What's Up Wednesday? Green and Bieber

Dear Readers,

I am back to the Meme-ing thing.  You would think it'd be easy to remember that every Wednesday is What's Up Wednesday by the lovely Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk. Well, it is easy to remember, but seriously, my weeks have been so crazy.



What I'm Reading:  With the end of the school year coming and our school being transformed into a literal prison of 100+ restrictions, there is no time to read.  But, I am working on a blog post (hopefully ready for tomorrow) that incorporates some TFIOS quotes. I read this novel about a year ago, so technically, I have been re-reading portions of The Fault in Our Stars to find the right quotes.  If I have to choose one quote that I deem to be one of the best pieces of YA writing, I would definitely have choose "You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence."  Here I am 40 years old, and guess what folks?  Most of us will not even make it to 100 years of age. So how true is it that life literally ends while we are still living in it?

What I'm Writing:  As I said already, I am working on a blog post for Thursday Trailer tomorrow. And, I never finished my post about plotters and pantsers because I wrote other posts instead.  Here is a brief preview of my opening: 

If The Fault in Our Stars had been out in 1988, it would have been a hit...like totally (typical 80's/90's lingo).   All I remember reading back then was twisted V.C. Andrews and the stuff--the classics--I was forced to read for high school English. Brave New World, anybody?

As for my country star novel, well, I have thought about it a lot.  Yes, I know the number one thing that keeps me from being a published author is not writing continuously.  One day, I will get it together--the working, the mothering, the wife-ing, and the writing.  I am in the middle of my life.

What inspires me "write" now: Teaching high school can be pretty amazing when you have the "write" mix of students.  I have the best high school/ college students in the world.  They have finished all college coursework, they have taken the darn AP exam, and they have done an o.k. job with their Gatsby skits.  So, what is left? 

Well, let's just say we have been listening to a lot of I Heart Radio while they studying or pretending to study for other classes.  So, here is the latest song that I've had on my mind--don't laugh!

Beauty and a Beat

We gonna party like it's 3012 tonight

I wanna show you all the finer things in life

So just forget about the world, we're young tonight

I'm coming for ya, I'm coming for ya

Cause all I need

Is a beauty and a beat

Who can make my life complete

It's all about you,

When the music makes you move

Baby, do it like you do

Not the best lyrics in the world, but they work well in this song that is meant to get you ready for #turnup (to use modern teen lingo.) 

But what I love is just that phrase of "a beauty and a beat." How amazingly creative and fresh!  I think of my MFA poetry workshops, I think of how easy it is not to be cliché, I think about slant rhyme.  I think I feel inspired to write right now!

Here is my 10 minutes of writing work today:

In a beauty and a beat

the world comes to an end.

That swell beyond the sand

that Atlantian explosion

all at once like a beast.  Then the beauty,

then the beat. 

I have to say Wow to myself.  Just so Wow!

What Else I've Been Up To:  Here is the rundown.  Little League Games for Son #2, Son #1 Honor Banquet, Son #1 Two Day Trip for Texas State Solo and Ensembles, Waking Up at 4AM to Retrieve the Son, Grocery Shopping, Dropping Daughter Off at Church Youth Group, Eating Pizza and Choco-Flan (delicious cake with a decadent, rich layer of sweetness) During Forbidden Classroom Parties, Grading Reflective Personal Essays, and Enjoying the Mexican Cartel Version of The Great Gatsby in Class.  All this is like half of everything!

And of course, a lot of country music on my 20 minute ride to work and my 20 minute trip back home.  Beauty and the Beat in between, wishing I could be Beast writer like John Green.

And for your musical enjoyment!  This is so cool!  Like Totally!






Fictionally Yours Siempre,

Minerva

Manic Monday: Anyone But You, Never

Title: Anyone But You
Authors: Kim Askew and Amy Helmes
Genre: YA
Release Date: January 2014
Publisher: Merit Press (Twisted Lit Series)

Original Take on a Classic!

 

Dear Readers, 

(As posted by Guest Authors, Kim Askew and Amy Helmes, for Fictionally Yours Siempre.)

 

One of the best things about writing our Twisted Lit series of Shakespeare-inspired YA novels is that we're constantly learning new things about the Bard.  We've read and seen productions of Romeo and Juliet countless times, but one aspect of the play always left us baffled: Why did the young lovers' families, the Montagues and Capulets, hate each other so much in the first place?

 

This simple question is one Shakespeare left unanswered, and its the inspiration behind our latest novel, Anyone But You, a modern spin on this bittersweet saga told from the perspective of two different generations. Only by resolving the mystery behind their ancestors’ falling-out can Gigi and Roman hope to avert their own tragic ending.

 

Though we’ll never truly know why Romeo and Juliet’s families were sworn enemies, it’s possible to conjecture about what prompted Shakespeare to write about them. Around the time the Bard penned the play, his wealthy patron (The Earl of Southampton) was tied to a real-life family feud involving the Danvers and the Longs, who were his friends and neighbors. The families had been at odds for years, but things reached a tipping point after several court battles ended in a public brawl during which two sons of the Danvers family killed their enemies’ son, Henry Long. Despite issues for their arrest, the Earl of Southampton helped the brothers escape to France.

Shakespeare undoubtedly knew of these events when he wrote Romeo and Juliet shortly thereafter. Although his plot is based on other writers’ prior works, including English poet Arthur Brooke (see — even Shakespeare was a fan of retellings!) — many critics suspect that it was the Danvers/Long controversy that first gave him the idea to write about two families with an “ancient grudge.”
 

We hope you’ll check out Anyone But You to discover our own interpretation of this timeless tale.

P.S. This past April marked the 450th birthday of William Shakespeare!  Just simply amazing how his works have remained relevant to each new generation that discovers them!

Fictionally Yours Siempre,

Kim & Amy

(Guest Authors)

 

Synopsis from Merit Press:

After her family’s struggling Italian eatery (Cap's ) falls prey to another of the Monte clan’s vicious and destructive pranks, sixteen-year-old Gigi Caputo finds herself courting danger during a clandestine encounter with Roman Monte, the very boy whose relatives have brought her family such grief. When the daughter and son of these two warring factions fall for each other, their quest to mend this bitter family feud turns out to be a recipe for disaster.

Their story is irrevocably linked to the summer of 1933, when two twelve-year-olds, Benny and Nick, hop the turnstile at the Chicago World’s Fair. While enjoying some of the fair’s legendary amusements, Nick has a “love at first sight” encounter with Stella, a young girl who unintentionally causes a lasting rift between the two boyhood pals.

Deftly winding its way through past and present day, this modern take on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet has much to do with hate — but more with love.
 

Another Twisted Lit Book You Must Check Out! 

 

Webpage: http://twistedlitbooks.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TwistedLitNovels
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/series/88972-twisted-lit
Tumblr: twistedlit.tumblr.com

 

Thursday Trailer: Every Day is YA Splendor

#TBT and Thursday Trailer

Title: Every Day

Author: David Levithan

Genre:  YA

Release Year:  2012  #TBT Review

Publisher: Ember (Randomhouse)

Swoon Worthy Language

One of my biggest pet peeves is YA that is not original. Even worse is YA with a clunky feel to it--as in unrealistic dialogue, a lack of transition, generic writing schemes.

Every Day is none of the above. Every Day is beautiful prose. Every Day is David Levithan. Every Day is falling in love with language. Every Day is YA splendor.

By the way, "Swoon Worthy Language" means that the words themselves, the writing, is something I have fallen for in this book.  Not that the novel is straight up romance.

Even though I do not enjoy every aspect of the novel (in regards to how it seems that the author is inserting his personal views of the world--viewpoints that are basically humanistic in nature and that I do not agree with at all), I can not help but to love how Levithan writes. I aspire to write like this.   For this I give the book 4 hearts. 

And because of this, I have also been inspired to create a book trailer--my first attempt. Really. I hope you enjoy it! I tried to capture the essence of eternity, of falling in love.

50 Second Synopsis



"A" is continually reborn--every day.  " Every day a different body.  Every day a different life.  Every day in love with the same girl."  For as long as he has existed, the only truth "A" has known is he is himself, but yet he is someone else.  He has no long-term connection to humanity.  Only momentary habitation.  For eternity.

every day

 

A Review in Quotes

 

“This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.”  

 

“It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.”  

 

“A sound waiting to be a word.”  

 

“The ocean makes its music; the wind does its dance. We hold on. At first we hold on to one another, but then it starts to feel like we are holding on to something even bigger than that. Greater.”  

 

“But there’s something about her—the cities on her shoes, the flash of bravery, the unnecessary sadness—that makes me want to know what the word will be when it stops being a sound. I have spent years meeting people without ever knowing them, and on this morning, in this place, with this girl, I feel the faintest pull of wanting to know. And in a moment of either weakness or bravery on my own part, I decide to follow it. I decide to find out more.”   

 

“We have defied the day as it was set out for us.”

 

 

Minerva

A Reason to Write

Found this and thought it was hilariously sort of true. It makes me think about how the best part of writing is the day-dreaming, or rather the structured day-dreaming as I've heard before from someone somewhere. Also reminds me of a favorite t-shirt that says "Be careful or you might end up in my novel." Love that shirt--always a great conversation starter. I think this pic needs to become a t-shirt too!



Minerva

posted from Bloggeroid