Blog Tour

Guess what tomorrow is? Right, the first day of June. Guess what tomorrow also is? The first day of my blog tour! Next month (June) I'm doing a blog tour to celebrate the release of Flawless Ruins on the fifteenth. I'll be doing interviews and guest posts, and reviews of FR will be up on some of the blogs!

Here's the schedule:

June 1: Jennifer Wylie http://jlwylie.wordpress.com/

June 6: Just Another Book Addict http://justanotherbookaddict.blogspot.com

June 9: Sean and Conner http://www.seanandconnor.com/

June 13: The Bookish Babes http://thebookishbabes.blogspot.com/

June 14: Coffee and Cliffhangers http://www.coffeeandcliffhangers.com/

June 15: Modern Romance http://robertauld.blogspot.com/

June 20: Harmony Book Reviews http://harmonybookreviews.blogspot.com/

June 24: Carla Veno Jones http://cvj237.wordpress.com/

June 28: Candace's Book Blog http://www.candacesbookblog.com/

June 30: Eating YA Books http://eatingyabooks.blogspot.com/

I'm excited about the tour, mostly because I'm a fan of book blogs, including the ones I'm stopping at. YA Lit Six isn't a book review blog, but some of our contributors are and many of our readers. Anyone have a favorite book blog, or a suggestion of one to visit?

The tour schedule may be updated, so make sure you check out my media page and scroll to Blog Tour - Flawless Ruins.

Kieryn

www.kierynnicolas.com

Saturday Say: It's Okay to Write Badly

Or: A pep talk from Saturday.

Sorry about forgetting to post last Saturday. My sleeping patterns have been all over the place and I forgot it was Saturday at all...

Okay, so. You all remember that book I wrote in July 2010? The one I've been revising since I finished it? A friendof mine/my new crit partner read it for the first time recently. She called it all sorts of good things (and may have made me cry a little) but the one that stuck the absolutely most was polished.

Because polished is awesome. That's the whole point of revising, right? To polish your writing until it's, you know, good and stuff.

Here's the thing. My WIP that I'm writing... it's not polished. It's a mess. The plot is all over the place, the characters are flatter than I'd like at times, there are scenes that are mostly skeletons, I'm not working in the mythology as well as I'd like - and a million other things you don't want to hear about.

But here's the thing. That other book I wrote, Berserk? Yeah, the first draft of that was awful. I completely rewrote it before I let anyone read it and it still needs a lot of work.

This new book... it's weird, too. I've plotted with it, I made a calendar for it (seriously, there's like a schedule and stuff), I've done a whackload of research, I know things like my main character's school schedule and holy wow, it's not like anything I've written before. And it's challenging.

So right now, I wouldn't let anyone look at it to save my life. But I know that it can be made better - once I finish it. (I cannot edit as I write. Cannot. If I try, I get stuck. My brain thinks, "Oh, that part's better... but the next part sucks. I can't write more til I fix it!" and then nothing ever gets finished.)

Basically... all first drafts suck. I don't think it really gets much easier, no matter how many times you do it. Not like riding a bike or *mind goes to a bad place* *drags brain OUT of gutter* or cooking or something. And it's okay for them to suck. Revision is a very good thing and you can't revise nothing.

Um. I was on a roll here, then I got distracted by supper, so does this make sense? How do you guys feel about writing first drafts after revising for a long time?

Peace and cookies,
Laina

Prewriting

I write a lot before I sit down and put my fingers to the keyboard.

Well, if we define writing as encompassing all tasks necessary to completing a story.

I call it prewriting, where I sit or walk or stand and play through a prospective scene in my mind, once or over and over, working out major and minor details before actually penning a word. I don't always do this, but I find when I do I tend to write scenes faster and they read better-- perhaps because they've been mentallly carried through already. Just like a revised scene usually goes smoother than a rough draft. I feel like I'm just revising a scene I've already prewritten.

A good time to do prewriting is before you fall asleep. Nothing's rushing you or trying to hold your attention. I would not reccomend prewriting during a math lecture-- you might miss something you need on the test. (Yeah...)

Anyone have any other forms of prewriting?

Kieryn
www.kierynnicolas.com

Zoe is a Flake. She Also Loves Chemical X.

I feel so horrible about not posting last week. The week moves by so fast that I never know I've forgotten to post until a few days after. So on Sunday last week, I realized it was Sunday and that I hadn't posted. Like tonight, I just remembered I didn't post. So, even though I'm a little late- I will be talking to you all today about my chemical X. (for the record, I loved Powderpuff Girls when I was younger. I even dressed as one for Halloween one year)

Like a few other bloggers here on the YA Lit Six, my characters Chemical X is their flawsand various quirks. In the novel I'm working on right now (which has been retitled Lovely Lies), I have a main character who is socially awkward but due to various circumstances, she has been forced out of her comfort zone. I like taking whatever my character fears and putting them in a situation where they are standing face to face with it. I also like to showcase their quirks because that is really what makes one character in a novel individual from all the others.

Something that all my characters have in common when I'm writing the first draft is angst. I don't think that this is their Chemical X per say, but I think through editing (editing and more editing) I eventually weed out most of the angst which enables me to really figure out what makes my character tick.

Though I'm on the first draft of Lovely Lies, I've had to edit it various times to help fully develop characters. Doing that really helped me realize that my MC wasn't totally a hopelessly angsty character. She's angsty, socially awkward, an annoying person to be around, and likes pushing people away- I know that. But I've finally realized why she's like that. For those who don't know what Lovely Lies is about (and I don't think most of you know what it's about. Unless you are on Absolute Write, and if you are on AW- I love you very very much), Lovely Lies starts out six months after my MC's brother was murdered. She was always really close to him, where as she was never close to her mom or dad. So naturally she has issues getting close to people because the person whom she was closest to, died. I think her fear of being friendly and social and caring towards people stems from her brothers death, and all of that is her Chemical X.

If she weren't socially awkward and loved pushing people away, then I would have no story and she wouldn't be the character that I know and love.

So that is my story and I'm sticking to it. For me, I get Chemical X out of my characters imperfections and quirks. The thing that helps me find that Chemical X is editing. Tons and tons of editing and late night pondering of characters.


Sorry for being a flake and forgetting to post.

xo,
Zoe.

Blackout

If I didn't usually type with only two fingers (shush, I'm good at it anyway) I probably would be typing very slowly right now. That's because I can't use my left middle finger or bend my right elbow. Why? I gave blood today. Ow. (But yay, good cause.)

Anyway, my writing-point: I now know what it feels like to black out.

Ish.

Have you noticed how in many, many books and movies, characters black out a lot? Whether it's after an intense battle scene, from shock, or from the good spy ramming the bad spy on the head with a dictionary or something, someone always loses consciousness.

[Be warned: I've asked some experts (ish) and the hitting-on-the-head-then-character-blacks-out-but-wakes-up-with-just-an-eensy-headache is only acceptable in the literary world. I'm pretty sure in the real life world you get more than a headache if you black out for more than a few seconds from head trauma.]

Anyway. Since I'll probably want to use a blackout scene someday, I have the experience of going woozy after donating blood. (Don't freak out...I didn't eat enough breakfast.) The world started to glow and I heard everything from a long, long way away. I remember leaning over and then people were telling me to prop my feet up and I was on my back. I still couldn't hear (which freaked me out the most). I was okay in a few minutes, but my second thought after holy crap I can't hear was great! I'll use this in a story. If I can ever hear again.

Any thoughts on the blackout scenes?

Kieryn

www.kierynnicolas.com

Saturday Hates Geometry*

Or: On love triangles.

This post is semi-rant, semi-discussion post, so... you've been warned. Anyways.

Sometimes, when you say a book has a love triangle these days, people roll their eyes or talk about how sick of them they are. They're over, been there done that, there's too many, they're all the same.

I'll tell you a secret.

My books have love triangles. And I'm not going to apologize for them because they mean something.

In one book, one character is terrified of losing the person she sees as her only anchor, the only person who she thinks won't leave her. (She has issues. Long story. 80 thousand words long, to be exact.) So she shuts down any sort of feelings she has for that person until she can't anymore. And it means something.

I have another book where a character goes out with somebody who is not the "love interest" in the book. It's not truly a love triangle, in my opinion, but it does mean something. This is a character who has been depressed and numb for a year, and her going out on a date with somebody and enjoying herself, is a sign she's healing. It's important.

I would tell you about my latest WIP, but my crit partners would kill me because they don't know as much about it...

Anyways. I won't disagree that love triangles are used a lot in YA books these days, and that sometimes they can be used just for the "hook" of it, but I also won't apologize for having ones in mine, not as long they're important to the book and true to it, and I don't think I - or my books - should be judged for having them. Thoughts?

Peace and cookies,
Laina

*I totally wrote geography when I first typed this. I hate that, too. I'm bad with directions... I get lost if you spin me around three times in a circle.