A Few of My Favorite Reads

I want to be the kind of writer who makes kids and adults alike tired in the morning.

Because they secretly stayed up all night, under the covers with a flashlight, reading one of my books. Because their nose was glued to the pages. Because they were lost in another world, unable to find the portal back to reality. Because they simply could NOT set the book down.

I've read books like that.

Ella Enchanted is one of my favorite books, by far. And Gail Carson Levine is my hero. I want to be like her when I grow up. I burned through these pages, caught up in the magic of the "true" story of Cinderella and her despicable curse of obedience.

Louis Sachar is a master. His prose isn't complicated or fancy. But his plot is. Every plot element weaves seamlessly throughout the story, and he ties every loose end together neatly at the end. Peaches. Onions. Zeroni. Yelnats. Past. Present. All fits neatly together, like one fantastic puzzle.

I wish I could travel back in time and meet Lucy Maud Montgomery. Each and every one of her characters fairly leap from the page. Especially Anne. I forget Anne isn't a real person and that she never actually walked the face of this Earth. I think, "Anne and I would have been kindred spirits, had we met." L.M. Montgomery has captured human nature perfectly.

When I read Francine Rivers, I forget I'm reading. The words melt away, and I'm standing on the bustling, dirty cobblestone streets of ancient Rome. She doesn't use excessive descriptions but simple choice words to paint a perfect and exact picture.

Suzanne Collins made me a very tired hairstylist for many weeks. She has the art of suspense down to a science. At the end of every chapter, I was forced to continue. Who would live? Who would die? I burned through the pages, thinking,  "Just one more chapter, and then I'll go to bed."

Eight chapters later...

Wide-Eyes and Paper Crowns

We are wondering where the wild wind blows

We are happy here 'cause the wild wind knows

What we are

Orphans, kingdoms

    -Brooke Fraser

I take inspiration from so many things - enchanting photographs, fantasy novels, folk music, silly things my preschool kids say. Simple, everyday magic.

Queries, Rejections, and the Like

Query letter, synopsis, and the first three chapters of Cynder have been polished until each and every little black word gleams from the page. I've been sending my "baby" novel into the great wide unknown. Hence, my silence on "Dreamland". And I wait. And wait. To be rejected. Or to be accepted.

And I feel like some sort of over-worried parent, sending my eighteen-year-old off to some massive college across the country. What if she gets homesick? Will she make friends? Will people like her?

I know, at least, my mom likes "her". I left my submission package on the counter, before I went to work. My mom warmed my heart with this text, "Planned to get the dishes done, but this story sitting on the counter completely sucked me in and I lost track of time."

And, for anyone that knows my mom, dishes are a high priority.

I'm looking forward to the day when an email from some incredible agent comes into my inbox, with the words: "I love this. Send me more!"

But, as all writers know, not every response will be that glorious. Not at first. Meg Cabot says, "Save your rejections so that later, when you are famous, you can show them to people and laugh." And James Lee Burke had an entrepreneurial approach to his rejections, "I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box."

 

 

But I have a different use for form rejection letters. I plan to use mine as a template for refusing a date: "Thank you for [asking] me. Unfortunately I don't feel I'm quite the right [person] for you. I'm regretfully going to pass. Best of luck. Due to the volume of [people asking me out] I receive, I'm unable to provide a further explanation of my decision."