New Blog Site!

Here it is, the news you've all been waiting for (or was that just me?)! My blog is moving to a wordpress site. The address is stormynightpublishing.com. There we will be talking more in depth about books, what it takes to be a good author, and my meager attempts to write up to my own standards. All my old posts from this site have been transferred over there, so if there's something that you wanted to look back on, have no fear, you can find it without coming back over here. I hope to see you over there!

Thoughts on the Short Story

Have you ever read "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway? I read it when I was in college, and I didn't really like it, but it is a story that has since stuck with me. A short story is typically defined as a "snap shot" in time. Just one small moment captured forever in a few words. "Hills Like White Elephants" illustrates that principal perfectly. It takes place over the course of maybe twenty minutes, but you can infer a ton about the characters' lives and their relationship (Wikipedia calls this the "Iceberg Theory"). You even get all this elephant and licorice symbolism. You could talk about it for a week in class and not exhaust all the possibilites. Some short stories aren't really that short at all--like "the Yellow Wallpaper". Really, Charlotte Gilman? It was like fifty pages in my Norton Anthology. " Hills LIke White Elephants" I remember being only two or three pages, yet it encompassed so much more than "the Yellow Wallpaper" ever could.

I've tried to write a short story several times--and failed miserably. Maybe it's because I hold myself to too high of a standard. But Hills Like White Elephants is the only kind of short story that I can really relate to. It's the only kind of short story that I want to write. A snapshot into someone's desperately depressing life, and then back out again. Over a hundred pages' worth of drama packed into two or three. And all that symbolism, too. But I guess none of us can be Ernest Hemingway--at least not on our first try.

Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire

I did not want to waste another minute without telling you all how I feel about Ruth Downie's debut novel, Medicus. I bought it as a Christmas present for my mom so that I could read it before I gave it to her, but alas, it did not arrive in time for me to get to it before it had to be wrapped. So I had to wait for Mom to finish it and give it back to me. Now for my prognosis: To borrow a phrase from Joshua Unruh (which he used in conjunction with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), "I hearted it so bad." Which, in case you didn't know, is FAR BEYOND love.
I cannot think of a single thing in Medicus that I didn't love.

The characters? Check. Both the main character and the secondary characters were deep and creative. Ruso's attempts at writing the "Concise Guide" might have been my favorite, as I feel it is something all writers can relate to. Valens, Ruso's co-worker and roommate, and his puppies were especially entertaining. Even the minor characters like Chloe and Daphne I felt were well-rounded. Tilla was the only one that didn't have much explained, but I have a feeling that is another mystery for another time.

The plot? Awesome. It's a murder mystery, and yet you're so busy reading trying to solve it that you don't even think about it as a murder mystery. The story opens as Ruso starts his work as a surgeon for a Roman outpost in Britain. A girl from a certain place of bad reputation is found dead in the river, and her body is brought to Ruso, who can't understand why he is the only one interrogating people about her death. And so the mystery begins...

The writing? Spectacular! I literally laughed out loud at the dry humor on nearly every page. Since nothing was wrong with it, I'm not really sure what to say about it other than that it was good.

Okay. I thought of something negative. I didn't like the part where it switched to Tilla's point of view and she was being all melodramatic. That was annoying.

Needless to say, I will be reading the next three books in this series. And...oh, my! Terra Incognita is only 99c on my Kindle!

Jasper Fforde and the Eyre Affair

I think I'm ready to talk about Jasper Fforde now. Well, not just about him, although I'm sure he's a lovely person, but about his character Thursday Next and her first novel, The Eyre Affair. My first beef with this book is the flap, but since Mr. Fforde had nothing to do with that, I'll go ahead and leave it alone.
Most of you already know how I feel since I've been spouting opinions since I started the book a week ago. Now that I've finished it, I've got more to say.
My overall feeling: the plot was good. It was original, it struck a cord (chord? what is the origin of this phrase?) with all readers who enjoy classic literature, and it ended well. As for character, I loved Thursday. She was the regular tough girl with a gun without feeling like a cliche. She had depth and a good reason to want to shoot things, but at the same time, she didn't want to shoot things.
But I cannot get over how poorly this tale was told. The first line begins, "My father had a face that could stop a clock." Forwith, her father keeps popping in, stopping clocks all over the place. But is her father relevant to the story? No. Does he give her a bit of insight that gives her a clue to the antagonist's whereabouts? No. Does he embody this lovely sub-plot that is a metaphor for everything else that's going on in the story? I don't think so. He's just there, asking random and irrelevant questions.
For the first twenty or so pages, my thought process was on a repeated loop of, "What the heck is going on?" Fforde does a great job of not explaining that he's in this reality. Well, I guess the dodo bird kind of gave it away, but it is not that easy to just jump into an alternate reality like that and figure out what's going on. Then for the next hundred or so pages my loop became, "Oh, this is where the story begins." But it never did. That frustrated me. I would get really into what was going on, and then it turned out it was just a seguey into the real plot. Louis L'Amour says, "Start in the middle of the action." It's even a term, in media res. It doesn't mean start in the middle of one action, then make it turn out that that action isn't really important to the story. The actual point of the book, the "Eyre Affair" as it were, doesn't even really begin until over halfway through the book. Granted, I liked the point of the book, and as aforementioned, I thought it ended really well, but I didn't like taking forever to get there.
The last thing I'm going to comment on, and to me the most irritating, is the mechanics of the book. Mr. Fforde proves that he has a great knowledge of Point of View through his discussion of Jane Eyre and how it is written in the first person. Why, then, does he break these rules in his own book? Maybe he thought it was funny. I did not. There's nothing funny about a first person book suddenly switching to third person and telling us things that the main character couldn't possibly know. Dramatic irony is not an option in first person narrative. (Unless it's like Forrest Gump.)

If you have read this book and agree or disagree with me, feel free to comment. I welcome discussion. I would like to like this book. I really would. Convince me that it's worth it.

Review: Electric Literature

When I first read that Amazon offered many magazines in digital form straight to your Kindle, I snorted. Kindles are for bibliophiles, and when I think of magazines I think of things like Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Those aren’t things that real book readers read, right?
But while those titles are available and are very popular on the Kindle, there are also many literary magazines in digital format. Some of these include The New Yorker, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
What do all these magazines have in common? They all contain short stories. Yes, for as little as $2.99 a month, you can have multiple short stories sent to your Kindle for you to enjoy, in addition to articles and columns to keep you up-to-date on your particular genre, from politics to science fiction.
Ironically enough, none of the magazines I just listed is the one I chose to read for this review. Instead, I picked something less popular and mainstream. This independently-published magazine is called Electric Literature, and while it is a bit more costly than some popular serials ($4.95 on your Kindle for one issue), it is also quite a bit more substantial. Around a hundred and twenty pages thick in physical form, each issue contains five short stories or excerpts from soon-to-be-released novels.
The contents of Electric Literature #2 include Colson Whitehead’s “The Comedian,” Stephen O’Connor’s “Love,” Pasha Malla’s “The Slough,” Marisa Silver’s “Three Sisters,” and Lydia Davis’s “The Cows.” The stories got more interesting as they went along; that is to say, “The Cows” was my favorite, followed closely by “Three Sisters.”
Davis chronicles the life of the three cows that live in the field next to her house. Basically, they eat, they sit, they stand in a line, they eat some more. Pretty boring, right? But her writing is poetic, and she evokes the thought that our own lives can be just as meaningless if we don’t watch out. “They come from behind the barn as though something is going to happen, and then nothing happens,” she says.
Instead of taking this as a sad description of a pastoral scene, I take it as a warning to seize the moment, to take each day and make it something exciting and new. That’s not to mention that I actually enjoyed reading about the three cows, all of them trying to make their day interesting (and failing miserably).
Silver’s story gives insight into three sisters’ lives through the event of a snow day. Connie, the middle sister, trying to be responsible, fixes her siblings breakfast and ensures that they wear their jackets and snow boots to school. The storm gets worse as the day progresses, until finally a family with three daughters is trapped in the snow outside Connie’s house. While the family waits in her living room for the tow truck to arrive, Connie begins to realize just how important sisters are, especially when your parents aren’t as responsible or caring as they should be. She’s glad that these sisters would have had each other if something terrible had happened and they had not been able to get out of their freezing car.
I would recommend short stories like those in Electric Literature if you like content without involving yourself in a novel, or if you want to analyze something with a cryptic ending. If you need something a little more defined and character-based, I think you could probably pass this up.
And if you’re not sure you want to invest your money on a digital magazine, there’s more good news. Electric Literature, like all Kindle books, allows for a free sample, but also, all of the magazines offer a free two weeks’ trial subscription.

(You can also read my review at The Consortium's website.)

Janus at the door: looking behind and ahead

I thought now would be a good time to look back at where I was a year ago in my life. Well, weather-wise, we have seen some definite changes. There was no blizzard on Christmas, and it has hardly gotten below freezing this winter. Global Warming must be true! In more good news, my house is already tree-less. We might have hung on to our Christmas tree longer than recommended last year.
My resolutions for 2010 were as follows (verbatim a blog last January):

finish writing on one novel.
read more books this year than I did last year. (count for 2009: 28)
get my house more organized. a place for everything, and everything in its place.
clean the house more often.
read more Greek!

Did I succeed in these goals?
1. I sort of/not really finished writing one novel. I wrote "the end" on Into the Flames, but I skipped a lot of plot development, and Bracken and John's characters have changed dramatically. This year my resolution is to fill in these gaps, straighten out the boys' roles, and get a good second re-write in.
2. In 2010 I read 37 books, so that I definitely succeeded in. This year my goal is 55.
3. Eh, what is a "place" really? I think my house is more organized than it was a year ago, but there are still a few things looking for homes.
4. I have no idea. I don't really record how often I clean the house. So we'll go with yes.
5. I did not read more Greek in 2010 unless you count the few words that "scholarly" authors tried to teach me while I was reading their books at work. And I knew all those words already. Because I took two years of Greek.

Anyway, here's my goals for 2011, so I can hold myself accountable and what-not.
1. Be an awesome Consortium artist! THis sounds vague, but that's because I'm not quite sure what all I'm going to be required to do as the year progresses. But don't worry, my spreadsheet and I are completely ready to aid and abet Aaron and all his Consortium needs! My January list is already full.
2. As aforementioned, really work hard on finishing Into the Flames.
3. Improve myself as an editor. Not because I'm bad right now, but because we can always find ways to improve ourselves.
4. As aforementioned, read 55 books. I picked this number because that's how many Mara read in 2010, and I can't have her beating me.

And that's all I have for you today. I'm about fifteen pages away from finishing my first novel of 2011; but I'll write more on that later.

List of Books

Oops, I forgot to add the entire list of books. Here it is.

01. Heat Wave –“Richard Castle” (1-3)
02. About a Boy –Nick Hornby (1-8)
03. Pirate Latitudes –Michael Crichton (1-10)
04. Rebecca—an American Girl (1-15)
05. Pretties –Scott Westerfeld (1-17)
06. Anthem –Ayn Rand (1-25)
07. Rest You Merry –Charlotte MacLeod (1-29)
08. Specials –Scott Westerfeld (2-9)
09. Ice Palace –Edna Ferber (2-15)
10. The Hand of Mary Constable –Paul Gallico (2-20)
11. One for the Money –Janet Evanovich (2-24)
12. The Forgotten Garden –Kate Morton (3-4)
13. The Secret Life of Bees –Sue Monk Kidd (4-25)
14. Beastly –Alex Flinn (5-10)
15. Mistborn –Brandon Sanderson (5-23)
16. Love of Seven Dolls –Paul Gallico (6-27)
17. A Kiss in Time –Alex Flinn (7-17)
18. Wuthering Heights –Emily Bronte (7-28)
19. The 10 p.m. Question –Kate de Goldi (8-8)
20. The Nanny Diaries –McLaughlin and Kraus (8-15)
21. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson 1) –Rick Riordan (8-16)
22. The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson 2) –Rick Riordan (8-24)
23. Electric Literature #2 –et al. (8-25)
24. The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson 3) –Rick Riordan (8-28)
25. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson 4) –Rick Riordan (8-29)
26. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson 5) –Rick Riordan (8-30)
27. Jane Eyre –Charlotte Bronte (9-6)
28. The Hunger Games –Suzanne Collins (9-15)
29. The Catcher in the Rye –JD Slinger (9-28)
30. Gods Tomorrow –Aaron Pogue (9-30)
31. Light of Eidon –Karen Hanock (10-6)
32. Portal –Imogen Rose (10-19)
33. The Blue Sword –Robin McKinley (10-30)
34. 100 Cupboards –ND Wilson (11-26)
35. Elantris –Brandon Sanderson (12-8)
36. Code Blue –Richard L. Mabry (12-16)
37. The Lost Hero –Rick Riordan (12-29)

Books of 2010 in review

have read a total of thirty-seven new novels during the year of 2010. The entire list is printed below for your perusal, with the numbers at the end of each being the date I finished them. But I’m only going to talk about some of them here—the ones that impacted me the most. That’s not to say that the others had no impact on me at all, just that I have to pick and choose in this review.

First, let’s talk about Anthem. It’s a short book, barely a hundred pages long, and yet it impacted me even more than Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World. This dystopian novelette is based on the theory that our society will digress if we begin to see ourselves as a collective unit rather than unique individuals. I haven’t read Ayn Rand’s longer works, but I can see how this theory could prove to be true if put into action. So much of a child’s development stems from competition. It’s so much easier to be selfish and push yourself to be better than your siblings or your classmates rather than take yourself out of the picture and strive to make others better. If you’re working for someone other yourself, the motivation is gone. Anthem is similar to Brave New World in that these people have been conditioned since birth to believe in the greater cause, to squash that individuality and creativity within them. And that is much scarier than the idea that Big Brother is always watching.

The only thing I have to say about Specials is that it made me regret wasting my time on the entire Uglies series. The other books were thoughtful and interesting to read, as well as packed with some nice action. This one just made me want to throw it across the room and slap someone’s face.

Let’s talk about the Bronte sisters for a moment. Bella says in Twilight that she reads Wuthering Heights for fun when the rest of her life is dismal and depressing because Edward is not paying enough attention to her. This leads me to believe that Stephenie Meyer knows even less about Wuthering Heights than I did before I read it. Nobody in their right minds would read Wuthering Heights for fun, especially not some shallow girl who has nothing better to do than moon over some random guy she hasn’t even met yet. The story is told in this stupid flashback sequence like an awkward, contrived movie, there is no protagonist because all the characters are insipid and whiny, and Heathcliff isn’t even dashing or witty to make up for how horrible he is to everybody else. At least Edmond Dantes ruins everyone’s lives with style. Heathcliff is just a jerk. So anyway, since I’d heard more people talk about Wuthering Heights than Jane Eyre, I figured that meant it was the better of the two novels. I don’t know what possessed me to attempt Jane Eyre based on that reasoning, but I am glad I did. Jane is a truly likeable character, and Mr. Rochester rivals Mr. Darcy in witty banter (although not in chivalry, sadly). And their relationship wasn’t the only thing driving the story, either. I loved reading about Jane’s childhood at the orphanage, the encounter with the gypsy woman, and even her awkward relationship with St. John and his sisters. The ending was a little corny, but the rest of the book made it worth it.

The Percy Jackson series obviously was a big deal to me, as I read all five books in less than a month. I think I finally noticed them because of the movie release, and of course, I went to the text first to see what all the hype was about. Now, when it comes to writing, plot, and character development, Rick Riordan is no JK Rowling. And yet that doesn’t stop me from greedily flipping the pages of his novels, desperate to find out what happens next. I love the way he re-invents mythology, and I especially love the modern characterization of the gods. Poseidon wear a fisherman outfit. Ares is a tough biker dude. And even though Riordan makes sure that there is plenty of mythology being retold in each book, the overarching plot still is different and exciting to read. I’d recommend it to any one who is a young adult fantasy fan, and even some people who are not. My final book of this year is another Riordan, The Lost Hero, which I think I actually liked even better than his first series just because the main character, Jason, is way cooler than Percy.

Elantris is worth noting because I loved it so much more than Mistborn. Sean went on and on about how great Brandon Sanderson was, and so I read Mistborn, but I couldn’t really get into it. Now I think that it is primarily due to his main character in that series. I loved both the male and female main characters in Elantris and also the world, the magic system, and the plot. I was gripped until the end. I had no idea how it was going to work out, but I had undying faith in Raoden’s abilities to figure it all out. I will be reading more Sanderson from here on out.

I also have to give a nod to a book that didn’t make it on this list—Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I’m ashamed to say that I thought I could make it through the unabridged version, and I couldn’t. Thirteen hundred pages is just a bit too much for me. Although it wasn’t really the size of the book that daunted me, overall, it was the amount of the book that was dedicated to the history of France. Yes, the novel is about France. That is why I chose to read the unabridged version, so I could get at what Victor Hugo was trying to say about his country. But all I got was an extremely long and boring history lesson. It was during the hundred-or-so-page description of the Battle of Waterloo that I knew I was never going to finish.

The Young Adult Series Conundrum

It bothers me how many young adult novels are part of a series. I guess this is great for you if you’ve been in the young adult section for years now, perusing its shelves with eager anticipation as each now tome is produced. You know which authors you like and you know that what they come out with next will be worth your time and money. You know which ones are bad and to avoid. But I’ve been out of the book scene for four years, and am only just now daring to inch myself out there to see what’s available. After years of assigned reading and another year of trying to catch up on some classics (and polishing off the entire Percy Jackson series in a couple of weeks), I’m finally ready to being reading the new stuff. Since I’m planning to review books for the Consortium starting in January, it kind of makes sense that I stay on top of the books that are coming hot off the presses. Nobody wants to read a review of a book that is a few years old. Most everybody has already read it and reviewed it by that time. That’s where these series really do me a disservice. When looking at the “hot new” books that are coming out in 2011, almost all of them are part of a series. I don’t want to have to go back six years or so to find the first book. And what if it turns out to be good, I don’t have time to waste on reading all the subsequent books. Whatever happened to stand alones? Even if they turn out to be dismal books, at least I can read them by themselves and not feel guilty for not picking up the sequels. I don’t have to wait and see if the series will improve.
As it is, I am going to be trudging through the young adult (my genre of choice) and other novels of 2011 with care, searching for ones I feel worth my time. And who knows, maybe I’ll come across a series I find worth reading through the entire thing.

Books I've Read Survey

I got this survey from a friend on facebook. I thought it was a good way to end the year. In most of the questions I tried to pick books that I've read in 2009-2010 so that it was like a year in review. By the way, books read for this year total thirty-five so far. I'll give you a real overview of them next week or so.

1. Best book you read last year?
in 2009, Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobbs. In 2010, Elantris by Brandon Sanderson.
2. A book you've read more than three times.
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
3. Your favorite series.
Harry Potter. It's one of the very few series I've made all they way through. I usually stop around book four or five.
4. Favorite book of your favorite series.
Probably Prisoner of Azkaban. Although Half-Blood Prince was pretty good, too.
5. A book that makes you happy.
Beastly by Alex Flinn
6. A book that makes you sad.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. It's like Vanity Fair in that there's no hero, and that makes me sad.
7. Most underrated book.
Nick Horby pre-2007. I think people (in the US at least) are just starting to notice him, and he was great all along. Or maybe that was just me not noticing him. Hmmm.
8. Most overrate book.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
9. A book you though you wouldn't like but ended up loving.
Jane Eyre by CHarlotte Bronte. After what her sister wrote I unnecessarily set myself up for disappointment.
10. Favorite classic book.
Emma or Pride and Prejudice
11. A book you hated.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover
12. A book you used to love but don't anymore.
Eragon by Christopher Paolini (I still like it as a book written by a 15yr/o, just not love.)
13. Your favorite writer(s).
Jane Austen, Orson Scott Card
14. Favorite book of your favorite writer.
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card (since I already listed my two fav Austen books)
15. Favorite male character.
from 2010, Raoden from Elantris
16. Favorite female character.
from 2010, Jane Eyre
17. A book that disappointed you.
Specials by Scott Westerfeld.
18. Favorite book turned into a movie.
Holes by Louis Sachar
19. Favorite romance book.
from 2010, Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico, although I don't know if it actually classifies as a romance book. I don't have a general romance book because that would imply that I read them on a regular basis.
20. Favorite book from your childhood.
I shouldn't pick just one, but I'm going to go with Danny Champion of the World by Roald Dahl. I must love it if I bought it for Sean to read last year.
21. A book you've wanted to read for a long time but still haven't.
Lord of the Flies
22. A book you wish more people would read.
Gods Tomorrow by Aaron Pogue. Read it, people!
23. A character you can relate to the most.
Henry from 100 Cupboards by ND Wilson
24. The most surprising plot twist or ending.
Specials by Scott Westerfeld.
25. Favorite title.
This question is too vague. Is it my favorite because I like how it alludes to themes within the book? Because it sounds clever? Because it's clear and to the point? Because it uses a funny word like eponymous? I generally don't have favorite titles.
26. A book many people hated but you liked.
THe Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Well, I think it's about even between people hating it and liking it, but the terrible movie gives the book the aura that everybody hates it.
27. Your favorite book of all time.
No idea. Why limit myself to one, anyway?

Post NaNoWriMo Plans

Now that the frenzy of NaNoWriMo is over, most people like to breathe, take a step back, and then delve into revision everything that they've just spewed out over the course of November. For me, while Bracken may one day become his own novel, nanowrimo was more the process of understand Bracken's backstory so that I could more richly develop his character in Into the Flames. December is a busy month, and I'm feeling starved for some good reading, so here's my personal game plan for my writing:
Christmas and finishing a good book in December and looking for more good books to read
Easing into working on Into the Flames in January, filling in a few scenes
Forcing myself to finishing writing the extra scenes in February and March
And then printing out my story and really cracking down on that third draft in April and those sultry summer months.
Oh, and let's not forget those book reviews I should be writing for the Consortium. Know any good recently published Kindle books for under $10? Let me know and I'll read and review it. And hopefully my blog will be up soon (hint hint, Sean) so that I can start reviewing books on there as well. Wow, just writing all this down makes me feel so busy. I better get started reading!

-So many books, so little time.-

And it's official

NaNoWriMo: the home stretch

Well, friends, I've got 47182 words to my name this month, which means I have less than two days to crank out the remaining 2818. Impossible? I think not. The best part is, I'm in the last chapter of my novel. THe worst part? I changed a lot of characters these past few days and I'm not sure how I feel about the effort it'll take to go back and rewrite them. Bleh. But that's what writing is all about, isn't it? You're never going to figure out where the story is supposed to go or even how it's supposed to begin if you don't at least try to get it out there. I'm also really sad that my story ends on a depressing note. But if Bracken doesn't have a ton of disappointment in his life now, then how will he be able to find redemption in the next novel? And that's the story that I am really excited to finish writing. I was distracted from writing Into the Flames while I was thinking about Bracken's backstory, but now that I"ve written it this month, I can focus my full attention back on Rahab. Yay!
And congratulations and thanks to Aaron Pogue, Becca Campbell, Courtney Cantrell, and all my other friends who participated in NaNoWriMo and helped me stay on track this month. They were truly an inspiration for me.

week 4 of NaNoWriMo

My main character may have the power to see the future, but I sure don't. Here's some recent story developments that I totally didn't see coming:

The wallet that was empty and did not carry the mark of Superman
The Pact of the Pop-Tart
The Skirt in the girls' locker room that was not Analiese
Two trips to Dean Sanders's office (named after Sean)
The admiration of Bracken by the elusive and desirable female character as well as the formerly grumpy and undesirable leader of the surfer tribe


Now I should be coasting into the final acts of the drama with approximately 16k words left to write before midnight on 30 November. 33,623 and counting!

Week 3 of NaNoWriMo

Into week three and now only four thousand words behind. What with some new characters I didn't see coming, an interesting rivalry between the surfers and the basketball players (I'm siding with the surfers, of course), and Analiese's new boyfriend Mercer (I know, you can tell from the name he's a jerk), things are starting to shape up.
Even with all these developments, though, I'm tempted to start from the end and work my way backward. I know where I want to end up, and sometimes I'm afraid that my character's personalities will keep me from getting there. Well, I've got two more weeks to see what they can come up with before I take matters into my own hands.

week 2 of NaNoWriMo

I hate to admit it, but I'm not doing so hot this year. I'm a week behind in writing (I'd have to write 8k tonight to be on the right track, and that's not happening) and Bracken's not being the great character driving force that my plot needs right now. He kind of just letting things happen to him, and that's not cool. :( And if that's not bad enough, I'm behind on my reading at work. Anyway, I'm hoping that I can get some writing done tonight to jump start me into tomorrow social writing event.
Random thought: Harry Potter 7 Part I next week. I hope it's good. And now back to the grindstone.

NaNoWriMo update--meet Jamison, the chauffer

"The cars were still lined up in their pristine condition—a 2000 Cadillac Eldorado taking the place of the wrecked Porsche, but every other vehicle still the same. Mr. Jamison still lived above the garage and polished the cars each day without fail, even in the middle of winter. Mr. Jamison kept mostly to himself; sometimes his work seemed that of a ghost. Bracken wasn’t really sure what Jamison did in the free hours of the afternoon when he wasn’t polishing the cars, tending the lawn, or chauffering the Carnagies to elaborate dinner parties, but he often pictured the elderly Brit sitting in a leather wingback with a thick cigar and a selection of Shakespeare’s poems, tapping his polished shoe to the crooning tones of Rosemary Clooney."

First post during NaNoWriMo 2010

Well, fellow writers, November is now upon us, and the writing frenzy is begun. Last night's writing party was very successful (in my opinion). I managed to crank out 1500 words, although who knows how terrible they may sound now in the daylight. Since I know my characters pretty well (although, who of us, even me, can say that we will ever truly know Bracken Carnegie?), I'm not too worried about him driving my plot forward toward the stunning final scene. My main concern right now is coming up with a working title so that I can stop referring to it as Bracken. While it does describe the book pretty well, being the main character's name and all, I am not as a general rule very happy about such mundane book titles.
Books that I formerly had called after their main characters, for example, are now pleasantly dubbed Into the Flames, Jumpin' Jehosephat!, and The Letter to Santa. See how much more intriguing those sound, as opposed to, for instance, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, or Emma? Now don't get me wrong, those are all delightful books, but the titles don't really tell you that much about them except that their main characters have very common names.
Leaving you with these thoughts to ponder, I shall bid you adieu and make my way back the creative recourses of my brain where Bracken awaits his next move.

Long Awaited Book Review!

Pogue, Aaron. Gods Tomorrow. OKC, OK: Consortium Books, 2010.

“He used to say, ‘Peddlers today, Gods tomorrow.’ It was like a mantra for him….We have some amazing technology, but we haven’t made any gods yet” (144).

It’s a world not very hard to imagine for us who live in the twenty-first century: a world where the cyber world knows everything about you, knows what you’re going to order for dinner, and has every minute of your day recording onto the big database in the sky. Privacy is dead, and that means that every criminal will be brought down and delivered justice.
Or does it? Some people, called ghosts, have managed to slip through the system. Now someone is dead, and there’s worse things at stake than just an unpunished murderer. Katie Pratt, new to Ghost Targets division of the FBI, is on the case. She will not rest until she finds the ghost behind this senseless murder and threat to modern society.

I am all about the character development, and Gods Tomorrow does not disappoint. As intriguing as the story and the world were, it was Katie Pratt and the other characters she meets along the way that really made me want to finish the book. The thing about these characters was that they weren’t just cookie-cutter stereotypes slightly changed to fit into the roles that Mr. Pogue made for them. They were real, and their emotions were real. They all had a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. Sometimes I wasn’t sure who was supposed to be the antagonist, and sometimes I wanted the antagonist to win. Through it all, Katie’s character is strong and I rooted for her every step of the way. I can’t wait until the next book comes out and I can see her continue her journey through Ghost Targets.

I give it a four star rating because I found the beginning and the techno-jargon a little slowing. It was necessary for the plot and to understand the world, but the how of the whole thing didn’t interest me nearly as much as the characters and the story.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Gods Tomorrow is now for sale on Amazon and in every format of e-book reader. Grab your copy today!

Office Observations

So the IT director just came into our office and asked how to spell "finagle" while also managing to mispronounce it. Jordan helped him out, but Laura just asked, "Doesn't he know how to use the internet?"

I have found on multiple occasions that Grammar Girl is very helpful with her quick and dirty tips. Of course, I already know the rules that she is teaching, but sometimes I like to look them up just to reassure myself, because I live in a world that is plagued by incorrect grammar, and we all know that if the majority of people are doing it, then it must be right. Today I looked up the difference between bad and badly. The way I've always remembered it is that badly is an adverb (obviously, because it has an -ly), and adverbs, as their names denote, modify verbs. Therefore, in what way am I feeling? I feel badly. But bad is an adjective that defines a noun, in this case, I. So if we want to know how I feel, we would have to make it an adjective. But I find that her transitive and intransitive section is even more enlightening. Read and enjoy.