My fiancé stared at me in disbelief and then his face broke into an encouraging smile.

“What? You don’t think I can make our wedding cake?” I asked, miffed at his lack of confidence.

Maybe I wasn’t a trained chef but it’s not like I was self-taught or anything. Jamie Oliver, Emeril Lagasse, and Rachel Ray were some of my closest friends. I’d learned a lot from the Food Network.

For example, did my fiancé know that you don’t add the salt to lentils until the very end or they get tough? I was pretty sure I’d had some tough lentils at his house. Not that I was planning to put lentils in my cake, but if I were…well, I’d know how to do it right.

All I wanted was a simple, delicious, towering white-frosted cake. Sheesh, how hard could it be to stack a few layers on top of each other?

“We’re going to have a lot of people, I told my fiancé a month later, so I think I better make an eight-layer, four tier cake.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“We don’t want to run out!” I said.

“Yes, dear.”

He was learning fast. I knew I was marrying him for a reason.

One day the official cake pans arrived. I’d won them in a bidding war on eBay and I was not disappointed. Shiny and new, no dents, four sizes. Perfecto! Eat your heart out Martha Stewart.

Actually, it was Martha Stewart who saved the day. My neighbor thought my samples tasted fine, but she too was a worrier and picked me up a book called Martha Stewart Weddings. Normal brides use this enormous coffee table book to get ideas before ordering their cake from a real baker. I took it literally when the book said, “follow these instructions and you can’t go wrong”. After all, would Martha lie?

I’d decided on my friend Ed’s famous carrot cake recipe (which I later found out he’d stolen from the New York Times Cookbook), but I practiced with ninety-nine cent chocolate cake mixes and canned frosting.

Confidently I whipped up the batter, filled the pans and popped them in the oven. When they came out, they looked like any cake I’d ever made. Uneven and dome shaped on top. Hmmmm…

“If the layer is uneven, trim it with a bread knife,” suggested Martha.

If you’ve ever cut your own bangs because it seems easier than going downtown, trying to park, and paying a hairdresser full price for a few snips, you’ll know what happened to my cake layers.

If you’ve ever put on a third coat of nail polish before the other two are completely dry, you’ll know what happened when I tried to frost the layers that weren’t quite cool yet.

And if you’ve never done either of those things, well, you must’ve seen that rerun of The Brady Bunch where they build a volcano, right? Imagine a mound of mismatched, misshapen, layers of chocolate goo held together by straws (another MS tip to keep the layers from sliding).

The only place for this embarrassing mass was the garbage. But nooooo….my fiancé wouldn’t hear of that sort of waste. He ate the top layer himself. The rest he insisted on taking to the theater where he worked.

“They’re actors. They’ll be glad to have it,” he said.

“Well, can’t you tell them that you dropped it or something?” I asked. “None of them are going to want to come to the wedding if they see this.”

“They’re coming to the wedding for the beer,” he said. “And I’m not really a very good liar.”

“You’re an ACTOR!”

“But not a liar. You wouldn’t want to marry a liar, would you?”

“Yes! Yes, I would.”

“Sorry.”

I hauled the lump out to the car and placed it on the passenger seat.

“They’ll love it,” he said, kissing me and climbing in, tossing his shoulder bag directly on top of the cake.”

“YES!” I shouted.

The cake probably didn’t look any different but at least he wouldn’t have to lie. As it turned out, the actors’ only comments were, “Cool. We’re gonna have to stop for milk instead of beer on the way home.”

Oh, and for the record, I learned exactly what not to do from that practice cake and my four-layer, eight tier wedding cake turned out beautifully and tasted delicious. The ribbons around the base of each layer were there for decoration. If they just so happened to hide the gaps and the straws, well, I’m sure even Martha fudges on occasion.

The groom has requested that I remove the earlier picture of him eating his words, I mean the cake, and replace it with this romantic picture of “the official kiss”. The other pictures are the groom’s cakes (which I also made, in secret!), and something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. The garter fulfills the first three as it was my mother-in-law’s garter, and the shoes are new, matching my husband’s choice of footwear for the wedding (also a surprise for him!).

If the first five pages of your manuscript are not as good as the first five pages of this book, you better get back to them. This is the first chapter I am going to hold my writing up against from now on.

P.S. I know the whole book is great, even though I had to stop after five pages to write this because I read it years ago when it came out.

I usually don’t write about my personal life too much, but I’m hating that my website isn’t updated all the time like I want it to be, so today I’m going to give you my excuse. We are in the middle of a remodel/overhaul of our house/possessions. We are remodeling, which entails lots of phone calls, purchases, arrangements etc. We are also using this time to pare down and are selling a lot of things we don’t use regularly, like the canoe and the lawn mower (I know you’re wondering how we get away without using the lawn mower…let’s just say we have a very thoughtful neighbor who is often looking for a reason to get out of the house and so he mows everyone’s lawn in the neighborhood! Lucky us!).

Because of this, two things have fallen by the wayside…actually, three…reading, writing, and regularly updating my website. To add a bit more to the mix, my husband has booked himself a whole bunch of gigs over the next few weeks so we’ll be traveling (I get to be CD Girl and sell the CDs), and at the end of September, we are driving to Idaho to get my new writing studio.

Ain’t it cool????

Anyway, I hope to be back on the writing track by October. Wish me luck!

I got this book about fifteen years ago when I took a course from The Institute of Children’s Literature (great course). I’ve hung onto it because I remembered liking it so much. I’m paring down, getting rid of books (if anyone wants this one, drop me a line), so I decided to read it again before I gave it away.

It is a novel that was chosen as an example for the course. I am now having to guess why, as I can’t remember that far back. My educated guess is that it is an excellent example of setting and character development. The plot isn’t that exciting to me and seems a little tired, but it was written 22 years ago, so maybe it was fresh and new then. Probably. Anyway, it’s a worthy read. The character is twelve, and being in third person, I would classify it as Middle Grade, rather than YA.

I know Tuesday is Teen Topic day, but today we’re taking a little detour to music. As anyone who’s perused my website knows, I am married to a singer/songwriter/musician/actor. While he leans towards old-time music now, once upon a time, he made his living as a singer/songwriter under the name of Victor Mecyssne (he took my last name when we married) and his band was called The Ragtops.

Next week, he and his band are doing a reunion gig at the world famous Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. If you’re around, you might want to check it out. Tickets went on sale this morning at The Bluebird Cafe’s website. It is also possible to watch the performance live on the internet, although I haven’t figured out how to do it, from their site, so if you’re not in Nashville, check it out anyway.

To hear a sample of Victor’s music, check out his My Space page. He has a couple of out of town gigs coming up too, so if you’re in Illinois, check those out on his website.

It promises to be a fun evening. Hope to see y’all there!

So, I was all set to write about My Writing/Your Writing, but that’s on Wednesdays. Yesterday I did a Teen Topic which is usually on Tuesdays! As you can see, I’m obviously a day behind. I confess, this is because I was partying. On Sunday we went to a big music party at a friend’s farm, stayed over, and drove home on Monday. I think because you’re supposed to party on Saturdays and drive home on Sundays, I’ve been a little off all week. Now you’ll have to wait for my writing words of wisdom until next week. Which is actually kind of lucky for me because I didn’t really have a good topic, I was just going to wing it.

Instead I will regale you with Fifteen Things You Didn’t Know About Mosquitoes an article by yours truly that I wrote when I was doing a bunch of these pieces for The Tennessean newspaper. I’m not sure how funny you’ll find it, but it is interesting. By the way, we sleep outside every night during the summer, and may I just say that a mosquito net was the best $60 we’ve spent in a long time. They can see you, but they can’t get you! It’s like a one-up on the evil mosquito world. Bwahahaha!!!!

You’re just getting comfortable with your sweetie on the glider, the sun is setting, and the air is finally cooling off. But instead of sweet nothings being whispered in you ear, it’s the unmistakable whiny buzz of your not-so-friendly neighborhood mosquito. Take comfort. You’re not alone. On an average June day mosquitoes bite about 189,907,793,210 times. That’s worldwide. It just felt like it was in your backyard.

1. If you’ve got a slow metabolism and you’re tired of all those skinny people running around saying, “I can eat anything, my metabolism is so high.” you should know the real reason they’re always on the move is because the mosquitoes are after them. Mosquitoes are drawn to the carbon dioxide that humans exhale and the higher your metabolism, the more you emit.
2. So, you’ve put off that camping trip ‘cause you’re afraid of bears? Well, compared to mosquitoes, bears are a walk in the park. Mosquitoes kill more humans each year than any other animal.
3. In the case of the mosquito, it’s the male that loves flowers. The female loves you. Only the females bite (which probably doesn’t make you feel any better). But, hey, can you blame a girl for trying to feed her family? She needs your blood to produce a batch of eggs.
4. Depending on the weather, her stamina, and how many blood meals she can get, the female can just keep laying eggs over and over without even mating again. A female mosquito can lay 3000 eggs in her lifetime.
5. For some lucky people mosquitoes are just small nuisances, for others even a quick little bite turns into a red itchy blotch the size of a half dollar (guess which category this writer falls into?). The swelling and itchiness is your body’s response to the mosquito’s saliva.
6. Most mosquitoes live and feed within one mile of their breeding ground.
7. Citronella candles, incense, and some insect repellents work because they hide the body’s real odor which is one of the things the mosquito is looking for. The reason they don’t work great is because if there’s one thing mosquitoes can do, it’s track you down by smell. Their olfactory sense is up to 10,000 times better than humans.
8. Bats are your friends. One little brown bat can catch around 600 mosquito sized insects each hour! Bats do like a varied diet so they’re eating all the bugs in your yard, not just mosquitoes, but they really can help control the mosquito population. And they’re so cute! Build or buy a bat house and put them to work.
9. Bug zappers are NOT your friends. Unlike most bugs, mosquitoes aren’t drawn to the ultraviolet light. However, the bugs that naturally eat them, like dragon flies are. You’re killing the predators and getting stuck with the mosquitoes.
10. Garlic isn’t just for vampires anymore. When farmers noticed that garlic fields seemed to be mosquito free, a new industry was born. Highly concentrated liquid garlic can be applied to your lawn and shrubs to repel mosquitoes. Mixed with a little oil, it can also be sprayed on standing water to smother the eggs.
11. Deet is by far the most effective biting insect repellent. It’s a synthetic chemical which is essentially a poison that makes the mosquitoes want to dine elsewhere. Concentrations of 30% are recommended for adults, and although higher concentrations are available they can cause dizziness or allergic reactions. Never use products containing more than 10% Deet concentration on children.
12. For those of you who want to avoid the bites and the chemicals, there are lots of natural repellents available. They usually contain natural oils such as lemongrass, Citronella, peppermint, tea tree oil, catnip, and eucalyptus. They’re only as effective as you are diligent though because as soon as the oil evaporates you need another coating (every 10-15 minutes).
13. Why should you care about mosquitoes? They’re just part of summer, right? West Nile Virus has become a real threat in the U.S. The CDC has an excellent website with more information (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/)
14. And now for some good news (assuming you have deep pockets). You might feel like you’re a mosquito magnet, but there actually is a product called a mosquito magnet and that’s exactly what it does. By emitting a steady stream of carbon dioxide, heat, moisture, and octenol, it draws mosquitoes to it. They are then sucked into a net where it traps, dehydrates and kills them. These portable magnets run on propane and cost a bundle but have a reputation for being very effective.

Websites: http://www.mosquitobarrier.com/ www.mosquitoes101.com http://www.batconservation.org/ http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/

As usual, I’m not blogging on the weekend, but I did update Need To Read. It’s worth checking out.

I forayed into adult nonfiction for a change. I think this might be called a memoir. Yeah…that’s where it would be shelved. This is the description on the title page:

Julie and Julia 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living

She did this by making all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking all in one year.

This is an amazing book. I expected it to be only about food and cooking, but it’s more of a good story and a lot of food frustrations. As a cook myself, I was drawn to the idea and searched the internet for my copy of MTAOFC. However, the idea was short lived because vegetarians and Julia Child are about as compatible as beets and peanut-butter.

This is a great read. It’s entertaining and funny as hell, and really, an unusual book. I highly recommend it. I seriously couldn’t put it down, which is not usually the case for me with any thing other than fiction. Get your copy so that Julie Powell can continue to write at home in her pajamas which she likes to do much better than being a secretary.

P.S. If this review isn’t as well done as I usually try to make them, it’s because I’m multi-tasking; listening to the Cubs/Cards game on the internet radio. GO CUBS!!!

Because of the Red Hair article, I have a lot more people stopping by my website these days. I find that kind of ironic since when I first began my website, I came up with all these gorilla marketing techniques and ideas to get people to come by and see what I was doing (gave away free books, author interviews, etc.) and only my best friends stopped by regularly. Like life, it turned out that something entirely different brought me new readers and new writing pals. Anyway, since some of you are new, I just wanted to explain about Thursdays. Generally, I try to tie my blog into writing in some way…my writing, teen topics, writing news, etc. On Thursdays though, I indulge in the personal essay. I mean, what writer out there doesn’t think that they could write a book of essays along the lines of Dave Barry or the late, great Erma Bombeck? Yeah…me too. So once a week, I post the personal essay, one which I hope is funny, and is often about my cats. Today it’s about gas.

I am dating myself when I say that I remember my mother dropping me off at grade school and then getting in line for rationed gas. The line stretched all the way back to the school, which was about seven or eight blocks from the station, and it wasn’t even open yet. Twelve years later though, when I began to drive my own car, there was some sort of (faux) glut and gas prices dropped from over a dollar a gallon to about sixty-nine cents! No one seems to remember this except me and the reason I know it’s true is because I wouldn’t have been able to afford to drive a car if it hadn’t happened. As it was, I always put the cheapest gas in my little ten-year-old-pieced-together-with-duct-tape Toyota Celica, and I never had more than ten bucks to put in it.

I was in college then and I only worked weekends (that was when college seemed expensive, but was actually like shopping at the Dollar Store now), so my paycheck was pitiful. Every Friday I would fill up the tank and it would have to last me until the next Friday. My sophomore year, my grandparents took a trip to Nepal (they survived it too, even though my grandfather’s favorite thing to tell us before he left was that if they died, we wouldn’t be getting their bodies back) and they asked me to live in their house for six weeks. That was a no-brainer! A big house all to myself, my birthday coming up while they were gone, tons of friends! Sign me up. What I didn’t figure into the equation was that they lived a lot further from school than my parents did. That meant, on a fateful Thursday night, after a late movie, I was calling my dad from a payphone to tell him…yep…I’d run out of gas.

Time: Midnight.

“Uh, Dad?”

“What?”

“My car ran out of gas.”

“All life suffers.”

“Dad?”

“Borrow a gas can.”

“They won’t let me.”

BIG SIGH. “Where’re you at?”

I told him. He arrived with a gas can and a lecture. He also told me something I never forgot. If you run out of gas and you let the car sit for about fifteen minutes, it will probably start and get you to a gas station if you’re close to one. This information should’ve come in mighty handy yesterday, but we couldn’t wait.

Unlike those college days, my husband and I can afford gas. Well, as much as the next person anyway. I mean, we do have to sell things off periodically to pay for it…CDs, books, small appliances… We however live in our own little world and don’t always pay attention to the everyday mundane tasks like filling the tank. The first time my husband ran out of gas in our truck he told me it was because the dash lights weren’t working and so he didn’t notice the gauge had dropped. Yesterday, however was bright, sunny, about ninety degrees and it was the middle of the day. We’d run a bunch of errands and were heading for home.

As we started up one of the country hills on the way to our house, the engine started making a funny noise.

“Oh, no!” my husband said.

“What?”

“We’re out of gas.”

I had distinct visions of the engine dying and us rolling back down the hill and into a field. I do think that my husband might’ve handled it better than that if the engine had actually died, but as a writer I find it’s useful to imagine the worst case scenario.

We leaned forward in our seats, edging the truck onwards. After chugging up the last hill in second gear, and rolling down the next one in neutral, we puttered to a stop. We live out in the middle of nowhere, but by sheer luck, there is a gas station about an eighth of a mile from our house. Unfortunately, we were about an eighth of a mile and a hundred feet from our house when we ran out, with the gas pumps in full view.

We were not really in a position to try Dad’s words of wisdom though and wait fifteen minutes because there was no shoulder of the road and there was a lot of traffic. When one driver stopped and asked what was wrong and we said we’d run out of gas, she looked back at the pump and cracked up. Then she drove on. Always happy to provide amusement, we just smiled and waved.

We live in the south though so we weren’t actually too worried. We knew it was only a matter of time before a couple of guys showed up in a battered F150 with a tow rope to pull us those last few feet, so we decided to push while we waited. As it turned out, before they could materialize, a friend of ours pulled up behind us and pushed our truck with hers. You gotta love the south.

By the way, did you know that air conditioning decreases your MPG by about one mile per gallon? Yeah…if only we’d had those windows rolled down while we ran our errands.

Sooooo….it appears I’ve been leaving out a character in my YA books. The school police officer. Call me totally uninformed, but I didn’t know that schools had real police officers in their hallways. I mean, I knew that some inner-city schools had turned to that (a long, long time ago), but yesterday I was reading the paper about a school in the south and they were talking about their shortage of trained police officers for the high school. That just sort of knocked me over. This is a small city school. It’s not the south side of Chicago. Do they really need them? Some of the students interviewed said they do. Gosh, I feel like I’ve been living under a rock or something.

This particular high school has 500 students over capacity. Yes OVER. They are supposed to have 800 students and they have 1300. They don’t have any temporary classrooms, and 15 of their teachers don’t have a permanent teaching spaces, they have to move from room to room all day like the students. They have one police officer for 1300 students. Wow. The need for even one seems like too much to me, but they’d like to have a lot more. I might seriously consider working an officer into my book next time. Have him or her do what I normally have the principal do (catch my characters skipping class!). It might be more realistic.

Are there cops in your school or your child’s school?

  A few months ago, we bought me a writing studio on ebay. This is a picture of it. Unfortunately, it is in Idaho Falls, ID and we’re not. We had to put it in storage until we could go and get it, and I’m happy to say that the day is coming soon. Next month we will go and get it and haul it home.

In the meantime, I’ve had a lovely little office in the house, which I like a lot. Because I am getting this new writing studio though, I won’t need my desk. Over the weekend, we had a big garage sale and I told my husband, “If you sell your desk, you can have mine.” (mine’s a lot nicer than his, not to mention he bought mine for himself and then gave it to me just out of the kindness of his heart!). Well, he sold his desk. Now I am set up on a TV tray surrounded by piles of the stuff that was in my desk drawers. I’m not sure I thought this through very carefully!

At least I finished my WIP last week and I’ve already sent it off to my agent, so I don’t have to write at this TV tray for hours and hours a day or anything. In fact, I’m revising another WIP and I’m only putting in an hour or so a day. I always need to build up to the long days after finishing a time consuming project, so I guess a month at a TV tray will be a good way of ensuring that I don’t fall into my workaholic ways. I can’t help it! I love to write!

What is your writing space like? 

(this guy is supposed to be shrugging his shoulders like, “huh?” but I guess it’s not going to work. Use your imagination!)

I hate it when I get a string of books I don’t like because then not only am I wasting my reading time, but I have nothing to blog about. So, just for the record, I am reading, just not anything I like. Or really, it’s a matter of “get”. I’ll admit that I am not much for abstract art, whether it be a painting, music, or a novel. I’ve been reading this YA which sort of pretends to be a normal book, but at the end of each chapter I’m left thinking, “huh?”. I kept thinking that if I read enough chapters, they’d all suddenly click into place, which sometimes happens. But so far, not so good. I gave it my fifty pages and back to the library it goes. I’m willing to say that it’s just me though. I won’t give you the title, but if you’re any kind of a sleuth at all, and you’re interested, you might be able to track it down by the blurb on the back.

“An oblique, understated book, deserving of high praise.” – The Literary Review

Maybe I’m just not literary enough. Oh, well. Doesn’t bother me much! Besides, I think I do like literary…it’s artsy that baffles me for the most part.

I just read a young adult book that offended me. I’m not easily offended at all and while there are plenty of books out there I don’t like because of the topic or the graphic detail, I generally don’t pass judgment on them based on an author’s choice of language. This one got to me, and for that reason shall remain nameless.

I was in grade school in the seventies and the word on the playground was “retarded”. You remember, if you were there…”God! That’s so retarded.” “You’re such a retard!” “Don’t be retarded!” My parents (thank you, Mum & Dad) were absolutely adamant that we never use that term. It wasn’t like swearing, which could be punished or forgiven (good thing, since both my brother and I became adolescent pros at it). Nope. Using a word like that in a derogatory way was simply unkind and unacceptable and we didn’t do it, not for fear of wrath, but for fear of disappointment. And because they’d instilled in us that it was wrong, like the “n” word, or certain other bits and pieces of slang.

The YA I just read was funny. It had some really, really funny moments. Overall, I didn’t like it anyway, but I can honestly say that even if I’d loved it, I would feel odd recommending it here when the main character refers to people as retards and acting retarded.

So, that’s my rant. What’s yours?

Pre-haircut – Mr. Fatboy with the Fatman

Well, it turns out that if this writing thing doesn’t work for me, I can get a job as a cat hair stylist. As long as you don’t mind if your cat looks like it’s been attacked by a drunk sheep shearer.

I have a lovely manx cat that is fifteen years old. From the time he was little he had haircuts, starting with a Mohawk at eight weeks. He had hot rod flames cut into his furry sides at one time too (I have a picture, but I’d have to find it, scan it, etc. and I’m too lazy). The thing is, I didn’t do this to him. Someone back in our old hometown always did it and made it look so easy. It’s not that easy.

It’s been really hot here. I mean yucky hot. Air conditioning hot and we hate the air conditioner and rarely use it, but it’s been on for a week. The cats have all been spending their time becoming one with the porch. Anyway, Mr. Fatboy (and that’s not a derogatory name, by the way…it’s in reference to the The Fatman, or Buddha), looked particularly hot yesterday and I just thought I’ll run the clippers over him. A half hour later, I was buried knee-deep in cat fur and he looked like he’d been attacked. The lovely thing is that he didn’t mind. He purred the whole time and just looked at me like he couldn’t believe I loved him enough to “pet” him for so long. For a second it was like having a dog instead of a cat. All that adoration.

The fabulous Eileen Cook had this to say in Mr. Fatboy’s defense:

What have you done to Mr. Fatboy! The man has to go out you know. Do you think he wants the other cats to know his MOM cuts his hair?

Send pictures……

I’ve decided not to humiliate him further by getting out the Kodak, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. Today I’m going to try and even it up a bit…famous last words…I think my husband has already made him a hair appointment though. This time with a professional groomer who moonlights as a writer.

Copyright notice: This article is copyrighted Joelle Anthony 2007. If you like this and you want to share, I am thrilled. However, I would prefer that you link to this post or my website as opposed to cutting and pasting it to your blog. If you feel like you really want to cut and paste it, I respectfully request that you take the ENTIRE article and not just the list. Previously, when people have posted just the list, it has been misunderstood as a list of things I’m telling people to never do whereas if you read the whole article you see that that’s not what I’m saying at all. Thanks!

Updated & Expanded – Red Hair’s Not as Uncommon as You Think

by

Joëlle Anthony

“Simple fact: If I don’t read, I don’t write.” – Chris Crutcher, The King of the Mild Frontier.

Three years ago, after reading this quote, I embarked on a self-designed reading program because my writing was stagnant. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined what I would learn. Over the next thirty-six months, I read approximately four hundred young adult novels, with some middle grade and adult fiction thrown in for good measure.

My plan was simple. I primarily stuck to YA because that’s what I write, I looked for books published in the last two to three years so that I could learn where to market my manuscripts, and I kept a record of everything I read.

Before I was very far into the program I began to notice similarities in many YA and MG novels. At first it just made me laugh, but after a while I began to take notes. There may not be any original stories, and nothing may be new, but some things are way overused and here are the ones I’ve run across in my reading.

A countdown of 25 things that show up repeatedly in young adult fiction.

#25 – Vegetarian teens with unsympathetic meat-eating parents

#24 – Shy or withdrawn characters that take refuge in the school’s art room/ compassionate art teachers

#23 – A token black friend among a group of white friends – usually it’s a girl, and she’s always gorgeous

#22 – A tiny scar through the eyebrow, sometimes accompanied by an embarrassing story

# 21 – Using the word ‘rents for parents, but not using any other slang

# 20 – A beautiful best friend who gets all the guys but doesn’t want them

#19 – The wicked stepmother who turns out to be simply misunderstood and it’s all cleared up in the climax

#18 – Authors showing their age by naming characters names they grew up with (i.e. Debbie, Lisa, Kimberly, Alice, Linda, etc.)

#17 – Parents who are professional writers or book illustrators

#16 – Using coffee, cappuccino, and café latte to describe black people’s skin

#15 – Main characters named Hannah and making a note of it being a palindrome

#14 – Younger siblings who are geniuses, adored by everyone, and usually run away during the book’s climax, causing dramatic tension

#13 – The mean-spirited cheerleader (and her gang) as the story’s antagonist

# 12 – A dead mother

# 11 – Heroines who can’t carry a tune, even if it were in a bucket

# 10 – Guys with extraordinarily long eyelashes

# 9 – The popular boy dating the dorky heroine to make his former girlfriend jealous, and then breaking the heroine’s heart

# 8 – The diary, either as the entire format, or the occasional entry

# 7 – Fingernail biting

# 6 – Characters who chew on their lip or tongue in times of stress – usually until they taste blood

# 5 – Raising one eyebrow

# 4 – Main characters who want to be writers

# 3 – Calling parents by their first names

# 2 – Best friends with red hair*

And the number one thing found in YA novels…

#1 – Lists

This was not a scientific study by any means, but if you have used any of these things in your manuscripts, think long and hard about how important they are to the story because you may want to cut or change them now. Stretch your imagination, make your characters’ career choices different than what you “know”, find new ways to show emotion, and read, read, read. Besides being fun, the best part of all that reading is it will make your writing stronger.

*While lists rule in teen fiction, red-haired best friends are amazingly predominant in both MG and YA, and certainly gave “lists” a run for its money. It might be an easy way to quickly identify a secondary character, but it’s a lot more common in books than red hair actually is!

October 28, 2009 – I have added a bit of an update here.

© Joëlle Anthony, 2007

Originally published in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Bulletin, July/Aug. 2007

In case you’re interested, all of these websites are talking about the Red Hair article. Some are just links back to here, but a couple of them are having great discussions about race and the last one’s about redheads.

http://gwendabond.typepad.com/bondgirl/2007/08/fun-with-cliche.html

http://www.beneaththecover.com/

http://sarahmillerbooks.blogspot.com/

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379.html

http://writingya.blogspot.com/2007/08/he-peered-coyly-through-extraordinarily.html

http://www.buzztracker.com/permalink/16020/40279833/The-20-Most-Overused-Things-in-MG–YA-Fiction.

http://thegreatmissjj.livejournal.com/291422.html

http://www.yafantasy.com:80/

So, this morning, I came across this article about red heads being discriminated against in England, just because they have red hair. To be honest, even though I lived there, I never knew that. For years I was a red head by choice, although, my coloring left most people thinking it was natural. I love red hair!

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the emails I’ve been getting about my piece in the SCBWI bulletin. I’ve now added a link at the top of the page to the updated version of the article (I’d ditched one or two items and replaced them, but the edit never made it into the bulletin) above this post, in the header. Feel free to print it out and share, or send people here, just keep my name on it if you will. Thanks!

Oh, yeah, and speaking of red heads, according to the article, only 2-5% of the babies born in the US have red hair. They can’t all grow up to be pals with your main character!

Yesterday, I read this post on another writer’s live journal. It got me thinking about teens and how they are often targeted for harassment in public places. If too many of them are hanging out together, people start giving them dirty looks. If they shop as a group, they’re automatically labeled shoplifters. If they dye their hair a strange color, then they obviously up to no good.

When I was a teen, I had streaks in my hair, blue lipstick, purple eyebrows, and wore long underwear with skirts (hey, it was the eighties and the “new wave” look was the predecessor to those leggings y’all are wasting your money on then and now!). My parents decided it was a phase. And even though I thought I knew everything then, turns out they were right. My hair’s a normal shade now, and has been for about twenty years, I wear long underwear under my clothes now, and blue lipstick? Not so much. The thing is, people are generally morally formed by their teens, so I’m the same nice person I was then.

It makes me mad to hear a story like this. And I’m glad the mother complained and raised a little hell, because the store clerk didn’t even act within the law. You can’t detain and question a minor without a parent or at least a police officer (at least that’s what they told us when I worked in retail).

Were you harassed as a teen? What about now if you are a teen? How do you combat it? I chose to open doors for people and give my seat to little old ladies on the bus.

#2 – Best friends with red hair

Hi, Everyone.

My article, Red Hair Is Not As Uncommon As You Think just came out in the new Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators newsletter. I’m not sure exactly at what point I can post it on my site, but if you’re not a member and you want to read it, drop me a line and I’ll email it to you.

The piece is a countdown of the twenty things that I have found over and over again in middle grade and young adult fiction. The reason I’m writing about it here is because several writers have gone to the effort of contacting me about it. They thought it was helpful. How cool is that? These are writers I’ve never even met! Ain’t writing grand? Aren’t writers nice? I love this biz.

Oh, and by the way, if you are a writer and you’ve never considered writing for SCBWI, I suggest you look into it. They pay you a small amount, give you a year’s membership and you never know who will read it. When I was looking for an agent, one who was considering me emailed to say how much she liked the piece I had in that current issue. I’ve also had an editor that I’m friendly with comment on a piece I’ve written. And I’ve made a few friends as well. So write away!

P.S. I’ve updated Need To Read some too lately.

I’ve never much liked the idea that there is an American version of Harry Potter. Are you seriously telling me that kids can’t figure out from context (or even a glossary) that a jumper is a sweater? Or a dressing gown is a bathrobe? Or a pot plant is what we call a potted plant? And if it’s so important to have these changes, why did they skip the one where Rowling refers to Ron’s nose as a pecker? Did they just miss it? Was someone having a laugh by letting it through?

Anyway, because I prefer to read it the way she wrote it, I have made it a habit to order the British version from the UK. This time, I was traveling on the day HP was released, so I did buy the American version and read that first. Then I sold it on ebay. My British version arrived last week and my plan was to read it again, but more slowly. I started on Saturday afternoon, spent all day yesterday laying around reading it, and finished it off this morning. I definitely read it slower, and I did pick up more things, some that explained a few things I’d sort of zoomed over, but what I found surprising is that it kept me just as engaged as the first time and I couldn’t put it down this time either. How many books that you just read two weeks ago can you say that about?

I finished a couple of hours ago and you know, I feel kind of sad that it’s all over. I don’t see any reason for Rowling to write any more HP books, but I wouldn’t mind if she wrote about Hogwarts again. It might be kind of cool if she wrote about Hogwarts a long time ago, maybe when it was first starting. One can hope!

Will you miss Hogwarts?

Hi, All.

The fabulous writer, Barry Lyga sent me the following info and I thought I’d pass it on to y’all.

cheers, Joelle

From Barry: Hi, all! I’m conducting some fun contests on Fanboyandgothgirl.com
cast the movie, pick the book’s playlist… Even an art contest that
will net one lucky winner an iPod! Details are all on the site.

Oh, and Boy Toy is apparently in stores.

Hope summer is treating everyone well
…
–
Josh Mendel has a secret. Unfortunately, everyone knows what it is.
“shocking and devastating and brilliant” — Jennifer Laughram, Not
Your Mother’s Book Club
BOY TOY — in stores now!
barrylyga.com/boytoy

As a friend, I like to support my friends and their kids. As a writer, I like to go places I would never think to go and take notes. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to do both. My husband and I went to a youth agricultural show where our friends’ daughter, Mary Katharine was showing her lamb, Screamer, who she’d raised from birth on a bottle. There are several categories to showing lambs, including one that vegetarians like me don’t want to think about (i.e. identifying cuts of meat). Yesterday’s competition was for Showmanship. I think. It was a little hard to understand exactly what was going on. It was very hot and dusty and the announcers sounded like they were the adults from the Charlie Brown specials (bwabwabwabwabwa…bwabwabwabwa), so I’m not sure I’ve got all my facts straight.

Oh, and I guess I should back up and say that Mary Katharine’s sister, Hannah also helped raise Screamer (I gave him some bottled milk last spring too which is why he looked so good. Oh, right, my husband says I had nothing to do with it and I can’t take credit here). Only one person could show him though, and you had to be in at least fourth grade, so Mary Katharine represented them both.

If you’ve never been to a lamb showing, it’s quite an experience. The kids walk their lambs out into a small arena by holding onto their heads and leading them (no ropes!). The idea is to get your lamb to walk right along with you and behave, and then to stand in a showmanship like pose while the judge walks up and down, feeling the lamb’s back and asking the kid questions. Well, let me tell you, lambs are not dogs. They are more like my husband, they don’t want to be told what to do. There were lambs jumping and little kids wrestling them down, there was an escapee or two, there was a lot of bleating and a fair amount of ummmm…let’s just say pellets.

Because there are a lot of kids interested in showing lambs, there were not only three arenas, but many heats (a very appropriate word since it was about a hundred degrees in there…okay, maybe ninety) and Mary Katharine’s heat was the very last one. She led Screamer out and he walked along with her like he had nowhere else he’d rather be than walking along next to his mama. He stood in line, still and perfect, and while all the other kids were fighting with their lambs to get them to put their back feet out, he would just put his out automatically (we learned later that MK had taught him to do that when she tapped his legs!). She easily won a first place ribbon in her heat, despite the fact that the lamb next to her got away several times which can be distracting to your lamb, but wasn’t to Screamer. After that it was on to the big time. The finals!

It’s all very exciting in a slow, hot summer day down south way. And just to add to the tension, a horrendous thunder and lightning storm started, pounding rain on the metal roof and thunder cracking through the arena. The kids walk their lambs out, line up, the judge walks down the row, then he has them walk them to the other side of the arena. After that, he looks at them very intently, furrowing his brow and rubbing his chin and then he POINTS at one and the poor kid is basically “out” and has to walk his lamb back to the other side and wait. This goes on and on until the last kid, yes, Mary Katharine, is standing there with their lamb. I think the very best part of watching Mary Katharine and Screamer was the always-present smile on their faces. Okay, Screamer didn’t smile, and we found out later that he hadn’t gotten his afternoon nap and one of the reasons he was so calm is because he was dozing off while he was standing there, but it was just really a fun thing to watch. And now, should I need to write about a lamb showing, I can!

Congratulations, Mary Katharine, Hannah and Screamer!

No…that is not the title of the book I just finished. That is my state of mind. The book shall remain anonymous, but the rant cannot be held in any longer.

Where to start. Okay, first I’ll begin with the fact that this book is hilarious, the characters are strong, the voices are great, the dialogue is snappy, and the author switches back and forth (not on a regular schedule, but as needed) between the female and the male character quite adeptly. So why am I not telling you what it is or where to get this fabulous book?

Coincidence.

We’ve all read books full of coincidence, right? Sometimes you buy it, sometimes you don’t, but when the entire plot hinges on a a HUGE, MASSIVE, UNEXPLAINABLE coincidence, how am I supposed to love your book, no matter how well it’s written? And as if one coincidence isn’t bad enough, why not throw in another fairly large one for good measure? I just wonder how in the world the writer got these past the editor?

What happened was I spent a lot of non-reading time trying to rethink how she could’ve made it work, told the same story, without the coincidence and the only way would be to make the male character actually worse than he is, but then his redemption would be even sweeter at the end, so why not?

For example: Plot A happens and Plot B happens and you just can’t buy that they both happened. However, if Plot B happened BECAUSE Plot A happened (I’m thinking revenge), then the book works almost exactly the same and no one has to buy any bridges in Brooklyn. If I thought of this in just one afternoon, why couldn’t the author????

And since I’m on a rant, I’ll just go ahead and tell you what else made me insane. The two characters are on a road trip. They drive the same vehicle throughout the novel. They do not have any engine trouble. In the book, the characters refer to the vehicle as a Trailblazer, a truck, and a car. It has a truck bed as well as a back seat. Ooooookaaay…But this is the really baffling part. On the cover of the book, they are parked on the side of the road and the two characters are standing around a sports car. Yes, a sports car. With the hood up. As if they are having car trouble! Huh?

And my last little bit of rant is the Three’s Company Rant. AKA, lack of information to cause confusion and anger. If a guy wants to win his girl back, and he did something really stupid, would he just say, “I wasn’t thinking.” or would he lay it out on the line? Especially if he had a really, really good reason for doing what he did, it just didn’t turn out to be the smartest move he ever made. Yes, I know, eighteen year old guys are not big on communication, but this character was smart and funny and articulate, so why wasn’t he at the end of the book? Why not just say, “I did X because I thought X and it seemed like a good idea at the time.” instead of just saying he’s sorry. There was NO REASON why a reasonable girl wouldn’t have forgiven him if he’d explained.

Anyway, you’d never know from this post that while I was horribly frustrated, I tore through this book because it was funny and entertaining on a lot of levels. Good secondary characters too. Oh, well…my consolation is that I’ll try another one of this author’s books and hopefully it won’t drive me to insanity too.

Yesterday I printed out the almost final draft of my new book. It is tentatively called POPULAR BY ASSOCIATION. That’s how it will go to my agent anyway. I’ve learned a bit about titles lately though. My agent’s assistant contacted me last week to ask if I minded if we changed the fabulous (I’m the one who thinks it’s fabulous) title I had chosen for my first book which will go out sometime in the near future. I said okay because I’m easy to work with. Also, she assured me that once I have an editor I might be able to suggest the fabulous title then. We did come up with one I really like though, so it’s all good.
Things to remember when choosing a title:

1. Quirky is fun, but clever or wordplay can backfire by being distracting.

2. KISS – Keep It Simple Sweetie

3. Hard to say or hard to remember doesn’t help you, even if it is very, very clever/funny.

4. (I learned this on my own earlier) Imagine people asking you the name of your book…say it out loud…how does it sound? Or better yet, don’t imagine it, actually do it. I had what I thought was a fabulous title for one book and every time I told people what it was, they’d say, “Huh? What was it again?” On paper it looked great, but verbally it sucked. You’re going to say it a lot, so make sure it’s something that you enjoy saying and don’t have to spell out or explain.

5. Think about possible reviews and how they can slam you by making a play on your words. For example, I had a book called NOT SO GREAT EXPECTATIONS. It was clever and appropriate because the character didn’t expect anything to work out in her life AND the book GREAT EXPECTATIONS was a running theme throughout my novel. However, when I got a rejection from an editor and she referred to the book’s title in her letter as “NOT SO GREAT”, I began to see the headlines for nasty reviews! That title was changed quickly.

Are you good at picking titles? If not, how do you come up with one?

P.S. I’ve heard (although I haven’t seen it yet) that my article Red Hair is not as Uncommon as You Think – Twenty things that show up in YA over and over again is in the new SCBWI bulletin. Check it out and tell me what you think!