And the Award Goes To...

Almost two weeks ago, I was honored, thrilled, and deeply touched to receive the Versatile Blogger Award!

My very first blog award, guys!  Isn't it beautiful?  Now, we have already established my 21st Century Caveperson status, so of course, it has taken me a couple of weeks to figure out how to get it into my sidebar.  Anticlimactic, I know.  But I finally did it, and it's there, and I just want to take this minute to thank Angela McCallister over at Jaded Love Junkie for this award.  She's got a great blog, so go check it out!

Now, nothing good really comes free - those of us with Little People in our houses know this, yes? - so this thing haz rules, guys.  Rule number one is that you thank the person who gave you the award and link back, which I have done.  Rule numero due is that you have to post the award on your blog, and you can see it over there in the sidebar all shiny and new-looking and beautiful.  Rule number three is that I have to choose fifteen others upon whom to bestow this award, and rule number four is that I have to let them know ('cause not to would be kind of mean, wouldn't it?).

Do you know how many deserving bloggers there are out there, guys?  I mean, really, do you have any idea?  HUNDREDS.  Narrowing it down to fifteen was really hard, folks, but I think I've done it.  The fifteen recipients of the Versatile Blogger Award are:


1) Christine Fonseca, author of Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students
2) Heather Ayris Burnell, author of Bedtime Monster
3) Carolina Valdez Miller, over at Carol's Prints
4) Cynthia Jaynes Omololu, author of Dirty Little Secrets
5) Kate Kaynak, author of Minder, Adversary, Legacy, and Accused
6) Elana Johnson (You don't have to put it up, girl, but I'm giving it to you because your blog is made of AWESOMESAUCE.)
7) Jennifer over at Extreme Reader Book Reviews 
8) Franklin Beaumont over at Flash Fiction Daily 
9) Vic Caswell over at Hairnets and Hopes
10) Holly Cupala, author of Tell Me a Secret
11) Hannah Moskowitz, author of Break
12) Jen Stayrook, of WriteOnCon fame
13) Kelly Polark, whose blog is just too funny
14) Shelli Johannes over at Market My Words
15) Krista V over at Mother.Write.Repeat

Those are some awesome blogs, so I hope you make time to go and check them out.  And have a great day!

100 Followers Giveaway of Awesome!

I've reached 100 followers on my blog, guys!  And there are about a hundred people I have to thank for that.

YOU.


So I decided a while back that for my 100 Follower celebration, I wanted to have a giveaway!  At first, I thought I`d give away a critique or something.  Then, my husband came up with something even better.

See, when I found out the Smart Chicks Kick It tour was coming to a bookstore near me, I got really excited.  I mean, really, REALLY excited.  Like, buy all the first books by all those amazing ladies even though I hadn't read them yet so I would have permanent records of my couple of hours in the same room as them, grin and giggle my whole way home, tell all my friends EXCITED.  Then when my husband saw my hoard, he 1) had kittens; and 2) refused to continue to finance my literary excesses (and buy the bookshelves necessary to store the evidence of my literary excesses), and he insisted that he would only be okay with this if I agreed to give some of my newfound treasures away!

OUCH.


But, you know, this is understandable.  Our house looks like a book-junkyard.  We have WAAAAY more books than will fit on the shelves.  It's a lot of dusting, and it makes it hard to vacuum.  So, after reading those beautiful books, and caressing their beautiful covers, and gazing lovingly at the beautiful signatures in them, and doing some soul-searching, I have decided to give away my copy of SHADE, signed by Jeri Smith-Ready, to one of you, my faithful followers.


Here's the blurb from the jacket flap:

"Best. Birthday. Ever. At least, it was supposed to be. With Logan's band playing a critical gig and Aura's plans for an intimate after-party, Aura knows it will be the most memorable night of her boyfriend's life. She never thought it would be his last.

Logan's sudden death leaves Aura devastated. He's gone.

Well, sort of.

Like everyone born after the Shift, Aura can see and hear ghosts. This mysterious ability has always been annoying, and Aura had wanted nothing more than to figure out why the Shift happened so she can undo it. But not with Logan’s violet-hued spirit still hanging around. Because dead Logan is almost as real as ever. Almost.

It doesn't help that Aura’s new friend Zachary is so understanding—and so very alive. His support means more to Aura than she cares to admit.

As Aura's relationships with the dead and the living grow ever complicated, so do her feelings for Logan and Zachary. Each holds a piece of Aura's heart…and clues to the secret of the Shift."

SHADE is a great book.  I read it in one sitting, and it literally churned my stomach, because it touches on drug and alcohol abuse, and this is my greatest fear when it comes to my kids.  As soon as it got to the drunken party part, my stomach started doing its clench-unclench-flip-flip-flip-clench routine and I thought, Please, God, don't ever let this happen to my kids.  Plus, it kept me wondering throughout the book about Aura and the secret behind her ability to see ghosts.  And Zachary?  Let's just say I have a thing for all things Scottish and leave it at that.  So, it's hard for me to give it up, but I know that one of you will really, really, really enjoy it, so that makes it a little bit easier.


And, Jeri signed it in purple.  How cool is that?


There will be one first prize awarded (SHADE, signed in purple by Jeri-Smith-Ready), and one second prize (a query or first-five pages or full PB critique by Yours Truly).


SO HERE'S THE DEAL:


To enter this giveaway, LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST.  One comment = 1 entry.  You must be a follower to enter this giveaway.  Old followers get +2 entries, new followers get +1 entry.  (So you get a minimum of 2 entries, guys!)

FOR EXTRA ENTRIES:
+1 For Tweeting this giveaway, link in your comment.
+1 For every follower you send my way, tell them to tell me you sent them.
+1 For linking to this giveaway in the sidebar in your blog, link in your comment.
+1 For linking to this on your Facebook page, link in your comment.
+5 For writing an actual blog post just about this giveaway, link in your comment.


You don`t have to add up all your entries; I like math.  (Yup.  Big huge NERD over here.  I'm cool with it.)  Deadline for comments is Midnight on the night of Friday, October 8th.  Winners will be announced on Monday, October 11th.

You have one week.

GO!

PHOTOS. OF. AWESOME!

Remember those photos I promised you?  I bet you thought I was going to let you down, what with there not being a new post up this morning, huh?

Well.  It took a little longer that I had hoped, but I finally (temporarily) got my camera working.  And as for my awesome weekend, let me just say...

I got to meet the ladies who wrote all those.

Did I mention I got their books signed?

All those books?

Yeah.  And the women were pretty great, too - the funny, quick-thinking, hilarious kind of great.  And the generous kind - they signed books for HUNDREDS of people.  HUNDREDS.  Margaret Stohl actually came out and worked the line, signing books and chatting while people were waiting, because she's that cool and nice.

So, yeah.  AWESOME.


NOW: since I have almost a hundred followers, I'll have an announcement coming up in the next couple of days, involving a contest with some pretty cool prizes.  AWESOME prizes, even.  But not yet.  For now, I'm going to go lie down in the middle of my books of awesomeness.

Wisdom on Wednesdays: Cue the Music!

I found myself in a bit of a situation the other evening.  I had an assignment due for my class the next day, and I just wasn't happy with what I'd written.  It was riddled with cliches, there were huge paragraphs of exposition, and most importantly, my main character was really flat and generic.  I had an idea of how I wanted to approach the rewrite, but I found myself just staring at the blank page, paralyzed.  I couldn't begin.  Sitting at my computer, faced with a fresh page, I still couldn't get past the words cluttering up the previous ones.

So, I tried something I've never tried before.  I usually prefer to write in silence, so I don't get distracted by conversations or lyrics.  But this time, I thought for a while about my MC, and about the theme of my book, and I decided to try listening to a song that kind of touched on that idea.

It worked.  The words started flowing, and I finished with something that, if not perfect, was definitely a solid draft - a huge improvement over the version I had started with.

I had to stop the music after a while because it did get distracting eventually, but it got me started.  So next time you hit a wall, try putting in some music that would fit in the world of your book, and see if it's enough to get you over that hump and into the next thousand words.

Have you tried writing with music?  Did it help or hinder you?

Got Plans This Saturday?

My camera has died.  So, no photos today.  I'm sad, too.  Hopefully, I'll have some for you on Thursday.  In the meantime, you'll just have to keep guessing about what I did this past Saturday.  (I know.  I'm evil.  You'll adjust.)

Instead, I wanted to share the news of a really cool event that some Canadian authors I know (and others I don't know) are participating in this week.  It's called "Airlift to L.A.", and it's the brainchild of children's author Helaine Becker, who is working in conjunction with Access Books and four other authors (Rob Weston, Kari-Lynn Winters, Jill Murray, and Wendy Kitts - who has a picture book coming out soon with Nimbus Press) to bring hundreds of books to Bunche Elementary in the Compton Unified School District on October 2nd, 2010.  (That's this Saturday, guys!  And click those links back there to check out their author blogs and websites - pretty great stuff!)

Why Bunche Elementary?  Because their library has about 3 books for every kid who attends the school.  3.  A tiny fraction of what they should have.  And 90 % of the kids who go to this school live at or below the poverty line, which means school is probably the only place they have access to books at all.  Their library shelves are practically empty.  Not only that, but these kids, who have so little and whose lives are so challenging, need books more than anyone - to escape the daily hardship they endure, to know that they are not alone, and to see that the world can hold more for them than this.  I know this need.  We can't ignore it.

So, what can you do?  If you live in the L.A.area, you can volunteer to help paint the refurbished library and stack their new books on the shelves.  Remember, that's THIS SATURDAY, October 2nd, at 9 AM.

If you're busy this weekend but live in the L.A. area, you can volunteer with Access Books (who provide books for dozens of impoverished schools in Southern California) and help with marketing, publicity, or a myriad of other things.

If you're nowhere near the L.A. area (like me), you can hold a book drive, donate books, or simply help out by donating some cash.

Just do something.  Then, leave a comment about it.  And spread the word!

ROAD TRIP!

Happy Monday, everybody!  I hope you had a good weekend.

Mine was kind of crazy

Friday evening, I took my older one to the bookstore to meet Natale Ghent.  She was coming to the tween book club meeting that night because the kids had all read her book THE ODDS GET EVEN, which my own little odd fellow really related to.  It deals with bullying in a funny and liberating and wonderfully awesome way and you need to read it if you read middle grade at all.  (It was shortlisted for the Silver Birch Award this year, guys.  READ IT.)  And Natale was funny and warm and related SO well to the kids.  I am her newest fan, and meeting her was the highlight of my week.  And we talked BOOKS!

Then came Saturday, which was a little bit awesome - it involved seven Smart Chicks, some microphones, flying keyrings, and a few hundred people screaming and hooting.  I was one of the screaming people.  In case you haven't figured it out, I'll post pictures tomorrow that will explain everything.  But believe me when I say, it was AWESOME.  Oh, and: BOOKS.

And then yesterday, my family took a road trip to this place:

to meet this lady, who also dragged her family there on a road trip of their own.  And we had a lovely afternoon chatting about all things writing while our spouses entertained the kids.  Somewhere else.  They say it was the Children's Museum, but based on the volume of sand that came out of my littler one's shoes, I'm guessing they tried digging their own version of the Chunnel under Lake Ontario.

So, MORE awesome.  And also, MORE BOOKS!

So, yeah.  Three days, three bookstore visits, one weekend of awesomeness.  I'm wishing it were Friday all over again.

How was your weekend?

How To Write Compelling Characters

We break from our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this post, which is one of many in The Great Blogging and Writing Experiment conceived of and hosted by super-blogger and author Elana Johnson.  This is in no way a blogfest.  (But go ahead and click that link and check out all the other great posts on this topic, which is just like a blogfest, but we won't tell Elana, okay?  Shhh.)


So, how TO write compelling characters, anyway?  The honest answer?

I haven't got a clue.

Seriously.  I write, but I have no idea as I write if my characters are compelling.  So I thought that today I'd talk about what I find compelling in other people's characters, since studying others' work is a great way to learn.

When I read a book and find myself drawn to the characters, it's usually because they have certain qualities that I find endearing or admirable or attractive somehow, and those qualities usually contrast with some other aspect of that person in an unexpected way.  For example, I've read a lot of YA recently where the female protagonist is petite and physically unassuming, but has a fiery personality.  Or maybe a character is very physically attractive, but also very bookish and a little bit nerdy.  In the case of TWILIGHT, Carlisle and Edward Cullen both crave human blood, but they have a moral code that forbids it.  In theatre, we call this "playing opposites", where things look one way and then you twist it a little; I think it's important that we do this with our characters in literature, as well.

Backstory also plays a big role in whether I find a character compelling, and this is also a trick I learned first in the theatre.  We used to spend hours creating entire life stories for every single character that we were going to play - even the minor ones who only had one scene and maybe one or two lines of dialogue.  As soon as I had read through the script for the first time, I would sit down and figure out who this person was: where did she grow up?  Who raised her?  What does she like to eat for breakfast?  Is she a coffee drinker, or does she prefer tea or juice?  Is she a night-owl, or an early riser?  How many friends does she have, and what does she talk to them about?  What are her fears?  Dreams?  Once I'd worked all of this out, I knew who my character was, and I'd know how she would react in certain situations.  I'd know how to play her scenes.  When we write our characters, even our minor ones, we need to know their whole story.  When an author knows her characters' stories, it comes through in the writing, and I end up wanting to know more about those characters, even the minor ones.  Diana Gabaldon has developed a whole spinoff series about Lord John Grey, one of the minor characters in her OUTLANDER series, because people wanted to know more about him.  They found him compelling.

I don't want to write any more - this is a long post as it is - but there's something to go on.  Make them contradict themselves a little, and outline their backstories ahead of time.  So far, I think it's working for me.

What do you think?  Have you tried either of these things?  Did it work for you?