Author: tamaramorning

Magic Under Glass

Okay, so I finally managed to read an actual book this week: Magic Under Glass, by Jaclyn Dolamore.


From Ms. Dolamore’s website:

Nimira is a music-hall girl used to dancing for pennies. So when wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to sing accompaniment to a mysterious piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it will be the start of a better life.

In Parry’s world, long-buried secrets are about to stir. Unsettling rumors begin to swirl about ghosts, a madwoman roaming the halls, and Parry’s involvement in a group of corrupt sorcerers for whom the rules of the living and dead are meant to be broken for greater power.

When Nimira discovers the spirit of a dashing fairy gentleman is trapped within the automaton, she is determined to break the curse. But even as the two fall into a love that seems hopeless, breaking the curse becomes a perilous race against time. Because it’s not just the future of these star-crossed lovers that’s at stake, but the fate of the entire magical world.

I was drawn to Nimira from the opening lines of the book–I felt immediately sympathetic for her and her situation, and wanted desperately to see her dreams come true. She comes from a life of privilege, yet she’s forced to dance in a troup that barely earns enough to keep her alive while she dreams of more. And Holln Parry seems like the answer to her prayers.

Then she meets Erris, a fairy prince enchanted in the body of an automaton, and everything changes for her. I loved how expressive Erris was, even trapped in a wooden body, and I immediately fell for him myself, and wanted to help him. The world had a very Victorian, Old England feel, and it was vividly done, down to the details of the society that looked down on the “trouser girls” like Nimira. I will say I was so quickly drawn into the world of this story that I finished the entire book in one day. I loved it, and I can’t wait for the sequel to come out (whenever that is)!

Still Eyeball-Deep…

…in revisions on the werewolf story, but I think I’m making progress. Well, I feel like I’m making progress, anyway. Still loving this story, and the characters, even as I’m modifying them a bit. I’m getting close to the parts that will have to be totally-rewritten, which is something of a daunting idea, but I’m still excited about it.

The angel story is coming along well, too. Finished up the focus outline, and Muse tossed me some neat bits to help thicken the plot. Little things, but I think they’ll add a lot of depth and conflict, so I’m looking forward to adding them into the mix.

Apart from that, it’s SPRING here! Everything is beautiful and blooming, and the sun is shining. I get spring fever and want to spend lots of time outdoors. Not exactly conducive to getting a lot of writing done…

Nothing Doing

Or, to be more accurate, I’m not doing much of anything. The revision is still going. No writing. Making progress on the angel revision as well. Other than that, nada. I haven’t even had time to read! I hope someone out there is making more progress than I am!

The Shifter

I’ve only read one book this week. Too busy with everything else—real life was a real you-know-what this week—for me to have any time to read anything at all, much less anything for pleasure. However, I did read The Shifter, by Janice Hardy.

From her website: Fifteen-year-old Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker—with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person and storing it inside her own body. But unlike her sister Tali and the other Takers who become Healer’s league apprentices, Nya’s skill is flawed: she can’t push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store person to person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from forces occupying her city. If discovered, she’d be used as a human weapon against her own people. Rumors of another war make Nya’s life harder, forcing her to take desperate risks just to find work and food. She pushes her luck too far and exposes her secret to a pain merchant eager to use her shifting ability for his own sinister purpose. At first, Nya refuses, but faced with some difficult choices. As her father used to say, principles are a bargain at any price, but how many will Nya have to sell to get Tali back alive?

From the moment this book opened—with Nya caught red-handed while stealing eggs—I was drawn into the story, completely hooked. The magic system, Healers who can take and transfer pain from injuries, was fresh and new to me, and I immediately sympathized with Nya’s need to keep her true abilities hidden, as well as her urge to protect her sister. Her struggle for survival in her war-riddled home was vividly done, and even the secondary characters felt real. This book was fast-paced and kept me turning pages long after I should have been asleep. Definitely a good read, and I recommend it.

And So It Begins

After almost four months of blood, sweat, and tears with the HTRYN class, the real work has finally begun: the actual, hands-on revision. (Cue butterflies in the stomach. Big ones.) I almost had a panic attack before starting, but eventually I calmed down and got a grip. The first scene was technically a new scene—it was one I lost in the computer mishap—so I had to re-write it, as well as the second scene. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, though.

I’m not trying to get too ambitious, but I’d like to have this revision pass done in four weeks. Not entirely unreasonable, considering there’s about 125 scenes. Some of them (a few), will only require minor work, but there are a lot of new scenes to be written—including the chunk at the end that I lost.

Judging from the marked-up pages I’ve already been through, I don’t think I’m going to have any “perfect” pages (ones that don’t need any changes). Stressful and intimidating, but at least it has begun.

Found: My New Favorite Author

That would be Maggie Stiefvater, by the way. Her two books, Lament and Shiver were part of my recent Amazon binge. And wow, am I glad I binged! (Trust me, that’s probably the only time you’ll ever hear THAT phrase come out of my mouth.) I read these two books this week, and loved, loved, loved them both! They were completely awesome, but if you’re looking for light, frivolous fiction, you won’t find that here. These books are darker, edger, and completely addictive (Sort of like good dark chocolate. Mmmm.)

I read Lament, the first of the Books of Faerie, first.

From Maggie’s website:

Deirdre, a gifted musician, finds herself infatuated with Luke, a mysterious boy who enters her life, at the same time she discovers she’s a Cloverhand—one who can see faeries. Trouble is, Luke is a faerie assassin—and Deirdre is meant to be his next mark.

So, I was completely entranced from the opening scene, when Deirdre is on her way to a musical competition, and she’s so nervous she has to immediately run to the bathroom to throw up (As usual), except that this time, Luke, the boy from her dreams, is there to help her (Not so usual.) Completely, utterly entranced. I loved the characters in this book. Even the minor ones are well-done and vivid, and I found myself actively disliking Deidre’s mom. As for her aunt, well, “dislike” isn’t quite a strong enough word. I read this in less than a day, desperate to find out what happened to Deidre and Luke, and how it was all going to go down. And, hello, evil faeries are pretty dang cool, too! (Although I have to admit, I prefer my faeries a little more…nice, I suppose. Like the Disney version, but not Tinkerbell. More like Legolas in LOTR. Okay, now I’m really digressing. Back on-subject.) Great book. When I finished it, I immediately went through my TBR pile hoping that I’d gotten the second book in the series, Ballad, so I could find out what happened next. Alas, I had not.

However, I had bought Shiver, which turned out to be a completely new take on werewolves–and not one I was sure I was going to like at first. Turns out I did. A lot. This is the first in the Wolves of Mercy Falls books. (The second one, Linger, comes out in July, the third, Forever, comes out in July of 2011.)

From Maggie’s site:

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl.

Grace and Sam are wonderful characters. This book is dark–at least I thought so–full of a sense of futility and inevitability that had me almost in tears a lot of the time. Grace is something of an outsider, obsessed with the wolves, which no one understands. Sam is different than the other wolves. He’s wolf, but he wants so badly to be human and have a human life. The story is told from both their viewpoints, and I have to admit, I’m HORRIBLE at paying attention to chapter headings, so this was occasionally confusing to me as I had to stop and check who I was with a few times. I loved this book. At first, I was a little unsure, but I got so into it and the cold that haunts its pages that it was almost a shock when I finished reading it and went outside into the 70 degree spring weather. If Linger was out now, I’d be happily reading it right this second. Sadly, it isn’t. But as soon as it is…It’s mine.

Nothing To See Here; Move Along

I don’t have any startling revelations to report this week, sadly. The writing is going well. The revisions on Tempest are still going, although this week is kind of a slog through murky waters dealing with setting details. I’m getting the final things in order to begin the actual revision pass through the werewolf story, which starts next week. I’m a little nervous about that. I hope I can actually get the vision I have for this story, the vision that’s grown stronger with this class, down on paper and do it justice.

Let’s see, what else has been going on? I went to the Fairgrounds racetrack on Saturday to see 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra race. There were an estimated 12,000 people there, and it was a beautiful spring day, if a little bit windy. Sadly, Rachel got beaten, although it was a good race, and fun to watch. It was an interesting experience. I’ve never seen people holding up signs at a horse race before, and the track is always a good place to go for people watching. People will wear anything out there, and it cracks me up. Seriously, would you wear 4-inch stilettos if you knew you were going to be tramping around on concrete for 5 hours? Not me. I’d trip and break my neck. But it proved quite entertaining.

And…that’s pretty much it for me for now. I’ve two crits to work on for my crit group, along with various other odds and ends to keep me on-track for my goals for the year. Other than that, it’s all good.

Eureka!

Have you ever had one of those “AHA!” moments where something just clicks in your writing and everything just falls into place? I had one of those moments Sunday when I read the new HTRYN lesson. It was about time: flashbacks, flashforwards, etc. One of the exercises is to pick a scene and move it to the beginning and make it your opening scene.

I knew immediately which scene would work best as an opening, would create the most impact and conflict right off the bat. I felt like I’d been struck by lightening! I will definitely be moving this scene and opening the story with it, then I’ll go into more detail when I get to its proper place. I think opening with it will immediately draw the reader in and keep them hooked until they find out what’s going on.

So far, this lesson has clicked with me, and it definitely makes the top five best lessons I’ve learned from HTRYN. I think the class may be open again for enrollment, so if revision is something you struggle with, you should definitely check it out.

Chemistry and Angels

Okay, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. A lot of YA reading. And two books have really made a big impression on me in the last week: Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, and Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles.

Hush, Hush is an urban fantasy about fallen angels and the ancient battle between good and evil, and everything in between. I enjoyed this book a lot. It had a fast pace, and it kept me guessing–although maybe a little bit too much. I read it almost straight through, trying to figure out what was going on, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nora Grey, the female MC is an interesting character and I really liked getting to see things through her eyes. Puck, the male MC was intriguing and sexy with a nice hint of danger. Good read, and I recommend it.

Perfect Chemistry has one thing in common with Hush, Hush: the female MC gets assigned a new lab partner in science class and the first assignment is to find out everything they can about their new partner.(Kind of weird that I should run across this twice in back-to-back books.) And that’s pretty much where the similarities end. I LOVED this book! I was up ’til 1 a.m. finishing it, desperate to find out what happened! It’s a re-telling of West Side Story, with Brittany Ellis, a blond, upper class cheerleader and Alex Fuentes, a Latino gang member. Brittany wants everyone to believe her life is perfect–perfect grades, perfect family, perfect boyfriend–and appearance is everything to her. Alex just wants to survive and take care of his family. They come from opposite sides of the tracks, and their two groups don’t mix. It just isn’t done. When the two of them interact, the sparks literally fly off the page! I can’t recommend this book highly enough! It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me want to shake some sense into the characters, but it was a great read. I can’t wait for the sequel, which is about Alex’s little brother. It comes out next month.

And that’s all for now.

Spinning My Wheels

Do you ever feel like you’re at a constant, frenetic pace, but you’re not actually going anywhere? Well, that’s the way my life’s been going this week. (Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels like this!) Busy, busy. I’ve gotten a bit of writing done, but I haven’t hit my goals consistently (or even written a single word today). However, I’m making huge progress–at least I feel like it–in my revisions.

I broke down the angel story into plot and subplots, and wrote The Sentence for the whole book AND the individual threads. Wow. That was quite an eye-opening experience. I discovered that my plot has less scenes (by a nice margin, too) than one of my subplots, so that’s going to require some changes, whether or not I switch the subplot to be the main plot or not. And I can see there are some other scenes that I need to write, although I’m not quite sure what they are yet.

In the werewolf story, I’m currently dealing with time. I had to sit down and figure out when each scene took place (Day one, day three, etc.). Which would have been MUCH easier if I’d kept the scratch calendar I made when I was outlining the second half of the story, complete with the scenes penciled in on their respective dates. (NOTE TO SELF: Do not throw any story notes away. AT ALL. No matter how trivial they seem at the time.) I’ve figured out that my scenes are heavily skewed towards the beginning and ending time-wise, of my story (which stretches over a 3-month period), so I’ll be looking at changing that a little bit as well.

Other than that, one of my brothers got to town yesterday, and the other will be here tomorrow, so this weekend is family time!