Blog Chain: The Best Monster

Matt began our topic this round:

What is your all-time favorite monster?

If we go by monster types, I'd have to go with fairies.

They're definitely monsters, but really beautiful, manipulative monsters who pretty successfully hide their true nature. But then they make you dance until your feet fall off and you know for sure. But by then it's too late. Buwahahaha!

My favorite individual monster is without a doubt JAMES P. SULLIVAN.

I don't know any other monster with a full name like this, or an awesome nickname like Sully. He's scary when you want him to be and cuddly when you need a pillow. What more could you want in a monster?

Thanks to Matt for the fun question! And Happy Halloween, everybody!

Check out Kate, whose tribute to a certain muppet can't help but make you smile. And tomorrow we'll hear from Michelle H.

Just what I didn't know I needed

I'm at Operation Awesome today talking about the things only a writer's spouse/best friend can understand, the hidden meanings behind the words we say about our writing. It's definitely a special relationship when you find someone who understands and supports your writing.

In fact, it was probably one of those deal-breakers for me, even though I didn't know it when I first met my husband. I wasn't actively writing at all. He read some of my journals, something we shared when we were getting to know each other. He said I had a unique way to write (voice), and he felt like he was reading a story. After that, he encouraged me to write, told me he believed I could get published. Sometimes I wonder if he regrets that encouragement just a little bit now. ;) But he still offers encouraging words, six years later, when I feel like I want to give up on my writing goals.

Like I said, I didn't know at the time how important it was for me to marry someone who supported my desire to write. The magic is that Bill encouraged it even when it wasn't something I was actively pursuing, wasn't something I wore on my sleeve. He reached into my soul, saw a writer there, and coaxed her out.

When our kids get to dating age, my advice to them will be this: find people who care enough to see your talents even when you're not showing them off. And find people who encourage you to go all-in, follow your dreams, and do what makes you happy.

Being married to any kind of artist has to be a challenge, but I'm grateful to my husband for taking a chance on me and investing so much of his love (and patience) to help me grow into a better version of myself. I hope I can reciprocate that at every turn, help him live out his dreams, too. Even if we never get our loftiest dreams, I know the journey has already been well worth it.

Happy Writing, everyone!

Blog Chain: All the Help I Can Get

Sarah asked...

Do you work with critique partners? How did you find your crit pals, and what influence have they had on your work?

Which is a great question. I've blogged about my critique partners before and how I met them. In fact, when I did a search for keyword "critique" all of these came up:

The Joy of Community

WIP it good: Share your reading and writing adventures

You want me to change WHAT?

More Gushing About Operation Awesome

Would you keep going? (if you were the only writer in the world)

The Perks of Fellowship for Novelists

Celebrate Michelle, Operation Awesome's Newest Member!

Writing Enablers: Who's Enabling You?

As you can see, my critique group is pretty important to my writing process. Both they and the online writing community are a big reason I don't just give up writing when life gets busy or the craft gets difficult. 

I had just written my fourth novel when I met Amparo in absolute-write forums. Agent Mandy Hubbard had held a query critique workshop thingy (technical term) and liked my query enough to request pages, even though mine was an MG boy book and you can see from the pink on her website that it's not her usual thing. To polish up my work, I requested help on absolute-write and a few people responded. Amparo was the one who got back to me a) the fastest and b) with the most helpful, thorough feedback. Not only did she point out when something didn't make sense. She also put in her funny little comments, like "Grr!" when somebody was mean to my protag or "LOL" when something made her giggle. After that, I was hooked on exactly her kind of feedback. 

But I didn't really know what it was like to be a critique partner. It wasn't, at the time, a reciprocal deal. Separately, I posted about a partial request I'd gotten on the same book (my so-close-but-not-quite-competitive-for-the-market book) on the query tracker forum. Kristal saw me there and was interested in forming a critique group, one that hopefully wouldn't fizzle out like the last one she'd been in. I didn't respond right away. Like I said, I didn't know what it was to be a critique partner. It sounded like a big deal. 

But eventually, I did write her back and we started the work of forming the group. She invited two people (Kelly and Angela) and I invited the one person I knew (Amparo) who invited someone else (Lindsay). We emailed about a group name and came up with Operation Awesome... which I have to confess I thought was a really silly name at the time. Now I can't imagine it any differently.

When one member got too busy to do the critique end of things, we sifted through a few people's pages to sort of try out different writers, see if they fit with our group. That's how I met Michelle, and also how I ended up part of this blog chain. Without Michelle, I'd have forgotten to do Blog Chain completely! Thanks, Michelle!

Each member of Operation Awesome brings something unique, whether it's an eye for grammar and punctuation, an understanding of what makes literature feel realistic, an affinity for beautiful descriptions, or an ear for authentic teen voice. Sometimes it's tricky having five people's work to critique, especially because we are typical writers, switching up projects like we change clothes. But I can't imagine who I'd do without. I hope we'll be together for a long time.

How did you find your critique partners?

Make sure you also read Cole's post before mine and Michelle H.'s tomorrow.

When Writing Takes SERIOUS Time

I can't believe it's been a week since I last posted. Well, the good news is that I have been writing. And outlining.

Since outlining is such mind-numbing work at times, I decided to let myself write 8-10 pages of any Shiny New Idea that comes my way. This might waste a couple hours a week, but it keeps my writing muscles primed without being a complete distraction from the real work of re-outlining a failed project. It's a project I'm just unwilling to let go.

I was encouraged by the dedication in the front of The Maze Runner, which is by anyone standards an amazing book.

For Lynette. This book was a three-year journey, and you never doubted.

 Wow. I get so caught up at times in the stories of fast writers making it big in record time, that I forget how many incredible works took years to create. It doesn't make me think less of James Dashner to know The Maze Runner was a three-year journey for him. It makes complete sense, given the complexity and consistent mystery through to the very end.

I realized after reading that dedication that my book idea is no less complex. It's a whole other world I'm meshing with our world, and I need to give myself time to flesh that all out, to explore every bit of it, and to craft an introduction that is both compelling and mysterious.

That's a tall order for six months, or even the 10 months I spent writing the first draft. It's been sitting long enough now, so I really feel it's time for a new look at it.

I've got other projects almost done and some just beginning, but I keep coming back to this one. Like I said, I'm not ready to let it go. Maybe someday there'll be a good reason for that. For now, I'll just keep working and hope for the best.

What's keeping you busy these days? Have you ever spent more than a year on one writing project?


p.s. I'm at Operation Awesome today talking about trends and the universal psyche we can't escape.

Look over there!

October's Mystery Agent and her winners are now up at Operation Awesome.

What are you waiting around here for? Go check it out! ;)

Seriously, what are you waiting for? Oh, you want me to leave first. Okay, then.

*waves like the geek she is*

Bye!!

The Delicacy of World Building

Just finished musing about How my own book reviews can make me a better writer over at Operation Awesome.

And now I'm thinking specifically about world building and how jealous I am of other writers for doing it so well. ;) It really does seem to be an art, weaving details into a narrative in a way that doesn't front-load or overload. The more I read, the more I get a sense for how it's done, but I still haven't mastered it.

I feel like a butterfly trying to weave a spiderweb, but my gigantic wings keep getting in the way. That's about how subtle my world building is.

I think my problem is that I geek out over science fiction, fantasy, or clever contemporary concepts. I make concept king, and everything else suffers. What should be king? CHARACTER. 


The setting and the world building have to be a backdrop against which the character can work - like an actor on a set or... a spider in a web. Let the web get too prominent, and it just might strangle the spider it was built for.

Let me show you what I mean:

Azalea wants to find love, purpose, and a place on Earth to belong, since she's always felt out of place in her own world (which is literally another celestial orb in the sky). She happens to be an alien with the ability to manipulate humans emotionally. Because of that, she never knows when someone's feelings for her are genuine, and pretty much always assumes it's just the result of her beyond-her-control sway over mankind. She's lonely.

She finally meets someone who's impervious to her power, but he's fresh from a bad breakup and doesn't trust girls as far as he can throw them. (He doesn't throw them; he's a nice guy, really.) His lack of trust is only exacerbated by the secrecy Azalea's identity requires. The character conflict is there, right? But it's overshadowed in my current manuscript by details about the world Azalea comes from, the people on Earth who don't want her there, and the people back home who want to control her fate. I haven't succeeded at all in weaving a web. I've got a mass of silk instead. It's still a precious material, but it's impossible to appreciate in its current form.

I think reading my reviews of books I've loved by authors who've mastered world building is a good first step in learning what works.


But what other ways do you make sure you're weaving a web instead of sitting on a spool of silk? How do you keep from front-loading or overloading your story with detail?

Unique YA Paranormal: SHIFTING by Bethany Wiggins

Le blurb: 

After bouncing from foster home to foster home, Magdalene Mae is transferred to what should be her last foster home in the tiny town of Silver City, New Mexico. Now that she's eighteen and has only a year left in high school, she's determined to stay out of trouble and just be normal. Agreeing to go to the prom with Bridger O'Connell is a good first step. Fitting in has never been her strong suit, but it's not for the reasons most people would expect-it all has to do with the deep secret that she is a shape shifter. But even in her new home danger lurks, waiting in the shadows to pounce. They are the Skinwalkers of Navajo legend, who have traded their souls to become the animal whose skin they wear-and Maggie is their next target.

Full of romance, mysticism, and intrigue, this dark take on Navajo legend will haunt readers to the final page.

You can read my Afterglow Review of this book here (that's a review written within the hour of finishing the book so you get my rawest reaction).

What's so unique about this book?

• The setting: It's refreshing to see a setting that's a) not a big city and b) feels like a real place, not just generic Small Town America. From the opener, you can feel the author's love of New Mexico in the vivid descriptions of the horizon and the sky. But you can also feel the protagonist's dread at starting over in a barren place like this. Lots of little details combine to draw a clear picture of New Mexico even for people like me who have never spent time there.

• The proactive protagonist: Maggie Mae is not perfect, but she's certainly proactive. After being introduced to the reader as an orphan with a juvie record for showing up naked in the morning streets, Maggie could easily have lounged around her new digs for a while, sulking. I totally would have understood. But she didn't. She went to school on day 1, even without shampoo to wash her hair or decent clothes to wear - no complaining to her new foster mom. And by lunchtime, she had a lead on a possible part-time job. She knows people stare because of her strange looks, and she embraces the loner label even though she'd rather be wearing a different one. Basically, she takes what life gives her and deals with it. She's got guts.

• A real girl: Maggie Mae cries. She doesn't do it to get attention or to manipulate someone. Her crying isn't stigmatized as 'being a girl'. But she's put in horrible situations, and she responds like a real person would. Sometimes she's mad at herself for crying. Sometimes she lets the tears flow. But even though she's been drawn as a tough character, she owns her vulnerability. I got the sense that Maggie just accepted herself in a way that one mean girl antagonist (Danni) didn't. Of course, there's one thing Maggie doesn't accept about herself...

• The paranormal ability: Maggie Mae wishes she didn't shift. This was different from a lot of the paranormal books I read where the character discovers he/she can do something amazing and geeks out about it pretty much immediately. For Maggie, it's kind of a curse and she lives in constant dread of somebody finding her out. But it really is an awesome paranormal ability. There's one shifting scene that had me grinning from ear to ear, even though it didn't actually work out the way Maggie Mae intended. Oh, and one more thing about this: the paranormal didn't swallow the characters. It's an important part of the book, but I didn't feel knocked over the head with it. It's also unique because it's drawn from Navajo legend. Lots of people have heard of Skinwalkers, but I've never seen a novel based on it. That makes this one pretty special. 

• The romance: I saw a review of this book that claimed Bridger was 'the hot guy that inexplicably likes the ordinary girl.' I didn't get that sense at all. I thought the romance was very well-developed. I loved the author's use of gossip to introduce ideas that had a grain of truth but were ultimately false. Maggie Mae catches Bridger's eye first because of her appearance, but it's her attitude and skill on the track field that hold his interest. And then, of course, when he looks closely he sees more of what makes her special (as we all do when we choose to look more closely at someone we're already crushing on). Like everything else in this book, it felt real to me. He struck me as cocky, but in an endearing way. Also, when we get to know him a little better and what he can do, the confidence is not unwarranted. :) The attraction between them makes for some great charged moments throughout.

• The bad guys: are so creepy. Maggie Mae gets attacked a lot by mysterious things. She's strong, but she's not that strong and I pretty much freaked out every time she was pursued by the creepies. And I was suspicious of everyone, for which I give kudos to the author. :) 

So there you go. My breakdown of what makes SHIFTING by Bethany Wiggins a unique YA paranormal. 

Its book birthday was yesterday, so if you head out to your bookstore today, you should be able to go home with it!! Happy reading!