I'm an aspiring author of YA fiction who checks her email far too much, and drinks copious amounts of coffee.
By day I'm an office worker and a mom to one Super Spawn, and by night I'm having the time of my life creating stories I can't wait to share with you.
You can contact me at Holly(at)hddodson(dot)com.
So, this week’s topic on Paper Hangover‘s Friday Fives is: FIVE book covers you’re currently lusting over.
Oooh, I love this topic. 
My five:
books, friday five, Paper Hangover, publishing | 
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Blurb from Goodreads: “Now is not the time for Carmen to fall in love. Two weeks before the most important violin competition of her career, she has bigger things to worry about—like growing out of that suffocating “child prodigy” label, and not disappointing her mother. But it isn’t just the wrong time. It’s the wrong guy. Jeremy is Carmen’s most talented rival, and according to her mother, he’s only interested in one thing: winning. He isn’t the only one. Carmen is so desperate to win she takes anti-anxiety drugs to control performance nerves. But what started a year ago as an easy fix is now a hungry addiction. Her mother insists now is not the time to quit, but Carmen is sick of not feeling anything on stage and even more sick of doing what she’s told. When the darker side of the classical music industry and her mother’s ambition collide, Carmen must choose between her career and her love for music.”
First, take a moment and stare in wonder at that magnificent cover. It’s just so PRETTY!
Guys. Oh, guys. Seriously…I am without words.
This book is so moving, so full of emotion and hope and love and life, that it absolutely sings on the page. It was 100% unputdownable. I kept sneaking peeks at it while I was at work. I devoured it in the evenings, on my lunch break, any spare moment I could find.
It not only stole my breath, it stole my heart. I can’t stop thinking about it, about Carmen, about how brave she was, and how noble.
Funny side note — I always wanted to play violin. I played guitar, but it never felt right. I begged my parents, pleaded with them, to let me take violin lessons. They couldn’t afford to buy me a violin though, not to mention the fact that there was probably nobody anywhere near us that could give me lessons. But it was a dream. 
This book brought the dream back, and I may just put playing violin on my bucket list now.
I can’t tell you enough how simply amazing this book is. You’re just going to have to read it when it comes out in October. And don’t worry, I’ll remind you about it.
A humongous thank you to Simon and Schuster for the egalley.
Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway‘s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered.
Well, I did a post similar to this not long ago for HAPPILY NEVER AFTER’s song.
I have a new WIP though, (Which has a working title now!!) and a song actually inspired the whole concept of the book. Are you ready for this? Because I’m not sure you are.
The song that inspired my WIP is…
F**K YOU by Lily Allen
I would put a video here for you, but I can’t access youtube from this computer. lol So…yeah. That’s my song. Hehe. *hides* Don’t hate me.
I am no statistician. I’ll be the first to admit that. I *hated* statistics in college, and I’m actually really good at math. Just not statistics. So, I thought about doing percentages and making charts for you, but…well, no. Just no. Sorry.
Anyway, on to the point.
Via my Facebook page (which is personal, not for writing stuff) I posed a question to my friends:
Do you ever feel like you just need to clear the words out of your head? It’s like they’re taking up so much space in your brain there’s no room for anything else. Nothing you can say or do to make that overstuffed feeling go away other than write. Sit down and write it out.
Then there are those times when your head feels so empty. Feels like no thought has ever, or will ever, pass through. Void. Deplete of any type of usable information.
But no matter what phase you’re in, no matter how much you want to write, or how much you feel like you’ll never be able to again…you have no choice.
Well, a choice maybe, but it doesn’t seem like it.
In my experience, it can be equally as hard to write with a head full of words as it can with one that feels empty. In either scenario it’s hard to pull the correct words and shuffle them around on the page to make them into something coherent, or heaven forbid, even meaningful.
What usually helps me is reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to be something I plan to keep and use. The whole point is just to get the words flowing, because once they’re moving, you’re flying. And when you fly, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when you spin that magic thread and make the story sing.
The way I do it? Free writing.
I sit down in front of a blank document and just write about whatever comes to mind. Whatever words pull at me first, I snatch them in and go. No preconceived ideas, no intentions.
In fact, that’s how I wrote this blog post. Pretty cool, huh?
What do you do when you’re overrun by, or missing, your words? Do you have a trick to get your flow back?
Don’t have a topic to blog about on Fridays? Join us for Paper Hangover’s Friday Fives.
I think about this a lot, and I’m willing to bet we all do as writers. So, without further ado…
1.) I’d like to see more kick-butt heroines. I know that in the real world a lot of girls (young ones especially) do just let people run them over. Hey, I’ve been there, I’ve had my slice of that pie. But it’s because I’ve been there that I want to see the opposite in my books. Books, to me, are inspiring — they make me dream bigger and wider and farther than I ever would have before.
2.) I’d love to see more fantasy, but not necessarily epic fantasy. I really love losing myself in a world with new rules and adventures. *cough*harrypotter*cough* My favorite fantasies are based in and around the real world, they just add something more to it.
3.) For this one, I’ll reveal a deep, dark secret — Westerns. I was raised around horses, on farms, with fields of peanuts and groves of pecan trees on either side. (And Super Spawn wound up with a pecan allergy! *cries*) But I would LOVE to see some YA Westerns on the shelves. A little less love, a lot more action. And I may or may not be working on one…
4.) Action, action, ACTION! Explosions? YES. Hand to hand combat? PLEASE! Just give me something with some boy appeal! I want that kick-butt hero(ine) to really take it to the next level — put my butt on the edge of my seat and KEEP IT THERE!
5.) Above all, I want something different. I know that’s a tall order, but I feel like the shelves (YA shelves, that is) are overrun by apocalypse, dystopians, and paranormals. Give me something funny, give me a new time period, give me a new experience!! No matter what genre it sits in, I want to see something fresh.
What about you guys? What are five things you’d like to see in fiction?
Blurb from Goodreads: “Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life – dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows.
After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues – and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.”
Oh. Em. Gee.
John Green is a master. The way he writes is so — so — I don’t even have words to explain it. That’s how good he is. I am a total fangirl. I loved him after reading Looking for Alaska, but now… oh, goodness. We’ve reached dangerous levels of fangirldom.
First of all, Q’s character is so fresh. He’s not a guy dying to fit in with the popular crowd, he’s not concerned with looking the way everyone “expects” him to. He’s just a teenager content with being who he is for the most part — which is OMG awesome.
When Margo disappears, Q has to find her. She left him clues, but they’re more riddles than anything helpful. So you go on this huge journey with Q that is so much more than a mystery. It’s a journey of self realization.
Okay, I could talk about this book all day. But if I did that, I’d wind up spoiling the ending for you, and I don’t want to do that because it’s beautiful. And the journey to get there is beautiful.
And the whole book is just BEAUTIFUL. For the love of all things written, please go read this book.
Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway‘s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered.
Well, my first kiss was nothing to write home about. Where Ron and Hermione’s had years worth of build up and liking each other, but not wanting to act on it because omgwhatifhehatesme. Mine was…sudden. I’d just met the guy actually. lol He kind of attacked me, and I just stood there in shock.
Wet, slobbery shock.
*shudder*
He was a funny guy…very dramatic. If I remember correctly after shocking me with a kiss he dropped to one knee and asked me to date him. lol I’m sure I turned beet red, because if I remember correctly this was done in front of all of our friends. (And remembering it, I can’t seem to stop giggling.)
R & H’s first kiss was much more tender and sweet. Mine was just the byproduct of an overzealous baseball player. Ha.
What about yours?
Erinn, Alicia, Pam, Quita, and I have joined forces again, and this time we’ve brought you the Query Letter Blogfest!
Today is the day! Whoever signed up will post their query letter, and then we will all jump around and critique each others. We hope this will be an excellent learning experience for all involved.
So, I’m going to share my query letter, which has been quite successful so far.[Something very personalized, like mentioning a specific blog post where they expressed interest in high-concept YA, or fairy tales, or something of the like.] As such, I believe you may be interested in my 53,000 word young adult fantasy, HAPPILY NEVER AFTER.
Kate’s brother is dying. Unable to cope with watching him deteriorate, she makes a stupid wish to escape her life in favor of a fairy tale. But the wish comes true. And fairy tale land? Well, it sucks. Kate is forced to obey an unseen, god-like narrator, who makes Kate dress as a prissy Princess while repeating the same story over and over again — and each time, more of Kate’s memory is lost. Plus, venomous Prince Charming is out to kill her. And that’s just great.
Then Kate discovers the secret to escaping this Magical Kingdom of Torture: true love’s kiss, of course. But the narrator (who is determined to keep Kate trapped) begins to pick apart the story, removing any object, twist, or character that might come to Kate’s aid. The crazy narrator even steals Nathan, the guy Kate thinks she’s in love with, and replaces him with Jace, a dashing rogue Kate can’t keep her eyes off of. Now, as Kate clings to her dwindling memories and tries to forge a new path through the fairy tale, she has to choose which guy she really loves.
If Kate chooses wrong, the narrator will trap her there forever, and she’ll live Happily Never After.
HAPPILY NEVER AFTER is similar to THE WIZARD OF OZ and ELLA ENCHANTED, and I believe it may appeal to fans of both. Though the novel has been written as the first in a planned trilogy, it can also stand alone. I’m an active member of SCBWI, the Florida Writers Association, and YALitChat.
So, what do you think? I can’t wait to read everyone’s!
And I don’t mean that steady ache in your shoulders from hovering over the keyboard.
Tense is probably one of the first decisions you need to make when you sit down and start writing a new project. Past or present? This also ties right into your point of view (POV).
Let’s start with a basic look at each, the way I see them. (Which is not to say it’s correct, it’s just how I imagine it in my own little world over here.)
Past tense is telling a story that already happened, a recounting of events. So, your narrator’s position is later down the line, they already know how the story ends, and what is going to happen next.
Present tense is telling a story as it happens. Nobody knows more than the character who’s head you’re in at that very moment. Your narrator knows the past, but has no idea what’s to come.
So, the first thing you have to decide is how immediate your story is. To pull off a present tense story effectively there seems to be a fine line between being fast enough paced to keep your audience engaged, and being so fast paced that you exhaust them.
On the other side of the coin, with past tense it gives you a little more distance between the story and the audience, so (to me) it gives you more room for a faster pace and a more intense story (Like a thriller or horror story. I could not imagine reading a horror story in first person, present tense. That would just be too intense for me.).
I’ve written in both, and they both have their challenges. With HAPPILY NEVER AFTER I really found my stride in present tense. I don’t know if that will carry forward with my next project or yet, I can’t seem to decide. But I think it’s definitely something to decide on a project to project basis anyway.
What about you all? Have you written in both tenses, or do you prefer one over the other?
