Swagger Song

I just discovered this song. LOVE!



What are you listening to this week?

Cover Love

I've been meaning to do another cover love post as it's been a while. Both of these novels have popped up on my radar recently and I have to say, I LOVE LOVE LOVE their covers. Looking at the two together in one post makes me wish I had a painting with the rich turquoises and the deep plums. Aren't they great? Both novels, of course, have also received great acclaim from YA reading audiences.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis
As the spaceship Godspeed travels toward a new earth, the lives of 100 cryogenically frozen settlers hang in the balance after someone endeavors to quietly murder them. The other passengers aboard the ship have never known life outside its walls and are enslaved by the machinations of Eldest, their tyrannical leader, who divides them into three distinct classes. When Amy, a frozen settler from earth, survives being thawed in a murder attempt, she immediately bonds with Elder, Godspeed's lone teen and future leader. Amy’s individuality, her rebellion, and her fierce desire for freedom, inspire Elder to act on his own doubts and defy Eldest--his mentor and keeper--with shocking results. Eldest’s methods of twisting history and altering the lives of this captive community are a frightening echo of tyrants in our own history, and Across the Universe challenges readers to consider the impact of unchecked power, blind trust, and the ability of one dissenting voice to make a difference.

Sea by Heidi R. Kling Sienna is afraid—of airplanes, of the ocean, of life. She has had these fears for three years, ever since her mother's plane disappeared over the ocean while on a humanitarian aid trip in Thailand. On her 15th birthday, she gets the worst present she can imagine: a plane ticket to accompany her dad and two other doctors on a two-week trip to an Indonesian orphanage—one housing children and young adults who are survivors of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Sienna doesn't want to go, and the cultural differences and deprivations do not make her any happier once there. On her first night, during a welcoming program hosted by the orphans, she meets Deni, a 17-year-old from Aceh, the tsunami's epicenter. Their relationship develops quickly and leads to actions and decisions that are ill-considered and dangerous—both in a Muslim culture and during a state of civil unrest. Sienna loses her fears much faster than one would expect, and her return home to a friendship that is evolving into a romance, so soon after she was in love with another boy whose life was filled with tragedy, makes her seem emotionally shallow. Teens who like relationship novels will overlook these flaws, but the book is definitely an additional purchase.

Have you guys seen any great book covers lately?

It Gets Better

I did a post on the Trevor Project's "It Gets Better" campaign back in October. The campaign seeks to increase awareness and decrease bullying among LGBTQ kids and others.

Already this week I've seen several other items in the same vein and thought I'd share, because the more we can spread the word about bullying and teach others to stand up against it, the better!

1. There's the book, Dear Bully: Seventy Authors Tell Their Stories:


2. We have the associated Website Dear Bully: Young Adult Authors Against Bullying.

3. There's the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "Stop Bullying Now" Website resource.

4. ABC Family has a movie coming out later this month called Cyber Bully.

5. Taylor Swift tackles the subject in her latest music video:



6. While Rise Against does the same, though directly for the Trevor Project:



So spread the word out there, stand up to bullying, and if you have other resources, please share!

Crit Partners

Yesterday the amazing organizers of WriteOnCon held an event with three fabulous YA authors and crit partners: Tessa Gratton, Brenna Yovanoff, and Maggie Stiefvater (of Shiver and Linger fame). Together they call themselves Merry Sisters of Fate.

I've written about critiquing and objective readers of your work on the blog before and its importance. To hear from three crit partners and what the process is and why it works for them, however, is a unique experience--and hopefully will get you one step closer to finding your own crit partner on your WIP.

So...if you missed the event you can watch it again and find out how the WriteOnCon crew are going to start matching up like-minded, same genre YA writers to help each other out in polishing up that work before you hit send and release it into the wild (er, to literary agents).

WTF Wednesday

OMG, are you guys familiar with The Onion otherwise known as "America's Finest News Source"?

It's actually a spoof newspaper and now news station. This isn't the vein of The Daily Show where they critique news and offer commentary. This is, in fact, a parody. And it's hilarious!

Although this clip may be a little more LMAO than WTF, I had to share:



What's your WTF Wednesday confession?

Victims and Villains

I saw this cover of US Weekly the other day and it got me thinking about victims and villains.

The story discusses Jennifer Aniston's new romance and claims she "pulled an Angelina," meaning she stole another woman's man. Now I'll admit that in the Team Jen versus Team Angelina, I was Team Jen all the way. But it did get me thinking about how we've instantly pitted the women against each other, but where's the man?

In all that talk about betrayals (take LeAnne Rimes and Eddie Cibrian as another example) there's so much less attention on the men, on the ones who had made any commitment to which they were now breaking.

It's the casting of the evil seductress and the helpless man. He didn't stand a chance. These archestypes, of course, are not new. This is theater in motion. If you've read Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin then you'll meet several characters who embody both victim and villain.

In most stories the victims and the villains are already decided and clear events take course to push us onto one side or another. Take Draco; there was never any chance we'd cheer for him over Harry Potter. The narrative guided our impressions.

And, of course, point of view is paramount. That's why we can read Twilight and adore Edward and Bella's relationship instead of thinking he's this 103 year old man stalking an underage girl. He's cast in an appropriate mold, that of a 17 year old and, of course, another archetype: the mysterious, hot bad boy. The emotions of the story are real because we're meeting him through the eyes of Bella, a smitten 17 year old girl.

In Something Borrowed we're not always clear how we feel about these characters and their actions. They weren't just blurring the lines between victim and villain, they kept switching teams. How Giffin achieved this so effortlessly and believably is that the villain (e.g. Rachel) is someone who has been a past victim. Because of that we were more forgiving of her behavior and even found ourselves liking her, identifying with her because of her past experiences.

I suppose there's no one type of victim or villain and sometimes in narrative, as in life, it's not always either/or.

As writers, we need to know the backstory of our bad guy and from whose eyes we'll be meeting them. As the adage goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. And as readers, we need to pay attention; it's usually the bad guy who's the most unpredictable, but then again, that's its own archetype.

So tell me, who are the best villains you've read and what made them so?