My favorite summer vacation spot

This 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 Chippawa Lodge 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.

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!

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!

Here's a picture of little me with my kayak. 

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. 

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!

"My Favorite Summer Vacation Spot" Blog Hop is sponsored by Summer Reads that Thrill & Chill!

For the Linky List and Book Giveaways visit the 6 Co-Hosts:

Lexa Cain: http://lexacain.blogspot.com/

Melanie Karsak: http://www.melaniekarsak.com/

T.F. Walsh: http://www.tfwalsh.com/blog/

Vanessa Morgan: http://vanessa-morgan.blogspot.com/

Jolie Du Pre: http://www.preciousmonsters.com/

Stuart R. West: http://stuartrwest.blogspot.com/

Insecure Writer: supercharged descriptions

When 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.

The first Wednesday of the month
 is time for Insecure Writers Support Group,
hosted by Alex Cavanaugh and his
excellent team. 

The young blind protagonist of  All the Light We Cannot See, 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:

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.

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:

...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.

3) Take a natural phenomena and transpose it upon a traumatic event for another powerful description:

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.

Recent writing tidbits

Here'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.

Every writer needs someone like this to cheer their book on: 

Tadashi, from Big Hero Six

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:

I am grateful for my rejections.

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.

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.

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.

This was just posted by Martina Boone (author of Compulsion), on the connection between setting and memory (I think this will be my writing exercise this week):

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. 

• Sounds, smells, objects within the setting that trigger particular memories

• Attitudes toward the setting and objects within It that tell us about that character

• Ways of describing the setting and the objects in it that reveal how the character’s are changing as the story develops

This is what I'm reading right now, The Girl At Midnight, 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.


Here's the premise: Echo lives in a secret room inside of the New York City Public 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 and dragon. 

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.

"she had the unflappable compsure of those who have lived too long in too short a span of time" 

"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" 

"Echo did not giggle. She chuckled. She cackled. Occasionally, she even chortled. But giggling? Heavens, no." 

"If her hormones had a face, she would slap it" 

"Greatness is not always good." "Yeah, yeah, one ring to trule them all, I get it" 

"The young always think they are invincible. Right up to the moment they learn otherwise. Usually, the hard way" 

Sorry for the fangirling episode!

May this day be a day of great writing and outrageous dreaming up of ideas, and happy reading for all.

An elusive refuge and a love list

After a strong finish to NaNoWriMo, I'm in a writing slump. Feeling discouraged, lack luster... not just with writing but can't even get myself motivated to decorate the Christmas tree - and Christmas time has always been a very special time for me, full of little traditions that this year, for some reason, just seem like more work to me instead of bringing delight.

That story that was so exciting to write in the last week of November... I'm re-reading it now and seeing all its flaws. It's about a hidden refuge, and for many years (on and off, as I've been working on this story on and off for a long, long, time) the story itself has been a refuge me, a place where I escape in my mind. But lately it hasn't been my refuge; it's been more my...nemesis. It's like this place has become too interwoven with years of dreams and imaginings that I can't capture it with words - at least not cohesively. Only bits and pieces. The spirit of the story is elusive... what I write is pale and awkward in comparison.

But I've been through enough ups and downs now with writing (and life!) that I know "this too shall pass" - inspiration will come around again. With patience and lots of word-smithing, the flaws that I can't see past right now can slowly be turned into something that lets the passion shine through.

I've learned a few tricks to help the inspiration along, thanks to other bloggers who have shared their own ups and downs. My favorite discovery this year was the story love list. I compiled a love list for my science fiction story back in September and hope if I put one together for this elusive refuge it might help my words get a little closer to the vision in my head.

It's set in Alaska because Alaska has so much remote wilderness I figured it would be a great setting for a bunch of mythical creatures trying to keep  themselves secret and hidden from the rest of the world.

Here's my list of things I love about this novel:

1. taiga - isn't that a neat word? it's a Russian word for the northern boreal forest

Nabsena road, Wrangell-St Elias National Park

2. old log cabins

3. campfires

4. picking blueberries

5. lofts you can only reach with a ladder

6. glaciers

7. eagles

8. dreamy late afternoon light slanting through a forest

9. northern lights

10. mythical creatures

11. sketchbooks

12. kerosene lanterns

13. pontoon planes

14. rainbows

15. a ghost fox

16, forget-me-not flowers

17. pieces of poems

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning
Never sick, never old, never dead
From itself never turning

18. eighteen hours of sunshine a day

Venice, painting, secrets and disguises

4.5 stars to Color Song, by Victoria Strauss:  a sumptuous historical set in 1487 Padua and Venice, rich characters (Sofia! Bernado!) and an artist's quest that resonated with my own artist's soul. Not that I'm a painter, but Giulia's passion for creation is universal for anyone who loves to create things, no matter the medium. This book had me looking up Renaissance painters like Giovani Bellini (who plays a small part in the book) and revisiting my Pinterest art page with new appreciation. Here's a painting by Malcolm T. Liepke that reminded me the character, Giulia, and her passion for the perfect blue.

This story is full of beautiful attention to detail and a living, breathing, smelly, sparkling depiction of Venice with its canals (how easy it is to travel around by water; how nearly impossible by foot) and its water doors. 5 stars for the setting. The convent at Padua also felt starkly real, and the painters' workshops there and in Venice were so well described I feel as if I could open the door and step inside.

5 stars for the premise, too. I simply loved the idea of a color song, the way the newly mixed, still-wet paint colors would "sing" for Giulia, each color with their own unique voice. 

As a woman, Giulia's painting is frowned upon, even prohibited. She disguises herself as a boy in order to escape the convent and apprentice herself to a master painter in Venice. Along the way she makes an unusual friend and ally in Sofia, a wealthy courtesan, a fascinating character. Sofia’s insight on Giulia:

“I think perhaps I understand you better now.” Sofia tilted her head, embracing Giulia in her cool amber gaze. “Why you would leave your home and travel so very far alone to a city where you are a stranger to apprentice yourself to a master you do not know. It is your gift that demands this of you, no? Your gift demands everything of you.”

Sofia’s son, Bernardo, plays the romantic interest, but he wasn’t as distinctive. However, because of Giulia’s disguise as a boy, her relationship with Bernardo is based on lies and deception, that added interesting tension to the story.  In fact, the theme of secrets vs. truth runs expertly (not too heavy-handedly) throughout the book.

I loved all the Italian words and historical tidbits that sang through this story like battagliole (mock battles on the bridges of Venice) and chopines (platform women’s shoes), and all the details about Venice, "La Serenissima, the daughter of the sea," where ."the salt water ran like blood through the body of this strange city." 

Another thing I loved about the story was identifying to Giulia’s struggles (and inspirations) as an artist, which any type of artist, not just a painter, could identify with. 

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?

I thought Giulia’s unique gift of the color song would tie into the plot more, but it doesn’t. My favorite genre is historical fantasy, and the premise of the Color Song hinted at some fantasy, but I wasn’t disappointed when the book didn’t end up going that direction, as the color song did serve a purpose in theme of secrets and truth. 

And as for the unfairness of Giulia not being able to realize her full potential as an artist because she’s female, I felt the author found a good balance between the realism of the time and the hope of change in the future (nicely rounded out by the epilogue).

...beauty must also be shared. It had no value if it was hoarded, closed up inside a secret like a miser's gold inside his counting room. And suddenly she could feel it: all the beauty she would create in the years to come, all the splendor that would issue from her hand, burning in her like the light of a thousand torches, so intense that for an instant it seemed she must be consumed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyscape for an advanced copy of this book, which did not influence my review in any way.  

Places books have made me want to visit

Books that make you want to visit places: this is an important subject to me, because I literally chose the place where I live (Laramie, Wyoming) based on three books I read as child, the series starting with My Friend Flicka, by Mary O'Hara. When I was about 10 or 11, I told my parents I wanted to move to Wyoming.  I moved here when I was 24 and have been here ever since.

(This post is part of Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish blog with a different top bookish ten list theme, every Tuesday) (see the full list here). 

To this day, I have never read any other books that have such a vivid, vibrant, emotional connection to place and setting as these books. I dearly wish for books that make that connection to place, and I was surprised at how hard it was to make this list because so many books have excellent settings, but not a deep connection to them.  Here are the ones that do have that deep connection to a place:

All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot, set in the Yorkshire Dales
I got to visit the Yorkshire Dales many years ago, and it has been the most vividly remembered of the places I've been to in Europe (with the Swiss Alps being a very close second). I am 100% sure the strong memories are because of my deep love of these stories.

The Mitford series by Jan Karon, set in a small North Carolina town in the Blue Ridge
If there were any other place in America I'd want to live besides my own beloved Wyoming Rockies, it would be in the North Carolina or Virginia Blue Ridge/Appalachians, in a small town like Mitford.

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, Prince Edward Island
Haven't been there yet, but it's on my bucket list.

Jack London's stories set in Alaska/Yukon
Absolutely, emphatically on my bucket list

Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey
This is non-fiction, but it still tells stories: stories of the land rather than of characters. I actually visited the slick rock country and canyonlands of Utah before I read this book, but the land so deeply impressed me that I began to look for stories set in this most unsual of wildernesses.  Abbey's stories and descriptions of the Utah deserts always bring me back to my first time hiking in a state of wonder through Canyonlands National Park.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor, set in Prague, Czech Republic
I'm not much of a city girl, though I've been very fortunate to have opportunities to visit great cities like London, Paris, Rome, and most great American cities. Currently, this is the only large city that I specifically want to visit, and I blame it totally on this book.

I can't talk about books with a sense of place without mentioning James Michener. I've read Alaska, Centennial (set in Colorado), Chesapeake, and the Source (set in Israel), and all of them have brought these places alive to me.

Amazing places I want to read more great stories about, and visit someday:

These are places that I love because of all their fascinating history, and purposefully seek out books about them to read. I've listed some good books I've read set in these places, but have not yet found THE BOOK. The book that really makes that hard-to-describe deep connection.

Greece.  Some good books that have whetted my appetite: the Island, by Victoria Hilsop (set on Crete); My Best Friend, Maybe (set on Santorini)

Egypt.  Have read so many books about ancient Egypt; would love a modern book set here, too. The book that has stuck with me the most: River God, by Wilbur Smith.

Italy.   Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'm sure I've read many others set in Italy. But none of them really stuck with me, and I really want something to stick.

Israel and the Levant. The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth Speare. Would love a book set in Damascus, Bagdad, Babylon or any place in Israel, Lebanon, Arabia, etc - modern or ancient. Ancient Sumeria or Persia. So many books touch on these places, but I want one that is deeply tied to place.

Russia. I've read some Tolstoy, and probably half a dozen other stories set here, but most were character-based or so broad in scope it was hard to really get connected to any particular place, to make that deep connection.

What story has made you want to visit a place?

Fascination with volcanos and ancient Rome

Ancient Rome is one of my most favorite time periods to visit in historical fiction, with all the drama of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, the slave rebellion of Spartacus, the chariot races of Ben Hur, Pontius Pilate "washing his hands of this", the destruction of Jerusalem, the seige of Masada, the gladiators of the Colosseum, and all the scheming and backstabbing immortalized in I, Claudius (such a good book!)

In the midst of all this dramatic history was a particularly vivid and frightening moment, the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii (79 AD). Most of us know the horror left behind by the pyroclastic surge of that volcano: bodies forever frozen in positions of agony. I'm surprised I haven't run across historical fiction set in Pompeii before, but as soon as I heard about Curses and Smoke, released last month, I snatched it up.

Obviously not the eruption of Vesuvius, but the
pyroclastic cloud of death might be similar

This young adult story was rich with historical and cultural details, and I luxuriated in them like my own historical hot tub. This book truly transports you back in time: not just the setting, but the food, the attitudes of slaves, lanistas, gladiators, patricians; beauty rituals; curse tablets; natural history (references to Strabo and Pliny); beautiful Latin ("deliciae meae"); ancient medical treatments...even graffiti on the market walls. (Also LOVED that the author included historical notes at the back of the book.)

The point of view switches between Lucia, a daughter of a rich owner of gladiators, and betrothed against her will, and Tages, a slave, and also a medicus (healer).  

How I pictured Lucia

Lucia has a knack for scientific observations and longs to share her theories about Vesuvius with Pliny (a famous naturalist and writer). But she faces scorn from other Romans because she's just a woman, therefore her theories are automatically discounted. 

While basically a forbidden love story, this story surprised me with two unexpected twists: one with Lucia's mother and father (please read the historical note in the back about the letter from a husband to his wife that inspired this shocker!), and the other with Quintus, the spoiled rich patrician who flirts with Lucia but is... ah, that would be a spoiler. 

Each chapter heading includes a countdown, starting with One Month Before and ending with Minutes Before. Such a simple but effective way to heighten tension. But there's a surprise twist with this countdown, too. 

My favorite quote:

They promenaded around the market, occasionally stealing glances at each other as they chatted about the household. Sometimes they bumped shoulders or brushed arms. Lucia felt as if all her awareness and sensation were gravitating toward Tag like iron to a magnet rock. She wondered how the weight of it didn't make her tip over into him.

Definitely a Caesar's thumbs up for this book: 

And, since the movie Gladiator is one of my favorites, I just had to throw in my favorite quote from that movie, too. 

What's your favorite historical fiction or  favorite period from history? 

Best friends and ex best friends

Four things I want to share today:

1) For writers: I'm always slow to hear about things on Twitter, but #diversitywl is worth mentioning: agents have started using it to express what they are looking for in relation to diversity. Way cool! (also #WeNeedDiverseBooks)

2) For readers: I think the #bookaday tag - sharing 30 books in June - is really neat. I'm going try to remember to tweet daily on this one and write a couple posts on it too.

3) I am seriously excited for June 17th when Ruin and Rising releases, book three in Leigh Bardugo's fantasy with Russian roots. Also July 24th when Like No Other, by Una LaMarche, releases. Two kids with very different cultural and racial backgrounds who lived across the street from each other their whole lives but never met - until a hurricane hits and they're stuck in an elevator together.

4) Today is the release for My Best Friend, Maybe, by Caela Carter.  Four really cool things about this book (it's a day of fours!)

1) it's set in Santorini, Greece. Love love love love....

2) Amazing writing

3) A complicated friendship between two girls

4) Thoughtful handling of religious issues

I recently wrote about some of my favorite YA books centered on friendships instead of romantic relationships, or where the friendship is more than just a prop or plot device.  This is a great addition to that list; and one of the more complicated friendships I’ve come across in fiction.  Colette and Sadie used to be best friends, until Sadie started putting other friends in front of Colette.  That’s the gist of it, but there’s so much more to their story.

Friendship dynamics are fascinating and with so much potential for hurt and misunderstanding, and this book does a great job handling both the good: wonderful flashbacks of the strong moments in the friendship –

– and the bad: the weirdness and awkwardness of life when BFF turns to XBF.

“Do you really need for me to get milkshakes?” she asked. I did. I clearly did. But that word “need” sounded so pathetic. I needed her to want to get milkshakes. I needed her to rank all her friends for me so that I could hear my name at the top of the list. I was afraid I was sinking lower and lower on it, and if I sunk too low on Sadie’s friend list, I might sink out of real life. 

I loved Sadie’s nickname for Colette: Coley. Some names just make me smile, and this one hit the spot.

I liked that Coley’s confusion over Sadie and her yearning to understand what happened also affected her relationship with her boyfriend – because real relationships are messy, like that. So often friends get neglected when a girl gets involved with a boy, so it was kind of nice to see the reverse here since Coley’s plans are to spend the summer in Costa Rica on a mission trip with Mark, but she chooses to change her plans at the last minute when Sadie invites her to join her family in Greece.

This wasn’t an easy choice. There’s something really drawing about a character with conflicting wants, torn between two “loves” and uncertain about the best path to take.  I liked how Coley would swing from one side to the other, and then back; that indecision and uncertainty just rang true to me.

Poor Mark! I really liked the guy, because he treats Coley like a gentleman, and then there’s his freckles: “His smile makes his cheeks puff out and rearranges his freckles. I love how I never know quite where to look for them.“  Another scene: “he looks so sad, hazel eyes pasted to the driveway, freckles practically drooping.”

Coley’s life is also complicated by her mother, who is a control freak (“She can give me a guilt trip even internationally.”) And a religious control freak, to boot. More about that in a moment.

The story really takes off though once Coley’s left her boyfriend and her family behind and arrives in Santorini. Oh my goodness, Santorini! I’d read just about any book set on a Greek island, but the descriptions were so well done in this story, and fit so well with the complicated friendship.

It’s impossible to sleep long enough on an island this beautiful. All of this beauty makes me wonder why God decided we ever have to sleep in the first place.

Coley’s hotel room was in a cave! So that actually makes sense on a very steep island, where just about everything is built in the hillsides. And it sounded like a really lovely, cozy cave.

But now we’re here, across the world in a cave in Santorini where the sun is so strong it almost has a smell and the stairs carved into the sides of the cliffs allow you to see everything at once and yet have a million surprises a day.

More complications ensue between Sadie and Coley while on the island, and a surprising secret is revealed that complicates things even more. It’s spoilery, so I won’t go into that, but Coley didn’t process it very well at first. But I loved her eventual conclusion, because I could really relate to it in one of my own complicated friendships.

I have to mention Sam – Sadie’s adopted Haitian brother who Coley starts crushing on. I wanted more of Sam! – though I know the focus of the book had to be on Coley and Sadie, I sure wish I could have gotten a few more details about Sam. He only mentions once how it felt being adopted into a white family. I could eat up a whole book about such a character. More, more! Also, he and Coley had such chemistry:

“Yes?” Sam says.

“I thought I screwed everything up,” I say.  

He smiles. “You’re only one person. In the whole universe. You can’t screw everything up.”

Sam actually had me googling Haitian models, and this is what I came up with.

Karl Daniel, from Haiti

Kendrick Kemp, from the Bahamas

I'd love to share more pictures, but... ahem. Back to the story.

So I mentioned that Coley’s mom was a religious control freak. As a Christian mom, it was good for me to read about Coley’s mom so I could learn what kind of mom I don’t want to be. Until the end, that is, when she says this really cool thing:

 “Look, I don’t know what’s happening with your father. After all these years I’m finally going to apologize and I hope he’ll hear me. But no matter what happens, you’re my kid, my daughter, okay? And when you get home, the first thing I’m going to do is listen to you.”

I struggled with the parts of the story that involved Christian activities (e.g. youth group, mission trip) and Coley’s perception of these: they were just a rote part of her life. She had no passion for them, which actually makes sense, since she didn’t ever mention a passion for the Lord. That’s not what I’m complaining about; and I realize if she WAS passionate about the Lord, this book would have been published by a different publisher. But I can’t help wishing the book also included a contrast to Coley’s perception. Just so readers could get a little taste of what a mission trip means to a passionate believer. I love it when stories show contrasts like this.

But as far as other contrasts and complications, especially with friendships, this book was spot on! And did I mention Santorini?

What dreamy setting are you craving for your summer reading?

How to start an epic story and giveaway

I'll get to the epic story stuff in just a moment, but first, let me tie it into a personal story.  February has not been a good month for me. One of my seven year old twins broke her arm (badly! - three pins needed to put it back together badly!) riding one of our horses because I DID NOT GET THE SADDLE tightened properly and it slipped on her. She had to have surgery (amazing scopic surgery without an incision, but still, SURGERY!) And then this Sunday, I caused a car wreck because I was driving off in la-la-land. No one was hurt, thank goodness, but still. A CAR WRECK. My car will be in the shop all week. Plus, a few other smaller things have happened that have made me a little blue this month.

NOT A GOOD MONTH (for my whole life, it seems like February has just been a blue month for me. Thank goodness it's only 28 days long). 

This weekend after my car wreck I was so blue that I didn't know what to do with myself. The same negative thoughts kept replaying. I couldn't even distract myself with a good book. So I'm just randomly surfing the internet trying to distract myself from all these sad, negative thoughts. And I check in at one of my favorite writing blogs, Adventures in Children's Publishing. They are doing a giveaway for the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, all three books signed by the author (the last book is coming out soon) and to celebrate, Martina Boone did a first pages analysis of Daughter of Smoke and Bone to show how to start an epic story (Daughter of S & B is SO VERY EPIC).

(You should definitely go sign up for that giveaway! It ends tomorrow!!!) 

It's been a year since I read Daughter, but as I was re-reading the first couple paragraphs that Martina was analyzing, not only was I enjoying seeing how to start an epic story, but I was totally getting sucked into the story again. Here's the first paragraph: 

Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, Karou had no sinister premonitions about the day. It seemed like just another Monday, innocent but for its essential Mondayness, not to mention its Januaryness. It was cold, and it was dark--in the dead of winter the sun didn't rise until eight--but it was also lovely. The falling snow and the early hour conspired to paint Prague ghostly, like a tintype photograph, all silver and haze.

I immediately identified with the "no sinister premonitions". (I hadn't had premonitions how bad my day was going to be, either). I also loved how Martina pointed out how the setting sets the mood. Mondayness, Januaryness (I could easily substitute Februaryness in there!), ghostly. 

Martina sums it up perfectly: "those lines give you everything. Character. Voice. Setting. A hint of danger." Also a question... the character doesn't have any sinister premonitions, but by just telling us that we know that she SHOULD have sinister premonitions. Something is going to happen... what? what? something is going to happen in a ghostly dark Prague morning. I MUST KNOW. Especially since I already have an emotional connection to this girl. We're feeling the same Januaryish/Februaryish feelings. 

Then the next paragraph: 

On the riverfront thoroughfare, trams and buses roared past, grounding the day in the twenty-first century, but on the quieter lanes, the wintry peace might have hailed from another time. Snow and stone and ghost light, Karou's own footsteps and the feather of steam from her coffee mug, and she was alone and adrift in mundane thoughts: school, errands. The occasional cheek-chew of bitterness when a pang of heartache intruded, as pangs of heartache will, but she pushed them aside, resolute, ready to be done with that.

More atmospheric, moody, foreshadowy setting, and emotion. Really, the SAME emotion I was feeling (though for different reasons):  a touch of bitterness and heartache, those naggy "if only" thoughts that are sometimes so hard to chase away. 

Martina says the author "paints the descriptions of Prague with the brush of Karou's aching vulnerability. But she doesn't wallow there. Instead, she immediately sets Karou into heroic motion"... Now what got me thinking was that Karou's "heroic motion" was simply encountering her ex-boyfriend, the cause of her aching vulnerability, as he tries to charm her back into his untrustworthy arms, and she resists him. She doesn't give into the temptation.

And this may sound corny, but I knew right then that I could resist the whole "I'm feeling so sorry for myself, my life sucks, I'm an idiot" self-talk and I could face that I'd made some mistakes, but they didn't have to make me miserable or keep holding back with negativity. 

And then I immediately went to my book shelf and found Daughter of Smoke and Bone and completely enjoyed myself reading the first half of this book all over again. My story certainly isn't epic, like Karou's, but as readers we identify with characters on the small things, too. 

There's more to Martina's excellent analysis plus a photo tour of her recent visit to Prague. Go check it out! 

And share with me the last time you identified with a character right on the first page, what book was it???

Top Ten Things on my reading wishlist

There are only a few times a year I really get into Twitter, and my #1 favorite hashtag is #RBWL (reader/blogger wish list), where readers share what kinds of stories they'd like to read. For a reader AND a writer, like me, it's like a great big idea brainstorming session.  Here's more information about #RBWL.

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish blog with a different top ten list theme (all related to books) every Tuesday (see the full list here).

10.  Classic stories retold with a twist - like set in the future, instead of the past, or in a different setting, from a teenage perspective.  We've had plenty of Jane Austen book retellings... now give me Little Women retellings, Tarzan retellings, Jules Verne retellings...

9. Similarly, give me myth retellings and mythical creatures from all different cultures.  I have a personal fascination for Hungarian myths, but I'd love to learn more about Russian myths, Australian, Indonesian, Patagonian.... even urban myths! Give me mythical creatures that we don't already know: like duendes (Latin American) vodnik (Slovakian), encantado (Brazilian), leshy (eastern European)

8.  Religion vs. Relationship

Religion is fraught with peril because it stirs up strong feelings. Handled deftly (not all one-sided, not heavy-handed), I love this sort of tension: in contemporary settings, historical, and multi-cultural. 

7.  Family adventures

The whole family having an adventure together? Sisters, brothers, parents, even a grand parent or crazy aunt or two? This sounds so RARE and INTERESTING.  Here's two good examples:

6. Extreme settings like deserts and rainforests and cloudforests or combinations thereof. I want a book set on the Skeleton coast of Africa, or the Atcama desert of South America, or - I just discovered this term - a paleodesert! 

5. Unique love shapes and tangles

The standard girl-boy-boy love triangle has been overdone, but there could be so much more creative combinations!

4. Historical/contemporary parallels
Contemporary books with historical ties via old diaries, science fiction time twisty ties between present and past, like Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.

3. Historical fantasy

I love history, and I love fantasy. Put them together, and I just thrum with happiness. Closely related to that is high fantasy that closely mirrors real cultures and history. 

2. Space opera

I've been finding some great space books lately, like These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Linked by Imogen Howson. But I want MOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEE!!!!! 

1.5.  Mysterious and magical books and libraries

I've talked about this before, lots (here and here). More than books containing a secret or clue or spell... magical books that comes alive, that write themselves, or books that erase themselves or change their contents... whose characters or settings can come to life

1. Compelling, strong-but-flawed female heroes with unconventional strengths (not conventional weapons) 

Bonus:  Famous stories retold from a different point of view

What's on your reading wishlist?