Home Biography Metempsyche Blog Bibliophilia Random & Fan Contact

February 15, 2010

Steering the U.S.S. Blogfail to Starboard…

And answering the questions posed in my last post!

BUT FIRST!  A reminder!  If you haven’t read TRIBOCHARGE yet, then what are you waiting for?

Tribocharge

Tribocharge

Tribocharge
A Metempsyche companion short story
http://www.hayleyanneperkins.com/tribocharge/
Tribocharge: A type of contact electrification in which an object becomes electrically charged after coming into contact with another object.

Lightning bolts wounded beautifully, but they healed ugly.

Peter Borley knew this. He saw it a little more every day in his grandpa, Alexander, whose light dimmed just a bit more every morning as his tungsten veins reignited and his skin — pink and shiny, rippled from the current — showed through.

When Indira P. of Brazil (our Supporter of the Moment January 2010) started metempsyche and so many amazing readers joined so quicky to support Green, The Metempsyche novels, and my writing, I decided that I really needed to give something back.

The first offering I have is Peter Borley.

Peter is one of my very favorite characters to inhabit the Metempsyche universe, and he was my natural choice to star in the first Metempsyche companion short story. Because a release of Green itself is still TBA, I wanted to be able to give something (always spoiler-free!) back to the community members, readers, and well-wishers to whom I feel so indebted. I’m hoping to release a short story starring one of the secondary or tertiary characters from the Metempsyche world every 6-8 weeks for as long as I’m able, and Peter Borley the neighborhood poltergeist is just the first!

With that, my interrogation from you begins!

From Mary:

What I’d like to know about you is this: How do you walk around in the shoes you do? I’m speaking literally – I would fall down dead and die if I tried to wear your shoes in the rain (I loved your shoes in Kent) – and figuratively; how do you maintain a good head on your shoulders whilst being so talented and genuinely kind?

Aw, well, thank you miss Mary!

As for the literal “walking in my shoes” — I guess the best explanation that I have is that I took dance for sixteen years (and thus have very little feeling in my toes) and that in my last two years of high school, I wore heels every day.  I was Rachel Berry from Glee, dressing like both a toddler and a grandmother at the same time.  Although… I’ve never owned a pantsuit, thankfully.

My favorite pairs of shoes that I own:

Except in lime green!

These are my #1 favorite pair, except mine are in lime green!

As for the second half of your very sweet question, the answer is simple: I never lie, at least not intentionally.  My freshman and sophomore years of college, I dated a truly horrendous, emotionally abusive, ridiculous, spoiled, awful boy to whom I told three very big lies in an attempt to scare him into being a better person.  After the upkeep of those lies cost me several very good friends and didn’t do anything to make him stop hurting the people around him, I wised up, broke up with him, and proceeded never to lie again.  I might sometimes withhold information from people if I think my opinion would hurt them, but a lie of omission is very different than telling a lie, in my opinion.

From Sam:

This is anything but deep… what’s your favorite kind of ice cream?

My favorite kind of ice cream in the entire world is tragically extinct.  There’s a small ice cream shop in my town that’s owned and run by this very sweet, old Vietnamese woman, and they used to carry this very delicious ice cream called Fudgy Pudding, which was, literally, frozen chocolate pudding with brownie pieces and chocolate fudge chips.  Unfortunately, I was apparently the only person in town who liked it, so they don’t carry it anymore, and I am always sad about it.

Of ice creams that still exist, I’m sort of an old person and I either like amaretto-cherry or spumoni.  As my friend Justin once asked me, “You really like sweets that taste like they’re supposed to be dusty, don’t you?”

Yes.  Yes, I do.

Thank you to Liz, Jacee, and Ashley for your comments as well!

  • Share/Bookmark

February 11, 2010

When Your Failboat Hits the Blogging Iceberg

At this very moment, I am doing A Very Scary Thing.

I am writing a blog entry.

“Why is that scary?” you might ask.  “You write every day!  You Tweet!  You comment on LiveJournal!”

“That’s different,” I might respond.  “That is responding to someone.  I know there’s a person on the other end reading my words, and I know I don’t sound totally stupid.  Or… if I do, it’s only 140 characters of teh dumb.”

I think my phobia of blogging stems from three distinct stimuli:

1.  I really loved Meg Cabot’s blog in high school.

2.  I was a geek in first grade.

3.  Blog entries, other than Book Bloggers Get Blogged, are about myself and not about a friend, acquaintance, or fictional character.

When I was sixteen, I thought Meg Cabot was the coolest, funniest, savviest, most insightful person alive.  I mean, let’s face it, she still is.  All-American Girl and Princess in Love still make me laugh out loud every time I read them, and that really speaks to their lasting humor, considering how often I reread books.

I think what I admired — and still admire, and now envy — most about Meg’s blogging is her way of making her own life read like a hilarious, engaging story.  I have that ability in person, I think… I hope… maybe… but I psych myself out when it comes to blogging.  I get great blog ideas in the shower every day (as a Digital Age baby is wont to do) and I open up Wordpress and look at the blank textbox and freeze up.

November 2006

I am once again setting myself the goal of blogging more like Meg Cabot. Or, actually, more like the Princess Diaries books. Maybe it will help me to develop talent for writing. Or at least give me some material about which to crappily write. Whichever.

Although I’ve gotta say, in general, I find people who blog about “What happened to me today” to be completely ridiculous, because, I hate to tell them, people generally really don’t care about what you did today. Like my roommate, for instance, who updates her Livejournal about four times a day and writes about how she… sat at her desk, writing on LJ.

Four years later, I still think that’s true, and that is the reason for my Blog Stimuli #1: Meg Cabot Is Cool.  When she blogs about her day, she’s able to make me care and laugh and envy and think.  Of course, part of that stems from the fact that her days seem to be pretty fascinating — she gets to wear a tiara, for pete’s sake!  She knows Judy Blume!  She gets TV channels!

I realize that many blogs’ format is to include aspects of daily life along with a hook (and Meg’s hook is simply, “I Am Meg Cabot”), but… I don’t know.  Even blogs that I find fascinating have some sort of hook, a reason why I pay attention — and it’s rarely the actual blog portion.

Foodblogs?

I like the pictures. Food is really pretty, especially macarons, which are the benchmark of a good foodblog.

Sleep Talkin’ Man?

…Does anyone read the little italics after what Man has Sleep-Talked?   I don’t.  I just read the bits about how kittens have TOO MANY WHISKERS, TOO MANY WHISKERS!

The authors whose blogs I enjoy intimidate me for a different reason, however.  They are more closely related to my Blog Phobia Stimuli #2: I Was A Geek In First Grade.

Actually, to be more honest, I was a geek from age one onward.  But first grade is really the impetus of my blogosphereophobia.  (It’s a real word.  It is.  Swear.)

In first grade, my elementary school hired a Music Appreciation teacher who seemed to completely miss the part of her teacher certification in which she should have been informed that first graders are six years old, do not generally have musical training, and listen to things like Mary-Kate & Ashley’s Brother For Sale or I, Grover.  Sometime in October, she gave us the assignment of writing an original Christmas carol.

Because we totally knew how to compose music.

Because we were absolutely not six years old.

So I went home and I worked and I worked and I wrote out some lyrics about ornaments, and I brought my song to school.

Every time I sit down to write a blog entry, I feel like I’m wearing my pink leggings and sitting on the too-big piano bench, being made to try to play the piano and sing an original Christmas carol in front of my pantsuit-clad, spiral-permed music teacher and twenty-two other kids who already tease me every day.

The teacher started laughing halfway through the first verse of my song and told me I was murdering her piano, which really should have been expected as I had never touched one before in my entire life, but the worst part was not the teacher belittling me.  It was the reactions of my classmates.  Three or four kids laughed at me back, but most everyone else just sat on the floor, watching the glowing lights in their Lite-Up shoes.  On the one hand, it’s awesome that probably no one else remembers the moment of my mortification, but on the other, it would have been really nice to have just one kid stand up and say, “Hey!  You never taught us piano, lady!  You can’t laugh at us for not knowing how to play!”

This would never have happened in a first grade Music Appreciation classroom, but it’s the emotion that counts.  My fear of blogging is less about sounding stupid and boring, and more about not sounding like anything at all.

That feeling is what segues into Blogosphereophobia Stimuli #3: I Am Not A Fictional Character.

I love writing about fictional characters.

I would hope that this is somewhat obvious, at this point.

Ever since I discovered that I was allowed to create my own characters, it’s been my passion, but more than that, it’s the discovery of someone else’s life, motivations, and experiences that fascinates me.  It’s why I studied History, Journalism, and Creative Writing in college.  It’s why I enjoyed interviewing popstars for Tommy2.net and why I liked transcribing long, rambling recollections of WWII vets for PBS.  Listening to the conversations around me was my favorite part of being a barista in New York City, and the one part of being a college admission counselor that really suited me was speaking one-on-one with really great, interesting prospective students.

But I already know me!

So, to make my Blogosphereophobia less severe, tell me: Who are you?  What do you like reading blogs about?  How did you stumble across my little blog, and what do you want to know about me?

  • Share/Bookmark

December 31, 2009

Countdowns of 2009: The Best Blog/Diary/Journal Entries of the Decade

Let’s party like it’s ten years ago today!

My Favorite Blog/Diary/Journal Entries of the Decade

* Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

99% of these probably don’t make sense to anyone, even the other people who were there.  A few of them barely still make sense to me.  I think that’s the sign of a decade well-lived, don’t you?

June 12, 2000

(2009 Note: This is a clear example of why not to write comics with your friends, about your friends, that only your friends could understand.)

The Fighting Fitzpeople

July 4, 2001

The most EMBARRASSING thing that ever happened to me…..

THE MOST embarrassing thing that EVER happened to me was, well, see, one day, the clasp on my bra broke and so my mom brought me another one, and I put the broken bra into a bag in my binder.  2 Weeks later, Eugene stole the bag out of my binder and left it in the Spanish room.  Chris M. found it, waved it around, and Sra. L. HUNG IT IN THE DOORWAY w/ a sign that said “¿De quien es esta bra?”  So I made a sign the next day that said “Don’t go through others’ binders (Eugene!)” so Ann made a sign that said “Don’t leave your bra in the Spanish Room (HAYLEY!!!)”

December 26, 2002

Amy and my BRILLIANT theory to the world of Harry Potter… it was actually MY theory, but I’m letting her share the credit.

Our idea as to why Voldemort wanted to kill Harry and James Potter is as follows:

According to a theory on Mugglenet.com (and our own slightly slow common sense), Harry and James were both heirs to Gryffindor – they lived in Godric’s hollow, and Harry succeeded in pulling Gryffindor’s sword out of the Sorting Hat during his battle with the Basilisk, the monster of Slytherin. Voldemort, knowing this and being the heir to Slytherin, targeted them because he wanted to finish Salazar’s work and end the quibble that had arisen between the two Hogwarts founders.

To further confuse you, Neville is a parallel to Peter Pettigrew, as they both were tag-alongs to three more popular and powerful wizards in their year.

Ginny is a parallel to Lily, because they both have red hair and are at nature good people and physically beautiful.

Since Neville is a parallel to Pettigrew, and has shown interest in Ginny, who is in turn parallel to Lily, we think that Pettigrew was attracted to Lily.

Voldemort, knowing that Pettigrew had lusted for Lily, and had had his heart broken when James married her, got Pettigrew to unleash his hidden wrath towards James by betraying James and Harry’s whereabouts to Voldemort.

We know that Voldemort did not have any interest in murdering Lily until she got in the way of him killing Harry. He even told her, “Stand aside, silly girl!” Therefore, we know that he, being the heir of Slytherin, was only after the heirs of Gryffindor – James and Harry – and not Lily, who was just Lily.

So that is our theory as to why Voldemort wanted to murder Harry and James Potter.

teehee, gigglegiggle. bahahahahahahaa.

WE ARE BLOODY BRILLIANT!!!!!!

KTODSPAF,

<3Hayley

August 5, 2003

This was the best night of my life.

August 3, 2004

6 Girls
+ 7 Boys
+ 10,000 Marshmallows
+ 10 Sidewalk Chalks
+ 2 Cars
+ 1 Policeman
+ 1 Creepy Whisper
+ Midnight
__________________
One Crazy, Crazy Night

November 1, 2005

My new goal is to try and blog more like Meg Cabot, who somehow always has enough to say that it takes her a lot of words.

Sometimes, I am very daunted by words. I’m always afraid that somehow, I will run out of them, and then I won’t have anything to do with my life. I go to the library or a bookstore, and I see all of the books there, and I think…

Holy crap.  Look how many words have been used up.

It just doesn’t seem like there are that many more combinations of them that are possible.

And whenever I read something absolutely wonderful, like the ( tropopause monologue ) of Angels in America, I think, “That combination of words is so breathtaking… and no one can ever use it again and claim it their own. There are so few breathtaking combinations of words that can be mine.”

I get paranoid about everything I write after that, because a) WHAT IF I INADVERTANTLY COPIED SOMEONE ELSE’S ENTIRE BOOK? and b) WHAT IF SOMEONE ELSE PUBLISHES MY COMBINATIONS OF WORDS BEFORE I GET THE CHANCE TO, AND THEN NO ONE WILL BELIEVE THEY’RE MINE?

Then I hate words for a few minutes, and try to get by without them. But thinking without words is difficult sometimes, and if someone comes in, communicating without words can be awkward.

It is a dilemma.

August 25, 2006

Dear Veronica Mars,

I have been watching your show far too much on YouTube. Can you teach me how to solve mysteries? I lose stuff a lot.

Sincerely,
Hayley

December 25, 2007

Best. Christmas. Ever.

The moral of the story is, if you’re two years old and you get a Barbie fork stuck so far up your nose that X-rays can’t find it (and they try to drug-test your mother because it’s 1989 and you accidentally told them it was a spoon up your nose and they assume you got the idea from watching your mother snort blow, when really it was a fork all along and your mother did no such thing!) and you eventually sneeze it out all over your poor harassed mother at dinner and it almost breaks your neck because your dad is holding your head in place; and then you refuse to talk about it for almost a week before very seriously telling your father, “I did it because there was a booger I couldn’t reach”… then you’ll laugh about it until you’re bawling eighteen years later.

Not that I ever got a fork stuck up my nose when I was two.

My Barbies still aren’t allowed to eat dinner.

December 23, 2008

I saw the Rockefeller Center tree, and watched the skaters circle round and round the golden-lit rink.

I was ignored in Gucci (again) but didn’t have to suffer through being called fat by Swedish Prada models in Bergdorf’s (although yesterday, Lily Cole called me ‘quite cool’ and asked where was ‘the queue to the wash-up’).

FAO Schwartz’ giant stuffed animals were everything I ever hoped they would be.  There was a duo of siblings in matching Fair Isles Christmas sweaters jumping around on the giant piano, and they were precious.

AT FAO SCHWARTZ YOU CAN HAVE MADE YOUR OWN CUSTOM MUPPET.  If I am ever rich, I will have my own fleet of Muppets.  That is, now that I know it is possible, the epitome of all my life’s dreams.  Fleet of custom Muppets.

I had dessert at the Plaza.  It was so beautiful it was almost scary, and there is no portrait of Eloise on the wall anymore, just a case of 2004-rerelease Eloise memorabilia for sale in the side lobby.  The waitstaff all wear tuxedos with tails and have cufflinks.  Dessert was served with literal silver spoons, despite the fact that I clearly was not born with one in my mouth.  The chocolate pot de creme with chantilly cream and chocolate streusel was divine, and it was free, because a middle-aged Armenian man who was too mild-mannered to Richard-Gere-in-Pretty-Woman himself out more than to order us French fries surreptitiously, which he sent back when we didn’t want them, paid for it.

I used the strategy I learned for such occasions on Long Island: ”Thank you,” and leave immediately.

The lights on the ironwork were almost enough to make me wish I were rich enough or self-deprecating enough to stay at the Plaza for Christmas, though.

And if I did, I would completely pour a pitcher of water down the mail chute.

March 23, 2009
http://hayleyanneperkins.com/blog/?p=3

I’ve been trying to think of an appropriate way to christen my new blog as Hayley Anne Perkins, but my ideas always seem to fall short, at least in my own mind.  I’m very conscious of the implications of blogging to an audience that comprises more than just your best friends and your mom… I’m vaguely terrified of saying, or rather typing, just the wrong thing in just the wrong way and coming across as a terrible person.  Or at least as a person with an overinflated sense of self-importance, which is just as bad in a blogger.

So to break the ice: my ode to NYC Teen Author Festival 2009.

To preface this extremely bizarre gobbledygook — NYCTAF09 (I’m lazy and enjoy acronyms) was awesome.   I had an amazing time meeting all of the authors and several readers, and everyone was really nice and extraordinarily “chill” for it being an autograph signing… given my boy band expertise, I’m used to autograph signings involving at least three fainters and a tablejumper.  I was glad to see that everyone was patient and open to conversing with everyone else in line as they waited, and it was a treat to see the way that the writers complemented (and complimented!) each other.

While most people at the event today brought or bought stacks of books by their favorite writers, I brought the ultimate book: the Dictionary.

I asked every author to sign over their favorite word, and I promised to take the collection of Best Words and write a little mishmash of a piece.  Elise Broach said that I should try to get them all in order, and I seriously considered it until I started trying to decipher the autographs, and I realized that I was forgetting the order already.  Sigh.

The form was promised to Judy Blundell for her choice — “poem” — and the tone to Heather Duffy-Stone… “lusty”.  Unfortunately for all parties involved, poetry is the second-furthest thing from being my forte (with Math beating it easily).  Anyone I’ve ever dated can attest.  Therefore, given that this is not only a poem, but a poem using nonsense words, I hope no one takes it TOO seriously as a test of my writing ability!  Unless you love it, in which case, this is totally how I write…

You couldn’t see it, but my eyes got very shifty at that last sentence.

And I have to say, David Levithan saying that he was excited to read the finished endeavor pretty much killed me.  So here goes.

Ned Vizzini Stole My Pen
A Lusty Poem

Twin popes –
one pulchritudinous, the other feculant
in appearance –
both indefatigable in their vast perversity,
though incredulous of the idealism of the other:
one a bonvivant in deep meditation on generosity and grace,
the other in love with his epiphany on ecstasy,
sneaked into the basement of the church
ignoring the musical comedy rehearsal
upstairs.

One facetiously donned a crash
the other merely a lush apron
as they prepared to bake treats
for their family reunion
beneath the moon.

There could be no peace between these two brothers.
Discussion broke down in their unctuous disregard for each other
like a luffing sailboat’s disregard for the wind
when fighting its way through a sluice
(in simile, not metaphor);
Something was always wrong.

As delicious purple rhubarb dumplings
vied for space amongst the donuts
an ephemeral smoke began to rise:
almost magical in its majesty
And the brothers watched,
thunderstruck.

As they watched in wonder,
the metal of the pots against the stove –
fulminate metals –
began to coruscate,
shooting sparks into the air.

The pastries were ruined.
The brothers found between them a new sublimity:
they no longer had to bring dessert to the reunion
thanks to a force majeure.

LOVE – Nora Baskin
PURPLE - Jessica Blank
POEM - Judy Blundell
MEDITATION – Coe Booth
ECSTASY - Elise Broach
PEACE - Susane Colasanti
EPIPHANY (BUT NOT IN A RELIGIOUS SENSE)* – Sarah Darer-Littman
GRACE (NOT CHRISTIAN GRACE)* – Matt de la Pena
LUST – Heather Duffy-Stone
GENEROSITY – Gayle Forman
LUSH – Aimee Friedman
UNCTUOUS – Madeleine George
POPE – Maureen Johnson
TWIN – Kristen Kemp
PULCHRITUDINOUS – Justine Larbalestier
WONDER – David Levithan
DUMPLING – E. Lockhart
CORUSCATE – Barry Lyga
FAMILY – Carolyn Mackler
RHUBARB – Sarah MacLean
SUBLIME – Megan McCafferty
DELICIOUS - Lauren McLaughlin
LUSH - Neesha Meminger
SOMETHING (BECAUSE “SOMETHING IS GOOD”) – Billy Merrell
CRASH – Blake Nelson
BONVIVANT – Micol Ostow
INCREDULOUS - David Ozanich
EPHEMERAL (BUT ONLY FOR TODAY) – Matthue Roth
FORCE MAJEURE - Marie Rutkoski
SNEAK – Lisa Ann Sandell
FACETIOUS (BUT FOR REAL) – Courtney Sheinmel
DONUT (NOT DOUGHNUT) – Brian Sloan
IDEALISM - Jennifer Smith
PERVERSITY – Rachel Vail
INCREDULOUS – David Van Etten
LUFF – Ned Vizzini
SLUICE – Adrienne Maria Vrettos
INDEFATIGABLE - Cecily von Ziegesar
MOON - Melissa Walker
THUNDERSTRUCK - Lynn Weingarten
FECULANT - Scott Westerfeld
VAST - Suzanne Weyn
MUSICAL COMEDY - Maryrose Wood
METAPHOR – Lizabeth Zindel

FULMINATE” and “MAGICAL,” I am so sorry, but I can’t read your autographs or remember who wrote them… if it was you, please reclaim your Favorite Word in a comment!

  • Share/Bookmark

November 4, 2009

NaNoWriMo Support Blog for The Penultimate Page

Read the original posting at The Penultimate Page or the NaNo Support ning.  Thanks, Emilee!


It happens to everyone.

You sit down at your computer, pull up WikiPedia to fact-check your Norse mythology…

And three hours later, you’re totally enthralled reading about the varieties of Japanese Kit-Kat bars.

As a writer, this is a totally normal progression of thought.  Writers are naturally interested in… well, everything.  No matter what genre you write, to flesh out a story is to create the world in which your characters live – often from the ground up: Do they live in a city or a town?  Is it a real place?  What’s the weather like, and how does that affect what your characters wear and do and drive (or not)?

Whether writing high fantasy or realistic contemporary chick lit, research is an essential part of the storycrafting process.

Say that you want to write an urban fantasy that sets a mortal girl from 1966 Chicago against a backdrop of Greek gods and teenage titans who take over the Art Institute.

Only… you were born in 1990, live in a suburban area of Kansas City, and you know nothing about Greek mythology beyond what you saw in Disney’s Hercules when you were eight.  And it was so scary that you cried and had to leave the room halfway through the film.

What do you need to research first?  And more importantly, how do you research it?

My personal opinion is the setting.  The first, and most salient, question to ask when researching a new setting is to explore your own motivations: Why do you want to set your story in that place – and at that time?

Before I make my next overarching statement, I need to own up: I was a History major in college.  I find research to be unbelievably fun, especially when it’s focused on cultural aspects that inform and shape the lives of characters (or, er, people).  So my next overarching statement about the research process of fiction is: Time is a place.

So for our sample plot bunny, you would need to research both “1966” and “Chicago” in the same way.  People, and characters, are products of both nurture and nature, and the “wheres” and “whens” of their existence dramatically shape the “whos” and “whys.”

In other words, changing someone’s clothing doesn’t make them live in any certain time period any more than simply saying that they live in Chicago means that they’re Chicagoan.  Think about your own life, and all of the things your “wheres” and “whens” affect: not just your clothing, but the foods you eat and the stores in which you shop, the kind of car your parents drive and the type of house you live in.  What was the first political event you remember?  Who was the first person you knew to say a “bad word” and what did they say?  What did you do when you came home from school, and what was your first job – or what do you think it will be?

What are your neighbors like?

How did you learn about sex?

Do you have to wear a school uniform?

How has your taste in music changed over the years?

As instinctive as the answers to these questions are in your own life, your character is not you.  At least, I hope not.  And at least not more than 15% you, as most characters are in some way inextricably tied to their creators.  All the same, you need to be able to answer these questions as quickly, certainly, and accurately for your characters as you did for yourself.

A good jumping point to discern just what aspects of your characters’ “whens” and “wheres” will be most important is the 100 Questions About Your Character survey (originally developed by tabletop gamers, but co-opted by writers everywhere).  You can find a clean copy at http://storywrite.com/contest/6584.

So now you know what you need to know.  But how to go about acquiring that knowledge?

Well, in my humble opinion – and on pain of death to anyone reading this who shares this tidbit with any of my old History professors – WikiPedia is a great place to start for basic outlines of information.  The key is to explore the depths of the “References” and “External Links.”  It’s like an ultra-concentrated Google search that doesn’t torture you with Boolean specifics – you can already reasonably guess that if the References on a page about Neighborhoods of Chicago says that it’s leading you to Wicker Park, it really is.  Score one for Web 2.0!

Of course, the flip side to WikiPedia’s greatness (besides those temptations to play The WikiPedia Game or clicking links until you end up looking at Japanese confectionery) is its overreaching broadness.  Great, so you’ve found a page on Neighborhoods of Chicago and it has eighty-six bajillion References.  How the heck do you know where to go and how to find just what you need to enhance your story?

My knee-jerk reaction is to advise that you read everything you can get your grubby little paws (sorry; werewolves on the brain!) on in regards to the world where your characters live.  Even the smallest details — the coloring of a candy wrapper, whether a street runs North-South or East-West — can prove to be integral to the integrity of your work.  Maybe your MC needs to chase Artemis down Wacker Drive.  Without research, a tense scene of hide-and-seek in the construction of its extension to the Lake Shore could never come to fruition, and a part of your plot arc would be lost.  You just never know!

However, I realize that most people have neither time nor gumption to read the encyclopedia.  I blame my own habit on the year I was in sixth grade, when I was so bored with classes that I decided to memorize the Almanac pages that came in our Assignment Notebooks.  However, the deeper you can get into the world of your characters, the more places they can lead you in developing their story, rather than you having to try to force along a plotline that is as thin as dental floss.  If you really understand your characters and their environment, then their linear arc can split off into a great golden web like Priori Incantatem, and your work can feel round and complete.  It’s the difference between a book you love and a book that changes the way you approach reading, writing, and seeing.

So take notes!  Whether you take notes manually – a great way to imprint the information you’re reading digitally, so you can rely more on your mind and less on said notes – or by bookmarking relevant pages, make sure that your hard work isn’t flowing in one ear and out the other.  Make columns for “Who,” “What,” “When,” “Where,” “Why,” and “How,” or categorize with a timetable of your characters’ day (Wake, Dress, Eat, School?, Work?, Eat, Free Time?, Sleep) to make sure you cover all of your bases.

The same rule goes for researching your supernatural creatures.  It isn’t enough to know the bare bones of their legends, or the image of what you’re trying to create.  The most successful stories know exactly why their mythologies function the way they do (even if it’s just convincing technobabble!).  If you don’t know the parameters of your magical beings, they’ll stretch and stretch until suddenly things sparkle that probably shouldn’t.   To break the rules, you need to know which directions they already bend.

So what does any of that have to do with Kit-Kat bars?

I have no idea.

But that’s the fun of worldbuilding.  Every world needs candy.

Some of my favorite research links:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/theretrokid/pool/

http://miss-vintage.com/

http://solomon.bltc.alexanderstreet.com/

http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com/was2/was2.index.map.aspx

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

http://www.wikipedia.org

http://www.oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com/

http://online.sagepub.com/

http://www.tvparty.com/

http://www.retrojunk.com/

http://www.inthe80s.com/

http://www.inthe70s.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/fashiontime1.html

http://www.ventrella.com/Ideas/grammar.html

  • Share/Bookmark

October 9, 2009

Friday Free-For-All: The Friday5

A short meme courtesy The Friday5

  1. What are the titles of the last three books you read all of [in their entirety]?
    The Darling Rebels, by Siobhan Nichols; The Beatles Anthology, by The Beatles; and City of Ashes, by Cassandra Clare.
  2. What are the titles of between three and five magazines you subscribe to or used to subscribe to?
    Food & Wine, Gourmet (sob sob!), Girls’ Life/GL, American Girl, and Time Out New York.  I honestly subscribe to way more newsletters and mailing lists than magazines.
  3. What’s on your night table?
    A lamp.  And an alarm clock.
  4. What are the three best things that happened to you in the past seven days?
    My high school best friend is coming to visit and will arrive shortly; My editor was very happy with the beginnings of one of my Metempsyche world short stories; my car radio spontaneously generated life and works again.
  5. What was your senior yearbook quote, and what would your yearbook quote be this year if there were such a thing?
    We didn’t get “yearbook quotes,” as it were, but I did get two quotes regarding plays that I was in.  I’m pretty sure that my favorite one said, “I got to be tan and blonde, which was unusual, and I almost suffocated my best friend with a wig.  Best.  Play.  Ever.”

    My quote this year would either be a line from Green or a Beatles lyric, dependent on how I thought the audience would perceive me using my own work.

  • Share/Bookmark

October 1, 2009

Banned Books Week: Throwing Pots

When I was in grades K-12, my mother was always heavily involved in our local school district.  When I was in elementary school, she was the president of our PTA (Parent-Teacher Association), and as I got older, she moved upwards in the ranks until she was the president of the local School Board.

This morning, I called her and thanked her for never banning a book.

All week, I have been reading about the struggles had recently by Laurie Halse Anderson and Lauren Myracle, and thinking about J.K. Rowling and Phillip Pullman and Mark Twain and Judy Blume… and I salute them for telling their stories the way they are meant to be told, the way they needed to be told.

When I was in fourth grade, I came home with a copy of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and my mother caught me reading it in my lap at the table while I had my after-school snack, and she asked what I was reading so intently.

“It’s a book by Judy Blume,” I said.  “I really like it, she’s a really good writer.”

Then, my mother and I had a talk about Judy Blume, and how she writes books for all different ages, so while it was OK for me to read the Fudge & Peter Hatcher books in fourth grade, she didn’t want me to read other Judy Blume books yet.  But, she said, when I was in fifth grade, I could read Are You There God?  It’s Me, Margaret and Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself.

She did not want me to read Deenie or Tiger Eyes or Forever until at least when I was in high school.

And of course, I thought this was unfair, because Judy Blume is a fantastic writer, but I listened, because she explained to me why she didn’t want me reading those books yet, and about how different subjects are appropriate for children at different ages and stages of life.

I thanked her for that this morning, too.  It is immense that she had that discussion with me instead of just forbidding me to read any more Blume books, even though she knew that I might have my curiosity piqued and promptly go attempt to check out Forever from the public library.

In all honesty, had she forbidden it, I would have done exactly that.

But the dialogue educated me so much more, and when I did finally read Forever, I was well-equipped to understand why I’d needed to mature and wait.  When I read Forever, I was seventeen, and in no way was the book “bad” for me, or “harmful.”

And yet Forever is still the 13th Most Frequently Challenged book in America.

I think that the reason that books are banned is that many parents are so afraid of having those discussions with their children, because they fear that the repercussions of introducing that there may be inappropriate ideas in the world is the same as introducing those inappropriate concepts themselves.

I feel like books and concepts and discussions all have to go hand-in-hand to have any meaning whatsoever… reading Forever would not have had the same impact on me had I not talked with my mother about it some eight years before.  At the same time, I think I would have read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing differently and never had the guts to approach Are You There God?  It’s Me, Margaret without knowing that something else was coming… I was growing and building to something and that there were things out there that really did change when you were a grown-up.

In seventh grade, when our school celebrated ALA Banned Books Week and my class read The Giver, my teacher, Ms. Fitzgibbons, (who was brilliant; one of the best teachers that I ever had) likened growing up to the process of throwing a pot: every person is born freeform, like a lump of clay, and every experience you ever have — every word you read, every discussion you have — is like another hand on the potter’s wheel.  You cannot unlive an experience or unread a word or untalk a talk any more than the clay could become untouched and raw again.  The words we read are like only right hands, and the words we speak and hear only left hands.  Without both, the pot comes out lopsided and can’t be fully functional.

The metaphor is a little convoluted, but the endpoint is clear.

If you only read challenged books on the sly, hidden with your penlight in your closet, then you are missing an essentially important part of the process: Why did the author write those words?  Why did your parents or school or town not want you to read them?

Your pot will be floopy and lopsided and fall over all the time and will never be good at carrying water.

I know.  I was not supposed to be reading the last three books of the Janie Johnson series by Caroline Cooney, but I was so intrigued by the first and I thought Reeve was so dreamy (Reeve!  His name was Reeve!  Clearly, he was a hunk!) that I ignored my mother saying, “No, there are some things that I don’t want you to read.”

And I hid the fact that I read them anyway, and kept them under my mattress.

And I still feel squirmy inside now, in a bad, stomach-full-of-snakes way, when I hear the names “Reeve” or “Janie” because I knew, while reading their sex scene, that I was doing something wrong even though they weren’t.  I wasn’t supposed to be reading that book, and instead of understanding and growing and appreciating the story, I felt…

Floopy.  And lopsided.

Do I think that the Janie Johnson series should be banned because I felt badly after reading it?

Absolutely not.  Emphatically, fist-shakingly assuredly not.

But do I wish I had talked about it with someone older and trusted when it confused me… just like Harry Potter does whenever he is thrown a situation he doesn’t feel he can handle on his own in another frequently-banned series?

Absolutely yes.

Would it have been profoundly awkward to tell my mom that I’d read Whatever Happened to Janie, The Voice on the Radio, and What Janie Found?

Emphatically, first-shakingly, assuredly YES.

But would it have been better to have talked about why the pressure Reeve puts on Janie to have sex made me feel so uncomfortable?

Also yes.

While I feel kind of squicky writing about Reeve and Janie and how awkward I felt and how very much too young I was to have read Caroline B. Cooney’s books when I did (at age eleven), I am still glad that they were available for me to find and read and learn that lesson.

Even though maybe that part of my pottery is kind of dented.

Because if books are banned…

If they aren’t allowed at all…

Then the clay just sits.

And waits.

And dries out to nothing at all, except a pale and crackled slab that cannot even absorb water, much less carry it towards those who need it.

  • Share/Bookmark

September 30, 2009

Wordy Wednesdays: Harper’s Final Soliloquy, Angels in America

By Tony Kushner.

Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America.

God, it’s been years since I was on a plane.

When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air, as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone. I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired.

Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead.

At least I think that’s so.

  • Share/Bookmark

September 24, 2009

Music Mondays: I’m a Gleek

Yes, yes, it’s Thursday and not Monday.

But I have to write about Glee today.

I must.

Just as it was for me in high school, my love for show choir dramedy is a compulsion. Time seems to be measured this fall in minutes until Glee, and moments watching Glee.

(If I were still a high school drama geek, I would turn that into a riff on “Seasons of Love.” As it stands, you can make up your own.)

These are peppered with text messages from my friends that are nothing but quotes from the most recent episodes of Glee and my own hurried muting of my work computer as I play “Golddigger” and “Push It,” which I would never have listened to in my life had they not been arranged for a choir.

Last night’s episode cemented Glee’s place as a paragon of American television — as the most poignantly honest show about high school that I have ever seen.

Over Labor Day weekend, I went to my parents’ house for a visit. I lived in the same town for eighteen years, and I have three people left there outside my family who I see or talk to on a regular basis. But I swallowed my nervousness, and I made plans to meet up for coffee with my old best friend from high school, who I hadn’t seen in a few years.

She and I were, whether onstage together or alternating behind the scenes, in every school play together. She basically got me a slot in show choir our sophomore year. We shared a locker so messy that we eventually just started keeping all of our belongings in the Green Room. We served together as Vice-President and Treasurer of the Drama Club & Thespian Society.

We ended our high school careers with upwards of 100 International Thespian Troupe points, which, considering the maximum a student could get for any given production was eight points, was a testament to some kind of theatrical insanity.

Or, looking back, this overwhelming desire to do something fantastic, and get out of our high school, get out of our town.

I feel like there’s a reason the drama geeks and show choir gleeks gravitate towards songs like “Skid Row” (‘Please, somebody say I’ll get outta here…’), “Defying Gravity” (‘Kiss me goodbye, I’m defying gravity…’), or even — as Glee reminded me — “Don’t Stop Believin.’”

And I think more than anything I’ve ever seen, last night’s episode of Glee epitomized that raw ache to do better, to be better. Every character in the story arc struck me as so believably high school, which has never happened before watching TV, even on other amazing high school shows like Boy Meets World or Veronica Mars. Most shows about high school seem to find their strength in transcending what they see as the limitations of high school life: asking permission, time limitations, living with your parents.

Glee capitalizes on the trauma of secrecy and indecision, and put a name to it when Finn (who breaks my heart; oh my god) said:

“I don’t want to be a Lima Loser for the rest of my life!”

Everything I ever did in high school, right or wrong, was because I didn’t want to be our town’s variation of a Lima Loser.

But I think the closing musical montage speaks better than I can, at this juncture, about the heart-stopping feeling of joy when you realize that you’re from your own Lima, and still not a loser.

Glee 1×04: \"Single Ladies\" Football Montage

When I saw my friend Jennie over Labor Day weekend, it was easier and more fun than I worried it would be. I worried that I would show up and be the same girl I was when I was Rachel Berry — “I’m better than Tina. But I’m still getting my lipstick flushed down the toilet. And I still don’t have a boyfriend. Everyone has a reason to try except me.” — and that I would leave for home after the weekend with dreams of “La Vie Boheme” in my head again.

But I didn’t.

She and I had both grown up. And I am so looking forward to watching the characters on Glee glow into themselves the same way.

  • Share/Bookmark

August 28, 2009

Friday Free-For-All: A Good Cause

Filed under: Friday Free-For-All, Nostalgia & Memories — Tags: , , — admin @ 12:33 pm

Today’s FFFA is less light-hearted than usual — but how could anyone, in good conscience, write a romantic lead who’s a werewolf and not try to do their part in spreading the word about the protection of real wolf species?

The following text comes on behalf of http://www.savewolves.org:

As the new head of Defenders of Wildlife’s legal team, I’m getting ready to fly to Missoula, Montana for Monday’s hearing in federal court on our motion to stop the wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana.

Before I leave, I want to personally send my sincere thanks to the more than 27,000 Defenders supporters who have sent emails or called the White House in the last 24 hours and the more than 3,000 people who have supported our legal efforts with emergency donations to the Campaign to Save America’s Wolves.

On Monday, we’ll have just a few hours to convince a federal judge to stop irresponsible wolf hunts in Idaho (scheduled to begin Tuesday!) and Montana (scheduled to start September 15th). Unless we prevail, hundreds of wolves could be killed with many pups left orphaned to starve to death over the cold winter months.

As we prepare for Monday’s fight, Defenders of Wildlife is also mobilizing activists in Idaho and Montana — and across America — to save the lives of these wolves. To succeed, we’ll need your help.

Please make an emergency donation now to help support our efforts to save these wolves and other imperiled animals.

I’m proud of what Defenders of Wildlife has accomplished for America’s wolves over the years.

With the help of caring people like you, Defenders of Wildlife helped lead the fight to restore wolves to the northern Rockies. Since then, our on-the-ground conservation work has been reducing local conflicts between wolves and livestock producers. And, with the help of caring wildlife supporters like you, last year the Defenders legal team and our allies were able to stop the out-of-control killing of wolves in Wyoming and restore vital protections for wolves in that state.

But now we face an even greater challenge as Idaho and Montana gear up to eliminate hundreds of wolves through hunting and other means.

Idaho plans to sell an outrageous 70,000 permits to hunt and kill as many as 220 of the estimated 1,000 wolves in the state, with Montana allowing as many as 75 wolves to be hunted in that state. And that’s just this year!

Under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf delisting rule, Idaho and Montana are free to reduce the wolf population down to 150 per state — potentially killing roughly two-thirds of the wolves in the northern Rockies and Greater Yellowstone region.

The future of wolves in the northern Rockies and Greater Yellowstone may well rest on our actions in the next few days. Please help support our court fight and other efforts to save wolves.

With Gratitude,

Mike Senatore
Vice President, Conservation Law
Defenders of Wildlife

P.S. To support our work on behalf of wolves at this critical time, please make a secure donation online or call 1-800-385-9712 to make a contribution over the phone.

I have seen one wild wolf in my lifetime, and it was an extraordinarily surreal experience.

Now that I think about it, it probably had a lot of impact on my view of them as being almost mythical creatures unto themselves, very ethereal and scary and beautiful.

Growing up, I lived in a suburban subdivision that bordered a nature preserve on one edge and a small area of marshland on the other.

The marshland was very tamed — lots of fallen trees made bridges across the small creek, high schoolers like myself would trek through it to the soccer field to make out, the largest animals I’d ever seen there were some pennytoads.

The forest preserve fence didn’t have any holes in it, so I’d never been there.

However, every once in a great while, someone would see deer tracks across the snow in their backyard in winter, or rumors of a coyote eating neighborhood cats would ripple through the neighborhood.

It was never a big deal.

One gray, foggy morning my Sophomore year of high school, I stood on the corner at the bus stop, waiting for my neighbors Andrew and Paul to arrive, and I noticed something amiss in the dense mist.

Sitting back on its haunches right in the middle of Andrew’s front yard was an enormous gray wolf.

It stood up, circled itself once, and sat back down again in the same spot, docilely watching Andrew’s front door.

And I stood across the street, staring at it through the fog, appreciating nature for the first time in my life.

Andrew hid inside his foyer until he nearly missed the bus, waiting for the wolf to leave his path, trotting out into the backyard instead.  His mother called the Humane Society to pick it up, and for some reason I recall that it wasn’t from the preserve, but was actually MIA from one of Chicago’s zoos.

I’m not certain whether that’s true or a local legend, but either way, the wolf was peaceful and beautiful and I thought about it all that day, even after boarding the bus and leaving the subdivision.

  • Share/Bookmark

August 18, 2009

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

As a byproduct of both my day job and my career as a YA writer, I talk to a lot of high school students.

My favorites are those who have the knowledge that they aren’t yet grown up, and still have time before they have to be, and use that to continue their exploration down the path of “what I want to be when I grow up.”

When I was very little, I wanted to grow up to be a Muppet.  Not a Muppet puppeteer (Muppeteer?), but actually a Muppet myself.  It looked like a lot of fun, and, let’s face it, Kermit the Frog is really the perfect man.

Frog.

Whatever.

I could sing and dance all day, hang out with Kermit, play with Beeker and Rolf, and visit Big Bird and Snuffleupagus at Bird’s nest.  It would really be the perfect life.  Plus, on occasion, I would get to pirate, to 19th Century Christmas classic (yes, I verbed that), and to visit exotic and stereotypical Asian countries or roadside diners, just to shake things up.

When you’re a kid, adults always tell you that “when you grow up, you can be whatever you want to be.”  I took that very literally, and I wanted to be a Muppet.

Soon thereafter, though, I had my heart callously broken when informed that I could grow up to be whatever I wanted so long as I remained a human, and I regrouped by deciding that I wanted to be a writer.  I put most of my energy for the next two decades or so into achieving that goal, and pining over Kermit the Frog, and am now beginning to find some success.

There is absolutely no feeling like it.

That’s why, on Music Mondays, I almost always post links to small, local groups who are just starting out or juuust embarking on their own journeys towards success — I want to help to fuel them, feed them confidence and word of mouth, and showcase just how amazing the fresh generation of talent can be.

I missed posting a Music Monday yesterday.  Instead, today I have the deliriously honest comics of artist Andrew Lorenzi, with whom I went to high school.

Dont Let Me Down

Don't Let Me Down

I was actually in that art period, although not in AP art.  I took “Art I (2-D)” and sat in the front of the room with my india ink pens, drawing copies of Maybelline ads starring Josie Maran or GQ photos of Lindsay Lohan back when she was beautiful.  Kris, who was one of my good friends once upon a time, and Andrew, who I always thought was clever in English class but whom I did not know well, sat in the back corner, covered in neon pastel dust and toting mirrors.

When I left high school, I made a staunch and solemn vow to leave that version of myself completely behind within a year.  Until recently, negative memories of that town and school overshadowed all of the things that I still secretly remembered fondly and knew to have been positive experiences.  I only really keep in touch with four people from the place where I grew up, outside of my family, even though I lived there for eighteen years and had a lot of friends in my Junior and Senior years of high school.

It’s strange to read Andrew’s comics, in a way, because even without naming his memoir’s characters, I can recognize their faces in his panels.  It enhances what I think is the central lovely tone of his work — a sort of bittersweet honesty.  It’s a sad kind of hopeful.

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

Im Trying, Lord Knows Im Trying

I'm Trying, Lord Knows I'm Trying

Readers of Publisher’s Weekly (whose contributing reviewer Shavonne Johnson recently offered some thoughts in Green’s Focus Group) may recognize the last comic:

Do You Think I Sacrificed Real Life?

Do You Think I Sacrificed Real Life?

Bittersweet, hopeful, childlike and intellectual…

Just like high school.

  • Share/Bookmark
Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress