The League of Extraordinary Writers

We break from our regularly scheduled programming...

2012-02-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

for a Wizarding World of Harry Potter vacation. See you next week!

Photo credit: Cletch (Creative Commons)

Hungry For HUNGER GAMES, the Movie?

2012-02-23T03:00:00.007-05:00

Me too. I can't wait. So here are some samples of merchandise that I couldn't resist.

I just got these, so no reviews, just showing off. And alerting you, in case they do run out. Starting with the funniest, there is the Harvard Lampoon parody.

THE HUNGER PAINS.

Then we have the Official Illustrated Movie Companion.

Next up, The Tribute Guide.

Then an anthology of authors writing about the Hunger Games.

Finally, an unofficial book, a cookbook!

This is a game that was sold about a year or two ago. I know they are selling another game now. It could be the same in different packaging?

I wasn't kidding about merchandise selling out. I think the single posters are already out of stock of Katniss and the guys. There are also bracelets, watches, pencils, some of which are not available yet. And much more. You all must have heard about the nail polish fiasco?

And it's only the beginning.

So maybe you guys aren't as nerdy as I am. Or maybe you are? Anyone have any favorite movie memorabilia from a film based on a book?

Science fiction Western

2012-02-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Acontradiction? Impossible? You've got no clue what I’m talking about?
Here’s Wikipedia’sdefinition: A science fictionWestern occurs in the past, or in a world resembling the past, in which modernor future technology exists. The anachronistic technology of these stories ispresent because scientific paradigms occurred earlier in history but areimplemented via industrial elements present at that time, or because technologyis brought from another time or place. The genre often overlaps with Steampunk.

Afterwatching Cowboys & Aliens yesterday, I started to wonder if there were moremovies that mix sci-fi elements with a western setting.

Here arethe movies I found:

Cowboys& Aliens

Aliensattack a Western town!

Ghost Rider

In the AmericanOld West, the Devil, Mephistopheles, sends his bounty hunter of the damned, theGhost Rider, to retrieve a contract for a thousand corrupt souls from the townof San Venganza. Given that the nature of the contract would give Mephisto thepower to bring Hell to Earth, the Rider refuses to give him the contract andgoes into hiding. (Wikipedia)

Back to theFuture Part 3

On November 12,1955, Marty McFly discovers that his friend Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brownhad become trapped in the year 1885. Marty, with Doc's 1955 self, uses theinformation in Doc’s 1885 letter to locate and repair the DeLorean. Whileretrieving the car, Marty spots a tombstone with Doc's name, dated six daysafter the letter. Learning that Doc was killed by Biff Tannen'sgreat-grandfather, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, Marty decides to go backto 1885 to save Doc. (Wikipedia)

Wild Wild West

Army CaptainJames West and U.S. Marshal Artemus Gordon have to stop a gigantic mechanical spiderand its owner Dr. Arliss Loveless. This one is steampunk-y.

Except for Ghost Rider, I've seen them all.

I love the ideaof mixing a Western setting with aliens or modern technology (not only steampowered machines).

Do you know morefilms that could be categorized as Sci-fi western? Or maybe even books? I'd love to read sci-fi western books!

Dystopia or Utopia? Sometimes, It's All in the Point of View

2012-02-21T06:27:00.002-05:00

Not long ago, I was watching a documentary featuring Jim Jones and his cult The People’s Temple. In case you don’t know, he’s the guy who convinced over 900 people to commit mass suicide by drinking kool-aid laced with cyanide in Jonestown, Guyana way back in 1978. By that point, the group was mired in controversy with relatives accusing Jones of brainwashing, but no one saw such a violent end coming. In the early days of his ministry, Jones was known for progressive views on racial integration, and his social enlightenment was one of the main selling points for people joining the group.

The documentary showed a propaganda film produced by the people’s temple starring a smiling guy proclaiming that Jonestown was a utopia. And he was not the only one at the isolated Jones compound who thought that. Which got me thinking: in life and in literature, one person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia.

Take Lois Lowry’s THE GIVER for example. The world Jonas lives in seems perfect. There is no war. No fear. No pain. Everyone contributes their share for the greater good. A person's mate and job are chosen for them. And when they are no longer useful, they are peacefully "released". Everyone seems happy. And yet when Jonas becomes a giver, the one person in society who holds memories of the past, he begins to realize that peaceful living comes at a great price. No freedom of choice, no familial bonds, no romantic love and worse than that, euthanasia and infanticide. Still, interview most anyone in the book and they’d tell you they were living in a utopia. (Do keep in mind though that they are all popping emotion suppressant drugs...)

Gemma Malley’s THE DECLARATION presents another type of perfect world. Modern science has found a way to grant mortals immortality via a longevity drug. There is a slight downside: to counter an unsustainable population explosion, anyone who takes the drug must sign a declaration that they won’t have children. But hey, who needs children when you can live forever right? I mean some pesky people are kind of disgruntled about not being allowed to procreate, and surpluses, children of rule breakers lead pretty crappy lives in unfriendly institutions. But yeah, ask the man on the street, and he’s going to smile and call the place a utopia.

In Neal Shusterman’s UNWIND, no one dies waiting for organ donation because high quality organs are readily available thanks to The Bill of Life, a result of the Heartland War between Pro-lifers and Pro-choicers. It declares that a person’s life cannot be legally terminated from conception to age thirteen. However, if someone doesn’t prove their worth by that age, they can be "unwound", allowing them to continue to “live” in a “divided state” and to contribute something more valuable to society than they ever would be able to in their "undivided state". So maybe not a such a great deal for those who prove unworthy, but think about how happy all the organ recipients are. Ask one of them if they are living in a dystopia, and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy.

As you can see, sometimes it’s all a matter of point of view: One person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia.

What other examples can you think of from your own reading?

Mrs. Gick's Library

2012-02-20T01:00:00.000-05:00

Last week in this space Iwrote about two uncomfortable experiences I had while visiting libraries.But I’ve presented in dozens of school and public libraries over the last sixmonths, and the vast majority of those visits have been wonderful. So this weekI’d like to talk about the value of libraries. I’ll illustrate my point with astory about a typical library visit.

On December 9^th I spent the day with Sherry Gick atRossville Middle/High School. The library wasn’t the biggest one I’d seen, orthe newest, or the fanciest. If anything, it looked a little tired. Until thestudents came in, that is. I’ve never seen a group of teens more excited aboutreading, their library, or their librarian.

The book discussions over lunch were non-stop and so variedas to be dizzying. We didn’t just talk about my book, ASHFALL—we coveredCashore, Collins, Shusterman and a host of paranormal romance authors I haven’tread. I finally wolfed my cold slice of pizza during the passing period afterlunch.

This is what a great library does: It develops passionatereaders. How does Mrs. Gick achieve this? Even in my brief time there, Inoticed a few things. First, the library is laid out like a bookstore. Fictionis separated by genre—science fiction, paranormal romance, realistic fiction,etc. Big, inviting signs hang over each section. The books all have theiroriginal covers, and some of them are faced out. There are paperbacks availablefor those who prefer them. And the first thing you see as you walk in isn’t arow of computers; it’s a book display on the counter of the library desk. (Thecomputers are around the corner to your right.)

But even more important than the physical layout of thelibrary is its emotional tone. The first question students hear isn’t, “Do youhave a pass?” it’s something more like, “How are you doing today, Todd?” Onegirl told me she volunteered to work in the library during 7^thperiod because it helped her wind down after a stressful day of classes. Thatshe loved the library because it felt “safe”—her word, not mine. Anotherstudent told me about coming to Mrs. Gick for assistance with a disturbing andthorny issue with another teacher, and how Mrs. Gick had helped her resolve it.These teens have so much trust in their library and librarian that they feelcomfortable asking anything. During our discussion of ASHFALL, one studentwanted to know about my use of the term “spooning”—did that mean Alex and Darlawere having sex? As I listened to the question, I expected raucous laughter andteasing. Instead, her question was met with nods and some embarrassed glances.What followed was a thoughtful discussion about the definition of spooning andthe role of sex in ASHFALL—why it wouldn’t have been appropriate for Alex andDarla to have sex in the scene under discussion, and whether it was appropriateat all.

By all measures—books circulated, computers used, andclasses taught—Mrs. Gick’s library and thousands like it are excelling. Butboth school and public libraries across the country are facing devastatingbudget cuts. Between 2000 and 2008, the per-student funding available forschool library materials fell31% in the U.S. It’s not that we lack money for education. Between 2002 and2008 we increased spending on standardized testing by 160%. Overall educationspending increased21% between 2000 and 2005. Why do we starve libraries while throwing bushelbaskets of money at testing companies like McGraw-Hill? The short answer isthat McGraw-Hill has better lobbyists than the American Library Association.(Which industry do you think spent more on lobbying in 2011—defense oreducation? If you guessed defense, you’rewrong.)

Library funding is being cut despite a long and rich history ofstudies linking school libraries to student achievement. But the mostimportant way libraries matter isn’t measurable in studies. It’s the thingslibrarians like Mrs. Gick do—creating passionate readers and providing studentsa safe place to reflect and learn.

Let’s spend more time and money on whatworks—reading, libraries, and librarians—and reduce the amount of time andmoney wasted on standardized tests. Every student deserves a library like Mrs.Gick’s.

p.s. If you’re interested in having a day of presentations atyour school or library like the one I did at Mrs. Gick’s school, I’m offeringthem at no charge in 2012 and for a nominal fee in 2013. There’s more information here.

Mrs. Gick and me

Tor.com: A sci-fi oasis

2012-02-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

After 2 weeks of sick kids, vacation looming, and general publish-y type stuff, my brain is a little fried. So rather than make you decipher my mushy musings, I'm going to focus on a great resource for sci-fi writers and fans: Tor.com. I've recently become infatuated with the sight after one of my marketing peeps pointed me in their direction (wink!), and I'm always amazed at the bevy of art, short fiction, and all around sci-fi goodness the site has to offer.

Tor.com is actually its own entity with an entire staff, not just a simple branch of the imprint, and it shows. Not only does it feature original artwork, but many original short pieces as well.

Check out the amazing gallery of original work. Or find out about submitting your own short fiction. While you're there read the original novella Glitches. It gives backstory to the recently-released bestselling YA novel, Cinder. But whatever you do, don't miss Tor.com.

The New E-Short Stories tied to Novels

2012-02-16T03:00:00.009-05:00

Two days ago my first published piece came out. It’s an e-story called “Portrait of a Starter.” This is part of a new trend where publishers want e-shorts to accompany the novel. It’s the first time my publisher, Random House Children’s Books, has put out a debut author’s e-short before their book. They started last year publishing e-shorts by well-established authors such as Michael Scott, Lauren Kate and others who write YA fantasy.

Part of my contract was to create three short stories, in addition to my two-book series (which is called a duology). There will be three e-shorts this year, one before STARTERS is published, and two after.

I love writing short stories, started writing them as a kid. Back then I probably just wrote off the top of my head, but now I find they can take longer to write, per page, than novels. They are an entirely different beast. And sometimes now, I see my friends slaving away over short stories when I can’t help but feel that they could use that time to write a novel, which would get their careers started faster. So, as a side note to writers, I say do them once in a while to hone your craft, but always keep working on a novel if you want to make a living.

But back to my contractual agreement. My only requirement was to set the story in the world of STARTERS. I could use any character’s point of view. Now this sounds easy, right? Wrong. I have a lot of surprise twists in the novel that I didn’t want to give away in a story people would read before the novel was to be published a month later. And I had a unique setting that takes place in the future. It wasn’t like I was writing about the French Revolution. How much time is there to set up a new world – and especially, the reasons for it – in a short? I wanted to keep the narrative drive, set up just enough of the world, but not too much to give too much away.

Someone in publishing suggested the short be written from an Ender’s point of view. Now that could be an interesting approach, but as a debut author, I didn’t want readers to think my YA series was going to be from the point of view of someone 100 years old.

So I was staring at the cover wondering what I should write and then it hit me. Michael, the best friend of the main character Callie, is an artist. In the book, he’s often drawing the desperate Starters he sees living on the streets. My cover happened to be a drawing of Callie (that’s another story I’ll tell you sometime). So I worked it into the e-short, that Michael starts this sketch of Callie but she takes off on a mystery trip. He’s secretly in love with her, perhaps to the point of obsession, and so he follows her, not having a clue about the strange things he’s about to see.

Lenore’s post about dystopian endings made me think of how I want a hopeful ending – especially to the end of the series – in my YA dystopians. But when it comes to short stories, I’m more willing to accept a darker ending.

So have any authors here been asked to do these shorts by their publishers? Or have any of you written short stories, and how you feel about writing them?

Prepare for the Apocalypse!

2012-02-15T04:24:00.000-05:00

A few daysago I watched a report on German television. It was about people who werestockpiling and taking precautions for the impending crisis a.k.a apocalypse. Iwas surprised to see how many online shops had specialized on emergencysupplies, especially since the start of the Euro crisis.

I have toadmit that the report raised a smile on my face. I guess I’m just not someonewho worries about the future – which I realize is funny considering I writedystopian fiction. In The Other Life, Sherry and her family have to live in abunker for years and wouldn’t have survived without their provisions, afterall...

But eventhough I won’t start stocking our basement with survival equipment, I thought Ishouldn’t keep the most important items for the apocalypse (according to thereport and survival shops) from you.

1. Get ridof your money

Yes, youread that right. Our money will lose in value. So if you insist on hanging ontoyour paper money, the only thing it’ll be good for in the near future will befor keeping a fire going. Yep. That’s what I learned on websites and in thereport. What you can do? Buy gold. Apparently gold won’t lose its value. Sothere. But do not hide the gold in your house. Scavengers will find it and killyou for it. Instead bury it in your backyard and don’t forget to bury othermetal stuff too, so the scavengers with their metal detectors will have a hardtime finding your gold supply. I hope for your sake that your memory is betterthan that of squirrels. They only find about 25% of the nuts they dig into theground.

2. Foodsupply

If you wantto survive the apocalypse you need food supplies in your basement. Better yetin your own private bunker. Of course you can’t take fresh vegetables and fruitwith you. They won’t last for years. The solution: Dehydrated and dried food.It doesn’t take as much space as fresh products and it’s nonperishable. If youthink you’ll have to eat the same thing for the remainder of your existence,you’re wrong. Apparently you can get almost anything in powder or dehydratedform.

Wantchocolate mousse while the rest of the population gets wiped out by a snowstorm? No problem. Chili con carne, hamburger in the can, tomato soup,spaghetti with meatballs, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, risotto, butter andmilk pulver etc. The prepared survivalist won’t have to forgo anything.

3.Equipment

You don’twant to sit in the dark. What you need: a headlamp, batteries, crank light, flashlight,glow sticks and candles (am I the only one who’s worried about open fire in aclosed bunker?)

You’ll needa camping stove for your meals and of course a heater to keep you warm. Somedevice for water storage and purification. Vitamines and minerals. And a first-aidkit in case one of you wants to give birth in the bunker or cuts their fingersoff or some other appendage.

This listcould go on and on.

Are youprepared for the apocalypse? Do you think I’m taking this too lightly?

(Btw, thewinner of the copy of The Other Life is brookea_2006. You’ll get an email fromme soon).

Adult vs YA dystopias - A Question of Hope

2012-02-14T04:46:00.000-05:00

Science fiction asks the “what if” questions, like ‘what if there was life on mars” or “what if little green aliens attacked earth”. Dystopias ask “what if society was really, really frakked up?” – how would people live and what would they do about their situation?” Authors build fictional dystopian societies as a device to criticize some hot button cultural issue of the day and to show us what our future might be like if the human race doesn’t get their act together.

Dystopian novels written for adults tend to have unresolved and/or depressing endings while novels written with a teen audience in mind tend to have more uplifting or inspiring endings. If the teen protagonist doesn’t find a way to overthrow the society completely, he or she at least carves out some measure of freedom within or outside the society.

George Orwell wrote his dystopian classic 1984 in 1948 and publicly asserted that it was written as a response to the oppressive communist and fascist regimes of that time. 1984 ends with the protagonist broken after experiencing the horrors of room 101 - hardly something that inspires hope.

YA dystopias explore issues that are (or should be) on teen's minds and feature societies built on everything from marketers abuse of consumer privacy – such as in MT Anderson’s Feed – to government mandated plastic surgery – such as Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games can be seen as a criticism of reality TV, Allegra Goodman’s The Other Side of the Island is a criticism of extreme environmentalism and Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is a criticism of the termination of human rights in the name of national security. None of these end as bleakly as 1984.

Post apocalyptic fiction is a very similar and often interchangeable subgenre which explores the question “what if there would be a complete breakdown of society due to some cataclysmic event?” Books in this category include The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Life as We Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

YA post apocalyptic novels tend to be less brutally realistic than their adult counterparts. The Road is unflinchingly dark, putting mankind's most vile acts in full display and ending in a real downer of a way. In Life As We Knew It, Miranda and her family are holed up at home and trying to survive after a meteor hits the moon and pushes it too close to Earth, causing massive societal disruptions. There are no more food deliveries so people are starving. At one point, Miranda’s cat goes missing. Had this been an adult dystopia like The Road, the cat would have been roasting over a fire and in some starving belly by day’s end. But no. The cat comes back! And he even has enough dry cat food to last him until society can get back on its feet again. I found this unrealistic in the context of a post-apocalyptic landscape, but there is no denying that such a scenario offers up a great deal of hope.

How do you like your dystopias? Hopeful or hopeless? Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day ;)

I Write Dirty Books, and I'm Proud of It.

2012-02-12T20:02:00.000-05:00

Here’s one of the questions I’ve been asked frequently aboutmy debut novel, ASHFALL: “Is it clean?” The first time the question came up, Iwas taken aback—what did he mean? I examined the stack of books on the tablebeside me—had I spilled my coffee and not noticed? After checking over a coupleof the books, I reassured the questioner—yep, they’re clean.

The librarian standing next to me was shaking her head.“He’s asking about the content,” she whispered. “Oh,” I replied, “it’s about an apocalypse, realistically depicted. It's violent.”

“That’s fine,” said the guy—a pastor—picking up a copy.

The librarian was still shaking her head. “There are, um,sexual situations in the book,” she said. The guy’s eyes widened, he set downthe book, and marched away.

You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought, any kind of violenceis okay but the mere mention of sex is not? ASHFALL has a scene in which Alex,the hero, knocks a man’s eye out of his skull. That’s better than two teensexploring their mutual attraction in a responsible, loving way? What exactlydoes that say about our culture? (None of the sex in ASHFALL is explicit, bythe way—it all happens “off-screen,” during the chapter breaks. But if it wereexplicit, so what? It's not an illustrated book.)

I thought the pastor might be an aberration, but sadly, hewasn’t. At one school I visited, the librarianprepared the students by reading the eye-popping scene out loud but scolded me for including fade-to-black “sex” scenes in the book.

I maintained my sense of indignation for months. Perversely,every time I was asked if ASHFALL was clean, I’d say no, it’s violent. I heldout hope that eventually I’d find someone who would turn away from my workbecause of the violence, not because of a responsible teenageromance—gasp—realistically depicted. But if those people are out there—thosewho value love more highly than war—they’re awfully quiet.

But this is the world we live in. A video of a father taking a .45 to his daughter’s laptop goes viral, winning the approbation of millions—butone of him punishing her in a reasonable way, then hugging her and reassuring her of his love, despite her ridiculous outburst,would probably have been met with yawns.

For a while I responded by objecting to the question. If anybook that mentions sex is dirty, isn’t the hidden assumption that all sex isdirty? Should we be burdening teens with that idea, rather than sharing the more truthfuland sane message that sex is special and worth waiting for? (One wag on Twittersuggested that if I thought sex was clean I was doing it wrong. I’ll admit thatpossibility—I’ve been married for 19 years and in a committed, monogamousrelationship for 25, so my experience is limited.)

Now I’ve decided to embrace the question. I still don’tlike the implications of ‘dirty’ versus ‘clean,’ but I doubt I can change theway others use those terms. So yes, I write dirty books. Dirty in the sense ofrich, fecund, and fertile. Dirty like this:

Not clean like this:

And we need more dirty books for teens. More books thatprovide fertile soil for growth. Dirtybooks accomplish two things: First, they can give a lifeline to teens who areexperiencing, or might experience, difficult issues. Second, dirty books canhelp redress the precipitous drop in guys’ reading that occurs between middleand high school.

My book, ASHFALL, is intended to entertain. But some dirtybooks save lives. Cheryl Rainfield’s brilliantly dirty Scars, for example, provides hope for kids experiencing the kind of sexual abuse she survived. A patchof good dirt in which a life can grow. Can even be saved, perhaps.

Sara Zarr’s Story of a Girl asks the question, “Whathappens after you make a mistake—have sex too early and with the wrong person?”It’s an important story—relevant to something on the order of half of all U.S.teenagers. How could that story even be told, if we limited ourselves toreading and writing “clean” books? If that were all we stocked in our schools and libraries? It’s a story that has to be dirty, and isappropriately dirty, in that it ends in growth, life, and hope.

This is part of the reason I’ve decided to embrace the dirtylabel, instead of continuing to struggle against it. Dirt makes our childrenstronger, in a literal as well as a figurative sense. I’m a writer now only becausemy parents had the foresight to take me out of a sterile, antiseptically cleanschool in fifth grade and move me to a chaotic, dirty school in sixth where Iwas—gasp—expected to read and write every day.

The noisy push for “clean” books is not only misguided, it’sactively harmful to kids—particularly teenage guys. 97% of teenagers play videogames (shocking, I know). 50% of teenage boys play games rated Mature or AdultsOnly, while only 14% of girls play games with those ratings. Why? Many guyslike violence and sex (again, shocking, I know). Does anyone seriously believe that reading abook—almost any book—would be worse for a typical teenage guy than playingGrand Theft Auto?

Part of the cause of the dramatic drop-off in reading amongteenage guys is because the publishing industry does not, by and large, produceyoung adult material that’s competitive with other forms of entertainment available to teens. Whydoesn’t the publishing industry produce more “dirty” material for the YA market?Because teens are not generally buying the books they read for fun. Adults are—primarily women. The books kids read for fun predominantly come from: 1) a schoollibrary, 2) a public library, or 3) a parent’s purchase (Mom's, 70% of thetime). And publishers—wisely, from a bottom line perspective—focus on producing books that the gatekeepers will buy.

There are two kinds of censorship. The good type is thenoisy, public, Mr. Scroggins-style book challenge. This form of censorship isexcellent because it gets people talking about books—often people who wouldn’totherwise engage with a book. I learned about and read Sarah Ockler’soutstanding Twenty Boy Summer due to this type of challenge. (Thanks, Mr.Scroggins!) By the way, if anyone reading this is interested in starting a loudcampaign to ban my novel ASHFALL, please contact me at mike.mullin.writer at gmail dotcom—I’d like to help! I can write scathing press releases, stuff envelopes withprotest mail, or even march with a picket sign if you like.

The second type is the bad kind—the censorship arising fromselection policies. The quiet censorship of the library that only puts “clean” books on the shelves. Ofthe school that only chooses to invite authors of “clean” books to visit. Ifyour library has nothing but “clean” books, how are you going to convince thehalf of your teenage guys who are playing adult games at home to pick up a bookoccasionally? The answer, of course, is that you aren’t. The themes that guysare interested in as middle graders—heroism, friendship, school stories,etc.—are amply addressed in middle grade literature. But as guys grow up, theirliterature doesn’t, so teen guys mostly either quit reading altogether ortransition directly to adult books. (There are other reasons many teen guys don’tread, of course. For a more thorough discussion of that topic, check out this post.)

We need dirt. We need dirty books. No seedling ever sproutedon a hospital floor. Minds grow when engaged and challenged. And that’s why I’mnot going to dodge the question “Are your books clean?” anymore. I’m going tosay, no, I write dirty books. And I’m proud of it.

Looking For Inspiration in the News

2012-02-10T06:00:00.012-05:00

Okay, so I've been working on my newest WIP -- a science fiction novel I'm lovingly calling a "techno thriller." I adore all things technological, and I've decided in this futuristic (yet not dystopian) society, that uber-cool tech should exist.

I'm sure you can see the problem this poses. See, I don't live 60 years in the future. I am a simple elementary school teacher (although I am the technology specialist -- it's a glorified typing teacher, people. Don't get excited). I drive my kids to dance and watch basketball games on the weekends.

I'm not out there inventing the newest scientific gadget or trying to separate time.

But there are people who are.

And so I've started subscribing to some science websites, and reading information on the newest cybernetic lenses and how someone created a time cloak, and bullet-proof doors (who would need those? Well... I did say techno THRILLER). (I realize none of these things may be new to you, but they are to me. And they're helping me think beyond my own experience and knowledge.)

I never would've imagined that I'd like research so much. (I am a self-proclaimed research-hater.) But reading and watching these sorts of scientific advancements has really switched my brain on. I'm more able to think of what might happen in 60 years when I'm aware of what's happening now.

I'm finding inspiration in the news. Where do you find your inspiration?

My Sci-fi (ish) Bucket (ish) List for 2012

2012-02-09T06:00:00.105-05:00

Ok, it's not so much a bucket list as a things-I'm-looking-forward-to-this-year list. Bucket list just sounds better. ;) These are the top 10 science fiction / fantasy things I’m personally looking forward to this year. (Not including, of course, the 10 League books coming out this year. Can you believe it?)

1. Insurgent by Veronica Roth (May 1)

I loved Divergent. If you haven’t read it, go forth and read.

2. Winds of Winter by George RR Martin (Who knows?)

This is supposedly the last installment in the Songs of Fire and Ice series. I don’t know when it’s scheduled to be published, but the FIRST CHAPTER of Winds of Winter is on Martin's web site. (That page says it's to be published last year; Dance of Dragons didn't come out until last July.)

3. New Neil Gaiman or Scott Westerfeld?

I'm jonesing for another Coraline or Graveyard Book or Leviathan trilogy. Hint, hint.

4. Hunger Games Movie (March 23)

Well, isn’t everyone looking forward to this?

5. The Hobbit Movie (December 14)

6. Dark Shadows movie (Summer)

Three of my favorite things together. Johnny Depp + Tim Burton + Dark Shadows. This could be totally brilliant or completely awful. For you Dark Shadows virgins, Moviebyte did a quick introduction to the movie / series.

7. Game of Thrones Season 2 (April 1)

HBO's excellent adaptation of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones made me go read the Songs of Fire and Ice series -- only to discover it's not finished (see item 2 above). Season 2 should be based on book 2, A Clash of Kings.

8. Walking Dead Season 2.5 (February 12)

I'm not usually a zombie fan, but AMC's The Walking Dead is a damn good show. Period.

9. HG Wells spinoff of Warehouse 13

Last spring, Hollywood Reporter and several other places reported that a Warehouse 13 spin-off was in the works, featuring one of my fave characters, HG Wells. The spin-off (possibly called Warehouse 12) is set in Victorian London. (Yes, it is Steampunk-ish.) We saw a backdoor pilot or sorts for it on last season's Warehouse 13 (via I09).

btw, HG is a woman.

10. The Apocalypse (December 21)

As we've all no doubt heard by now, the Maya calendar runs out on 12/21/12. All the end-of-the-world prophecies are, of course, fiction (knock wood), but I'm secretly glad the Hobbit movie comes out before that date. ;)

The Mayans are probably laughing their asses off.

What are you looking forward to this year in the science fiction / fantasy (and/or young adult) universe?

I'm calm. No really, I'm totally calm.

2012-02-08T09:01:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! Man, it seems like forever since I've blogged. It's good to be back!

What's been up since last I blogged? In a word? Stress!

The last month or so has probably been fairly tumultuous. So much going on. Probably the biggest thing is that my wife and I are getting close to buying our first home and moving to upstate NY. We're super excited (in no small part because this means moving from a crappy apartment in Queens to a house with a wood burning fireplace and enough room where we can finally get a dog!) but like anyone who's bought a house before knows, the process is one of the more stressful you'll go through. Who knew one person could fill out so many forms? Or that so many different people could want money from us. Or that the subway does not go to upstate New York. People drive cars there! Crazy, but true.

On top of that I'm working on the final pre-ARC edits to my next book. (nope, still can't tell you the title or anything about it. Errrg.) One of the things I learned last go round was the huge importance of the ARC. For those who don't know, the ARC is the advance copy that goes out to bloggers, reviewers and other influential folk about 6 months or so before the book is formally released. So you can imagine getting the book ready for this stage is incredibly important. I know I made a few changes to The Eleventh Plague after the ARC went out that I really wish I had made before. Don't want that to happen again.

Oh and I'm also in talks about what happens next bookwise after this fall's release!

Whew! My heart is beating a little faster just writing all of that! I will admit that I do have a bit of a tendency towards anxiety and am doing my best to keep myself calm in the midst of all of this.

So my question to all of you is…how do you keep an even keel when there's so much going on? Any good relaxation suggestions?

I Love Robots!

2012-02-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

I confess - I am a dyed-in-the-wool robot lover! Imagine how thrilled I was to see this!

Which goes along with this favorite!

Do you love robots? Got any favorites? (Besides R2D2 & C3PO!)

Stories Made Real

2012-02-06T00:00:00.001-05:00

One of the cool things about sci fi and dystopian is that the very best ones show our world the way it could possibly be. I've read a few dystopians lately where I question how the world in the story is derived from the world in which we live in. It seems illogical that our world would go to those extremes willingly.

For me, I'd much prefer a dystopian to show a world where I can still see traces of my world. I want to believe that the world in the story is possible--so that I can prevent it from happening in my own, real world.

Which is why, when I was visiting the site of one of the best YouTube vloggers out there (Charlie Is So Cool Like), and I came across this fun video, my first thought was... well, why don't you watch it and tell me what book it's like?

Yup! Doesn't this remind you of our very own Angie Smibert and her debut, MEMENTO NORA?

MacGuffins: Using them effectively

2012-02-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

The MacGuffin, often the object or information everyone is after, is one of the most popular elements in modern storytelling. The term popularized by Alfred Hitchock, who knew his shizz, is often the foundation the story is built around. But what is a macguffin? And how can we use them as writers?Here's a few classic MacGuffins:The Maltese Falcon - some will kill for it, but is it a priceless object or just symbolic of the dangers of greed?

The Letters of Transit - first off, if you start to think about these powerful letters of transit (that can not be rescinded), you'll smell something funny. I'm sure a bunch of Nazis would bow to some papers. But that's not the point, is it?

The suitcase - Is it his soul? Another symbol? One thing's for sure we want to see in that box.

Also this:The bar at my local theatre (headed there this afternoon)

To really get your mileage with a MacGuffin, it must be plausible, but it should serve as a catalyst. It gets the story going, and it shows up at times to give it a boost, but we don't dwell on it. Characters don't spend whole scenes analyzing it. Cynical Rick doesn't question why the heck Charles De Gaulle would sign those papers or why anyone would care. We don't see into the suitcase. Some of my favorite macguffins come courtesy of J.J. Abrams - various Rimabauldi artifacts. Even why they're stuck on the island is a MacGuffin. It provides a structure to tell a story and build characters, but don't look too closely or you might see the smoke and mirrors. Incidentally, I think this is why some people got so frustrated with Lost.

For better or worse, building an entire series around a MacGuffin can backfire when people expect a profound revelation at the end. I'd learned my lesson with Alias.

The show was never about Rimbauldi and his prophecies. It was about Sydney and her relationships. The rest was MacGuffins.

So when my Critique Partner and I were discussing Alcatraz the other day and he said, "I think I'll keep watching to see what the mystery is," I reminded him it was going to be a MacGuffin. But there you have it, four episodes in and the show has him hooked on the promise of the mystery, on the promise of the MacGuffin.

So my advice about using MacGuffins:
1. Make it interesting, but don't dwell on it.
2. Use it to enhance your characterization and relationship building.
3. Don't be surprised or offended when someone is upset that your MacGuffin didn't pay off. It's probably going to happen and that's ok.

What other MacGuffins come to mind when you think about movies, television, or books? Do you like them or do they frustrate you?

Book Trailers Going Strong in 2012!

2012-02-02T03:45:00.008-05:00

If you haven’t noticed, book trailers are getting more sophisticated. Sometimes that’s because the publisher decides the book calls for a big production, complete with actors and sets. Random House made a stunning, magical period piece for Robin Bridges’ The Gathering Storm.

It’s one of my favorites. They also made a creepy, science fictiony one for me, for STARTERS.

And I love this one for Macmillian made for CINDER by Marissa Meyers which really makes you feel like it’s a movie or television trailer.

BORN WICKED by Jessica Spotswood not only has high production values, but wonderful casting and lots of kissing.

But sometimes these elaborate trailers are made by the authors themselves. And it’s because more people have access to equipment today. As digital continues to explode, I predict we’ll see more of this.

This one was designed by the author, cast with friends and family, and crewed by some talented people. You look at this and it’s hard to imagine that a publisher could beat it. Anne Greenwood Brown’s LIES BENEATH.

Here is another very ambitious trailer, this one with dialogue, made by the author and friends: HARBINGER by Sara Wilson Etienne. Anyone who has ever made a short film knows how much work this is.

Even though I’m focusing on complicated trailers, sometimes a simple one might be the most elegant solution. But I suspect most authors would like to have the option to see their dreams realized, however they visualize them. And we’ve all become so visually sophisticated that using standard images seen too often in the early book trailers will now pass over our eyes, barely noticed and quickly forgotten.

What an author brings to the design of her own trailer is passion and an intimate sense of her own story that no one else can beat. The challenges to the amateur production are obvious – less budget, less access to professional talent, actors and crew. But one thing the author needs to do is learn when to let go. That means keep it on the short rather than long side. When you work so hard, months in prep, and days in production, not to mention what can be weeks of post, the author is often too close to the blood, sweat and tears to be able to make judicious cuts.

If you decide to make your own trailer, be sure you get feedback from friends who are in film school or pros, preferably at the storyboard/script stage, but definitely when it’s time for the final cut. Unless of course, you’re an author like Ransom Riggs, who used to make trailers professionally.

There are lots of cool trailers out there. If you know of one made for a YA science fiction/fantasy 2012 release that you like, tell us about it in the comments.

Celebration + Giveaway!

2012-02-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today THE OTHER LIFE hits shelves in the UK!

3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life. 98,409,602 seconds since the heavy, steel door had fallen shut and sealed us off from the worldSherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation...and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers.

When Sherry's dad is snatched, she joins forces with gorgeous but troubled Joshua - an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers.

But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?

I can't believe my little book is out in the world! (Well, in the UK! It'll be out in the US May 1st!). But if you don't want to wait that long, I'm giving away one final signed copy of THE OTHER LIFE to one lucky winner!

Would you like to watch the trailer?

I guess you're wondering what you have to do for a chance to win?

Just comment on this post with your email address and you'll be entered! The giveaway is international! I'll announce the winner February 15th on this blog!

If you would like to stay busy until then, you can read diary entries from Joshua's POV on five blogs. You can find the first diary entry here!

Dystopian February Theme Month at Presenting Lenore

2012-01-31T06:41:00.000-05:00

In February 2010, I kicked off my very first theme month dedicated solely to dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction. Back then, dystopian was an emerging trend, buoyed by the popularity of THE HUNGER GAMES and CATCHING FIRE.

Now, two short years later, we are in the midst of a dystopian explosion, with new upcoming titles being announced every week it seems. But with so many new dystopians available, how do you choose which to read?

That's where Dystopian February at my personal blog, Presenting Lenore, can help. Starting tomorrow and continuing all through the month, I will be posting reviews, previews, author interviews, and in-depth discussions of books that may or may not be on your radar. I also have so many book giveaways planned, I can hardly keep track of them. (Spoiler alert: I'll be giving away, among others, League books such as A MILLION SUNS, STARTERS & THE OTHER LIFE)

By now, I've read over 100 books in the genre (see index of all my dystopian reviews) and I'm still super excited about it. Based on the types of books I've come across in my reading, I've created five categories of dystopians/post-apocalyptics:

World-building books - These are the books that (usually) take a real world issue or concern and barrel down the slippery slope to explore a future world through the distorted lens of that issue. They can be very deep and philosophical. For example: FEED by MT Anderson (media addiction)

Action books - These are the page-turners that get your adrenaline pumping and make you bite your fingernails until the tips of your fingers are raw. They are often stories of surviving despite terrible odds. For example: ASHES by Ilsa J. Bick

Twisty books - Surprising, original, fun - these are the books that are unpredictable and make the genre feel fresh again. For example: VARIANT by Robison Wells

Romance books - The world may be ending, but that doesn't stop the chemistry between these books' characters from melting off your pants. For example: SHATTER ME by Tahereh Mafi

Amazing writing - These are the books that get under your skin with their perceptive insights into character, their lyrical prose, and their masterfully created atmospheres. For example: WITHER by Lauren DeStefano

And of course, there are the books that seem to have it all and could fit into any category (HUNGER GAMES, anyone?) -- but for my purposes, I'm giving each book I review a merit badge in one of the above categories (see the merit badges here - they are ADORBS!) so if you know you prefer world-building books over all else, you'll know which titles to look out for.

Hope you enjoy Dystopian February! What do you think my categories? Am I missing any in your opinion?

The Super Bowl, The Hunger Games, and me.

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

On Friday, my wife and I walked from our house near downtownIndianapolis to the Super Bowl village. The game was more than a week away, butthe whole area was already crowded. It appeared that every pavilion and tentwithin 500 miles was either already set up or currently being assembled in thestreets and parking lots of downtown Indianapolis.

There are giant Super Bowl sculptures, at least threestages, dozens of outdoor bars, a zip line down the middle of Capitol Avenue,and half a dozen buildings wrapped in enormous Microsoft Kinect ads. Here’s ashot of Monument Circle:

As I walked around this temporary amusement park, I got moreand more depressed. Why? For every scene like this:

There’s also one like this:

Now, I know that only a minority of the people holding signsare actuallyhomeless or hungry. And giving money to panhandlers only exacerbates theproblem. But the dichotomy between the glittering temporary bars and stages forSuper Bowl XLVI and the panhandlers points up a real problem in our society—onethat calls The Hunger Games to mymind.

Are the fashionable spectacles of the Super Bowl Village reallythat different from the glitz and glamor of the Capitol District? And while wedon’t have any place labeled District 12, you could easily form one among thepopulation of Indianapolis. Consider this:

167,000residents of Indianapolis live below the federal poverty line

63,000 ofthem are children

34,000residents will go hungry at some point this year.

3,000 willbe homeless at some point this year.

About 50 homelesspeople in Indianapolis will die of exposure this winter.

And considerthese stats:

Lucas Oil Stadium cost $750,000,000, of which $650,000,000 was public tax money.

The SuperBowl will cost at least $29,000,000 ($25,000,000 from private donors and $4,000,000 from the Capitol Improvement Board, which is publicly funded.)

No, we don’tkill 23 kids per year for our entertainment. Football only kills about four people each year, making it a relatively safe sport (gymnastics, cheerleading, anddownhill skiing are far more dangerous.) But as I walked through the Super BowlVillage on Friday, I had the feeling that I was bearing witness to aninevitable slide—America becoming Panem.

What do youthink? Please convince me I’m wrong in the comments. I’m getting depressed allover again.

Bloggers + BEA

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

Did you hear the awesome news this week about BEA and book bloggers? If you're a book blogger or a book lover or a bookseller, something very cool is afoot in the book world. (I win for most uses of book in a sentence. Also my copy editor would be banging her head on her desk and scribbling "repetitive" all over this post.)

First of all, in case you aren't a total nerd for all things book like me, BEA stands for Book Expo America, and it's sort of like heaven for readers. Technically it's for booksellers, who are readers of course, but in recent years, intrepid writers and bloggers have been turning out for the event in NYC. Basically it's a conference to showcase books by publishers as well as other book related services. It's also an excellent way to get your hands on advanced copies of upcoming books and even rub elbows with authors.

So what does this have to do with book bloggers? Well, the organizers of BEA just announced that they've officially purchased the Book Bloggers Convention. BBC used to be hosted at the end of BEA in a co-location but the events were separate. This year BBC will be held in conjunction with BEA at the beginning of the week, because BEA wants to get bloggers even more involved with the conference. Why? Because book bloggers are integral in getting the word out about books!

You can read all about the merger here on the BEA blog, and I don't know about you guys but I'm definitely looking into going this year.

A Shout Out to a Few Bloggers

2012-01-26T00:30:00.002-05:00

While I was busy writing and trying to get published, I didn’t read book blogs. I read blogs about writing, mostly written by agents. It is only recently that I’ve come to discover the great variety of book blogs.

I have so much admiration for all the book bloggers. I’m going to do a shout-out to a few that you’ve probably never heard of (that’s the point), and two that you should definitely know about if you don’t. Some of the following are small, but display an infectious love of reading.

http://Brokeandbookish.blogspot.com American college students who love YA.

http://onceuponaquote.blogspot.com A French college student studying English.

http://www.overflowinglibrary.com/ A British blogger.

http://www.publishingcrawl.com An international group of authors and publishing professionals.

http://presentinglenore.blogspot.com - our own Lenore did my first blog interview.

http://www.kamigarcia.com/blog/ - One of my favs, by rockstar bestselling author Kami Garcia (Beautiful Creatures), lots of YA dystopian book recs. And currently, she has a great post up now with writing links that is a don’t-miss for the writers out there.

Enjoy the read!

Why I read reviews

2012-01-25T05:01:00.000-05:00

Iknow many experienced writers tell debut authors: “don’t read reviews of yourbooks” or “don’t read the bad reviews” or “stay away from goodreads, shelfari,etc...” or even “don’t read good reviews”. And many writers seem to take thisadvice to heart – stop interacting on goodreads altogether once their ARCs areout in the world for readers to dissect.

Backin October 2010, when I sold THE OTHER LIFE and reviews were still far off, Ithought: “Huh, why should I not read reviews? I can take criticism.”

Fastforward a few months, when ARCs were finally sent out, I suddenly wasn’t allthat sure about my thick skin. I checked goodreads religiously and then I gotmy first not-so-stellar review (a two star rating) and I sat in front of my laptopparalyzed. I was too scared to read it and was driving myself insane with thepossibilities. But then I told my husband (with the warning that he shouldn’tread it either and that I didn’t want to know what was written!).

Yeah...Husband didn’t listen and in the evening while we were making dinner, hedescribed the review to me and I didn’t die. I could deal with it. My husbandshrugged at the end of his recount and said “that wasn’t so bad”. And he wasright. The next day I read the review and it was well-written and I wasgrateful that the reviewer had taken the time to write something about my book,though they didn’t like it.

I still cringe every time I see a low-rating, Istill hesitate before I read a negative review but I do it anyway because, whileit hurts a little to find out that not everyone loves your book, it helps megrow as a writer. Every time someone criticizes some part of my writing, Ichallenge myself to do better next time. And I love a good challenge.

Of courseI know that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never make everyone happy and that’snot what I’m striving for (though maybe a little part of me does). But I wantto know what readers think, want to know why people hate some books while theylove others with such a fervor that they fight for them.

I often find myselfbrowsing reviews of books I’ve read, and one day I found a negative review fora book almost everyone loved (myself included). And there were dozens, maybehundreds of comments defending that book. I was stunned (and I felt a bit sorryfor the poor reviewer who’d done nothing but write their opinion and got bashedfor it). People were willing to defend a book – not because it was written bytheir relative, or agent sister, or friend. No, because they loved it so much.I think it’s wonderful that books are still capable of evoking such strongemotions in us – hate, love, despair, blind rage. Isn’t that what we want aswriters?

Movies have pictures, soundtracks and big actors to get a strongreaction from their audience, we have only our words.

Celebrating Bloggers

2012-01-24T02:35:00.003-05:00

Where would I be without blogs and bloggers? Maintaining a book blog and reading a ton of other book blogs and author blogs is what originally sparked my interest in YA lit – and in writing my own YA novel.

By keeping up with blogs, not only do I keep up with the zeitgeist, but I also learn what readers love and love to hate (insta-love, red-headed best friends, inaccurate college application timelines to name a few) as well as a ton about craft and how to improve my storytelling.

Let me give you one example of a blog event that directly impacted LEVEL 2. Frankie Diane Mallis (writer, blogger and member of The First Novels Club) puts on an event in January called the No-Kiss Blogfest, where participants are challenged to find or write an "almost kiss-- the rising, crushing, excruciating, longing, tension that comes when two characters get oh-so-close to kissing that you can just feel it, want it, NEED it....and then...they don't!"

Well, it just so happens that in January 2011, I was about to sit down to revise chapter 1 of LEVEL 2 when I stumbled upon Frankie’s post. My first draft of LEVEL 2 had my main character reliving one of her favorite memories with her boyfriend and it involved a kiss. But Frankie got me thinking … could the scene be even better with an almost kiss? So I tried it out. And guess what? It upped the excitement factor tenfold – and had a profound effect on the plot going forward too.

So thank you Frankie, and thank you book bloggers and writing bloggers who continually inspire me with your insights, passion and love of literature. I am proud to be a part of the conversation.

PS: For more tales of blogger love, check out YA Fusion.

Lenore's Blog

Celebrating Bad Reviews

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

I come from a line of men who worked with their hands. Mygrandfather rebuilt boat motors; my dad builds and repairs furniture. For almost ten years, I made a living as acarpenter/handyman/remodeling company owner.

When you do this sort of work, you inevitably accumulatecoffee cans filled with random nuts, bolts, and screws. And this gives rise towhat I’m modestly calling Mullin’s Law: In any can of random nuts, 2% of themwill be wingnuts.

The rest of this post is not for the wingnuts outthere. If you’re an author who trolls threads on Goodreads, you’re a wingnut.If you’re a blogger who continues to review YA, despite professing a disdainfor the whole literature, you’re a wingnut. If you’re a blogger who reviews the author’s weight instead of her book,or uses hateful and misogynistic language in your reviews, not only are you awingnut, but your threads are stripped. Seek professional help retooling.

Now, to the rest of you, the 98% who are just plain nuts:bad reviews rock. One-star reviews rock. Two-star reviews rock. Authors,celebrate your bad reviews (you’re allowed 5-10 minutes of cringing self-pityfirst). Bloggers, don’t feel badly when you negatively review an author’s work.Unless that author has published ten or more books, you’re helping her withyour negative review.

Want evidence? Checkout this studyof New York Times book reviews conducted using Nielsen Bookscan data and reported in MarketingScience. The upshot is thatnegative reviews of works by authors who had previously published fewer thantwo books boosted their sales by 45%on average. Negative reviews of well-known authors (i.e. those who hadpublished 10 or more books previously) hurt their sales by 15%. So the adviceabout celebrating your one-star reviews doesn’t apply after you’ve publishedyour tenth book.

I first posted on this topic on my blog last July. If you're interested in a more thorough discussion of the benefits of bad reviews, click through. To sum up, the worst thing that can happen to an author isn't bad reviews; it's being ignored.

What do you think? Do the other authors out there help spread the word aboutnegative reviews of your work? Do those of you who blog feel hesitant to post a negative review? Why or why not? Let meknow in the comments, please.

Truth Virtual Launch Party, part 2

2012-01-20T06:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Truth's official foray out into the real world. Today there are still questions to be answered! Here's the second installment of Q&A for Truth!

TRUTH's Book Birthday!!!

2012-01-19T06:45:00.000-05:00

Today is the official release day of TRUTH, the sequel to XVI. And, wow - can I just say how unbelievably great that feels? It is like a "birth" day in so many ways. From conception to actually seeing your book in print, and then... presenting it to the world. The parallels are obvious and true. If you've ever actually given birth, which I have - twice - you'll know what I mean. If not - trust me. It's not an easy process! But, the feelings you have when you see your "baby" wipe out all the problems that preceded it!

You can see my "baby" there on the left side. Beautiful, no?

And... in prep for my launch parties (both in-person and virtual) - I've been working on some video & am going to share the 1st segment right here - right now!

Readers gave me questions they'd like answers to - so, I answered them. Here's a vid with the 1st set of questions (more tomorrow!)

Interview: Julia Karr on Writing Truth

2012-01-18T06:00:00.002-05:00

Tell us a little about Truth. No spoilers, of course!

In Truth, Nina is really pushed to come into her own. Through a series of unforeseen events, her life becomes much more complicated. And, as she learns more of the truth about the government & the media, she also is forced to dig deep and discover her own truths. What she will and won't do to make things right.

What did you learn from writing the first book that came in handy with this one?

Probably one of the most important things I learned was that editing - and not being afraid to edit (sometimes meaning deleting) major chunks of a story - can make your book just that much better!

Did you know what was going to happen in Truth when you were writing XVI? In other words, did you plan out the sequel(s) ahead of time?

I did not. As a matter of fact, I had several false starts on Truth while I was going through edits on XVI. Then, when I got my editorial letter on Truth - I ended up changing a lot - A HUGE LOT!

Big question. Was the second book harder to write than the first one? Why or why not?

Oh yes - it was a whole lot harder. Mainly for the reason above - doing edits on XVI and then coming back to Truth to write and rewrite.

Are you planning a third book? If so, details please!

Honestly? When I was done with Truth I thought I was done. I thought I had nothing else to say about Nina and her friends. But... you know, a couple of months ago she came knocking on my imagination and I don't think she's going to go away until I finish her tale.

TRUTH - A Worthy Sequel!

2012-01-17T05:23:00.000-05:00

Writing asequel is hard work, much harder than writing the first book. I hear that oftenand have experienced it myself while I’ve been working on the sequel to my ownbook. That’s why I have even more respect for what Julia did. She created a worthysequel which I enjoyed even more than XVI, though I didn’t think that waspossible. But TRUTH did it!

Nina Oberon’s life has changedenormously in the last few months. When her mother was killed, Nina discoveredthe truth about her father, the leader of the Resistance. And now she sportsthe same Governing Council–ordered tattoo of XVI on her wrist that allsixteen-year-old girls have. The one that announces to the world that she iseasy prey to predators. But Nina won’t be anyone’s stereotype. And when shejoins an organization of girls working within the Resistance, she knows thatthey can put an end to one of the most terrifying secret programs the GC hasever conceived. Because the truth always comes out...and the consequences canbe deadly.

In TRUTH,Nina has to deal with the aftermath of what happened in XVI and she’s growingwith the challenge. It was wonderful to watch her character growth, to see howshe realizes that women are just capable as men and that she doesn’t have tosit back; she can fight for what she thinks is right - and she does.

Thisrealization and her becoming more pro-active leads to some interesting disagreementsbetween her and her boyfriend Sal who thinks she needs his constant protection.It added nice tension to the plot! At the beginning of the book, I wasconvinced that Nina and Sal belonged together, that there was no other way, butas the book progressed, Julia managed to open my eyes to other options. Nina isa strong girl who doesn’t need a boyfriend at her side, even though shelongs for the love and closeness of someone else. Her world isn’t centered on aguy. She’s got her family to take care of, and friends, like Wei, who stand byher.

Iabsolutely loved Dee, Nina’s younger sister, in this book. She’s a strongcharacter of her own and handles difficult truths thrown her way with courage.What I particularly loved about XVI and again about TRUTH are the strong bondsbetween Nina and her sister, and between them and their grandparents. It’s niceto read a book that shows the importance of family, especially in a dystopiansociety.

Anotheraspect I enjoyed was that we learn more about the resistance and the fact thatmore people want to change the society than Nina, and we as the reader, might’veguessed.

As youprobably gathered from my review, I absolutely recommend TRUTH. It keeps you onthe edge of your seat while still managing to show softer moments betweencharacters.

A must-readfor fans of dystopian literature!

Buy your copy of TRUTH:

Amazon

B & N

IndieBound

Introduction to Truth Launch Week!

2012-01-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

Sequels have been on my mind lately as I do battle with the edits for ASHEN WINTER, the sequel to my debut novel, ASHFALL. My latest plan for learning to write a sequel? I’m going to drive to Bloomington for the Truth launch party (Friday night from 7 to 10, be there!), corner Julia, and generally make an annoyance of myself until she agrees to give me a three hour seminar on writing the perfect sequel.

Because here’s the thing, Julia’s accomplished the nigh-impossible—writing a sequel that’s even better than her excellent debut. Movie directors can’t do it (I’ll give you The Empire Strikes Back, but outside of that? Watchable sequels are thin on the ground). Most authors—even the very best—can’t live up to their original work (Little Men, anyone? Prince Caspian?).

Julia achieves this feat by deepening and complicating Nina’s story. In XVI, sex is a threat that looms with Nina’s sixteenth birthday—when her dystopian society will literally brand her a sex-teen. In Truth, sex is something to be both feared and enjoyed, making Nina’s inner struggle more complex and relatable. Similarly, the world-building deepens in Truth—we learn how the Governing Council formed—and as a consequence the book feels even more plausible than XVI.

What I’m trying to say is this—read these books. For one thing, they’re enjoyable: XVI is something of a dystopian mystery, Truth more of a thriller. But they’re also important. Like all great dystopian fiction, their real subject matter is present day society, our tragically waxing rape culture. Something is wrong when the word “rape” is used casually in many quarters, while the word “feminist” is unutterable except as a perverse portmanteau, “feminazi.” Julia Karr’s fine work is, I hope, part of the antidote.

Where to Buy:

Indiebound: Truth/XVI

B&N: Truth/XVI

Amazon: Truth/XVI

Connect with Julia:

Website

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Creating Atmosphere: An Essential Component of A MILLION SUNS

2012-01-13T06:46:00.000-05:00

The journey began in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and continues in A MILLION SUNS. If you thought being on a spaceship traveling for over 300 years from Earth to a new planet was claustrophobic before (and I did), Beth Revis really ups the ante in this second installment. There were times during the novel when I thought if I had been on the Godspeed, I might have clawed my fingernails against the steel walls in desperation.

That’s a real testament to Beth’s writing. She so excels at creating an atmosphere that makes staying on the Godspeed seem like someone’s last resort – if they had a choice. And she does it without a single terrifying killer alien attack!

We already know that Amy is not happy about being reanimated early. She fully expected to wake up on the new planet, and instead, she’s stuck in a strange society where she sticks out. I love this thought of Amy’s that comes early in Chapter 2 of A MILLION SUNS:

There are no more cars. No more endless highways.

Just this.

Two melting cryo chambers on a spaceship that grows smaller every day.

Oh Amy – it’s about to get so much worse.

As the new leader of the ship, Elder is faced with some difficult choices. Especially when he’s made painfully aware that the ship won’t sustain their current population as long as might be necessary. Via the drug Phydus, Eldest kept people compliant and working. Elder swore never to fall back on Phydus, but he also doesn’t have a workable strategy to control the chaos that erupts without it.

Because people are starting to realize that they can do whatever they want. No one is forcing them to work. No one is keeping them from attacking others if they feel like it. No one is preventing them from ripping the ship apart in senseless acts of violence.

Now, add to this the fact that Orion left Amy a trail of clues, warning her she’s running out of time – and tell me, how badly would you want to get off the Godspeed?

Explore the Godspeed, here.

Visit Beth's blog and website.

BUY YOUR COPY OF A MILLION SUNS!

Hardcover (Amazon, B&N, a signed copy at Beth's indie, Fireside Books)

Kindle

Nook

Visit the A MILLION SUNS page for more links, purchasing options, fan art and more!

Writing a sequel to a Bestseller -- Exclusive Beth Revis interview about A MILLION SUNS

2012-01-12T01:06:00.000-05:00

I had the joyful opportunity to interview Beth Revis during her exciting launch week of A Million Suns. Her answers surprised me, gave insight into her writing process, and also gave me a chuckle.

Across the Universe has one of the most memorable and visceral beginnings in recent YA science fiction. How much did that weigh on you when writing A Million Suns? Were you trying to top it? Or were you not thinking about that at all?

Heh. I'm obsessive. I thought about that first chapter SO MUCH. And I wrote about six or seven completely different openers. Should it start with Amy or Elder? Should it I go for emotional or physical punches? Is it good enough?

I wrote far more Elder chapters than Amy chapters to open with. One of the first chapters was moved to the middle of the book--it's a flashback chapter, and I think it works better in the middle (when they actually talk about the flashback) but I also quite liked it as an opener. I also had another chapter where Elder remembers one of the first lessons he had with Eldest. There are remnants of that chapter throughout the book (look for the character Evie), but otherwise it was cut.

In the end, I opened with Elder--and I really love the chapter we settled on. It ends with a punch and a revelation, and it echoes the tone of the whole book.

I know that chapter one in Across the Universe was originally chapter four. Did you have any big changes in revisions like that for A Million Suns?

Ha! HAHAHAHA! HAAAAHAAAAHAAAA!!!!!! <--insert more maniacal laughter here-->

Dude. SO MUCH REVISION. I finished AMS in October. Sent to beta readers. Who hated it. Rewrote the entire manuscript in November. Sent to my editor. Who is too polite to tell me she hated it. Rewrote the entire manuscript in February. I estimate only 20% of the original manuscript made it to the final, and that I wrote approximately 300,000 words for a 90,000 word novel.

This was sold as a trilogy. How much of the entire story arc – if any -- did you have in your head when you finished Across the Universe?

Well. Here's the thing. I like to make things up as I go. Which is why I'm an author. Technically, I submitted a synopsis of Books 2 and 3 when I sold AtU. But...I didn't stick with them closely. In fact, the person who's the killer in Book 2 was supposed to be a key good guy or girl in Book 3. That's changed. I was a little worried that my editor would hate SHADES OF EARTH because it was SO different from the synopsis...

What discovery -- about your characters, or about yourself -- surprised you the most in the writing of A Million Suns?

That I will actually be happy to rewrite the same novel four #$%! times, because it matters that much to me that the words are right.

Your first book made the best-seller list. When did that happen and what was that experience like?

It happened the first three weeks the book came out (I made the list the first and third week of the debut; apparently that second week was killer, lol!).

The experience was INSANE. I found out while sitting at my kitchen table, paying bills. A friend got the list early and congratulated me...and I had no idea why. Then I got the email from my editor. Then I flipped out.

What would the published Beth say to the pre-pubbed Beth?

Told you so.

An "Oh My Heck!" and A MILLION SUNS

2012-01-11T06:00:00.025-05:00

First off, it doesn't feel real that Beth now has two books out! Can you believe we've been here this long?

Well, we have. And today I'm going to be reviewing Beth's sophomore novel, A MILLION SUNS.

I hope she doesn't hate me after this, but *ducks* I loved A MILLION SUNS about a million times more than her first book (which was FANTASTIC and you should all read it if you haven't).

I think that's a high compliment. It's not like I didn't like her first so I was grudgingly giving AMS a "second chance." Not at all.

But I think it's a very hard thing to write a second book that's as good as the first. As someone who's had to do so, I *know* it's hard. We usually take years on our first books, getting feedback, editing, tweaking, etc. And we usually only get a few months to work on the second.

So yeah. I think that's a high compliment.

There were many things I loved about A MILLION SUNS. I even sent Beth an email with the subject of OH MY HECK!!! at one point and everything inside the email was also in capital letters.

If a book can spark that kind of reaction, you know you need to read it. But let's be a bit more specific.

About A MILLION SUNS: Godspeed was fueled by lies. Now it is ruled by chaos.

It's been three months since Amy was unplugged. The life she always knew is over. And everywhere she looks, she sees the walls of the spaceship Godspeed. But there may just be hope: Elder has assumed leadership of the ship. He's finally free to enact his vision - no more Phydus, no more lies.

But when Elder discovers shocking news about the ship, he and Amy race to discover the truth behind life on Godspeed. They must work together to unlock a puzzle that was set in motion hundreds of years earlier, unable to fight the romance that's growing between them and the chaos that threatens to tear them apart.

And this time it all builds to one mind-bending conclusion: They have to get off this ship.

Trust me, you'll feel the same anxiety, the same, "I will die if I don't get off this ship!" It's that intense.

I've already gushed about the writing of this book here on my own blog. The verbs are fabulous, and it's exactly the kind of fast-paced action that I like. There were a couple more things that I loved:

1. The romance. It's broken and messy. And this is exactly the kind of romantic relationship I like. It's complicated. People in real life are complicated. I want my books to match that, and A MILLION SUNS is a great authentic read.

2. The characters. I thought I loved Amy and Elder before. I was wrong. They have to go through some hard(er) things here, and it makes them come even more alive. There's one particular scene I'm thinking of that I can't say for fear of spoilage. But dude. I so did not want Amy/Elder to die!

And that's worth a lot.

Explore the ship, Godspeed, here.
Visit Beth's blog and website.
BUY YOUR COPY OF A MILLION SUNS!

Hardcover (Amazon, B&N, a signed copy at Beth's indie, Fireside Books -- plus if you do this (click here for even more info, like their phone number and facebook page), then you get extra swag from Beth!)
Kindle
Nook

Visit the A MILLION SUNS page for more links, purchasing options, fan art and more!

Virtual Party in Celebration of A MILLION SUNS!

2012-01-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

Today we’re celebrating the launch of Beth Revis’s A MILLION SUNS by participating in theVirtual Party! Each hour of the day, from 9am to 5pm EST, there will be adifferent feature on a different blog. And each stop, in true party fashion,will have a party favor to give out—in the form of a signed book plus some coolswag—and a party game: a puzzle piece to a truly epic prize for one winner! Soread on to find out exclusive information about A MILLION SUNS and enter to wina signed book!

EXPLORE GODSPEED

One thing that I think a lot of people miss is that there is a fully interactive model of Godspeed online, there for your viewing pleasure! It's located at http://acrosstheuniversebook.com, and you can click on each level of the ship.

Make sure to click around; there's some special features in each level, including details about the Bridge, the Hospital, and more.

As you explore, you might notice that some of the rooms are off-limits. If you click on the Feeder Level, you'll find a blocked section for "storage." Those of you who have read ACROSS THE UNIVERSE might know that this is the cryo level, where Amy is.

But here's something no one knows yet. On the cryo level, there are several locked doors. One of them--the hatch that leads out to space--can be opened with the code G-O-D-S-P-E-E-D. But there are more doors...and by the end of A MILLION SUNS, Amy and Elder are going to go through all of them.

And two more people are going out the hatch.

Thanks for stopping by today as a part of the Virtual LaunchParty for A MILLION SUNS! To help celebrate, one commenter on this post willreceive a signed paperback of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, the first book of thetrilogy, along with some custom swag, including a poster, an art print of a koifish (made by the student who inspired Beth to write the character Harley), NASA goodies, andmore. This contest is open internationally, and will end in 24 hours.

JUST COMMENT ON THIS POST TO ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN THIS PRIZE!

Make sure you go back to Beth’s website for full details onthe party. Visit every site in the party to gather clues that will enable youto enter for the GRAND PRIZE—a signed paperback of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, asigned hardback of A MILLION SUNS, an exclusive water bottle, a poster, an artprint, and more!

In order to win that grand prize, you need a clue. And the clue for this blog stop is...

A Million Suns Week!

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

Let it be known Across the Universe that tomorrow Beth Revis's sequel to her bestselling novel hits bookstores everywhere!

To get pumped up for A Million Suns, I decided to post a million ways to prepare to get back on the Godspeed. Then I realized that might be a tad ... ambitious. I thought 5 might be more reasonable, so here they are:

Five Ways to Get Ready for A Million Suns

1. Read and/or review Across the Universe
A spaceship fueled by lies, a girl awakened to a life she never wanted, a boy groomed to become a leader, and a murderer waiting to strike again. Across the Universe revealed the secret of the stars, but how Amy and Elder come to terms with their new roles onboard the Godspeed, and their feelings for one another, are issues that having me eagerly awaiting the release of A Million Suns on Tuesday.

2. Check out the trailers
You can watch the absolutely stunning official trailer from Penguin here, and while you are on youtube check out fan-made trailers for both books.

3. Go aboard the Godspeed to discover its secrets
The official website for the books features a working diagram of the ship and snag one of the gorgeous backgrounds for your computer.

4. Listen to the song
One of the Beatles' loveliest songs, Across the Universe inspired the trilogy's titles.

5. Leave a comment sharing your favorite Across the Universe scenes, your predictions for A Million Suns, or just a little book launch love for Beth.

And don't forget to check out Beth's virtual launch party , which you can not only attend in your jam jams, but also includes cool prizes!

An Interview With Gennifer Albin

2012-01-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hello, my name is Adelice Lewys and Gennifer asked if I could host an interview with her. I considered saying no. After all she left me plunging into icy, churning water to do this, but then she reminded me that I live entirely in her head and that I had to do it. She's just that much of a tyrant. Seriously, she could give some people here a run for their money.

Gennifer: Ad, I can leave you in the water.

Adelice: See, this is what I'm talking about. Positively tyrannical.

Gennifer: Maybe they want to hear about me.

Adelice (under her breath): Not likely.

Gennifer: You're giving me a complex.

Adelice: Then I guess we're even. Ok, so give us the scoop. When will we see Crewel's cover?

Gennifer: I wish I knew. I'm under threat of pain not to share it.

Adelice: I'd like to point out that I'm usually under threat of pain, but I still take action. Fortune favors the bold.

Gennifer: Yes, and see where's that gotten you.

Adelice: Bobbing in icy water. Point taken. What can you tell them about my world?

Gennifer: Well, officially it's a world of secrets and lethal intrigue.

Adelice: Can you be more vague?

Gennifer: Ok, sassypants, it's a world of cigarette holders, cocktails, beautiful women who hide deadly secrets behind their made-up faces and silk stockings, and men who fear women so much they keep them bringing coffee. No one is quite who they seem. Even you.

Adelice: That leads me to a very important question. Do I have to wear all those stockings in book 2?

Gennifer: I see you're going to ask all the hard-hitting questions.

Adelice: And you are avoiding the question. Ok, less about my world and more about yours. What do you do when you aren't torturing me?

Gennifer: I'm usually chasing my toddler and preschooler, watching too much Fringe and Harry Potter, and eating all my husband's delicious baked goods. Oh, and thinking about torturing you.

Adelice: Gee, thanks.

Gennifer: You're welcome.

Adelice: Ok, can you please pull me out of the water now? I'm getting pruney, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to freeze to death soon.

Gennifer: I guess. It would be pretty anti-climatic if you bit it like that.

Adelice: Exactly what I was worried about.

Please feel free to let Genn know that stockings are completely unnecessary in book two. I'm sure you all agree with me.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About My Debut Novel, STARTERS, by Lissa Price

2012-01-05T03:00:00.000-05:00

It sold right before May 2011 in six days and is being published by Random House Children’s Books, Delacorte, on March 13, 2012. That’s fast.
Because that was so fast, there isn’t as much perception about it as there might be – yet. We won’t have ARCs until later in January, so I’m grateful for any help spreading the word now. Thank you to the kind bloggers (Lenore was the first) who discovered Starters.
It’s sold to 20 countries so far and launches a new German YA imprint of the big publisher Piper Verlag called IVI. (The blue cover you see in my sig).
Starters was the only 2012 book that was featured at the 2011 SCIBA awards dinner where I dined with real, published authors including winner Andrew Smith (Marbury Lens), John Stephens (The Emerald Atlas) and Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me).
A German TV journalist is coming with a crew to interview me next week. (yikes!)
The publisher just finished the amazing book trailer, complete with actors, sets, and special things I dare not reveal yet.
I’ll be on a six-city book tour the second half of March.
It is the first of a two-book series, a duology (no, I did not make that up), with the second one coming out December 2012. I’ve told my buds that until April I have no time to do anything more than eat, sleep, write, blog and sometimes tweet.
The concept was kept secret by my clever publisher all these months. With their permission, I revealed it on my bio here.
Starters has more sekreets, soon to be revealed.

Thank you, Beth, and this truly great group of authors for inviting me to be part of the League. I’ll try not to do anything to embarrass you all, like dance on tables or kiss poodles. At least, not on the mouth.

Introducing Susanne Winnacker a.k.a. myself

2012-01-04T08:23:00.001-05:00

I’m notgood at writing bios (yeah, I know. That coming from an author. The SHAME).Maybe it’s because I hate writing about myself.

Anyway.

Here comesthe most rambling bio ever with more info about me than you probably everwanted to know.

I live in

Germany

(just like Lenore!), more preciselythe Ruhrgebiet (and you all know where that is, don’t you?? Don’t you?!).

I loveparenthesis (oh well). My husband and I are slaves to three bunnies: She-devil,Volderabbit and b*tch (not their actual names but they could be...). They liketo spend their days destroying everything that crosses their path. Their latestvictim: my edit letter. But I’ve got to hand it to Volderabbit, he took care tognaw off only my notes, not the actual letter. Lucky for him that I have a goodmemory.

Our fourthhousemate is a Komondor, a Hungarian livestock guardian dog. His hair is shortright now, so he looks more like a curly sheep than a huge mop.

I love ChaiLatte and coffee, especially Espresso. My husband and I travel a lot. I love tocook and unfortunately to eat. I can’t resist a chocolate soufflé, tiramisu, panna cotta or creme brulée.Yum.

We rarelywatch TV but lots of movies and dvds.

My favoritemovies: Alien, Avatar, Men in Black, Teminator, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, Kill Bill,Bad Boys, Inglourious Basterds, Lethal Weapon, Sherlock Holmes, X-men, Ice Age,Madagascar, Miss Incongeniality, The Devil wears Prada...

My favoriteseries: Californication, Six Feet Under, The X-Files, Lost, King of Queens,Home Improvement, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

German ismy first language but I write in English anyway.

Beforebecoming a full-time writer, I studied law. And it so wasn’t my thing.

Oh, and Ihave a book coming out this year: The Other Life, a YA dystopian thriller. Youcan watch the trailer!

I thinkthat’s enough info about me.

An Introductory Q&A with Lenore Appelhans

2012-01-03T15:29:00.001-05:00

As a longtime follower of the League blog, I’m thrilled to have been asked to join this inspiring, talented group. I’m an American living in Germany with my illustrator husband Daniel Jennewein and three fancy Sacred Birman cats. In addition to writing books, I work as a freelance advertising copywriter, I love to travel and I blog at Presenting Lenore.

For my League introduction post, I thought I’d go to twitter and put out a general call for questions. Here’s what I got.

From @bermudaonion How long have you been writing fiction?

From @ReadersInk At what age did you start writing stories, or telling them?

I dabbled in creative writing throughout my schooling, penning several short stories for assignments, literary magazines and writing contests (In 8th grade, I even made it to the state semi-finals of Ohio’s Power of the Pen competition). My friends and I used to write terrible plays and act them out for the neighborhood. I wrote 2/3 of a novel in high school (I allude to it in LEVEL 2). LEVEL 2 is my first completed manuscript, and I started writing it in November 2010.

From @novaren What was your journey to becoming an author?

Daniel and I used to joke about moving to a secluded cabin in the woods where he’d illustrate and I’d write novels. The writing novels part always seemed like a pipe dream though. I’d heard how hard it was to break into publishing. Once I started blogging about books and meeting real life authors, I slowly started to think about writing LEVEL 2. It wasn’t until I had my “Pompeii epiphany” (where I finally figured out how to execute my idea), that I really committed.

I chatted with BEFORE I FALL Author Lauren Oliver about LEVEL 2 and the fact that she took me seriously, gave me advice and told me to go for it was a real confidence booster. By the time SCBWI New York conference rolled around at the end of January 2011, I had five chapters written and soon after caught the eye of an agent. It’s been a whirlwind since then.

From @TiffanySchmidt Do you have any writing rituals?

Not really. I usually write between 2-11 pm because I’m useless in the morning. I start with a loose synopsis as a guideline, but not much is set in stone. I’m a pretty slow drafter because I prefer to write in scene order and I can’t bring myself to move on until I have something right. I really need to work on that!

From @BethFishReads How long have you lived in Europe? What took you there? Do you plan to stay there?

I moved to Germany in March 2000 for an internship, planning to stay only six months. I ended up meeting Daniel and not moving back. As far as staying here, only time will tell!

From @BrokeandBookish What is your favorite place you've ever travelled?

This is as impossible to answer as saying what my favorite book is! I've been to over 55 countries now, and every trip has been enriching in some way. That said, there are a few destinations I'd love to return to asap: Iceland (for the breathtaking nature), the Galapagos Islands (for the fascinating wildlife) and the Greek Islands (for the food).

That's all for now - but I guess you'll be hearing a lot more from me on Tuesdays in the months to come!

Hi, My Name Is Mike

2012-01-02T18:22:00.001-05:00

I’m told this week is for introductions, and my day to postis Monday, so here goes:

Hi, my name is Mike. I’ve been a writer for 32 years. Wow,that sounds like I’m at an AA meeting, doesn’t it? I suppose it’s appropriate—writingis a tricky addiction. It gets into yourveins and even when you don’t want to do it, when every word makes you shakeand sweat and want to rocket out of your chair to scrub the bathroom floor—whichdoesn’t need it—you keep going because you need that high of the perfectsentence, the beautiful paragraph, the well-crafted chapter close. Or maybethat’s just me.

Here’s the weird thing about writing an introduction formyself: it’s unnatural. If I wanted to write about myself, I would have writtena memoir, not a novel. I’d rather hide behind the cloak of fiction, to embedpieces of myself in my characters—in Alex, Darla, and even Target—but not totake responsibility for denuding myself to an audience of thousands.

I even resisted writing the flap copy for the back of mydebut novel, ASHFALL. When I finally forced myself to task, I evadedresponsibility by writing the silliest bio Icould. My publicist insisted that we needed a more serious biography, soI tried again. That still didn’t satisfy her, so I wrote thisstaid version. Luckily, I was able to convince my publisher to use thesilly bio on the book.

So that’s me. My name is Mike. I don’t like writing aboutmyself. And I wrote a novel called ASHFALL. It’s out now. Buy a copy so I cankeep writing, would ya? Because I need another fix.

p.s. If you want to know more, ask in the comments. Or letme know what you’d like me to write about on this blog. I’d appreciate thehelp. Because I have no clue how I’m going to come up with 35 more posts thisyear.

WINNER!

2012-01-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

Let's start the new year with a
WINNER!

At the end of last year, we held a giveaway--one signed book of each of our works!
And the winner of all five books is...

and that person is....

AMY H!

Congrats, Amy!

Meanwhile, we're working hard behind the scenes to make sure we start the new year right. We've got five new bloggers, two book launches, some giveaways, and more...and that's just January! Stick around for all the fun. Thanks for reading!

Celebrate our First Year and Win Five Signed Books!

2011-12-12T09:41:00.002-05:00

THANK YOU ALL!

We here at the League want to thank YOU for sticking with us this first year as we blogged about books, dystopias, sci fi, and more. In order to thank you, want to give you a signed copy of each of our books. One subscriber to the blog will receive all the books!

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Possession by Elana Johnson

Memento Nora by Angie Smibert

The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch

XVI by Julia Karr

Contest is open internationally, and winners will be announced January 2, 2012.

You do need to be a subscriber to win.

Questions? Leave them in the comments below!

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Bio: New League Member Gennifer Albin

2011-12-09T06:00:00.006-05:00

Oh my heck, you guys! There are SO MANY new awesome bloggers joining us on The League for 2012! I think we might cause the Awesomocalypse just from these announcements.

And today is no different. Welcome YA dystopian author Gennifer Albin to The League!

Name: Gennifer Albin

Title: Crewel (Farrar Straus Giroux, October 2012)

Short Plot: In a world where women, designated as Spinsters, weave time, matter, and the very fabric of existence, a 16-year-old girl must maneuver secrets and lethal intrigue to uncover her destiny.

Favorite dystopian/sci-fi works: I'm a sucker for the classics. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, The Giver by Lois Lowry, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. But I love The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, Matched by Ally Condie, and Cinder by Marissa Meyer, too. As far as movies? If it's based on a Philip K. Dick story or directed by J.J. Abrams, I know it's for me.

Why I write dystopian? It's the story I had to tell.

Whimper of Bang? I'm positive we're going to have a few bangs in there. Guns, nuclear weapons, asteroids, alien invasions, but at the end, there's only the whimper of it all fading to nothing.

More about Gennifer: Gennifer Albin has a degree in 18th century literature, which means she's read a lot of very old, very long books, but we won't talk about that. Nowadays she spends her times building fantastic worlds comprised of the people she'd like to go on adventures with, while wrangling two little ones. She writes for her husband who loves to read and doesn't mind paying her in delicious, home-baked bread and Indian food.

I am so freaking excited to have Genn on-board, and I cannot wait to read CREWEL. Find her online:

New Member: Susanne Winnacker

2011-12-08T06:00:00.014-05:00

Name: Susanne Winnacker

YA dystopian title: THE OTHER LIFE (May 1st 2012 in the US, February 1st 2012 in the UK)

Short Plot:

3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life. 98,409,602 seconds since the heavy, steel door had fallen shut and sealed us off from the world

Sherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation...and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers.

When Sherry's dad is snatched, she joins forces with gorgeous but troubled Joshua - an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers.

But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?

Favorite dystopian/sci fi works: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Why Write Dystopian?

Because, as crazy as it might sound, dystopian tales give us hope. In The Other Life, Sherry is faced with abandoned, Weeper-infested streets when she leaves the bunker her family spent the last three years in. She must overcome her fear, fight for her life, take care of her family but she grows with the challenge. Dystopia gives us hope because no matter how dark or twisted or inhumane the future is, our protagonists don’t give up. They get out of their adventures stronger. If Katniss can survive The Hunger Games, what are we capable of? Can we maybe get past the little obstacles daily life poses to each of us?

No matter how dark, dystopian fiction gives me hope in the strength that’s buried inside of each of us.

Whimper or a Bang? Bang.

Online @

Website: www.susannewinnacker.com

Twitter: @SusanneWrites

Goodreads: Susanne Winnacker

Blog: http://susannewritesfiction.blogspot.com/

Facebook: Susanne Winnacker

Email: books@susannewinnacker.com

Bio: League Member Lenore Appelhans

2011-12-07T00:00:00.001-05:00

Photo credit: VLC Productions

Name: Lenore Appelhans

Title: Level 2 (Simon & Schuster BFYR, Fall 2012)

Short plot: In Level 2, the liminal place between our world (Level 1) and heaven, seventeen-year-old Felicia Ward spends her days in her pod reliving her favorite memories - until she gets broken out by Julian, a boy she once knew who wants her to join a dangerous rebellion.

Favorite Dystopian Works: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Feed by MT Anderson, 1984 by George Orwell, Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness, and so many more.

Why write dystopian? The idea for Level 2 came to me years ago, but it wasn’t until I became obsessed with dystopians and then thought about Level 2 in that context that everything really clicked. I wrote the story I wanted to read – a dystopian afterlife thriller, but one that’s grounded by
realistic characters and “contemporary” memories.

Whimper or Bang? Bang followed by whimper.

Online @
Blog: http://presentinglenore.blogspot.com
Twitter: @lenoreva
GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4737695.Lenore_Appelhans
Email: lenore.appelhans@googlemail.com

Intro: New League Member, Mike Mullin

2011-12-06T06:00:00.004-05:00

I am thrilled and honored to introduce Mike Mullin as a new League of Extraordinary Writers member! Mike is a fellow Hoosier, an amazing writer, and an all-around extraordinary guy! Welcome, Mike!!!

Bio

Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mike juggled bottles at a wine shop, sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really hoping this writing thing works out.

Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife and her three cats. ASHFALL is his first novel.

Title: ASHFALL (Tanglewood, 10/11/2011)

Short Plot: Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don’t realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano. It has erupted three times in the last 2.1 million years, and it will erupt again, changing the earth forever.

Fifteen-year-old Alex is home alone when Yellowstone erupts. His town collapses into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence, forcing him to flee. He begins a harrowing trek in search of his parents and sister, who were visiting relatives 140 miles away.

Along the way, Alex struggles through a landscape transformed by more than a foot of ash. The disaster brings out the best and worst in people desperate for food, clean water, and shelter. When an escaped convict injures Alex, he searches for a sheltered place where he can wait—to heal or to die. Instead, he finds Darla. Together, they fight to achieve a nearly impossible goal: surviving the supervolcano.

Favorite Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic Works: Other than those written by league members? ‘Cause seriously, I love all their books. I was pretty sure it was a mistake when they invited me to join. Anyway: Epitaph Road by David Patneaude, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Postman by David Brin, The Gone series by Michael Grant, World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler, The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gischler, Divergent by Veronica Roth, The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer, The Windup Girl and Shipbreaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, Feed by M.T. Anderson, and Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

Why write dystopian? The idea for ASHFALL led me to the post-apocalyptic genre, rather than the other way around. In 2008 I was wandering through Central Library in downtown Indianapolis and saw Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. It’s an impressively sized book, but nowhere near large enough, I thought, to include nearly everything. So I checked it out, thinking I’d write Bryson a snarky letter about the stuff he’d missed. Instead, I learned about the Yellowstone supervolcano. When I discovered that no one had written fiction set in the aftermath of an eruption of that epic volcano, I knew I had to try it.

Whimper or Bang? In ASHFALL? Both, but the other way around.

Online @

Website: mikemullinauthor.com

Blog: mikemullin.blogspot.com

Google+: Mike Mullin

Goodreads: Mike Mullin

Twitter: @Mike_Mullin

Facebook: Mike Mullin

Email: mike.mullin.writer@gmail.com

Bio: League Member Lissa Price

2011-12-05T09:00:00.010-05:00

Name: Lissa Price

Title: Starters (Random House Children's Books, Delacorte, March 13, 2012)

Short Plot: In a world ravaged by war and genocide, becoming someone else is now possible. Sixteen-year-old Callie discovers the Body Bank where teens rent their bodies to seniors who want to be young again. When her neurochip malfunctions, she wakes up in the mansion of her rich renter and finds she is dating a senator’s grandson. It’s a fairy-tale new life, until she discovers her renter’s deadly plan.

Favorite Dystopian Works: Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, Matched by Ally Condie, Across the Universe by Beth Revis, Wither by Lauren DeStefano, Legend by Marie Lu, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Why Write Dystopian? My favorites mentioned above inspired me to imagine what could happen in my future world. When I’m writing, I tend to start with a character who is put in an unusual concept, and that’s what I did for STARTERS. I took our world today and projected current trends, magnifying them to support the narrative.

But the reason I do this is to build a context to hold a story with the potential for the strongest emotions. I want the reader to experience a roller-coaster ride of surprise, hate, fear and love but in a way that feels fresh. Dystopian just blows open those possibilities.

Whimper or Bang? T.S. Elliot said: "This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper." So...which is it: does the world end with a whimper or a bang?

I’m too much of an optimist to accept anything less than transformation.

Online @

Website:http://www.LissaPrice.com

Twitter: @Lissa_Price

GoodReads: Lissa Price

Email: LissaPriceauthor@gmail.com

Amazon: STARTERS

Community: Randombuzzers.com

Welcome to Our New Members!

2011-12-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

This week, we're celebrating the new members of the League! Each day we're posting a new bio of an author of dystopian and sci works. We hope this is a chance for you to find new authors and new books coming next year!

We'd also like to give you a brief idea of our new schedule:

December 5-9: Introduce new members
December 12-17: HUGE giveaway to celebrate our inaugural year!
We'll be taking the rest of December off to plan for the new year and celebrate the holidays.
January 2-6: First week of new members' posts
January 9-13: Celebrate the launch of A Million Suns by member Beth Revis
January 16-20: Celebrate the launch of Truth by member Julia Karr
January 23- February 3: New members' posts
February 6-10: Veteran members' posts

As you can see, we've got lots of new things planned! We're also going to be working on new graphics, new contests and giveaways, and some other fun features for everyone. So stick around, settle in, and help us celebrate the end of the world!

And please: help us give a hearty dystopian welcome to our new members all this week!

ANNOUNCING! New Members to the League!

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hi all!

As the year draws to a close, we here at the League have been looking past this debut year with shiny eyes. For more than a year now, we've blogged about books and science, fiction and non, dystopian and space and more.

And next year, we want to make that even bigger.

So, starting next year, we'll be adding five new members to our ranks. They've all got new books coming out next year, they're all in the sci fi and dystopian YA genres, and they've all got awesome things to tell you.

The schedule won't change: we'll still be blogging Monday-Friday, a different author each day. We'll still be featuring books and movies and more, and we'll still be focusing on sci fi and dystopian works. But we're doubling our work forces and drawing in new members to keep everything fresh and exciting for you. The veteran members of the League will still blog, too, one week out of each month, so don't think we're disappearing!

Thank you all so much for reading, commenting, and sharing. We hope you've enjoyed this debut year, and we hope that you'll welcome the new members--who we're introducing tomorrow--with open arms. And to help celebrate the new authors joining our ranks, we'll be holding quite a giveaway soon...

Second Book Week: SURRENDER

2011-12-02T06:00:00.013-05:00

Okay, so to wrap up second book week, I'm here to talk just a bit about my next book. It is a companion to POSSESSION, meaning it takes place in the same storyworld but is narrated by two new characters.

I think it's pretty clear from the jacket copy how the characters from POSSESSION fit into SURRENDER. I'm reading the book right now for the last time, checking for last-minute errors and word changes, and it's been so much fun!

So onto the book.

About the book: Forbidden love, intoxicating power, and the terror of control...

Raine has always been a good girl. She lives by the rules in Freedom. After all, they are her father's rules: He's the Director. It's because of him that Raine is willing to use her talent--a power so dangerous, no one else is allowed to know about it. Not even her roommate, Vi.

All of that changes when Raine falls for Gunner. Raine's got every reason in the world to stay away from Gunn, but she just can't. Especially when she discovers his connection to Vi's boyfriend, Zenn. Raine has never known anyone as heavily brainwashed as Vi. Raines father expects her to spy on Vi and report back to him. But Raine is beginning to wonder what Vi knows that her father is so anxious to keep hidden, and what might happen if she helps Vi remember it. She's even starting to suspect Vi's secrets might involve Freedom's newest prisoner, the rebel Jag Barque....

SURRENDER will be released on June 5, 2012. You can get the most up-to-date information about both POSSESSION and SURRENDER on Facebook. Add SURRENDER to your Goodreads list.

And hey! Yesterday a POSSESSION short story was released for FREE! You can click here to download your copy, and get a sneak peek inside the mind of Zenn...

If you'd like to sign up to receive an ARC of Surrender, fill out this form.

Second Book Week: The Forgetting Curve

2011-12-01T06:00:00.003-05:00

The second book in the MEMENTO NORA series comes out May 1, 2012. THE FORGETTING CURVE features some new characters (and some old ones) but, in my mind, it's a sequel. The events pick up several weeks after the end of MN.

Jacket Copy:

Aiden Nomura likes to open doors—especially using his skills as a hacker—to see what’s hidden inside. He believes everything is part of a greater system: the universe. The universe shows him the doors, and he keeps pulling until one cracks open. Aiden exposes the flaw, and the universe—or someone else—will fix it. It’s like a game.

Until it isn’t.

When a TFC opens in Bern, Switzerland, where Aiden is attending boarding school, he knows things are changing. Shortly after, bombs go off within quiet, safe Bern. Then Aiden learns that his cousin Winter, back in the States, has had a mental breakdown. He returns to the US immediately.

But when he arrives home in Hamilton, Winter’s mental state isn’t the only thing that’s different. The city is becoming even stricter, and an underground movement is growing.

Along with Winter’s friend, Velvet, Aiden slowly cracks open doors in this new world. But behind those doors are things Aiden doesn’t want to see—things about his society, his city, even his own family. And this time Aiden may be the only one who can fix things . . . before someone else gets hurt.

Marshall Cavendish, hardcover (May 1, 2012)
ISBN13: 978-0761462651
ISBN: 0761462651

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Indie Bound

If you’d like an Advance Review Copy, please contact me at angie(at)angiesmibert(dot)com. Please send me your name, snail mail address, and blog/publication address. I'll forward the info to the publisher. (I can't guarantee you'll get one; that decision is above my pay grade!)

Second Book Week: Title Redacted

2011-11-30T09:01:00.000-05:00

Wow! Can't believe it's already second book time! So excited to read about all my fellow bloggers next books and I'm really looking forward to telling you every single thing I can about my next book.

Unfortunately, every single thing I can tell you is....nothing.

I'm currently under strict orders to keep it all a big secret, including the title. So how to do a post about a book I can't talk about? Well, mostly I'm going to be irritatingly mysterious.What I thought I'd do is share a few of the inspirations for the book in hopes that they might give you a taste for what it is.

First, there's this quote by Stephen jay Gould that was probably the single biggest early influence on the book.

"No..conflict should exist because each subject (science and religion) has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap..."

Next, a wikipedia entry.

And now a few significant locations where the book takes place.

The main character has one of her last happy memories floating late at night in a place just like this.

This is what all the characters spend alot of time looking at.

This is where one character gets down on his knees and begs for forgiveness.

This is a major character in the book who's not entirely what he seems.

Other thank this I can tell you this is a much bigger book that The Eleventh Plague. More characters. A bigger world. It's also more on the side of a fantasy/adventure story with a little sci-fi thrown in.

I can't wait to tell you all more!

Second Book Week: Truth

2011-11-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

Wow! Has it been a year already? I'm so excited for Truth to be coming out!

Nina Oberon’s life has changed enormously in the last few months. When her mother was killed, Nina discovered the truth about her father, the leader of the Resistance. And now she sports the same Governing Council–ordered tattoo of XVI on her wrist that all sixteen-year-old girls have. The one that announces to the world that she is easy prey to predators. But Nina won’t be anyone’s stereotype. And when she joins an organization of girls working within the Resistance, she knows that they can put an end to one of the most terrifying secret programs the GC has ever conceived. Because the truth always comes out...and the consequences can be deadly.

Details: Published by: Puffin/Speak, Release date: January 19, 2012, ISBN 0142417726 (ISBN13:978-0142417720)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | BAM
Book Bloggers! If you are interested in a copy of TRUTH for review on your blog, please contact Penguin at:

yrmarketing@us.penguingroup.com

with your name, address, and blog information in order to request a galley. Due to the volume of email they receive, you may not get a response, but your request will be read, logged, and galleys will be distributed at Penguin’s discretion.

Second Book Week: A MILLION SUNS

2011-11-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

All this week we're celebrating our member's second books! It's crazy (for me at least) to think of how we're already onto our second books....whew!

Godspeed was once fueled by lies. Now it is ruled by chaos.

It’s been three months since Amy was unplugged. The life she always knew is over. And everywhere she looks, she sees the walls of the spaceship Godspeed. But there may just be hope: Elder has assumed leadership of the ship. He’s finally free to enact his vision – no more Phydus, no more lies.

But when Elder discovers shocking news about the ship, he and Amy race to discover the truth behind life on Godspeed. They must work together to unlock a puzzle that was set in motion hundreds of years earlier, unable to fight the romance that’s growing between them and the chaos that threatens to tear them apart.

In book two of the Across the Universe trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis mesmerizes us again with a brilliantly crafted mystery filled with action, suspense, romance, and deep philosophical questions. And this time it all builds to one mind-bending conclusion: They have to get off this ship.

Details:

Published by: Penguin/Razorbill

Released: January 10, 2012

ISBN 159514398X (ISBN13: 978-1595143983)

Advanced Praise:

“Revis’ interweaving of science fiction, romance,and action is deft—an especially impressive feat given the condensed time line under which this story operates. …Revis just might make straight-up sci-fi cool again.”
–Booklist, December 1, 2011

Buying Information:

Would you like a signed copy? ContactFireside Bookstore.
Indie Bound
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
The Book Depository

Theme Week: An Ending Is Just A New Beginning

2011-11-18T06:00:00.018-05:00

I've thought about this in real life before, but it's never really translated to reading or writing. But the whole mantra of when one thing ends, another begins is really true in storytelling.

I'm a firm believer that stories don't need to be completely closed to be satisfying. Yes, I need the drama to be wrapped up and the conflict resolved, but I don't need to know what happens five years after the book ends or anything like that. (Jeff touched on this earlier this week. I loved THE ELEVENTH PLAGUE for exactly this reason. I could imagine what else happened based on the superb storytelling Jeff had already done.)

I adored everything about Harry Potter except the fact that we know exactly what happens 19 years later. I wanted to imagine what I wanted for Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione and their kids/lives.

I think the best storytellers weave the elements of the story so tightly with the elements of character that the reader can formulate that perfect ending in their head after the main conflict is resolved.

Those are the kind of endings that create new beginnings for me. Those are the kind of endings I enjoy reading. Those are the kind of endings I try to write.

What do you think? Do you like the author to tell you exactly what happens, or would you rather construct that for yourself?

Theme Week: Twist Endings

2011-11-17T11:19:00.000-05:00

I love the Twilight Zone—and all well executed twisty stories—but, let’s face it, the very title of the show has become synonymous with cliché and trope. That’s not to say you can’t write a great twist ending anymore. (Or enjoy a good TZ marathon.) Films such as the Usual Suspects and Memento are classic because of their twists.

But for a twist to work, it has to happen because it’s what needs to happen. That is, the ending needs to be organic to the story. The twist should add another layer of meaning, but at the very least it can’t be just for the sake of the gotcha.

And you have to play fair with the reader. Lay the groundwork for the twist in your story, but don’t make it too obvious. Don’t make all the characters too idiotic to figure out what’s going on. Don’t deliberately hide a fact just to prevent the reader from figuring it out until the very end. Don’t have a character wake up and find it’s all been a dream (or virtual reality or a book). The reader doesn’t want to feel fooled or tricked—or feel like you cheated. (Or didn’t know what you were doing.)

Some readers, though, are gonna hate the twist no matter what. Just like some people hate ambiguous endings or cliffhangers. But plenty of us like all three—as long as they’re well done. SyFy still runs a Twilight Zone marathon every New Years (and at least one other time a year). I can’t be the only one watching it!

How do you guys feel about twists? Any favorites (or not)?

Endings Week: New Beginnings

2011-11-16T09:39:00.001-05:00

Was thinking about endings and ran across this list of the 50 best movie endings. It's a fun list and I generally agree with their choices. My personal favorites are ones like Say Anything, Casablanca and The Silence of the Lambs.

It struck me that each of these movies actually has a similar ending, in that they each end with a beginning. Lloyd and Diane boarding a plane into the unknown. Rick and Louis embarking on a beautiful friendship. Hannibal Lector free and getting ready to have an old friend for dinner.

In each case, the story is complete in a satisfying way but the ending makes it clear that life goes on, these characters are still out there, still having adventures. I think it makes for a powerful ending, allowing the characters to live on in our imaginations.

And now that I think about it that's actually what I was trying to do with the ending to The Eleventh Plague. The world has completed one transformation and that has opened the door to a new world for the main characters. (Being just slightly vague for any of you that haven't read it) People have mixed feelings about it to be sure. By far the most frequent question I get in emails is along the lines of "But what happens next?!" and "Will there be a sequel where you tell us what happens next?"

I think people naturally want to have things tied up and all questions answered and can be a little frustrated when they don't get exactly what what they want, or all that they want. As a writer though you're sometimes in the position of, hopefully, giving them something that might be more satisfying in the long run.

What do you guys think? Any endings that frustrated you initially but you later realized worked really well?

Theme Week: Endings, really?

2011-11-15T07:16:00.000-05:00

I was recently talking about endings on my other blog, and a friend commented that when they were younger (12-ish) they wanted everything wrapped up neatly. They needed to know that it all worked out - even if it wasn't necessarily happy (Old Yeller, anyone?) But, she noted that as she grew older that became less and less important. And, now she prefers some mystery, some loose ends, some unanswered questions in her endings.

Well, I've been thinking about this - cause I tend to write endings with loose ends and unanswered questions. And, one of the things that hit me was - of course - I like life! And, life is one sort of frayed, raveled blanket that has no neat, tidy end.

That's it you know... I like books that remind me of the mysteries of life. There are no absolute answers - no one knows anything really for sure. Certain episodes of life have endings - or beginnings if you will. Falling in love might end in marriage - and then that's a beginning. Then there's a baby - and that's an end of a couple and a beginning of a family. Then the baby grows and leaves home and that's an end - and a beginning... and so goes life. There's birth and death - beginnings and endings - but honestly, who's to say which is which?

Before I get too esoteric... let me just say - I like my endings real - and that doesn't necessarily mean they will be neat and tidy. Life sure isn't!

What do you like?

Theme Week: Endings

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Last week we talked about beginnings. This week, we're talking about endings.

When I was an English teacher, I had to teach about the NC Writing Exam--a two-page essay every tenth grader was required to complete that was then graded by the state. This was the bane of our existence: like any teacher, I didn't want to teach to the test, but my administrators wanted good scores, so I had to teach to the test, at least to some degree.

But I tried to teach some actual, you know, writing while working on that test.

The state essay was broken up into three parts: introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. In a lot of ways, the conclusion was the least important. In fact, some teachers advised that students just forego it if they ran out of room on the essay form.

But I stressed to my students that often a good conclusion was the difference between getting a passing grade and getting a perfect one.

The same is true with books. A good conclusion is the difference between an okay book and a life-changing one.

And when I write conclusions, the first thing I think about it the same thing I taught my students: find a way to come full circle.

Just like The Hobbit is "there and back again," you need to, on some level, come back to the beginning of your book. It could be a literal return, like in The Hobbit when Bilbo Baggins goes back to the Shire.

But it could be symbolic. The character who started out hating her hometown can end up returning home happily--or leaving it altogether. The character who started out lovesick and end up independent and happy.

If you're struggling with your final chapter, go back to your first one. Find out a way to bring some element--a feeling, an object, a person, a thought, a wish--from the first chapter back into the last chapter. It can be different, but it needs to be there. In your first chapter, you can start with an innocent kiss--but your last chapter can be an impassioned one.

Write the Beginning...Last

2011-11-11T06:00:00.012-05:00

Okay, so I don't think it's a huge secret that I'm a bit on the unconventional side when it comes to writing. I don't outline, I don't name characters until halfway through books, I switch up eye colors, etc. (BTW, all that gets fixed eventually. My first drafts are nightmares.)

Writing the beginning is no different. It's simple really. Don't write it first.

Now I don't necessarily write my beginning last, but I don't stress about writing it straight out of the gate either. Let me explain.

So I don't write in order. The first scene I wrote in POSSESSION shows up in the book on page 130. The second scene I wrote is the one before that one. And the third scene appears about page 45.

I don't worry about when I write the scenes. I worry about where they go in the story and how they fit with what else I've got. I worry about stitching them together with transitions. I worry about what needs to happen earlier in the book so that the scene I just wrote will make sense. And so I piece together my scenes, writing notes in between them for what needs to happen, and possible ideas for what could happen later.

I write what's in my head, and nothing more. Beginning, middle, end. Doesn't matter when it gets on the page, just that it does.

Unconventional, I know.

But I think there's something to be learned here. Beginnings do not have to be written first. Don't know your beginning? No problem. Write what you do know. You can work backward to the opening scene at any time.

When do you write your beginning? Are you able to write without having that opening scene down on paper?

Top 10 Opening Lines in Science Fiction and Fantasy

2011-11-10T00:28:00.000-05:00

Great first lines grab the reader by the balls—eyeballs, that is. That line shows the reader a peek at what your story is going to be about. It’s your chance to set the tone, voice, theme, setting, etc. Is it going to be high fantasy or poetic cyberpunk? Is it set in a world unlike ours? Is it ironic or whimsical? Think of that first line as your opening “we’re not in Kansas anymore” salvo.

Here are my favorite opening lines in science fiction and fantasy novels:

“The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel.”

Neuromancer, William Gibson.
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13.”

1984, George Orwell.
"It was a pleasure to burn.”

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury.
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.
"All children, except one, grow up."

Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie
"The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette."

The Princess Bride, William Goldman
“What’s it going to be then, eh?” There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.

Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess.
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien.
“Marley was dead, to begin with.”

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
“Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening Hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.”

The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman

Ok, A Christmas Carol isn’t technically considered SF/F, but it does have ghosts in it.

What are your favorite opening lines? Any genre.

Theme Week: Beginnings - The First Impression

2011-11-09T10:04:00.002-05:00

First impressions are everything.

You meet someone for the first time and what are you looking for? A smile? A firm handshake and an air of easy confidence? A self deprecating sense of humor? A first impression is a kind of promise. Someone is telling you "If you deal with me, this is what you can expect." Ideally that impression is going to grow over time and deepen but I think that first meeting is always the foundation your eventual understanding of the person is built on. If what comes next varies too significantly or too fast you can feel lied too, and if it doesn't change at all you feel let down.

Same with a book. You're making a promise. The first scene (maybe it's my theater background, but I always think in scenes not chapters) says "you are in this sort of world with these sorts of people and these are the kinds of things these people are concerned with."

Now establishing settings and characters are pretty obvious but when I say "the things these people are concerned with" I don't quite mean establishing the main conflict. For me, that doesn't necessarily get started in the first scene. What I mean is more like establishing the main thematic concern.

The Eleventh Plague opens with a father and son burying the son's stern ex-marine grandfather. It comes out in the scene that while the grandfather could be cruel he was really the one that was responsible for keeping them alive in their harsh post-apocalyptic world. Once they've finished burying him they have the following conversation:

I sat beside Dad, edging my body alongside the steady in and out of his breath. He draped his arm, exhausted, over my shoulder. It felt good, but still the knot in my stomach refused to unravel.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, Steve?”

“We’ll be okay," I asked. "Won’t we? Without him?”

When Dad said nothing I moved out from under his arm and looked up at him.

“I mean . . . nothing’s going to change. Right?”

Dad fixed his eyes past me and onto the dark trail we would start down the next morning.

“No,” he said, his words rising up like ghosts, thin and pale and empty. “Nothing’s ever going to change.”

You'll see that there's no big conflict yet, what there is a suggestion that the characters are thinking a lot about change. Their lives have always been very steady, day in and day out, but now that the grandfather is gone, maybe things can be different. It's a complicated notion for them. In some ways they desperately want change but they're afraid of it, and also on some level don't really believe it can ever happen.

As the book progresses all of those questions will play out in a more literal way between the two of them and then will grow to be the dominant concern of the book, effecting the relationships and conflicts of every other character and even the fate of the world they're in. But all that starts right here with a first impression where you learn the general direction of the road you'll be heading down.

So what do you all think? What are the most important things that need to be in the first few pages of a book for you to keep reading?

Theme Week: (The Cursed) Beginnings!

2011-11-08T10:01:00.000-05:00

You've got an idea for a story, but where the heck do you start?

It's tempting to do a prologue, an entire set-up before you jump into the story - right? You want your reader to know who your main character is, what he/she looks like, how happy/sad/nervous/scared they are... what kind of surroundings they are in. But... and this is a BIG BUT!!! DO NOT start your story that way!

If you must do a set-up -- do it for yourself. That can be your pre-story before you jump into the REAL story! And, actually it's not a bad idea to write down all kinds of character analysis on all of your characters. Detail your setting - I even draw maps and sketch out rooms, etc. Tell yourself what your characters look like. But again - DO NOT - put those into the beginning of your story. Weave those kinds of details into your first few chapters. It's not urgent (usually) that we know your MC is a blond. However, when she pulls a brown wig on to disguise herself - THEN is when we need to know that. Yes - a scene like that could be the first scene - but chances are, it won't be!

Your beginning needs to have enough mood to draw in the reader - enough voice of your MC for readers to start caring about them - and enough plot set-up that the pages are begging to be turned.

Hard? Yes. Necessary? Yes. Achievable? Most definitely, YES!

For those of you doing NaNo - remember - this month is about getting the story down. Don't concern yourself with the dreaded beginnings - just jump in and write. However, come December - your real work will begin!

Any books you can think of that immediately draw you in?

Theme Week: Beginnings

2011-11-07T11:29:00.000-05:00

A lot of you out there are working on NaNoWriMo and arguably one of the most important things about a book is the beginning, so this week we're going to be talking all about beginnings of books.

There's one problem.

I don't really know that much about beginnings.

Here's the thing: originally, the first chapter of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE was Chapter 4. When I sent the book out to beta readers, nearly all of them felt the original beginning was kind of "blah" and that the book really picked up in Chapter 4.

The problem was, I knew that most of the time when an agent asks for a partial, he'll ask for the first three chapters.

"This sucks," I said to myself (being prone to talking to myself when I was an angsty writer). "I want them to see Chapter 4! Should I break the rules and just send the fourth chapter anyway?"

"No," myself replied. "That's a sure way for an agent to dismiss your work."

"Then what do I do?" I wailed (being also prone to wailing).

"Cut the first three chapters."

To be honest: I sort of shocked myself. I needed those first four chapters, didn't I? I needed to explain how Amy got selected, how Elder was born on the ship. I needed all that background, right?

Turns out, I didn't.

So--write the book the way you want. But when it comes time to edit, you need to figure out what your best chapter is, the point where the reader sits up and says, "Whoa."

Then cut everything before that.

(PS: If you'd like to read the first chapter of my sequel, A MILLION SUNS, click here! And for the record--that was originally a Chapter 5, and I cut the four chapters before it.)

Literary Palimpsest (Don't Worry, I Don't Know What That is Either)

2011-11-04T06:00:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I meet the greatest people at book signings. Toni Pilcher was one said person. She is amazing, and I begged asked her to blog for me on the League today.

A little bit about her first: She is simply a graduate student at BYU pursuing her MA in English, writing her thesis on young adult literature. Even though she's a starving student, she spends her grocery money on books, and she has frequent nightmares that her bookshelves are empty.

She is so much smarter than me! So let's have her take it away!

-----------

Last summer, I attended Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers in Salt Lake City. I came with questions because I was struggling with my dystopian WIP: the story was just not progressing. At the conference, Martine Leavitt, author of Keturah and Lord Death and other wonderful YA novels, introduced me to the concept of the palimpsest. In technical terms, a palimpsest results when the writing on a clay tablet or a piece of vellum is scraped away and replaced by new writing. Often, the original words can still be seen through the new words. In a similar way, as Martine pointed out, an older story can illuminate the themes of a new story.

Now, this literary palimpsest is no new thing in YA lit. Many books are retellings of older stories. Fairy tale retellings are easy to recognize, but some retellings are more disguised. It wasn’t until after I finished Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book that I realized it was a unique retelling of The Jungle Book. With this knowledge, my second reading was much more interesting!

Other books borrow plot structures. The most famous structure is probably the hero’s journey. But think of how Rick Riordan adapts plots from mythology without simply retelling the myths. And in Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, aspects of the main character’s favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, become very important to the plot.

Some books simply make references to characters or lines or themes. The characters in S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders read Gone with the Wind, and the idea of becoming Southern gentlemen informs their decisions later in the novel. Poetry is also an important influence in The Outsiders (Stay gold, Ponyboy!), as it is in many other books. Most recently, poetry has provided motivation for the characters in Ally Condie’s Matched and Crossed. Literary palimpsest works on many levels.

After getting this great idea from Martine, I immediately began to brainstorm “master” stories that could illuminate the themes in my WIP. I settled on Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, and my WIP exploded—in a good way. I have so much more insight into my characters! I’m using some of my favorite lines from Winter’s Tale, including the line that gave the play its name (“a sad tale’s best for winter”), as guides for plot, dialogue, and character development. Though I have a different character line-up and setting than the original, I’m borrowing the basic plot structure and reworking some iconic scenes. And yes, I’m even using the famous stage direction, “Exit, pursued by bear.”

Whether or not readers actually recognize the story beneath the story, I think literary palimpsest can strengthen a manuscript. For a writer, it’s like being an apprentice to a great wordsmith and having something to show for it.

Do you follow a master story when you write? Do you recognize the influence of master stories on the books you read?

Are dystopias screwing with our ability to get the big stuff done?

2011-11-03T06:08:00.001-04:00

In a fascinating article for the World Policy Institute, Neal Stephenson (author of Reamde, Snowcrash, Cryptonomicon, etc.) argues that (1) as a society we’ve become less able to execute on the big stuff and (2) it may be the fault of us science fiction writers.

Now I feel him on the first part. He describes being a child of the 60’s growing up watching us get big things done in space. That was me, too. I was glued to the Apollo missions (as well as Star Trek, 2001, and anything space), and I later ended up working at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Yet this year we watched the Space Shuttle program sputter to an end with nothing really to replace it. So, yeah, we’re not executing on the big stuff so much at the moment.

But, is this because we’re not writing science fiction about moon colonies and galactic civilizations? Well, I don’t know about that. Granted, the science fiction leading up to (and well into) the space age embraced a certain techno-optimisim. And now we’re writing about, gasp, dystopias and steampunk. Correlation ain't causation, though.

I think we’re not executing on the big stuff not for lack of imagination but because of lack of political will. Going to the moon captured the world’s imagination, but the US got there because we were afraid the Russians were going to beat us—and drop bombs on us. Right now our leaders don’t see the strategic value of missions to near Earth orbit. (The irony is that we’re now relying on the Russians to service the space station.)

What do you guys think? Is there a connection between the literature of our imagination and our ability to get the big stuff done?

Finding your Normal

2011-11-02T09:01:00.000-04:00

In total I've written three books. One is in a drawer and will remain there until the end of time. One is out now. One is out in Fall 2012. I'm starting number four now. Not a huge number by an stretch of the imagination, and maybe not enough to have developed some tried and true writing method, but I'm realizing it's now enough to start making some observations about how I go about writing a book.

I noticed one quirk in particular. At around page 100 I find that all forward momentum stops cold and I'm overcome by this irresistible urge to go back and rewrite everything I've done to that point. My rational mind is usually screaming that this is me wasting time. That I'm nervous about moving forward so I want to fiddle around. During first draft time I should be pushing forward at all cost, just get that draft done and get to the time when I can rewrite the whole thing. Except I can't. My need to go back and rework the beginning is overwhelming, like some sort of migratory thing. Must go south!

And the thing is, now that this has happened a few times I'm starting to see why it happens. And really it's pretty darn obvious. The first 50-100 pages is where the world of the story is formed. It's where we set up a character's basic traits, their key relationships and concerns. It's the foundation that everything that comes after. I didn't realize it before, but something has been saying to me "The foundation isn't set yet. Go back and fix it before you move on or the whole thing is going to collapse."

What's great about realizing this is the ability to give yourself a bit of a break. The next time I start to get to that 100 page mark I'm going to be able to say "Oh. Here I am again. Time to go back and rewrite." and not stress about it so much. It's kind of comforting too finally start to come up with your own normal.

How about you guys? Any essential writing quirks you've noticed now that you have a good amount of writing under your belts?

Things that make you go "hmmm..."

2011-11-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

So, I just read this article about the world's most powerful laser being built. The scientists who are building it are hoping to find "ghost particles" and other dimensions.

Uh... wow!

What do you think about this?

Spooky Reads for Halloween!

2011-10-31T07:00:00.000-04:00

[insert obligatory post on spooky reads for halloween here]

C'mon, I know it's cliche, but I've got to do it!

THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER

by Michelle Hodkin

This isn't your typical spooky ghost story--there are no ghosts, for one. But it's properly creepy, starting off with an eerie scene in an abandoned building that I visualized a little too well at 2am. In this story, Mara is a witness to a horrific accident...but it was not what she thought it was, and the consequences of that night aren't leaving her alone.

ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD

by Kendare Blake

I sort of thing you should buy this one for Halloween based on the cover alone.

If that's not enough for you, how about this: ghosts, revenge, death. There. Go buy it for Halloween.

THE REVENANT

by Sonia Gensler

This is another one that's not a typical Halloween book--but there are ghosts--or at least the fear of them--and what I like is that this book also combines history, race, and relationships in with the ghost story.

What spooky reads are you checking out this Halloween?

Also--a little bit of a self plug, but I'm giving away 19 signed YA books here to prep for the next holiday--Thanksgiving!

Adding Suspense To Your Post-Apocoalyptic (or any!) Novel

2011-10-28T06:00:00.004-04:00

Okay, so adding suspense to a novel is difficult business. And as science fiction and dystopian authors have a little bonus--they can use their sometimes scary and tense societies to build suspense. (There is the added drawback of having to develop and explain such societies too, so we don't have it totally easy!)

Here are a few tips for adding suspense to any novel, science fiction or not.

1. Chapter endings. Now I've heard people say to end them on a cliffhanger, but I actually don't think that's entirely true. You don't have to have an explosion at the end of every chapter, or a gun going off for it to be impactful.

The best advice I've heard is to end the chapter in one of two ways: a high or a low. And it can be a plot high or low, or an emotional high or low. Both bring the urge to turn the page, and build the tension for the next chapter.

Some examples:

Plot high, from THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS by Rae Carson: "I gaze unbelieving at my nurse, amazed at the speed with which she moved, wondering why recognizing the life in my navel would sentence a man to death."

Emotional low from VIRTUOSITY by Jessica Martinez: "The black night, white stars, and yellow house lights glimmered like fractured glass, poised above me and ready to fall with one more shake of the kaleidoscope."

Notice I didn't have to use sci fi/dystopian titles for the examples. Any reading you do, identify the high/low at the end of the chapter. Use what works for you.

2. Shorter sentences. When I'm building up to a reveal, or writing a particularly fast-paced scene, I like to use shorter sentences or paragraphs. I find myself using repeats and echoes a lot, as I think this draws out the tension before the big reveal.

The white space allows breathing room, and the shortness of the text means the reader can read really fast.

All of that adds to the tension of the reading experience, in my opinion.

3. Evil villains. I think one of the reasons Harry Potter was so engaging is because Lord Voldemort is truly evil. He's scary whether he's on the page or not. I think every book can be benefitted from having a really evil villain.

Of course, if you're not writing fantasy or science fiction, there often is no huge, overarching villain. In cases like these (see VIRTUOSITY example above), rely on the emotional impact of your story.

What techniques do you use to add suspense to your novel?

Top 10 Scary Movie Futures

2011-10-27T05:27:00.005-04:00

Forget vampires, werewolves, and crazy guys with a saw fetish. What could be scarier than a bleak and/or twisted future? Here’s some of my faves—in rough order of livability.

Idiocracy (2006)

The dumb inherit the Earth.

Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive. (Source: IMDb)

Blade Runner (1982)

Ridley Scott’s vision of Phillip K. Dick’s story is a bleak, noir-ish world.

Deckard, a blade runner, has to track down and terminate 4 replicants who hijacked a ship in space and have returned to earth seeking their maker. (Source: IMDb)

Brazil (1985)

On the other hand, Terry Gilliam’s world is delightfully bizarre but an administrative nightmare.

A bureaucrat in a retro-future world tries to correct an administrative error and himself becomes an enemy of the state. (Source: IMDb)

Dark City (1998)

The IMDb blurb describes this fantastically dark vision pretty well:

A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans. (Source: IMDb)

Soylent Green (1973)

It’s people.

In an overpopulated futuristic Earth, a New York police detective finds himself marked for murder by government agents when he gets too close to a bizarre state secret involving the origins of a revolutionary and needed new foodstuff. (Source: IMDb)

Children of Men (2006)

The children won’t inherit the Earth if they’re not being born.

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of humankind. (Source: IMDb)

Handmaid’s Tale (1990)

Right-wingers take over—and they’re having trouble procreating, too.

In a dystopicly polluted rightwing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility. (Source: IMDb)

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

We’re all living underground because of Brad Pitt. (Actually, it was the other guy, the one from St. Elsewhere.)

In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet. (Source: IMDb)

Matrix (1999)

We’re basically batteries with a fulfilling fantasy life.

A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers. (Source: IMDb)

Zombieland (2009)

There’s just Woody Harrelson and bunch of zombies left. Rule 1: Cardio.

A shy student trying to reach his family in Ohio, and a gun-toting tough guy trying to find the Last Twinkie and a pair of sisters trying to get to an amusement park join forces to travel across a zombie-filled America. (Source: IMDb)

The Road (2009)

Not much of anything left. I haven't actually seen this one, but the book painted the bleakest imaginable future--with only one faint sliver of hope at the end.

A post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any means possible. (Source: IMDb)

Also rans:

The Day After Tomorrow
I am Legend / Omega Man
1984
Brave New World
Planet of the Apes
Boy and His Dog
The Day After
Road Warrior
Minority Report
Metropolis
The Day After

What are some of your favorite movies with scary futures?

101 Uses for a Brick (Or a Ghost)

2011-10-26T09:51:00.003-04:00

Hi all! I'm coming off a pretty intense few days of book events and have now caught myself a bit of a cold. But before I finish up my tea and put myself to bed I wanted to put together a short Halloween related post.

If you haven't seen it yet, Nova Ren Suma (Imaginary Girls) is doing a great series of Halloween themed posts on her blog. Mine will be up there later today. By all means give it a gander. But I also wanted to talk about one of the other posts in this series that went up last week. Nina LaCour (Hold Still) wrote up an awesome true life ghost story that, in addition to being supremely creepy, illustrates an important writing principal.

From here on out there are going to be SPOILERS so before we go any further, read the whole story. Don't worry it's short. I'll wait....

Read it?

Ok. Wow, spooky right? A few nights after I read this I flew into Los Angeles late at night and as soon as I got myself settled into my big empty hotel room this story came rushing back to mind and I got properly freaked out.

Now about the writing principle I think this illustrates. For me, this story works so well because of the twist at the end, where Nina theorizes that it wasn't some kind of ghost taking the pictures but the girl herself waking up in the middle of the night as this malevolent "other person" and taking the pictures. There's just something so chilling and unexpected about that interpretation. That there's this other person living inside you that lives to terrify and undermine you. Nina could have easily left this story as just a creepy occurrence, maybe it's a ghost, maybe not, and it would have worked perfectly fine. That she takes this extra step to come up with a novel interpretation of the event is really what does it for me.

One standard test of creativity is to ask someone to list as many different uses for a brick as they possibly can. You know, you can hold a door open with it, you can crack a walnut with it etc etc. Generally when people do this the first few uses they come up with are the most obvious ones and then the longer they go the more outlandish and surprising the uses get. The idea is the more credible uses you can come up with for a brick the more creative you are. To me, this is what LaCour did so well with this story. She didn't stop at the most obvious explanation for the occurrence, a ghost, she kept going until she found something that had the shock of surprise. She found a new use for a brick.

This is something I'm trying to keep in mind as I work on my new book. If a character needs to get out of a tight spot, I don't want to stop with the first gambit that comes to mind, I want to come up with as many options as possible and pick one that feels fresh and surprising. It's the same thing when it comes to interpreting a character's behavior, or exploring their point of view, or describing a feeling or an image.

Our first idea is not always the best, often it's simply the most conventional, but if we keep pushing we can get somewhere really surprising and, in this case, scare the hell out of people.

What about you all? Do you make a point to push past your first ideas and find new ones?

A short story for Halloween.

2011-10-25T06:55:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer - I am not a short story writer. I'd like to be at some point... here's my first effort.

The Fifth Floor

Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing here...

On the elevator ride, I thought of everything wicked I'd done, from the very first time I ever lied (to Grammy about swigging maple syrup directly out of the bottle), to earlier this very day when I’d stuck that pen in my bag before I left work. I mean, come on... I know stealing is stealing, but it’s just a measly rollerball. It came in one of those annoying mailings where the contents rolls around inside and somewhere between origin and destination, the envelope gets torn because of the stupid pen bulge. Well, no matter... let me tell you and you see what you make of it.

My day was pretty normal. Uneventful even. Although, as I think back, there was the odd moment...

Like the incident after our requisite 1:15 meeting with the boss. Leaving the conference room, I’d nodded to him, as always, and for half a second I thought his eyes were red. Not red-rimmed from crying because sales were down in the basement; he wouldn’t cry about that anyway, he’d just yell at the sales team. Nope, those eyes had looked like glowing red embers. I’d chalked it up to the lighting. I remember he’d said, “Later.” Definitely more than the usual grunt, but, I’d shrugged it off as his sorry attempt to be cool.

Come to think of it, there were a lot of things that had seemed “off” at the office. (No pun intended, well... yeah... But, seriously, how can I joke at a time like this – right?)

When I say work had been normal, it was in that half-a-degree to the left sort of way. My eyes were constantly adjusting to the lights being too bright or too dim. (Which validates my theory about the boss’s weird eyes, doesn't it?) My co-workers were their usual combination of annoyingly cheerful and painfully dull, except for the nagging sensation I’d get upon passing them in the hallway. That prickles-up-the-neck feeling of being scrutinized, in a totally unpleasant way. But, when I’d turn around to see if they were looking at me, they were blithely going about their business, or so it seemed.

Then the whole pen-in-the-mail thingy. I’d only just glanced at the accompanying insert. The pen was included so the recipient could notate some kind of choice. I do remember thinking it odd that a religious organization had sent something to a business. Of course, being the lowly admin assistant, I get all the junk mail and stuff addressed to “occupant.” But, funny... now that I recall, the envelope had been addressed to me, Mary Blaize. Huh...weird. Oh well, I guess that means I didn’t steal the pen.

When I left work, I distinctly remember the receptionist saying, “goodbye,” not her typical, “Have a great evening.” It had kind of creeped me out with its ring of finality. If she noticed my questioning look, she’d done a great job of ignoring it.

I was nearly home, the front porch was in my sights, a glass of red wine in my near future, when two unfamiliar people approached me. I figured they wanted directions. I was wrong.

The events following, “Good evening, Miss Blaize.” are blurry. There was movement, maybe even traveling. How? I can’t really say. But I ended up in the lobby of a building I’d never seen before, in front of the elevator. I was wearing the dress I’d worn to the company Christmas party two years earlier and had stuck in the back of my closet, never to be seen or thought of again – until now.

The woman stuck a bouquet in my hands and the man punched the elevator button. “Get off on the fifth floor,” he said.

When I got on the elevator there were already three people inside. As the doors closed, I reached over to press 5. There were only four floors. I'm going to have to go back down to the lobby and these people are going to think I am so stupid, I thought. Paying me no mind, the occupants exited on the fourth floor, Two other people entered and, although it felt like the elevator was going down, when it stopped, the indicator above the doors lit up 5. We all got off.

The two people, a man and woman, bustled me through a busy office. In the adjacent hallway, the woman appraised my appearance and made miniscule adjustments to my hair and the skirt of my dress, then positioned me front of a door.

I know who’s behind that door. Don’t ask me how, I can’t tell you. But, I definitely know.

Standing there, sweaty palms around that pathetic bouquet you'd think I’m scared (well, yeah, I am... just a little.) But mostly, I'm wondering – is the devil’s due really a nosegay of painted daisies and forget-me-nots?

Classic Teen Reads for the YA Sci-fi Reader

2011-10-24T10:03:00.000-04:00

Today at the League, we are pleased to welcome Phoebe North! Phoebe is a sci fi writer herself, and co-founder of the sci-fi review blog The Intergalactic Academy. If you're not already reading and following The Intergalactic Academy, then you absolutely must click over to it now. As their website says, "it’s your online source for everything YA sci-fi, from reviews of new book releases, to rereads of teen SF classics, to interviews with your favorite authors and nifty tech-link round ups."

ClassicTeen Reads for the YA Sci-fi Reader

ByPhoebe North

As blogs like this one show,young adult science fiction is undergoing a fantastic resurgence. More writersare looking at the world through a speculative lens than ever before. But thereare some great predecessors to modern YA sci-fi that are often overlooked.Though these "teen" books might be a bitslimmer than what passes muster in YA these days (word counts back in thepre-Harry Potter days were much lower), here are three titles that are stillworth a look by any YA sci-fi reader or writer:

The Girl With theSilver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts

Katie Welker is used to being alone. She would much rather read a bookthan deal with other people. Other people don't have silver eyes and otherpeople can't make things happen just by thinking about them! Sometimes Katieeven enjoys playing tricks on people.

This early-90s speculativeclassic is a beautifully-written story about a girl who is different from herpeers. Katie's tale will appeal to anyone who has ever felt a little bitfreaky--and maybe, secretly, hoped that this freakiness really meant they have superpowers. It's recently gotten arerelease with a gorgeous new cover.

The Tripod Seriesby John Christopher

(The WhiteMountains/The City of Gold and Lead/The Pool of Fire/When the Tripods Came)

Long ago, the Tripods--huge, three-legged machines--descended uponEarth and took control. Now people unquestioningly accept the Tripods' power.They have no control over their thoughts or their lives. But for a brief timein each person's life--in childhood--he is not a slave. For Will, his time offreedom is about to end--unless he can escape to the White Mountains, where thepossibility of freedom still exists. The Tripods trilogy follows the adventuresof Will and his cohorts, as they try to evade the Tripods and maintain theirfreedom and ultimately do battle against them. The prequel, When the TripodsCame, explains how the Tripods first invaded and gained control of the planet.

This trilogy (followed by aprequel in the 80s) shows what happens afteryour classic alien invasion. The WhiteMountains opens in a seemingly-idyllic, quasi-Medieval world--until youlearn that the "caps" that are placed on children's heads when theyturn twelve are really a type of mind control executed by their alien masters.There are a few places where the original trilogy volumes show their age(mostly through some weird, dated racial descriptors), but it's otherwisefantastic, particularly the second volume. In The City of Gold and Lead, Will infiltrates an alien city. Hisalien Master is creepy, gross, and skin-crawingly sympathetic.

Z for Zachariahby Robert C. O'Brien

A gripping, thought-provoking story about life after a nuclearholocaust, by a Newbery Medalist.

Ann Burden is sixteen years old and completely alone. The world as she onceknew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. Forthe past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any othersurvivors.

But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann's solitude. Someone else isstill alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does hewant? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes theremay be worse things than being the last person on Earth.

ForgetThe Road. Z for Zachariah is easily my favorite post-apocalyptic tale. Ratherthan telling the story of a Mad-Maxian band of wanders, like mostpost-apocalyptic stories, Robert C. O'Brien weaves a tale of a much more likelysurvivor--Ann, alone in her family's isolated country home. But when a visitorarrives, Ann must figure out if she can trust him--and if her solitude is worthprotecting. Haunting and mournful and above all very real, Z for Zachariah isa great read for any post-apocalyptic fan.

Phoebe North is a 20-somethingwriter from New York State. She reviews young adult science fiction--and writesabout all sorts of YASF stuff--at the The Intergalactic Academy.

Post-Apocalypse Survival for the One Percent

2011-10-20T10:58:00.000-04:00

For Jeff's release week, I blogged about how to survive the collapse. Well, I have an addition to the list--for those of you who aren't among the 99% of us with less than few million dollars jingling in our pockets. As I was leafing through a back issue of Popular Science (doing a little research for a new book), I stumbled upon the Terra Vivos Underground Shelter. When I read the article, I thought, oh, this is sounds very reasonable (and pop science-y)--all about modular, luxury emergency shelters like this below.

But then I checked out the company's web site. Vivos is building a network of shelters, which you can buy into for $10K. (Kind of like a survival co-op.) Or you can build your own for substantially more. That doesn't sound like that batshit of an idea. But ...well, their goal is to complete construction of this network before 12/21/12. Just in case. Yep, the supposed end of the world according to non-existent Mayan prophecy. And if you poke around the website a little more (and watch a few videos) ... Let's just say, had I not read about this in Popular Science first, I would have thought Vivos was either an elaborate joke (ala the Yes Men) or a cult. Or both.

Okay, I still think it's a bit culty. Vivos even refers to itself as the new Genesis. Plus they talk about the Quickening, 2012, and Glenn Beck thinks this is a good idea. Yikes.

Release Month Adventures!

2011-10-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

Well, here we are, just a little over a month after the release of The Eleventh Plague. It's been a pretty crazy month with events in Decatur, New York, Virginia and Chicago. Highlights so far?

Sept.1 - Release Day! - My wife Gretchen and I head over to the Barnes & Noble in Union Square and quickly find out that there's a company policy against taking pictures of books in the store. Who knew? Things got a little tense with one very rule oriented B&N employee until Julia Sarcone-Roach, picture book author and and B&N bookseller (below picture at left), swooped in and rescued us. She overruled her co-worker, let us take pictures and then had me sign all their stock. Thanks Julia!

Afterwards Gretchen and I hit Craft for dinner. If you're a Top Chef fan, this is Tom Colicchio's flagship restaurant. The dinner was out of this world. One of the best I've had. If you're in the neighborhood don't miss it! Also made for many good posing opportunities.

Sept. 3 - Decatur Book Festival - This was an incredibly well run event in a lovely city. It was in no way diminished by the fact that it was roughly 8 million degrees out when I was here. The highlight was definitely meeting, doing a panel with, and then drinking beer with fellow Crowe's nester Jonathan Maberry. It was quite something for this newbie to see a real pro at work. I definitely made a lot of notes to self while watching him do his thing.

Sept. 17th - Fountain Books in Richmond VA - Headed back to the old hometown for a store visit and my, gulp, 20th High School reunion. The folks at Fountain Books were awesome, very welcoming and super knowledgable. I got to sit around with their also very knowledgable customers and just chat about books. What could be better? I also got to met the delightful Susan from Wastepaper Prose and took what is so far my favorite tour pic yet!

The reunion was good too. Odd, in the way that I imagine any HS reunion is odd, but a good thing to have done. It was pretty amazing looking at all of these adults and seeing the ghosts of the adolescents I knew.

Sept. 24th - Anderson's Book Conference - I was pretty nervous about this one. Not because of the conference itself but because this would be the first time I would do school visits. Guys, I was an assembly. Just me. Turns out I had nothing to be nervous about. The teachers and principals and librarians were amazing and the kids…oh the kids. They were just great. I was lucky enough to talk to a about 150 high schoolers then 200 7th graders and another group of 250 8th graders. They were energetic and interested and super smart. I learned a lot from them about how to do these sorts of things. Mainly, to keep your presentation focused, fast paced and interactive. Also, if the school gives you the option of being up on a stage, behind a podium and talking through a mic? Avoid it if at all possible. I found that it was great to be down on the kid's level and as close up as possible. It seemed to keep it friendly and intimate.

And then at the conference itself I got to do panels with Ilsa Bick and Lisa McCann and meet Michelle Hodkin, Elizabeth Miles and many awesome librarians and book sellers. Also hung out with folks like Patrick Carman, Coe Booth,Sarah Darer Littman and publicist extraordinaire, Lauren Felsenstein.

Oh and! In the hotel in Chicago? Dude! TV in the mirror in the bathroom!

Crazy, right?

All in all this has been an amazing month. Couldn't imagine a better way to launch a book! And there's more to come. In the next couple months I'm heading out to Redondo Beach CA, Connecticut, Miami, Chicago and Texas! You can see all upcoming events on my brand spanking new website!

Did we read the same book?

2011-10-18T09:48:00.000-04:00

I did a library talk last night with the fabulous Saundra Mitchell for Teen Read Week. A teacher had brought one of her classes who had all read XVI together for class. The kids (all high school seniors) were engaged, asked lots of thoughtful questions, and had fabulous comments to make. (Can I just say it was the best night ever?!!!) And, one of them explained what the teacher had done with the assignment. They had to read 3 chapters a night and they had questions they had to answer every day. These were not the typical "why did so-and-so do this thing? what's the hidden meaning?" Nope, they were questions more along the line of what do you think this character was thinking when this happened? Did you agree with what he/she did? Etc.

Aside from the fact that several of the kids said XVI was the first book they'd ever read all the way through (how great did THAT make me feel?!!!) -- one thing that was obvious was that even though they all read the same book - it meant different things to each of them! Here are some examples:

1. One girl said a lot of girls she knows are already having sex and she doesn't feel ready to. She really identified with my MC (Nina), since that's Nina's thing -- in a world where being sexual at 16 is the norm, Nina's not ready to do that.

2. One guy identified with the book's portrayal of the police. He even commented that cops had come to his house once after a robbery and they left it in similar shape to how I portrayed Nina's house after the cops searched it.

3. Several of the audience identified with XVI's "Big Brother"-type government portrayal.

So - they all read the same book - but it was definitely individual to each.

Now, this is not a new thing - that the reader reads the book they want to, not necessarily the book the author wrote - but I loved seeing it up-close & personal!

Have you ever read a book and discussed it with someone else who'd read it and you've both come away with different ideas of what the book meant? I wonder...

Dystopian and Sci Fi Short Stories

2011-10-17T09:40:00.000-04:00

Because I'm wriggling my way into a couple of anthologies, I've had my eyes peeled lately for short stories, particularly YA and sci fi/dystopian short stories.

Short stories are a whole different structure from novels. A short story is no more a little novel than a child is a little adult. Short stories include different elements from novels, different tropes, different styles.

If you're like me, looking for more short stories and soaking them up, then here are a few good places to go:

Lightspeed Magazine is a digital magazine that only costs about $3 per issue. Since it's online, it doesn't shy away from longer stories (the issue I'm currently reading has a short story by Geroge R.R. Martin and while it is technically a short story, you guys know the size of his novels, right?) and it actively explores current and past writers, with stories varying from steampunk (an excellent one by Cassie Clare shares the same issue as an interview they did with me), sci fi, and more. It also--and this is what I find even more appealing--includes interviews and non-fiction articles.

You can read Lightspeed Magazine on an e-reader, but it's also available on, for example, your Kindle app on your computer. Since everything inside is short, even if you don't have an e-reader, the content is still digestible on your computer.

Of course, when I think of short stories, I tend to think of anthologies. For a current anthology focusing on paranormal, may I suggest Enthralled, edited by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr (available in print or e-book)? This anthology is huge, full of stories from some of the hottest authors right now--Kami Garcia, Carrie Ryan, Jerri Smith-Ready, and more. With sixteen stories in all, you'll be sure to find something you love.

So: I want to know--where are you getting your short story fix?

Horror & Dystopian

2011-10-14T06:00:00.018-04:00

Okay, so we're nearing the witching hour (Halloween), and October is the perfect month to talk about horror.

Now, I'll admit that I'm a huge wimp. I don't watch a lot of horror, because then I can't sleep at night. And my definition of horror is like, the 20/20 episodes about serial killers. I seriously make my 13-year-old son check the closets if the doors are closed and I don't remember closing them.

Watching movies and shows are much more impactful for me than reading, but I still don't read a lot of horror.

Unless you count the horror in dystopian novels. Because let's face it, dystopian novels aren't all sunshine and unicorns.

Let's examine:

THE ELEVENTH PLAGUE by Jeff Hirsch. All we have to do is look at the first sentence on the jacket copy.

In an America devastated by war and plague, the only way to survive is to keep moving.

Sounds horrific to me. Yet it was one of my favorite reads of 2011.

BLOOD RED ROAD by Moira Young. This time, it takes two sentence for me to feel the shiver of fear down my spine.

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from.

Actually, the thought of a "dried-up wasteland" doesn't sound that appealing. And in BLOOD RED ROAD, there are some gruesome scenes that are simply brilliant. Horrific? Definitely. And I loved it.

THE PLEDGE by Kimberly Derting. Again, only one sentence.

In the violent country of Ludania, the language you speak determines what class you are, and there are harsh punishments if you forget your place—looking a member of a higher class in the eye can result in immediate execution.

I haven't read this yet, but I'm dying to be deliciously horrified.

THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner.

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank.

I can't think of anything more horrifying than waking up and remembering absolutely nothing. I think our memories make us who we are, and it would be difficult to even know where to go or what to do moving forward.

A fantastically horrifying read.

SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi.

Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota-and hopefully live to see another day.

I don't know about you, but I'm not just trying to live to see another day. This novel has its fair share of violence, and it fits the world perfectly. But I was horrified--in the best way possible.

So I think I actually read a lot of horror. Maybe not blood and guts and people crawling through TVs, but still.

What do you think? Are dystopian novels horrifying?

Tell Me a Ghost Story

2011-10-13T00:25:00.005-04:00


Actually, this is from Lexington's ghost tour.

This weekend some friends and I are going on a Ghost Tour of Roanoke. I've been on touristy ghost tours of places like the French Quarter, and I happen to be watching Ghost Hunters as I type this. I'm a huge skeptic but still utterly fascinated with the subject of ghosts. I think 90+% of paranormal phenomenon can be explained in terms of things like electromagnetic sensitivity or infrasound (vibrations below our ability to hear) or overactive imaginations. However, there's that 10% (give or take) of the yet unexplained that gives me pause.

Have any of you had experiences with ghosts? I haven't, so I want to live vicariously through you. ;)