Voices of YA

Thank you Molly Looby and Raimey Gallant for tagging me!! And thank you Caitlin Lambert  for creating the Voices of YA tag!!

Here are the rules!

1 Thank the person who tagged you

2 Link to the original creator

3 Answer the ten questions

4 Tag at LEAST TWO other YA writers/bloggers

ABOUT THE WRITERS:

What draws you to YA?

YA feels limitless. It doesn’t have to fit into a certain box and can basically be about anything. 

Describe your writing process. Do you like outlines and structure, or seeing where the story takes you?

My writing process is not structured by any means. I don’t really do outlines. I do a lot of  writing my ideas out by hand in an actual notebook. When I write my ideas out, I let them flow and write whatever comes to mind. Later, when I am typing up my story on Scrivener, that is when I process my notes and make them make sense. 

How long have you been writing? Where are you in your journey?

I have been writing, according to my mother, since I came out of the womb. I only have one book published, The Best Mixtape I Have. It was self-published shortly after NaNoWriMo a few years ago. It is horrible and not at all edited. I do love the story line, but I wish I wouldn’t have rushed it. I just wanted to enjoy the free copies that I received from finishing NaNoWriMo. I am currently working on a book that I am definitely taking my time on and hopefully I won’t self-publish. 

What do you need to write? Coffee? Music?

I need my notebooks and music. Coffee is nice but isn’t a requirement. Music is a requirement, however. I have a special soundtrack that I listen to when I write. I’ll share a sample:

Contagious - The Night Riots 

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

Silvertongue  - Young the Giant

Do You Remember - Jarryd James

If you could offer one piece of advice to another writer (other than "don't give up"), what would it be?

Don’t ever let anyone tell you how it is for you. Whether it be a friend, an agent, a publisher, if making certain changes makes you feel uncomfortable or if you feel like you are destroying your story, do only what you feel best. Now, I am not saying that agents and editors don’t know when changes need to be made, but sometimes you have to go with your gut. You know your story and you know how it needs to be told.

ABOUT THE BOOKS:

What book still has you reeling from its plot twist? (*no spoilers please*)

I can’t really think of any…

What books are you most anticipating for this year?

It was The End of Oz by Danielle Paige, but I kind of already dug into that book and finished after a day. 

I am also looking forward to The Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts. Here is an official synopsis: In Bastards, we follow Tilla, an intrepid but surly cast-off of Lord Kent of the Western Province, who raised her as a baby but more or less shrugged her off once he discovered his trueborn children. But when a visiting princess chooses to sit with Tilla and other kingdom bastards at a royal dinner, everything starts to change. Especially when Tilla finds herself helping to safeguard the princess’s life as rebellion brews.

In your opinion, which YA book/series has the most unique premise?

I like the Dorothy Must Die series by Danielle Paige. I love the reimagining of The Wizard of Oz and how Paige mixes teen angst with a classic story.

What is your all-time favourite quote from YA lit (I know, I'm cruel)?

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.” - The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky. 

What book do you most hope will have a movie adaption?

The Black Witch by Laurie Forest. The book is beautiful and I would love to see it played out.

Thanks again for my tag! I am tagging DJ Humphries and Amy Laurel!

It's Not Goodbye. It's See You Later.

Tomorrow marks the end of an era. Hate him or love him, Donald Trump will become the President of the United States. He doesn’t deserve it and sure as hell doesn’t have the temperament for it. He is not “my” president. Even saying that, I truly do wish him the best. Why? Because if he fails, America fails, and I refuse to fail.

BUT… Today is President Obama’s last full day as Commander-In-Chief and I want to honor him. He is the epitome of class and dignity. I will miss him, I swear, it feels like I’m losing a friend. So, in honor of “my” president, here are some of his best quotes:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

"We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent." 

"You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you."

“We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny.”

"My fellow Americans, it has been the honor of my life to serve you. I won't stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my remaining days ... I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change -- but in yours."

Well, it's been a great ride President Obama. Thank you for all that you have done. I wish you nothing but the best.

(I'm not sure what next week's post will be about. Give me some ideas in the comments if you like!)

There Is Good in This World and It's Worth Fighting For

My last post of 2016 was going to be about editing, but with how horrible 2016 has been that didn’t feel quite right. I had also considered writing an “In Memoriam” but that didn’t feel right either. What did feel right was listing the positive things that did happen this year (some are personal, some are positive things I read about on the internet.) I hope my list brings you some happiness and I hope you share your positive experiences of 2016 with me in the comments. (I will also be using the #RememberTheGood in my social media posts to share some positive vibes.)

• I graduated college with a degree in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing
• Thanks to the ice bucket challenge the gene responsible for ALS has been found, meaning we are closer to an effective treatment 
• The Orlando Shakespeare Festival showed up with angel wings to block funeral-goers for the Orlando Pulse victims view from anti-gay protesters
• Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar (finally!)
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them came out on my birthday and it felt like returning home
• Chewbacca Mom
• For the first time ever a woman was nominated for President of United States and even though she didn’t win, her concession speech moved me to my core:

"I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now. And to all of the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” - Hillary Clinton. 

• The manatee population is no longer endangered
• Green sea turtles were taken off the endangered list as well
• The number of tigers rose for the first time in 100 years
• It was announced that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill
• The Chicago Cubs won the World Series (one year after my Royals did!)
• The big hole in the ozone is starting to heal
• West Africa is now ebola-free
• Bernie Sanders started a fire that can’t be put out
• Standing Rock stood its ground and won
• Joe Biden memes and all of their glory brought me laughter when I needed it most

I truly hope that everyone has a fantastic New Year’s eve and that the New Year brings everyone love, happiness, and most of all hope.

See you next year!

Inspiration for NaNoWriMo

In order to prepare for NaNoWriMo I need to feel inspired. So, I thought I would share some quotes that inspire me to be a better writer.

"You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they shave have behaved better." - Anne Lamott, from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

That quote reminds me that my writing is mine, my life is mine, and I should write about my experiences no matter how other people feel about them.

You are a writer even if you haven't been published.

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt." - Sylvia Plath, from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.

Again, write for you and from your own experience. I find that writing is a whole lot easier when I do it with only my expectations in mind.

"Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open." - Natalie Goldberg, from Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. 

Man, when it comes to this quote I feel like the writers of The Walking Dead live by it and you should too. Let yourself take a plot too far, take an idea too far, go dark, just do it. You may end up hating what you write but it will cathartic.

"I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I am afraid of." -Joss Whedon 

Why do you write? Find that out if you can and run with it.

Writing isn't rainbows and butterflies and it can break you, but it can also save you.

"If it's still in your mind, it is worth the risk." - Paulo Coelho 

If you can't shake an idea or character or image, you should write about it.

"If I waited for perfection I would never write a word." - Margaret Atwood

No story ever started off perfect and ready to publish. I mean, that is what makes National Novel Writing Month so great, it demands imperfection. You write like a crazy person without editing, without stopping to make sure what you wrote makes sense, it doesn't allow you to beat yourself up.

"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good." - William Faulkner

Again, this is what is so great about NaNoWriMo, it allows you write recklessly and to write really bad things that could turn into a wonderful story. You have to get the bad ideas and stories out of you before you can find greatness.

Never be afraid to write something controversial. Never be afraid to write the truth. Never be afraid to write. 

"You can't blame a writer for what the characters say." - Truman Capote

Never ever let the fear of offending people stop you from writing a dynamic character. Characters that have the most depth tend to be the ones that say and do things most wouldn't. You are not your characters, if your villain is a racist asshole that doesn't mean you are one. If you protagonist is depressed and suicidal it doesn't mean you are. Think about the books you have read with horrible characters in them, did you ever think the author must be a horrible person too? Probably not because you know it's fiction.

"If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth." - Tim O'Brien

Don't be afraid to have your characters cuss or make obscene gestures. Obscenity isn't bad or wrong, don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

This quote is true in more ways than one. How many times have you laid in bed at night, starting up at the ceiling, replaying your day and how you would have done things differently? How you should have told someone how you felt? It happens all the time. Use your writing to say what had previously been left unsaid.

I hope these quotes inspire you and help you during National Novel Writing Month.

Words of Advice and Truth from Lemony Snicket (Pen name for Daniel Handler)

Lemony Snicket is a genius with words. His words have inspired so many people, and rightly so, for they shine a light on the things we normally turn our heads away from. I hope you find these quotes from Lemony Snicket to be just as awesome as I do:

• Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness.
• If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.
• All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk.
• If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means ‘flunk’.
• No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read.
• The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author . . .
• Sometimes words are not enough.
• There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.
• If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives.
• There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.
• I go to bed early and rise late and feel as if I have hardly slept, probably because I have been reading almost the entire time. 
• Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.
• They didn’t understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean it isn’t so.
• When trouble strikes, head to the library. You will either be able to solve the problem, or simply have something to read as the world crashes down around you.
• Do the scary thing first, and get scared later.
• There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish. 
• Writing is a dying form. One reads of this every day.

Tips from my Queen, J.K. Rowling!

1. Write About What You Love!

“What you write becomes who you are… So make sure you love what you write!” I love this quote from Rowling. It is very true and maybe that is why academic writing kills me slowly unless I happen to care about the subject! Rowling definitely follows this, whenever I read any book she has written, whether it's Harry Potter or one of her stories written under her pen name, I feel her love for the story and its characters.

2. Write Whenever and Wherever and However!

J.K. Rowling had to work and had to take care of her young child while she was writing Harry Potter. She was even pregnant during the crafting of The Order of the Phoenix. She sadly couldn't just write whenever she wanted to. “Sometimes you have to get your writing done in spare moments here and there," she said, and she is one hundred percent right!! I personally keep a notebook with me at all times, you never know when inspiration and timing will work together.

3. You Must Plot and Pace.

My Queen plotted a series of seven books with little to no plot holes. That takes some series thinking and crafting ability. I mean, it would have been impossible to write had she not done the necessary planning. Also, planning ahead will lessen the chance of spoiling the story for your readers.

4. You Must Have a Plan!

J.K. Rowling got the inspiration for Harry Potter on a train, but she didn't just start writing paragraph one, she outlined and created Harry's world. She wrote new words and gave them meaning. She scribbled down every minute detail that would be essential to the story and every detail that wasn't. She also outlined all of the events that would take place throughout the series. She didn't officially begin writing the series for almost five years while she was working on the details.

5. Criticism and Rewrites.

Queen Rowling rewrote the opening chapter of The Sorcerers Stone fifteen times before being happy with it. You should never expect your first draft to be perfect, it won't be and that is fine. Also, don't fear rejections. Harry Potter only became what it is because Rowling wouldn't stand for rejection. "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all--in which case, you fail by default."

The Rules of Writing

According to Kurt Vonnegut

1. Use the time of a stranger in such a way the he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it’s only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal the character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open the window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what’s going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
9. Find a subject you care about and which in your heart you feel others should care about.
10. Do not ramble.
11. Keep it simple. Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps is even sacred.
12. Have guts to cut. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, not matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.
13. Sound like yourself. The writing style which is most natural to you is bound to echo the speech you heard when you were a child.
14. Say what you mean. You should avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing, if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.
15. Pity the readers. Our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous or glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists.
16. You choose. The most meaning aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.

Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful

I am sadly suffering from a bout of writer's block. So, today I have picked some of my favorite quotes from some of my favorite books... I hope they inspire you.

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” 

― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.” 

—John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

“Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.” 

—Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“Sometimes you just have to try, even if you know it won’t work.” 

—Junot Diaz, Drown

“When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.” 

—Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mixtape

“We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.” 

—Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

“The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” 

—J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” 

—J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” 

—Dr. Seuss

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.” 

—Robert Frost

“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.” 

― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.” 

― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.” 

― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.” 

― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

“I've always been partial to the image of liquor as lubrication, a layer of protection from all the sharp thoughts in your head.” 

― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it.” 

― Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

“Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.” 

― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

My next posts will deal with said writer's block and what to do with a story that is going nowhere. Thank you!