Brand New World Blogfest

Jaye Robin Brown has set up a blogfest in which we imagine that on December 22, 2012, we wake up to a whole new world. What would we want that world to be like?

I could go into personal wishes of mine (snakes are gone) but there is one serious wish that I think wouldn't be terribly hard, and hopefully in light of recent events, people will take action on it.

And that's this: people would raise their kids right.

There's a lot of wonderful people out there, which means there are a lot of wonderful parents. And sometimes, even wonderful parents can't stop their kid from going bad. But I noticed in high school a lot of the people I hung out with were people whose parents were present and taught them morals, which made me feel comfortable around them. Those whose parents were absent and didn't guide their kids were the ones I didn't feel comfortable hanging out with.

Again, I know some people who have been amazing parents, but their kid made their own choices and it didn't turn out so great. But I see even more kids who could be wonderful, if only they'd been taught the right way to go.

Imagine every child was taught love and consideration for others. Imagine every child was taught responsibility and respect. It's not that a lot of people aren't capable of it, it's that they aren't taught it at an early age from their parents.

That's what I would want in the new world. A strengthening of parents to child.

Is it getting hot in here? (bloghop)

When it comes to kissing scenes...well...I don't think I'm exactly where I'd like to be yet, so for this bloghop I'm going to share my Ultimate Favorite Kissing Scene Ever. For those of you who haven't read Catching Fire and wish to remain unspoiled, look away now.

My Ultimate Favorite Kissing Scene Ever is from Chapter 24 of Catching Fire. In case you need a little refreshing: Katniss and Peeta have been thrust into the Hunger Games again. There's no way (or so they think) that both Katniss and Peeta can make it out alive for a second time. Katniss wants Peeta to live, and he wants her to live. They have a conversation where they discuss this dilemma. I'll let Katniss take it from here. :)

"No one really needs me," he says, and there's no self-pity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.

"I do," I say. "I need you." He looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, and that's no good, because he'll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I'll just get confused. So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss.

I feel that thing again. The thing I only felt once before. In the cave last year, when I was trying to get Haymitch to send us food. I kissed Peeta about a thousand times during those Games and after. But there was only one kiss that made me feel something stir deep inside. Only one that made me want more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie down.

This time, there is nothing but us to interrupt us. And after a few attempts, Peeta gives up on talking. The sensation inside me grows warmer and spreads out from my chest, down through my body, out along my arms and legs, to the tips of my being. Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of making my need greater. I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind. 

This is why I think this kiss is The Ultimate Favorite Kissing Scene Ever:

1. This kiss has been having some serious build up. If you read even two pages before this, there is a lot of emotional stuff going on. Namely that they're both convinced only one of them can make it out alive, so they'll never be together again. At least one of them will die.
2. It clearly focuses on their emotions. Katniss doesn't say anything about parting lips or heaving breathing or hands tangling in hair. The physical description is very minimal, but we get a lot about the desire and feelings she has during this kiss.
3. Like Katniss says, there's a lot of kissing between the two of them, but this is the one that means something. For the reader, this is the "YES! YES! YES! SHE GETS IT!" kiss.

I hope you enjoyed this kissing scene, brought to you by Suzanne Collins. And if you so desire, I've rounded up a few of my favorite kissing scenes from movies/TV shows below.

Pretty much all of Snow/Charming kisses are the best, but here's just two, because that's how much I love this couple.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Flash Fiction (blogfest)

Last day of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest! This time around it's a flash fiction (>251 words). This is Troy again, from my Monday interview.

Today ended the war. Today the mountains became peaceful.
Today she married him.
I thought they would have fought with me, knowing the truth about him. But they told me to let it go, that we'd find another way. Morcant had proofed the castle so I couldn't penetrate it, with or without magic. I couldn't get to her.
Egan found me in Dunthur City.
"Come back," he said. "There's nothing we can do."
She had the necklace, though, as far as I knew. With the necklace, maybe she'd find me. Or maybe she never discovered the truth. Maybe she'd never remember me.
I'd always remember her, with her aspirations and flowers and determination. I remembered the first time I saw her, the first time we kissed, our last moment together.
I'd never know if she did remember. I'd probably never see her again.
Today she became the Queen of Thesland. And I was forgotten.

Character Dialogue (blogfest)

These two are characters from my current WIP.

F: Ouch.
M: Don't wanna talk about it.
F: She totally just used you.
M: Yeah, well.
F: Do you really like her?
M: Have you seen her? Of course I like her. Every guy at school likes her.
F: So all guys go for the slut look?
M: It's her party outfit. She isn't like that all the time.
F: Mmmhmm. And the fact that she just made out with you to get with that other guy...?
M: Not technically a slut.
F: But still pretty slutty. I saw them leaving together. I guess they thought the party was lame with the whole parental supervision thing.
M: You just met her tonight, you don't even know her.
F: I can't believe you're still defending her. She can't be that pretty.
M: She's Alicia Norman.
F: Oh, right, how stupid of me to forget.
M:...
F: Do you really still like her?
M: Do I still wish we were making out right now? Yeah. Do I like her?...Not really. Not anymore.

Character on the Couch (blogfest)

I know that I usually post Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, but for the I'm Hearing Voices Character Blogfest I'm rearranging my schedule for this week.

For today, I need one character to answer a few questions. It was really hard for me to pick just one character that I wanted to do, because I'm editing one book, writing another, and in the stages of outlining a third.


But I finally decided to interview Troy, the love interest of FORGET ME NOT that is a little mysterious even to me. 


So Troy, take it away.

1. What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this or is it a secret? People I love are my greatest vulnerability. I'm scared to love because of everyone I've lost. Not many people know this, because I keep people at a distance.
2. What do people believe about you that is false? When I was in the castle, people underestimated me. They thought that I didn't have an agenda or a reason to be there, at least not anything deeper than what I told them. 
3. What would your best friend say is your fatal flaw? Why? My best friend has forgotten everything about me. But if I asked her before, she'd tell me that I don't trust enough. I didn't trust her until she knew my secrets, and there are only a few more people I have faith in. I've seen too much wrong done to believe in many people.
4. What would the same friend say is your one redeeming quality? Why? To her, my redeeming quality would be the kindness that I feel toward others, how I want to help everyone I can.
5. What do you want most? What will you do to get it? I want Imogen. I've already done all I'm able to do to get her. I'm relying on my faith in her now.

Well...things have popped up in here that I wasn't expecting. I love interviewing characters!


What types of things have you learned about your characters you weren't expecting?

Crossed Winner and Other Stuff

And the winner of the signed copy of Crossed is...J.A. Bennett! Congratulations! I'll be sending you an email. Please respond in 48 hours, or the prize may be given to someone else.

Now I have a few things I'd like to tell you about.

First, Emily R. King has two surveys about blogging that you should go check out. The questions are really helpful, and the more input she gets the better it'll be. She'll be sharing the results to it, and from taking it I know I'm curious about some of the questions she posted to see how I can better my blog. So go here to participate.

Second, I wanted to spread the word about #wipmadness

Leave a comment on this post for your January 2012 goal, and on twitter whenever you need some writer support, just use the hashtag #wipmadness. It's a great way to connect with other people.

Third, there's a bloghop coming up that I'm super excited about! Hope Roberson and Cassie Mae are holding the Is It Getting Hot In Here? bloghop

Basically, you can share your favorite kiss scene from a book, your life, or your W.I.P and share it on February 14th. Find out more about it and sign up here.

And one more blogfest, also brought to you by Cassie Mae and Angie are hosting I'm Hearing Voices, Character Blogfest.

This one will be really helpful in digging into your characters. Find out more and sign up here.

Well, that's all from me for now. I hope you join in some of this awesome-sauce.

The Early Work blogfest

Juliemybird has put together a blogfest on the early work of our writing lives. You can find out about it here.

Well, first thing's first. Julie asked that we include a picture of a dinosaur or wolf in our blog post (well, we get an extra entry, and that's easy enough). Snaps if you know this awesome movie:

In first and second grade we had these writing journals and that's where I started to actually write my stories. There's not too much from first grade, except I wrote an awesome one where a princess wanted a pet (me...I always wanted one but didn't get one until I was 13) so she runs away from her family (are you hearing me Mom and Dad?) and has a pet lion that doesn't eat her, a pet monkey, and doves that send messages to her family. She's very happy with her pets and her treehouse.

Then in third grade I branched out and wrote my first chapter book. It was about a mermaid princess who had to marry a prince she didn't like, and she fell in love with a common merman who was so handsome and cool. And of course in the end she gets to marry the awesome merguy that she loves.

My mermaid princess had a seashell bra, but this one's otherwise close to mine.

I wrote some other stuff through my other elementary years, and then come seventh grade Lord of the Rings was in. So I wrote about elves and human relationships, and how a king had taken a half-elf, half-human girl as his daughter because he loved her mother, who died. Then the princess is rescued by three elves who take her to the elvish lands where she finds out that her dad is an elf. Naturally, she falls in love with one of the elves who journeyed with her, while the other two were more comic relief characters. There's lots of archery in it, of course. So yes, thank you Legolas for that inspiration.

Look at him. He was the most attractive one to a 13-year-old girl.

I did try a bit in the contemporary genre. I played volleyball since sixth grade, and so in high school (freshman year) I wrote In It For the Spandex, which featured preppy girls joining the volleyball team to get out of P.E. and their clashing with the jock girls. Lots of teenage drama in a very Disney channel-esque fashion with plenty of cute boys and homecoming dances to go around.

Spandex was always my least favorite part of volleyball. Too short, too much bunching!

So...now we're pretty much up to where I am today, at least, as recent as 5 years. So what about you? What was some of your early work about?

Sparkfest: My Inspiration

Over on Christine Tyler's blog The Writer Coaster, she has a blogfest featuring the books and authors who have really inspired us as writers. These are the questions she asked:

1. What book made you realize you were doomed as a writer?
2. What author set off that spark of inspiration for your current Work in Progress?
3. Or, is there a book or author that changed your world view?

And so here are my responses:
1. When I read Harry Potter the first (couple dozen) time, I was a young, young writer. I loved, loved, loved the series. But it wasn't really until this past year I realized I was doomed. I mean, obviously J.K. Rowling has made millions (or more) off of HP, and we can't expect her type of success. But the way she weaves mythology, magic, religion, alchemy, and so many different threads into her larger tale is so astounding. And not only that, but her work with HP is just magical. I'll never produce anything half so amazing as HP.

2. Well, my WIP features a princess as the MC, so I might be able to trace this back to my Disney and Swan Princess days. But, if anything, I would really attribute it to Gail Carson Levine and her books, especially Ella Enchanted and The Two Princess of Bamarre as well as the short Princess Tales she wrote. While my WIP is intended for an older YA audience opposed to an MG one, these books that I grew up with definitely set me up for my current WIP.

3. Jane Austen changed my views on day-to-day activities, and taught me about balance. C.S. Lewis taught me how the spiritual can be in anything. Jay Asher made me stop and think about how one of my actions could affect someone else. But I have to ultimately give this one to Suzanne Collins for her work with The Hunger Games. I kind of thought about war before, but not to the extent that Collins made me. I came to face with all of the gray areas of war, life, and government after Mockingjay. I'd never stepped back from a book and asked myself, "What would I do if I were in this situation?" I've never self-evaluated myself more than when I read this series.

Join in on the blogfest! There's still two more days to post!

Novel Films Blogfest

Madeleine from Scribble and Edit is hosting this blogfest, to name all of the works of fiction that you have seen the movie/TV show, and read the original book, play, or comic story.

I've marked the particularly great adaptations in aqua and the particularly awful adaptations in red.

1. Pride and Prejudice (1995 version, of course. Not the 2005 joke)
2. Sense and Sensibility
3. Persuasion
4. Emma
5. Mansfield Park
6. Romeo and Juliet
7. Hamlet
8. Othello
9. The Taming of the Shrew
10. Harry Potter series
11. The Fellowship of the Ring
12. Ella Enchanted
13. Flipped
14. Twilight Series
15. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
16. Wuthering Heights
17. Anne of Green Gables
18. The Wizard of Oz
19. Gone With the Wind
20. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
21. Prince Caspian
22. The Thief Lord
23. Inkheart
24. A Walk to Remember
25. Great Expectations
26. A Christmas Carol
27. Little House on the Prairie
28. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (one and two)
29. The Importance of Being Earnest
30. Lord of the Flies
31. Little Women
32. Charly
33. The Polar Express
34. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
35. Charlotte's Web
36. That Summer/Someone Like You (combined to make How to Deal)
37. My Sister's Keeper
38. The Scarlett Letter
39. To Kill a Mockingbird
40. The Great Gatsby
41. Alice in Wonderland
42. A Series of Unfortunate Events
43. The Bridge to Terebithia
44. Animal Farm
45. The Princess Bride
46. Tuck Everlasting
47. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
48. Peter Pan

There's a lot of books I'm anxiously waiting to become movies. Obviously there's The Hunger Games to look forward to that's in filming right now. And a new Romeo and Juliet is being filmed, which I dare to hope will actually capture their lust, rather than trying to convince people they were actually in love. Several books are in the pre-production stage (The Giver, Uglies, Paranormalcy, Divergent) that I'm crossing my fingers get made, and made well.