Things I wish I'd written...

I have two quote notebooks - one for quotes I love because of what they mean, and one for quotes I love because of the writing. These don't necessarily have a point I want to remember, or find inspiring, but are constructed in such a way that I can only marvel them and hope to learn from them.

I thought it might be fun to share some of those quotes with you this lovely Monday! And if you have any of your own, please share them with me!


"This is real. Unlike the Pea Island beach day and the magic fish, the bad feeling of this day remains. Details fade. For a couple years, she’ll remember her mother’s slippers brushing the kitchen tile. She’ll remember the Carolina blue of her father’s baseball cap. The rest is batter. It’s all mixed up, and none of it tastes good." - The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, by Michele Young-Stone

"She feels small, not small how she felt on the beach with the ocean and sky; not small like she was part of something great and beautiful, but small insignificant, like an ant or slug squashed, unnoticed."- The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, by Michele Young-Stone

"Now I wonder if it gets tiring, bearing witness to the last gasp of nature. If it's not only plants my son hears but the gnash of an angry ocean. A shy sunrise. A breaking heart." - House Rules, Jodi Picoult


"The silence was unusual, and we were not entirely sure how to talk about it - not because it was too grave and not because it was too trivial, but because it seemed grave one moment and trivial the next, and so no one was quite able to decide whether it mattered enormously or not at all." - "The Year of Silence," by Kevin Brockmeier


"Norman Bowker smiled. He looked out across the lake and imagined the feel of his tongue against the truth." - The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien


"Our house looked the same as every other one on the block, but it was not the same. Murder had a blood red door on the other side of which was everything unimaginable to everyone." The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

Fun Fact Friday!

Yep, it's Friday! My first friday of the new school year, and it is quite welcomed. But nothing makes a Friday better than some fun facts, right? Please, just humor me.

1. Ants are the only animals that can survive in an operating microwave.

2. Under a full moon this week, coral will have a mass mating party. Seriously. Read about it.

From noao.edu

3. According to my page-a-day calendar, it is Wednesday, August 26th, 2009. Just so you know.

4. This song is currently driving my WIP. And it's awesome. I do recommend a listen.

And so, I wish you a very happy Friday!

A "Screaming" Voice

Whichever part of my brain decides which book I read next deserved a high five a couple of weeks ago. I was contemplating voice, and what it means for a novel to have a strong voice. Sometimes this seems so simple to me - voice is just... the author. Two writers can take the exact same conflicts and plot and will not write the same story. The difference between the two, among other factors, is their voice.

It's one of the things I can't come up with a tangible explanation of...voice is just...voice.

Which was why questioning what voice was and if my writing had it was so frightening. Until I read two books in a row that screamed - yes, screamed - voice.

First I read Simply from Scratch, by Alicia Bessette, which I actually won over on her blog by telling one of the worst baking disaster stories (who knew it would benefit me someday!).

Then I picked up Cracked Up to Be, by Courtney Summers, from the library and read it in a couple of days - meanwhile telling every one that I was tired because the book I was reading was too captivating to put down.

That's the word I'd use to describe the voice in both of these books: captivating. The narrators felt so real and unique I couldn't stop wanting more.

In the midst of my "voice crisis," if you will, these books confirmed for me that voice isn't easy to adequately explain, but it is very easy to spot.

These two novels are in first person present tense, which I think is difficult to write but also lends itself to a strong voice. When I read books in that style, the narrator seems to come alive quicker for me. However, voice is still often well executed in other styles, these just both happened to be in the same one. Although Simply from Scratch had some sections in the third person point of view of a minor character, and those sections had just as strong of a voice for me.

Now Simply from Scratch is Bessette's debut novel, and Cracked up to Be is the only Courtney Summers' book I've read, but I'd be willing to bet that their other books have similar captivating voices that are still distinct to each of the main characters.

I think that for me, voice is the difference between a well told story and a story that comes alive, existing beyond the page.

But since I was having such a hard time coming up with what exactly voice is, I looked for some help and found these quotes... 

"A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more.  A writer's voice line the stroke of an artist's brush- is the thumbprint of her whole person- her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms."  Patricia Lee Gauch

"A good style should show no sign of effort.  What is written should seem like a happy accident."  W. Somerset Maugham

"It is the aspect of the novelist's work that asks to be read out loud, which appeals not to the eye, like most prose, but to the ear; having indeed this much in common with oratory....The story, besides saying one thing after another, adds something because of its connection with a voice." - E. M. Forster, Aspects of a Novel

How do you define voice? Have you read either of those books, and did they "scream" voice to you?

The pictures are linked to their source - their Amazon page.

Fun Fact Friday!

So I'm home for a few days before my SENIOR YEAR begins (I can't really believe it, even though I am beyond ready for it), and thus today's fun fact will be just that - only one.

Every time I'm home I like to look through my spirals that I wrote in growing up, both to laugh at myself and inspire myself. Every single one of them mentions numerous times how being an author is my dream and why it is my dream, and it's always fun to know that my 10 year-old self and 21 year-old self agree.

But anyway, ONWARDS with the fun fact!

In one of my spirals, I have a list of 188 questions I have about the world (which is by no means a comprehensive list). 188 questions which, by the way, are all written in mirror writing. Mirror writing. I faintly remember teaching myself how to do that when I was bored in class in high school (I think because Leonardo da Vinci wrote like that, and I was all inspired).

The problem? I never really taught myself how to read it, and it takes way too much energy. But I did make out question #188... How long before humans will become obsolete?

Yeah, kinda bleak...so...anyway...HAPPY FRIDAY!!

Embrace Your Introvert

Today, I have some questions for you.

Do you enjoy spending large periods of time alone, with only the company of fictional characters in books and on television?
Do people often worry you aren't socializing enough?
Growing up, did you get in trouble for reading so intensely you were ignoring your parents more often than you got in trouble for anything else?
Does your day feel complete only when you've managed to create a character or a world or an important moment of your WIP?
Do you spend more time thinking than speaking - constantly pondering the world and what's around you and what everything means? Please tell me I'm not the only one...sometimes thinking so much gets tiring!


Well, I have news for you (but I bet you already knew it). You might be an introvert!

And while we make up the minority of the population, this isn't necessarily such a bad thing. Especially for us aspiring author types.

Think about it. If we weren't so okay with spending entire days devoid of social interaction, we'd never have enough time to actually write a book. And if we didn't consider the people in books our friends and worthy of our time, we wouldn't have the skills necessary to write a book.

Even though many of our friends, and even our family, don't understand us, it's a GOOD THING that we are the way we are. I spent so much time believing I was as weird as those close to me said I was for the aforementioned list of habits, I never bothered to consider that what makes me weird is also why my dream for my entire life has been to be an author.

So I embrace the weird, because it's what makes me, me. And I embrace my inner introvert. We work well together.

And I do know there are surely extroverted writers out there - if you're one I'd love your take on how it relates with/affects your writing!


Also, I was looking for pictures by searching "introvert" (which, I'll admit, was clearly fruitless - what was I expecting to find?), and found articles that only confirmed for me how introverted I am. In case you want to read more about introverts... try here and here.

Fun Fact Friday - It's a Small World

So these past couple of weeks I have fallen in love with this song, Breathe, which I actually discovered because it was iTune's free song of the week once upon a time.

The trivia part of this? Ryan Star actually sings the theme song for the TV show, Lie To Me. I have seen one episode of that show, during which this scene happened. Go watch. I'll wait!

A. SO CUTE. Especially in the context of the episode (which had something to do with a bomb threat and the need to distract the kids from what was really happening to them through songs and lying).

B. SO CATCHY. I was singing the "white lies" part of this days after I first saw it back in December.

I discovered he sang the theme song when I was trying to find the aforementioned song Breathe on YouTube, which led me to the discovery of the White Lies scene. It was like it was meant to be.

I think this proves that the world is small. Or at least the YouTube world.

But just in case that wasn't trivia enough for you on this Friday, I leave you with this...

In Major League baseball, once the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, there are 2.6 million different things that can happen, taking into account, of course, every possible situation in which a pitch could be thrown. WOW.

And this:

The caffeine that is removed from coffee to make it decaf often winds up in soda. See? Small world. I bet you thought your soda caffeine was special.


HAPPY FRIDAY!

Misbehaving Characters

The other day I was writing when my roommate asked me to help her move something. I did, and my mind drifted to the scene I was working on. As we finished, I let out a GAH and said, "My characters are trying to skip school and they're not supposed to! I don't know what they're doing!"

To which, understandably, my roommate responded, "Well, can't you just make them not skip?"

"But... but they want to! They're about to leave and they weren't supposed to. They're just supposed to eat lunch. I don't know if I can get them to stay. I probably sound crazy."

To which, understandably, my roommate responded, "Yeah, you really do." Note: she also smiled and laughed and is thankfully supportive of the crazy writer mind.


But when I sat back down at my computer, just as I was about to go along with my characters' little scheme to cut class on me, I realized they couldn't. Really couldn't.

A. It wasn't in line with their characters, though the circumstances would have still made the blip in their character understandable and allowable.

So, most importantly, B. Cutting class was an act in complete contrast to one of the character's main motivations. He'd never do it, even if he wanted to. Even if he could.

I was then able to scold my characters for trying such a sneaky thing and they behaved by eating their lunches and going back to class.

I share this story for two reasons. First, it's hard to explain to the non-writerly types in my life how there are so many decisions in my writing I don't actively make (in the first draft, anyway), and I think that's one of the coolest parts about it. I have this map for my characters in my mind, and there are specific stops I know they are going to make, but I don't necessarily know which routes they are going to choose along the way.

I've discovered that when I get most excited about my work in progress and really start cranking out pages is when I have enough of the plot figured out that I can't wait to figure out how the characters are going to reach each turn and how it will affect them in ways I haven't considered yet. When I start seeing how all the pieces will fall together, that's when I go on a writing frenzy because I want to see the finished product.

Second, as easy as it sometimes is to let our characters start doing crazy things without our permission and take control of their own story, as the master of their lives, it's our job to second guess them. We have to always be aware of their overriding motivation and drive so that we can keep them in line.

Do you ever have wayward characters? Do you also find that you aren't actively making all of your first draft decisions?

Fun Fact Friday!

It's Friday! Add to that some fun facts and a long weekend and, well, I'd say it's a pretty spectacular Friday.

So without further adieu, I shall impart my plethora of useless trivia to you...

1. Snakes who have the genetic mutation of having been born with two heads have a hard time eating, because the two heads generally fight over which gets the food.

From islandcrisis.net

2. A blue whale's tongue weighs more than an elephant.
3. Agatha Christie acquired her extensive knowledge of poisons while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I.
4. Seventy percent of house dust is made up of dead skin flakes. So, yes. By dusting you are creating more dust. Lovely.


Happy Friday, and Happy Labor Day!