Archive for Road Trip Wednesday

Road Trip Wednesday: Favorite Couples

I decided to play along with this week’s Road Trip Wednesday from the great ladies over at YA Highway.

This week’s topic: Who are your favorite literary couples?

There were so many it was hard to narrow it down. But here goes for my top five.

5. Macy <3 Wes – In The Truth About Forever (Sarah Dessen), Macy and Wes both have significant others. Their feelings for each other develop slowly over the course of the novel, but the great thing about that is that Dessen shows their friendship growing bit by bit. It’s natural, and it leaves you rooting for them.

4. Agatha <3 Scott – Agatha walks with a limp because her drunken father knocked her down a flight of stairs. Scott is the owner of the new saloon in town. In the middle of a prohibition argument, these two somehow manage to become friends and fall in love. The Gamble (Lavyrle Spencer) gets me weepy every time I read it.

3. Minerva Dobbs <3 Cal Morrisey – In Bet Me (Jennifer Crusie), these two hate each other. At first. And then they fall in love, seeing all of each other’s faults, including her constant body type issues and rude mother and his insistence on perfection and uppity family. I seriously love this book that goes from enemy to friend to love.

2. Emily <3 Tom – This is another one of those loathing turns to friendship turns to deeper feelings novels. In Lavyrle Spencer’s Vows, the devastion these characters feel is palpable as Tom realizes he’s fallen for his best friend’s fiance. This book also has the best wooing and the best two-guys-fighting-over-a-girl scene I’ve ever read. Twilight has nothing on the heartache in this book.

1. Jane Eyre <3 Edward Rochester – Jane Eyre is one of my absolute favorite reads. That romance sizzles between these two, but Jane never compromises her values to be with Edward. It’s up to him to be a better man if he wants her.

Road Trip Wednesday: Best Blog Posts

Kate suggested I participate in this week’s Road Trip Wednesday. I suspect it is because I’m just getting back into blogging more frequently after an Internet Sabbatical. Being a fellow overachiever, she is giving me a needed kick in the pants. Only your best friends kick you. Thanks, Kate. So here goes…

This Week’s Topic: Give us a link to the best blog post you’ve ever written!

Do I have to pick only one? I have four that I’m particularly proud of.

1. How I Got My Agent – This is a story I will be telling a long time about how I found out I was getting an offer of representation via Twitter.
2. When Someone Reads You, I Mean, Your Novel – Allowing someone to read your work can feel like letting them take a peek inside you.
3. Tough Love for Writers – A tough lesson I learned about letting others have too much power over your work.
4. LOL, A Manifesto to Stop the Abuse – This post gets more random hits from people cruising Google. Please, please wake up people and stop abusing LOL.

Thanks to the YA Highway ladies for having me along on this trip!

Road Trip Wednesday: My Real YA Writings

Okay, if the goal of YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday is to shamefully embarrass ourselves with our youthful writing, I am so in. Here are two snippets of two of my eighth grade efforts, which I believe can fall into the YA category. Double the pleasure. It was so hard not to edit this for the thousand obvious errors, but half the fun of this Road Trip is seeing how far we’ve traveled. Welcome to 1990, and forgive me for punishing you with my 14-year-old musings!

“Hallow’s Eve”

I sit at the kitchen table, staring out the window. I watch the big orange globe that is the sun sink slowly from its place in the sky. There is a sheen of gold over everything, as if the sun wants to touch all objects one last time with its warmth before it disappears. Slowly, the shadows start to creep over the land like fingers snatching away the light. Abruptly it is pitch black. The full moon is ht eonly source of light.

I finally shake myself from my hypnotic state with the realization that it is Hallow’s Eve, the night the spirits roam the earth and come back to visit their loved ones and haunt their enemies.

I think about the ghosts that will haunt their enemies, and I wonder if Megan will decide to visit me again. Megan was my little sister, and she hated me. It’s been four years since her death, and she still hates me enough to haunt me every year. I can’t say I blame her, though. After all, it was my fault she died in the first place. I was the one who was diriving the car when it went off the highway. Megan, the innocent passenger, died whiled I rolled out of the car before it went over. I came out of the accident unharmed. I know Megan wants revenge. She haunts my house in hopes of driving me insane.

Suddenly, through the stillness in the houase, I hear the laugh of a little girl. I know it is Megan, and I have a feeling that she just might drive me mad this year. Wanting to escape her, I run from the house. I get into my car and rive towards the highway. The more distance I travel the better I feel.

Then out of nowhere, a puppy runs out onto the highway. To avoid running it over, I swerve the car and almost in slow motion, I feel the car drive off the highway and down towards the canyon far below. In midair, there is a stillness, a pause of all activity,  except for the haunting laugh of a little girl. I realize Megan has had her revenge and because there is little else for me to do, I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the final impact.

Now, if that spooky bit of brilliance didn’t make your blood run cold, this next one definitely won’t. This baby was an exercise in English class. As I recall, the teacher challenged us to write a quick paragraph playing with alliteration, and I conquered the letter D like I’d been spoonfed Sesame Street.

“Donna and Dan”

Disagreeable Donna was a dairymaid who lived in Denmark. Her demeanor was disgusting and deliberately dreadful. She had no dignity, diplomacy, or discipline. She was disgraceful, dull, and downright dumb. Then one day she met Darling Dan. Darling dan was a dreamy Duke. Darling Dan was dashing, daring and a Don Juan. Darling Dan dared to demand a date with Disagreeable Donna. They danced, dined, and drank until dawn. Disagreeable Donna had such a devine day that her dreadful disposition deteriorated. Disagreeable donna became Delightful Donna. Darling Dan and Delightful Donna were destined to date forever. Delightful Donna the dairymaid and Darling Dan the Duke died together in Denmark.

ETA: I agree with Amanda. This post may mysteriously disappear in the next couple of days.

Road Trip Wednesday #10: Getting to Know YOU!

The writers over at YA Highway want to get to know ME! Okay, they opened it up to everyone who visits their site, but I’m sure they’d love me if they knew me. Unless Kate tells them otherwise. Here are the questions they asked everyone ME:

(1)    What are the three best books you’ve read this year?

1. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher – my love letter review with Author Q&A can be read here.
2. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman – My first foray into Gaiman’s world, and it couldn’t have been more entertaining. He has a Dickensian way of creating memorable characters. Richard Mayhew’s adventure through London Below was magical, colorful
3. Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund – I loved these characters and their futuristic world. Aerin, a fugitive slave, is forced to lie about her background to fit in at Academy 7. Dane, the apparent privileged son of a political leader, has secrets of his own. These two meet and a lot of heartache happens. Because I am cynical I kept expecting Osterlund to fall into the cliché path of boy and girl meet and their wounds are magically healed. She proved me wrong. Very smart novel and great writing.

(2)    If you could meet one author (living or dead), who would it be? This is a three-parter since I have living and dead authors I would love to meet and can’t possibly narrow it down to one.

1. First, I have a reciprocal girl crush* on Kate. Every time we chat, we find another obscure detail that we have in common. She’s an amazing beta reader, owns more smileys than anyone I know, and regularly makes me LOL. The real kind of LOL where I actually do laugh out loud. I have yet to see her writing, but I know she will be amazing, if only she gets past the editing stage.
2. Next, I want to go back in time and meet Jane Austen. Her cutting wit is off the scales and her observations about society strike at the heart of hypocrisy. I bet she was a lot of fun in private when she let her hair down.
3. Last, but not least, J.M. Barrie. I read Peter Pan and fell in love. He created this magical world with fantastically original images I’ve never read before or since. Like kisses hidden in the corner of mouths. I’d like to live in his imagination for a day. Seriously, pick up the original sometime and read it. Not the Disney movie, but the actual book. Or read for free here. This book also has a place in copyright law history. Barrie donated all the profits to a children’s hospital so England extended the copyright when it should have gone into public domain.

*as defined by Urban Dictionary – “”Feelings of admiration and adoration which a girl has for another girl, without wanting to shag said girl. A nonsexual attraction, usually based on veneration at some level.”

(3)    What book are you most looking forward to in 2010?

1. Kate’s novel. If she ever gives it to me to beta.

Take a trip of your own! The rules are here.

YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday: What else do you read, besides YA?

Admittedly, there haven’t been many of late. In the last year, Young Adult literature has managed to reignite my passion for reading. A surprise for me since, by the time I was a teen, I had already moved on from Young Adult literature. I should say, I am a voracious reader. For cripes sake, I have a Master’s in English, so I better love to read. Yet, most of my studies focused on the classics, or surveys of things like Modern Drama and Women in Literature. When I graduated, I thought, “Now is the time. Now I will get caught up on all those books I couldn’t read, while I was busy with school. Books everyone talks about, like Seybold’s The Lovely Bones, or anthologies that tout “The Best American Short Stories” for the year.

I took recommendations from friends. Scanned the reviews and the book clubs for the books many considered must reads. I bought a ton of books. I read and read and read. And I discovered something. About myself.

Too many of the books and stories left me feeling dissatisfied and empty. I discovered gritty, ugly characters, and the horrific things that can happen to innocents. I was introduced to characters that cared about nothing at the beginning of the novel and were far more indifferent by the end of a 300 page journey. Judging by many of the things I read, our world and the people in it have very little to redeem themselves. We are an unhappy race of people, and flat, hopeless characters full of ennui are representative of what modern society is about.

My reaction? Tossing a book across the room and wondering how I could get those wasted hours of my life back. I want books that make me think about possibilities. I long for stories that make me care about growing and stretching personal boundaries, whether you’re ten or eighty. I want something more than shock value, empty relationships, and one-dimensional characters who let the world happen to them. And what in the hell ever happened to somebody believing in something heroic and standing up for it?

Maybe young adult novels allow a greater flexibility to explore hope and uncertainty of the future. Perhaps that’s because the characters are of an age where possibility exists. I’m not talking about the Hallmark movie of the week with happy-ever-afters. Great Expectations and Othello do not have fairy tale endings, but they leave you with something. A few hours of entertainment and a little magic. I’m talking about still believing in the possibility of BECOMING MORE, BELIEVING IN MORE, HOPING FOR MORE than current literature tells us is possible.

THAT is what I found when I picked up a YA novel.

So, what am I reading outside of YA these days? Not much. I’m rereading my classics and settling in to my YA section, while I wait for the publishers to believe me – the reader – is capable of MORE.