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

Teens' Choice Award and TFIOS

Voting starts today for the 2014 Children’s Choice Book Awards and the 2014 Teens’ Choice Book Award.  Vote here:  http://www.ccbookawards.com/!

Nominees for Teen Book of the Year:

Allegiant by Veronica Roth (Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins)
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin’s Press)
Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices) by Cassandra Clare (Margaret K. McElderry/S&S)
Smoke by Ellen Hopkins (Margaret K. McElderry/S&S)
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (Putnam)

Dear Readers,

 

Please show your support for these fine authors any day and any time between today, March 25, through May 12.   

 

Finalists are determined with the help of Teenreads.com with over 7000 teens voting.  The five titles with the highest number of votes are then up for the title of Teen Book of the Year.

The voting, sponsored by the Children’s Book Council, reported over 1 million children and teens participating in the online selection for their favorites last year.  Of course, the winner for the 2013 Teen Book of the Year is The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  If you ask me, TFIOS could have been nominated again this year and could have won again!

In honor of last year’s winner here is my original, brief review of the TFIOS from a previous post (with a few changes):

I am in love with the authentic YA voice, and that coupled with some of the best writing YA has to offer (ala the greatness of all that is John Green) is what brilliant and contemporary YA is all about. It's YA with heartbreak, with happy and tragic, with awful and beautiful. Not to mention, the obvious allusions to so many things Shakespeare scattered perfectly throughout the novel, with best allusion being the title itself:  "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ But in ourselves" from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

We English teachers just can not get away from a yearly dose of Shakespeare. I mean, I got this allusion on the first glimpse of the title, The Fault in Our Stars, way back when it came out about a two years ago or more. But you know, the title and all its implications bring to mind another Shakespearean tragedy instead. You know, the one about star crossed lovers... I guess it's in the word stars.

I feel sad already :(

I know many, many of you have already read this novel, so I am too many months/ years late for a review, but here is a brief summary from Goodreads. com If by chance you have not yet read it, then you are missing out. It's like me asking "And you, Reader?" (Just like "Et tu, Brute?" from Julius Caesar, meaning that you are betraying the YA genre by not having read The Fault in Our Stars.)

"Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind."

And don’t forget the movie!

And if I were a teenager eligible of voting, my vote would go to the closest equivilant of TFIOS on this year's list--Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. 

P.S. I dedicate this entire post to one of the biggest John Green fans--Anissa Lopez, a beautiful, smart, courageous survivor of the big C and high school life in general.  You are absolutely awesome!  Go class of 2015! Go Bears!

Fictionally Yours Siempre,

Minerva