Writers' Chasm

Happy Friday! I just had yesterday off and I already feel like I need a vacation. :) So glad it's the weekend... Before I take a look back at the week, I have a video, Twilight: Modern Warfare 2 trailer . Don't worry, it's funny. MR this week is Querytracker's post on nudging agents . In the News this week: Moonrat is hosting a Write-a-Thon from February 5th to the 8th! I'm thinking about participating. Also, the new iPad has been released. If you don't know what it is, you'll have to go to Google because the only thing I know about it is that it might reshape publishing as we know it (what else is new?) and is like a giant iPhone that doesn't make calls. Adventurous Writer talked about fear of success in writers and how to overcome it this week. BookEnds explains what to do when writing and querying series . Elana has an AWESOME post on query first and las lines . GLA answers 10 query questions and gathers 5 articles on mystery writing . Pimp My N...

No one's writing is perfect. Mine isn't perfect, yours isn't perfect, JK Rowling's isn't perfect. No. One. Is. Perfect. Everyone has something they need to work on. Whether it be dialogue, description, telling instead of showing, endings, beginnings, middles, character development, grammar, or spelling, there's something. One person might have stilted dialogue. Another might use too much purple prose in their description. Another might have problems with leaving too many loose threads hanging off at the end when there's no chance of a sequel. Someone else might have Mary Sue-ish main characters. Recognizing your weaknesses is a part of writing. Because my recognizing them, you can work on improving them and through that become an even greater writer. Give me any book in the world and someone can find something that should be fixed. No book, published or unpublished is safe. If you can't figure out what needs to be fixed, hand it over to an honest beta r...

This week's question at YA Highway is: Topic #14: What are your favorite book covers? This is a hard one. I tend to judge books more on summary than I do covers, but let me see if I can think of some. So I started making a list of all the book covers that I can remember and love -- being able to remember it off the top of my head already means it must be good -- and the list turned out to be a lot longer than I expected. When all was said and done, I had forty-one choices. I didn't even know I remembered that many book covers! ? Anyway here are my top ten in no particular order: Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan This is the hardcover version of Lightning Thief's cover. I love this cover and I've always loved it. The cover was the second thing I saw when I picked up the book and I already wanted to take it home. It's almost worth paying extra for the better cover. You can't tell on a computer screen, but the cover is sleek and shiny. Fade by Lisa...

Okay this was posted yesterday so I couldn't add it to Friday's WiS, but I couldn't wait until this Friday to share. My friend Bailey had an interview with Lisa McMann ! I have made my official decision regarding my WIPs. I thought briefly about trunking all of them for a week or two until my schoolwork gets itself all straightened out, but instead I'm going to trunk all of them, but Jump. I was up to eight WIPs and while I'm pretty good at multi-tasking, I just can't give that many works my full attention. So until Jump goes out to betas (which I'd like to be February 1st), she's my only WIP. So...-I decided to start the week off with a fun little post. If you recognize yourself in any of these (I know I'm guilty of at least half of them), then congrats, you might be a writer! :) You might be a writer if... ...you think schizophrenia is normal. ...you've started talking to your fictional characters. ...you find yourself talking in third person....

Another week gone, another weekend here. Unfortunately for me, this isn't going to be the relaxing weekend that it should be. I have a mountain of things to accomplish and I can't just slack off like I did last weekend. But I'm not here to complain about all the crap that I have to accomplish between now and midnight on Sunday. It's time to look back on the last five days. :) *squeals* Only 18 more days until Gone and 21 more days until Lightning Thief!!!! Sorry, I've been watching LT trailers again... I think I'm finally winning my mom over to go see the first possible show of LT. I'm excited :D Though if it comes out at midnight on Thursday, I may have to convince her that it's okay for me to miss one day of school for a movie... Anyway... We have three co-MRs this week. Number one is a guest blogger of Nathan's . This post makes me want to go write right now! I'm not going to tell you what it's about -- I don't think I could do it just...

This week's topic from YA Highway was: Topic #13: What book(s) do you love that no one else has ever heard of? This is a tough one for me. There aren't a lot of books that I love and can think of off the top of my head that no one's heard of. My writer friends severely limit the possibilities. :D This book I thought of was the last one I read, The Foretelling by Alice Hoffman. The prose in that book is just gorgeous and I didn't want to put it down. Also the Thoroughbreds series by Joanna Campbell. These were my main source of satisfaction for my horse addiction when I was younger. I have a bunch of them waiting in shelves and totes for the day I can go back and enjoy them once again. These books make me laugh, cry, and even both at the same time. There's one that I never finished because I was crying so hard I couldn't keep reading.

So I'm in a romance mood since I've had an overpowering urge to work on KISAN. KISAN (that's the acronym for the title, not the actual title) is an idea I've had lurking in my brain for several months now. It's one of those ideas that stays in my brain even after I write it down on my list -- the best kind. Also since I'm so indecisive about which WIP is going to be my next one, I'm stopping teaser tuesdays for me until I figure it out. It's just not fair for me to be posting a teaser from a different WIP every week when I may never finish it. This brings me to the topic of the week... I have a confession to make. When I have a guy I like (or liked), they usually have a theme song. It's a song that makes me think of them every time I hear it. (Don't look at me like that, I'm not weird!) So today I decided to do the same thing for my character's relationships. So here are the love songs that most represent my characters. Oh, btw, most of t...

Wow. I never thought this week was going to end. But now it's Friday and I have a three-day weekend to look forward to! *must do something productive with this vacation* Lots of awesome links this week. :) But first.... FOUR WEEKS UNTIL LIGHTNING THIEF RELEASE! And 24 days until Gone's release! *bounces up and down* I just read the Kirkus review for it a few minutes ago. I had to make myself close out of the window so I'd stop reading the reviews and rambling at the computer. Though I can honestly say I'm now very anxious for this book. Anyway... (oh, random fact: if you get a group of people together and start a chain of 'Anyway's it will keep going. It's kind of weird) And in other news, the cover to Riordan's new book, The Red Pyramid -- first book in the Kane Chronicles -- AND a mini-excerpt from the first chapter have been posted here ! *fangirl squeals* This is going to be my next countdown. Must Read: Co-MR's this week are GLA's 8 links t...

Books come to us in different ways and from different places. Today I was thinking about the Lightning Thief and remembering the first time I picked it up. Weird that I can't remember my brother's birthday, but I can remember the first time I saw LT like it was yesterday... It was another wonderful day in the library. I already had a stack of books in my hands, but I was looking through the new YA section in the back of the library. My eyes scanned the titles, looking for one that caught my eye. There in the middle of the second shelf sat the huge white binding of the Lightning Thief. I plucked it from the shelf and looked over the cover. Someday I'm going to buy the hardcover edition just because I like the cover for that one better (don't ask why, I don't know). I flipped it open and read the inside blurb. Right away, I was hooked. So I left the library with LT in my hands, excited to read it. Go back a little farther to the first time my eyes fell on Harry Potter...

The other day I was looking at my pencil in school and once again marveling in the irony that it has "BIC" written on it. For those of you that don't know, BIC is a writing term standing for Butt In Chair. Which basically just means settling down and getting to work. Apparently it's also the brand name of a pencil or something. So how do you do that? How do you put BIC and put pencil to paper (or fingers to keyboard)? 1. Open your WIP. 2. Get in a writing (or editing) frame of mind. Read over what you've written so far (unless you're like me and this only makes you less likely to write). Ask your characters a couple of questions. Do a short character interview. Write a short scene (related or unrelated to where you are in the story) in your head. 3. Turn off ALL distractions. Close out of the internet. Set the Leechblock if you have it. Turn off the music (unless you write better with it). Shut off Facebook. Get away from the TV. Close your bedroom door. A few...

This is my first finished book and book review for 2010!!!! And I'm way behind on the 100 book Challenge... The Wizard Heir by Cinda Williams Chima Sixteen-year-old Seph McCauley has spent the past three years getting kicked out of one exclusive private school after another. Unfortunately, it's not his attitude that's the problem, it's the trail of magical accidents -- lately, disasters -- that follow in his wake. Seph is a wizard, orphaned and untrained, and now that the only person who could protect him has died, his powers are escalating out of control. After causing a tragic fire at an after-hours party, Seph is sent to the Havens, a secluded boys' school on the coast of Maine. At first, it seems the answer to his prayers. Gregory Leicester, the headmaster, promises to train Seph in magic and initiate him into his secret order of wizards. But Seph's enthusiasm dampens quickly when he learns that training comes at a steep cost, and that Leicester plans to use...

First Week in Short of the new year!! Sorry about not posting the last three days. Tuesday I decided to forego posting a teaser since I haven't been writing. Wednesday my mom told me the laptop had crashed when I got home and we thought we were going to have to send it in to get the motherboard replaced. Again. Yesterday we found out that it was just a faulty power cable and got a new one, but I had a review of Wizard Heir planned and I still haven't finished it yet. Bad blogger/reader/writer, I know. :( This week's Must Read is the top ten questions editors ask themselves when reading a work. Contests: GLA has links to two contests for MG and YA writers . I'm going to have to check those out when I'm done. News: Kate Epstein is now accepting young adult submissions. Colleen Lindsay is once again open to queries according to Querytracker ! Blood Red Pencil has a few things that drive editors crazy . And beta readers and readers and probably agents too... BookEnds...

It's that day of the year again. The day when Christmas break finally ends and it's time to go back to work/school. I hate that day. And because this day is killing my brain and I can't think of anything to write about, I'm just going to ramble on about some random topics. First things first. Kristin is having an awesome contest over at her blog. Prize is a book from three choices and a first chapter critique! Today I was reading Emilia's post about internet distractions and I scrolled down to the comments and saw Kirsten's comments about a program that blocks certain sites for a required period of time. My computer is now a carrier of Leechblock (makes it sound like a disease, doesn't it?). I've scheduled it to block most of my favorite sites for the two hours after I come home from school. Isn't that awesome?! In 15 minutes I get to see if it works. Yesterday I saw a new trailer for Lightning Thief. Well, it's not exactly new, but it's...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Today is the first day of 2010 and with the start of every new year come the new year's resolutions. Now if you're like me, you make a resolution every year, but it never lasts past the first day. So today I'd like to make a pact that I'm actually going to complete my new year's goals. Here they are. 1. Read 100 books in a year. (That's two books a week or one book every 3 1/2 days). I'd love to do this one. My rule is that reread books do count. Someday I'll do it again where they don't, but in the meantime there's no way I can go to the bookstore or library often enough to be able to read 100 new books. Especially with all the book-based movies that are coming up. I have to reread the entire Harry Potter series before DH 1, the entire Twilight series at some point so I can revaluate my opinion of them, the entire Percy Jackson series before LT, and Dawn Treader before that movie comes out. 2. Query Destiny and Jump at least. Th...