Writers' Chasm

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.     This Week:  What's been your most surprising read of the year so far---the book you weren't sure about going in that really swept you off your feet? This is a tricky one because I haven't really had any books this year that I wasn't sure about sweeping me off my feet.  The books that have surprised me the most this year are A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords because I was expecting insanity, but not that level of insanity. It's been a few months now and I'm still recovering from the events of Swords. Kings was the first book I have ever physically thrown across the room (I love my books too much for throwing) and Swords is the first book I have ever physically thrown acro...

I have a love-hate relationship with movies about writers and movies that feature the publishing industry. Mostly because I could sit there for hours and nitpick. However, I can't stop watching those movies because I love them. I love seeing writers pursing their dream. Here are some movies featuring writers and publishing that I can think of off the top of my head. My Girlfriend's Boyfriend  This is one of my personal favorite movies. Even though there are some things that bother me (for instance, the fact that Ethan only ever goes to the same publisher), it's still a clever movie with a beautifully realistic romance. I've seen it more times than I can count and it never gets old. The Proposal Another personal favorite of mine. If you haven't seen it, this one features an editor and her assistant who she blackmails into an engagement to prevent her from being deported. This one is probably one of the most realistic depictions (in my inexperienced opinion). ...

All I Need by Susane Colasanti Skye wants to meet the boy who will change her life forever. Seth feels their instant connection the second he sees her. When Seth starts talking to Skye at the last beach party of the summer, it’s obvious to both of them that this is something real. But when Seth leaves for college before they exchange contact info, Skye wonders if he felt the same way she did—and if she will ever see him again. Even if they find their way back to each other, can they make a long-distance relationship work despite trust issues, ex drama, and some serious background differences? Absent by Katie Williams Forever is a long time to be stuck in high school. Seventeen-year-old Paige is dead, the victim of a freak fall from the roof during Physics class. Now she’s a ghost, permanently bound to the grounds of her high school. It isn’t all bad, she can find out everyone’s secrets, which can be amusing—for a while. But then Paige hears something that isn’t...

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. This Week:  What authors would be on your dream author panel? Conference season is here once more! I have never been to BEA or ALA (or any conference, for that matter) and, sadly, that doesn't look like it's going to change this year. Someday! If I had to pick my dream author panel, I think it would have to include John Green ( Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns) , Veronica Roth ( Diverent, Insurgent) , Lisa McMann ( Wake, Fade, Gone, Cryer's Cross) , Elizabeth Wein ( Code Name Verity , which if you haven't read it you really should. Seriously), and David Levithan ( Boy Meets Boy, Every Day) . I just think they would be a fascinating group to listen to talk about ...

Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler Once upon a time, Hudson knew exactly what her future looked like. Then a betrayal changed her life, and knocked her dreams to the ground. Now she’s a girl who doesn’t believe in second chances... a girl who stays under the radar by baking cupcakes at her mom’s diner and obsessing over what might have been. So when things start looking up and she has another shot at her dreams, Hudson is equal parts hopeful and terrified. Of course, this is also the moment a cute, sweet guy walks into her life... and starts serving up some seriously mixed signals. She’s got a lot on her plate, and for a girl who’s been burned before, risking it all is easier said than done. It’s time for Hudson to ask herself what she really wants, and how much she’s willing to sacrifice to get it. Because in a place where opportunities are fleeting, she knows this chance may very well be her last...   I really liked this book. It's sweet and funny with a heavy ...

It's been a rather busy week with lots of great TV news and season finales. All of my shows season finales aired this week. All of them. Once Upon a Time season finale was lovely. I was wavering on whether or not I was actually going to continue with the show for season three, but the finale clinched it. Castle finale is killing me with its unfair extreme cliffhangers. NCIS finale was worse than Once and Castle put together. DOCTOR WHO. I don't even know how I feel about this one. I'm all lost and confused and it was brilliant but I raged for five minutes after the end and I don't even know. And if I thought Once and Doctor Who and Castle and NCIS were bad...I watched the Arrow finale. If you aren't watching Arrow, you might want to think about checking it out because it's a great show. The Agents of SHIELD trailer is here and IT IS FANTASTIC. I'm so excited for the show to start in the fall. It's going to be brilliant. The Once Upon a Time in ...

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. This week:  What book is your 'one that got away?' (What book have you always been dying to read but still haven't yet?) Considering that my to-read shelf on GR is rapidly approaching 500 (488 right now), this could be a long list.  The first books to pop into my head are the entire trilogy of Demon's Lexicon, Demon's Covenant and Demon's Surrender.  I own Lexicon and Covenant and I've read the former, but ever since I decided to just read the entire trilogy together, I haven't been able to find Surrender in a bookstore. There's Eona by Alison Goodman, which I've been wanting to read ever since I devoured Eon years ago in high school. There's Between Shades o...

***WARNING: This post will contain spoilers for all three Iron Man movies and Avengers. That includes Iron Man 3 that just came out.*** If you know me, you know that Avengers is one of my favorite movies. It's my default when I want to watch something and I don't know what. I've seen it more times than I can count and I love all of the Avengers. But from a writing standpoint, Tony Stark is my favorite. Out of all of them, he has the biggest character arc. I love going back to the first Iron Man and thinking about how much he's changed. Even his way of thinking from the beginning of Avengers to the end changes so much. He evolves. He learns. He realizes the world is bigger than just him. He makes mistakes and he fixes them and he acts like Tony Stark, but you know that he cares. He doesn't just walk away from huge traumatic events like they didn't happen. He almost died in Avengers and that affects him. He has panic attacks. He can't think about New...

RED WINGS TAKE GAME SEVEN TO WIN THE SERIES. If you hear blasting of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" that's me. I'll stop. Eventually.  Also, Marvel revealed the first promo for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last night! I'm even more excited now for it to start.  I'm going to try to start posting weekly reading and writing updates to hold myself accountable. The semester really threw me off and now that it's summer I'm trying to get back into everything.  Books read: 1  I devoured Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet last week. I'm a huge fan of BBC's Sherlock so seeing the inspiration behind it was fascinating. I'd never read any of Doyle's works before and I'm looking forward to reading on.  Words written: ??  I didn't think to keep track of my word count last week so I'll have to make sure to do that this week. I've been writing steadily but not on anything in particular.

I took an intro to creative writing class last semester and one of my favorite parts of the class was the biweekly writing prompt. The professor would give us a prompt of some kind and then we would have fifteen minutes to write whatever we thought of based on that prompt. Now that class is over, I want to keep it up and I thought posting those little bits here would be a good motivator. The prompt for this one came from this blog (it's #732): “From across the fence, a love story.” Hart gazed across the other side of the fence, his glossy black coat hot under the midday sun. He pranced as he watched a small trailer pull into the driveway on the other side. Finally, after months of loneliness, perhaps the other pasture would be filled again. He watched as an older male human and a little female climbed out of the truck and walked to the back of the trailer, sliding open the bolt. The door opened and the male climbed inside, backing out the new arrival. Hart raised his muzzl...

Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick  When eighteen-year-old Becky Randle’s mother dies, she’s summoned from her Missouri trailer park to meet Tom Kelly, the world’s top designer. He makes her an impossible offer: He’ll create three dresses to transform Becky from a nothing special girl into the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Becky thinks Tom is a lunatic, or that he’s producing a hidden camera show called World’s Most Gullible Poor People. But she accepts, and she’s remade as Rebecca. When Becky looks in the mirror, she sees herself – an awkward mess of split ends and cankles. But when anyone else looks at Becky, they see pure five-alarm hotness. Soon Rebecca is on the cover of Vogue, the new Hollywood darling, and dating celebrities. Then Becky meets Prince Gregory, heir to the British throne, and everything starts to crumble. Because Rebecca aside, Becky loves him. But to love her back, Gregory would have to look past the blinding Rebecca to see the real girl insi...

I know I'm really late with this post, but I wanted to fit it in anyway. I read five books in April, but the best one was... Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare     I looked forward to this book for quite awhile before it finally arrived. I thought this might finally be the book that topped City of Glass on my list of favorite Clare novels. It didn't, but it came very, very close. It's a great final installment to the Infernal Devices trilogy and I really enjoyed it. It was a mistake for me to read it the week before finals, but it was completely worth it. I read the final 200 pages in a single afternoon because I couldn't put the book down. Beloved characters, surprising twists, swoon-worthy romance. It might have wrapped up a little too cleanly for my taste, but the ending is a good one.

Summer is here! (Though it doesn't feel like it up north. Snow. In MAY. This is not natural.) That means it's time to jump into summer reading. Here are some of my suggestions for a book-filled summer. Invincible Summer by Hannah Moskowitz Not your typical beach read, but a great story for a hot summer day sitting on the patio.  Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen   I always enjoy coming back and reading this book again. It's a very sweet romance and definitely a great story to take to the beach.  The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares   This is definitely one of those books of my childhood. There are four books in the series, plus a kind of epilogue novel ( Sisterhood Everlasting ) that takes place years later. All five are fantastic books about friendship and growing up.  The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith This one's definitely going to be on my summer reread list. It's...

And...I'm back. Finals week was exhausting but now it's over and I'm home. The Red Wings made the play-offs for the twenty-second year in a row and Orb won the Kentucky Derby. So things are good. (I apologize for the random mentions of sports over the next few weeks, I look forward to Triple Crown and Stanley Cup season year-round.) Past and present tense. They're both perfectly acceptable tenses to use in a novel, but sometimes one is better used than the other. Past tense is the narrator telling a story that has already happened. It's probably the most commonly used tense and works well for most stories. Example: "You're the only one for me," he said just before he kissed her.  It was used to Harry Potter, the Inheritance Cycle, the Mortal Instruments series, and many other novels.  Present tense is the narrator telling a story as it happens. It's grown in popularity in reason years in young adult novels. It's a tricky tense to ...