A side note: Our small town library has subscribed to a lease service where they are shipped new books every few months and then they ship them back after a set period of time and get more new books. This is ideal for small libraries who don’t have shelf space, the resources to buy many books, and someone to review them first. However, although I’m grateful to be able to get new books, I do have some reservations about this program. It’s a little too much like how the record business has taken over the radio stations. But that’s another post. The point of this side note is that even if a book is clearly mis-categorized, the library can’t do anything about it because the leasing service is in charge. I know this because I once read a “YA” that I was sure was MG, and I after checking around found it was indeed in MG in other libraries, but when I brought it to the librarian’s attention, I was told they couldn’t change it.

Okay, back to MCFM. 
Hilarious. 
Funny. 
Wonderfully written. 
Silly. 
Creative. 
Can I say more? 
Probably. 
I will say this, if you’re a kid, you’ll love its humor. If you’re an adult, you’ll find even more to laugh at. Curtis has packed this book with adult humor (not dirty, I mean references adults will get) and lots of music history, even though it’s set right now. The characters, as always, are well drawn, distinctive, and well… hilarious. And the best part is, although I couldn’t find it anywhere, I believe this is going to be a series. And a popular one at that. It’s Encylopedia Brown meets the contemporary, complicated world and goes silly. Boys, girls, adults, everyone will love this book.

Also, in my desire to attend culinary boot camp, I found a school in England called Cordon Vert (Cordon Green for those who don’t speak French). A vegetarian culinary school with a cool name. I love it. It’s on my list of things to do in the next few years. It’s funny, I always took “write what you know” literally before and never wrote anything I had to research. Now I’m expanding and discovering all kinds of new things, not just for my writing, but for me.

And now for the tiny rant…
Why do publishers insist on an SASE in their guidelines, and then use their own envelopes and postage when they answer you? I got another one yesterday! This is not the first time either. I’ve had entire manuscripts returned at a publisher’s expense with my SASE tucked inside, which is not nearly as annoying as having the entire manuscript returned without the SASE, but still… 

I usually only include a letter-sized SASE and give them permission to recycle the manuscript, but I’ve had them return 250 pages at their cost anyway. Weird. Okay…done with the rant. Sort of…

At least when they do that, I stand there reading the letter (because I never actually get all the way into the house from the mailbox before I open it) and instead of worrying about the rejection, I am wondering about their postage budget. Just think, they could probably publish another book per year (mine!) if they cut out the free postage. 

Read well and often…

Well, I had originally intended to only write about books I’d actually finished reading, but Will Weaver’s FULL SERVICE got me thinking. Set in a small town in MN in 1965, is all I’m really going to tell you though. I’m about half way through. What interests me is that it is what you might call one of those “quiet” books. I mean, in a way, so far, nothing much has happened and there’s no clear driving force goal for the main character, and yet, everything is happening… life is happening. Hard to explain without resorting to the cliche “slice of life”, but that pretty much describes it.

So many books seem to be set in either Small Town America, or a nondescript city, or NYC. STA books are so often about going against the grain of the town or a coming of age story which leads me, as a writer, to what I find so fascinating. How are authors able to pull this off again and again? Because they do. We’ve all read Kimberly Willis Holt who writes like this too. And many, many others. I was hooked from page one of FULL SERVICE and although I might not label it a “page turner” it’s always playing in the back of my mind when I’m not reading, but why? In a way, the writing is as sleepy as the town.

I found Jenny Han’s SHUG to be much the same. And I read it in two sittings in one day. So if there isn’t that BIG goal that the character’s are reaching for, where is the drama? The tension? The villain? The stuff they tell us in every writing workshop that we’ve gotta have? And guess what? I have no idea.

Part of the magic of these books is definitely the writer’s adeptness at their craft. The outstandingly developed characters, metaphors, the language, the way of evoking every sense in the reader, but is that enough? Apparently. 

And lastly, I wonder about the audience for quiet books. Who is it? Adults? Writers? Librarians? But what about teens? When I was 12, I would’ve loved SHUG, and I know a few kids who would like both of them now, but overall, are kids reading these books? If you know, please post. I tend to wonder…FULL SERVICE is about cars, girls, growing up and stars a male main character, but would a 14 year old girl be interested? What about a boy? Are we writing for ourselves or kids? Ahhh…a different post, I do believe!

Have a great weekend.

Start anywhere and don’t stop. – Richard Marcus

Anyway, this live journal is going to be primarily about what I’m reading. I am a writer, it’s true, and sometimes I will pontificate on how what I’m reading affects me as a writer, but for the most part, I just want to post about some of the wonderful stuff I come across.

Generally this journal will be about Young Adult fiction. Occasionally I read a Middle Grade novel, and once in a while an adult novel or some nonfiction, but mostly I read YA. About eighteen months ago, in an effort to improve my writing (which it did tremendously, but I’ll talk about that later), I began to read seriously. I have read upwards of 250 books, of which about ninety percent of them were YA.

I believe in speaking well of others, so this will not be a bunch of book reviews where I take books apart or rip into others’ works. Instead, I will talk about books I like, love, or change my way of thinking. Books that introduce me to new thought processes, language, setting, anything that catches my attention. If I don’t like a book, I won’t write about it because truly, who am I to judge? It is more than a do-gooder life, worries about professional repercussions or the need to be liked, but about the desire to spread joy rather than tear down someone or their work.

If a book really bugs me for a particular reason, I might talk about it in general terms. For example, I just read a book that ended fine, but I found myself rewriting the ending over and over because it seemed as if the author was so intent on being “true” that they missed “writing a satisfying ending”. I’m not talking about a happy ending, just a satisfying ending. I might write about something like that, but not mention the book’s title.

If any of this interests anyone, well, here it is. If not, there are lots of great journals to read out there. Once I figure out how it all works, I will add things and try to make it more interesting visually as well. I hope that if you’re here reading this that you’ll come back while I experiment and discover what this is all about.