Nerd Girl Reads & Writes

No more books for me!

2012-05-23T19:37:00.002-07:00

As of today, I am on a self-imposed book buying ban.

That's it. No more.

I sink wayyyy too much money into my every-growing TBR stack. Seriously, it's like a disease. And since the pace of my reading has slowed to a trickle during my revision stages, I'm putting a stop to this.

I need to save up for England. I don't want books eating up that money. All the shiny new books I want (Second Chance Summer, In Honor, oh how I want you...) will still be around when I'm back from my trip and rolling in the cash again.

Help me stay strong, dear blog readers! I'll need all the encouragement I can get!

Review: Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

2012-05-21T15:08:00.003-07:00

I won't even bother posting cover images in my reviews anymore. I'm just so lazy. I always think I should, but the thought of even trying to obtain a properly sized image and format it correctly... just makes me want to go to bed. Mentally exhausting. So my reviews from this point on will just be thoughts spewed out onto my keyboard, and if you don't like it, well, I'll link to Goodreads so you can see the pretty pictures.

I read and really enjoyed Kirsten Hubbard's debut novel, Like Mandarin, so I knew she could craft a great story and a beyond-amazing setting going into Wanderlove. I anticipated that I'd like Wanderlove a lot for those reasons.

And hot damn, I was right. But I didn't quite anticipate what this book would do to me.

So our protagonist is Bria Sandoval. She just graduated from high school and just broke up with a controlling boyfriend who didn't deserve her at all and why the heck couldn't she see that, come on Bria, you're way too good for him and gahhhh.

I effing loved Bria. I don't say this often about YA protagonists. I've been known to get hives at any inkling of angst from a Too Stupid To Live heroine, which are all too common in this little book community. Bria is the oppose of TSTL. Even when she annoyed me, like in her memories of her idiot boyfriend, she wasn't being stupid. She was being real.

That's what I didn't anticipate about this book. How it would remind me of myself in so, so many different ways.

This book is about traveling. Backpacking in Central America, to be precise, which is not a place I've ever dreamed of going. Hot, sticky, tropical climates and hot, sticky, dirty backroad methods of travel are definitely not my thing. But it doesn't matter, because Wanderlove really did awaken wanderlove in me.

When I was fourteen, I got the chance to go to France with my French Immersion school. I leapt at the chance, got a job, and worked for a year to pay for the ten-day trip myself, no help from Mommy and Daddy. Five years ago this month, I went, had a fabulous time, and returned with my appetite whetted, ready to jet off again the next chance I got.

My family isn't big on traveling. We do road trips -- I've been all over most of my province squashed in a car with my brother and sister -- but I had never even been on a plane before my France trip. The chance for me to go somewhere else hasn't come yet, even five years later. Soon. I've scraping my pennies together to go to England, but then my car broke down and I had to buy a new one and some health-related stuff happened in my family and it's been one delay after another for the past year and it's looking like maybe I can go in September. It's feeling really far away, like it might never happen.

And that's what Wanderlove reminded me: that I want it so, so bad. I want to get out of here, go somewhere different, learn new things and see beauty. I was starting to forget that, in the wake of financial trouble and delays and things getting in my way. I had almost forgotten that the enormous desire to just go is all I really need. As long as I have that, I'll find a way.

So, yeah. My review of Wanderlove is actually a ramble about my own sad little life. Ah, well. That's the mark of a good book. I was too wrapped up in what it was making me feel and what it was giving to me that nothing else mattered. It's a great story. Great writing. Kirsten's illustrations are gorgeous (although I wish there were a lot more of them), and even though Central America never really appealed to me before, I keep finding myself Googling pictures of the locales in the book and sighing, thinking "maybe, someday."

In short, it's really good. You should read it. Escape inside it's pages and then work towards Bria's journey of discovery yourself, one day.

So this NYT article made me have feelings

2012-05-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

And thoughts. So many feelings and thoughts.

Maureen Johnson wrote a great blog post about this a while back, so my own feels kind of useless, but I just can't pass up the opportunity to say some things.

Okay. So. This is the article. You should read it; I promise it's interesting.

...

...did you read it?

Okay, well, I was a child who wrote novels. I was thirteen when I wrote my first one, and I did that thing the whole publishing industry is kind of figuring out right now -- I wrote a fanfiction and then switched the names and called it original fiction. I laugh about it now, but at the time I was proud as fucking punch and dead set on getting it published.

But I didn't.

Thank GOD I didn't. I don't have any of the novel anymore, and I wish I did because it was so awful it would be great for comedic value, but it was bad. Seriously, seriously bad. And luckily, not too long after I wrote it, I realized that. I put it away and started something else.

Rinse and repeat. I wrote a novel. I'd look at it again, decide it wasn't going anywhere, start something new.

Until I was eighteen, I never queried. And I'm so glad I didn't. I saved myself a lot of angst.

I also didn't self-publish.

And I'm infinitely glad I didn't self-publish.

If I, or my parents, had decided to self-publish my first awful novel, I doubt I would be the writer I am today. Sure, maybe I would have been proud and excited and felt like a rockstar for a couple weeks, but right now I would be pretty damn mortified.

I probably wouldn't have continued writing.

When you take an unfinished product -- it feels awful, calling a kid's first novel a 'product' -- and you put it into "real book" form, you're validating it. You're putting it on a pedestal and calling it an achievement. Of course, finishing a novel is an achievement at any age. But it's not just about finishing a novel. It's about the journey, and this phenomenon of parents paying to self-publish their kids' books cuts that journey off. It moves the end point up and deprives the young writer of all the growth they could gain.

Publication is the end point for a lot of writers' journeys. Outside validation of our work -- it's what we're all in pursuit of. But if you take Little Timmy's book and say "yes, Timmy, good job, you are truly an accomplished novelist," Timmy is just going to feel good about himself for a few seconds and move on.

He's not going to have anything else to work for. He's going to feel like he's been there, accomplished that. He's not going to grow as a writer.

I understand why parents would want to reward their children. I understand why parents do this. But I can't help but think it's too much. It's coddling, and it's not going to be good for the kids in the long run.

Random update & a music rec

2012-05-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Whoa, Blogger... change everything since my last post, why don't you... so confused. I hate when websites change their looks/interfaces/almost everything. It's so disorienting. It makes me feel like an ancient thing.

Anyway. I have a few reviews in the pipeline, and a few post ideas, so I guess stay tuned for those. Mostly I'm just working a lot (got this promotion at work back in January and still kind of adjusting to it) and writing a bit. Working on a first draft again. That's weird.

I mentioned it in a post a little while ago, but this new book is a big departure for me. Well, not really, since it's still YA, but this one has a magical realism twist similar to Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. If I had to pick two things to compare it to, I'd say it's like Francesca Lia Block wrote a mash-up of Before I Fall and It's A Wonderful Life. I love it so far, but it's a challenge. It's kind of coming out slow, which I have to remind myself is okay.

Aside from writing, Kate Miller-Heidke is ruling my life these days. I discovered her last album about a year and a half ago, and her new album, Nightflight, just came out and it is frickin' amazing, guys. It's the first album in a while I've been able to immerse myself in completely. It just... works. As an album, as a story, as an experience, it all just comes together. I love that, when an album is an album, a cohesive whole.

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling and leave you with the title track from Kate Miller-Heidke's new album :) see you soon.

Getting it wrong the first time

2012-04-22T20:50:00.002-07:00

So you're writing your new WIP. The first draft is going great. You're loving your characters, you're making your own head spin with the sheer awesomeness of your plot... and then you get to the end. And you heave a big sigh and congratulate yourself.

And then, sometime later -- whether that day, or that week, or whenever you pull your manuscript out and kickstart your revisions -- you realize you got. It. All. Wrong.

ALL OF IT.

You completely misunderstood your own intentions with this novel. Your plot zigged when it clearly should have zagged. Your MC's best friend randomly acts like a douche when that's the complete opposite of how they should be acting.

You ask yourself, "How the bloody hell did I not notice how wrong this all is?!"

I do this almost every single book I write. First drafts, as they say, really are shit. My first drafts always get it wrong. My character arcs are so muddled and confused and when I start revising, I almost laugh at how wonky everything is.

Revisions, to me, are really re-visions. Focusing all the messiness from my first-draft delirium. Fine-tuning all the slightly-off characters. Sometimes rewriting entire plots after they make absolutely zero sense.

My current WIP only shares about 20% of the content from the original draft I wrote back in August. At first, it was just a book about a boy who falls in love with the prince. It was cute and stuff, but it was lacking immediacy. Lacking danger. No stakes.

In my revision, I killed off the prince's dad and suddenly, my male MC's male love interest was the frigging king. Um, hello stakes!

I had the story so completely wrong. I don't even know what I was thinking, back in August.

Whoever said that writerly cliché -- "Writing is rewriting" -- they were so right.

Pointless Rant: YA Love Interests

2012-04-20T16:54:00.002-07:00

When I was typing that title, at first I typed Pantless Rants. Let me assure you, I am most definitely wearing pants.

So, ahem.

YA love interests.

If you know me in real life (I think that's maybe one of you) or, more likely, you've encountered me on Goodreads or AW, you might've heard a tiny complaint or two from me about YA love interests (hereby referred to as LIs).

I feel like my feelings on the matter have to bubble over into a big ranty blog post.

Let's face it: most YA novels have romance. Because most teen girls love it or at least like it, and the YA readership is almost entirely made up of girls. I love YA novels that focus on things besides romance, but I do love me a good romance, too.

Heard my unrelenting, unabashedly loud declarations of love for Anna and the French Kiss yet? *cough*

But lately, in reading YA romances, I've been getting feelings of déjà vue. I see the same LI over and over and over again and I'm like, "I've vue-d this, déjà."

Tall. Dark. Smirking. Smart-aleky. Pouty-lipped. Dreamy-eyed. Mysterious past. Probably the desire of every other girl in the school, but only has eyes for our MC.

SEEN IT.

I'm seriously getting sick of this.

When you were in high school, or if you are currently in high school... if you've ever had a crush on a teenage boy yourself... have you ever seen one like this? And if you have, and if you're the bookish, quiet girl all these MCs seem to be, did he only ever have eyes for you?

No. Those boys? They're usually douchebags.

Bad boys are sort of delicious. I mean, who doesn't swoon a little at the defiance of authority? I've been known to, occasionally. But... in real life, those guys our nerdy little MC girls fall for, they're bad news. I've fallen for them. They will break your heart and then hook up with their bad girl counterparts, who then proceed to mock you every day at school.

Can we please get some realistic guys in YA? Please?

Why can't the swoon-factor come from a guy's freckles instead of his biceps or abs? Why can't the moment of falling in love come from Mr Average giving you his last Tic Tac instead of gazing into smouldering eyes in a model-like pouty face?

Y'know that saying "nice guys finish last"? Why don't we change that? Why don't mean, badass, unattainably distant guys who ignore girls finish last, and harmlessly sweet funny guys start finishing first?

And I'm not going to ignore the other side of the coin here. As far as female LIs go, we've got the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Instead of being cold and distant, our MPDG is warm and welcoming and kind of too forward and on the surface, she seems a little crazy. She probably harbours some dark secrets, just like the male LI, but on the surface she's gleeful and adventurous and quirky beyond belief.

I've been the MPDG. I showed a little bit of personality around a certain guy, and he latched onto me. Seemed to think the world of me. It made me feel a little drunk at first. I unleashed every crazy impulse I'd ever had. We stayed out all night, drove to every school playground in the town and sat on swings and talked about life. Then we drove to the top of a waterfall and threw rocks two hundred feet down and talked about even more deep stuff. I felt like the coolest person ever.

But I wasn't being myself. I was being the person he thought I was. I dressed my personality up to impress him. And he got bored. And we both got hurt when the relationship burned out after two weeks.

One MPDG character is original, but when she becomes this character type, it becomes too easy to fit people into that box. Same with Mr Douchebag LI. They become tropes, cardboard cutouts with no real personality. And when they start to crop up all over the place, it's a symptom of laziness.

I try every day not to be a lazy writer. If I catch myself writing what's easy -- turning a character into a recognizable "type" -- I stop. I look at what I've done. And I turn it on its head.

I want a character. Not a character type.

Blogger's block. And hockey.

2012-04-15T19:30:00.003-07:00

I don't really know what to do here anymore.

I've been kind of MIA from the blog lately. I don't know, something inside me just kinda dried up. I have a couple ideas for posts, but it seems like the world of YA blogs has just gotten so fancy and I feel like I'll be left in the dust for keeping it simple, y'know? I don't do flashy pictures (I actually find it very tiresome to add pictures to my blog posts and avoid it at all costs), I don't do detailed reviews listing all the book info and links and all that fancy stuff everyone else seems to do.

I want to keep it real here. I want this blog to be a treasure trove of randomosity, but at at the same time, sometimes when I'm writing posts or brainstorming I think to myself, "Who do you think you are? Who would want to read this? You're nobody."

Am I wrong?

But then, nobody is forced to read my blog shit. Really I shouldn't care what I post, because it is mine, after all. Right?

: /

Anyway, it's Stanley Cup playoff time. Canucks are down two games in the series agains the L.A. Kings, which makes me annoyed because we're so much better than the Kings almost all the time but come playoff time, we fall apart? What? Game 3 starts right now, and I'm hiding away in my room instead of joining the family to watch it. Hockey love hurts. I don't want to see them lose. I think I'll join in mid-first period, to take the anxiety off. The opening minutes hurt sometimes.

I love hockey. That thought just occurred to me. I've kind of entertained the thought (very, very quietly in the back of my mind) of starting a hockey blog, but then, I'm not an expert commentator and all I can really offer is one girl's opinion. But then, what's the matter with that, right? And who cares about audience? I could write hockey rants to my heart's content, just for me.

Also I'm entertaining the thought of writing a YA novel that takes place in the NHL world. Again, thoughts of who would want to read that? keep coming at me.

I guess, what I'm trying to tell you (and myself) is not to worry about what other people think.

Yeah. That.

I guess.

go canucks go!

Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

2012-04-07T17:12:00.002-07:00

This book is nothing special. You'd think, from all the hype leading up to its release, that it was groundbreaking. Thrilling. Mysterious and tightly-plotted and exhilarating like the jacket copy. You would be wrong.

Why do I constantly get pulled in by the hype? I've been bitten so many times that by now I should learn to adapt my expectations and stop being so "omg have to buy all the new books rite naaoooo." I'm getting better. I think. But the Mara Dyer hype bug bit me so hard and now here I am, months later, still scratching at the itchy bite it left behind.

I'll start with the good, because there are some things I liked here.

The cliffhanger chapter endings

They really made me want to read more more more. If there's one thing to learn from this book, it's how to hook a reader into turning each page. I finished the book pretty quickly and never felt like the story dragged.

Mara was an okay protagonist

I remember chuckling at some of her jokes. I thought she was fairly spunky, and downright dynamic compared to the Bella Swans of the world. But spunkiness doesn't excuse her from some of her graver transgressions, as I'll talk about.

The cover is pretty

Because, let's face it, we all read this book because of that cover. More on this later too.

So, that's basically it. A handful of good things. Now, the not-so-good...

A certain misogynist doucheshit named Mr. Noah Shaw makes everything turn to shit

Mara was spunky on her own, but once Noah makes an appearance on the page, it's ALL ABOUT HIM AND YOU NEVER HEAR ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.

I'm okay with romance. I write a great deal of swooning over dreamy love interests, myself. But this character is not real! He is the biggest cardboard cutout I've ever read in my entire reading life.

If you're anywhere from a novice to halfway decent writer, or an avid reader, you can probably craft an okay character, or at least conceptualize what makes a good one.

Flaws. Realistic traits. A believable, sympathetic backstory. Believable physical description. A certain pinch of magic to make it all jive and come together as the soul of a person in your mind.

Now, let's list some points about Noah Shaw and discuss.

-- He's rich.

Okay, I've written rich characters before. I've read about plenty. Sometimes you have to work a little harder to make people who seem like they have it all seem real and actually like people you'd want to know. Noah Shaw? Arrogant douche. He's the kind of rich we all hate. He peels a couple thousand dollars off a wad of cash in his wallet at one point in the story and acts as though it's nothing. He lives in a palatial mansion and gives no real acknowledgement that this isn't normal, or that he's lucky, or anything. His wealth could easily be used as a tool to characterize him. He could come from a long line of hardy people who worked like dogs for their money. He could be a spoiled rich boy trying to transcend his privileged background and do good for the world. A million other options. But Noah Shaw is just rich for the sake of swooniness. His wealth isn't used to say something about him, it's simply a reason for female readers to fawn.

-- He's arrogant.

How do you think someone with his head stuck so far up his ass would be treated in the real world? I'm going to let you in on a secret: my best friend is kind of a douche. He's pretty arrogant, seems to think he understands everything about everybody, and assumes things all the time about people he doesn't know. It infuriates and embarrasses me sometimes. And when he vocalizes how damn arrogant he is, people don't like it. His boldness drives a lot of people away. So why is Noah Shaw so universally liked?

This is more a comment on the douchey love interests in YA in general, but seriously. In real life, when people act like jerks, like "bad boy" love interests do with the drippy female MCs, it doesn't make you want to sleep with them. It makes you want to go stabby-stabby.

-- He's British.

Oh, this is the worst one.

I'm not going to mention Jamie, Mara's token bisexual-black-Jewish-adopted friend (his existence just insults me), because it's been talked about by better reviewers. But something that isn't talked about as much is Noah Shaw's British accent, even though it's the same kind of tokenism at work.

Noah suffers from a condition running a little rampant in YA... BFNRS, or British For No Reason Syndrome.

This book takes place in Florida. All the characters are American and the story has no ties, whether literal or thematic, to England. SO WHY IN GOD'S NAME IS NOAH BRITISH?!?!?!

Same thing as his wealth: swoon factor.

GOD! This irritates me to no fucking end.

...what was I talking about again?

The story sucks.

What the hell actually happened in this book? Some mysterious stuff happened to Mara, then she met Noah and there was much sexual chemistry, then a bunch of romantic shit happened interspersed with some mysterious bullshit... something about voodoo... some random crocodiles... someone got kidnapped (wtf was that, seriously)... and then lame-as-shit cliffhanger that didn't make any sense?

The main reason this book pisses me off is that it's bloated.

Noah's Britishness.

The crocodile part.

The kidnapping, which I barely remember because it was so random.

The voodoo part.

Most of the stuff with the dog.

All of these things could be sliced right off the manuscript without any damage to the actual story. I felt like this book was a lump of half-plots that didn't really connect to form a whole, complete arc. I'm just left shaking my head and asking how the heck this got published.

Let's play a game!

I challenge you to come up with a story that would suit that gorgeous cover. I bet you almost anything it would be better than this one.

Trying Something New

2012-03-12T15:43:00.002-07:00

So I finished the revisions of the book that was untitled which now has a title -- A BRAVER THING -- and it is now out to betas. I intended to give myself a long break from writing because I'm way behind on my reading and really sucking at finishing books. The last book I finished was back in January. JANUARY! Since then I've started, put down, started, put down, and just generally been slow. I hate that feeling, since I love reading almost more than anything.

But, of course, just when I don't really want to write, an idea burns up my mind and refuses to let me forget about it.

This Shiny New Idea has been plaguing me since early November, when I thought of it five days into NaNo, when it was too late to switch ideas. And now that I'm not currently engaged to another book, it's screaming write me, write me! You've been planning characters and scenes out in your head for four months now and I'm literally too hot to handle so you just have to write me! I promise I'll be beautiful and powerful and oh so enticing to the publishing industry! Come on, just start me, I'll practically write myself!

It's so seductive.

I'm so, so excited to start it. But... it's screaming to be written in third person. Which I haven't written since I was thirteen.

Part of me is scared of leaving behind my first person default, but part of me is so desperate for some change in voice. Lately I've felt like I'm writing the same thing over and over. Change could be an awesome, amazing thing right now.

Oh, what the hell am I so worried about? I'm just going to go start the damn book! :)

The Summary For Every Paranormal YA Ever

2012-03-05T18:25:00.004-08:00

So I've been dicking around on Goodreads for the past million hours, reading reviews and summaries and dissecting every little thing (you know, as one does) and it occurred to me that most publisher-provided book summaries sound exactly alike. There are stock phrases used in a lot of blurbs that you would probably recognize -- "dark secrets," "enigmatic strangers," "...will never be the same," etc. Even blurb construction from summary to summary is similar, and once you've been reading them for long enough, they all sound very much alike.

YA Paranormal Romance is probably the worst genre for this blurb-alike phenomenon. I swear, some days I feel so jaded that I could look at a cover and title and come up with a generic YA blurb and it probably wouldn't be that far off from the real summary. So, feeling particularly jaded and bitter today, I started to copy and paste quotes and phrases from various YA paranormal blurbs and cobbled them together into a master generic blurb. Then I amped up the silliness because, let's face it, it's just more fun when parodies are over-the-top.

So here's my Summary For Every Paranormal YA Ever. It's all in good fun, but there's a grain of edumacational goodness here, too: writers? Don't write stories like this. They are tired. Let's please write original stories. I will probably tackle other genres with generic blurbs, too, because it's fun and I'm procrastinating, as always.

Here it is!

After the tragic death of Girl’s parents, Girl hears voices and has visions. On the night of her seventeenth birthday, she meets two enigmatic strangers. Boy McNextdoor is all-American and fun, but she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Dark McHandsome, who reveals that she's a reincarnated goddess and that he has been her protector for centuries, because for some reason powerful goddesses need protectors. He’s also mean and borderline abusive but Girl is intrigued by his brooding ways.

Now Girl must choose which male figure to devote her life to. Should she choose safe, average Boy McNextdoor, who is nice and stuff but not enough of a jerk? Or should she choose the destiny that has already been pre-chosen for her, a life with Dark McHandsome? Should she choose wrong, the entire universe could explode. For some reason.

I'm not trying to pick on any one book or author. Just expressing my frustrations with YA as a whole.

You should write a scene to this song. Yes, you.

2012-02-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

I don't know how popular they are in the States or abroad, but Marianas Trench is a big deal here. Probably because they're from here. They're definitely one of the most successful Vancouver bands, after Hedley. Anyway, I loved their first album when it came out about five years ago, but kind of lost touch with their music.

This new album, though? Holy crap. Talk about ambitious. This song is the best. It's been on repeat in my headphones for days. One of the most emotional songs I've ever heard. It's definitely going to be influencing my writing in a big way very soon.

Happy listening! :)

Teaser Tuesday: Valentine's Edition

2012-02-14T12:23:00.001-08:00

I'm not the kind of person who celebrates Valentine's Day. Mostly because I've never had a real relationship, but also because of the dang commercialization of the thing. But even if I'm not a true believer in the holiday, doesn't mean I can't write a good love scene!

So here's a scene from my current, untitled WIP. Two boys and a dormitory bathroom. This is where everything seemed impossible but the first kiss opened up a world of possibilities. Hope you like it!

“Tristan?”

His voice is close. Not in his room, not in this room, but in between.

“Yes?”

I twist the doorknob. The bathroom light falls across Malcolm’s face. He leans against the doorjamb, looking at me with doleful eyes. I open my mouth to ask what’s up, but nothing comes out.

His eyes flicker towards the floor, then back to my face, then his eyelashes flutter shut.

“I -- I...”

All of a sudden I know what he wants. I think I know. Recklessly, I lean forward and press my lips against his.

There’s a single, suspended second of nothingness. Just our mouths colliding, just Malcolm’s impossible stillness. He’s not kissing me back, oh my God, I’ve done the wrong thing.

He staggers forward, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me closer. He moans deep in his throat. I open my mouth, more out of shock than anything else, and he falls forward into the space it opens up.

I pull back. Malcolm opens his eyes wide.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. He drops his arms from around me.

“W-why are you sorry?”

He scrutinizes my face, breathing hard.

“Is this a dream?” he asks.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes?”

He reaches out, hand shaking, and runs his fingers down my chest. I don’t know what to do so I wrap my arms around his waist like he did to me. Our bodies line up from hip to chest.

“Then don’t stop.”

I Met John Green

2012-02-02T17:12:00.001-08:00

Two nights ago now, I went to the Vancouver stop on the Tour de Nerdfighting! If you are even a little bit of a nerdfighter, you know how funny and intelligent and genuine John and Hank Green are -- and that's exactly how this event was.

And if you've read The Fault in Our Stars and liked it as much as I did, you could probably guess how bittersweet and philosophical and deep John is -- and the night was that, too.

And I have pictures!

First, while waiting outside in the pouring, Vancouver rain, my sister and I spotted the van outside! Couldn't resist taking a picture in front of it.

It's hard to see in crappy iPhone quality, but those little marks on cartoon John and Hank's faces? Lipstick! :P Not mine, although I should have thought to bring something other than invisible chapstick.

Unlike most concerts/shows/readings, at this one, photos and video-recording was highly encouraged! Unfortunately I don't own a video camera or even a regular camera, and my sister's iPhone is the only smartphone in the family, so memory-capturing was limited. All I have to share is this picture:

And yes, a puppet show really was performed. And so was a cover of The Proclaimers's "500 Miles." It was awesome.

At the end of the show, John signs books. Yes, again. My copy of TFIOS was already signed, but I could not pass up the opportunity to meet my heroes and get John to actually write my name in my copy. Since the event was sold out, with upwards of 400 people crammed into the tiny theatre, and the line for the signing wound from the stage, up the aisles, out into the lobby, and looped back around into the theatre again, and then into spirals, I thought it would take hours. But I was standing in line barely twenty minutes. John and Hank stressed over and over that meeting each person would be very brief -- pretty much "hi," sign, goodbye -- in consideration for everyone at the end of the line, and these guys really pulled it together and made the wait very bearable.

And when I finally got there? Man, my heart was pounding. John has social anxiety, and he even wrote in the show programme that he gets very nervous and never knows what to say to each person, and that made me feel a lot better. So when I got up to the stage, opened my book and he read the post-it note with my name on it, I somehow knew just what to say.

"You're Becca?" he said.

"Yup!"

"Thanks for coming tonight!" he said.

"No problem!"

John smiled and leaned in to write my name and sign a J-scribble. Then my mouth opened.

"Um, my mom is here tonight, and her very favourite band is the Proclaimers, so she was really stoked you guys did that song!"

John looked up, looked me completely straight in the eye, and said, "Oh, no way! That's awesome. Say hi to her for me!"

So I said "No problem!" and he said "Bye! Thanks for making it out!"

And then I moved on and met Hank and he was also completely friendly and overpronounced the hard c sound in my name. And then he said goodnight and I said "Hope to see you again someday!" and he said "Until we meet again!"

And that was it. I hopped off the stage, found my mom and sister, and went home all glowing and happy.

Because you know what? I've met famous people before. I've met guys from bands and news reporters and one (very small-time) Disney Channel actor. And none of them have ever looked me in the eye the way the Vlogbrothers did. I've never come across two people who are more in-tune with their fans, who know how to make each and every person feel appreciated.

It was already true, but that night really cemented my eternal admiration for those guys. I'll always cherish the memories, and I'll be proud to show off this:

And say this:

DFTBA <3

Writing Every Day

2012-01-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

One of my New Years Resolutions was to write every day. No matter what. It didn't have to be a lot -- it could just be a few sentences. Just something to keep myself always moving forward.

I've done it every day this month. Some days it was just a couple sentences at the end of a very busy day, some days it was a couple hundred words. It is hard. There are some days when I want nothing more than to close the stupid document and never look at my own words again. But I force myself to type at least a couple words.

Sure, some days it feels like pulling teeth. But some days, even when it felt like the last thing I wanted was to write, I ended up getting on a roll and writing 2,000 words. If I had been easier on myself and let myself skip a day, those words might never have been written at all.

They aren't all perfect words. But they're words all the same, building the manuscript brick by brick.

So I guess I'm kind of a traitor

2012-01-18T17:32:00.001-08:00

"Traitor" might be a little strong. But... *whispers*... I've gone over to the dark side a little bit.

A few months ago, I purchased an ereader.

Dun dun duuuun!!!

"But Becca," you say, "you swore you were a paper book always-and-forever kinda girl! What gives?"

Well, one of my biggest weaknesses, that's what: shiny pretty things.

This shiny pretty thing:

And oh, it is so, so shiny and pretty. Smooth, matte, black outside, gorgeous crisp display... I love it.

And the act of reading on this gadget is so much easier than I anticipated! The page turns don't lag half as much as what people complain about, the text is super easy to read, and it's light as a feather. Seriously, it barely weighs anything. And even though it's black and white, the covers still look great! And when it's in sleep mode, it displays the cover of the book you're reading, which is a really cute feature that I love. Sure, sometimes I feel a little far removed from the book, not having something really, truly in my hands, but honestly? This way it's easier to stop obsessing about covers and formats and concentrate on what really matters: the story.

Do I still prefer paper books? Well, of course. Although my Kobo has a delicious new plastic scent all its own (think "new car"), I still love the way physical books smell. The way they feel and look so pretty on my shelves. And of course I miss the full glory of gorgeous covers, with foiling and shiny parts and such, but when I have two six-foot bookshelves full to bursting, I don't really have a choice but to buy more ebooks.

I'll still buy physical books, of course. Especially if they're new books in a series or books I really care about physically owning (favourite authors and such), but otherwise I'm going to try to buy electronic. Shelf space is at a premium around here, and cramming them all into this pretty little box suits me just fine.

Review: Zombie Tag by Hannah Moskowitz

2012-01-17T16:50:00.001-08:00

I know Hannah. Not IRL, but in that interwebby friends kind of way. I promise you, that in no way affects this review.

And even if I were just writing this review to kiss ass, the review wouldn't be any different. Because I adored this book. Flat-out adored.

Hannah's books and I haven't always had the best relationships. Break, I had a couple quibbles with. Invincible Summer, I liked more, but wasn't totally in love. Zombie Tag, however, makes me feel like this.

/waltzes with book

And since my love for Hannah books seems to be growing exponentially with each passing release, this definitely bodes well for Gone, Gone, Gone, which I was already salivating for.

Anyway. Zombie Tag.

A while back, I used to be kind of leery of middle grade books. I mean, seriously, I'm like ten years out of their target audience. I used to kind of worry that I wouldn't enjoy middle grade books because I would feel too smart for them. Too sophisticated or something.

Well, with the amount of absolutely stellar MG books I've read lately, like Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, I've learned that this is totally false. And, if you're an older person wary of MG, I highly recommend you read that book and Zombie Tag to experience a complete 180-degree change of mind.

This book has so, so much emotional sophistication packed into its pages I couldn't even believe it. The relationship between Wil and his brother, Graham, was so believable and fraught with emotion. Anyone who's read anything by Hannah already knows that sibling relationships are her specialty, and this one is my favourite out of any she's written. MG is the perfect place for her family-driven stories. Not that her YA suffers for the family relationships, but I feel like it really shines here, in a story for a slightly younger audience.

But a younger audience doesn't mean a stupider one. The world-building in Zombie Tag is, I think, genius. It feels like our regular world, but just enough twists are given for the premise to be believable. One character's parent is a zombie researcher. There are mentions of a zombie outbreak thirty years in the past. These are my favourite kinds of settings: everything's fantastical, but in the most normal of ways. It's reality with a tiny twist.

It's common knowledge among zombie film/literature enthusiasts that zombies work best when they're a symbol for something else. They often represent the soul-crushing conformity that humans sometimes give in to. Hannah's zombies are a metaphor for depression, one that hit me hard. They have no emotions. They're like regular people, but they have no feelings. They're bland, boring, they can't bring themselves to care about anything. On the surface it makes a humorous premise for MG readers -- zombies are sad instead of raging monsters, ha ha -- but the layers of emotional depth here make them so much more. I saw a lot of myself and people I love who have suffered from depression in the zombies, and that made it an even more meaningful story for me.

Zombie Tag is funny. It's cute. It has a killer plot with a great twist. It works perfectly for it's young audience, but it takes on whole new meanings for older readers, which I think every good children's book should do.

In short, you need to read this book. Seriously. If you don't, the zombies will get you.

Goals for 2012

2012-01-03T17:02:00.000-08:00

I wasn't really the kind of person to make New Years Resolutions until last year. And I accomplished that one! So now I feel like I should keep going, because I'm good at goal-keeping. Goaltending? Am I a goalie?

I'll take it. I'm in good company.

Louuuuu!

Anyway, here are my goals for 2012:

1) Read at least 10 more books than I did last year.

I'm not sure if this is going to be difficult or not. I'm kind of a slow reader.

2) Get through my TBR pile and try not to buy as many new books.

This will be hard. My TBR pile will probably keep me going throughout all of 2012. There are a few new releases that I HAVE to get (The Fault in Our Stars, of course, and a few others), but I'm going to try my best to buy the bare minimum of new releases. Once the TBR pile goes down, then I can go back to acquire the latest and greatest.

3) Buy more ebooks.

Physical books, as much as I love them, take up space. Space I don't really have. If I can buy more ebooks, I'll save space and money. Win win.

Of course, I will buy physical books I really want. Some books, especially sequels and books by authors I already own a lot by, have to be present on my shelf.

4) Write every day.

This is probably the most important goal. I want to write every single friggin day. Whether that's just a paragraph or a whole chapter. Doesn't matter. I want to keep my forward momentum. I don't want to get stalled or drained again like I did the past few weeks. Granted, I had valid excuses, but it never feels good to get stuck in a rut.

I think that's all the goals... here's to hoping I can keep all those pucks out of the net.

(I'll stretch the metaphor as far as it'll go; if you hadn't gathered, I'm a hockey fan)

2011, and looking ahead to 2012

2011-12-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

A lot of blogs have been participating in year-end favourites lists, and I've been reading them all with pleasure. I always like to see what different people enjoyed. I've wanted to participate myself, but due to some very sad, very difficult things that have gone on in the past week, I haven't had the energy nor the... enthusiasm I usually have. I don't want to say too much, as this blog doesn't get very personal very often, but it's enough to say that my family has gone through hell and back this week. I may or may not write a blog post about this issue, but until I decide what I'm going to do, I thought I would just write a quite wrap-up to say goodbye to 2011.

At the beginning of 2011, I made a resolution to do something I've never done before: keep track of all the books I read this year. As of right now, the number is 57. 52 of those were YA/MG. The adult books I read were either for literature classes or British mystery novels.

Out of 57 books, you'd think I could come up with maybe a top 10. But my brain power right now is zilch. During the year, as I listed the books I finished, I put a star next to them if they were particular favourites. I'm just going to tell you which books I put a star next to.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins: This would probably be my hands-down favourite book I read this year. This book makes me feel all bubbly and happy inside the same way Disney's Beauty and the Beast does. It speaks to something inside me that just makes me glow. I can't define that. I can't label it. All I know is that any author who can do this to me immediately jumps to my all-time favourites list.

How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford: A very, very close second to Anna, this book also speaks to me in a way most don't. This book makes me feel like, somewhere out there, there are people who totally get me. These characters are my soulmates. I want to crawl inside this book and live there, with Beatrice and Jonah. I want to call in to old timer radio shows and go on imaginary magic carpet rides with them. Like my favourite movie, Ghost World, this book gives us the weird and wonderful and sometimes heartbreaking world we live in and makes it magic.

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson: How to Say Goodbye in Robot reflected the weird world we know, while 13 Little Blue Envelopes shows us the wider aspect of it. This book ignited the wanderer in me and basically inspired the trip to France and England I'm planning for 2012.

The Killings at Badger's Drift by Caroline Graham: One of the few adult books I read this year, it's a murder mystery about an English village. While it isn't as deep and heartfelt as some of the other books I read this year, it does have something amazing going for it: sparkling characters that leap off the page with their chemistry. Chief Inspector Barnaby and Sergeant Troy (who are also my two favourite characters on TV) are gems.

Those are the standouts in my reading for 2011. In 2012, I'm looking forward to Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (of course), The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (also a no-brainer), and too many more to count.

Other awesome things from this year include the film Midnight in Paris and the music of Joss Stone, the Smiths, Jack's Mannequin, Matthew Good, and too many more.

I'm sorry for the understated and sober year-end roundup... but what can I say? I hope 2012 sees me in much better spirits. Happy New Year and much love to you all. I hope to be blogging more soon.

Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

2011-12-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

image from Goodreads

I must confess: this is a review of a book I did not finish.

But there are reasons I did not finish this book and I think they need to be talked about.

I waited a long time to read Shatter Me. I was aware of it before it even had a title, before it had a release date, months and months before it had a cover. I read the author's blog and I find her such a charming person. Regardless of what the book was about or what the cover looked like, I knew I was going to buy it and read it anyway. I support authors like that.

And the internet made no small deal about this book! Probably everyone in the entire YA world was clambering for an ARC and, if they didn't get one, giving the early reviewers the stink-eye. There was a much-hyped book trailer, a much-hyped cover (revealed on MTV!), and some really early rave reviews. The stage was set.

So, does it live up to all that crazy hype?

My answer is no.

Let me explain. From the reviews I read, I knew going in the writing was going to be lyrical. I read a few excerpts that let me in on the style of the novel. In my opinion, it was too much. Way, way, way too much. Every other sentence has a long, rambling metaphor that is beautiful on the surface, but soon becomes too drawn-out and convoluted. At first you're going right along with it because it sounds pretty, but by the time you get to the end of the sentence the meaning is completely jumbled. You start the sentence with a dreamy expression, but by the end your face looks all "WTF?"

I love metaphors. I do. I use many of them myself. Markus Zusak said once in an interview that he thinks each page of a novel should have a gem. That's my theory on metaphors and other pretty devices, too. One per page is nice. One item of beauty per page is perfect.

One. Not ten. I swear, every other sentence of Shatter Me is one of those pretty sentences. It just gets tiring to read and slows the pace down to a molasses-like trickle.

I only got about a quarter of the way into the book before calling it quits, so that's almost too soon to comment on the romance, as it barely got started. But that's just it: I quit so early on because nothing was happening. Adam is the most boring character ever written, I really can't think of a thing to say about him, and Warner? Um, is he supposed to be a love interest? Because I got serious creep vibes. Serious creep vibes. If a guy seems to have put you in prison just to test your abilities and see how you'd react (um, V for Vendetta, anyone??), you do not get involved with him. You do not. I got predatory vibes from him all the way and I can't imagine how that could ever have changed enough for Juliette to want to get it on with him.

Juliette herself is fairly blah. She has the ability to kill people by touching them, apparently, but by a quarter of the way into the book, that ability is barely explained. Mafi skirts the issue, describing Juliette's feels about the power and how her parents and other people reacted to her having the power, but never fully explained how the power worked or what exactly it does. Do people drop down dead when she touches them? Or do they get sick and die gradually? Do they asphyxiate? Or what?

Despite all the hullabaloo, Shatter Me is so messy it's not even funny. It feels like trendbait to me. I never got the feeling that it was a real story. I could never really get past knowing the specifics of the novels creation -- knowing that Jodi Reamer represented it, knowing that it got released the same year as it sold (practically unheard of). I don't think you're missing anything at all if you skip this one.

Please, please, please watch this video

2011-12-01T16:35:00.000-08:00

Aside from being beautiful and absolutely necessary, I think there are very valuable lessons for writers in this. Playing with expectations, perspective, and emotional impact...

Also, it's World AIDS Day. I have had a few family members affected by HIV/AIDS, so it'll be a special day of reflection for me. Bless you all.

I win NaNo!

2011-11-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

30 days.

50,213 words.

One girl. One boy. One murder. One almost-romance.

I'm so glad to have this thing over-with. Not because I didn't enjoy writing it -- I definitely did -- but because now I can go back to my other book. It beckoned me with its siren's call all through November and I missed it like the desert misses the rain. And now we can be together again. My NaNo novel can now spend lots of time in the bottom of the drawer to think about what it's done.

But seriously, it was a good NaNo. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone a little in writing a murder mystery, and it turned out well. I could see myself writing another, possibly even a sequel to this one -- and if you know me at all, you know I am not the kind of writer who writes sequels. So this may just have been a game-changing NaNo! But it needs so much revision, and I'm so tired of it, so it'll definitely be months before I pick this one up again.

I've been up to so much this past month and I haven't blogged half as much as I should have. I have a ton of ideas for posts that should be coming soon. Especially one long overdue one which includes me having met a lovely YA author in person :)

Stay tuned! There's lots to come from me!

And if you won NaNo too, congratulations! How'd it go? Are you going to go back and revise your book, or does it get shoved in a drawer?

IMM & miscellaneous topics vlog!

2011-11-18T18:14:00.001-08:00

Hey! I made a vlog!

Here it is!

I would embed, but the video is too big for my layout >.< Anyways, I enjoyed making it, and I hope to make more soon!

NaNoWriMo Day 12: Yesss, Caught Up! Also, the Smiths

2011-11-12T17:39:00.001-08:00

I fell behind by a few thousand words over the past couple days. I'm not used to being behind during NaNo at all -- usually I can bully myself into writing even when I don't feel like it. But I worked a few long days and had a friend come to town for a short time and I skipped a couple days of writing. So unlike me. Luckily I was a day ahead anyway, so I only ended up being about 3k behind target, but still. It was weird for me.

But today I battled through it and got caught up! Yay! THE DEAD RINGERS currently sits at 20k! And of course it sucks. They all do at first. But there's potential. Unfortunately I got hit with a bad case of SNIA (Shiny New Idea Attack) in the first couple days, so I already have another manuscript brewing in the back of my mind that I have to write sometime, and my Camp NaNo novel still needs a lot of revision... ah well. Life of a writer, amirite??

Here's a song for you. I've been on a Smiths bender the past couple weeks... I'm pretty sure they're my second favourite band of all time.

NaNoWriMo, Day 1!

2011-11-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

So today is Day 1 of NaNoWriMo, as I'm sure you know. Unless you live under a rock. Which I'm pretty sure you don't, if you're reading this blog!

And if you've read this blog before, you'll probably be aware of the fact that I freaking love NaNo.

Well, I capped off Day 1 with 3,367 words. Definitely not as high as my Day 1 in Camp NaNo this summer, where I wrote over 6k. x_x no idea how I did it. But 3,367 is over twice the daily goal, so hooray!

My NaNo novel is titled THE DEAD RINGERS, and it's a YA murder mystery, which is definitely a departure for me. I adore murder mysteries, though, so I'm having a really fun time writing one myself.

I'll have a proper post soon (with pictures!) detailing what I did over the weekend! It was exciting! Stay tuned! Until then, happy writing!

Do You Hate Insta-Love?

2011-10-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Do you hate insta-love, the YA phenomenon where two characters meet and then declare their everlasting love for each other only a few pages or chapters later?

I know I hate it. But this post over on YA Highway made me think a bit.

Teenagers do stupid things. Being a teen is all about experience crazy emotions -- from ecstatic happiness to lowest-of-the-low depression. And insta-love is a part of that. When you were a teen, how many times did you get crushes on guys/girls just because they were hot? All the time, right? That's what a crush is when you're that age. Usually those crushes fizzle out fast, and you're on to a new one the next week. I still get crushes like this.

So many insta-love isn't that far from reality. Sure, my crush-at-first-sight experiences all ended in heartbreak, but maybe some everlasting love has really been forged out of a single look.

The issue I still have with insta-love, though, is that YA characters never see any consequences for their sometimes rash actions. In the real world, if you go ahead and declare your feelings to that cute upperclassman you've been talking to... chances are it's going to end in heartbreak, a few days of tears, and then a swearing-off of love forever. It's going to hurt.

It never hurts YA protagonists. They never get to a point where they think, "Wow, it was pretty silly to believe I'd actually fallen in love with this person. We're totally not going to be together forever."

YA romance is full of happily ever afters, and not enough growing-up moments.