Waiting on Wednesday: Pretty in Pink

This fun-tastic meme comes courtesy of Breaking the Spine. I haven't participated in awhile, but I thought I'd give a little WoW cover love to some gorgeous jackets in creamy and rosy hues.






 Info here



Craft Chat: Researching Your Fiction

I'm deep in the muck of a new manuscript. I KNOW my protagonist and, on my best days, really hear his voice in my head. The imaginary people and places splash onto the page sometimes faster than I can type. What gets me stuck? FACTS!

I discovered when I was writing THE SOUND OF LETTING GO that there was a LOT I didn't know about trumpets, Youth Orchestras, and especially autism. To write the best work of FICTION I could manage, I needed information to be sure my scenarios were plausible, my characterizations and descriptions authentic. What did I do?

• PRIMARY RESEARCH: Sought out and interviewed teen trumpet prodigies, psychiatrists and psychologists who treated people with autism in residential settings, parents and siblings of teens on the low-functioning end of the autism spectrum.
• READING: I read non-fiction books about autism, musical prodigies, family therapy strategies. I read fiction about and by folks on the autism spectrum.
• ONLINE EXPLORATION: I scoured the Autism Speaks and Autism Society websites, connected with some amazing people, including the director of the Sibling Support Project.
• VERIFICATION: I had my manuscript vetted by readers who worked in the autism field to make sure my finished product held up.

In the service of my new w-I-p, I am now interviewing police officers, and reading a lot about all kinds of things (secret for now). Although it takes time and effort, in the end, having a solid grasp of the facts frees me to write my very best fiction.

For a wonderful and poetic musing on this topic, check out Caroline Starr Rose's ODE TO A RESEARCH NOTEBOOK here!

Back to Business: KEEPING UP WITH THE (no, not Kardashians) PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

So, you shouldn't waste too much time on the interwebs. YOU SHOULD BE WRITING! But just in case you (like me) need a break from time to time--and, in truth, if you're serious about being in the children's or YA literature business--here are a few helpful industry links:

PUBLISHERS LUNCH on FACEBOOK (nice, free updates on the industry, book deals, etc.)

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Children's page (on the web, great info and links to blogs)

SCBWI (if you don't belong already, go join today!)

If Twitter's your thing, I recommend @ShelfAwareness

And, if you're so inclined, click one more time and enter to win a signed, annotated arc of THE
SOUND OF LETTING GO!

Thoughts on SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS by Marisha Pessl

Although writing commitments have taken me away from my beloved Bookanistas this year, I decided to post this review on a Thursday all the same. And hop on along to the Bookanista site for more great reviews!

Plot without spoilers...Sixteen-year-old, motherless Blue Van Meer has spent her life traveling from one college town to the next with her noted professor father, living a loner's life at the many schools she attends. Then the pair land in Stockton, NC, where Blue begins studying at the elite St. Gallway School, and finds herself becoming part of a powerful clique known as the Bluebloods who themselves seem to operate under the spell of a mysterious adjunct professor named Hannah Schneider. Plots of death and deception play out between engaging line-drawn art by the author and voluminous citations from masterworks of literary fiction and nonfiction.

Of literary interest...Pessl's language is delicious. From  "...weird, grown-up youth, which was like gardenias blooming in January" (p. 70) to a "soft, wisteria-fairy-pin of a smile" (p. 198), and on and on, I found myself turning the book I thought would be donated to the library into a dog-eared underlined keeper-of-deliciousness.

Finally, just gotta say...The novel, to me, is a musing on the WHO we want to be remembered as (sorry for that bad grammar). The plot-twist at the end was satisfyingly surprising if a little breathless. While I continue to struggle to unravel my feelings about the ending, it is with certainty that I encourage you to read Special Topics for its spectacular language.

And a question...With its sixteen-year-old protagonist and prep school setting, WHY COULDN'T ONE CATEGORIZE THIS BOOK AS YA? It is far less steamy than a lot of YA/New Adult I've seen. And I think the footnotes and literary allusions are comprehensible to those with weaker personal bibliographies (starting with me!). Selfishly, I wonder if being categorized as literary fiction gives the book stronger legs (I think so). This question isn't a judgement on this novel. Titles like THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES and THE BOOK THIEF also seem to me to be equally categorizable as YA or adult. Maybe some books are just both.

What do you think?