Laura Bowers

The awesome teen author, Kathy Erskine, (QUAKING) interviewed me on her blog. I answered through a video post. Check it out.

http://blip.tv/file/3059177

http://kathyerskine.wordpress.com/

Monday: Organized desk.

Tuesday: Organized desk; opened a file.

Wednesday: Felt guilty for not writing when I told jbknowles that I would write while she did but failed to write.

Thursday: Played a lot on Facebook; read an old manuscript; got discouraged; still felt guilty.

Friday: Guilted by jenny_moss into trying to write; cannot get guilty again because failing both jbknowles and jenny_moss would be awful. Completely reworked an old manuscript that a critiquing editor at a conference described in this way: "nice energy, overall concept is fun and commercial; writing is strong; pacing feels a bit off and climax needs work." Maybe now pacing is better and climax is better. Who knows? Either way, I WROTE something.

First of all, a huge apology. I keep forgetting to bring my blogger posts over here to LJ. I will try and get better about that!

So, you know how I mentioned I was holed up in my writing cave for the next few weeks? (Or you would if I'd remembered to bring those posts over here.) Well, it's about to get even worse . . . but for very good reasons.

The Publisher's Lunch announcement:

R.L. LaFevers's fourth book in the NATHANIEL FLUDD: BEASTOLOGIST series, set in France, in which Nate, gremlin Greasle, and Aunt Phil close in on adversary Obediah Fludd, news of Nate's parents, and the fate of the last unicorns, again to be illustrated by Kelly Murphy, again to Kate O'Sullivan at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, by Erin Murphy of Erin Murphy Literary Agency (World).

Yeah, how thrilling is THAT?? (Have I mentioned lately how much I adore my publisher?)

The only problem is, it's due about three weeks after Theo Four is due, and no, that's not hyperbole. Really. Three weeks. The good news is, I do have a fairly substantial outline and a couple of chapters. Even so, I think I am going to need to move the Theo Four finish date up a week, just to be sure.

So yeah, I will totally be doubling down in that writing cave for a bit. May be very scarce here for the next few weeks.

And. AND! That's not all. We just found out that Nathaniel Fludd, Book Two, THE BASILISK'S LAIR has also been selected as a Junior Library Guild Selection. I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled I am about this.

So, in honor of all this good news, I thought I would give away a couple of ARC's of THE BASILISK'S LAIR. If you're interested in putting your name in the hat, simply leave a comment in this thread. (Be sure I have some way of contacting you if your name is drawn!) I'll leave the contest open for a full week because I know some readers stop by weekly rather than daily.


*Okay, I 'fess up. I stole that headline from my agent. Mostly because it was perfect.(And if you haven't checked out her awesome new website, you should!)

Since ALA looms large, I took some time this morning to get a haircut. Suddenly, I was thinking about Christopher Paul Curtis. Why did I suddenly begin to think of Christopher Paul Curtis during the haircut, you ask? Well, my hairdresser (what an antiquated term that is!) had a million dollar bill sitting on a shelf at her station. BING: my mind is now on MR. CHICKEE'S FUNNY MONEY (and if you do not know this series by CPC, check it out). Then, one of the other cosmetologists (is that better than hairdresser or cutter?) walked past to say HI and I was suddenly thinking of TALES OF THE MADMAN UNDERGROUND. Why? He reminded me of how I think Karl (main character) will look in a few years.

Even when I do not have a book in my hand, my mind is making connections to books. I think that makes me an avid lifelong reader, right? And a recent NYT article also indicated that forging these connections between what I already know and new stuff I am learning keeps my brain from atrophying. Not a bad little bonus.

Better half and the resident of the back bedroom head off to district band competition shortly. It is an overnight trip and BH has agreed to play chaperone to 7 teens (say a prayer for him, please, if you are so inclined). I have an all day YA class tomorrow and so cannot go (insert fake sniff here). SO, tonight it is me and the kitties and sub-freezing temps. I think we will all cuddle for warmth and eat as many snacks as we like.

And now, back to reading.

So far, this winter isn't bothering me as much as winter usually does. I'm not a fan of its sharp wind and blustery mixes of depressing precipitation. Maybe it's because winter is only like three weeks old. But I think it's because I'm getting excited about my upcoming book release events, including a bookstore event in Chicago next month (details coming soon!). The anticipation keeps me warm.

I do miss summer fruit, though. Melons and berries, plums and nectarines. Oh, how I crave all of you. My last hurrah was with a bunch of delicious concord grapes in October. Of course I documented them:



Not sure how I'll deal with my fruit-starved state until the spring. Apples and oranges barely take the edge off.

Did any of you watch Popular? It's one of those shows I never saw, so I've been Netflixing it. I like the premise, but I'm not really feeling the show. It just seems like they're trying too hard. I guess it's because I like shows that feel as real as possible. Popular likes to do fantasy sequences and effects, which bother me. How unfair is it that Popular was on for two seasons, but the absolutely brilliant My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks were only on for one season each? That's just wrong.

And now for a friendly reminder about respiratory etiquette. It is acceptable to cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough. In fact, you should always cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough. It is not acceptable to sneeze in someone's face. Or to sneeze in someone's direction when you're standing over them on the subway so all of your sneeze germs trickle down onto them. Cover your fricking mouth.

Just thought I'd put that out there.

Enter down on this linky to enter! http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/2423-sea
Contest ends in April.
Happy Friday, everybody!

A bunch of local authors showed up for Lisa Schroeder's book signing for Chasing Brooklyn.

Check out our picture at the bottom of this PW daily newsletter. Portland authors know how to support each other!

Having introduced us - if not in person, then by reputation - to Captain Frederick Wentworth in Chapter Four, thereby completing the introductions to the main characters in the book (including Mr. Elliot, whom we have not yet met in person either), Austen is getting ready to launch into the story proper, by which I mean the part where interesting men turn up to cross Anne Elliot's path.

But here's the thing: Austen's working title for this book was The Elliots. And truly, if the focus of the novel is to examine the workings of the Elliot family, then the first four chapters actually serve that end in part, for we've learned quite a bit about Sir Walter Elliot and Miss Elliot (Elizabeth), the eldest sister. And in today's installment, Chapter Five (which you may read online at Molland's if you haven't a copy with you), we meet the final Elliot sister, Mary - now Mary Musgrove, who is on the one hand a hypochondriacal narcissist, and on the other a most excellent comic character.

While well, and happy, and properly attended to, she had great good humour and excellent spirits; but any indisposition sunk her completely. She had no resources for solitude; and inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used.

I always smile at Mary's greeting of Anne, who has been working herself nearly ragged getting things packed up and sent on to Bath or put into storage, since her father decided on a rather rapid departure from the neighborhood:

She was now lying on the faded sofa of the pretty little drawing-room, the once elegant furniture of which had been gradually growing shabby, under the influence of four summers and two children; and, on Anne's appearing, greeted her with,

"So, you are come at last! I began to think I should never see you. I am so ill I can hardly speak. I have not seen a creature the whole morning!"

"I am sorry to find you unwell," replied Anne. "You sent me such a good account of yourself on Thursday!"

"Yes, I made the best of it; I always do: but I was very far from well at the time; and I do not think I ever was so ill in my life as I have been all this morning--very unfit to be left alone, I am sure. Suppose I were to be seized of a sudden in some dreadful way, and not able to ring the bell!"

Such a drama queen! Austen was particularly good at sketching comic characters like Mary who nevertheless manage to feel real - in part because we all know someone who, if not identical to Mary in their need for attention, comes close, don't we? Mary's also very determined to stand on ceremony (when she can) with her in-laws, trying to assert her superiority as a baronet's daughter. (In pomposity, at least, she is the match of her father and eldest sister.)

I'm now completely out of order in my discussion of this chapter, but I did want to double back to mention how easy it is to despise Elizabeth, who has asserted that she is "sure Anne had better stay [with Mary], for nobody will want her in Bath." It is almost impossible, however, to feel the same animus towards Mary, since she is so pitiful in some ways, and funny in others. And so we're clear on the arrangements, Sir Walter and Elizabeth have taken Mrs. Clay off to Bath with them, thereby setting Lady Russell a-sputter, leaving Anne to tend to Mary for a while, then stay with Lady Russell a while, and then come to Bath with Lady Russell after Christmas. Sir Walter's party has left for Bath a few weeks ahead of the Crofts taking possession of Kellynch Hall at Michaelmas (September 29th), which means that Anne will be staying at Uppercross Cottage with Mary and at Kellynch Lodge with Lady Russell for a combined period of four or five months (from early September until sometime in January).

Having sorted out a bit of what we can expect from the local families at Uppercross - pleasant, warm, welcoming people at the big house, needy Mary at the Cottage - Austen has set the scene for what is to come next - for something - or, rather, someone - as you must expect, is coming.

Back to Chapter Four.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/nWvm/~3/9XMxjo69rwk/hold-still.html

Hold Still by Nina LaCour. Dutton Children's Books. 2009. A YALSA Morris Award finalist. I picked up a review copy somewhere.

The Plot: Caitlin's best friend, Ingrid, is dead. Ingrid committed suicide; and now Caitlin is left alone, to pick up the pieces, to recover from both the loss of Ingrid and with how Ingrid died.

The Good: Some books you rush through, wanting to know what happens next. Some you savor the writing, so take your time. And others, like Hold Still, you pick up, read a few chapters, then stop, do something else, anything else, because it is almost unbearable.

Ingrid is dead; the book starts with Caitlin finding out about it. "I watch drops of water fall from the ends of my hair. They streak down my towel, puddle on the sofa cushions. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ears."

Ingrid and Caitlin were best friends; the type of best friends who only needed each other's friendship during their freshman and sophomore years. Now Ingrid is gone, and Caitlin wonders how, why, could she have said something about Ingrid cutting herself? She also knows that Ingrid had been clinically depressed, and on some medication or other since she was nine. The opportunity to get inside Ingrid's head and perhaps answer the question "why" comes when Caitlin finds Ingrid's last journal.

If the words left behind by Hannah in Thirteen Reasons Why are an angry shout at the world, blaming all those around her, Ingrid's words are those of a young teenager who has moments of happiness, moments of anger and hatred and love. There is no blame, not for anyone other than herself.

As Caitlin looks back on her friendship with Ingrid and gains insights into both Ingrid and herself, she is also going forward, cannot really avoid it, really. Time does that. Comfort doesn't come from where she hopes -- their photography teacher is cold and dismissive to Caitlin. A new girl, Dylan, offers friendship and the start of Caitlin getting on with her life as she slowly heals and reconnects with her parents, makes new friends, even falls in love. Caitlin moves on, with loss and without regret.

Ingrid, of course, breaks ones heart. Parents willing to do anything to help her, a brother who loves her, friendship, none of it can stop the sadness. Caitlin's sadness is different; it's the sadness of loss, and starting over, and being able to make the choices that Ingrid could not.

Taking photographs had been something Ingrid and Caitlin shared; now Caitlin almost has to relearn to enjoy photography. To see things anew. She also ends up building a tree house in her back yard. The metaphor is obvious (rebuilding her life, building a tree house) but it's still both a pretty impressive thing to do and an amazing tree house that has six walls, windows, a seven foot ceiling.

The design of Hold Still is impressive. The font of Ingrid's diary is different from the rest of the book and some of Ingrid's drawings are scattered throughout the book. The endpapers are designed as if they were part of Ingrid's journal. On the front book cover, there is the impression of a bird, just like Ingrid's journal has a wite-out bird painted on it.

Caitlin's new friend, Dylan, is a lesbian. I almost didn't mention it here, because, well, the fact that Dylan has a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend really doesn't matter to Caitlin's story. Dylan becomes a good friend to Caitlin, in part because Dylan doesn't always put up with Caitlin's moods and moodswings. Oh, she's sympathetic to Caitlin's loss, but Dylan is no martyr, she's not perfect. So why do I mention it? Because I'm thinking about diversity, and when do we, as reviewers, mention it and when not? Dylan is more than a positive character who happens to be a lesbian; she's a realistic character who happens to be a lesbian. And that is important, because it's not always found in books, and it's good to point out when it is found.

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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

As if some little Arctic flower,
Upon the polar hem,
Went wandering down the latitudes,
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer,
To firmaments of sun,
To strange, bright crowds of flowers,
And birds of foreign tongue!
I say, as if this little flower
To Eden wandered in-
What then? Why, nothing, only
Your inference therefrom!
- Emily Dickinson

View all posts tagged as Emily Dickinson at Bildungsroman.

View all posts tagged as Poetry Friday at Bildungsroman.

Consult the Poetry Friday roundup schedule at Big A, little a.

Learn more about Poetry Friday.

I'm having trouble getting started today.

Love jbknowles  and tltrent  group writing these last few days. Anyone up for it?

Check-in at 10:30 CST?


ETA: 12:30PM EST check-in: I've been working on outline of wip (wish I had a title). Going well.

Check-in again: 1:30PM EST for those of you who want to keep going.


ETA: Thanks so much for joining me in this morning's writing! I'm off to do mother/daughter stuff now. But had a successful morning - I completed an outline of my book & am very happy with it. If I can now only find that title . . . :)

All this month, I've been posting entries for an event I'm calling A Winter's Persuasion, a month-long study of the chapters of Jane Austen's last completed novel, Persuasion. Many consider it the most Romantic of her works, and certainly her references to Romantic poets such as Byron (both explicit and implicit) are part and parcel of why that is so.

Today, a stanza from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the fourth canto (a canto being rather like a chapter, if by chapter one means "a whole lot of stanzas"). I have posted excerpts from Childe Harold twice before: stanzas 137 and 138 back in 2007, and one of my favorites, stanza 178 back in 2006. Actually, I'm going to go ahead and re-post stanza 178, not only because I love it so, but also because it is the lead-in to stanza 179, which is referenced by Austen in chapter 12 of Persuasion. (And yes, I'm getting well ahead of where we are in the novel, since today we shall be covering Chapter Five, but that is of no real matter.)

In Persuasion, Chapter Twelve, Anne is walking near the sea with a sea captain who, it has been established, is quite well-versed in "modern" poets such as Byron and Scott.

Anne found Captain Benwick again drawing near her. Lord Byron's "dark blue seas" could not fail of being brought forward by their present view, and she gladly gave him all her attention as long as attention was possible. It was soon drawn per force another way.

The "dark blue seas" to which Austen refers can be found in the first line of Canto 179, which begins "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll!" Austen's contemporary audience would likely have been familiar with the verses she references, and would have appreciated that she is referring not only to a quite recent work by Byron and a stanza that references the sea, but that she is putting the words in the mouth of a sea captain who is in mourning and regrets that he was at sea when someone close to him died, and that the remainder of the stanza remarks on the vanity of men in setting their fleets on the ocean and on the sort of death that sailors like himself were constantly braving.

CLXXVIII
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar;
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

CLXXIX
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control
Stops with the shore; — upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

Canto IV of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage marks Byron's shift from mere Romanticism to what some call "high romance". Note how he praises nature and condemns man's intrusion - by which he means society, of course, because Childe Harold is the poem wherein Byron creates what is known today as the Byronic hero: a sexy, dark & twisty sort of man who is a bit of an outcast, prone to mood swings, possibly narcissistic and/or self-loathing, with a disdain of society and/or its norms, a strong cynical and arrogant streak, but with a good heart. Rather the way Caroline Lamb once described Byron: "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." Other Byronic heroes of whom you might be fond include Han Solo, the vampire Lestat, Mr. Rochester, and Batman.

The form. You may already have noticed that Byron was using a repeated meter and rhyme scheme here. The form of stanza he's using is Spenserian stanza, which was used by Edmund Spenser in his magnum opus, The Faerie Queen. Each of the stanzas has nine lines. The rhyme scheme of each stanza is ABABBCBCC, with the first eight lines being in iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line: taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM). The last line of each stanza is what is known as an "alexandrine", being a line in iambic hexameter (six iambic feet per line). The extra foot in an alexandrine has the slowing or swinging effect of dragging a train around a corner (you are free to picture the train of a dress or a railroad train) - the point being that there's a little extra effort to be made on that last line, which alters the pace of the poem as a whole (if you are reading more than one stanza of the poem). Back in Byron's time, it was quite common for people to read out an entire Canto in an evening, since reading was often done aloud, and this poem, like so very many others, is designed for that purpose.

Similarity to Sir Walter Scott?
I cannot help but notice (and I'm certain Austen noticed as well) the similarity between the last line of stanza 179 ("unknelled, uncoffined and unknown") and a line written by Sir Walter Scott's in the narrative poem he published seven years earlier than Byron's Childe Harold, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which speaks of a man dying "unwept, unhonored, and unsung". That portion of The Lay (written in rhymed couplets using iambic tetrameter) is usually excerpted as "Breathes There the Man With Soul So Dead", which is generally perceived as a poem about patriotism:

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

I rather suspect that the similarity was intentional on Byron's part, and that he was engaging in the time-honored tradition of engaging in a dialogue of sorts with another poet through his own work. The similarity of the lines, coupled with the placement of the similar evocative (and memorable) terms speaks of intention, but Byron has specifically replaced Scott's dust with water. Scott has claimed that if there's a man who doesn't take pride in his homeland, then he dies a double death and deserves to die unmarked and unmourned. Thus, where Scott believes man ought to claim dominion, ownership or at least sense of pride in "[his] own, [his] native land", Byron makes clear that while man might exercise some sort of dominion over land, he ruins it as he does so, and then goes further to say that man holds no power whatsoever over the sea, and that his efforts to establish dominion through an exertion of power at sea is fruitless: thus his man is reduced to insignificance: a mere drop of rain in the ocean.

A couple nights ago, I went to David Levithan’s famed Teen Author Reading Night, where five incredible authors read from their books.  Every time I attend one of the reading nights, I start wishing I’d known about such events when I was a teen – I don’t think they existed.  I would have LOVED to sit so close to a panel of authors as they read from their latest books.  In fact, I love being able to do it now.

1. First up was my friend Gitty Daneshvari, author of SCHOOL OF FEAR, a novel about four kids who are sent to a special school to help them overcome their phobias.  I have written about Gitty before – a few months back she was on a panel at Books of Wonder, and she was so hilarious that I knew I had to be her friend.  Her book is incredible, too . . . and she’s currently working on the sequel.
2. Next was Dream Jordan, author of HOT GIRL, the story of Kate, a disenchanted girl in foster care whose life is changed when she is befriended by Naleejah, the hot girl who is willing to give Kate a makeover.  The excerpt Dream read was funny and vivid and incredibly real – she explained that her hope is for her writing to inspire kids and teens to stay on the right track and realize their full potential. 
3. And then we had Diana Peterfreund, author of RAMPANT, who read pages from her new novel that, sadly, I can’t remember the name of – but her reading was incredibly memorable . . . and a bit gory.  Diana writes about unicorn killers – which until recently, I didn’t know existed.  We were all on the edges of our seats as she read about trying to kill a unicorn zombie.
4. Robin Palmer, author of LITTLE MISS RED, a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” read about her heroine Sophie Greene, who dreams of being more like the stars of her favorite romance novels written by her best friend’s mother.  My favorite line of the night:  “I felt worse that Devon in Deceived by Deceit!”  Robin’s book was hysterical – and it’s the third “fairy-tale retelling” she’s written, so there’s more where that came from.
5. Finally, Alexandra Bullen read from her debut novel, WISH, about a girl named Olivia mourning the loss of her twin sister, Violet.  Then, suddenly, a beautiful gown arrives that happens to be magical and has the power to grant Olivia her one wish:  to get her sister back.  Alexandra’s prose was so beautiful, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the book!
   

As per tradition, David started the question and answer period.  Of course I was thinking about how he had just been on the Today Show – my favorite show, which I’ve watched nearly every morning for the past 15 years.  In case you missed his appearance, you can watch it here!

New books! Author readings! Appearances on the Today Show! WHAT A WEEK!!!

1. I am finding great joy in a CD my neighbor gave me the other night: Canadian Brass's BACH: ART OF THE FUGUE. I don't know what it is about Baroque music that I love so much. I just do. She gave me about 50 other CDs, too (cleaning house), which I appreciated so much, but if this is the only one I ever listen to, I'll be happy. She also gave me an elliptical trainer. It is sitting in the middle of my living room mocking me.

2. I'm having a hard time putting my writer's hat back on, after an unavoidable lengthy break, but I do have a marked-up picture book manuscript in front of me and I am making notes. I don't have an answer yet for its problems, but just getting my head back in the game is the most important part of this exercise. For one thing, if this exercise can help me with things like noticing that I've used two clichés in the same paragraph again, that would be a start.

3. Today friend Madelyn Rosenberg is launching her new website, with an interview with our mutual friend, sometime LJer kathyerskine. Kathy is not the most consistent of bloggers, but that's okay because it means she is writing wonderful novels. Learn more about the upcoming MOCKINGBIRD in the interview, and stay to read about Mad, too, because she is an amazing writer herself. Her LADYBUG story "Charlie and the Jazz Man" was my favorite LADYBUG story ever, to the point where I searched her out through the SCBWI website in order to compliment it. Then a while later, she moved back to Virginia and we reconnected and have been friends ever since. She introduced me to my favorite Salvadoran restaurant, La Union on Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, Virginia.

4. I need a #4. Um, it's cold? Wind chill is about 12F. I know that's nothing to you hearty New England-types, but when your house is heated with a heat pump and your "winter" coat is just a Lands' End squall parka, it's a bit nippy.

5. Here's the best part. On Tuesday, I'm heading to NYC to meet up with kristydempsey. We're staying with her very kind relatives, hitting KidLit Drinks Night, meeting our respective editors (me, one; her, a couple of dozen or so), lunching with our agents, and seeing old friends (for me, both writing friends and college friends). My biggest concern is that my coat is 1) blue (don't all New Yorkers wear black coats?) and 2) not warm enough. In the world of concerns, that's a small one. I can deal.

I think there are dreams that stay dreams and dreams that can become reality, and both kinds of dreams are worth dreaming. The first kind can get you through your day, and the second kind can guide your life.

If you’re looking to change your life, the trick is to realize which dreams are actually goals—things you want to and can achieve. And then remember that dreams come true usually not by the wand of a fairy godmother, but through concentrated hard work.

For me, writing books was once a far-off dream, but it became a goal when I realized that nothing was actually stopping me. And it became a dream come true after I learned and took the steps that worked for me to finish a book.

Now, little dreams of books pop up in my brain all the time. Some will stay ideas. Some, I will pursue until they become realities.

All books begin in dreamland. And so do lots of other good things.

My daily tweets:

• 09:43 If I give you "the look" because you are talking too loud on your cell phone do NOT wink at me. That does not excuse you. #
• 17:25 @TheEllenShow Funky cold medina? #helpellen #

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Some steps:
- Buy it auction. You’ll have to put out marketing money to get back your investment.
- Run ads for ARC giveaways.
- Work with bloggers. "We offered them signed copies after the book was bound and created limited-edition posters for them to use and offer as giveaways on their sites. We also reached out to Twilight fansites."
- Cross your fingers that someone - two someones who love Twilight, in this case - builds a fan site.
- Make a trailer that runs in movie theaters at screenings of a like-minded movie (Twilight, in this case).
- Give hardcovers to movie theatre audiences in some markets.
- Run an ad on a really popular site (Perez Hilton, in this case)

Did it work? Seven printings in less than three months and #10 on the NYT list - I would say yes.

Read a more in-depth analysis here.

Not much time to blog since I've been busy with CITY SECRETS. Like, really busy. But it's over a week into the new year and I haven't talked about goals/wishes for the New Year. I'm trying to focus on things that are in *my* control, but I also want to spend the first new year in NYC just living and seeing what happens. Sometimes, it's seemed the less I try to make things happen--the better things work out.

In 2010, I hope to:

* Finish Canterwood 9-12 and keep building Team Canterwood

* Write an edgy YA novel proposal

* Write an adult novel proposal with BFF

* Write a new tween book

* Read more. Waaay more.

* Write more. Waaay more.

* Go out and have fun

* Stay in and have pizza/movie parties

* Vlog more

* Buy stock in Sephora ;)

* Walk through the park after a fresh, heavy snow

* Go on vacation--(maybe to the Jersey Shore?) ;) Haha.

What're your resolutions/goals/dreams for the New Year?

PS--As soon as it's announced, I'll blog about it, but super sparkly congratulations to my BFF for having something awesome, amazing and sooo well deserved happen for her last night.

 

Bailey Island, Maine. Photo by my husband, John

1. Seeing a novel formatted with new fonts and layout is an exciting moment. It lets me see the book fresh, because it looks unfamiliar, like someone else wrote it.

I've read TOUCH BLUE twice and found a few small typos, formatting errors, and one mistake of mine to fix in this pass, but it looks beautiful and reads fluidly.

2. When I stopped by my local library to pick up my last Cybils book, the children's librarian said to me, "Hey, when's that picture book coming?" When I told her it's less than a month now, she said, "Great! I had a young patron in here asking about it."

Totally cool. I have done school visits at all my local schools and showed the cover of HOT ROD HAMSTER at each one, but it delighted me to think a child remembered it and had asked for it.

3. Scholastic asked me to write a letter about writing HOT ROD HAMSTER. Derek Anderson created the most adorable illustration to go with the letter. I can't wait until they put it up on their website, so I can show you all.

4. Milo got a haircut this week. He looks SO small when he has a haircut. He's also spending a lot less time outside without his warm fur!

5. Here are *my own* list of criteria that I am considering with each Cybils book I'm reading. Not all of the books fit into all these categories, but I had to have something more objective than my own first impressions to use in thinking about and comparing books that are very different from each other. Again, this is not my committee's list, just my own as I'm thinking about what I'm going to contribute to our eventual discussions.

• Kid Appeal (humor, relatable characters and situations, topics, action, cover)

• Language (accessibility for early readers, repetition, cued categories. If challenging words are introduced, are there cues provided in the text or illustrations?)
   
• Style (flow and pacing, is it respectful to an early reader? Rhythm, rhyme, does it sound like a kid's voice?)

• Character development (are there distinct voices for different characters? If there is a main character, does the main character solve the problem himself? If it's a sequel, are the characters well developed in *this* book?)

• Plot  (is there one overall plot or does each chapter/episode have an arc? Is the problem and the resolution clear? Surprise ending? If it's a sequel, does this book also stand alone?)

• Theme (Is there one, and is it clear and satisfying?)

• Illustration and Design (do the illustrations simply show the text or add something to the story? Does the design pull the reader through the story or do they feel separate? Is the book appealing? Can the child find cues to the text in the illustrations?)

And then I have room for "Other" in case there's something that stands out that doesn't feel covered by those.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/nWvm/~3/dzEFwvppES0/carter-finally-gets-it.html

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford. Hyperion Books. 2009. Audiobook (CD). Read by Nick Podehl. Brilliance Audio. Review copy supplied by Brilliance.

The Plot: Will Carter is starting high school. It's going to be great! He'll get a girlfriend. He'll have sex. Stuttering around pretty girls (especially ones who wear shirts that show their belly buttons) may be a problem. As is his ADD, which leads him to sort of zone out. But with his older sister Lynn making sure he doesn't embarrass her and ruin her high school years he just may survive high school. Or not.

The Good: I listened to this on audio.... I have never laughed so hard. Laughed out loud. A cop followed me for five miles, convinced, I'm sure, that something was wrong with me from the laughing.

Carter, Carter, Carter. I'll admit it; I didn't like the punk at first. I almost took the CD out during the first ten minutes. He was so annoying! Talking like a kid who has watched one too many bad music videos and believed they were real, about his boys, talking about girls like they were objects and not people.

But then... something happened. I laughed at something he did (the dumbass). I cringed as he walked into a situation that I knew would not end well. And I found myself falling in love with Carter. It's a good thing I have a 45 minute commute and kept listening, or I'd have lost out on the funniest book of the year and my Favorite Books of 2009 would be one book less. The narrator, Nick Podehl, is awe-some. His reading is energetic, totally capturing every emotion -- shock, lust, disappointment, excitement, with a reading that is off the wall.

You know Carter. He's like many freshmen boys -- insecure and overconfident, searching, a kid trying to grow up. And so does he do and say stupid things? Like telling one girl he loves her and then moments later asking someone else to a dance? Yes, yes he does. Does he talk as if he truly believed life is like a porno? Well... sometimes. But isn't that what a book is supposed to be about -- growing up? Realizing the truths about people and yourself? What fun would there be if Carter was perfect?

Carter's freshman year is a little bit of everything. He's a jock, on the freshman football team and JV swimming. His ADD makes it hard to concentrate, at times. He has his friends, and he cares what they think, so sometimes just goes along. But one moment he can be obnoxious as hell, and the next so sweet, like when he doesn't make a big deal out of a date throwing up. He's the tough guy who also still cries.

It's funny -- what I kept picturing as I read this book? Dazed & Confused, for some reason -- no drugs (Carter doesn't even like to drink beer), but there is something about the kids, the sports, their parties and interactions that made me think of Dazed & Confused. And, well, a lot of other teen movies, as well as movies that are a mix of gross and funny. I was also reminded of Doing It, except that I liked Carter much more than any of the boys in Doing It. Actually? I LOVE Carter.

I don't want to give too much away -- because part of the fun is Carter getting himself into and out of situations. So if I talk about this one great time when Carter... well. Then you'll know. You won't discover it for yourself.

The sports! I almost forgot. Carter says he doesn't care about sports, he does it for his Dad. Here's one thing: I'm never quite sure when Carter is telling the truth, or when he says what he means. I guess I'll need to wait for a sequel (there better be a sequel!) to see if he plays football next year. Because he does pretty well at football, when he pays attention. Your teens who play football or other sports? Will love this book, and the way it presents sports and competition and winning and losing.

One last thing. Yeah, Carter starts as a hound-dog, looking for sex. But this turns out to have a great romance.

So, there you have it. Sports, friendships, girls, guys, hooking up, some parties, something unexpected, driving trucks, diving, and so much more. Great for boys who will see themselves and their friends in Carter; great for girls who will finally know what their "Carter" is really thinking.

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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy