PSnarkiversary: Elizabeth Scott (The Unwritten Rule)

Neck deep in copy edits, the lovely Elizabeth Scott made the time to contribute a guest post for Persnickety Snark's birthday. I am extremely grateful and excited, especially as her book, Love You Hate You Miss You made my top ten books of 2009.

Take it away, Elizabeth!

Naming Characters, or "What Do You Mean I Can't Call You That?"

One of the great things about writing is...well, you get to make up stories. I mean, it's fantastic! You have these people and they do stuff and you get to see it all happen. I love it, and l love seeing an entire world unfold in front of me.

But then there's the whole naming thing. Sometimes I know exactly what a character's name is. Lauren, from Bloom, for instance, was always Lauren. Other times, though--well, at other times, I think I know a character's name, and it turns out that I don't.

When I was writing Something, Maybe, Hannah's best friend was supposed to be named Jessica. But she did *not* want to be Jessica, because every time I went to type her name, it came out Teagan. And as I kept writing, I realized Teagan knew way more about herself than I did, and so I--well, I left her alone and let her tell her story.

This happens to me a lot, actually. I start writing about someone and before I know it, I'm finding out all these things I didn't know at all, which is yet another thing that makes writing so amazing.

A big thanks to the always generous Elizabeth Scott for taking the time to write this when she's so busy! Her newest title, The Unwritten Rule, is coming out later this year! Having read it, I know that you will all lap it up.

You can check out Elizabeth's website here. I would definitely consider subscribing/bookmarking her blog as she regularly links the most thought provoking articles and blog posts on YA from around the world. Well worth your time.

PSnarkiversary: Kristi from The Story Siren

All hail, the Queen has arrived. Kristi (left with Lisa McMann), the lovely chickie dee from The Story Siren, kindly wrote a guest post in honour of PSnark's first birthday.

Kristi is a tireless contributor and supporter of the YA blogosphere and I am honoured to have her contribute to my celebration. Without her organisation, many of us would have no idea what was going on!

First off, I just want to thank Adele for inviting me to be a part of her celebration. I was aghast that she asked me! Absolutely thrilled.... but really surprised!

If you’ve tuned in at all recently to Persnickety Snark, you’ve probably noticed that everyone mentions how sweet Adele is and how they can’t believe her blog is only a year old, because it’s fantastic. And I have to admit, I wholeheartedly agree! Adele is addicting. She has one of those personalities that you’d want in your best friend! I can’t remember the first time I met Adele.... but I’ve felt like I’ve known her forever. It’s strange how you can make a connection like that with people that you’ve never even talked to in person. But that’s just Adele.

Here’s an example of how sweet Adele is: for my birthday last spring, she sent me an email that contained a recording of her singing “Happy Birthday.” How sweet is that?! (I still have that email, btw!) And that addicting quality is present in blog.

Adele’s voice is one of a kind. Persnickety Snark is one of the few blogs I frequent regularly and it’s because Adele’s post are always impeccably written and informative. If there is a blogger that I strive to be like, it’s Adele. Her passion for YA literature and especially Australian Young Adult literature is remarkable. I’ve discovered so many fantastic authors because of her recommendations, including Australian author Melina Marchetta! Who I was able to meet this summer at ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

Thank you so much Adele, for all you do for the blogging world, and for all you to for Australian YA literature. You are an inspiration! I only with you the best of luck in the new chapter of your life!

PSnarkiversary: Mitali from Alley of Books

Mitali is a blogger (<---kicking it in the middle) that I've gotten to know quite well over twitter. She's a late dwelling American so she's on when the Aussies are more twitter-active. She's fun, she's energetic and I swear she reads books faster than Superman.

She's also a bit of a wordsmith...thanks M!

Since Adele is about to embark upon a new journey in her life, I thought to write something for her. ‘An Ode to Adele’ of sorts. But as I sat down with my proverbial quill and ink, I only drew a blank. Well I came up with a few lines. Here they are:

If I knew where to begin,
I wouldn't be describing Adele.
If I successfully describe her,
I'm not sure it would be to a T.

Then I said to myself - that is bad. REALLY bad. You can do better than that. But I don’t know why I couldn’t. So I found myself looking through some of my journals and I found this. And I thought to share with you all. It is an untitled piece that I wrote a while back. Not everyone has been privy to it until now. It seemed fitting. I hope you like it.

Untitled

What is it that we do in our lives?
What do we try to achieve?

We pursue, we give up.
We persevere, we relent.
We put in effort, we expect results.
But do we get them?
Not always.

We fight, we scream,
We run, we dream.
But do they always come true?
Not really.

What is it that we want?
What is it that we desire?

Is it love?
The sweet drink that conquers all?
Or is it happiness?
The colorless nectar that fills us all?

Is it these two?
Or is it something else?
The something that we look for everywhere
But it eludes us.
We look for answers.
Yet we never find them.

Life is a chain of intricately interconnected events
Some make sense,
Some don’t.
Yet in retrospect,
We try to look for loopholes,
For the should haves and the could haves,
But does it make a difference to who we are now?
Does it make a difference to where we are now?
Today? In the present?
Does it?

We evolve
Every second,
Every minute,
Every hour.

Life changes us.
Sometimes for better,
Sometimes for worse.
We try to maintain some semblance of the norm,
But we can’t.

It’s the law of nature
Nothing is constant.
Everything has to change.

We rebel against it,
We contest it.
Although we know what the outcome will be.

We learn new things.
We don’t forget the old ones though.

Traditions;
Rules;
Rituals.
We keep the old ones.
We make new.

Life is our guide.
Our candle in the darkness,
Our knight in shining armor.
But it also is the Grinch Who stole Christmas.

It has its upsides
And its downsides
It is up to us to decide
Which one we choose
With a smile and embrace,
Or a frown and disgrace.

So, Adele I hope you will enjoy Japan, take this year to do things differently than you normally do, and experience things you normally wouldn’t. Give up yourself to the magic of Japan and come back every once in a while to share it with us! Because without friends, I’m not sure where the world would be. And I know that I for one will be waiting to hear from you. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. And I wish you good luck in all your endeavors. Those kids are going to have one heck of an amazing year with a teacher like you to teach them! Break a leg!

PSnarkiversary: Khy from Frenetic Reader

To your left is the magical banged wonder of the YA blogoverse...Khy (with YA author Bree Despain). She's hip, she's fun and she's oh so young. I fondly refer to this spitfire of ridiculousness as my Lil Blog Sis and forever that she will be. I am beyond happy that she's written something for me but I would be even more happy if you zipped by her blog!

Adele, thank you so much for letting me be a guest on your amazing blog. Happy happy blogoversary, you lovely Australian you. (:

I admit that I have read very, very few book by Australian authors, despite the fact that Adele posts about dozens that I am dying to read. The total number I've read is probably like...6. And four of those would be by Melina Marchetta and Markus Zusak, so obviously I have not read a wide variety of authors.

However, I have read one Aussie book I adored that was sent to me by the Lovely Adele: Posse by Kate Welshman. It's a bit hard to summarize (but then again, everything is hard to summarize for me), but I will just say that it is a book where bad things happen, and then Amy, the narrator, has to deal with the bad things.

Very descriptive, I know. Luckily, the book is much more exciting than I make it sound. Amy is a delightfully confident and entertaining narrative, making even the worse things going on seem not-so-bad. I loved how I had to guess along with the characters about what really happened the night the Bad Thing occurred, and how it remained a mystery until the end. I loved seeing how Amy dealt with the Bad Thing, trying to find out what happened while dealing with her loony parents and fun friends.

And personally, my reading experience was much more pleasurable because everything in the book is so Australian. Being American, I find anything foreign to be intriguing and endlessly amusing.

PSnarkiversary: Jennifer Echols (Going Too Far)

Jennifer Echols is the author of my favourite book for 2009 - Going Too Far. A deserving nominee for ALA's Best Book for Young Adults, it's sure to capturing your interest, having you chuckling at the wit and swooning at the snappy romance. Welcome Jenn!

Adele asked me to guest-blog about why I have finally written a sequel to The Boys Next Door, which was published in summer 2007. The sequel, Endless Summer, will appear on August 3, 2010, and here’s why.

As I originally conceived it, my first novel, Major Crush, was the first in a series of four romantic comedies. They were all set in the same high school marching band, but each one involved a different couple. I love marching band and I could have written marching band books for the rest of my life if my publisher had let me. However, when I sold Major Crush to Simon Pulse, one of the stipulations was that my second book would NOT be about marching band. That was too much marching band for them. So I gave up on the idea of creating a book that could have sequels.

Now another secret: just because you have published a book does not mean it is easy to get your next book published. My editor and I went round and round and round and round about what my next book would be. I had an idea for a novel about two rival brothers in a rock band fighting over the same girl. I had another idea about a treasure hunt at the lake where I grew up. My editor did not like either of these ideas, or the other twenty I had submitted to her, and finally she told me to take the rival brothers idea, nix the rock band, and set the novel at the lake.

I was devastated. I knew nobody would ever want to read this book. I mean, who would want to spend time at the lake where I grew up, without a treasure hunting plot to distract them? I have always loved my lake, but I thought nobody else would. And in that spirit, I created a heroine a lot like me whom nobody else would think was funny. I turned the book in, thinking I had fulfilled my contract and entertained myself, but my editor would hate it, and that would be the end of my writing career.

To my astonishment, my editor did like The Boys Next Door, and so did some other people. Readers e-mailed me to ask for a sequel. I thought about proposing this for my next book, but remember I had given up on the sequel idea. Also, there would have been a year between the publication of The Boys Next Door and its sequel, and I thought that was too long. I proposed a lot of other books instead, and my publisher did not buy any of them.

The next year I thought about proposing a sequel to The Boys Next Door, but there would have been two years between it and the sequel, and I thought that was too long. I proposed a lot of other books instead, and my publisher asked me to write a snowboarding book.

The next year I thought about proposing a sequel to The Boys Next Door, but there would have been three years between it and the sequel, and I thought that was waaaaay too long. I proposed a lot of other books instead. My publisher liked one of them. We went round and round about it. It was set in Atlanta. My publisher asked me to set it in Paris. This made me angry because it seemed apropos of nothing and I was tired of going round and round about my book ideas, all sixty of which had been BRILLIANT I tell you (you need a lot of hubris to make it in this business). Over the weekend I wrote the first chapter of Endless Summer, which was from Adam’s point of view. As far as I know, none of the other books in the Simon Pulse Romantic Comedies series contain a boy’s point of view, so I didn’t have high hopes for it getting through editorial. It was, however, BRILLIANT. And to my astonishment, they liked it and wanted to see more. So I added a chapter from Lori’s point of view on the front, then created another few chapters that alternated between Lori and Adam’s points of view, and Simon Pulse bought it.Then the fun part began. You know all that stuff that other people don’t quite get, but that you and I enjoy about The Boys Next Door? Well, there’s MORE of that in Endless Summer. I had always known exactly what would happen in the sequel if I were ever to write it, and since it had three years to cook in my brain, I think it has come out exactly as we wanted it. Especially the forest scene. And the beach scene. And the tree house scene. I have tried my best to live up to my reputation as the YA version of crack (hubris, remember, hubris is very important), and I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you to Jenn for taking the time to explain her thought process in writing a sequel many of us are longing to read. Jenn has several books released this year that you should keep an eye out for. Endless Summer (Simon Pulse) is released August 3rd and Forget You (MTV Books) is released July 2010.

Check out her website and blog through this portal.

Psnarkiversary: Melina Marchetta (Jellicoe Road)

Fangirl pompoms are able to be rah-ed - beware! Melina Marchetta, Printz winner for Jellicoe Road, graciously wrote this lovely little piece for my PSnarkiversary!

I was asked a year ago to contribute a piece for Adele and because I was tired out after writing a 120,000 word novel, I made the decision back then to write the entry in dot point. So I thought I’d continue the tradition in 2010 in honour of PS’s one year anniversary.

Ten Things I Like about Adele and Persnickety Snark
appropriated by the appropriated Ten Things I Hate about Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah)

• Because if it wasn’t for blogs like PS I wouldn’t have found out about novels that have gone on to be my favourites.
• Because she doesn’t put a novel on a pedestal just for being Australian.
• Because she doesn’t have a cultural cringe against home grown talent.
• Because when a novel doesn’t appeal to her, she refuses to use cruelty and sarcasm in her reviewing.
• Because she puts her name to what she has to say rather than hiding behind an anonymous tag. (note: blatant dig at one of the worst blog entries I read this year about “enfeebled heroines” as well as the copious amount of awful awful comments it attracted)
• Because she’s passionate about choosing the right novels for her students and has probably contributed to some kid’s future love affair with books.
• Because she made one of her students write a book review on the blog as a sort of quid pro quo
• Because she thinks Battlestar Galactica is a fracken brilliant show and understands my Starbuck girl crush.
• Because she introduced me to the word ‘persnickety’ and now I use it to describe anal retentive behaviour and it makes me sound worldly in front of other people.
• Because her FNL love-fest forced me to invest in buying the first season despite the fact that I have absolutely no interest in American football or what teenagers get up to on a Friday night.

Melina Marchetta is the gifted and award winning author behind fantastic novels such as Looking for Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and Jellicoe Road. Her fantasy novel, Finnikin of the Rock, is in Australian bookstores now with America to follow in March. A big thanks to Melina for taking the time to dot point how wonderful I am (it's not me, it's FNL I swear). You can find her website here.

The cover presented here is the B-format cover for Jellicoe Road. One word...pretty!

Psnarkiversary: Kathy Charles (Hollywood Ending)

Kathy Charles' amazing debut title, Hollywood Ending, has been available on Australian bookstore shelves for a couple of months now. Americans will have to pleasure of reading this gritty, dark and surprising novel from Summer via MTV Books

STEP BACK IN TIME: A YA BLAST FROM THE PAST

When I wrote ‘Hollywood Ending’ I had no idea it was YA. It’s too strange, I thought. Too morbid. It has death and drugs and (yikes!) even cursing. But then I started to think of all the YA books that had moved me as a teenager. These books were dark, bold and controversial. They upset me, terrified and excited me. They were about kids like me thrust into extreme, inexplicable situations. Many of these books have stayed with me, and even as an adult who shouldn’t be so easily spooked, they continue to haunt my dreams. To celebrate Persnickety Snark’s 1st birthday, I wanted to share with you three of the novels that freaked me out when I was a teenager. Happy reading – if you dare. Mwah ha ha ha! (That’s my evil laugh, just in case it didn’t translate very well).

Grinny by Nicholas Fisk (1984)

This book scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. A boy called Tim discovers he has a Great Aunt Emma when she inexplicably turns up out of nowhere on his parents doorstep, grinning. Tim is perplexed his parents have never mentioned her before, and together with his best friend Beth he decides to discover the truth behind this strange visitor. I won’t spoil it for you, but needless to say Grinny isn’t who, or indeed even what she says she is. This is the sort of book that’s so scary you hide it under your bed as if to even catch a glimpse of it in the middle of the night would send you in paroxysms of terror.

Best scene: On the ice in the backyard Grinny takes a spill, and a broken bone gives us a chilling glimpse of the creature she really is.

After the First Death by Robert Cormier (1979)

This was the first young adult novel that shocked me to my very core and had me furious at the author for doing something so horrible to his readers. A school bus is hijacked by terrorists demanding the return of their homeland. The tagline when the book came out was: ‘Who will be the next to die?’ And die they did. This is the sort of novel where no character is safe and there is no happy ending. A powerful and stunning novel if you can handle it.

Best scene: the heartbreaking climax that is so shocking at first but in some ways seems inevitable. It will always stay with you.

Strange Objects by Gary Crew (1990)

This novel totally threw me for a loop when we studied it in school and introduced me to the concept of the unreliable narrator. Stephen Messenger is a teenager living in Western Australia who disappears and leaves behind mysterious papers that talk of ship wrecks, hidden relics and murder. When our teacher suggested to us that the narrator may not in fact be telling the entire truth we couldn’t believe it. A narrator that lies to his readers? But then, what if none of the book is true? What would that mean? What is real and what isn’t? Whoa! This book gives ‘The Da Vinci Code’ a run for its money in the cracking mystery stakes.
Best scene: The spooky ending.

Happy birthday Persnickety Snark! Congratulations on an outstanding year and may you continue to bring us the best of YA in 2010.

Kathy Charles is the author of Hollywood Ending, which is available in Australia from Text Publishing, and will be released in North America by MTV Books in Summer 2010. This will be a must have for the YA blogosphere as it's along the lines of Stephanie Kuehnert and Cecil Castellucci's fantastic novels about grimey LA. You can check out her website here.

PSnarkiversary: James Roy (Anonymity Jones)

Reading James Roy's Town was a breathtaking experience. It was beautifully written with a firm handle on Australian teens with a nice dose of humour and pathos. His newest title, Anonymity Jones will be released in Australian this year.

It’s the end of the year. A new year -- a new decade, in fact -- has begun. Globally, it’s been a fairly bleuch kind of decade. Terrorist attacks, tsunamis, eathquakes, drought, George W Bush, foreign wars, and a global financial meltdown, just for starters. Oh, and vampires, of course. But personally it’s been a pretty good decade, especially in terms of my writing career. In that regard, I’ve managed to tick several boxes, not least of all being able to call myself a full-time writer, and letting my nursing registration expire. And it feels good.

As is customary at this time of year, I thought I might set out some of my New Year’s resolutions, or at least those which relate to me as a writer for young people.

1. Read more books. It’s critically important that writers not only read a lot, but read a lot of different kinds of writing. Ideally, we’ll read within different genres, but even if one genre is favoured in particular, we should different writers within that genre. I know that in my own experience, when I’ve been reading a lot of books by the same person, my writing begins to take on the tone and style of that writer. Which mightn’t be such a bad thing if it’s someone … you know … good. But even then, I think it’s better if I read read various styles, which will enable me to broaden my skills without sounding like a copy-cat.

2. Read more fiction. Truth be known, I love non-fiction. I find that the weirdest things happen in real life. Did you know that when James Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay in 1779, his arrival coincided with a festival in which the local people were invoking the presence of the god Lono, who would, in their mythology -- wait for it -- arrive in large canoes? Neither did I, until I read the outstanding Farther Than Any Man by Martin Dugard. Non-fiction is wonderful. But again, I consider diversity to be important. So a bit more fiction for me this year.

3. Don’t feel too guilty about taking a break from writing. I set myself a word quota of 2,000 words a day. It helps me to remain disciplined, and lessens procrastination. It also leads to a fair amount of prolificacy. It’s easy to feel that I need this, when I’m surrounded by peers who churn out such quailty and such volume. But the two don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. Plus it’s easy to burn out, and I don’t want to do that. So perhaps this year I need to set myself gaols which I can achieve without having to pull all-nighters. I did enough of those as a registered nurse.

4. Come up with something new for my workshps and schools presentations. I spoke at over seventy schools in 2009, plus festivals and conferences. And to be honest, I sometimes bore myself, which isn’t a good look. So this year I’ll be trying to come up with a few fresh ideas, for myself as much as for the kids.

5. Write a picture book. I’ve written a couple, but couldn’t ever get them picked up by a publisher. Some people say picture books are easy to write. Others, like Mem Fox, say they’re incredibly difficult. I feel fairly sure that the truth lies somewhere between the two. So this year, I’m going to do it. I’m going to have a serious crack at a picture book text.

6. Remind myself, daily, that I’m living the dream. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and I’m doing it. Some days, when I’m about to start my fifteenth or twentieth identical presentation in a week, in a town that’s a very long way from home, it’s tempting to think that it’s a bit hard. But then I remind myself that no matter how large or small the group, no wonder how disinterested they might seem, no matter how many surly teens are sitting in the back row desperate to unimpressed by anything I’ve got to say, it’s never going to be as bad as a Saturday night shift in the Emergency Department of a large public hospital.

Have a great and prolific -- but not too stressful -- 2010. And as I always say, read until your head hurts, write until your fingers bleed!

A big thank you to the reflective James Roy for his guest blog. Hunting Elephants and Town are available in Australian bookstores and also through the variety of online stores you can find here. You can find out more about this gifted author by visiting his website.

PSnarkiversary: ShabbyGeek

The adorable ShabbyGeek wrote me this lovely guest post. Who would have thought that being compared to a household appliance would touch my heart so? This just shows that good friends can be made on twitter....

A Year of YA and Persnickety Snarkiness

Having a career that weaves itself into advertising is definitely interesting. One aspect of my job directly questions my ability of how much I can convince you that one product/service/experience will be sure to make life easier/make you happier/keep you as a repeat customer. This dance of advertising is played out by swank moves that include copywriting, editing, music, animation, and sound effects.

And yet, everyone knows the best advertising for a product is by word of mouth.

For example, I could easily hand you my Dyson DC14 and tell you yes, this vacuum changed my life. Sure, I spent two weeks analyzing, researching, changing my mind, researching some more, and discussing the decision with my husband (who at this point was so aggravated with my indecisiveness that he wanted to go out and buy it himself). I wouldn’t be lying to you because the vacuum is amazing, and I wouldn’t have to sugar coat my opinion, spice it up with particle effects, or create a jingle to tell you that you need this vacuum in your life.

If only Persnickety Snark had been a blog that exclusively covered vacuum cleaners, I wouldn’t have wasted an entire two weeks of my life coming up with that decision.

PS is a button on my Firefox toolbar. Yep, that’s right. I don’t even fiddle with RSS readers. It’s right there, sitting pretty on the same grey bar with Goodreads, Outblush, Amazon, MacRumors, Wikipedia and my bank’s website. This probably makes PS a little more personal and I'm probably just a bit stalkerish.

Just over a year ago I would’ve told you that the Twilight series was the last set of interesting books I had actually read. A brief history of my love for reading and writing in my twenty-seven years involves writing adventure stories in elementary school, joining various book clubs (including the Babysitter’s Club series), becoming unhealthily obsessed with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and UFOs, more adventure stories, a lot more reading, some poetry writing, and a ridiculously long hiatus from both reading and writing during high school and throughout college.

Persnickety Snark has helped to bring my love for reading back. I say this in all seriousness and sincerity. There are few things in this world that light my brain on fire, and reading is one of those things. Over the past year, Adele has introduced me to memorable worlds and characters created by Melina Marchetta, Elizabeth Scott, Sarah Dessen, Gayle Forman, and Beth Fantaskey.

I’ve read 16 YA novels in 2009 that I bothered to put into my Goodreads list, and PS/Adele put 10 of those books into my grubby little hands. Books that engrossed me by subject matter, beautiful writing, humor, and characterizations – these are books that I’ve turned around and recommended to friends. These are books that my husband has found me reading late on a Friday night, tucked into my favorite corner of our red sectional couch. He’d smirk at me and say, “Bookworm,” and I’d take it as a compliment.

I take comfort in knowing I can shoot a tweet to Adele and give her three qualifications of a story I’d like to read, or a genre I’d like to dabble into related to YA, and she’d be ready with a suggestion that wouldn’t disappoint. When I visit PS, I know I’m getting a strong, grounded review. A review that cares about pacing, realism, characterization, plot devices, and emotional attachments to its characters.

As a trustworthy vault of reviewing an impressive amount of literature, I feel particularly spoiled, not having to wade through piles and piles of mud to find some real gems. You know, the kinds that aren’t covered in sparkles, drenched in perfume, and aren’t being sold by a musician-turned-actress. Gems that sparkle more than Edward does and stories that I’ve thought about and mulled over long after I’ve read them. PS has shown me that the YA genre can be incredibly gritty, heart aching, razor sharp, hilarious, intelligent, musical, thoughtful, and incredibly introspective. And this is why I love YA.

So happy birthday to you, Persnickety Snark. It’s been a wonderful year. Thank you for a year of insightful commentary to some of the best writing YA has to offer. Here’s to another year of fabulous reviews and brain-on-fire reading sessions. You truly are my DC14 of YA blogs.