bird that can recognize it's own reflection."</blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">12) the hints about Echo's name. "The firebird?" Yes. The word held an echo, as though it were spoken by many voices at once.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">13) masks and the past: "just because it's in the past doesn't mean its over"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">14) an epic betrayal</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">15) An interesting collection of settings, from delicious but too-short moments in Scotland and Kyoto, to Strasbourg (needed more of that, too), followed by the Black Forest in Germany. I've decided I love fantasy settings even more when they are intermixed with with real settings that I might have the opportunity to visit someday.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Though the book is a respectable 360 pages, I wish it could have been longer. I dearly wanted to see more of the marvelous settings and characters (definitely want more of the Ala!) Perrin was developed so well I thought he would be critical to the story, but he had only one early-on scene! </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I thought all the characters were memorable (even Ruby), and I wanted to see more of them; I wanted this to be an EPIC fantasy cast. I wanted more back story! More history! More world-building! I got fantastic HINTS of all this, but I wanted MOOOORRREEE; and not as a sequel. Sequels give you more, yes, but what I mean is I wanted THIS book to give me more. I still felt an itch when it finished. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Many reviewers have compared it to Daughter of Smoke and Bone and I definitely see the same appeal. The parallels between the stories didn't bother me; I don't think The Midnight Girl was a copy cat, but it didn't quite have the same depth as Daughter of Smoke and Bone. However I think it will appeal to readers who want more action and less description and introspection. I've only read one of Cassandra Clare's books but my gut feeling is it will appeal more to her fans than to Laini Taylor's. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Disclosure: there is some kissing in this book and sexual innuendo but no sex. There are two male side characters that become romantically involved. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the free advance copy. It did not influence my review in anyway.</span>Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-81362330285266261062015-04-21T09:54:00.000-06:002015-04-21T10:24:37.198-06:00A moment that will someday appear in a story<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZa9OxywjQlAaiWQeZE_OaogQV5oC6g1SFJkSkgocaqrSDhrJIbCtjgi6rCGYsoJuLOTk9UV_M-YM5f-RKs_gLePZQE0svkPOYPofKwZaR-UQX8y7fhtm3Db4Iuig6kcH1wJd1C-FFwzQ/s1600/exposure+to+music.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZa9OxywjQlAaiWQeZE_OaogQV5oC6g1SFJkSkgocaqrSDhrJIbCtjgi6rCGYsoJuLOTk9UV_M-YM5f-RKs_gLePZQE0svkPOYPofKwZaR-UQX8y7fhtm3Db4Iuig6kcH1wJd1C-FFwzQ/s1600/exposure+to+music.jpg" height="320" width="247" /></a>Writers have these moments (not often enough) in life where something happens that we're like, Oh oh oh I am sooooo going to use this in a story someday!<br />
<br />
This little moment is not clever or exciting, it's just a tiny slice of life with no rising action or dark moment of the soul, but it was rare and strange and beautiful, so I just have to share it.<br />
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Last Wednesday I was sitting in my office at work, the third floor of a University of Wyoming building, trying to puzzle out some web mapping code and trying to not be distracted by the Army ROTC unit doing drills outside my window, when a hauntingly lovely sound came floating up from some part of the building.<br />
<br />
I work in the Agriculture building. I used to believe <a href="http://margoberendsen.blogspot.com/2010/12/of-resolutions-candybars-and-gnomes.html">it was inhabitated by gnomes</a> (there's another story about that), but I think they have departed due to some unspecified University policy, so there is nothing haunting about my building, unless you count the insect lab in the basement and the collection of butterflies pinned in a case.<br />
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Nothing ever exciting has even happened in my building, either, unless you count when students pull fire alarms to get out of taking exams.<br />
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So I was quite startled by the etheral sound suddenly wafting through the halls. A violin playing.<br />
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Possibly just a recording someone was playing in a classroom? We are long way away from the Fine Arts building where an actual violin player might be found. But I couldn't resist. I headed out of my office to track down the lovely sound.<br />
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Down the second floor; nothing there. Down to the first floor. Oh yes, getting closer.<br />
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If this was a recording, it was very impressive. I have NEVER HEARD SUCH A LOVELY SOUND. I had no idea the acoustics in this building were so amazing. (Actually, I did know it had impressive acoustics. You don't dare have a conversation on your cell phone in any of the halls; every word can be heard from adjoining classrooms and offices. Eerie acoustics. Might be the gnomes again).<br />
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I poked my head around a corner and discovered a girl reading flyers on a bulletin board. She has long hair, 5 inch heels, and a short skirt. While reading, she played this haunting melody on a violin.<br />
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Not just any violin. I have never heard such beautiful sound. I have been to violin concerts in fine auditoriums. I have endured two years of my daughter practicing the violin (wait. that is not a good example). We have had several impressive violinists who have done solos at our church.<br />
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One of the church soloists sometimes sits for me during summer when the girls are home a lot more. She is 15 years old, and has a rare form of macular degeneration which means she can only read if she holds a paper within an inch of her face. She will never be able to drive a car. (Side note: she is the most amazing teenager I have ever met: creative, smart, loves history, scorns other sitters who just play on their smart phones when they are supposed to be sitting kids. She doesn't just play with my kids, she INVENTS games for my kids).<br />
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She is saving up money to buy a really good violin; one that will cost her over $10,000. I totally applaud her goal and wish I could give her a raise so she can buy this violin sooner, though I'm already impressed with the $2000 one she plays now (I fully admit I don't have a discerning ear for fine instruments).<br />
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Back to this random violin-playing girl in the Agriculture building, reading flyers on the wall while producing this heavenly sound.<br />
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She was an amazing violinist, and her violin must have been of the $10k or better variety, because I have never heard such beautiful sounds. It is was if a violin was a living creature singing. A fairy dancing inside the wood, weaving strands of musical gold from straw (or rather, from agricultural building molecules) like the miller's daughter in the Rumpelstilskin fairytale.<br />
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I stood in the stair well (out of sight) just listening, drinking it in, this unexpected, out of place moment. This is something you'd expect to happen in Paris, maybe. Or at least in the Fine Arts building.<br />
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Not in the building where I work.<br />
<br />
So while I'm standing in the stair well with a goofy grin on my face, an agitated lady stomps down the hall and I had this terrible premonition that she was going to accost the violin girl and ask her to stop because she's disrupting a class or, heaven forbid, distracting an accountant trying to balance a grant budget. I almost tried to stop her before she stopped the violinist, but I head back up to my own floor (because I'm hopelessly non-confrontational).<br />
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A few moments later the loveliness ends.<br />
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But for the next few days, I haven't been able to get it out of my head.<br />
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Even if I never find a story to write this semi-magical moment into someday as scene, at least I have captured it here. And at last I have heard a violin worth paying $10k, maybe even $100k for. I have heard somthing in an entirely new way, in an unexpected place. A gift.<br />
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Did you catch that <a href="http://radio.foxnews.com/2015/02/20/viral-videos-weatherman-loves-thunder-snow/">viral video of a meterologist who caught thundersnow on video</a>? Apparently thundersnow is a very rare (and complicated) weather phenomeon and this guy had waited his whole life to see it (or he was just super excited to have finally caught it on video). I think it is absolutely wonderful how our world is peppered with events like these, discovering the purest violin music in the most ordinary place, or catching thundersnow on video and then dancing around cheering like mad.<br />
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I love capturing these moments in my writing. It reminds of the truth of one of my favorite writing quotes: "We write to taste life twice."Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-17222537462761698572015-04-14T07:24:00.000-06:002015-04-14T10:16:46.073-06:00Top Ten favorite quotes (at least for the moment)<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">This week's <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/">Top Ten Tuesday theme</a> is about your favorite quotes from books. Also, for the writers, Adam Gaylord is doing a Writer's Tip Tuesday and <a href="http://adamsapple2day.blogspot.com/2015/04/welcome-back-to-another-writing-tips.html">this Tuesday I have a guest post</a>!</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">My quotes are about happiness, seeing in new ways, love of books (of course!), questions for which there are no answer, </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">faith, and creativity.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And then there's a few quotes on falling in love, the deeper love that comes much longer after the falling in love stage, and a love that you grow into instead of falling into. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>1. What does happiness feel like?</b></span><br />
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“Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat and the thrill, and it was as bright within her as a swallowed star.” from Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor</h1>
<b>2. Seeing in a new way</b><br />
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“These human eyes seemed weak to me at first," said Eskar, still staring away from me, scratching her short black hair. "They detect fewer colors and have terrible resolution, but they see things dragon eyes cannot. They can see beyond surfaces. I don't understand how that's possible, but it happened incrementally as I traveled with Orma: I began to see the inside of him. His questioning and gentle nature. His conviction. I'd glimpse it in something as incongruous as his hand holding a teacup, or his eyes when he spoke of you.” from Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman</h1>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>3, Love of books (and libraries!)</b></span></div>
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“Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts.” from <span style="background-color: transparent;">Among Others, by Jo Walton</span></h1>
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<b>4. Unanswerable questions in life</b></div>
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“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and <em>not to answer them</em>: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” from The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula LeGuin</h1>
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<b>5. Faith, and doubt</b></div>
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“He said that doubt provided contour to faith, like shading in a drawing, that it allowed you to see what was really there.” from <span style="background-color: transparent;">The Opposite of Hallelujah, by Anna Jarzab</span></h1>
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<b>6. Faith, and God's calling</b></div>
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“The place God calls us to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” from <span style="background-color: transparent;">Kisses From Katie, by Katie J. Davis</span></h1>
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<b>7. Creativity</b><br />
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“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” from Ray Bradbury's book on writing</h1>
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<b>8. Falling in love</b></div>
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“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” from <span style="background-color: transparent;">The Fault in Our Stars by John Green</span></h1>
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<b>9. Growing into love</b><br />
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“There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.” from Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton </h1>
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<span style="background-color: transparent;">10. The deeper love that comes from time</span></h1>
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“They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things-if love can ever be called that.” from <span style="background-color: transparent;">Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo</span></h1>
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Bonus quote - this one is a bit long, but I love this one because it captures the frustration of the artist (or the writer, in my case): our desire to create something perfect and beautiful and how we always fall short, but the falling short is itself a beautiful thing for how to draws us onward, ever onward, to keep creating.</h1>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“This was not the perfect work that had existed in her mind. It was only the imperfect rendering that was the best her skill could manage. Yet Giulia was not dismayed. For she knew that she would try again – and again, and again, for as long as it took to gain the experience, the judgment, the understanding to get it right. And perhaps she never would get it right. Perhaps she would never attain that flawless blue, never create that perfect image, never find the ultimate point of balance between what she could accomplish an what she could dream. Yet wasn’t that the point? To be drawn onward, ever onward, in pursuit of your deepest passion? To look back at the end fo the race and knew that you had never done less than the most you could do?” from </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Color Song, by Victoria Strauss</span></div>
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Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-14358495700428576612015-04-08T07:47:00.000-06:002015-04-08T07:48:44.358-06:00Recent writing tidbitsHere's a few things that I've been collecting on the writing front, while revising my novel yet again based on feedback from agents, and working up the courage to send out queries again.<br />
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Every writer needs someone like this to cheer their book on: </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVryuwkLdJ3SauhHItbdxdyuAf7C6AXToJi3VsL__GqyeJimEb5tX399v-foYtPxdYGiGlMdYDJ0XctTksSrKVXbQ1uiSbe89127QjQiPh3UCT_fUS_eCcE7R28jRN-p3xgongU_8J7eQp/s1600/tadashi+amazed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVryuwkLdJ3SauhHItbdxdyuAf7C6AXToJi3VsL__GqyeJimEb5tX399v-foYtPxdYGiGlMdYDJ0XctTksSrKVXbQ1uiSbe89127QjQiPh3UCT_fUS_eCcE7R28jRN-p3xgongU_8J7eQp/s1600/tadashi+amazed.jpg" height="320" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tadashi, from Big Hero Six</td></tr>
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This was posted by Leatrice McKinney. I'm reposting it so I can re-read it again and again when I'm feeling doubtful about another rejection:<br />
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I am grateful for my rejections.</div>
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I'm sure that's a strange thing to read, it certainly is a strange thing to say, but it's true. And I didn't really realize it until today.</div>
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I'm looking over the current version of my manuscript, comparing it to the version I queried in the beginning. My story is so much better, richer, fuller, enticing. It's been through I don't know how many bits of agent feedback, from rejection letters. It's now been through some editor feedback as I get those rejections. Without all of the no's and the reasons why, my story wouldn't be half what it is right now.</div>
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With each rejection Alice's tale gets better and better. When she finally hits the shelves, she'll be so much more than what she was. I want to put the best book possible out there, and it's taken me all this time to realize that without those rejections my story wouldn't be near half what it is now.</div>
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This was just posted by <a href="http://www.adventuresinyapublishing.com/2015/04/pov-secret-to-creating-memorable-setting.html">Martina Boone</a> (author of Compulsion), on the connection between setting and memory (I think this will be my writing exercise this week):</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Based on who they are and their individual experiences, each character is going to see the setting in different ways, and the objects and aspects within the setting will raise memories from their lives. Giving thought to those connections and varying perspectives within a setting will, in turn, help you create the fine details that bring the setting to life. </span><br />
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<li id="yui_3_16_0_1_1428498069154_6364" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">Sounds, smells, objects within the setting that trigger particular memories</li>
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<li id="yui_3_16_0_1_1428498069154_6366" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">Attitudes toward the setting and objects within It that tell us about that character</li>
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<li id="yui_3_16_0_1_1428498069154_6362" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">Ways of describing the setting and the objects in it that reveal how the character’s are changing as the story develops</li>
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This is what I'm reading right now, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20345202-the-girl-at-midnight">The Girl At Midnight</a>, and it's doing that wonderful magic of whisking me away to another imaginative world, and firing up my own imagination at the same time, making my fingers itch to keep writing and to keep making my writing better.<br />
<img alt="The Girl at Midnight (The Girl at Midnight, #1)" height="320" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403891131l/20345202.jpg" width="211" /><br />
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Here's the premise: <span style="background-color: #f0f0e4; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Echo lives in a secret room inside of the New York City Public</span><span style="background-color: #f0f0e4; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Library... until she's sent on a quest to find the Firebird, the only hope of bringing peace between two warring magical races, the bird-like Avicen and the dragon-like Drakharin. A new twist on the Firebird mythology, bird <i>and </i>dragon. </span><br />
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I've already highlighted a tons of wonderful quotes from this book, mostly delicious characterizations and great snippets of dialogue, and some scary-good world-building. Echo is an interesting mix of youthful bravado, well-read brilliance, and orphaned/not-fitting-in-anywhere sadness.<br />
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"she had the unflappable compsure of those who have lived too long in too short a span of time" </blockquote>
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"Kalverliefde, Echo thought [she collects odd words that describe powerful moments] The euphoria you experience when you fall in love for the first time. For a word that contained only four letters, love felt like a monumental leap" </blockquote>
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"Echo did not giggle. She chuckled. She cackled. Occasionally, she even chortled. But giggling? Heavens, no." </blockquote>
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"If her hormones had a face, she would slap it" </blockquote>
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"Greatness is not always good." "Yeah, yeah, one ring to trule them all, I get it" </blockquote>
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"The young always think they are invincible. Right up to the moment they learn otherwise. Usually, the hard way" </blockquote>
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Sorry for the fangirling episode!<br />
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May this day be a day of great writing and outrageous dreaming up of ideas, and happy reading for all.<br />
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Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-18090416423851873372015-04-01T08:21:00.001-06:002015-04-01T08:41:35.795-06:00Insecure writer: challenged by the unexpectedSomething I've been noticing lately with examples of writing that catch my attention are the scenarios where a character does something unexpected, or something happens unexpectedly.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s1600/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #73b2d0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s200/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" height="171" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The first Wednesday of the month<br /> is time for <a href="http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/" style="color: #73b2d0; text-decoration: none;">Insecure Writers Support Group</a>,<br />hosted by Alex Cavanaugh and his<br />excellent team. </span></td></tr>
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For instance, I read a great first chapter from a friend in our writer's group where her character felt compelled to buy a desert jackal for sale at market. He thinks he feels some sort of bond with the critter, but after the purchase the jackal bites him and runs away.<br />
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What? I did not expect that. But I sympathized with the character more after that event.<br />
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Perhaps in subconcious response to reading that, or in subconscious reaction to the new Cinderella movie, I was daydreaming the other day and a story idea popped into my head where a girl and a prince meet, and it's not love at first sight. It's hate at first sight. I wanted to find out why they hated each other, and I wanted to see how that hate could be overcome. So much more intriguing.<br />
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I also just finished reading a book where the main character always said something in conversations that I didn't expect. It made her fascinating.<br />
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It's hard to write this way. Of course it's natural to write what first comes to mind, but it's a good exercise to force myself to delete the first thing that comes out, and come up with an unexpected thing.<br />
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It takes a lot longer. It means long pauses in my writing, while I'm casting about for ideas. And the first few attempts at "unexpected" are lame, but then the next day at some random moment I'll think of something unexpected that makes me smile, something that fits in a perfectly unsettling sort of way.<br />
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We writers are twisted sorts of creatures, aren't we?<br />
<br />Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-46655310997963243092015-03-26T13:23:00.002-06:002015-03-26T13:27:18.824-06:00Throwback Thursday - can I be a kid again? Sometimes I look at all the time my young girls have to be creative - whether it's drawing or knitting or imaginary play or even a little writing, and I want to be a kid again with all that time to dabble in different things. Right now any free moment I can wrangle out of my schedule is devoted either to writing or reading in order to learn and make myself a better writer (yes, also for entertainment and relaxation). When I was a kid and teeanger, I used to draw like crazy, but I haven't attempted anything other than hearts and stars as little added flourishes in cards since about 12 years when I hand illustrated a little book for my toddler.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMH4iS5l-EgpV8CFPlo0FuQv-BFsgf3bUAn3tb0ijLjEsyifoTuQbHa__lkkjQJAOztti2JvenrAtC5Ln7P0cT_YOfwyzyyeJI-X7hse9_4C5ZABfiMwx8PPD4aeqZbyfP7puMNJa69RwC/s1600/73_74dirndal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMH4iS5l-EgpV8CFPlo0FuQv-BFsgf3bUAn3tb0ijLjEsyifoTuQbHa__lkkjQJAOztti2JvenrAtC5Ln7P0cT_YOfwyzyyeJI-X7hse9_4C5ZABfiMwx8PPD4aeqZbyfP7puMNJa69RwC/s1600/73_74dirndal.jpg" height="320" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">me at about age 3 being creative</td></tr>
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The sitter for my girls for the past 8 years (!!!) had her last day with the girls yesterday, before moving to California. I wanted to give her a special going away present. For some reason, my fingers itched to draw again, so I sketched her sitting with my four girls based on a photograph. It was far from perfect but it felt so good to create something in a different media I usually create in.<br />
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Which led me to the ongoing frustration I deal with: not having enough time for creative outlets like this. I firmly believe that "I don't have enough time" is a poor excuse; if something is important to you, you make time. I have certain times blocked out where nothing less than an emergency (like a life threatening emergency) will take precedent over the sacred writing time, but I wish I could block out more hours a week for other creative outlets. But there's the job, and home schooling the girls, getting the four of them to their various after school activities, spending time with my husband so our marriage doesn't go sour, and as my parents are aging I'm having to help them more and more.<br />
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Right now I'm facing a huge choice: whether or not to go back to work full time and putting the girls back into public school. I love home schooling them but financially we could use the boost.<br />
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This decision is tearing me apart. Besides the advantages of getting to spend so much quality time with my kids and give them an individualized and more one-on-one education, another side benefit of the home school paradigm is that they have so much more creative time than they would in a more structured public school setting (and they love their freedom in that respect). Knowing how precious my creative time is to me, I want to give them that benefit, too. I know they'll adjust and manage just fine in a new school setting... just as I know I'll adjust to full time work again. Life requires us to adjustable.<br />
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The decision isn't made yet... sometimes it helps to journal out my conflicting feelings about things here on ye old blog.<br />
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And it always helps to be thankful, when you're facing something tough. I'm thankful that I've had the opportunity to spend so much time with my girls; I'm thankful for the full time job opportunity (I really love my job! Yay for getting paid to make maps!); most of all I'm thankful I have creative time even if it's not as much I'd like. Because I know many people don't get as much time as I get, or have more financial burdens to bear, or even face day-to-day survival concerns.<br />
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I love that life lets me be creative, and also forces me also to be adjustable... in some roundabout way that also helps the creativity, right? What we create is probably even more influenced by what life throws at us than the actual time we have for creation.Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-43720353684640948412015-03-17T02:21:00.001-06:002015-03-17T02:24:32.134-06:00Dragons and half-dragons, be still my beating heartOh, long at last! The <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16085457-shadow-scale">sequel </a>to Seraphina has arrived! And it was so worth the wait. Never rush a good author to get a quick sequel.<br />
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<img alt="Shadow Scale (Seraphina, #2)" height="320" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405355942l/16085457.jpg" width="212" /><br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16085457-shadow-scale">Seraphina </a>was about a girl who hides the fact she's half-dragon, in a world where an uneasy alliance between humans and dragons can be destroyed by the mere fact of her existence.<br />
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Seraphina is in my favorites list and I asked for the hardback for Christmas, with the beautiful new cover, so I could re-read it before the sequel came out.<br />
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Shadow Scale, the sequel, is about Seraphina's search for other half-dragons like herself to prevent the coming dragon war, and to find her missing dragon uncle, Orma. (I have no words to express how much I fell in love with Orma in the first book. I was desperate, DESPERATE I TELL YOU, to find out what happened to him in the sequel. And oh my did Rachel Hartman take me on a twisty, heart-rending journey.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The first half of this book was a journey through incredible world-building and a host of impressively unique half-dragons. I commend Hartman for developing each half dragon so well, so different from each other: a celebration of oddness. The second half, where the dragons return to the story, was where my heart engaged: truly I longed for the real dragons (and their cousins, the lizard-like quigutls), though I appreciated learning about the subtleties of half dragons.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">I know I will re-read my favorite parts in the Tanamoot again and again, from the marvelous journey up the Omiga valley and the waterfalls, but especially with the tunnels and the quigs and Brisi (Brisi is an adolescent dragon! We get to meet dragonlings in this book! What fun!) </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">And who knew that the snoring of dragons could create such harmony? Or this, that I loved so much I had to take a snapshot of while reading: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">I also enjoyed Porphyry and the feeling of really walking into a vision of Ancient Greece, except that it was different, of course, but still: the Vaskilion? The Bibliagathon? The Agogoi? It felt so Greek to me (grin). </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Eskar and Comonot were magnificent (Side note: after reading Shadow Scale, I geeked out on Rachel Hartman's blog for a while and discovered that if Rachel were to pick an actor to play any of her dragons, she'd pick William Shatner to play Comonot. Yes, Yes, Yes!!!) He's definitely that James T. Kirk brand of bravado and boldness, moments that make you smirk, and moments when he surprises you with unexpected wisdom: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Comonot considered. "Logic can lead to many ends, citizen. No one
likes to admit that - not even your philosophers. Dragons rever its
incorruptible purity, but logic will coldly lead you over a cliff. It all
depends on where you begin, on first principles.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Speaking of logic, this book is chock full of philosophy, which I loved. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">“The thing about reason is that there's a geometry to it. It travels in a straight line, so that slightly different beginnings can lead you to wildly divergent endpoints.” </span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">“Was it probably true that reasoning beings were equal? It seemed more like a belief than a fact, even if I agreed with it. If you followed logic all the way back to its origin, did you inevitably end up at point of illogic, an article of faith?”</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">And not just deep philosophy, but amusing touches, as well:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The mural on the ceiling
depicted Justice, Commerce, and Philosophy having an allegorical picnic of
metamorphical sardines. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The reverse love triangle between Lucian Kiggs, Seraphina and Glisselda was resolved in a bit of an unexpected way. Meanwhile, there were some Kiggs and Seraphina scenes that made a book about eccentric dragons and philosophy also heart-wrenching: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">He smiled sadly, then
placed his hand around mine so we were holding the book together. "I believe
that - with everything I have," he said, holding my gaze. He kissed the
edge of the book because he could not kiss me. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">I loved the bits of paradox, the inside-out house, the exploration of rigid orthodoxy versus flexibile interpretation, the attempt to describe heaven along with admission that it can't possibly be describable.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">There are so many more wonderful quotes from this book but I'll limit myself to one last one, an Orma quote because I love him so much. Also, Orma has romantic developments in this book! (Sort of. Dragon romance perhaps more mathematical than romantic... but still)</span></span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Are you
finding monastic history a very compelling reason to live?"</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">"I'm not
human," he said. "I don't require a reason to live. Living is my
default condition." </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I couldn't help it; I
laughed, and tears welled in my eyes. That answer was quintessentially Orma,
distilled to his elemental Orma-ness</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Thank you, Ms. Hartman, for persevering with this sequel; it was well worth the wait. And thank you, Random House Books, for giving me early access to it. My review was not influenced by receiving this copy</span>Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-46402821181921385052015-03-04T00:05:00.002-07:002015-03-04T00:10:55.988-07:00Insecure writer: despair and donuts<div style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">
In pursuit of short term, fun writing goals this year, I've tried two different things so far, and I'm trying to come up with something different each month. These different exercises/motivators are to A) keep me writing, of course and also B) help me fight the insecurity, the despair, the temptation to give up because the stories still need so much work. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The first Wednesday of the month<br /> is time for <a href="http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/" style="color: #73b2d0; text-decoration: none;">Insecure Writers Support Group</a>,<br />hosted by Alex Cavanaugh and his<br />excellent team. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">About my YA science fiction, Star Tripped, a couple agents have said "wonderful premise! But not connecting with the characters." (One of them even pointed out why, which I really appreciated). So I made some changes and presented it to my writer's group. Again, similar feedback along the lines of "hmmmn, this has potential, but we're not connecting." Played some more with the first chapter, sent it to a critique partner. She pointed out some of the characterization that didn't work (note to self: avoid a lot of negativity in first chapters. Negativity is a turn-off) (Negativity is a way to produce conflict, but maybe not the best way). </span></div>
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So I've been sitting at my computer for the past few days, scratching my head, poking my character, annoyed at her. "Give us something we can connect to you with!" I get an idea; I toss it around; it doesn't click. I chew my fingernails until another idea comes. Another dud. Really, does this girl have any personality? Do I have any personality? (Yikes! This is where insecurity will lead you).</div>
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So then I pick up a really good book and read the first chapter. How did they do it? How did they get me to connect with this character? How did I get hooked? I marvel at the author's brilliance! And then I crawl into a mental corner and sulk because the brilliance does not conduct itself into my writing fingers via those lovely papery published pages. The ideas I have come up with so far are decidedly non-brilliant. </div>
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After a while, I come out of the corner and stop sulking (because it's cramped, in corners; not much of view) and try some different things. Last month I tried writing in a notebook right by my bed the moment I woke up, when my head was still all foggy from sleep. It's surprisingly easy to do this, even for a very decidedly NOT morning person like myself, because it doesn't require any thinking. Really, no thinking. Just spewing. (Maybe our dreams, our subconscious, does all the work?)</div>
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I plan to keep doing the morning writing, but I also wanted to try something new for March, too. March is a long way from November and NaNoWriMo, but I think this month I'm going to start my writing days reading a NaNoWriMo pep talk (there are <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks">probably at least 50 pep talks archived now</a>) and maybe try something that day's peptalker suggests. For instance, Chuck Wendig suggests "<a href="http://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/chuck-wendig">write donuts in an empty field</a>" You know, as in when you go out to an empty parking lot and drive donuts? (if you don't know, here's a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut_%28driving%29">wikipedia entry</a> on it. Wait, Wikipedia doesn't really do it justice; just read Wendig's pep talk and you'll get the idea: it's basically just - go hog wild). </div>
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So anyway, that's my plan for fighting my insecurities this month, and to keep writing. </div>
Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-81130790357436979542015-03-03T09:06:00.000-07:002015-03-03T09:12:20.817-07:00Top Ten favorite books in the last three yearsPutting together this list, I didn't just look at back at my top ten lists at for the last three years. I looked through my Goodreads lists at EVERY book I've read in the past 3 years. That's because I've noticed that some books are so flashy that I fall in love instantly, but they don't have the staying power of other books. The books that made that his list have all continuously popped back into my head, months or even years after I've read them. Some of them I've completely re-read, from cover to cover, and all of them I plan to re-read.<br />
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Top Ten favorite books in the last three years is the theme for this week's <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html">Top Ten Tuesday</a>, hosted by <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/">the Broke and the Bookish blog</a>, for anyone who wants to share about books.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><b>10. His Majesty's Dragon</b>, by Naomi Novak </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Temeraire has become one of my most beloved dragons, among a very rich playing field of famous dragons like Smaug, Toothless, Ramoth, Maleficent, Draco, Eustace, Saphira, Yevaud, Orma, etc... He is innocent and wise, deadly and noble, a lover both of books and battle tactics. To top it off, he exists in a Jane Austen meets Master and Commander fantasy version of Regency England and the Napoleonic Wars.</span><br />
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9. Pegasus, byRobin McKinley (next on the list to re-read)<br />
This is a much deeper book than its title might imply. It's a richly developed culture of pegasi, and their complicated relationships with a human kingdom (similar premise to the dragons/humans in Seraphina, see #3).<br />
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8. Among Others, by Jo Walton<br />
I just read this one a couple months ago, so it hasn't stood the test of time yet. But I'm pretty sure it will, because not only is a great book, it's also about other great books, including my all time favorite, Lord of the Rings. My l<a href="http://margoberendsen.blogspot.com/2015/02/weneeddiversebooks-among-others-and-ode.html">ast post was all about this book</a>, not a review so much as a happy gushing of favorite things about it. This one is both a Hugo and Nebula award-winner.<br />
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7. The Help, Katheryn Stockett (re-read)<br />
The three black maids and the white girl who tells their stories about being "the help" in the 1960's is a thoughtful story, but also wonderfully fun to read.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">6. </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13138635-these-broken-stars" style="background-color: white; color: #73b2d0; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">These Broken Stars</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. (re-read parts)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Titanic in space. Love story. Survival story. Great voice. Smart science fiction. Love story. Even better than Titanic love story.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">5. </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/693208.The_Absolutely_True_Diary_of_a_Part_Time_Indian" style="background-color: white; color: #73b2d0; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">, by Sherman Alexie</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Also absolutely funny, sad, hopeful, heart-lifting. 14 year old Junior, leaving the Rez school (but not the Rez itself) to broaden his horizons, is in my heart forever. My favorite quote:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms. And the tribe of cartoonists.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">4. </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24983.Doomsday_Book" style="background-color: white; color: #73b2d0; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Doomsday Book</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> (1992) by Connie Willis</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">A powerful contrast of two time periods: a plague in futuristic England and the terrible Black Death in 1300's England. A huge cast of characters that all stood out vibrantly, intriguing science fiction and powerful themes. A long book but absolutely absorbing: I easily could have kept reading. This book is also both a Hugo and Nebula award winner.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">3. Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (re-read parts)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> The sheer brilliance of this book is that the dragons break every stereotype but are still completely every stereotype that you love about dragons. </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Large, fiery, dangerous, gold-horde-ing, Smaugish, they are all that but also 10 times more complex and fascinating. And they can turn into humans. The implications of that! Well! Go see for yourself. (I also just finished the sequel, Shadow Scale, where I got to visit homeland of the dragons. Words fail me!)</span><br />
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<a href="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1325528367l/12394100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="Seraphina (Seraphina, #1)" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1325528367l/12394100.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br style="background-color: white;" /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><b>2. The Blue Sword </b>by Robin McKinley (re-read)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Either I just say one thing about this book; or I <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/186481358" style="color: #73b2d0; text-decoration: none;">endlessly rave about it</a>. I shall spare you. The one thing I shall is: "Can I pleasssssse be kidnapped by Corlath??? Please?"</span><br />
<img alt="The Blue Sword (Damar, #1)" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1286927812l/407813.jpg" height="200" style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" width="117" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">1. </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10763598-daughter-of-smoke-bone" style="background-color: white; color: #73b2d0; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Daughter of Smoke and Bone</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> by Laini Taylor (re-read)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">I practically wrote a dissertation instead of a review for this one: it was beautiful, daring, a multi-dimensional love story, a wild plot, it hit nerves, it had incredible settings, and absolutely unforgettable characters: Karou and Brimstone especially.</span><br />
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Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-39976171227330992602015-02-28T18:35:00.000-07:002015-03-25T16:16:45.186-06:00#WeNeedDiverseBooks: Among Others<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I really didn't plan it this way, but I was delighted when I realized that 5 out of the 6 books I've read so far in 2015 all featured diverse main characters! (Pointe, Illusions of Fate, Among Others, Rain Reign, When Reason Breaks).<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I started off the year 2015 with my nose in a book. Yup, that's what I was doing at 12:01 January 1st, and most of the rest of January 1st, too, gobbling up <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8706185-among-others">Among Others</a>, by Jo Walton. It's been a couple months now, and this book is still rattling around in the back of my head, making me smile. I even already wrote a post on it, since it made me relate back to my 15 year old self, but this post is focus on the aspect of the story I couldn't relate to personally, how </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Mori had a disability (#weNeedDiverseBooks) and can't walk (much) without a cane. Her disability separates her from almost all the girls at her very sports-oriented English boarding school. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Mori basically spends all her time reading, when she's not in class or doing schoolwork. She can't participate in anything else her school has to offer, which is pretty much just sports. But you don't really feel sorry for her. She loves her books, and she's not a bit ashamed to spend all her time reading. She doesn't worry about become a hopeless introvert. She does long for some like-minded friends, but she's not what you'd call a needy or insecure girl, not by a long shot. Her books make her strong. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Though I don't have a physical disability, this story brought me close to understanding the complications it brings, but also the strengths. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">As a writer, this book reminded me that our best and truest writing comes from the place that's closest to our hearts, and perhaps all the harder to share, because of that closeness. It's challenged me to dig deeper and share things that I've been too shy to share in my writing. </span>Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-79233258217697589342015-02-25T07:47:00.003-07:002015-02-25T07:50:34.724-07:00What's up: developing the antagonist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What's Up Wednesday is for anyone interested in keeping in touch with other writers, a meme hosted by writing sisters </span><a href="http://erinlfunk.blogspot.com/" style="color: #73b2d0; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Erin Funk</a><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> and </span><a href="http://www.jaime-morrow.com/" style="color: #73b2d0; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Jaime Morrow</a></div>
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What I'm reading</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Seraphina's sequel, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16085457-shadow-scale" style="color: #73b2d0; text-decoration: none;">ShadowScale</a>, by Rachel Hartman. Seraphina is in my all-time favorites list, and it's wonderful to be back in this richly developed world with dragons and half dragons and a whole host of new characters. What I love most about these books: everyone is odd. It's a celebration of oddness, out-of-placeness, quirkiness, downright LOL uniqueness.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405355942l/16085457.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Shadow Scale (Seraphina, #2)" border="0" height="320" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405355942l/16085457.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Recently finished When Reason Breaks by Cindy L. Rodriguez which features </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Emily Dickinson’s poetry as a guide to two girls struggling with depression and anger. Highly recommend!</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What I'm writing</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">I shared the first six chapters of Refuge, my MG fantasy that I'm re-writing, with my CP of 15 years (she's a champ!) - she read the original version of this story, the one that was so far over 100,000 words that I'm not even going to 'fess up how long it was, and how rambling. But the brave dear soul was not only willing to read my re-write, she was excited to! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">She right away caught a major problem though: I'd totally failed to develop my antagonist. (I have two antogonists: one is a human, one is a unicorn. I concentrated on developing my human antagonist but forgot about the other guy). The unicorn was a generic <i>mu ha ha ha</i> antagonist without any motivation or depth at all, just basically there to mess up the good guys' lives. It's been so much evil fun developing him. </span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What else I've been up to</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">We celebrated Valentines with the whole family at the Denver Aquarium, and scored a dinner table right next to the giant tank full of giant fish and stingrays, and a mermaid show. Writer friends, let it be known, my dream house would be a giant aquarium, with glass tube like rooms. (Even the library would have one wall of watery fish-filled glass. The other three walls would be books). </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCyXuahkrLaEas2QuOIyOzeFoK8Gk7plvlxHOKovc_qzsr7gtMygdye951ujy0MP2M5Wqlq1Vc6dUkHEwM4WllsOWCWtyctXk_vzrWQtIjG8h8swjmOjmDDhILwrWmPBHrP-s19ZH1WxV/s1600/anne+aquarium.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCyXuahkrLaEas2QuOIyOzeFoK8Gk7plvlxHOKovc_qzsr7gtMygdye951ujy0MP2M5Wqlq1Vc6dUkHEwM4WllsOWCWtyctXk_vzrWQtIjG8h8swjmOjmDDhILwrWmPBHrP-s19ZH1WxV/s1600/anne+aquarium.png" height="286" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What works for me</b><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">First thing-in-the morning writing exercise/free write. I am so NOT a morning person, which is why I think free-writing in the morning actually works for me: my brain is still in a fog, so my subconcious has more free rein, and it comes up with some unfettered off-the-wall stuff. I used this method to develop my antagonist, using these prompts from this great writing tool (thank you, Emily, for sharing it), the <a href="http://mysterywriters.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/After_the_Idea_-_Website.pdf">Pyramid Approach to Novel Writing</a> by Jess Loury:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">A well-written, believable and sympathetic antagonist spells the difference between a toss-away novel and a cinematic novel. Imagine you are your antagonist’s biographer... ask these questions:</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span></span><span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• What’s your name? Nickname?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• Anyone ever tell you that you look like someone famous?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• Of all your qualities, which are you most proud of?</span></span> <span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Where do you think you</span></span><span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">acquired this quality?</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• What do people seem to like the least about you? How does it make you feel?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• Which habit of yours would you most like to change?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• If someone looked in your bathroom garbage right now, what would they find?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• What scent do you enjoy the most, and what does it remind you of?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• If you could go back in time and change one day of your life, what day would </span></span><span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">it be, and why?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• What three goals do you want to accomplish in the next year? What challenges</span></span><span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">do you have to overcome to reach them?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• Whom do you love most in this world and why?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">• What scares you?</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Looking forward to seeing what works for everyone else this week...</span></span>
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-2YLaWRCaivk%2FVK2hX1umYNI%2FAAAAAAAALW0%2FcaUuBUmf4ig%2Fs320%2FBench%252BButton%252B" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirs2Vaxj3S5KicKf31RuSi7a69gZhX-rDHew0F2Avrl2mLaL2PKi4tAeCzfNjur80h-OXq99fbogCiXJbQZ7Zhb9x_6FGcwqOeV_FkBYhuZjhqv8n9sfkHnyCuikKM-pl3c_yI_TCPxlRK/s320/Bench+Button+" -->Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-44577985614928100772015-02-19T22:21:00.000-07:002015-02-19T22:47:01.831-07:00Throwback Thursday: poetry and partiesEvery few years I get on a poetry kick. I don't write it myself, but I enjoy soaking in poems and seeing how the words fit together to make images and rhythms. How they evoke moods and, often, mystery. I love how they say so much, with leaving so much unsaid.<br />
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When I was scanning debut books coming out in 2015, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22032788-when-reason-breaks">When Reason Breaks</a> by Cindy Rodriguez stood out to me because of its promise of connecting Emily Dickinson's poetry to contemporary high school characters (bonus; the two main characters were Latino).<br />
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The book completely delivered on its intriguing promise (and deepened my appreciation for Dickinson). I loved seeing teens relating to a 19th century poet as they dealt with the turmoil in their lives. Also, one of my favorite scenes in the book is where one of the girls, dragged along to a party by her friends, finds an empty room and hides there to read a book until she's found by another girl who's also escaping the party scene.<br />
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Since this is a Throwback Thursday post, here's a picture of me (on the right) "partying" with my best friend in high school. We went to a few high school parties together, but usually we had more fun heading off on our own, instead of hanging out drinking and smoking. One of our favorite "parties for two" was heading off camping together.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43iPcBCdhwdqy8hP2kKihikOIYzSQaoyn6vNY6yVUxczlyg-z1DxbqY3ND6FNBRn1Ibom_5kiFFlrEDYeS8Iw5utn0_JiAhTwMR0z89BR9rcoChTPNjnnZzPBWdLKGdNBmS5GKxBhWTnk/s1600/90_camping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43iPcBCdhwdqy8hP2kKihikOIYzSQaoyn6vNY6yVUxczlyg-z1DxbqY3ND6FNBRn1Ibom_5kiFFlrEDYeS8Iw5utn0_JiAhTwMR0z89BR9rcoChTPNjnnZzPBWdLKGdNBmS5GKxBhWTnk/s1600/90_camping.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here's a little more about the two girls in When Reason Breaks:<br />
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Elizabeth was goth and prickly and smart - and I don't usually like angry characters but I liked her because she was so much more than her anger. In an early scene, Elizabeth goes into her new English class ready to judge the teacher. After Mrs. Diaz's impassioned introduction to the power of words and poetry and Emily Dickinson in particular, Elizabeth thinks:<br />
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<i>You impressed me and you amused me. Let’s see how you handle this.</i></blockquote>
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Then she hands in her assignment which she purposefully made as controversial as possible, to test the teacher. That's Elizabeth: testy and distrustful but somehow appealing, too.</div>
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Emily, the other main character, was the girl who strives to please everyone and fit in and meet expectations, until it crushes her into depression. You could see how she longed to stay connected with her friends...</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;"><i>Emily focused on Sarah’s hand wrapped around hers, remembering how they used to clasp hands as they sat side by side on the playground swings. They’d see how high they could go without getting out of sync and disconnected. </i></span></blockquote>
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... and yet she couldn't handle the pressure of friends anymore, either, on top of the pressure from her parents and school.</div>
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My favorite parts were the scenes with Elizabeth and Emily together. They aren't friends, they hang with different crowds, and they rub each other wrong - but they also get each other too. Here's my favorite scene, where Emily finds a room to hide in, at a party, and read, and Elizabeth happens upon her in her hiding spot and asks her if she's okay.</div>
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Elizabeth: “Lying’s the worst. People freak out – I mean, like screaming, punching, crying kind of freak out – when they’re lied to. Like when someone asks, Are you okay? and she says I’m fine. And the person asks, are you sure? And she says yes, leave me alone. Lies, all lies.” </blockquote>
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“You’re right. I lied to you that day in the bathroom,” said Emily. “But you lied to me in the locker room.” </blockquote>
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“Maybe, but let me finish my story. Now, if this girl told the truth, she’d say, “I’m thinking about dropping out of high school and joining the circus because I’m pretty sure shoveling elephant sh*t would be better than sticking around here.” But instead, she lies to make it easy on people. And you know what? It doesn’t matter because they know she’s lying and she still gets labeled the trouble child who needs fixing and everyone becomes focused on her instead of the lie that set her off in the first place.” </blockquote>
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With wide eyes, Emily asked, “Are you okay?” </blockquote>
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“I’m fine.” Elizabeth smiled and sucked hard on her straw. </blockquote>
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“You’re lying,” Emily said with a grin.<br />
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“Maybe, but this isn’t about me.”</blockquote>
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Emily's depression kind of tiptoed around the story in a way that caught me off gaurd - but at the same time felt genuine, because that's what depression does. It often doesn't have a good, justifiable reason for its presence. It sneaks up on you; it's secretive and it disguises its destructiveness. </div>
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Compared to others, her life and her problems were pretty ordinary. So why did it all feel like she as in an epic battle? Why did every snarky remark become a festering wound? Why did she always feel like she was pinned to the mat and crushed under their weight?</blockquote>
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<o:p>Elizabeth struggled with a different kind of brokenness. From one her letters to her English teacher, Mrs Diaz:</o:p></div>
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I knew then something deep down inside of me was broke. It was the tiniest of cracks, like a pebble hitting a windshield on the highway – plink. No big deal, right? Wait a while. The crack will deepen and spread and permanently damaged the once-strong glass. </blockquote>
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So, WWEDW? What Would Emily Dickinson Write? </blockquote>
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Maybe this: “I felt a funeral, in my Brain. And then a Plank in Reason broke / And I dropped down, and down” </blockquote>
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Did Emily Dickinson pull away from the world because it was easier and safer to hide than face it all? Or did something inside of her crack?</blockquote>
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Despite all this, somehow the story managed to stay strong instead of wallowing in darkness. </div>
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Turns out, Dickinson also wrote a lot about life and beauty and joy and love. These are the poems she reads now. “Unable are the Loved to die / For love is immortality…”</blockquote>
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I noticed how the two girls share the same initials as Emily Dickinson, but make sure you check out the author’s note at the end to see how all the characters in the story are close mirrors of Emily Dickinson, her family and friends. </div>
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Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-31504889423953622322015-02-17T13:27:00.000-07:002015-02-17T13:37:40.321-07:00Top Ten love stories from the past yearI'm late with my annual love stories post in honor of Valentine's Day! (But better late than never).<br />
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The <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html">Top Ten Tuesday mem</a>e had a love-story related theme last week I missed too, so I hope visitors don't mind if I focus on last week's topic...<br />
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These are my top ten favorite love stories read in the <b>past year</b> (my all-time favorite love stories are listed <a href="http://margoberendsen.blogspot.com/2012/04/tempting-top-ten-love-stories.html">here</a>)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eEHwTpwuvkNBwgenE4Fgjylf9zIhvLf3XBQeh0HC2wr8zZVvXfn73r0SfTnXYeUZozhvsVyWsvUJq8nXTuvcaT2t6UxUcBqj9dkzOmI1m1lUuH_1NAgxMd876W6ZlgyFVkcrpV3uzZ6N/s1600/stardust.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eEHwTpwuvkNBwgenE4Fgjylf9zIhvLf3XBQeh0HC2wr8zZVvXfn73r0SfTnXYeUZozhvsVyWsvUJq8nXTuvcaT2t6UxUcBqj9dkzOmI1m1lUuH_1NAgxMd876W6ZlgyFVkcrpV3uzZ6N/s1600/stardust.jpeg" height="134" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tristran and Yvaine from Stardust, since none of the love stories below have been made into movies yet! </td></tr>
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10. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13514612-all-our-yesterdays">All Our Yesterdays</a>, by Cristin Terrill. Em has to go back in time to change something that would save the world, but it also means losing James...and... (spoiler)<br />
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9. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17926775-stolen-songbird">The Stolen Songbird</a>, by Danielle Jensen. Cecile's kidnapped and forced to marry a troll prince, Tristan, who isn't too happy about marrying her either. But then... yah, then this story happens.<br />
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8. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8706185-among-others">Among Others</a>, by Jo Walton. Crushes at a book group! A science fiction/fantasy book group! I'm not sure if Mori & Wim really fell in love all the way, but it was close enough for me.<br />
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7. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16123804-the-fire-wish">The Fire Wish</a>, by Amber Lough. A forbidden love between a jinni, Najwa and a human prince of Baghdad, Kamal... with wishes and deception complicating everything.<br />
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6. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14061957-ruin-and-rising">Ruin and Rising</a>, by Leigh Bardugo. The end of this Russian fantasy world trilogy has kept me coming back to mull over what happened to Mal and Alina and how the Darkling ties into their love story.<br />
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5. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16068905-fangirl">Fangirl</a>, by Rainbow Rowell. Cath and Levi. Fanfic girl meets farmboy. Sort of. It's way better than that, trust me.<br />
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4.<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20522640-mortal-heart"> Mortal Heart</a>, by Robin LaFevers. A historical fantasy set in late 1400's Brittany, with assassin nun Annith falling in love with not-human Balthazaar. The twists at the end with these two! Whoa.<br />
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3. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16069030-the-winner-s-curse">The Winner's Curse</a>, by Marie Rutkoski. Kestrel and Arin. I've read books before about a slave owner falling in love with his/her slave (see #2) but this one turns the tables in an unexpected way.<br />
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2. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95617.A_Voice_in_the_Wind">Voice in the Wind</a>, by Francine Rivers. Marcus, a rich Roman searching for pleasure but never finding happiness falls in love with his sister's shy, plain Jewish slave, Hadassah. This one will tear your heart apart. I've read this story at least 4 times in the past 12 years since I first discovered it; re-read it a few months ago with my daughters.<br />
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1. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13618440-dreams-of-gods-monsters">Dreams of Gods and Monsters</a>, by Laini Taylor. In this third book of an amazing trilogy, we finally get to see the fulfillment of Akiva's and Karou's love, after a war has torn them apart and made them enemies. It's not just the love story that I love about these books, it's the worlds, the writing, the other characters, the other love stories. I've already re-read this series and plan to re-read again many times!<br />
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<br />Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-48404021788205798832015-02-04T07:20:00.000-07:002015-02-04T07:21:47.558-07:00Insecure writer: straight from dreams to writing<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> I don't do New Year's resolutions anymore because by March or April I'm all resolutioned out. And then the insecurity kicks in. I've failed with them way too many times. </span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s1600/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #73b2d0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7GJpYdNw2aJaXaCmzGAqFa_KCgepxnj1bQyGtVAmbS4ckbphCZPQdO9_RinW_h0WbflcSpDWCqELi5E99JGxl2FJJZFvhRYQfCG2K5vmQ9Pm13GE0mEKqmnyoB7DSwwa0qDhC5y7_XL_/s200/InsecureWritersSupportGroup+(1).jpg" height="171" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The first Wednesday of the month<br /> is time for <a href="http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/" style="color: #73b2d0; text-decoration: none;">Insecure Writers Support Group</a>,<br />hosted by Alex Cavanaugh and his<br />excellent team. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">But now it's a new month and time to reset short term goals. No beating myself up because I didn't get a longer paperclip chain. It wasn't a long chain, but it helped for those days. I might try it again. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">This month I started out with something I've been wanting to do for years... but never remembered to actually do (or wasn't motivated enough to try).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">Right before bed I read a chapter from Star Tripped, the story I've been querying and getting feedback from agents about needing more characterization. I left a pen and paper on my bed stand. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">When I woke up I started writing while still in bed. While still half asleep! Right as I came out of a dream (which I couldn't remember, but no matter). Usually the first thing I do in the morning is get a cup of tea, but I even started writing before that. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">I read somewhere that the best free writing comes when you've just woken up. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">I wrote out a conversation between Cam and Lander on their greatest fears. It was so clunky to start with but then I filled 3 pages with ideas... I went way beyond fears. Those characters took me all over the place. The things in their heads!! (ha ha). I wrote until my hand hurt so bad (and I had to go to the bathroom so bad) I finally had to quit. Maybe only a few sentences of it will actually get used, but those few bits were completely worth it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;">I tried it again Monday morning and got some more suprising character developments. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
Let me emphasize, I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON. This is not a comfortable exercise for me. I wasn't sure if it would even work with my usual morning brain fog. But in some mysterious way this writing exercise takes advantage of your brain fog... maybe because you aren't thinking clearly yet, you tap into more of your subconscious? Or left over dreams, even if you don't remember them?<br />
<br />
However it works, it's a neat writing experience.<br />
<br />
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Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-78113303584712655792015-02-03T10:26:00.002-07:002015-02-03T10:57:25.522-07:00Top ten books I can't believe I haven't read yet!Every once in a while I look through my To-Be-Read (TBR) list on Goodreads and try to "clean it up" or prioritize. My TBR list is currently 390 books! Every year I do catch up with a lot of older books on my list, but I have to balance them with all the new great books coming out too.<br />
<br />
But these have been waiting to be read for so long that I'm going to make a real point of getting at least ten of them read this year. They are a whole mix of genres, but most of them are pretty famous and so they keep coming to my attention one way or another. I've never read anything by Barbara Kingsolver or George MacDonald or Patricia McWrede, and I know they are great classic authors.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Click on any cover to go to the Goodreads description. This post is a Top Ten Tuesday theme (hosted by </span><a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #73b2d0; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">the Broke and Bookish blog</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">)</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7244.The_Poisonwood_Bible" title="The Poisonwood Bible"><img alt="The Poisonwood Bible" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1412242487m/7244.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180739.The_Yada_Yada_Prayer_Group" title="The Yada Yada Prayer Group (The Yada Yada Prayer Group #1)"><img alt="The Yada Yada Prayer Group" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1406896075m/180739.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3153910-the-art-of-racing-in-the-rain" title="The Art of Racing in the Rain"><img alt="The Art of Racing in the Rain" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1377206302m/3153910.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/444381.The_Princess_and_the_Goblin" title="The Princess and the Goblin "><img alt="The Princess and the Goblin" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348689290m/444381.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9284655-tiger-s-curse" title="Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1)"><img alt="Tiger's Curse" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327878915m/9284655.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31122.I_Capture_the_Castle" title="I Capture the Castle"><img alt="I Capture the Castle" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385316083m/31122.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/150739.Dealing_with_Dragons" title="Dealing with Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, #1)"><img alt="Dealing with Dragons" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385526967m/150739.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/378.The_Phantom_Tollbooth" title="The Phantom Tollbooth"><img alt="The Phantom Tollbooth" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1422970217m/378.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8835379-ruby-red" title="Ruby Red (Precious Stone Trilogy, #1)"><img alt="Ruby Red" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312036605m/8835379.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24770.Uglies" title="Uglies (Uglies, #1)"><img alt="Uglies" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358962036m/24770.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77773.To_Say_Nothing_of_the_Dog" title="To Say Nothing of the Dog (Oxford Time Travel, #2)"><img alt="To Say Nothing of the Dog" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1363105428m/77773.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4214.Life_of_Pi" title="Life of Pi"><img alt="Life of Pi" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320562005m/4214.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/289745.Pretense" title="Pretense"><img alt="Pretense" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348600560m/289745.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10866624-unspoken" title="Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy, #1)"><img alt="Unspoken" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333397426m/10866624.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15791085-the-falconer" title="The Falconer (The Falconer, #1)"><img alt="The Falconer" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1384367442m/15791085.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3236307-graceling" title="Graceling (Graceling Realm, #1)"><img alt="Graceling" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331548394m/3236307.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6218281-the-sweetness-at-the-bottom-of-the-pie" title="The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1)"><img alt="The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388187001m/6218281.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112537.Rendezvous_with_Rama" title="Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1)"><img alt="Rendezvous with Rama" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405456427m/112537.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/785453.A_Single_Shard" title="A Single Shard"><img alt="A Single Shard" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348868705m/785453.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4932435-finnikin-of-the-rock" title="Finnikin of the Rock (Lumatere Chronicles, #1)"><img alt="Finnikin of the Rock" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346007613m/4932435.jpg" /></a><br />
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<br />
I can't rate thesefrom 1-10, nor could I limit this list to 10 (there's twenty of them showing), but I'll try to limit my text to just ten!<br />
<br />
The Poisonwood Bible - famous author, famous book, very controversial: missionaries out to change lives in Africa but sounds like their own lives, or at least perspectives, need changed first.<br />
<br />
The Yada Yada Prayer Group - I keep running into people that love this book!<br />
<br />
The Art of Racing in the Rain - how could I not yet have read this book written from a dog's perspective??? I love these kinds of books! And its wildly famous and high rated too.<br />
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The Princess and the Goblin - my two most FAVORITE authors, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, were deeply influenced by the author, George McDonald. And it's another wildly famous book I've known about forever and its description is right up my ally. Truly mystified why I haven't read it yet.<br />
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The Tiger's Curse - this sounds like a beautiful love story and a twist on Beauty and the Beast and I love tigers and it's highly rated and.. and... yeah, must read this one.<br />
<br />
I Capture the Castle. Yup, another famous one, and I know I'll love it because I love Dodie Smith's other books!<br />
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Dealing with Dragons. Come on, it's dragons!!!! I have to read at least one dragon book a year, and Patricia McWrede is wildly famous. What's taking me so long??<br />
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The Phantom Tollbooth. Classic kidlit. Hanging my head in shame. This is as bad as never having read Roald Dahl's books or something.<br />
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Life of Pi. Because I really want to see the movie that was out several years ago now but I promised I wouldn't till I read the book!<br />
<br />
To Say Nothing of the Dog. Because the first book, Doomsday Book, is on my all-time favorites list and I've heard this one is even better.<br />
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What book have you been meaning to read forever???Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-38190285815260460812015-01-28T06:00:00.000-07:002015-01-28T10:17:59.425-07:00Light writing days<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What's Up Wednesday is for anyone interested in keeping in touch with other writers, a meme hosted by writing sisters </span><a href="http://erinlfunk.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #73b2d0; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Erin Funk</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> and </span><a href="http://www.jaime-morrow.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #73b2d0; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Jaime Morrow</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2d9dqVSifZN1zqhZJQzTXbBSh_m5UL1cyst1EHdTUMcltoEAzO7LkN565gdc7BWjG1r4i2aY9a7Kl70QLJEiFsBwwGSANZ5UBM9Xy098TYKHEaKnb2B6mcodL0wDEa0LR5vf1BkrXdAQp/s1600/e0440-castle2bbutton2bfinal.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2d9dqVSifZN1zqhZJQzTXbBSh_m5UL1cyst1EHdTUMcltoEAzO7LkN565gdc7BWjG1r4i2aY9a7Kl70QLJEiFsBwwGSANZ5UBM9Xy098TYKHEaKnb2B6mcodL0wDEa0LR5vf1BkrXdAQp/s1600/e0440-castle2bbutton2bfinal.png" /></a></div>
<br style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What I'm reading</b><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">While waiting (impatiently) for Seraphina's sequel, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16085457-shadow-scale">ShadowScale</a>, to be out in early March, I'm currently reading When Reason Breaks by Cindy L. Rodriguez which features </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Emily Dickinson’s poetry as a guide to two girls struggling with depression and anger. I love the characters and this is a great way to soak up poetry, which I normally don't read much of.</span><br />
<a href="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405084743l/22032788.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="When Reason Breaks" border="0" height="320" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405084743l/22032788.jpg" width="211" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">I just finished reading Landline by Rainbow Rowell and deeply enjoyed it. Also recently finished Rain Reign by Anne M. Martin and was surprisingly swept away by this story in the voice of a 5th grader with high functioning autism. </span></span><br />
<br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What I'm writing</b><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">I've been layering in more setting details and characterization touches to my MG fantasy set in Alaska. Setting inspiration has been coming from a surprising source: PBS' "Nature" series with its breathtaking videography. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">I'm also having to return to the opening chapters of my YA science fiction that I've been querying. I've gotten a couple personalized rejections with similar suggestions. With several agents pointing out the same things, I've got to make some changes. They say I have too much going on and not enough characterization in the first 50 pages, so right now I'm doing a reverse outline of everything going on in the first fifty to see where I can simplify things, and then add back in more characterization. To help with characterization, I'm revisiting these thoughtful questions from Writing 21st century fiction, by Donald Maass. </span></span><br />
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-line-height-alt: 5.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What terrifies
you? <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-line-height-alt: 5.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What outrages
you? <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-line-height-alt: 5.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What grieves
you? <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-line-height-alt: 5.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What heals you? <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-line-height-alt: 5.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What did your father
teach you that still holds true? <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-line-height-alt: 5.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What did you
learn in college that’s dead wrong? <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-line-height-alt: 5.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What about your
faith is painful to admit? </span></li>
</ul>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What else I've been up to</b><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">I went downhill skiing for the first time in 11 years! I worried I'd be falling down left and right, but muscle memory must have kicked in, because I was zooming down the slopes right away. I'd forgotten how beautiful the slopes are. I'm not going to wait another 11 years to do this again. It was my 13 year old daughter's first time skiing and she picked it up really fast, though the next day she couldn't believe how sore she was!</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span></span>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What works for me</b><br />
<span style="color: #5d5d5d; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What gets me through Nanowrimo every November is the rule, "don't skip more than a day." I've noticed I can skip one day with my writing, even two, but if I skip three days in row, I lose my momentum and stall out. What's been working for me lately is to designate some days as "light writing days" - just a half hour of writing, but it's enough so I don't lose my momentum. </span></span>Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-32657025162216890212015-01-22T00:02:00.000-07:002015-01-21T22:55:54.369-07:00Throwback Thursday: 15 years old, Among OthersI started off the year 2015 with my nose in a book. Yup, that's what I was doing at 12:01 January 1st, and most of the rest of January 1st, too, gobbling up a wonderful book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8706185-among-others">Among Others</a> by Jo Walton (2012 winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards). The main character in Among Others was 15 and attended an English boarding school that was decidedly NOT a Hogwarts kind of school: the most unmagical of schools, in fact... but Mori brought her magic with her. This book is a great example of the fascinating magical realism genre. It's also a got a main character with a disability, (#weNeedDiverseBooks) and that disability and the cane it required played a fascinating part in the story.<br />
<br />
Despite attending a regular public American high school, not an English boarding school, and not needing a cane to walk, I still really identified with Mori... more than most mc's in young adult books. Here's why....<br />
<br />
I had a split personality in high school (I still do, somewhat). Personality #1: a girl who painted her nails a new color (almost) every day; spent (many) afternoons browsing through clothing stores at the mall, or leafing through L.L. Bean and J. Crew clothing catalogs; highlighted her hair with peroxide; and ran on the track and cross country teams and got really competitive about it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaiDls82gQEYTwLP-n8QSDNrpEqVf4msUnIwMq5xTEcIvcZfFkQ2T4_CvDylyEyJUGPwg90x2yQCP937rGw3U3M83QWnupvdQkmqOvHMRikNBtE_j0wzK2eaIEfcQFufH4n4t1XXdNQ8Jp/s1600/85_closeup_bleached.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaiDls82gQEYTwLP-n8QSDNrpEqVf4msUnIwMq5xTEcIvcZfFkQ2T4_CvDylyEyJUGPwg90x2yQCP937rGw3U3M83QWnupvdQkmqOvHMRikNBtE_j0wzK2eaIEfcQFufH4n4t1XXdNQ8Jp/s1600/85_closeup_bleached.jpg" height="253" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">15 year old me with bleached hair</td></tr>
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Personality #2: a girl who, when she skipped classes or lunch, could be found in the school library reading or searching for new books to read. And who when wasn't reading, was often sketching characters in the margins of her history notes, or staring off into space daydreaming about the fantasy and science fiction worlds she'd just read. Ages 13 through 15 was when I devoured books like Dune, the Earthsea books and the Lord of the Rings (and many others, but those were the ones that stuck with me most memorably) and these books, especially Lord of the Rings, play their own fascinating role in Mori's story.<br />
<br />
So freaking cool how the books play a role, almost become characters themselves, in this story!<br />
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<a href="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317792367l/8706185.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Among Others" border="0" height="320" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317792367l/8706185.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>
Since Mori's personality wasn't split like mine (and she was partially crippled, having to walk with a cane, so she couldn't get involved in as much as I could)... she devoured books at a stunning pace, especially after discovering interlibrary loans:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization.”</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts.” </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“I'll belong to libraries wherever I go. Maybe eventually I'll belong to libraries on other planets.” </span></blockquote>
Among Others is a book about family, friends, fairies, boarding school, and books. The fairies fit in that sequence in a very straight-forward way; Mori has grown up always seeing (and sometimes in even playing with) fairies in the valleys and abandoned coal works of her native Wales. This is the first story I've read set, at least in part, in Wales. What a fascinating country! I googled maps and sometimes Welsh history while I was reading.<br />
<br />
Mori refuses to live with her mad witch mother any more. Yes, her mother really is a witch, and a pretty evil one, too, by Mori's account - her mother is at least partly responsible for her daughter's death, Mori's twin. Mori lives in a children's home for a while until her father is located. Then her father sends her to an all girl boarding school in England, where she is far removed from the fairies and magic she grew up with, and can't relate to anyone at the school (one of the references to the title... living "among others" - though the others might refer to the fairies, too).<br />
<br />
In her loneliness, Mori finds solace in books, but longs to find a few like minded souls (a "karass" - a reference to a group of like minded souls from Kurt Vonnegut's book, Cat's Cradle). Eventually she even tries working a magic spell to help her find a karass - and succeeds - but her use of magic has the unwanted effect of attracting her mother's attention.<br />
<br />
The karass that Mori finds wasn't quite what one might expect - but it was perfect! - here's a hint: one of the kindred spirits in her karass makes this comment:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“Bibliotropic," Hugh said. "Like sunflowers are heliotropic, they naturally turn towards the sun. We naturally turn towards the bookshop.” </span></blockquote>
Another member of her karass is Wim (a British nickname for William - LOVE IT!!!) Wim is judged by others and is surprised that Mori doesn't judge him... it's clear her open-mindedness is related to all the literature she's drenched in. She also has a plethora of insightful comments and observations about life, often framed as questions, which I really liked.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Does it mean that it doesn't matter if it's magic or not, anything you do has power and consequences and affects other people?”</span></blockquote>
On waiting for God’s plan to unfold:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If I were omnipotent and omniscient I think I could have come up with a better [plan]. Lightning bolts never go out of fashion.</blockquote>
A word on the fairies: they appear on a spectrum from little ugly gnome-like things to tall, beautiful LOTR elvish creatures. They don't play a large role, but they show up just often enough to add a fascinating dimension to the story, and a climax that ties in gloriously with the very beginning of the story.<br />
<br />
And a word on the magic, which was unique and subtle and amusing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">At home I walked through a haze of belongings that knew, at least vaguely, who they belonged to. Grampar’s chair resented anyone else sitting on it as much as he did himself....My mother’s shoes positively vibrated with consciousness. Our toys looked out for us. There was a potato knife in the kitchen that Gramma couldn’t use. It was an ordinary enough brown-handled thing, but she’d cut herself with it once, and ever after it wanted more of her blood. If I rummaged through the kitchen drawer, I could feel it brooding. After she died, that faded. Then there were the coffee spoons, rarely used, tiny, a wedding present. They were made of silver, and they knew themselves superior to everything else and special. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">None of these things did anything. The coffee spoons didn’t stir the coffee without being held or anything. They didn’t have conversations with the sugar tongs about who was the most cherished. I suppose what they really did was physiological. They confirmed the past, they connected everything, they were threads in a tapestry.</span></blockquote>
(Also loved the reference to how the Christmas ornaments were full of magic, but Mori wasn't sure if the three aunties realized it, but she was fairly sure they knew about the magic in their earrings, and that getting Mori to pierce her ears and wear their earrings would... oops, that's a spoiler, sort of).<br />
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In addition to friends and fairies and a very subtle magic, this book is also about family: Mori getting to know her newly discovered father and grandfather (Sam!) and three new "aunties" (who are love-to-hate characters almost picked out of some yet-as-undiscovered Jane Austen book),<br />
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There's also her beloved Welsh Grampar (her other grandfather) and Auntie Teg... and memories of her twin sister and the epic battle they fought against their witch mother to keep her from using her magic to control the fairies.<br />
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All the characters in this story felt like real people (they probably were real people) and so vivid that I remember all their names very distinctly, even 3 weeks after finishing the story. Most of the lovable characters are book worms (but not all of them, like Auntie Teg and her fairy-seeing cat). I was especially delighted that the librarians become Mori's friends.<br />
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Friends, family, fairies... I still need to mention the boarding school and, I'm not yet done mentioning the books. I sincerely hope that English boarding schools these days put doors in bathroom and shower stalls; in the 1970's doors and privacy were not permitted. Also, who knew that boarding schools were so <i>loud</i>?? No wonder why Mori spent most of her time in the library. I had a sudden terrible thought while reading this story: the fact that these kids had to suffer through high school cafeterias not just for lunch but for breakfast and dinner, too. Oh the poor dear souls!<br />
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However, the real life boarding school did have one similarity to Hogwarts: a magical train. Well, sort of magical:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I love the train. Sitting here I feel connected to the last time I sat here, and the train to London too. It is in-between, suspended; and in rapid motion towards and away from, it is also poised between. There's a magic in that, not a magic you can work, a magic that's just there, giving a little colour and exhilaration to everything.</span></blockquote>
And while I'm at it, I simply must mention the mountains, and Mori's love of maps:<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I love the mountains. I love the kind of horizon they make,
even in winter. When we went down again, towards Merthyr first and then over
the shoulder of the mountain to Aberdare, where Auntie Teg walked, once, when
she was still in school, it felt like nestling back down in a big quilt. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I bought a map of Europe, with Germany huge and no Czechoslovakia. I
think it must be from the war, or right before...I
couldn't resist it…I don't know what I'm going to do with it. But maps are
brill.</blockquote>
But oh the books in this story, oh the books! Truly this story was written as an ode to books and bookworms. I especially loved the blend of reality, fantasy and science fiction:<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I wonder if there will be fairies in space? It's a more
possible thought in Clarke's universe than Heinlein's somehow, even though
Clarke's engineering seems just as substantial. I wonder if it's because he's
British? Never mind space, do they even have fairies in America?</blockquote>
(Note to self: revisit a couple Arthur C. Clarke books) (and try some Delany books. And Zelazny).<br />
<br />
Every reference to the Lord of the Rings just made my heart sing, and the ending is where books and magic intersected in a breathtaking and stand-up-and-cheer way. A few of my favorite LOTR references:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I am reading </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The Lord of the Rings</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">. I suddenly wanted to. I almost know it by heart, but I can still sink right into it. I know no other book that is so much like going on a journey. When I put it down to this, I feel as if I am also waiting with Pippin for the echoes of that stone down the well.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The thing about Tolkien, about </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The Lord of the Rings</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">, is that it's perfect. It's this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Oaks hang onto their leaves all winter, like mallorns, so it's easy to find them. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Finished LOTR, with the usual sad pang of reaching the end and there being no more of it.</blockquote>
LOTR certainly changed my world, though it's hard to say exactly how. It made my life deeper, somehow... and also broader.<br />
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I'd love to hear in the comments if there was a book from your early teen days that changed a little bit of your world too, or the way you saw the world...<br />
<br />Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1150746199598958569.post-62369010247654581862015-01-12T23:43:00.000-07:002015-01-12T23:44:44.133-07:00#WeNeedDiverseBooks: Polynesian! (Illusions of Fate)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6lyvQRK2q_aMSGqc7zjGjmAYuT0ec2-a50eBjBdjjyKEJF_1CwUPseqFiy4mKJS9rgyZeJnYegZNmfB0aVoauygV-nMemhxVCZq1mFi95aD7lvCSZqoV6vuhSK8mk1fi61NetPHZTJiP/s1600/tumblr_inline_nccz3ieGBu1qid741.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6lyvQRK2q_aMSGqc7zjGjmAYuT0ec2-a50eBjBdjjyKEJF_1CwUPseqFiy4mKJS9rgyZeJnYegZNmfB0aVoauygV-nMemhxVCZq1mFi95aD7lvCSZqoV6vuhSK8mk1fi61NetPHZTJiP/s1600/tumblr_inline_nccz3ieGBu1qid741.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Here's why I loved <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19367070-illusions-of-fate">Illusions of Fate</a> by Kiersten White and had to post about it IMMEDIATELY even though I finished it like, less than hour ago. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">1) </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">That cover. THAT COVER!!!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">a Polynesian main character! The actual cover looks a tad white-washed, but here's the non-cropped version provided by the author on her </span><a href="http://kierstenwhite.tumblr.com/post/98228967272/i-love-your-stories-but-im-wondering-why" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #666600; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Tumblr</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">2) yes, it really is historical fantasy (my favorite genre!) </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">A purist might argue it's set in a mirror of Victorian/Imperialist England, but I'm running with it.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">2) </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">magical shadows and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">magical books that can turn into birds. Sir Bird!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">3) magical doorways (a la Howl's Moving Castle) (in fact it was the "Howl's Moving Castle meets Mr Darcy" blurb that caught my eye with this book... well, that and the cover. And Laini Taylor's whole-hearted endorsement didn't hurt either). </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">4) delightfully witty old fashioned ink letters, complete with ink blots</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">5) oh, and some of the letters are ALSO magical (those written by whom I cannot spoiler-name)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">6) Jane Austen-worthy observations on English (I mean Alben) nature: </span><br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">
An Alben smile is rarely and expression of joy. More often it is a way to deflect true emotion.</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">7) magical miniature suns (yeah, there's a lot of fun magic in this book)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">8) excellent recrafting of real empire/colonial issues: </span><br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">
His words strike straight through me. I would have said the same thing just weeks ago. I would have dismissed an entire country of people just because of their birth, the same way I have always felt dismissed.</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">9) magically-colored music</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">10) magic hair-color-turning wars (reminded me of the fairy wars over the color of Aurora's dress in Sleeping Beauty)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">11) Fifteen different words for love, but one of them forgotten until the end</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">12) Collarbones (you never realized how interesting they were till now)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">13) Using math to mess with dreams</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">14) Eleanor's gossip</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">15) the gift of an umbrella on a rainy day from a kind stranger in a park</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">16) Lord Finley Ackerley and his cane, and how he loved Jessamin even though she insisted on doing the opposite of everything he ever suggested</span>Margo Berendsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03476308235642890474noreply@blogger.com3