My Worst Fear

I am a fearful person. I have a list of fears that is like a hundred bullet points and growing. There are a bunch of stupid, irrational fears:

• Sharks. Even though I don't live remotely near the ocean.
  
• Bees and wasps. Anything that could sting me.
  
• Dragonflies. They used to be called the Devil's Darning Needle in the past! Plus, those buggy little eyes freak me out.
  
• Butterflies. I am afraid of anything that is insect-like with wings, regardless of how benign they might be.
  
• Lightning. Taking a class on Severe and Hazardous Weather did not soothe those fears.
  
• Illness. I am basically a hypochondriac, okay. I diagnose myself with everything.
  
• The dark. I know I'm almost twenty. I still bury myself under the blankets and refuse to leave the closet door open/look under the bed.
  
• Mirrors. Bloody Mary? Still afraid.

Then I have more rational fears:

• Loneliness.
  
• Being forgotten.
  
• Being disliked.
  
• Failure.

Let me also add to that list:

• Burial. My internship has convinced me that I want to be cremated. Once you know the exact processes of how a body rots (putrefaction sets in after 2-3 days, you turn green, then black, then your skin swells up and bursts, then your internal organs liquefy and leak out through your butt and don't even get me started on the chronological order of bugs that come to eat you), you decide that you would rather not go through that process.

But I am not talking about those fears. I'm talking about a more harmless fear. I always fear getting my hopes up for a book that starts out with so much promise and has such a disappointing ending. This applies to both reading and writing. But more reading, as of late. People keep coming to me to ask for reading recommendations (I guess this is maybe because they think that since I write, I must know lots of good books to recommend), but I am very shy with recommendations because I've read a whole ton of books this summer with great beginnings and poor endings. I have this fear, especially when I buy books prior to reading them, because I am always so sad when it ends up being something I probably won't reread.*

So I'm opening up the floor. Do you have any recommendations that are great from start to finish?

I just bought If I Stay by Gayle Forman. I've wanted to read it for a long time. I hate the new cover. The title and plot are already too similar to Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (Forman's book was published first) and now the cover ALSO looks like Oliver's book. Plus, I also hate how the new book has the blurb, "Will appeal to fans of Twilight." You know how I feel about blurbs that compare books to Twilight. The popularity and wide audience of Twilight has pretty much made it a meaningless statement to compare another book to it. Plus, it is an obvious money/audience grab. Dislike. Anyway, here's to hoping that the ending will be good.

*I would just like to say I would still recommend The Memory Keeper's Daughter upon finishing it, but the middle is definitely not up to par with the beginning or end. It's repetitive and the plot moves more slowly than I would like. Also, all of the characters are highly unlikeable, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It makes them more "real," but given the extent that I thoroughly despise some of the characters, I would almost prefer the author to err on the more fictional side of things. 

Two in One

Yet again, late-comer to the bandwagon, I am reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, published in 2005 and a NYT bestseller in 2006. The cover kind of reminds me of Number the Stars, the YA book by Lois Lowry - the negative photographic effect of it.

This book had a lot going against it in terms of my personal reading tastes. It is heavily contemporary, far too literary for the summer (you know I do a lot of chick lit, action/adventure in the summer), in the adult section, and also about morally uncomfortable topics, in this case, what is best for children with disabilities like Down Syndrome. On a blizzarding night, Dr. David Henry is forced to deliver his own twins. A boy is born healthy, but the girl is born with Down syndrome. In a split-second decision, he tells the nurse to take girl away to an institution, but the nurse keeps the baby to raise as her own. The doctor lies to his wife by telling her the girl died.

Now, you know this book is good because it was simply one of the books shelved in the cabin we stayed at in Tennessee. My dad picked it off the shelf, and I casually read the first chapter. It had me by the end of the first page. I wasn't planning on finishing it, but I saw it at Borders the other day and the compulsion was too great, so I bought it.

The story is essentially told in two parts: the story of David and Norah Henry and how their marriage slowly deteriorates from the strain of the ever-constant phantasm of the mysterious girl baby (Phoebe), and Caroline Gill, the nurse who raises Phoebe. I have read several books like this, books that are split-POV among two major characters. This is the advantage of third person, that you can flutter from one character to another and maybe give a genuinely interesting facet of the story you might otherwise lack. If I remember correctly, this is how Weronika's Where The Doves Fly was originally formatted in the early stages. However, I feel like this kind of story-telling often suffers from a great weakness. That is, one of the storylines is weaker than the other.

Sometimes, this can be a good thing because it keeps the audience in suspense. You can build the tension in the separate story lines and it is multiplied because the reader has to read each part in alternation. On the other hand, this can also get really annoying if you don't particularly care for one storyline. In The Memory Keeper's Daughter, I was far more interested in David and Norah's story. Caroline's started out very slowly in the beginning. The relationship between the married couple is pitch perfect and the slow worm that eats away at the marriage is painfully real and well-portrayed. Caroline and Phoebe just don't seem to be given the same thorough character treatment for a good quarter of the book until their story picks up.

So as of now, I am still on the fence about this method of story-telling. Opinions? Love it or hate it, the two in one technique? (Usually, by the end, these two storylines converge, and it is sometimes satisfying in itself just to see how the author pulls that together.)

By the way, I haven't finished it yet, so if you have read it, please don't spoil the end for me! I'm trying to read it as slowly as possible; I tend to rush things that are really good. The writing itself is delicate and beautiful - the kind of writing that has fellow writers gasping for delight at the sheer joy of digesting the words. Kim Edwards is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, so THERE'S a surprise.

Things Learned This Week

Just because I thought these things were important enough to merit a blog post.

1) Do not wear eye makeup to a Pixar movie. Ever. Yeah, I made that mistake when I went to Toy Story 3. I'm fairly sure my friend and I were the only people crying at the end, but I'm also fairly sure that everyone could hear us. Man, how the years go by, huh? We grew up with Andy! 

2) Rubbing your ears helps you relax. Or so the radio told me yesterday. You are supposed to press your ears against your head 4-5 times and then rub the hard bony part on the backs of your ears for 20 seconds. I don't know if this actually works or if it's a placebo thing because now I expect it to happen. Oh, the funny things you learn on the radio.

3) The Hobbit is getting a new director. Remember how they were going to make The Hobbit into two movies and Guillermo del Toro was supposed to direct with Peter Jackson producing? Yeah, well, because I periodically Wikipedia Lord of the Rings, I found that del Toro apparently backed out in May. I was kind of sad until I read that Peter Jackson is now in negotiations to direct, which makes me very, very happy. I was feeling skeptical that anyone else could pull of a good book-to-movie adaptation, but I have no doubts that if Jackson does The Hobbit, it won't disappoint. Plus, lots of original cast members are coming, including Sir Ian McKellan (!!!!!!). To date, I don't believe anyone has made a movie adaptation that is equal or better than the original book, except for Lord of the Rings. I can enjoy Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia movies, but they just don't measure up to the books in the slightest. Don't even get me started on Twilight.

Also, listen to this because it makes you happy (Concerning Hobbits):

Secret: You know how everyone always wants to be an elf because they're all pretty and can shoot arrows and stuff? I always wanted to be a hobbit.

Establishing A Writing Schedule

Milwaukee was gorgeous and wonderful! One more city to add onto my list of places where I would like to live at some point in my life. Even if it is in Wisconsin, the land of cheeseheads and bad drivers. (I kid.) But now, I am back and it's time to get down to business again. Plus, I missed all of the corn and flatness that is Illinois, obviously.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm guessing that for a lot of up and coming writers, writing is not the only thing they have to do during the day. No matter where you are in life, your day is probably packed with other activities.

I think writers are such determined and brave people for doing what they do. I mean, check out this. It's been bookmarked in my computer for days when I feel like whining that I don't have enough time to write. I like to write. I want to write. But I like and want to do a lot of other things too. And my writing probably wouldn't be very interesting either if I sat around and did nothing except hammer words onto a page every day.

The question is, when do you write? I know some writers who write every day. I know some writers who write every other day. Some writers try for a couple times a week. Still other writers go on a dry spell for a couple of weeks and then have a burst of productivity and bang out 10,000 words at a time. Some writers write in the morning. Others, after everyone in the house has gone to bed.

I've tried both. I've written in the morning and when I've gotten inspired at 2 am. The hard part about summer is I don't have a set schedule of classes/work every day (my internship is very fluid with work times as long as I get a certain number of hours in) so I have different free time every day depending on when I decide to get up. It's hard to write at the same time every day, even though I've heard this is the best way to do it. 

What do you think? When do you write every day? When is your favorite time to write? And if you had a choice in your schedule, when would you prefer to write?

Oh, also, because I am basically Rick Riordan's professional book pimp unpaid one-woman marketing department, check out the cover for The Lost Hero (out October 12)!

Breaking News

So this is why I haven't been blog posting. 

The night before:

11:00 pm. I'm totally going to bed early. I have THINGS to do tomorrow.* I need to wake up early. I am going to be proactive and go to bed at a decent hour. Hold on, I just have to do my cursory before-bed Facebook check, because you know, I might be missing something epicly important that is happening in the Facebook world.

1:30 am. Well, shit. Sometime between 11 and now I ended up on Youtube watching old Boy Meets World episodes. Whoops.

2:30 am. Actually go to bed.

Morning.

9:00 am. My alarm clock wakes me up. I deserve an extra ten minutes of sleep, I decide in my semi-conscious state. My semi-conscious state has a very different way of looking at the world and decision making process than my conscious state. Push snooze button.

9:10 am. Snooze.

9:20 am. Snooze.

10:30 am. Somehow, I pushed the snooze button through an hour and half of hazy bad decision making. Okay, I'm just going to sleep another ten minutes, I swear...

11:10 am. Shit. Get up. Brush my teeth. Shower.

11:30 am. DO RESEARCH, OMG, I HAVE A MEETING AT THE MUSEUM TODAY. (For the record, you never want/need to know how prevalent necrophilia is in this world. You really don't want/need to know what kind of nasty stuff happens at funeral homes sometimes. It is also really not helping out my case as a normal person that I know the various stages of human body decay now. It makes me not want to die in the near future. Or ever.)

12:30 pm. Time for lunch/Barefoot Contessa on Food Network.

1:00 pm. DO MORE RESEARCH, OMG.

1:30 pm. I'm not wearing publicly acceptable clothes! Change. Put on makeup. Straighten ridiculous, uncooperative hair.

1:50 pm. Drive, drive, drive to the museum.

2:10 pm. Am late for meeting like I always am. Talk about interesting things. Display my pretty outlines of things I am going to write. I am studious. I am organized. I am the picture of responsible intern.

3:10 pm. OMG FORGOT ABOUT LITTLE BROTHER. Must drive home and send him to tennis by 3:30. Am really late.

3:40 pm. Get my brother to tennis. Go to Borders and do LSAT problems out of my PowerScore Bible. Finish two logic games in the amount of time it is supposed to take to finish four. Miss three questions. Panic a little about my future and the state of my life. I am never going to get into law school. Elle Woods has fooled me with her breezy LSAT studying ways. I am not glamorous when I study. I resemble a drowning muskrat, perhaps.

4:45 pm. Mother calls. Go pick up your brother, she says. Drive, drive, drive to pick up brother.

5:15 pm. Get home. Straighten ridiculously uncooperative hair. Put on concert dress. Eat food.

6:10 pm. Drive to theater. Am late. Opening night for Once Upon A Mattress. 

7:30 pm - 10:00 pm. Show. Fail a lot at playing coherently, but I'm a flutist so nobody can hear me anyway. It's all good. 

10:30 pm. Go home. I'm so going to bed early. Really.

Repeat.

Notice how writing did not figure into this schedule. Also, blogging. But this time, I have something important to say. Elana Johnson, Lisa and Laura Roecker, Casey McCormick, Shannon Messenger, and Jamie Harrington are hosting the first ever WriteOnCon (August 10th-12th). What is that, you ask? It is the first ever online writers conference for kidlit writers (children, middle grade, and YA), and you can go here for more information. I'm sure you all know about this already, and I'm completely late to the game. As you can see, I'm late to a lot of things. I run on Asian time. But I think you should all register because there will be a lot of cool people in attendance (agents, authors, and more!) + me. And it's online and FREE, which is great! Because I don't have money and/or parental permission to go to an event somewhere.

Once in a lifetime chance, guys. Check it out, at least. And now I'm going to bed. No, really. I'm absolutely not watching Boy Meets World, what are you talking about.

*I'm roadtripping to Milwaukee this weekend to visit friends, which is why I'm trying to be more responsible before I go, otherwise I'd spend the whole day reading, watching empty TV like Phineas and Ferb, and eating. 

Things Gleaned From Summer So Far

1) I read a sci-fi book: THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX. Which is totally breaking my boundaries because when I say, "I'm going to be more adventurous with my reading choices," what I really mean is, "I'm going to be more adventurous with my reading choices not including sci-fi." I suppose you could say it doesn't count because it's still YA, but I think it counts. Also, I am going to read LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld next, which is...I don't even know how to classify it. Is it the ever-illusive steampunk? Somebody define steampunk for me. Okay, go.

2) I shadowed at my local newspaper last week. It was fun! It was sad because the place is so understaffed that it is mostly empty at night. But the people who were there were very cool. And it makes me kind of depressed because if the newspaper industry didn't have a dismal outlook and if my parents wouldn't completely disown me and if I hadn't already gone two years toward my current major and if I wouldn't basically be unemployed for long amounts of time in which I would be forced to ask for parental financial support, I would totally major in journalism. That's a lot of if's. In an alternate universe, though, journalism would be my life's calling. (On the other hand, in another alternate universe, Food Network Chef is my life's calling as well.)

3) I signed up for the summer musical pit again this year, because I am incapable of saying no to things. Last year, it was Beauty and the Beast and we got pictures with all of the costumed cast members. This year, it's Once Upon A Mattress, which is not nearly as fun to get dorky cast pictures with, but oh well. 

Belle's father, Maurice, being a pimp with the pit girls. 

4) The Bloomington Public Library hates me. No, it is absolutely true. I had the worst time trying to get a library card there. So, background. I live in twin cities, so there are two public libraries. I usually use my mom's Normal Public Library card, because either card applies to either library. But I go to the BPL because I think they might have some more stuff on my internship research topic. They say I have to register the Normal card (Normal definitely doesn't make you do this). I can't, because it's my mom's card. Okay, fine. I'll just get a card at Bloomington. But my driver's license has my old address, even though it's still a Bloomington address. So I have to drive home and get a piece of mail that has my current address. Then, when I FINALLY get my card, they tell me I have a 20 cent fine, which is impossible because I just got the card thirty seconds ago. It takes them ten minutes to finally clear it off my card and then some man elbows me on the way out without even apologizing. That was not a fun experience.

5) What also is not a fun experience is checking out a stack of books on cemeteries (I'm doing research on the history of cemeteries for a non-fiction book the museum is planning on publishing) and everybody gives me weird looks like I'm a creeper. 

Shiny and New

I just got back from my family vacation to the Smokies. We rented a summer house/cabin thing on the mountainside, and it was totally gorgeous. It was gorgeous, but I'm glad to be back because there are only so many days I can spend in the company of people 24/7, especially if they are all Asians, which you should know by now, have some of the most obnoxious mannerisms ever. They like to repeat things (jokes, advice, criticism, you name it). They also are horrible at ordering on menus because they are epicly indecisive and tend to squabble about dishes in their native language which only results in very confused waitresses. And, perhaps this is only a my-brother thing, but he is seriously the worst backseat driver I have ever encountered in my life. He can and will point out every single turn you have to make and when you need to change lanes, even with the presence of a GPS. No lie. I wanted to punch everyone in the face by the time I got home.

But I love them, really. Just not for extended periods of time.

Shiny and new things:

1) First 47 pages of The Lost Hero, the first book in Rick Riordan's second Camp Half-Blood series, which comes out OCTOBER 12 (mark that on your calendar, kids). I was so excited when greenconverses linked it to me that I seriously almost peed myself. Well, not seriously. But I was really, really excited. Because I am the PJO fan equivalent of rabid Twi-moms for Twilight. The new main character's name is Jason. I'm hopeful for his potential, judging by the pages, even if I am convinced nobody is ever going to measure up to Percy in terms of literary badassery. Still, characters from the old crew are definitely present in this new series, so I'm pumped to see where it goes. RR rocks my socks, but makes it super hard to get to October!

2) New novel. It's getting more fleshed out by the day. I feel like this is the one I will actually see to the point of agent-worthy. My goals are a little bit different than most people's, in that I am not in a rush to submit to agents, per se. I am happy with just writing and improving for a while before I take that next step, because I don't think I'm ready for it just yet, with my circumstances being what they are. Still, I've learned a lot in the past two novels and also by writing Three, so I think I'm going to take this new one to its logical end. I'm nervous, but also ready to get this show on the road. 

3) The day has been long in coming, and some people now hate me for this, but I've read my first Sarah Dessen novel. I actually enjoyed it, despite my tendency to shy away from chick lit. I have been trying to be more adventurous with my reading tastes in my summer reading list, and I think it's paying off so far. I've read a lot of styles I might not have otherwise. Basically, I'm jumping on the Sarah Dessen bandwagon, and I'm most likely going to check out some of the other books in her rather large collection too. 

Any shiny and new things for you?