a little o' this, a little o' that
Diversity in YA is holding a contest, where you can win 53 diverse middle-grade and young adult novels. The challenge is to diversify your reading (by picking up books with people of color or GBLT as main characters) and writing an essay about it by September 1st.
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Here's Natalie C. Parker on How Writing a Good Hook is like Running a Good Con, in which she makes a most amusing analogy between novel writing and Leverage.
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M. Molly Backs on how to make your kid a writer:
"Let her be bored. Let her have long afternoons with absolutely nothing to do. Limit her TV-watching time and her internet-playing time and take away her cell phone. Give her a whole summer of lazy mornings and dreamy afternoons. Make sure she has a library card and a comfy corner where she can curl up with a book.
Give her a notebook and five bucks so she can pick out a great pen. Insist she spend time with the family. It’s even better if this time is spent in another state, a cabin in the woods, a cottage on the lake, far from her friends and people her own age. Give her some tedious chores to do. Make her mow the lawn, do the dishes by hand, paint the garage. Make her go on long walks with you and tell her you just want to listen to the sounds of the neighborhood.
Let her be lonely. Let her believe that no one in the world truly understands her. Give her the freedom to fall in love with the wrong person, to lose her heart, to have it smashed and abused and broken. Occasionally be too busy to listen, be distracted by other things, have your nose in a great book, be gone with your own friends.
Let her have secrets."
Which is kind of lovely and unsettling and true, at least for some. There was definitely boredom (filled in in with books) and certainly loneliness. Having two brothers and two sisters, all younger and all louder and more demanding meant that I often sidelined my own need for attention and understanding.
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Here's another great post, by Molly Crabapple, who explains why she chose a pseudonym and why anonymity is valuable to both herself and others online. Molly Crabapple is a rather fabulous artist who is doing a "Week in Hell" project, in which she will be locked in a room for a week to do nothing by draw. This is a birthday gift to herself, btw.
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I finally caught up on the final episodes of Falling Skies and oh. my. god! I can't believe that ending. I was jumping around, squeeling "No!" and "What's happening?!" I've been enjoying the first season of the show (with reservations), but now, with that ending, I'm locked into seeing season two.
My imagination is desperately trying to figure out how they are going to continue the story, and I have to keep reminding it that I've got my own stories that need focusing on.
*
Here's Natalie C. Parker on How Writing a Good Hook is like Running a Good Con, in which she makes a most amusing analogy between novel writing and Leverage.
*
M. Molly Backs on how to make your kid a writer:
"Let her be bored. Let her have long afternoons with absolutely nothing to do. Limit her TV-watching time and her internet-playing time and take away her cell phone. Give her a whole summer of lazy mornings and dreamy afternoons. Make sure she has a library card and a comfy corner where she can curl up with a book.
Give her a notebook and five bucks so she can pick out a great pen. Insist she spend time with the family. It’s even better if this time is spent in another state, a cabin in the woods, a cottage on the lake, far from her friends and people her own age. Give her some tedious chores to do. Make her mow the lawn, do the dishes by hand, paint the garage. Make her go on long walks with you and tell her you just want to listen to the sounds of the neighborhood.
Let her be lonely. Let her believe that no one in the world truly understands her. Give her the freedom to fall in love with the wrong person, to lose her heart, to have it smashed and abused and broken. Occasionally be too busy to listen, be distracted by other things, have your nose in a great book, be gone with your own friends.
Let her have secrets."
Which is kind of lovely and unsettling and true, at least for some. There was definitely boredom (filled in in with books) and certainly loneliness. Having two brothers and two sisters, all younger and all louder and more demanding meant that I often sidelined my own need for attention and understanding.
*
Here's another great post, by Molly Crabapple, who explains why she chose a pseudonym and why anonymity is valuable to both herself and others online. Molly Crabapple is a rather fabulous artist who is doing a "Week in Hell" project, in which she will be locked in a room for a week to do nothing by draw. This is a birthday gift to herself, btw.
*
I finally caught up on the final episodes of Falling Skies and oh. my. god! I can't believe that ending. I was jumping around, squeeling "No!" and "What's happening?!" I've been enjoying the first season of the show (with reservations), but now, with that ending, I'm locked into seeing season two.
My imagination is desperately trying to figure out how they are going to continue the story, and I have to keep reminding it that I've got my own stories that need focusing on.