Tag: writing (Page 6 of 14)

Embarking on a New Writing Venture

August 25, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

The Observation Desk (which you may not know is the official name of my blog) has changed a lot since I first started it back in May of 2008. First of all, I was still on blogger back then and it was more of a personal journal than anything else. I wasn’t always consistent on posting either.

Since I moved to a full WordPress site in June of 2012, the Observation Desk has definitely moved in the direction of being a place for other writers to come and share their thoughts and experiences in addition to my personal journal. I try to keep a nice balance of the two with one of my posts early in the week and one guest post later in the week. I’ve really enjoyed my couple of blog series: Confessions of an Author and Females in YA.

Even after six years of blogging, I’m never sure how personal to get on my posts, but I’ve found that some of my most personal posts have gotten the most response (in both number of hits and in comments). Notably my post called “How Does a Mother’s Love Grow?”, which voiced my fears about having a second child, was terrifying to publish and so uplifting when people wrote nice messages to me in response. And, of course, any time I’ve had big writing news, you all have always responded so kindly to those posts.

So what’s with all this reflection about the blog and when am I going to finally get to the point of the new writing venture that this post title so directly mentions? (Whenever I ramble in a blog post, I always think about THE CATCHER IN THE RYE and how Holden had that speaking class and yelling out “digression” whenever someone got off topic.) Anyway, enough digressing…to the point…

Since becoming a mother, I find I have the urge to write about it. Often just little things come to me during the day. And these thoughts feel significant to me and I feel the need to record them. But I’m not much for keeping a physical journal and writing by hand, well, bothers my hand. But this blog doesn’t feel like the right place for these little thoughts either. It’s not that I don’t mind talking about being a mom here (you all know I do that here), but I save my more long-winded thoughts for here.

The more I thought about my desire, which has quickly become a need, to express these little things, the more I realized I needed an easy and quick way to do it. Because I want to do it frequently when the mood strikes and I don’t always want to have to haul out my laptop because, frankly, some days there just isn’t time for that. And when I do haul out my laptop, I want to be able to write and not have to take all my little thoughts and record them.

“Digression!” No, really, all this blabbering is on topic, I swear. So I’ve decided that Tumblr is a good place for these motherly thoughts. I plan on keeping them short, almost poetic in nature. No need for full sentences or even much coherence (which is in short supply when you have little ones). I chose the Tumblr blogging format because it’s well suited for snippets and I think it will be easy to access and update from my phone (which will be key in me posting often on it). I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post daily, but maybe almost daily…we’ll see how it goes.

I’m calling it Observation Mommy and the link is http://katielcarroll.tumblr.com/. My first post will be on Wednesday because that’s The Boy’s third birthday and I thought this was a good milestone to start on. I hope some of you will check it out and visit frequently. Of course I’ll still be posting some motherly thoughts, and the adorableness that is pictures of my sons, on occasion here. But I think this new blog will satisfy that craving I’ve had for more writing about parenthood and kids in a manageable way.

Stayed tuned for more writerly news coming soon as well. I’ve got a fun new collaborative project I’m involved in and will announce that soon. Yay! Any good news for you all?

Adventures and Writing Prompts in the Backyard

July 29, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

When people ask where my ideas come from, I always tell them from any and everywhere. As I’ve mentioned in my Confessions of an Author series, coming up with ideas is not a problem; it’s whittling down those ideas to find the gems and then following through on them that’s the hard part.

Out in the backyard the other day, just playing with the boys, there was no shortage of visual prompts that could easily turn into book ideas (and it was a different black butterfly on the butterfly bush that inspired my current WIP–see first pic!). So I thought I’d go ahead and share those visuals with all of you (and of course some cuteness with pics of said boys).

Whenever I find mushrooms in the yard, I wonder what kind of magical creatures might live there. Though I knew The Boy had created the little rock formation, I thought about someone who didn’t know its origin coming across it and wondering how it came to be. And bubbles are always magical and fun!

Where do your ideas come from? What gets your creative juices going?

Creating Conflict with Kimberly G. Giarratano Author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards

July 18, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

I’m pleased to welcome fellow new mom and author Kimberly G. Giarrantano, who is celebrating the release of her YA mystery Grunge Gods and Graveyards. Kimberly is offering up some thoughts on creating conflict in stories and a giveaway. Welcome, Kimberly and congrats on your new book and baby!

Everybody Hurts

by Kimberly G. Giarrantano

Being that my debut novel, Grunge Gods and Graveyards, is set in 1996, I couldn’t help but give this guest post a 90s song title. “Everybody Hurts” isn’t just the name of an awesome REM song, not to mention memorable video, but the secret to incorporating excellent conflict into one’s writing — make everybody hurt. More specifically, make your protagonist hurt.

Conflict is one of the most important, if not the most important, building blocks of novel writing. And yet, so many new writers, myself included, forget about it. So, what is conflict? Conflict is the struggle between two opposing forces. It’s what moves the story forward. There are characters who drive plot, but conflict drives those characters to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Desperate times and all that.

So, how do I create conflict?

I take my main character and dump crap all over her. In every scene. That’s my formula.

It’s not enough that Lainey feels like she is directly responsible for getting Danny killed. She then goes back to school to find the entire senior class thinks the same thing and they hate her for it. The mean girls dump their spaghetti lunch on her. The jocks label her a murderer. She failed Spanish and won’t graduate. Her dad ignores her. The love of her life is dead. It’s always something. I’m the puppet master and she’s my puppet and I do something to her in every scene. Because each piece of crap dumped on her pushes Lainey to do something else. And because each awful thing brings her to a breaking point. She must say to herself: am I going to continue to let life screw with me or am I going to fix it somehow?

It can never be just one thing. Lainey failed Spanish AND is in danger of not graduating the hellscape she knows as high school AND she needs to write a major research paper to graduate AND deliver an oral presentation in Spanish AND she sucks at languages AND her Spanish tutor is the boy she loved who died in her arms.

I also like to burden Lainey with setbacks. Just when Lainey is close to figuring things out, someone (a nemesis perhaps) interferes and screws it all up for her. And the reader keeps turning pages to find out how Lainey is going to pull it all off. Now, with every setback there has to be small successes too otherwise it would be a downer of a book. All that suffering can’t be in vain.

I guess my story board might look something like this:

Dump crap

Breaking Point

Still crappy, but handles it

Success

Set Back

Disaster

We Shall Overcome

We Overcame

End

Now humor me and leave the name of your favorite REM song in the comments section. I’ll go first. My fave REM song is “Leave.”

Your turn.

Grunge Gods and Graveyards blurb:

Parted by death. Tethered by love.

Lainey Bloom’s high school senior year is a complete disaster. The popular clique, led by mean girl Wynter Woods, bullies her constantly. The principal threatens not to let her graduate with the class of 1997 unless she completes a major research project. And everyone blames her for the death of Wynter’s boyfriend, Danny Obregon.

Danny, a gorgeous musician, stole Lainey’s heart when he stole a kiss at a concert. But a week later, he was run down on a dangerous stretch of road. When he dies in her arms, she fears she’ll never know if he really would have broken up with Wynter to be with her.

Then his ghost shows up, begging her to solve his murder. Horrified by the dismal fate that awaits him if he never crosses over, Lainey seeks the dark truth amidst small town secrets, family strife, and divided loyalties. But every step she takes toward discovering what really happened the night Danny died pulls her further away from the beautiful boy she can never touch again.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KPBSGA0/&tag=redadeppubl-20

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grunge-gods-and-graveyards-kimberly-g-giarratano/1119636379?ean=2940149530946

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/grunge-gods-and-graveyards

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Kimberly_G_Giarratano_Grunge_Gods_and_Graveyards?id=HG2yAwAAQBAJ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20887429-grunge-gods-and-graveyards

About the Author:

Kimberly G. Giarratano, a forever Jersey girl, now lives in the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania with her husband and small children. A former teacher and YA librarian, Kimberly adores Etsy, Jon Stewart, The Afghan Whigs, ’90s nostalgia, and (of course) everything YA. She also speaks Spanish, but is woefully out of practice.

Kimberly always dreamed of being a published author. Her other dream is to live in Key West, Florida where she can write in a small studio, just like Hemingway.

You can visit her blog at kimberlyggiarratano.com or tweet her @KGGiarratano.

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Writing Non-human Characters with Meradeth Houston Author of Surrender the Sky

July 11, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Once again returning to share her wisdom on writing is Meradeth Houston! Meradeth is the author of the fantastic paranormal Sary Society Series, the latest of which is Surrender the Sky (see my 5-star Goodreads review here). Make sure to check out all the other stops on her Xpresso Book Tours blog tour and enter the giveaway. Welcome, Meradeth!

Writing characters that aren’t human

by Meradeth Houston

Thanks so much for having me back here! It’s always a treat to visit some of my favorite blogs again. I thought I’d talk a little about writing characters that aren’t human today. This is one of those topics that I think about a lot, but don’t generally get the chance to chat about. For those of you who have thoughts on the topic, please chime in too!!

The main characters that I write about in my novels are definitely not human—they’re Sary, which is a breed of supernatural I made up. They’re kind of similar to guardian angels, but I think all of my characters would be the first to tell you that they’re definitely not the angelic sort. They’re the souls of those who die before taking their first breath and are allowed to come back to the earth to help those who are contemplating taking their own life. Basically they’re immortal and have the ability to shift their form to look pretty otherworldly: wings included.

One of the most important things that I think about while writing these characters is to keep in mind their true age. Most of them are several centuries old, which means they’ve seen a lot. Not just historical tidbits (which I find fun to research and layer in), but personal things. They’ve watched everyone around them grow older and die—something that they can’t do. These kinds of things leave their mark, and I try to be aware and respectful of that in my characters. Even if they look to be in their teens or twenties, they’re not going to think like a human, and they’re not going to react like them all the time. This is challenging, but also can be a lot of fun to write.

While the Sary have been “on the ground” throughout their lives, allowing them to adapt as society and culture inevitably change around them, it isn’t necessarily easy. One of the other things I try to think about while writing is those things that the Sary might find comfortable from the past—things that they have a hard time giving up. This might be preferring candles and lamps even with electric lights, or just living in the older part of a city because it seems more like home. Technological changes can seem fast for even me, but for the Sary it’s been tricky to keep up. I like to think about the lag that can occur, and depending on the character, how comfortable they’re going to be with different parts of modern life.

Writing a supernatural being that can fly is also one of those things that I also find really a lot of fun. I know that may sound strange, but I’ve always wished I could fly (I think this may stem from growing up in California and hating traffic—who wouldn’t want to avoid that??), so writing from the Sary’s perspective is a whole lot of fun in this regard. I pester my pilot brother for aerial photos, and pay a lot of attention to the way the sky looks while in an airplane, hoping to do the concept of flight justice. Hopefully that comes across, because it certainly is fun!

There’s a lot more that goes into writing a character that’s not human, but I’ll stick with this for today! What else do you think goes into making a believable non-human character?

Surrender the Sky blurb:

Gabby lives by two unbreakable rules: don’t expose her kind, the Sary, and don’t fall in love—too bad some rules are made to be broken.

When Gabby’s most difficult charge accidentally shoots her in front of a class full of students, the event exposes her carefully hidden identity. She shifts from looking like a normal teen to her secret Sary form, revealing her wings and the existence of her kind—immortals who try to keep people from committing suicide. Her incident attracts the attention of the next leader of the Sary, Jassen, who offers her an impossible bargain: she can keep her wings if she makes amends with those who know the truth. Things get more complicated when a rebel Sary, intent on exposing them to the world, starts interfering with Gabby’s work. And there’s no denying her attraction to Jassen, who is torn between his duties and his heart. With threats at every turn and her immortality on the line, Gabby has to find a way to save the Sary or surrender the sky forever.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20943650-surrender-the-sky?ac=1

Purchase:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Surrender-Sary-Society-Meradeth-Houston-ebook/dp/B00K2IMTNG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404146503&sr=1-1&keywords=Surrender+the+Sky+by+Meradeth+Houston

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/surrender-the-sky-meradeth-houston/1118931601?ean=2940045770484

About the Author:

Meradeth’s never been a big fan of talking about herself, but if you really want to know, here are some random tidbits about her:

>She’s a Northern California girl. This generally means she talks too fast and use “like” a lot.
>When she’s not writing, she’s sequencing dead people’s DNA. For fun!
>She’s been writing since she was 11 years old. It’s her hobby, her passion, and she’s so happy to get to share her work!
>If she could have a super-power, it would totally be flying. Which is a little strange, because she’s terrified of heights.

Author links:

http://www.meradethhouston.com/

https://www.facebook.com/MeradethHouston

https://twitter.com/MeradethHouston

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5321667.Meradeth_Houston

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Middle Grade vs. Young Adult with Anna Staniszewski Author of The Prank List

June 30, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Anna Staniszewski is one of my favorite guest bloggers because she always brings such insightful topics and discussions. Today, as she celebrates the upcoming release of her newest book The Prank List (The Dirt Diary #2), Anna is talking the difference between middle grade and young adult fiction. Welcome, Anna!

What Separates Middle Grade from Young Adult Fiction?

by Anna Staniszewski

I get this question a lot, so I thought I’d tackle it here. Let’s start with a couple of definitions.

“Middle grade” is generally for ages 7-12, though it can skew a bit younger or older depending on the project (short chapter books vs. longer novels). Middle grade usually features protagonists in elementary or middle school, and if it deals with topics such as sex or violence, those tend to happen off-screen.The ending, while not necessarily happy, should be hopeful.

“Young adult” generally features teen protagonists (14-19) and is often a coming-of-age story for readers 12 and up. (The actual readership of YA varies quite a bit. You might have fifth-graders reading it, but you also have adults who read nothing else.) Issues such as sex and violence can be shown on-screen and can even be of a graphic nature, though you often won’t get as much detail as you would in adult books. Endings, while often hopeful, can sometimes be bleak.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can see that content isn’t necessarily the dividing line between MG and YA. The bigger distinction is how the content is handled, whether it’s off-screen and implied or on-screen and shown.

The protagonist’s age is often a factor, as well, although there is some wiggle room here, too. My main character in The Dirt Diary is 14, for example, but she’s in 8th grade. That puts her right smack in between the two genres, which is why I often refer to the book as “tween,” although it’s generally considered MG.

For me, the biggest difference between MG and YA is the character’s emotional journey. I’ve heard more than one person say that in MG, the character goes through lots of life-changing experiences but can still remain a child at the end. In YA, the character goes through lots of life-changing experiences that force him/her to become an adult. This might be too simplistic of an answer, but I think it goes a long way to explain the difference between the two.

In MG, you have characters exploring their worlds and experiencing what things outside of their own lives are like. In YA, you have characters exploring their own identities and figuring out where they belong in the world. The role of family is different in both; in MG, the family tends to be part of the story, both a support system and a source of conflict, whereas in YA, the family is often secondary or more a source of conflict than anything else. Again, this goes back to the idea of staying a child vs. becoming an adult. At some point, you need to find independence from your family (as many YA protagonists do) and strike out on your own.

Over the past decade or two, the MG and YA markets have changed quite a bit. It used to be that a book with a 14-year-old girl would automatically be labelled as YA, but now that you have more adults reading YA, the genre has started to focus on older and more mature protagonists. That means that MG has expanded too, including a wider range of books, sometimes those that feature younger teens.

Because the market is always shifting, I try not to drive myself too crazy with definitions, but I do try to keep in mind the general attitude in MG vs. YA. That, I think, hasn’t changed too much. In MG, we often still see characters branching out into the world, whereas in YA we see characters who want to find their places in it.

The Prank List blurb:

Rachel Lee never thought she’d fight for the right to clean toilets. But when a rival cleaning business starts stealing her mom’s clients, Rachel will do whatever it takes to save herself the horror of moving to Connecticut—which would mean giving up her almost, sort of boyfriend, her fantastic new pastry classes, and her best friend Marisol.

Operation Save Mom’s Cleaning Business is a go!

But when the series of pranks Rachel and her BFF cook up to take down the competition totally backfires, Rachel worries that her recipe for success is a dud. You know what they say—if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen…

About the Author:

Born in Poland and raised in the United States, Anna Staniszewski grew up loving stories in both Polish and English. Currently, she lives outside Boston with her husband and their crazy dog. When she’s not writing, Anna spends her time reading, daydreaming, and challenging unicorns to games of hopscotch. She is the author of the My Very UnFairy Tale Life series and the Dirt Diary series. Her newest book, The Prank List, releases on July 1st from Sourcebooks. You can visit Anna at www.annastan.com.