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Showing posts from February, 2013

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

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New soul Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why. No soul Even Ana's own mother thinks she's a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she'll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame? Heart Sam believes Ana's new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana's enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else's life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all? Set in th...

Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

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In my quest to one day in my writing career to write books for middle grade, I decided the best I could try and learn what it takes to write a middle grade book was to read them and evaluating what the author does to the books that makes them appealing to kids. The only children's books I have ever enjoyed reading were the Harry Potter series and the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Parker, and it's mostly because I grew up with the books and saw as each new title was released each year and displayed in the bookstores. I went around asking many for recommendations and I was told the Percy Jackson books. I knew it was a movie but I honestly thought the books were YA not MG and I hadn't read the book or seen the film. So I decided to begin reading this book. Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school... again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Per...

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

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This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom points Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transformation power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts. I read this book for my high school for my Multicultural English class. Then when I had to sign up for second level English in college World Literature it turns out The Alchemist is the required reading for my class. When I was in high scho...

NaNoWriMo Letter from Nora Zelevansky

To all the participants of NaNoWri last November,  Nora Zelevansky  a novelist, journalist, essayist, and editor, whose writing has appeared in Elle and Salon wrote a letter to all of those who are working on publishing their NaNoWriMo story. Dear Writers, There is a long-standing debate among us about which is more daunting: a blank page or a rough draft. Historically, I consider myself a stalwart of the former camp;  something  seems preferable to nothing. At least, I thought I felt that way until I recently finished the first draft of a new manuscript, stared into the editing abyss, and promptly developed a case of vertigo. In 2009, I participated in National Novel Writing Month for the first time. Along with thousands of others, I aimed to write 1,667 words every day for a month in hopes of manifesting an honest-to-goodness book. I hemmed and hawed with the best of them, but ultimately relished the process of letting my imagination steer. That year, when I finish...

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

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Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they’re witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave. Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word... especially after she finds her mother’s diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family’s destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra. If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren’t safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other. This was a book I had been ...

NaNoWriMo Letter From Marissa Meyer

In my email, this is soemthing that New York Times author Marissa Meyer who in 2008 wrote her novel Cinder during NaNoWriMo and got it published. Stars above, Fellow Novelist, you did it! Whether you tackled the 50K challenge last November or have spent the past five years plugging away at your first draft, you now stand among the few, the proud, the somewhat mad. You wrote a novel. If you harbor dreams of seeing that novel on the shelves of your local bookstore, then writing "The End" is the first step toward making that dream a reality. In fact, it's the most important step, and you might be surprised at how few aspiring writers ever get there. But not you. You set out to write a novel, and that's just what you did. You toiled, you struggled, you laughed, you cried, and when it was all done, you cheered and celebrated this awesome achievement.* Now you're ready to tackle whatever comes next. Which is, naturally, the process of revision. There is  a lot  that can...

Beautiful Creatures Movie

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I saw Beautiful Creatures and OMG, I think the movie is better than the book. Here's what I liked about the movie, unlike the book which was such a drag just getting through the pages and the poor characterization of the main character that we are inside their head a majority of the time, the movie gets right to the point of the story, and doesn't lag. I literally fell asleep reading the first book in the series which read like a carbon copy of Twilight. The actual novel series just really lacked characterization. I look forward to when Beautiful Creatures is going to be released on DVD.

Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

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Is death the end . . . or only the beginning?Ethan Wate has spent most of his life longing to escape the stiflingly small Southern town of Gatlin. He never thought he would meet the girl of his dreams, Lena Duchannes, who unveiled a secretive, powerful, and cursed side of Gatlin, hidden in plain sight. And he never could have expected that he would be forced to leave behind everyone and everything he cares about. So when Ethan awakes after the chilling events of the Eighteenth Moon, he has only one goal: to find a way to return to Lena and the ones he loves.Back in Gatlin, Lena is making her own bargains for Ethan's return, vowing to do whatever it takes -- even if that means trusting old enemies or risking the lives of the family and friends Ethan left to protect.  Worlds apart, Ethan and Lena must once again work together to rewrite their fate, in this stunning finale to the Beautiful Creatures series.   This is the last book in the Castor Chronicles following the love sto...

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

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Love hurts. There is nothing as painful as heartbreak. But in order to learn to love again, you must learn to trust again.  When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, putting down roots in the close-knit community and becoming increasingly attached to Alex and his family. But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her . . . a past that set her on a fearful, shattering journey across the country, to the sheltered oasis of Southport. With Jo’s empathic and stubborn su...

Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

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Ethan Wate thought he was getting used to the strange, impossible events happening in Gatlin, his small Southern town. But now that Ethan and Lena have returned home, strange and impossible have taken on new meanings. Swarms of locusts, record-breaking heat, and devastating storms ravage Gatlin as Ethan and Lena struggle to understand the impact of Lena's Claiming. Even Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals is affected - and their abilities begin to dangerously misfire. As time passes, one question becomes clear: What — or who — will need to be sacrificed to save Gatlin? For Ethan, the chaos is a frightening but welcome distraction. He's being haunted in his dreams again, but this time it isn't by Lena - and whatever is haunting him is following him out of his dreams and into his everyday life. Even worse, Ethan is gradually losing pieces of himself — forgetting names, phone numbers, even memories. He doesn't know why, and most days he's too afraid to ask. Som...

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

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Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen. Sometimes life-ending. Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the...

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

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Beautiful Creatures Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them. Beautiful Creatures is the first book in a four book series known as  The Castor Chronicles, and is co-written by the author Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl .  Ethan Wate lives in the small, boring town of Gatlin, South Carolina. Ethan is dealing with a family death and just wants to escape his small town life. Then Lena Duhannes moves to Gatlin.  Le...

Editing

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I am now back at school. Vacation was hectic but I was able to begin writing the sequel to my nanowrimo trilogy I plan to self publish. I wanted to self publish it while the genre is still high and there are readers out there. But as vacation time is over and now it's time to do the most exhausting thing with my project. Editing. This has to be the most dreadful part about writing the novel, going back and editing the approximate 55,00 to 75,00 WORDS that you wrote back in November. It's just pages and pages of things that need work. My first draft was completed at approximately 65,000 words, and once I do some editing myself, then send the chapters to my critique partner, I end up with a higher word count that could range over 100,000 words. I'll have to see what editing takes me with this NaNoWriMo project. I was so tempted to go back and edit the what I had written. After day one of NaNoWriMo I had 15,000 words written. All of it was mispelled and all but I had to rememb...