Nearest Book

You may have seen this game before, I first encountered it on Facebook. A quick search on the net shows it on countless blogs, too. But I love it and wanna play.

You game?

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (in a comment)
* Don't dig for your favourite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Here's mine from Dead is a State of Mind by Marlene Perez (the entire series ROCKS btw):

"Not half as much as I owe you, but I'm curious - what do you want a San Carlos yearbook for?" she said.

Not bad, hints at something suspect and has a location. Cool. Almost makes me want to zoop up my own Page 56 before Under My Skin goes to print...lol.

Okay - let's see what kind of wacky, deep or highly puzzling sentences are out there in YOUR nearest book.

Working 9 to 5: How To Stay on Schedule

Whether you’re a professional writer, trying to get published, or even a hobbyist it’s important to give yourself a schedule/deadline. It’s easy to tell yourself, “Yeah, I’ll get to chapter 18 after this episode of ____,” or “Before work, I’ll definitely get to those rewrites,” but never actually sit your butt in the chair and do it. I used to be that person. Sure, I wrote, but it took me twice as long to reach my goal. Daily life, both my professional and social, seemed to always get in the way.

By keeping track, either with word count, page count or by chapter, you can keep yourself honest. The key to a good schedule is to make it challenging, yet realistic. If you don’t think you can write a chapter every day, or even every week, don’t schedule at such a fast pace. You’ll only disappoint yourself and get so frustrated in the end you never get anything accomplished.

Currently, I’ve been working at finishing one chapter in two days. To be honest, it’s a faster paced schedule than I would normally tackle, but fits with my work in progress. I wanted everything fresh in my mind, keeping the story fluid so that I wouldn’t have weird gaps or forget how my characters felt from chapter to chapter.

So, how do I keep track of my schedule? I’ve used many ways. Excel seems to work if you are going to go the word count route. I’ve been using iCal recently to track of my chapters. So far, it seems to be working. I haven’t been too stressed out about it; yet know if I don’t finish half of a chapter one day, I have to write the whole thing the next. It keeps me focused and on my toes.

Here’s the great part…the reward. I’ve talked with quite a few writers that give themselves rewards when hitting schedule goals. It could be as simple as watching an episode of your favorite TV Show, a cookie or even a song downloaded from iTunes. Whatever makes your heart flutter; it’s a way for patting yourself on the back and telling yourself “GREAT JOB!”

So, do you keep a schedule? If so, what’s your favorite method of keeping track and when you hit your goals, do you reward yourself? We’d love to hear from you!

Critique Partners--The Many Faces

I firmly believe that any writer should have at least one critique partner. Or more. In the case of Critique Partners, more is always better.

Good Critique Partners are like unicorns--rare, magical, with superpowers that will shock you.

No, really, it's true. If you can find a Crit Partner who you click with, who gets your writing, but who is also willing to be brutal at times when you are totally sucking, you are in Magical Unicorn Territory.

There are many different kinds of Crit Partners, and today, I am going to outline (and acknowledge the awesomness) of all of mine.

First up, of course, is the Crit Group I belong to, YA Edge, which this blog is an offshoot of. Tami, Tracy, Kitty and I crit each other on a chapter by chapter basis. Once a week, I'll get three wonderful critiques about whatever chapter I posted. What's really interesting about Crit Groups is they kind of evolve. In the beginning, when we didn't know each other very well, we were super polite about criticism and rarely would modify the actual language of the author, but rather give suggestions. But as we all got to know each other, become friends and become more familiar with writing styles, we got a lot less polite and way more involved. Nowadays I know that when I open a crit from one of them, there will be a ton of corrections and suggestions and comments, but I also know that most of that red is making my book SO MUCH BETTER. 

Second up is J, my crit partner who critiques my books as a whole (as I do hers). She doesn't get the book until at least the second draft. J is amazing and insightful, she always gives incredible suggestions on my heavy emotional scenes and is never afraid of telling me when the writing is getting too dramatic. 

Thirdly is A, who I've known since I was 12 and who has a ton of very embarrasing stories about me and my teenaged writing. Because I write out of order, A is the person who gets my books first in pieces through IM. Usually I have to give her a quick back-story to the scene, and then she reads it. Usually I accompany the scene with a question like "Is this too sappy?" or "Am I pushing a line here?" A will read the scene, answer my questions and give suggestions to make it better. A's quick saves and willingness to spend months reading bits and pieces of a book, not to mention listening to me talk about my characters  like they are real people make the writing process so much easier to handle.

Fourthly is MOMRA! aka the woman who gave birth to me in a cabin in the woods, aka my very cool Mom. MOMRA! is a journalist and copyeditor and takes great delight in scattering my manuscripts with RNA (Romance Novel Alerts). She is the Queen of Cutting Sap, Empress of the Rolled Eye and Princess of Correcting The Comma Splice. My mom gets the book before it goes out to agents. Usually this is the time where I have had every other Crit Partner go through the book and I've incorporated all their comments. I'm feeling pretty good about the book. And then MOMRA! shows me the errors of my ways and I end up rewriting the book two more times until I'm sick of it. It's a pretty hilarious process. We get into heated arguments over character choice and she writes increasingly irritated notes to me about how she taught me all this grammar, how can I not remember any of it?

There are many different kind of Crit Partners--what's important to keep in mind is that when you have a bunch of really great ones, ALWAYS AT LEAST LISTEN TO THEIR ADVICE. Sometimes they will save you from yourself. 

Author Website or Free Social Networking Tools?

Um – why not both?

I just invested in a domain name for my pen name, Judith Graves. I haven’t quite got my official website up yet, but will in the very near future. I decided the clean look of a domain like www.judithgraves.com is just so much easier to market than a lengthy Myspace or Facebook URL.

In a few months I should have a booktrailer completed for Under My Skin, thanks to Madison at M2 Productions. After viewing other trailers, I cringed at the thought of plastering a ton of URLs at the end of mine, when a single domain will do. From my official site I can direct visitors to the freebees of Myspace and others.

When it comes to promoting your writing, it is convenient (and damn fun) to use free sources, but it is still important to have a domain name and official website for marketing purposes. Myspace and Facebook pages can be hacked and altered, these sites could shut down, or become obsolete. For $15 a year, I think the stability of a domain is worth it.

So – do you have an official website?

Is It Just Me?

In the past few weeks, I've been very busy working to finish and edit, Lost and Found. During this time, I've realized a few things about myself, and most are not flattering. This post isn't about writing today, but I thought I would share, only in hope you would comment and tell me I'm not as unfit to take care of others or myself as I feel.

During the holidays, I had 11 days off from work. I tried to stay busy writing and relaxing. My husband and I had a chance to take a trip to Las Vegas to unwind. Man, do I love Vegas. I realize now, during those 11 days off, why I do not have children, nor am I fit to take care of my two cats or myself...kinda. Below are the things that opened my eyes to the fact:

• Looking at my Christmas list (yes, I still make a list) and the gifts I received, they resembled Christmas for a 16 year old, not a 29 year old. It included 2 CDs, a video game (Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii. This game freaking rocks! Any AC fans out there?), three books (two of them YA books), an external 250 gig hard drive (for my iTunes library), a package of 2 new iSkins Slims (I love these...I have the Claro case for my iPod Classic and it works fab if you're in the market for something like this), a slipcase for my new Macbook and a Moleskine journal (if you haven't tried a Moleskine and you're as addicted to journals/notebooks as I am, it's a must).
• I run home every night, despite my busy schedule, to play Animal Crossing so I can water my turnip. I mean, come on, it's worth 16,000 bells!
• While in Vegas, I bought a few things: An Uglydoll, a Harry Potter beanie (toque to our Canadian friends) and a new pair of Converse that are white with small black polka dots and red ladybugs.
• One of the hotel rooms we stayed in while in Vegas had two bathrooms. Yes, that's right...TWO BATHROOMS. My husband and I used both at the same time...just because we could. I had a huge urge to jump on the bed and do cartwheels in the center of the floor, giggling the whole time.
• I had a candle burning on the coffee table the other day. One of the cats, always curious, went up to smell it and got too close. She proceeded to singe an eyebrow off and is now lopsided. I don't know if this makes me a really bad kitty parent, or makes her a really stupid cat. Sadly, she's the smart one out of our two "kids".
• I don't think I took a shower/changed out of my pjs before noon the whole time I was off of work.
• When I looked in my refrigerator on Christmas, I realized we still had a turkey leg stuck in the back from Thanksgiving. It was really sad looking...and gray.

So, please share and make me feel normal! Am I still a 16 year old living in a 29 year old's body?

Writing Spaces, Memories and Inspiration

A lot of writers can tell you off the top of their head the person or people who really got them started writing. Sometimes it's a relative, another writer, a friend, some sort of profound experience.

For me, like many wonderful things in my life, it all comes back to my Grandmother.

For the past few weeks, I've been moving into her former home. At first, I thought it was going to be a depressing thing--filling the shelves with my books and movies mixed with hers, cooking in the kitchen where I learned how to cook, watching movies in the space where I learned how to act, feeding her ancient cats who yowl at me and try to sleep on top of my head. 

But as every shelf got filled, the ache in my heart lessened just a little. And when I finally settled my stuff down and set my desk up in the room where she opened my eyes up to the beauty of words, the room where she gave me my first bit of writing advice at age 6 (always start a book with an attention grabbing first sentence. You have to suck the reader in immediately), I felt greatly comforted. 

It's weird, how places can inspire you and drive you and make you remember things that you have forgotten.

So now I write in a living room that was once a sort of class room for me. A room that shaped my life and my dreams. A room that truly does hold the best memories of my life and I find the space incredibly inspiring and motivating. With the books on the shelves, hers mixed with mine, and the familiar yowl of her cats, I can believe, for a moment, that's she's beside me. And she's probably laughing about the enormous plot hole that I can't figure out how to fill. 

Character Actions: How Do Your Characters Score?

One of the most challenging aspects of writing is keeping it fresh – especially in terms of character actions during dialogue, etc. In a first draft, my stuff is filled with characters crossing their arms, raising eyebrows, rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. Nothing wrong with these actions, but if they are all you can produce – your readers will get bored and your characters will be flat, flat, flat.

This weekend I accompanied my basketball coach husband and his grade 9-10 team on a tournament outside of Calgary – a six hour bus trip there AND back. It was fun. The guys were big goofs and I took the opportunity to do what any YA fiction writer – without kids of her own - would do – I took notes.

During the weekend I watched how the kids interacted, how they made fun of each other, helped each other, and how they moved through the world. I now have pages of “teen” actions to choose from – some are unusual, some are funny and some are even a bit sad. And yes, I did see the crossed arms, rolling eyes, sure I did – and that’s why I’m not saying you should cut every single one, but put your observational skills to work and find some nifty body language. It’s out there.

On a scale of 1 (total clicheville) to 10 (original/quirky) how do your character's actions score?