Not All Who Wander Are Lost

The snow is already up to the tops of my boots here in the burbs of Chicago. I have a snowman I can look eye to eye with in my front yard and yet it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Welcome to the Midwest! It should be 50 by Thursday so all the snow will turn to leafy brown sludge rimed with ice in the mornings. However, it's the time of year we all turn our minds to our blessings instead of the irritations of things like the weather. I find it interesting that every November my Facebook wall explodes with people telling the world what they're thankful for. Every day for the entire month until we get sucked into the wonderful world of Christmas shopping and elbowing people out of the way for the newest creepy Elmo toy. Don't get me started on that elf on the shelf thing. (Shivers) I swear those things are plotting against us when we're not looking. Back to thankfulness. I decided to not participate in the public declaiming of thanks this year. I have in the past, bu...

My students had research papers due this week. We'd spent five weeks reading the Walter Dean Myers book Fallen Angels  and researching and learning about the Vietnam War. We always do the Vietnam War in October to November because it's a war we so rarely get to it in social studies and it's such an important part of our national history and identity. Anyway, we spent two weeks on the who research process. It's always a struggle.There are always a couple of kids who think because they found the information and copied it it's theirs. Plagiarism is an uphill battle in the classroom. I think we got the point across. As writers, you'd think that all you do is just make stuff up. Right? Well, kind of. We do make up a lot of stuff. And we have to keep all that made up stuff straight. I actually have a notebook in which I write down definitions and descriptions of the things I've created in my worlds. However, there is a lot of research that needs to happen. We do...

I love Banned Books Month. I spent a class period a week or so ago going through what books have been challenged most throughout the last ten years. A lot of the books are still old stand bys: The Catcher in the Rye, Huck Finn, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The kids were a little shocked at how many of the books they've loved over the last several years have been challenged. They were shocked that in the recent past some communities had hosted book burnings for books like the Harry Potter and Twilight series. They didn't understand what anyone could have thought was so bad about them. They understood why 50 Shades has been challenged, even though it's not intended for them at all.  That last one got me thinking. Full disclosure, I haven't read any of the Shades books. I'm not a prude, but I was warned that the grammar was so appalling I'd have a seizure before the end of the second chapter. So, in order to avoid an aneurysm I've left those books alone. H...

I really didn't intend to read A Life Without Living in two days, but I have to admit that I really wanted to see what happened. Let me try and let you know what's going on without giving too much away. Four hundred years before Kattarina betrayed the wrong man. Promised to marry Alessandro, she falls in love with Gio, love at first sight, and they plan to run away. Unfortunately, Alessandro found them out and Kattarina paid with her life. As a member of a powerful magical clan, Alessandro curses both lovers. Kattarina is destined to be reborn after each death while Gio is doomed to roam the world trying to find her and win her away from Alessandro. In this life, Kattarina is Katie and she's married to Alex--Alessandro in this incarnation. Gio, and his friend Willem, have long been tracking Kate. Unfortunately, every other time they've come this close Alex has discovered them and Kate has once more paid. This time, though, Gio has an ace up his sleeve in the form of C...

I was asked a few interview questions by the local newspaper this past week in my capacity as an English teacher. One of the questions kind of stuck with me. It centered on the idea of when people study of culture they generally look to the social sciences. Did I believe that was an accurate measure or was literature a clearer look? Well, I got to hop up onto my soapbox for a while. It's an interesting question, isn't it? The literature snob in me, of course has an opinion. A strong one, which I'm sure surprises no one who actually knows me well. We need to remember that history is written by the victors. Generally written by the victors after some judicious pruning. Think about the treatment of World War II in American history books. It's the Greatest Generation--the generation that buckled down, planted victory gardens and won the war over in Europe when France and Britain couldn't go it alone. Those entries completely downplay the fact that the US shrugged it...

In the last two weeks my publishing company has found and identified two different pirating sites. We've all since rallied together, sent them cease and desist emails and gotten our books taken down, but after a little bit of research I find it's kind of like keeping your finger in the dam to stop the leak. I spent a little bit of time last night typing in my various book titles and seeing what popped up. It was a little distressing to find five different options (that all suspiciously lead to the same log-in screen) that offered free pdfs of my books. I also found a message thread on a book site in which someone asked if anyone knew if there were a free pdf of Ascent of the Fallen out there since this person really wanted to read it. There were then five or six replies. None of them knew where to find the free copy and a couple of the comments were flattering my author ego. One of them stated that the poster couldn't imagine their life without this book. Another said t...

Every writer has a slightly different process they use to get the story out of their heads and onto the page. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There is no "one way." Most writers, though do some sort of outlining. I've heard of authors who outline everything! Down to some descriptions or dialogue. When I heard that the first thought I had was, "what's the fun in that?!?" I prefer broad, rather sweeping outlines. For example, I'm working on "First of the Fallen" right now. "First" is also a prequel to "Ascent of the Fallen." It takes place during the Christianization of Ireland, soon after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. So, a lot of my notes are historical notes in all caps in parentheses--either questions that I need to know the answers to in order to keep the research strong, or answers to previous questions I'd asked that need to be worked into the narrative.  My actual outline notes are also in all caps ...