Megan Lentz - Page 15

Sep 19

Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan is an alternate history steam punk mg book, and I loved every minute of it.

Setting the Scene

The book takes place in Europe at the start of WWI. In fact, the book begins with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the spark that ignited the war. It then follows Alex, the fictional son of the archduke as he flees, running for his life to escape sharing the fate of his parents. Meanwhile, Deryn, a Scottish girl in England, disguises herself as a boy named Dylan in order to join the British air force.

Usually when a book is split between two main characters, following one for a couple chapters than another for the a couple more chapters, I find myself not caring much about what is going on with one of the characters. I just want to get back to the character I am relating to. In this book, though, I found both MCs to be equally engaging. I found both voices to be incredibly engaging and while I was upset when each character’s section ended, I was quickly wrapped back up in the story of the other character.

Great Use of Voice

And that brings me to the next thing I loved. The individual voices. I felt that Westerfeld was incredibly successful in creating two distinct voices. There was never a doubt in my mind as to which POV I was following. I have read a lot of literature urging authors not to split the POV, but if all authors were able to do it with the ease in which Westerfeld accomplished this, I think it would not be seen as such taboo.

My one complaint is that the book ends before the story is over, being a trilogy and all. But, for anyone thinking of picking the book up, which I highly recommend, the sequel, Behemoth, is coming out Oct. 5, so there won’t be much of a wait.

Sep 17

I’m feeling lost. The ending is so close. I know what it is, but I cannot decide which path to take to get there. I know I need to just suck it up and write something, anything, so I can finish the first draft and then hammer out the details that either do or don’t work in the edits to follow, but I’m lost.

Part of the problem is my writing schedule does not coincide with my ideas schedule. Every morning I bike to work. I leave early enough that there’s no traffic or noise. It’s peaceful. And in this peace, I develop these wonderful ideas. I get to work and try so hard to keep them all in tact. By the time lunch rolls around and I go to pen them in, they’ve flown away.

The other part of the problem is the evolution of the story. It has been on-going for so long, there are plot elements that I want to hold on to despite the fact that they don’t really fit with the story anymore. But it’s more than that. I’ve had too much time to let the ideas simmer. Some simmering is good. Too much can become toxic. And now I cannot commit and I grow more and more lost as I try to work through the maze that has become my WIP.

This morning I forced myself to get up early and write. I told myself I was not allowed to think about all the problems, about all the possible things that could happen leading up to the end. I just needed to sit and write whatever logically followed the sentence before it. And you know what? I’m still lost, but I at least feel like I recognize my surroundings, like I can find my way out. Taking the time to sit down and write left me feeling refreshed. Even when you feel lost, just write. You will feel so much better getting it all out of your head. I know I do.

Sep 15

If you didn’t guess from the title, I’m in New York for the week. Sadly I’m here for work, not pleasure, but being a work trip and all, at least it’s a free trip. As a writer, you can never go wrong with free things.

New York is Where it’s at

I’ve read a lot of things recently, including an article in the newest Writer’s Digest, that New York is the place to be for writers. Of course, the plethora of publishing houses in New York is a big contributor is this notion, but walking around the city, I stumbled upon something else. New York is a great place for writers because there are so many characters. You step onto the street and you are surrounded by people from every walk of life. Not only that, but the ‘settings’ are equally as varied. Example: last night I ate dinner in an authentic southern BBQ place. Tonight I went to a very French fondue restaurant. In both cases, I felt like I had been transported out of New York to a southern town and a Paris restaurant respectively. Not only did the food leave me feeling this way, but the decor and overall ambiance also contributed. What better inspiration could you want?

Of course, that being said, when the Internet in my hotel was down for several hours today, I took a walk and then watched t.v. instead of writing. But that’s an entirely different issue.

Sep 13

I’m fickle. There, I’ve admitted it. I’ve come clean. Of course, I am sure readers of this blog have already surmised this by the simple fact that I cannot seem to stick to a theme. For those of you not up to speed with the technology lingo, that means the background and overall design of my blog. But my fickleness translates itself into other aspects of my life as well. Most importantly, into my writing.

I’m a fickle writer. I can’t make up my mind about anything. It’s really a big problem. I can’t even make up my mind about which concepts to follow, let alone which paths to take once I’ve started working on something.

This is probably also the time to mention that, with the exception of undergrad and grad school, I’ve never finished anything. I mean, ANYTHING. I’ve never even beaten a video game. I stopped doing TaeKwonDo 1 stripe away from reaching black belt. I only made it through 3 chapters of a self-taught web design course. You name it, I haven’t finished it.

You may be asking yourself, as the boyfriend has been asking me for 3 years now, how I think I’m going to finish writing a book. Simple. Writing means more to me than anything else in my life. It always has. And, in my defense, I did write a 100 page thesis to get my master’s degree and I have stuck with the same overall concept for my WIP for 3 years. Certainly that must count for something, right?

So how is the fickle writer supposed to commit to an idea, commit to the various paths that evolve out of a book and finish the darn thing? The simple answer: sheer willpower.

I’m sure this isn’t the answer you were hoping for. I’m sure you were looking for some grand scheme. Sadly, there is no grand scheme that will get one over the hurdle of being fickle other than pushing through it and forcing yourself to make a decision. Another way is to try not to over-analyze, to go with your gut. I’ve more or less mastered the first solution by reminding myself that the only way to finish a book is to suck it up and make a decision. The second solution is something I work on everyday, and I think once I’ve mastered that, I will be a much more efficient writer.

Of course, I could just blame my fickleness on being a perfectionist and pretend I don’t have a problem.

How do you overcome fickle tendencies?

Sep 11

I had a crazy dream last night. I blame it on my obsession with finishing my current book and the fact that I am still being haunted by The Hunger Games every time I close my eyes. So in the dream, you won NaNoWriMo by racing up these twisty, windy stairs. There could only be three winners. The winners would finish their books. The only challenge was that the person behind you could throw a knife in your back so they could move up in the ranks. At the beginning of the stairwell, I joined ranks with 3 other contestants. Only problem was, I was in 4th place. But in my dream, that was fine. I didn’t mind helping them get to the top. As we ran, I heard people dropping dead all around me, until finally I was almost at the top and someone came up behind me. The 3 winners had already made it. I convinced the person behind me not to stab me in the back. What was the point? Then I turned and left. The game was over. I did not win, but my teammates had.

I woke up at 3 in the morning and thought this was a pretty interesting dream. At 3 am, I ignored its connection to life in general and only saw the connection in regards to writing. There will always be people looking to stab you in the back to take what you potentially have. The struggle to the top will be long and exhausting. Getting to the top is not something you can do on your own. You need help. A support group goes a long way.

I guess my sub-conscious is trying to tell me its time to find a support group. To all you writers out there, how did you find your support group? Are you still looking for one? Do you think a support group is essential to success?

Sep 09

The other day I was having drinks with a friend and discussing writing and books (I’m a dork, I know). The journey my book has taken from day one to now came up and we got into a discussion about female MCs. My MC was originally a female. This changed about 1.5 years into the project. In discussing my reasons for making this change, we hit upon something common to female MCs. They all have a bit of spunk.

Think about a female MC from almost any book you loved, from any genre. We used Matilda as our initial example, but think about older literary characters, like Anna Karenina or Scarlett O’Hara. Think about more recent ones, like Katniss Everdeen or Lisbeth Salander. Now think about what all these characters have in common. They all reject societies conventions for what a woman should be; they all have spunk.

Now think about books you didn’t love that had a female MC. To be kind, I will refrain from giving examples, but I can think of several. And I can think of one thing all these MCs had in common. They whined. They moaned about lack of love and misfortune. They didn’t create their own destiny, at least not willingly. They lacked true spunk. Some of these tried to have spunk, but there was so much whining and too many fits of self-pity, it just didn’t work.

Now think of some books with great male MCs. Would they have worked as well with a female MC? The example my friend and I used was Harry Potter, but Frodo from Lord of the Rings works just as well, if not better. Had Harry or Frodo been a female, would we have loved them? Or would we have told them to suck it up and quit complaining (in all fairness, I did say that a few times to Frodo, but I kept it to a minimum)? Why is it that a male MC can get away with more moments of emotional weakness than a woman?

So what was the main reason I switched my MC to a male? As a female, she was just too whiny. She seemed to be suffering from too much self-pity. And so I made the switch, and suddenly it worked.

I read a post the other day by Justine Musk, Why You Need to Write Like a Bad Girl, and it got me thinking. If our writing is more honest by throwing away convention and writing honestly, and, as Justine puts it, like a bad girl, are our readers looking to embrace the bad girl in our characters and, by extension, themselves? Is this the appeal of the spunky female MC?

What do you think about this? Are you more likely to read a book with a male MC who has moments of weakness than you are a female? Are we more forgiving of male MCs? Are there any great books out there that give leniency to weaker female characters?

Sep 07

We are now 1 week into September, which means I have 3 weeks left to finish my first draft if I’m going to meet my deadline. As it stands, I have 30,057 words, or 105 pages. Can I make it to the finish line? I’d better.

This leaves me about 3 weeks to write 15,000 words. Considering NaNoWriMo participants write 50,000 words in 4 weeks, and my most successful year I wrote 40,000 (the basis for my current WIP), it should be doable. Of course, of those 40,000 words I wrote in those 4 weeks, I have only kept about 10,000, if that.

Why the push to finish my first draft by September 30?

There are a couple reasons:

To give me time to edit it and have it submission ready by the end of the year. I’m not sure how long edits will take, but I’m hoping this will be enough time. I plan on hiring an editor through Grub Street, so hopefully that will help speed up the process.
I have a YA book concept pulling at my creativity and I’m dying to start outlining. I’m already having trouble deciding which book to plot out in my head before bed – my WIP or this new concept I’m loving more and more each day
To gear up for NaNoWriMo – I plan on using my new YA concept for this years challenge, and I want to spend all of October hammering out a solid outline (I know, this sort of breaks the rules, but they never actually rule out outlines, they just dissuade you from using them). I’m hoping to finally complete my 50,000 words in 1 month and be well on my way to completing a second book. If this first book attempt has shown me anything, it’s the importance of writing from an outline. Going into my current WIP not knowing how it was going to end has really slowed things down.
I need to finish. Come November 1, I will have been working on this book for 3 years. I remember reading somewhere that it takes most first time authors about that long to write their first book. I didn’t believe it at the time. And now here I am, approaching my 3 year mark. It’s not so much about the time I’ve put into this, but it’s more about the emotional connection. I’ve been with this WIP longer than some divorces I know were married. The more emotionally connected I get to this book, the harder it will be to deal with criticism and edits. I need to be done.
I need to move on.

My plan of action

I have to reach ~750 words a day. This is actually not that difficult. Most days I write during lunch. I can usually got 500-600 words in my 30 minute lunch period. That just means I will have to devote another 15-30 minutes each evening to writing, plus 30 minutes to entering everything into the computer (I write by hand during lunch and before bed).

Naturally, life will get in the way some days. I don’t want to blow all of my creative energy this month and have nothing left for November, so I would like to still have a life this month. But lucky for me, I already know of a few things that will help me out. Take next week. I will spend 3.5 hours on the Acela Monday morning. There’s nothing I love more than writing on trains, and isn’t that how J.K. Rowling outlined her entire series, on a train trip? I will then spend that entire week in New York, meaning a hotel room waiting for me every evening, full of few to no distractions and time for lots of writing. Then there are the weekends. If I stay focused, I can get a couple thousand words each weekend day. Piece of cake.

Of course, this means my creativity time will be extremely important. But who knows, maybe I’ll throw a celebration in October once the 1st draft is complete. And now that I’ve just written close to 700 non-WIP words, back to writing.

Sep 06

I read this great blog post yesterday on YA Highway about passive vs. active sentences. The post, Sentence Strengthening Sunday – The Passive Sentence, provides a clear description of passive vs. active sentences and how to spot them in your own writing. As a major offender of passive writing, I highly recommend checking out the post.

Sep 05

I’m sure by this point, everyone and their mother has written a review of The Hunger Games trilogy, now that Mockingjay has been out for a good 2 weeks and the publishers are already ordering additional printings. But I wanted to wait to give my review until the story stopped haunting my dreams, which it did, for at least a week after finishing Mockingjay. And I think that right there speaks volumes for this series.

Believability: The Key to Success

The Hunger Games trilogy was so effective because it was so believable. Not only did Suzanne Collins create a post-apocalyptic world where technology continued to advance, albeit only a small part of the society benefited from it, but she also touched on an unfortunate element of human nature – our nature for cruelty. While it is hard to cope with the idea that our society could degrade to this level, where the victors of war punish the rebels by sending their children to a horrific death, it is plausible even in today’s society to imagine this happening.

Collins portrays our cruelty most clearly through three characters: Peeta, Katniss, and Gale. Peeta is the kindest of all the characters. He doesn’t want death. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He doesn’t want to fight. He just wants everyone to learn to get along, even if it means living under the rule of a totalitarian. Of course, when Katniss’ life is in danger, even Peeta resorts to violence. Katniss, on the other hand, sees nothing wrong with making others suffer, if it will help keep her or those she loves alive. Throughout the series, however, we do see a shift in her values as the full force of the world’s cruelty is thrust upon her. It’s hard to kill someone you have come to know even if their death equals your survival, and it’s hard to keep someone alive when everything in you screams out for revenge. Finally we have Gale, who operates with little remorse. He believes that people should be punished, they should suffer. While he fights for the rebels, Gale is no better than his oppressors, a point we see laid out very clearly in the final book.

Another wonderful thing about these books was the exploration of young love. Katniss’ inability to decide rings true to the teenager in all of us. To make a decision on who to date seems so final at that age. And how many females have not been made to feel guilty for not liking someone who liked them? I think this is an element of the book that readers of all ages can relate to. But the love triangle does not exclude the male readers, who can relate to the frustrations both Gale and Peeta feel towards being played with by Katniss, regardless of how willingly or unwillingly she has played them.

My one complaint of the trilogy is that sometimes the writing became bogged down with sentence fragments, which had a tendency to distract me from the flow of the story. Told in first-person in the present tense, I can see why there were so many fragments, but my personal taste would have been to include less.

If you want to read a synopsis of the books, check out Scholastic’s Hunger Games page, or, better yet, read the books. I promise they won’t disappoint.

Sep 04

As a follow-up to my post earlier this week, Calling all 9-12 year Olds, I found out about this great resource for authors and teachers called Skype an Author Network. The service allows authors to connect with teachers/readers to arrange author visits via Skype. Low income schools can use this service to bring authors into their classrooms without having to pay huge fees (and, depending on the duration of the chat and the author’s policy, the presentations are often free). Authors also benefit because they can make lots of visits without worrying about travel time or the limited budgets publishing houses have for book tours.

To learn more about this program, check out Kate Messner’s article from the School Library Journal, An author in Every Classroom: Kids Connecting with Authors via Skype. It’s the next best thing to being there.

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Next →

Review of Leviathan

Setting the Scene

Great Use of Voice

Lost…

New York, New York

The ficklest of the fickle

Dreaming of NaNoWriMo…Literally

Spunky Female Main Characters

September Status Update

Why the push to finish my first draft by September 30?

My plan of action

Passive vs. Active Sentences – How to spot them

Book Review: The Hunger Games trilogy

Believability: The Key to Success

Skype: Connecting Authors with Readers