Teaser Tuesday: Blood WIll Tell

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• Share the title and author so that other TT participating can add book to their to TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

This week is: Blood Will Tell by Samantha Young


Teaser Sentences: Noah swallowed his laughter in his Coke, a strange niggling sensation gnawing at his ribs near his heart. Maybe his friendship with Eden wasn't pretend.


The best part--Blood Will Tell is available for $.99 in the Kindle store.

The Friday Egg

http://rerinha.deviantart.com/art/Survival-Instinct-123235955

Musings after the sick coma

I am emerging from a sick coma that has trapped me for a few days--starting to look around and realize all the things that fell to the side. Or the things I thought I did, but didn't really do--like two chapters of critique where I didn't write any comments (that is so not me) or forgetting to put the water in the coffeemaker (okay--I do this regularly).

It got me to thinking about how amazingly dependent we are on our bodies. All I had was some stupid little flu thing--it wasn't even serious--and I hardly functioned beyond the necessary. The balance, the carin of my life, went from this:

To this:

In YA--so many books concentrate on characters with some element that makes his or her body function better. I wonder if this isn't in direct relation to who is doing the writing--generally thirty-somethings who are just starting to feel the impacts of aging.

I know--I know--30ish (or maybe 35ish) is young, but my 30s are the first time I've ever felt the tug of age. I wonder--in writing YA--am I just attempting to reclaim some of my youth?

Prufrock and Poo

Sometimes it feels like my life is about poo. This isn't metaphorical.


As a pet sitter, almost all of my appointments deal with this:




Or this:



And one can't forget that I have the honor of spending my days with the little guy, who is endlessly fun, but he does tend to do what comes naturally.



Not to mention my own contributions to the universe, which I choose not to share with you in picture form.


I have measured out my life in poo.


Okay, that might be a bit of a bastardization. The real line is: I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.

How amazing is that image?

Leave it to T.S. Eliot to astound with words. This little snatch is from The Long Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which is one of the poems I keep in a familiar place so that I can re-read it from time to time.

I think about the image--measuring out his life in coffee spoons--and the repetitive, contained nature of of it, and it makes me wonder how I measure out my own days (besides with poo). I'd like to think that I measure my time in smiles or laughter, but the truth is that I have measured out my life in words--word by word, meticulously constructing sentences that complete paragraphs that complete texts. I'm okay with that.

How do you measure your days?

Friday Obsessions: Copying, Amazing CPers and Eggs

So my fabulous new CPer, Leigh Ann does Friday Obsessions. I'm unabashedly copying.



1. My new Kindle Fire--because I can finally read in bed without disturbing my husband/son. Amazing.



So not my bedroom--but I wish.



2. Tea timer. Set it for 15 minutes. Write. No stopping until the timer reaches zero.






3. Aforesaid mentioned CPers. Erika for finding a publisher for her book. Leigh Ann and Gina for amazing drafts I'm honored to beta. Marie for typing the final words in a first draft she started years ago. You all amaze me.





4. Eggs. I'm considering posting a weekly egg picture because, well, I just can't seem to get enough of random egg pictures. How cute is this?





5. Carbry--my nameless novel. Edits, edits, glorious edits. I was stuck on this novel for quite a few months, but yesterday something clicked together for me--and now I'm happily back at work on it. Yay!

Is it getting dark in here?

All month, I've been waiting for this:


A brilliant idea. Even a moderately adequate idea.

But I have:


This is a new thing for me--previously my ideas have been so plentiful they've even sexed each other up and produced their own ideas. But again, I'm back to:



It reminds me that being creative is hard work--that ideas don't just fall from the sky and the ones that do aren't ready yet--they still need to be tweaked and twisted and stretched. That being creative means thinking so hard that your brain aches and that creativity is a process, not an event.

So I think.

(from http://www.flickr.com/photos/10061268@N03/)

RTW: Writing Paradise

Road Trip Wednesday is a blog carnival where YA Highway's readers post answers to weekly questions.


This week's question: Describe your dream writing retreat. Where would you go? Who and what would you bring?





Starting with the most important part--who would I bring? I would bring every one of my current CPs. The best part about this writing retreat would not only be dedicated writing time, but having wonderful, supportive writers to share with at the end of the day. I can't imagine a perfect writing retreat without my girls.

So where are we headed ladies?


Without much thought, I knew I wanted to take us back to the most beautiful place I've ever been: Norway.



Before visiting Norway, I thought that the term breathtaking was a hyperbole. Not so when you are standing in a fjords on a beautiful sailing boat. So we start here:



But this journey is about writing, and the boat is going to get a little crowded with sevenish girls. So I thought we'd find ourselves here:



This incredible house (still in Norway) is haunted. What better place to write?

After getting our creep on, we can head to Fjærland, which is a little town filled with second hand bookstores located in old cow's sheds, pigpens, the ferry quay, etc.



And then, because it is still a vacation, it is off to Stockholm for an evening or two out, visiting the Vasa Ship Museum (I love, love, love this museum--I would visit it all the time, if I lived closer) and writing in Stortorget, the oldest square in Gamla stan.



So when are we leaving?

Teaser Tuesday: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• Share the title and author so that other TT participating can add book to their to TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

This week is: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

The first two sentences: Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, Karou had no sinister premonitions about the day. It seemed just like another Monday, innocent but for its essential Mondayness, not to mention its Januaryness.

I am so loving this book--different, interesting--I'm spellbound by the characters. It has the usual YA elements: romance, story dipped in the fantastical, some snarky dialogue, etc. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading YA.