Spring Break Jeopardy: I'll take Axis or Allies for 100, Alex!

With the kids home for a solid week (that would be 9 days, including the weekends. Yes, I was counting) the questions were coming fast and furious. God Bless teachers because they have to answer these questions all day long!

The small sampling:

Worm Burner (8): "How does that work?" *points to old fashioned scale serving as decor at a restaurant*

Mom's answer: Well, it has a spring below the flat part that you stand on. The spring deflects and the force you put on it, or your weight, is proportional to the amount that the spring squishes.

Worm Burner: I mean how does it move the dial?

Dad's answer: There's a mechanical linkage, or lever, between the pad on the bottom and the dial on the top.

Worm Burner: Cool!

OK, so clearly Worm Burner is going for the mechanical coolness over science nerdiness. Sigh.

Dark Omen (11): In World War II, was Brazil on the side of the Axis or Allies?

Mom's answer: I think Brazil was on the side of the Axis, because a high profile Nazi (Mengele) fled there at the end of the war, when it looked like they were going to lose, before they could get caught by the Allies. *inwardly thinks about The Boys from Brazil and can't remember which part was fact and which part fiction*

Dad's answer: I don't think Brazil wasn't allied with anyone. They didn't have a strategic interest in the war.

Dark Omen's Answer: Well, in my Axis and Allies game, they have 2 IPCs (International Production Credits, a unit of measure of worth in the game), so they must have done something. The rest of South America was neutral.

Mom and Dad: *stunned silence*

So naturally we googled it. Turns out Brazilian dictators were friendly with the Axis powers until economic pressure forced them to side with the Allies. At one point they actually hunted German subs and sent troops into combat. At the end of the war, Mengele, Eichmann, and possibly others fled to South America (as well as other haven countries), including Brazil.

Huh. Learn something new every day. And from the kids, no less.

The kids are safely back in school now, tormenting their teachers with their endless barrage of questions. I am wondering how much writing I can cram in before summer hits, with its temperate weather and endless time for pondering.

Ink Spells talks Leviathan

This. Book. Is. Fabulous.

I could leave it there, but I'm a writer.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld is the first book I've read to completion on the nook. In spite of the nook's irritating tendency to lock up when I'm showing it off to interested passers-by, the nook reading experience was effortless, comfortable, and just plain cool. Dark Omen actually read Leviathan before I did, also on the nook. He liked the light weight of the reader (he's used to those heavy library-bound hardbacks), and enjoyed the gadget aspect.

RL: 5.3 CSM: 12+ Rating: PG Content: War dead, not graphic

Mostly, he enjoyed the story. And he's taken to sporting a knit cap he says is a Bowler Hat.

Leviathan is marketed as an upper middle grade steampunk adventure, although the protagonists are 15-16 years old. Deryn is a girl who disguises herself as a boy so she can join the Air Service in 1914 Britain. Prince Aleksander is the half-royal not-heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne who struggles with duty and survival when the assassination of his parents pitches the world into war. Their paths collide and Westerfeld's fast-paced action doesn't disappoint. Oh, and there's Darwinist creatures pitted against Clanker machines, and the technology is a delicious mixture of retro steam and futuristic custom-designed creatures. Scott Westerfeld's fantastic imagination, combined with Keith Thompson's gorgeous line drawings, creates a feast for the mind and eyes.

The only drawback to this book is its ending: curses upon Westerfeld for his cliff-hanger books! You must read the next book Behemoth, but it doesn't come out until October 2010. Westerfeld says he will probably tour when Behemoth is released, so I may have to stalk him. The only question: how do I get my e-book signed? I might have to resort to having him sign something else. Maybe that collectible Leviathan art that would really look awesome on my wall.

Westerfeld writes smart and very clean books. The violence is real, but not gratuitous, and almost completely bloodless. There is death in Leviathan. This is war, after all. Alek accidentally kills a soldier, and Deryn is involved in a couple battles where fatalities occur. The dead are hinted at, but not described. Unless your child is very sensitive to such things, Leviathan is an excellent book for advanced readers ages 9+.

Westerfeld is quickly becoming one of my favorite modern authors. I read his teen book Uglies, a dystopian study of a world where everyone is made Pretty at age 16. Although Uglies is definitely a teen book, due to its teen protagonists and their teenaged concerns, it is again a very clean book - chaste kisses, little or implied violence, and fantastic storytelling. I could easily recommend this book to pre-teens ages 9+, especially due to the very positive messages it has for girls about the importance (and not) of beauty.

I will be shocked if Leviathan isn't made into a movie. It is action packed and has "summer blockbuster" written all over it.

Now if I could just get my own messenger lizard.

Here's the book trailer for Leviathan, to whet your appetite.

The Difference between Boys and Girls ... and Books

First, I must say this: Guitar Hero Rocks! I discovered Guitar Hero at the arcade over Spring Break and spent an embarrassingly large number of tokens rockin' out to "Hit me with your best shot!"  Since I barely tolerate arcades as a hideous waste of time and money, I think I stunned my husband and kids.

Good. Need to keep them on their toes.

As we waited to sign up for the Star Wars Light Saber Duel at the cabana-like activities station of the local waterpark, the cruise-director-type activity leader corralled a half dozen pint-sized girls who had signed up for Mini Manicures. I'm not terribly fond of the idea of nail polish for little girls, but having none, I remain agnostic on whether this is harmless fun or insidious priming for future image issues.

But then the activity director started leading these little girls in a cheer. She put on her best Diva attitude and chanted, "Look at Me! I'm so pretty! Look at Me! I'm so fine!" Of course, the girls followed her lead.

I stood watching, aghast, and literally speechless. Then I noticed all three of my boys had similar looks of astonishment. I bent down and whispered to my six year old, hoping to counteract some of the damage, "They're being pretty silly, aren't they?"

Mighty Mite replied, "I think they've lost their minds!"

The chanting soon ended, we signed up for our future bloodless battle, and quickly left. On the way out, my 11 year old, obviously still reeling from the display of rampant femininity, said, "Well, that was disturbing."

I completely agreed.

But I had to wonder: Am I raising boys who are intolerant of the fact that some girls like to be girly-girls? Was my household too testosterone riddled?

Or did they sense, even at their tender ages, the inappropriateness of idolizing appearance?

I'm not sure. I like to think that having a strong mother as a role model inoculates my boys against the kind of sexism that thinks less of girls and women - that portrays them as fragile flowers that need protecting, rather than empowered people that can go out and conquer the world, if they have a mind to. But at the same time, I hope they see the importance of soft, feminine values - attitudes that say that it's just as manly to care for others as it is to go out and fight the dragons.

I think the experiences and stories that inundate our children's lives have an impact on shaping their values, on top of those we transmit everyday through our words and actions. Books play an integral part of this. I'm cognizant of the books they read, beyond protecting them from the innocence-robbing gratuitous violence or sexual messages that I try to highlight here on Ink Spells.

The worlds portrayed within books expand the realm of possibilities that our children see as acceptable, possible, and perhaps superior to our own. This is why I'm glad to see my boys read books like Little House on the Prairie, as well as Ranger's Apprentice. This is why I'm writing a book that features a strong female main character, as well as caring male characters. And why I will encourage them to read Leviathan (to be reviewed tomorrow), which features a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to join the Air Force of the time.

The books of my youth shaped my thinking about the world in many ways. Ursula K. LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven made me careful what I wished for. Larry Niven and Steven Barnes' Achilles' Choice made me question the sacrifices necessary for ultimate achievement.

What books have changed the way you think?

The more I ponder it, the less I worry. Worm Burner is known in our family as the Cat Whisperer, for his gentle ways with the kittens - they preferentially come sleep in his bed at night, whereas they primarily use me for a trampoline. Dark Omen can't wait until he turns thirteen, so he can take the local babysitting course from the Park District - he has been fond of babies since he was practically one himself. Mighty Mite is my most boyish boy, and yet the caring and devotion he lavishes upon anything with fur or feathers makes me think he'll be a future member of PETA, a veterinarian, or both.

So far, they are doing well, and all those stories of strong female (and male) protagonists may have something to do with it.

As well as having a mom that rocks out to Guitar Hero.

Ink Spells gets a New Look

Still trying to decide if I like it ...

Ink Spells, Old School

Thanks to Olga for this sign awesomeness!

We may be slow, but the turtle usually gets there before the hot wax drips down.



*back to vacation mode*

Friday Funnies the Ironic Way

The Friends of Irony.

If this was an actual club, I would be conniving to obtain membership. Perhaps submitting pictures of my cats or making pathetic attempts at humor. Lucky for me, you can simply subscribe to enjoy the ironic riches of their site.

Schrödinger's Barbershop


see more Friends of Irony

From the passing swipe of having your wayward main character read Paradise Lost, to the more substantial ironic twist of having your fairytale story end on a not-so-happily-ever-after note, irony can be a useful device in ficiton. Do you ever use irony in your stories? And do you wield it intentionally, or does irony sneak up on you?

Next week is Spring Break and I'm hoping the weather will stay non-ironic. Ink Spells will be on hiatus until the kids return to school. There will probably be laser tag, taxes, and if I'm lucky, a little time for writing. Mostly I'll be trying to keep up with three winter-stir-crazy boys.

Ink Spells will resume on the 29th!

Awesome Giveaway for Readers and Writers

I couldn't be more happy for my friend Beth Revis, fellow blogger and young adult science fiction author who just got a THREE BOOK DEAL with Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin!

I'm not simply deliriously happy for HER, but I am giddy for the genre of young adult science fiction, which I fully expect her book to resurrect out of the dusty shelves and into the hearts and minds of teens everywhere. As we've discussed before, there is a dearth of SF books in kidlit, and I am so, so, SO excited to see this book getting published and trumpeted:

Schrank (the publisher) said he thinks the book will do for popular sci-fi what The Hunger Games did for postapocalyptic fiction.

Just so.

And, to celebrate her good news, Beth is holding a giveaway with an amazing assortment of goodies for both readers and writers. So hop on over and enter!

Wimp Yourself

Top 'o the morning to you from the Quinn household on this fine St. Patrick's Day!

/Irish-ness

Ink Spells hasn't reviewed the Wimpy Kid series yet, and apparently I'm woefully behind, because they've already got a movie going for this mega-selling series.

Which means fun cool stuff to play with!

GO HERE, to reincarnate yourself in a wimpier form. It's silliness, but about the level I'm able to function today, given that the white blood cells in my body are losing the war to the wretched virus that has invaded my system.

But my Wimp Self is looking forward to Spring!




Thanks to Kyle, over at The Boy Reader.

Fear of Failure, Fear of Success

An excellent post over at Writing It Out talks about fears in writing: the fear of failure only being eclipsed by the fear of success. Every writer understands that fear of failure, but what about "success?" Any success brings expectations with it: Oh, you're a published author? You must be rich, famous, and most of all fabulously talented. Living up to the expectations that success brings can be challenging, not least because those expectations are completely out of your control: they are the impressions of others about who you are, based on what you have done. And these expectations have sustaining power: if you succeed, people expect you to continue to succeed; if you fail people expect you to fail again.

In the video below, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, says (among many other things) that one of the best things we can do to cope with success is to separate your achievement from the work of getting there. I would argue that this is the best way to deal with failure as well, and for the time before the "success" of becoming a published author.

In other words, the achievement itself may be an expression of something not entirely within your control, and thus not entirely your success or failure. You are guaranteed failure if you don't apply yourself, but applying yourself does not guarantee success, only the chance of success. There is still an X-factor to achievement, especially in this field, and whether you attribute this separate force to luck, divine intervention, or a disembodied muse of artistic endeavors (and I'm not sure I believe any of those), having that mental separation, I believe, is necessary to continuing the work that might bring you success.

I have had lots of successes in my life - something I attribute to hard work, an insane amount of stubborness, lots of leaps of faith, and luck. If I am successful in the world of traditional publishing, it will be because of those same things, but the story will not end there. Will I sell any books? Will I be able to sell a second or third book? Will I make any money at it?

I have no idea. My crystal ball is in the repair shop.

But I do know why I'm on this journey, and as long as I keep focused on that, I don't need to fear the failures, or the successes. I don't need to know what's going to happen. Living the journey is the reward, and in many ways I won't know the final destination until I arrive. As is true in most of life.

Taking one step at a time is very linear thinking, but then I'm an engineer. The wild leap of faith came when I started on the journey.

If you haven't seen this already, and you're a writer, it's worth the 20 minutes to watch:

Eyeballs in the Fridge -or- Why I Love Science

This blog posting from Stephanie Conlon's blog made me think about how I came to love science.

Stephanie's post talks about a study that shows future scientists are created early, before Junior High. The early grades are a time when students' natural curiosity about the world either grows into a love of science or is squashed. I believe that lack of exciting science in their formal education, or lack of exposure to science outside of school, allows children's instinctive love of the natural world to die a slow death by starvation. But if fed intriguing science, even in tiny bursts of fascination, I believe many more children would fall in love with the wonders of science and choose to pursue science and engineering careers.

The scientific study talks about just such an inspired story and one girl's coming-to-science moment ...

The study’s unusual title ("Eyeballs in the Fridge: Sources of early interest in science") is a reference to the tale of how one Ph.D. student in chemistry recalls first getting excited by science. In her 3rd grade classroom, students were dissecting cow eyes, the study explains. She brought some “leftover” eyes home in a brown paper bag and put them in her refrigerator. The only problem was that she forget to tell her mother, who screamed when she discovered what she expected to be lunch leftovers.


“From that point,” she recalls, “I started to really love science.”

No doubt!
 
My early love of science was fed by the many science fiction novels I read in my youth. Getting kids excited about science is a passion of mine, and motivates some of my writing, in the hopes that it might spark a child's interest in worm holes, or genetic engineering, or building really cool spaceships that use anti-matter drives. One story isn't going to solve the nation's critical lack of engineering and science majors. But it might light up one little girl's eyes with stars and interstellar drama.
 
And that would make it all worthwhile.
 
What makes writing worthwhile for you, writerly friends?

Google Gets a Piece of π

It's okay with me if Google takes over the world, if they keep doing stuff like this.

Happy π day!

That is all.

Friday Funnies: Newspaper Neurosis

Nothing makes you cry (tears of laughter) like The Onion:

How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

I have to admit that there is a stack of newspapers sitting on my bay window, waiting to be read. I'm almost certain none are more than a week old.

Do you cling to the papers of the past?

A User's Guide to the Universe

Do you ever get trigger happy in the bookstore? Me too, which is why I have to ration my visits to a frequency that my credit card can support. However, today I was the victim of a drive-by book plug that had me reaching for the Barnes & Noble Buy Button in under 30 seconds. I literally didn't wait until I read the entire review before purchasing.

A User's Guide to the Universe by Dave Goldberg and Jeff Blomquist is a book I've been waiting for: Life, the Universe and Everything explained by people who know, for people who don't, in a way that doesn't make them go Huh?

Dave and Jeff (yes, I already feel like we need to be on a first-name basis) use humor and good-natured geek-fun to explain questions that anyone might ask, like What happens if you fall in a black hole? and Can you really break the light barrier?

I NEEDED to own this book (and NOT as an e-book, mind you, but that's the subject of another post).

Not like I need food, air, my husband's love or a kiss goodbye from my 6 year old. Need as in the pure knowledge that my life will be less rich without it.

And I was pretty sure Worm Burner would love it too.

Did I mention they have comics? And jokes?

So, what are you waiting for?

More Writing with Style and Grace

"How you begin a sentence determines its clarity; how you end it determines its rhythm and grace." - Joseph M. Williams in Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace


I wish I had read that sentence much earlier in my writing escapades. But perhaps we hear things when we are ready for them.


Williams' simple yet powerful directive for writing resonated with me last week, and has indeed been shaping and reshaping my writing for several weeks now. That sentence is not only gold for the writer looking to improve craft, but I see parallels in it for story as well.

How you begin a story determines its clarity; how you end it determines its rhythm and grace.


I recently critiqued the first few chapters of a story and about halfway into the first chapter I made a large notation: START THE STORY HERE. Where to start a story is critical and makes the difference between sweeping the reader in or leaving them yawning. But even further, it clarifies what the story is about - its theme, its driving plot line, its main character arc. Something about that story NEEDS to be in the very beginning, to make clear to the reader why they should continue to invest their time in reading. It is not often easy to see where that beginning should be (hence: betas).

How you end a story determines whether the reader has that satisfying feeling that they crave. Not merely a Happily Ever After ending (although those are very fine), but a sense of resolution or a closed chapter in your protagonist's adventure, at the least (if there are sequels). A good ending gives the story its final downbeat of rhythm, the last grace note to complete the work.

I'm drafting the ending of my current WIP, and I keep changing my mind about that last line, where the final breath is exhaled. I haven't found that satisfying feeling and probably won't until the words are actually on the page and revised several times. And probably passed through a beta or five.

Loverly writer friends: Do you struggle more with beginnings or endings?

UPDATE: Read this post on the Rejectionist about writing endings. Fab.

Artemis Gets a New Look

Is it just me, or are the new Artemis Fowl covers super awesome?

Worm Burner agrees with me. He received Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox for his birthday and I braced myself for the polite "Thank you" that I had hopefully trained into him for accepting a gift that he already owned (we have the entire series). Instead, his eyes light up and he bursts out, "Hey, it's the one with the new cover!"

Is that the sound of publishers leaping for joy, that an Artemis fan might actually want to own two copies of the same book, just because the cover is different? Yes, yes it is.

OLD ARTEMIS - Alright, the font looks kinda gnomish, which is a plus, but almost everything else about this cover says "Developed in the Age of Pong."

NEW ARTEMIS - Not only are we stylish with the new AF initials, instantly branding Master Fowl's Adventures, but that rockin' time paradox swirl looks like it was lifted from some Hubble Telescope pictures of deep space. And is it me, or has Artemis morphed into a Harry Potter look-a-like? This is not a bad thing - anything that draws kids in to books works for me.

Kids are incredibly brand conscious, even when you try to beat it out of them (figuratively, people, you know what I mean!). They instantly respond to the familiar, things with a positive experience attached to them. So do adults, but kids have had less time to develop the scrooge-like attitude of their parents. Which is to say, prudence.

How about you, fair readers? Would you repurchase just to get that shiny new cover?

Heard in the Back Seat . . .

"The Erec Rex series is the best!"
"No it's not! Ranger's Apprentice is way better!"
"No way."
"Yeah, and there's more books! There's Ruins of Gorlan, The Burning Bridge, Icebound Land, Battle for Skandia, Sorcerer of the North, Wrath of the Bloodeye, Siege of MacIndaw, and Erak's Ransom."
"Erec Rex has a lot of books too! There's Dragon's Eye, Monsters of Otherness, and Search for Truth."
"See? That's only three."

A car full of nine year olds, rattling off book titles like trading card names, warms my heart. The literary battle came to a draw once the birthday party caravan reached our destination. Laser tag and arcade games ensued, but I was left with a glowing feeling, knowing that the Erec Rex series I had signed by my friend Kaza Kingsley and had gifted to my kid's 3rd/4th grade classroom had found its mark.

Someday, I told my husband, I want to write a whole series of kid's books that will have children memorizing the titles and boasting to their friends. One step at a time . . .

Libraries Matter

Yes they do!

Today's post title is stolen from the name of a blog I just discovered via the crazy guys at Boys Rule Boys Read. They highlighted a post in which Deborah Ford, awesome teacher and librarian, posts on her blog Libraries Matter a fine, fine list of the top Books for Boys of 2009.

Not only is this an extensive list with nuggets like 11 Birthdays and Sent (both of which have SF underpinings), but she gives the reading level of the books.

Bless her.

Deborah is also the author of Scary, Gross and Enlightening: Books for Boys Grades 3-12, which catapults her into the stratosphere of awesome for advocating good reads for boys. See her Internet Hotlist on boys and books.

And in the category of Friday Funnies, I leave you with this:

What will those librarians think of next?

What Memories are on Your Kid's Bookshelf?

I've been giving thought lately to what books I buy.

I've found that I mostly purchase non-fiction, although I mostly read fiction. However, my fiction habit is fed by the library, or lately, borrowing from my kids (who have an extensive library of their own).

I've gone through several mad book buying phases in my life (although my husband will contend there was never any actual lulls). There was the allowance-for-SF-paperbacks phase and the book-club-99-cent-hardcover phase and the hey-I-have-a-job-and-can-afford-real-books! phase.

The mother of all phases came when I had kids. These books weren't simply fun to buy, tiny little things that only cost $2-$4 (picture books), but they were educational, and supported the schools (via that insidious program know as Scholastic Publishing), and were guaranteed to be read 1000 times, if not literally consumed.

I still have a half-eaten copy of Go Dog Go, because there really is no more perfect mating of form and function than that book. I plan to feed it to my grandchildren.

Along the way, my kids have acquired their own bookshelves and their own collections of books.

Dark Omen is the most zealous of collectors, actually building a custom-fitted bookshelf to take up the "extra" room in his closet. It houses Tom Swift, Lemony Snicket, a handful of Harry Potter (the rest are on my shelf), and every variant of Artemis Fowl.

Worm Burner is more discerning. Or maybe there's just too many Pokemon cards and piggy banks on his shelf to leave room for books. But he has a special place for the Choose Your Own Adventure series, the Trumpet of the Swan, and a few errant Little House on the Prairie books.

Mighty Mite hasn't had much choice about the books that he houses in his room. As the youngest, all the books in the household trickle down to him. His small bookcase is crammed with everything from easy reader Magic School Bus that he's far outgrown, to the entire Magic Tree House collection, to a vast array of chapter books of every stripe. But at the rate his reading level is zooming, I'll soon have to clear out the "baby" books from his room, and make way for dragons and spaceships.

And then what will happen to those forlorn books of their collective youth? The paper memories of endless recitations of Cat in the Hat will be stuffed in a box, forgotten in the basement, perhaps donated to the library if I can bear to give up the last vestige of their babyhoods.

But not Go Dog Go or But Not the Hippopotamus. Not The Going to Bed Book.

Those hold whispers of love too precious to let go. Someday, when the gray hairs win the battle warring on my head and little ones are once again climbing on my lap, I will pull these cracked and half-eaten books out and say, "I read this to your daddy, when he was a little boy, just like you."

Setting Goals

I attended a seminar at the local community college last night on how to publish your novel. It was interesting because I think I was the most informed person in the room, and for one reason only: my relentless reading of publishing and writer's blogs.

The sources of information available on the internet today are literally astounding. And overwhelming. And at times anxiety producing when you think, "What the heck am I going to blog about today?"

Seminar attendees included a dad who was searching out publishing options for his teen daughter. (I hope he visits my blog - I gave him my card. It says "Writer and Rocket Scientist" on it, because I can be silly sometimes.) There was a woman who had a very negative experience with a pay-to-publish scheme. There was a delightful elderly man with his inches-thick-compilations of stories about the Jewish experience in Chicago. Few had heard of Writer's Beware or e-publishing or agent blogs.

I spoke up only a few times, but mainly to say that the most important thing, in deciding amongst the myriad publishing "options," was to determine what your goals were first: do you want your inspirational memoir to reach as many hearts as possible or do you want to make money doing it? Do you want your child to hand out their first novel to their friends or do you want to set them on the path to becoming a professional writer? Do you want your research to be taken seriously in academia or do you simply want a historical accounting for posterity? These are all good choices. But knowing what your heart most desires will increase your chances of achieving it.

I came home and took my own advice. I already have a mission statement, so this morning I printed out a calendar and wrote some target dates and deadlines for my writing. It says things like "start researching new novel" and "start querying Byrne Risk" and "send out Open Minds to beta readers." Because these are the steps, each small but crucial, that will get me to my goals.

And I will keep writing and reading blogs, because the value of that goes far beyond the time invested.

What steps are you taking towards your goals, lovely readers?

Nook Book(s)

We took a look.
We saw a Nook.
On his head
he had a hook.
On his hook
he had a book.
On his book
was "How to Cook."

We saw him sit
and try to cook.

He took a look

at the book on the hook.

But a Nook can't read,

so a Nook can't cook.

SO...

what good to a Nook is a hook cook book?

One fish two fish red fish blue fish, by Dr. Seuss

My mom and I both got nooks, Barnes & Noble's new e-reader, for Christmas and were busy trying them out during her visit.

Dark Omen (age 11) had already read two books on my nook, before I got around to reading on it. He LOVES the nook, saying he likes its light weight, compared the the hard-cover library tomes he's usually toting around. Worm Burner is angling to get on the nook next. I'm working my way through Leviathan and loving the book, and the nook, along the way.

But a nook stumble came when my mom and I tried to use the E-Lend feature of the nook, its supposed claim to fame above the other e-readers. We soon found that most of the books on our nooks were not e-lendable! Apparently, only about half of the e-books available from B&N are e-lendable. I'm hoping this is something they re-think in the future, although I suspect it depends upon the publisher of the books, rather than B&N.

But the TRUE e-crisis came today. I was taking Dark Omen to an ophthalmologist appointment and suggested he bring a book to read while we wait. He said he was out of books! This is a mom-crisis, not an e-crisis, as I generally try to not let the kids run out of books. That being said, I instantly thought of the nook!

Why, we could just download the next book in the Ranger's Apprentice series, that Dark Omen has been eyeing!

Alas, no.

While the e-book was available, it cost $10.61! The hardcover book only cost $13.59! Meanwhile the paperback was $7.19. Now, normally I would just check it out from the library, but I was in a pinch and I would have gladly paid the paperback price for the convenience of having the book on the nook right now. However, I was unwilling to pay nearly hardcover price for an e-book. B&N sadly lost my sale, as we made do with other books and will probably get The Burning Bridge next time we go to the library.

I have to wonder how many other lost sales will occur due to pricing issues.

What good to a nook is an overpriced hook cook book?

It will be interesting to see how the e-adventures in publishing evolve over time . . . 

Dearest readers, do you have an e-reader? And what do you think?

The Tale of Two Pants

Writing is a huge learning curve.

When I started writing fiction (yo! dog! that was only a year ago!), I thought my writing learning curve would look something like this:

Note the smooth lines, the graceful arc of reasoned learning, as I climb the mighty mountain and eventually reach that satisfying plateau of knowledge attained.

Yeah. Right. This is what my year has looked like:

Do you see where this cursed thing goes down? As in, sliding down the mountain in an avalanche triggered by my own faulty footing and serious lack of climbing skills? Ugh.

And yet, the progression has still been forward, albeit with a few stumbles along the way.

Somewhere in the middle of this climb, I tried to explain my struggle with craft to my husband using an analogy: discerning the difference between two pairs of brown pants, one from the Gap, the other from a famous designer.

I think I used a fashion analogy because my husband I are style-challenged, and the world of fashion was obscure to both of us.

Although I was well into my writing escapades, I found I couldn’t see the difference between the pants—someone would tell me one was from the Gap and the other from a fabulous designer, but to me they were just brown pants. While some manuscripts were obviously from very beginning writers, the difference between a Gap story and a designer story was obscure to me.

I asked myself: “If I can’t tell the difference, how can I possibly write differently?”

So, I embarked on a quest to be discerning – I read more widely, entered contests, and observed different styles. Nathan's 1st paragraph contest back in October of aught-nine was a tutorial in beginnings and voice. Other back-to-back surveys of many writers helped my brain soak up a database of style. Slowly, I could begin to tell the ones that had Voice and Grace - the ones that leapt off the page and grabbed me by the throat and said READ ME.

I could see the difference between the pants.

This was a revelation, and yet also frustrating. Although I could now see the difference, I had no idea how to make the Gap pants into designer pants.

This is where my writerly friend Rebecca blogged into my life and recommended Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams. I’m only part way through Williams book, but I can already see how it will change the way I write, for the better.

As I muscle my way through his book (although it is clear, it is difficult for the grammar-challenged) and use it to make my WIP more shapely and graceful, I’m beginning to see how to craft the designer pants. A nip here, a tuck there - some radical surgery on sentences that I thought hopelessly frumpy. I’m taking my Gap-style sentences and am able, through much effort, to turn them into designer-style sentences (sometimes).

Being able to run the sewing machine, doesn't make me Versace. But I’m beginning to see the path, the way towards that higher level of writing, even if I’m only part way down it.

I told my husband the other night, “I know how to change the pants!”

He laughed at me, but not in an unkind way.

Onward. Upward.