I am working on a new project.

I coincidentally started working on it right before 11/1 so I registered for Nanowrimo and entered my word counts minus the 7,000 I wrote before 11/1.

And tonight . . . I finished it! Well, the bare-bones first draft of it. I made lots and lots of notes of things I need to go back and fix and change and improve. And I am continuing to make notes.

But for the first time I am really happy with this story! I've been trying to make it work for years.

I have had so much fun writing this draft these past few weeks . . . looking forward to diving back in for revisions in a couple of days after letting it rest a bit.

Now all it needs is a title . . .

Last night during my "Writing the Novel" session I was talking about branches of action, something Adrian Fogelin mentioned at an SCBWI workshop a few years ago. Aka--leaving out boring everyday details and focusing on the parts of your story where characters make definitive choices. I said "'Amanda continued giving her presentation until 7:30' is not interesting, and you could probably gloss over that and go on to the next interesting thing I did. However, 'Amanda suddenly ran from the room screaming' is much more interesting--what made me do that? What happens after that?"

Five minutes later, two of my teens (16-17 year old boys) jumped up and ran screaming from the room. (They came back a couple of minutes later.) It was SO FUNNY. I just kept talking about dialogue and broke for a moment to say--see, THAT's interesting, that's something worth writing about!

I love my teens. :)

I am doing Nano if you want to friend me. Username same as here, acoppedge.

So sad to hear that Norma Fox Mazer passed away.

Back in March I emailed her to let her know that THE MISSING GIRL was on my library's 2009 Favorite Books for Young Adults list. I also took the opportunity to share a memory from my own childhood--bringing home UP IN SETH'S ROOM and having my mom forbid me from reading it! I told her it was neat to have come full circle from being a library-loving teen to being a teen librarian myself, and thanked her for writing so many wonderful books for teens over the years. She was so happy to hear the book was on our list and said my story made her day.

Goodbye to one of the greats. Her career as a writer is truly inspiring, in quality, in connection to her readership and in longevity.

Amid a flurry of coughing and nose-blowing, I am braving the internets to tell you:

The hype is true.

LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld is pure liquid awesome.

Adventure-wise it reminds me somewhat of the adventurous parts of the HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy. For serious.

Style-wise it is steampunk heaven. Full of great descriptions of Clanker and Darwinist technology but never over-full. Guaranteed to send thirteen-year-old boys scrambling for mechanical pencils and graph paper so they can sketch, inspired by Westerfeld's descriptions and Keith Thompson's art.

I couldn't stop telling people about this book as I was reading it. And I may have hugged it several times as well, for emphasis. And I may have hugged it when I was alone too because I loved it that much.

As always I really appreciated this book on three levels. First as an adult reader. Second as a teen librarian, knowing I have another book to add to my "great young teen boy book and not too mature to give to younger kids who are good readers." This is a tricky age to write for! And third, I appreciate it remembering the kid reader I was and knowing how much this book would have captured my imagination and brought me back to read and reread. I know this book is going to be that fondly remembered childhood book for many readers, and will be that book that really switches on a love of reading for a lot of kids, especially some boys who have just not found a book to grab them yet.

And if this doesn't get made into a movie I will be really, really surprised.

Happy, happy, happy book birthday to megancrewe! Today is the release day for her debut GIVE UP THE GHOST.

This is how it feels to have just finished reading a book which is now one of my all-time favorites.

I am going to bask in this feeling for a moment.

Sometimes when I read really good books I despair of ever being able to write anything even half as moving, touching and true. But MARCELO just makes me want to aspire to greatness, to plumb more challenging emotional depths, to breathe life into characters who feel even more real, to try even harder to get the music in my head to match what comes out on paper, as Marcelo might put it.

If you have this on your to-read list, I recommend moving it up. And if it's not on your to-read list, I recommend putting it there.

*basking*

I watched a movie last night where just not much was HAPPENING, despite the title, if you catch my drift. Even Rifftrax couldn't save it!

So here is my editor appreciation week post:

THANK YOU editors who save us from ourselves and help us turn our good stories into great stories. Lack of collaboration and unwillingness to "compromise artistic vision" is sometimes painfully obvious and stories almost always suffer for it.

Last night was my first Writing the Novel session. It went so well! I had 25 teens attend. They asked great questions and seemed excited about session 2, wahoo!

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I am always either early or really late to the party when it comes to reviewing books. If I get an ARC I can review it early. But if I'm greedily pawing through new crates of library books, it means I've had to wait a couple of months for our books to get bought, labeled, barcoded and sent to us to go on the shelves.

I just got done reading SAY THE WORD by onegrapeshy. I am never much of one for liking too much book summary before I read a book so I tend not to give them too much myself. But summaries can easily be found if you like 'em. :)

Why I loved it:

I love it when books have a very specific and complex plot/characters which reveals a universal human truth. All the characters in this book continually surprise you with their depth. No one is 100% good. No one is 100% bad. The main character Shawna's growth over the course of the book is frustrating, rewarding and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Not only is this a great and enjoyable story all on its own, I also feel like it could be extremely helpful for teens who are in similarly complex and confusing situations. I love it when a book provides some insight into how to deal with problems while never ever ever even remotely skating into didactic territory. And this can be a very difficult feat to achieve.

And I love it when I know characters will stay with me. Some books I read and enjoy or even enjoy immensely, but later I will not recall a whole lot about the story or characters. But I know Shawna, Arye, Schmule and Fran are going to stay with me, and I will think of them from time to time because they all really made an impression on me.

My agent is going to do a 10-page critique for the winner of my Teen Creative Writing Group contest! She is made of awesome!

I'm doing a 4-session series on Writing the Novel starting this Thursday and continuing through December. It is going to be so fun! And my teens are going to be so excited to hear about the critique! I can't wait for Thursday!

Here's the blurb on our website. (And our webmaster put in the Meyer/Westerfeld tagline, not me, ha!)

I try to read a lot of chapter ones when I work in the teen room to get an idea of the new books we get so I can tailor my recommendations and get a sense of our collection.

Right as I am getting my to-read pile down to a nice manageable size it has once again shot up like a beanstalk. Just now I read chapter 1 of MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD by Francisco X. Stork and I had to check it out. Also dangerous having my library card on the back of my staff ID so it is readily accessible all the time . . . and the self-check machine makes it so fast and simple . . . the library is a dangerous place for book addicts. ;)

Here is the playlist for my WIP, tentatively titled BLINDSIDED.

BLINDSIDED is a companion to SOMETHING TO BELIEVE. It's a story about Finn's girlfriend Rachel. I first started thinking of writing Rachel's story late last year and really became inspired this past February after my teen book discussion group did THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LARRY. I was surprised by how unanimously my teens hated Beth! I realized that if the story were told from Beth's point of view instead of Josh's, he could come across as the jerk and she would be the hero. I think it's really easy to hate Rachel based on how Julie perceives her in SOMETHING TO BELIEVE. So I wanted to give her a chance to tell her own story.

Not safe for work, and not safe for the ears of little ones. Earbuds activate!



Unavailable on playlist.com: "No Name No. 5" by Elliott Smith

Finished reading THE DEMON'S LEXICON by sarahtales

*sigh* of happiness

Everything good you've heard about it is true! Go read it now!

Started reading SAY THE WORD by onegrapeshy

*sigh* of happiness--love the characters, love the setup, can't wait to see the changes Shawna goes through over the course of the story

Good books make my world go 'round!

*sigh*

As much as I have enjoyed the Harry Potter books as an adult, and as much as I enjoy watching my kids and teens enjoy them . . .

Part of me wishes I had been a kid when they first came out so I could have read them as a child and teen.

I'm rereading my way through them, almost done with #5 now.

Makes a boring 4 days of having a cold and being homebound much more bearable when I can spend them with Harry, Ron, Hermione and everyone else at Hogwarts . . .

I wrote this a long time ago and never posted it, but authortarakelly's recent post gave me courage. My own observations and thoughts on the process. Take them with a grain of salt of course. Like Tara I do not claim to be wise and all-knowing; but even if I had the publishing prowess of Jane Yolen I would still not consider myself to be wise and all-knowing. ;) Hope this will be useful to somebody.

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Yesterday I hit ARC jackpot--I got LIAR by Justine Larbalestier *and* LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld. Both feature the previous versions of their covers.

I started reading LIAR yesterday and finished it today. It is a compulsive read, and so different and unique. I really don't want to say too much about it because to compare it to other books (If you liked X you'll love LIAR!) would be saying too much about it. I hope everyone is good about keeping the secret about this book, because it's rewarding and fascinating to only know the premise--the mc is a compulsive liar--when you first go in to it.

Probably the most surprising thing about it is that it feels so much like a mystery. And having an unreliable narrator who is brazenly honest about her unreliability just makes the mystery that much more fascinating.

After reading it with the old cover I literally cannot imagine giving this version to my teen patrons with a straight face. The idea of the cover being yet another play on the concept of Micah being a liar, taking it so far as to lie about her race--totally changes the game, and totally adds an extra dimension that does not belong or fit the story whatsoever. If I gave this book to my black patrons with this cover on it I think I would feel downright embarrassed, imagining their reactions when they started reading about Micah and flipping to look at the white girl on the cover.

Here are the pictures from last Friday's end-of-summer teen program, Rock the Night Away:

Pics

We had so much fun! I can't believe I get paid to do stuff like this. :)

I wrote this entry on my private lj in November 2008, shortly after I read John Green's PAPER TOWNS and coincidentally watched the anime FUTAKOI ALTERNATIVE around the same time. Major spoilers for both. I originally wrote this for my friends who hadn't read the book so there is quite a bit of plot summary for making points.

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I know I'm late to the party. I haven't read a whole lot of Sarah Dessen because she doesn't need my help. Her books fly off the shelves at my library and never require on-the-spot booktalking. I usually try to focus on debuts, books with ugly covers that need a little help, etc. when I'm reading YA, so I can do better reader's advisory for my patrons.

But as summer winds down I gave myself a little break and read JUST LISTEN.

I really loved the shape of this book. This is how I visualize music and stories--the shape of them. I loved the story of the three sisters, the metaphor of light and darkness that is frequently present but never hammered in, the love story. I love the way all these threads come together. I loved how involved I felt with Annabel, how much I wanted to shake her and say JUST SAY WHAT YOU MEAN while at the same time knowing how many times I, especially as a teen, kept things inside so as not to make waves.

I love stories that are both universal and very, very specific at the same time.

What a great read. Once the frenzy over ALONG FOR THE RIDE dies down a little and there are actually copies on the shelves I will allow myself another holiday and read that one too.