DO YOU HAVE BOOKS THAT INSPIRED YOU? HERE IS MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF, AND STEPHENIE MEYER'S TOO

I had to share this fascinating article. I found it in The Guardian, on Sunday.

Many authors whose writing has given pleasure to others have taken the time to create and describe their ideal bookshelf.

This is Stephenie Meyer's Ideal Bookshelf:

"I was the reader. That was my identity in my family: I was that girl who was always in a corner reading; I read my whole life away. I skipped children's books. My dad would read to us at night, and I first began to read on my own by reading ahead in those books. I was seven when I read Little Women for the first time, and it became nearly as real to me as the rest of my life.

I always identified with Jo; I was the tomboy. My big sister was Meg, the pretty one, the sweet one. We didn't have a Beth, but my younger sister was definitely Amy, the frivolous one who liked nice things. I was like Jo in every way except for her passion for writing; I was perfectly content just to read. It wasn't until much later, after I had published three books, that I went back to Little Women and realised that I had become even more like Jo. Now I was a writer, too.

Of all the heroines I was invested in throughout my childhood, Jane Eyre was the one I most identified with, despite my having a happy and supportive family. I liked heroines who weren't perfectly beautiful. I liked that everyone wasn't swept away and captivated by her. Jane Eyre has this huge stubborn streak, which I have, too. I have my ideals, and I really don't diverge from them – it's probably off-putting to a lot of people. Jane is like that, too; she sticks to things even when she's uncomfortable and unhappy and making other people feel the same way. Of course, she's pushed to deeper extremes than I've ever been forced to go to, but I always felt we would see eye to eye. When I think about the books that were formative to me as a writer, I can see how much I was influenced by Anne of Green Gables. When the series starts, Anne is a young girl, and we follow her as she becomes a teenager, an adult, a mother, and finally almost a grandmother. It's so rare that we get to grow up with a character. When I was first imagining my novels, I skipped from Twilight to Breaking Dawn because I was eager to see Bella as an adult.

My editor encouraged me to slow down and show more of her in high school. I don't enjoy a character as much when he or she stays the same age. I want to see what comes next. These books contain threads of what I like to write about: the way people interact, how we relate to one another when life is both beautiful and horrible. But these books are greater than anything I could ever aspire to create. I'll never love what I've done as much as I love what these authors have done. However, for me, just getting to create is its own reward."

My bookshelf would look like this:              

           

      

WHICH BOOKS WOULD MAKE IT ONTO YOUR IDEAL BOOKSHELF?

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING IN KEEPING, NON-DERIVATIVE, AND CRIMINALLY GOOD! - What a shame that wasn't a question!

Do you remember, I mentioned that HarperCollins created an opportunity for writers to be published alongside one of their exciting new writers?

The competition prize was for three talented authors to write a short story which will be published in a special, limited edition epub of The Jerusalem Puzzle: the second novel from Laurence O'Bryan. 

After reading the second chapter of The Jerusalem Puzzle, entrants had to write the opening of the next chapter in no more than 500 words. 

*Squee! 

I'm one of the authors who have been invited to submit a short story for consideration by HarperCollins’ editors. 

Later, in December, the three overall winners will be selected to be published in the special edition Jerusalem Puzzle e-book next June.

NOW, I JUST HAVE TO THINK OF SOMETHING TO WRITE. SOMETHING, IN KEEPING, NON-DERIVATIVE, AND CRIMINALLY GOOD. Yikkes! 

HOW HAS YOUR DAY BEEN?

NEVER GUESS WHO WON THIS COMPETITION? ;)

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY - DARRAH _ CRUMBS!!!

CRUMBS!!

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” Charles Dickens

Six Sentence Sunday

I remembered to sign up for 6 Sentence Sunday *cheers and a very large grin

Now, I just have to work out how to get the post up quicker.

This Sunday I am posting from my romantic fiction.

DRAWN

Darrah has been charged with finding and rescuing the Regal's heir. The evidence suggests he was taken by a band of Sarkisians who feed directly from the living. Darrah fights her cultural prejudice and instinctive fears when The Sarkisian Council send Fauld Hale to work alongside her to rescue the boy and maintain the fragile peace between their peoples. 

Breakfast wasn't much but it was delicious:

Before she moved, Darrah wetted her finger and gathered up a few crumbs that dusted her thighs. She ran her tongue over the surface of her finger tip. It wasn’t the sound of his indrawn breath that made her pulse leap, it was the flare of heat more powerful than her leaf-fuelled fire had managed through the night. She shook her head and she refused to meet Hale's eyes. She also wouldn't bring her finger to her mouth again. She was too honest to do that to him after the restraint he’d showed…there were no crumbs left.

10 WAYS TO PARENT-PROOF YOUR NOVEL

ARE PESKY PARENTS GETTING IN THE WAY OF YOUR MC’S ADVENTURE?

BEWARE:
PARENTS!

While some characters are passionately fond of their parents, others find them terribly irritating. But the one thing the characters in your novels will agree on is that parents don't belong in the home. Not only do they create unnecessary boundaries, but they're also just plain annoying: whether that’s the buzz of a caring mother who won’t let the MC out to fight evil after dark and without their coat or the father who not only shows an interest in the MC's life beyond the home – they also insist on talking about the tattoo that has been mysteriously spreading up their arms. Mums, Dads, Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts, they can all cause painful interruptions, interventions, and unnecessary protection. They can provide the kind of advice that sorts out problems caused by simple mis-understandings and they’re champion when it comes to spotting an unsavoury character. It must be all those misspent years living, reading or watching well-crafted fiction. Even the common older sibling can be a major contributor toward de-escalating danger, preventing attacks, or providing additional muscles especially for younger children [source: Dr I Amreally Protective – Parent & notChild Daring Do Foundation].

With more than 10 quintillion children in the world of fiction being subjected to all kind of peril (that's 10,000,000,000,000,000,0000!), parent-proofing the novel can sometimes feel like a losing battle [source: My Smith’sonlyan Institute]. Fortunately, by understanding what attracts parental authority figures to your novel, you can begin making changes that will help get rid of them for good.

Just like characters, parents are only needed if they are necessary to provide food, water or shelter for your younger MC to survive. By enabling those young MC to source their own food supply and getting rid of parent's favourite hiding spots (such as a stable home,) you can reduce the risk that authority figures will take up residence in your manuscript. Of course, the best way to prevent over-protection and stifling of your MC’s internal and external struggle is to keep adults – of a non-antagonistic nature – out entirely.

To do this, you'll need to tighten up the entry points parents use to gain access, you can greatly improve your chances of staying parent free.

Places where parental-type authority figures can often be found:

·         Churches or other places of religious worship

·         Community meeting halls or rooms

·         Schools

·         Houses, of any type, made from any form of building material

Have you considered these possible solutions:

Killing off both parents

Writing them as emotionally and socially dysfunctional so they appear cold and distant

Ensuring they aren’t around often enough to be mentioned

Make them absorbed by their career path and climbing the corporate ladder

Have them wiped out by any form of predator – animal, vegetable, mineral or any other form of non-human being not covered by the Linnaean taxonomy of the natural world – including those who are living, dead or never alive (although, for stress free classification, I suggest cyborgs could be written across several lists simultaneously or merely written multiple times)

If things are desperate follow the following advice:

1.    Seal the doors – that will only deter the weak and faint-hearted

2.    Add screens to the windows – this should keep most smaller parents in check

3.    Maintain your garden or yard – cut back the plants they could hide under

4.    Repair the cracks – a determined parent, especially one with non-disclosed paranormal skills, could gain entry here

5.    Pay particular attention to pipes – sealant and grease would be effective even if they are capable of multi-form transformations or possess unreasonable strength and agility

6.    Cover large openings – a parent can sneak in through air vents or chimneys ( don’t scoff it has happened before (source: Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf – what greater love exists than that Wolfie would go to such lengths to protect a baby pig from the world beyond his digestive tract)

7.    Don’t invite them to dinner – admit it, you’re fighting the need to add a Come Dine With Me moment

8.    Store rubbish properly – a wily parent knows if any child could be bothered to put the trash out without a reminder, and bring the box back in after, he could hitch a ride inside

9.    Keep foundations clear – if your structure is wooden or weak, you know an authority figure will chew their way inside

10. Encourage natural predators – there’s a back catalogue’s worth of scary monsters between the pages of books. At least one of them has plans to gorge on your kid-sized MC. How about a parent entrée, right at the start, so you can show how fiendish your ant-agonist really is?

It’s sad to say, but for the sake of the plot, the real drama is created when your MC is an orphan even… when they’re not.

ARE YOU FINDING THAT PESKY PARENTS ARE MEDDLING WITH YOUR... NOVEL?

My thanks to HowStuffWorks - no bugs were hurt in the making of this post

6 REASONS WHY SACRIFICE EQUALS EMOTIONAL DEPTH

SACRIFICES HAVE RIPPLES TOO
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Thank you.

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness. - Napoleon Hill

SACRIFICE IS NECESSARY:

It resounds through the emotional impact of every story yet even the smallest sacrifice is difficult.

SACRIFICE IS DEVELOPMENTAL:

If you ask the character to give up something that’s securely theirs then they must, by definition, within the act, develop or grow.

SACRIFICE IS AN OPTION:

Sacrifice must involve a choice: sliding into the jaws of adversity doesn’t count; jumping into it to save another does.

SACRIFICE IS A STRUGGLE:

When there are choices to be made, sacrifice is usually one of the options;  the imperfect struggle that might bring a character to turn away from safety, comfort and self-preservation is the most human one of all.

SACRIFICE MUST BE AN ACTIVE DECISION:

Even if the end result is the same, to act impulsively and without recognition of the consequences is an imperfect sacrifice.

SACRIFICE IS A GIFT:

Sacrifice is a gift... but one you don’t expect to be around to share.

Hi *waves just incase everyone has forgotten allll about me ;)

I’ve been absent from my blog and the world continued turning – that’s like shocking ;) My family responsibilities have been responsibly embraced, and now I am back in my familiar routine ;)

While I've been anti-shirking, I hope you've been having fun... and have been both happy and productive.

DID YOU DECIDE TO TAKE PART IN NANOWRIMO THIS YEAR?

I have been but I'm FOUR DAYS behind with the word count. 

When I was catching up, this weekend, I discovered I get a lot more written when I have long blocks of time for writing. This is a shame, as it’s completely the opposite of my normal snatch and grab routines. Oops.

HOW DO YOU WRITE BEST?