Summer Lovin'~Quick Book Review of The Summer I Turned Pretty



I just came from a trip to the beach, and did not write one bit, except for a shopping list, a few short poems, and drew a few mermaids for my daughter, Lucie. But it was not time wasted.  I read three books, had great family time, and despite not writing, found that I got inspiration near about everywhere, and ideas for future books, and characters for my current WIP.

I had the pleasure of reading, among others, The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han.

What a treat! If you haven't read it, surely pick it up, it's the story of Belly (sorry, Jenny Han, I wasn't a huge fan of her nickname, I must admit), and it focuses on one summer of a young girl's life where she makes that very subtle transition from girl to woman, and is (for the first time), truly noticed by members of the opposite sex.

Because I am lazy, here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

I highly recommend this book--it was the perfect book to take to the beach, and it really took me back to that first summer that I had my first kiss...

I was fourteen, and it was the summer between freshman and sophomore year. Inexplicably (in my mind), a sophomore guy on the swim team named Dean Schiller (and was a complete clone of Kevin Bacon with a mild case of acne), made it known through the high school grape vine that he liked me. I was stunned, because he had dated the cute girls, and I had never thought of myself as one. One summer night, he walked me to a senior's house (story told to my mom: we were walking to the yogurt store), for a real live party. With drinking. And seniors. And...cue panic attack.

When it was time to go home (you know, from the yogurt store....) he pulled me outside and swooped in for the kiss (cue orchestral music). Except...in my naive, never-been-kissed, how-on-earth-was-I-so-sheltered mind, I thought you kissed with your mouths closed, and lo and behold was stunned beyond belief when all of a sudden I felt something warm and slimy in my mouth and to my utter disgust realized it was his tongue! Needless to say, I covered up my shock pretty well (and later learned to, uh...enjoy kissing as the years wore on), however once safely home, I made sure to wash out my mouth multiple times with mouthwash, completely grossed out by the most obvious spreading of germs.

Anyway. Ha.

 Completely true story there, and it still makes me laugh, even to this day.

So, I'd love to know, if anyone's reading this out there, what was your first kiss story? Best summer romance? Come on, summer is almost over, I'd love to hear some good ones, before it's just another memory.

All I Ever Needed to Know about Writing a Book I Learned from Les Miz

It has been a very eventful summer, I must say. I have succeeded at one of my many goals of motherhood: I have gotten at least one of my children hooked on musical theater. My oldest daughter, Kateri was in her first play this summer, Cinderella (best mouse evah!), and has caught the acting bug. As a former theater kid and proud patron of the arts, I love it.

We had some friends in the local 15-20 year old production of Les Miserables, and just came from an amazingly talented, heart wrenching performance. I swear, I've seen this muscial several times: once in London, twice in Los Angeles, two locally, but it never gets tiring. Never. I was a wreck--cried on and off throughout.

Well, I got to thinking, while watching this play, what is it about Les Miz that brings people back again and again? On the way home, I decided there are seven things that we can learn from Les Miz to make our stories stronger:

1. Have a theme, and string it throughout Les Miz has several themes woven throughout: the quest for freedom, the quest for love, social injustice, the goodness versus the evilness of humanity. And since it's a musical, the acutal melodies are interwoven and echoed throughout in the different numbers. This ties the whole musical together, and in the same way, themes can tie your book together. In the beginning of Les Miz, we see the people unempowered by the injustices of their life. At the end, we see the people unified, despite the fact that they lost the battle. The layering of the themes strengthened the story.

2. Have lots of highs and lows A good story like Les Miz (and hopefully our own works in progress!) had lots of highs and lows. We are never kept guessing, and we are never dull. In one scene, Cosette and Marius have declared their love, then seconds later, Epinone is crying her eyes out for her unrequited love, and at the same time, the bad guys are trying to raid Cosette and Jean Valjean's house. Lots of action makes for a great plot.

3. Conflict, conflict, and more conflict I know I struggle with this one, because in real life, conflict makes me uncomfortable and I don't like it. But when I don't read about conflict on the page, I get bored, fast. When Marius joins his friends at the ABC cafe to talk about the revolution, he has just met Cosette, and has fallen in love. The last thing he wants to do is talk about some stupid war, and this creats lots of good, yummy conflict between him and his buddy, Enjolras.

4. Comic relief  Even the darkest story (and let's face it, Les Miz is pretty dang dark) has its share of comic relief, and this lets the reader have a mental break, almost, from your surely gripping story.

5. Kissing! Well, I do write YA, right? And let's face it--every good story needs some romance, and kissing. Oh, and also? Love triangles--they are always kind of fun. I quite like them when they work in a story. (Les Miz has one of the most gripping love triangles ever. Poor Epinone--took a bullet for that cad, Marius and still didn't get a kiss on the lips.)

6. Kill some people  Yeah, I said it. But it's true, right? This sort of goes along with conflict. In a good story, bad things have to happen. Okay, not necessarily death, per se, but events in people's lives that are earthshattering. Death. Divorce. Break-ups. Sickness. We want our books to reflect the things that happen in real life, but on a much grander, more dramatic (shall I saw poetic?) way.

7. Answer your story question Last but not least, make sure when you type The End on your beloved manuscript, that you have answered the question that initially started the story to begin with. Did he get the girl? Did the aliens invade planet Earth? And in Les Miz--Did Jean Valjean find happiness?(yes, but he died)
Did the people find empowerment? (yes, but at a price)

Anyway, you get the picture.

Friday Reads

This book was such a pleasant, amazing surprise. As an author who writes issue-driven fiction, I thought that Gail Giles executed RIGHT BEHIND YOU with perfection.


RIGHT BEHIND YOU is the story of Kip--a teen who, when he was nine, murdered a seven-year-old neighbor. I wondered, when I first picked up the book, how Gail Giles could make Kip a protagonist I could root for, but she does, beautifully. The book follows Kip on his road to wholeness--first as an inmate at a teen correctional facility, and then, as he tries to transition back into society, and living with his dad and new stepmother. The book is written in first-person narration,and I thought that she captured the voice of a teen boy amazingly well.

I thought that all the references to therapy, his time in the mental institution, and his general awareness of his own inner growth, gave the book an air of authenticity (made me wonder if she is a therapist herself or how much research she did.)I loved that she showed the step-mom as such a positive, supportive person, and I loved the romance thrown in--Sam was the perfect counterpart to Kip/Wade's character.

Recommended for the older teen and adults, especially teachers, mental health professionals, and any parent.

First Drafts, Part II

I've been working on two first drafts for two different projects. It's funny, looking at this blog--I noticed that back in April I wrote a post about how much I love first drafts.

Heh.

Not so much, this time around. I think that what's been stopping me up has been my inner editor, and boy, is she one mean, nasty shrew of a person. She doesn't let up, catching all of my echoes, horrible dialogue tags, and laughing at each and every cliche she finds, only to have me running in a corner and hiding.

I think I've found a way to chain her up. Well, three things. One, a new author friend I met told me that she likes to write late at night, because she finds that when she's a little sleepy, and the kids are in bed, that inner editor is not so cranky. This has been working fabulously! (so far). Secondly, with FINDING PONY, I discovered a way to write very quickly: when you have a scene in your head, just write free form, no capitalization or punctuation, fast, fast, fast, until you have that little sucker of a scene down. Later you can go back and puncuate, if need be. This has worked very well when I have dialogue in my head, and once I can get the characters talking, I can just record what they say. Lastly, is a technique I learned from reading Stephenie Meyer's blog one time: write your scenes out of order, if you want. This is very liberating. Sometimes when I'm going on with my day, and I get a brilliant idea for something that happens perhaps, not until act two or three, I'll just write the scene out of place and save it somewhere, until I need it.

What works for you guys?

Always do what you are afraid to do

Confession time: I've been suffering from a little bout of writer's block. It is really very, very annoying. And the funny thing is, I don't really believe in writer's block, I subscribe to the B.I.C. philosophy of writing, i.e. Butt in Chair concept of just get it done. Put the words on the page and no more sniveling about it, you big cry baby.

But anyway, here I am not writing very much. FINDING PONY is being submitted to editors right now, and in the meantime, my agent and I decided that the next project I should begin on is a companion title, tentatively titled AURORA BEGINS. Aurora is an important character in my first novel and her backstory is so interesting that I just knew it should be the next book. I actually even told my agent, "This will be easy--I already know her character. I can whip this book out really quickly."

Ahem.

Aurora is seventeen years old, a tough Latina girl who grew up in East L.A. Her whole family is somewhat involved in the gang lifestyle and her boyfriend Manuel is the head of their gang. Okay, so...I'm white. And yes, I've been a social worker for some time, I've worked with kids in gangs and a little in L.A. even, and I've been doing research---lots of it--to make sure that my MC's voice will be authentic as it can be, to the best of my ability. I also know that there are so many writers out there who have written their MC's who are different races than they are, different genders, even different sexual orientations, and have done it well, very well.

But it's still scary. Really, really scary. Because, more than anything, I don't want to get it wrong. I want to do justice to my character, and to the people who will eventually read my book.

"Always do what you are afraid to do." This quote shows up on Twitter periodically, mostly I think because it resonates with us writers so much. I know that there can be greatness in doing something that terrifies you with the possibility of failure, but still, there's that niggling part of me, sitting on my shoulder this whole time whispering: it's crap, it's garbage. The cognitive side of me knows that every writer (at least I hope) goes through this--it is something we must all endure.

Here's a couple questions for anyone who may be reading: How much research do you do before you are comfortable writing your story? Are you ever, truly comfortable? Would you feel confident writing a MC with a different race than you? Gender? Sexual orientation?

Hope you guys have a great Wednesday.

Happy Friday, everyone!

 Apparently July 6th was National Kissing Day and I missed it...what? Really? Well, I came across this delightful video and was entranced--thought you all might enjoy as well. Happy Friday, everyone!

Child Abuse and the Death of Caylee Anthony

I suspect most of the nation has been mourning the passing of sweet little Caylee Anthony. I know I have. It's horrifying, isn't it? The possibility that a mother could murder her own child (I know, she's been aquitted, but still...). It goes against every instinct within us. And yet it happens every day, all around us. Even within our very own neighborhoods.









Consider this. In 2009, approximately 3.3 million child abuse reports were made involving over 6 million children in the U.S. That's a lot of children, and that only reflects a very small portion of those cases that actually were reported to authorities.








There are four types of child abuse: physical, sexual, emotional, and neglect. Believe it or not, but neglect often times has the most devastating psychological effects on a child. As sick as it sounds, when you are beaten or sexually abused, at least you are getting attention. As a social worker, most people, I've found, believe child abuse happens just to poor people, or children of the drug addicted. What they don't realize is that all forms of child abuse cross over every socioeconomic level, ethnic and cultural line, religions, and all levels of education.






Here are some other disturbing facts:






--a report of child abuse is made every ten seconds


--almost five children a day die from child abuse


--60-85% or child fatalities due to mistreatment are not recorded on such on death certificates


--90& of child sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way


--over 60% of people in drug rehab centers were abused or neglected as children


--abused children are 25% more likely to experience teen pregnancy


--children of sexual abuse are 2.5 times likely to abuse alchohol and 3.8 times more likely to develop drug addiction
--14% of men and 36% of women in prison report being abused as children






For writers (and readers), there are some great YA books out there that tackle different forms of child abuse very beautifully and eloquently. Recently I've read Beth Faulbam's beautiful books which follow a girl's journey to recovery from sexual abuse: Hope in Patience and Courage in Patience. Another amazing book also dealing with sexual abuse is Scars by Cheryl Rainfield. A book I'm reading right now is called You Don't Know Me by David Klass, about a 14 year old boy being abused by his stepfather.







The list goes on, but the reality is the same: children being abused are our children's classmates, our neighbor's kids, our relatives. We don't want to think that it's in our back yard, but it is. What I've learned most from being a social worker, is that most of the time, parents who abuse their children tend to look just like me and you. What can we do? Educate ourselves, and try and keep our eyes and ears open. And of course, please, even if you are not a mandated reporter, report any suspected child abuse to your local Child Protective Services Hotline.





Here are some signs that a child is being abused:


Warning signs of emotional abuse in children
Excessively withdrawn, fearful, or anxious about doing something wrong.
Shows extremes in behavior (extremely compliant or extremely demanding; extremely passive or extremely aggressive).
Doesn’t seem to be attached to the parent or caregiver.
Acts either inappropriately adult (taking care of other children) or inappropriately infantile (rocking, thumb-sucking, tantruming).
Warning signs of physical abuse in children
Frequent injuries or unexplained bruises, welts, or cuts.
Is always watchful and “on alert,” as if waiting for something bad to happen.
Injuries appear to have a pattern such as marks from a hand or belt.
Shies away from touch, flinches at sudden movements, or seems afraid to go home.
Wears inappropriate clothing to cover up injuries, such as long-sleeved shirts on hot days.
Warning signs of neglect in children
Clothes are ill-fitting, filthy, or inappropriate for the weather.
Hygiene is consistently bad (unbathed, matted and unwashed hair, noticeable body odor).
Untreated illnesses and physical injuries.
Is frequently unsupervised or left alone or allowed to play in unsafe situations and environments.
Is frequently late or missing from school.
Warning signs of sexual abuse in children
Trouble walking or sitting.
Displays knowledge or interest in sexual acts inappropriate to his or her age, or even seductive behavior.
Makes strong efforts to avoid a specific person, without an obvious reason.
Doesn’t want to change clothes in front of others or participate in physical activities.
An STD or pregnancy, especially under the age of 14.
Runs away from home.