What's Up WORLD

I have been absent from the blog since... well, it's been a few months (oops). But a lot has happened since April so I thought I would update you. Actually I just saw a few "What's Up Wednesday" posts so I thought I'd do it in that sort of style, although it isn't Wednesday anymore.

WHAT'S UP WITH MY LIFE

100 Islands, Philippines. Yup, I went there. And...got sunburnt.

I'm home! If you didn't know, I spent this past year in the Philippines, doing a lot of cool stuff. But mostly doing stuff like working at an international school in the elementary library and being the main playground supervisor which means sweating BUCKETS everyday because the temperature rarely goes below 30 degrees Celsius. (Seriously, the one week of the year when it gets down to 26 C people start wearing toques!!) If you're interested I could talk a bit more about my experience there, but for now I'll stick with reading and writing unless you really really want to know. :) So, yeah I'm back in Canada and gearing up for starting university in the fall!

WHAT I'M READING

I just finished FINNIKIN OF THE ROCK by Melina Marchetta and WHYYY did I not read it earlier?? I actually tried to read it a while ago because I absolutely ADORE Melina Marchetta, but I didn't feel like reading fantasy. Finally I sat down and buckled up to read it and I'm soo glad I did because Melina Marchetta did NOT disappoint. FINNIKIN is fantasy, but it has so much truth and beautiful story in it and AWESOME characters, which is my favourite thing about MM and the main reason I love her work. Give me a good character and I'm in love. PLEASE go read it because I want everyone to know how awesome Melina Marchetta is!!

WHAT I'M WRITING

Since I didn't have school work to worry about this year (a very weird thing for me...), I spent quite a bit of my free time writing. So only a couple of days ago I managed to finish my third draft of a book I've been working on for quite a while! Actually, pretty much exactly a year ago I said briefly that I'd finished my second draft. So... it takes me a year to write a draft. But anyway, I'm super pleased with this draft and I feel like I'm more on the right track now than I was with my disgusting first draft and messy second draft. I've now sent it out to a few readers but actually if you're interested I'm on the lookout for more critique partners. :) Here's a terrible one-sentence synopsis... 17-year-old Percy Collins used to be invisible, part of the world of invisible people called Unseens, until he was injected with the legendary antidote to invisibility and for the first time in history, it worked on him, thus making him a very valuable person in the Unseen world. (Trouble ensues). Yeah, I've got to work on that. But anyway, if  you want to read it email me at kazuntai101[at]gmail[dot]com. You can also contact me through twitter, @AlyssaSherlock!

MY GOALS

I feel slightly lost now that I've finished my draft, because my goal for so long has been to finish it! I think I'll take a break from any writing projects for a while, and then maybe try to work on writing a good summary. Which is kind of daunting, to say the least, but also necessary because right now when people ask me what my book is about I say "uh... people... who are... invisible..." (And I'm only trying to annoy them a little bit).

WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

Melina Marchetta! Reading Finnikin of the Rock inspired me to work on my book and finish it. It reminded me a lot of my book, just because my favourite part of the book I wrote is the relationships and the growth of my characters throughout. :)

I am also looking for some new music to listen to, so if you have any suggestions please let me know! I'm also wondering what your favourite YouTube artists/musicians are (because then I can just listen to all their songs on YouTube... haha).

Anyway, I've been away for a while. How are you? What are you up to? Have you posted lately on your blog? (I need to catch up on my blog reading...) Let me know!

RTW: How I Name Characters

Wow, I haven't done a YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday in forever...  (although, on my current side of the world, it is already Thursday...)

This week's question is How do you decide on names? Would you ever name a character after a friend/family member/ex?

There are a few ways that character names come to me.

1. They are just magically there when I think up a character, and the fits absolutely perfectly and I love it and can't imagine any other name.

2. I can't think up a character name right away, so I think up a placeholder name. Eventually, I can't think of the character by anything but the placeholder name, so the placeholder name is then no longer a placeholder, but the character's actual name.

3. I can't for the life of me think of a good name, and I spend hours and hours on end scouring babynames.com and other useless baby names sites where all of the names are really weird or unpronouncable. After that, I spend days asking family and friends for names that they like and they answer oh so helpfully with names of other family members. Or my name. At that point I usually go back to #2. (So, no, I wouldn't name a character after someone I knew. Mostly because I'm sure they would forever think oh, so that's what she thinks of me? Is that supposed to be what I'm like? etc).

So! That's my very inefficient way of thinking up character names. How do you think up character names? Maybe you could give me some tips...

The Fear of Writing Diversity

My sister has Down Syndrome. She has a hilarious personality, gets grumpy when she watches too much TV, and says funny things like, "[Bro], I have some advice for your driver's test. Cut your hair." She's a big and special part of my life, and I always sort of had the intent to write either a book about her or a book about a character with Down Syndrome.

But I couldn't, because I was sure I would get it wrong.

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to represent her properly as a character in a book. My thought always went along the lines of "I am not someone with Down Syndrome, therefore I can never accurately portray someone with Down Syndrome in a book, therefore I will not write them."

And I didn't.

But then I realized a few things.

1. People with Down Syndrome are still people.
2. Everyone is different.
3. I am a person.

I know writing a character with Down Syndrome would require some amount of research just because of the way a life is affected by that, but what I realized in realizing these things is that I'm not writing "Person with Down Syndrome", I'm writing "Person".

And I can do that.

I became unstuck from the thought of "what if I can't get my sister exactly right?" because I realized that yeah, my sister has Down Syndrome but she isn't THE representation of everyone with Down Syndrome, just like I'm not THE representation of 18-year-old white Canadians with curly hair. 

My sister is not a representation; she's a person. And if I chose to write a character with Down Syndrome, that character isn't a representation either. They are a person who is different than others with Down Syndrome and that's OK because people are different from each other.

The #yalitchat on Twitter the other day was about diversity in YA. And I think part of the reason why there is so few books with POC (Person of Colour) MCs or anything other than Caucasian MCs is because of this weird fear writers have (including me) that they're going to get it wrong or they're going to misrepresent someone along the way.

We have this mindset of "I'm not that, so I can't write that."

But I think that we need to stop worrying about that because people aren't just lumped into one huge group of White Canadian Females with Curly Hair that all have the same personality and charateristics and likes and dislikes, or one huge group of People With Down Syndrome who are all clones of each other and we've got to get our character-clone exactly right.

Stop being so afraid, and just write people who are different, because every person is different.

Because really, that's exactly what diversity means.



What do you think? 
(Also check out this awesome post by @ravenamo on writing POCs!)
(Also just so you know I did eventually succesfully write a short story that featured a character with Down Syndrome. ;) )

Has a Negative Review Ever Convinced You to Read A Book?

I have begun to notice that pretty much EVERYTHING is subjective. Almost everything is affected by a person's own opinions, moods, beliefs, background and what have you. (I totally just had to look up the phrase "what have you" to make sure I wasn't making it up and to figure out if it was one word or not).

For example, here is a conversation I had my with my friend Monday night. We were talking about making muffins together:

Strawberry muffins... tell me they do not look yummy!

Friend: What kind of muffins should we make?
Me: strawberry!!!
Friend: EWW
Me: What? Why! My mom said her friend made them once and they were really good!
Friend: That sounds... EEW!
Me: Why? Don't you like strawberries?
Friend: yahh

I still think my friend is not justified in thinking strawberry muffins are gross (I mean, she's never even tried them...), but this kind of shows how affected we are by our own ideas and opinions and just basically who we are.

So. This also applies to books. (HA you never guessed that I would say that, right?? Haha.) I have figured out that I like certain types of characters way more than other types of characters. I really don't like dependent, scared, hesitant characters that don't really know much. I absolutely fall in love with really clever, independent characters. For example, in the book Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (amazing book, by the way) my favourite character, hands down, is Dustfinger. I adore him. He's one of those clever, sort of goes-by-his-own-terms type of character that I like. I think this is also the reason that I liked the character Katniss in The Hunger Games, and the character Eugenides in The Thief, Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner.

To be honest, until recently, I had no idea that it was me. I just thought lots of writers wrote really bland, annoying characters but as it turns out, I just wasn't interested in the characters because of me - who I am and what I like as a person.

That being said, different things will attract a person into reading a book. When I'm wandering through the library, my eyes usually go to the covers (and spines) that are unique, bright, and different. I tend not to be attracted to the darker, spooky covers or the covers with girls' faces on the front. It also depends on what I'm in the mood for. If I feel like reading romance, I look for titles and covers that hint that the book is a romance.

Whoops... kind of getting off track. Back to... different things attract a person into reading a book. That is why I think when reading a book review, different things will stick out to different people. Just like while I'm in the library, certain covers or titles attract me, certain things said in a review will attract me to a book.

SO that brings me to my final point... because of all this, has a negative book review ever convinced you to read a book? I can see it happening if, I don't know, the reviewer says something like "The character was just way too clever for me, I didn't understand them" (this would only be for me, obviously) and then I would be like... well, I like clever characters... maybe I should read that book.

So? Has a negative book review ever convinced you to read a book? If not, do you think it's possible that one could? What do you think?

Also go here for information on the 21 Minus Blogfest and Contest that I'm participating in... it starts tomorrow!

Ages of Books, Characters, and People

Hey! I'm back! :) Although it's funny, because whenever I see bloggers going on breaks and then they're like "Hey! I'm back!" and blah blah blah, I'm like... okay, yeah, whatever... I just read your posts when they come out anyway, no matter if they're a few days or weeks apart. But, whatever, that's  not the point of this post...

So, I don't if any of you know this, but I am a teen SPY at YA Confidential, which is an awesome YA group blog that focuses on all things TEEN in order to aid YA authors. They have a great panel of teens that they ask questions to on a regular basis (obviously... I mean, I'm on it... haha). Actually, if you're a teen you could sign up to be a teen analyst, just go to their home page and fill out the form on the sidebar. :)

Anyway, they do regular ask-the-teens posts where they invite their followers to ask the teens questions. One of the questions in the most recent post caught my eye:

Do you really care about the age of a character as long as the writing and story are good?

...and in trying to answer the question, I realized I actually had quite a lot to say on this particular topic.

So... one of the things is, books definitely can fit into different age groups, but I don't think this is all based on the age of the protagonist. You can't just assume that because the protagnist in a story is 12, the book is for 12 year olds.

In my head, I picture two categories of books. There are "fluffy" books - the feel-good books that are fun and bubbly and cute. An example that comes to mind is Forgive My Fins by Terra Lynn Childs (which is actually a really good book that you should read...) These books could have protagonists ranging from nine to seventeen, and younger/older. Yet I think of these fluffy books as being more appropriate and enjoyable for a younger audience. I know I read books like this in middle school even if the protagonist was 17, a good 5 years old than I was.

Then there's the "dark" or "edgy" books. These are the books that are really heavy, and are pretty much the opposite of the fun, bubbly, cute books I just described above. These books are much more serious and deep and deal with much greater issues than in the fluffy books. Yet again, these books could have protagnists ranging from twelve to eighteen years old, but I think of them of being more enjoyable for an older teen audience. Some examples I think of are books by John Green, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta.

So, the age of the book, as a whole, rather than the age of the character in the books determines the age of the audience.

BUT I still don't care what the "age" of the book is. I know I just said that I thought of "fluffy" books as being for a younger audience, but that doesn't mean I don't LIKE those kinds of books. I LOVE those kinds of books. I also like the edgy books sometimes too. It really depends on how I feel at a certain time what kind of book I want to read. I've talked about reading needs before, and I'm sure I'll talk about them again after this.

My numerical age (17 at the moment) does not determine what kinds of books I read - I, as a whole person with all my personality quirks, determine that... just like books as a whole determine the age of the audience the book is appropriate for.

So I guess the answer to the question is... no, I don't care about the age of the character at all! :)

Hope that made sense... haha.

Do YOU care about the age of a character as long as the writing and story are good?

One Word Labels in YA and Life

So one of my biggest pet peeves in YA has become a focus on popularity. Which turns out to be really annoying, because TONS of books are about popularity, and I guess understandably because a lot of the lives of teens are focused around popularity (although not mine, which is why it bugs me). It's not just popularity, though, that bugs me in YA. It's also the labels, of maybe one word that can define a person or character in a YA book. "Jock", "nerd", whatever.

The thing is, characters aren't just one word. They CAN'T be just one word. Why? Well, because people aren't just one word. Humans are complex and crazy and twisted and amazing and their ideas change and morph and their personalities change depending on the situation or their age or a whole bunch of other things. They are so, so complex. And yeah, I know how hard it is to capture that complexity in writing. But it's definitely not impossible. I've seen it done.



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Another issue with labeling is that once you label someone with a word, let's say, I don't know, Mean or something, then that becomes all of what you think of them. You only use that one word for that person, and in your mind, that person becomes that word. She or he IS the word you've given them.  This then hinders you from seeing other sides of their personality and makeup that break through your one word label.
I know I definitely do this with characters, too. I have this image of a character in my head. "Okay, so this character, he's going to be... Quirky Guy." And then everything he does has to fit into that label I've given him. Which, yes, does help to keep you on track sometimes. But at other times, why not let a character break out of the one word mold you've formed for them?

This doesn't apply solely to people and characters, either. I think I also tend to label books with one word sometimes. I'll finish a book and based on that closing impression, I'll go, "okay, that book was good" or "that was awful". And then forever after that, I think of that book as good or bad. Even if I know there was good parts where I really did get into the characters, or bad parts where I really just wanted to leave the book and never come back. Like people, books are complex and they can't really be summed up in one word.

People, characters, books - all are complex, much too complex, to be stuck with one word to describe them.

So, basically... yay for me, because I like to use lots of words! Haha. :)

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And... with all that being said... actually this has nothing to do with this post, but methinks I am going to take a blogging break for a month or so. I don't know, I might post if I have an idea or something but for now I'll be gone for a month. Basically the only reason I wanted to let you know is because that means I won't do a Teen Scene Link Roundup for February.

Have a great weekend!

Why Having An Overactive Imagination Is Kind of A Problem

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There are things to be said about having an imagination that constantly overuses and outdoes itself. Yeah, sure, there are good things like being able to write amazing crazy stories and think up crazy answers to the questions kids might ask you about life just to spice things up, or you come up with a crazy explanation for the cottony fluff floating from the sky with your brother (it's from trolls that eat snow and spit out fluff after they boil it in a magic pot, or something like that).

But there are also problems with living with an overactive imagination when you want to, you know, LIVE A NORMAL LIFE. Here are some problems I've encountered:

YOU BELIEVE CRAZY STORIES

Like, when your French teacher tells you that there's a subway in the basement of your school, you kind of believe her because you can actually imagine a subway rumbling through the basement of your school. Or you believe things your dad tells you when trying to trick you, and then you are destined to be endlessly made fun of by your brother and dad.

YOU MAKE UP CHARACTERIZATIONS FOR EVERYTHING

Apparently, characterizing everything from individual numbers, to individual letters, to your contact lenses... (WHAT NO I DON'T DO THIS... *ahem*) is not the kind of thing a normal person does. But come on, you can't argue that the number nine is pompous, right?

HYPERVENTILATING WHILE BABYSITTING

I was sitting drinking my orange juice while watching the little one-year-old I was babysitting stab at his oatmeal, and take forever to snag ONE OAT on his spoon and then proceed to suck it off his spoon. (If he kept at it like this, it was going to take forever until his oatmeal was gone). It was all good until he started coughing. *IMAGINATION TAKEOVER*: "OH NO WHAT IF HE STARTS CHOKING AND I CAN'T DO CPR AND I HAVE TO CALL 911 AND THEN HE HAS TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL HIS PARENTS WILL KILL ME AND FIRE ME AND I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO BABYSIT AGAIN *deep breath*... oh. He's laughing. Um. Yeah."

CREEPY STORIES COME ALIVE WHILE HOME ALONE AT NIGHT

House: Creak.
Me: whatwasthat.
House: CREAK!
Me: It's a robber, it MUST be a robber. He's going to come in the house and point a gun at my face, and I will have to lunge for the phone while kicking him in the face no wait I can't do that I've never taken any martial arts he'll probably kill me instead WHY ARE ALL THE LIGHTS OFF!?!? The robber's here and he's cut the power!! AUGH!!
House: MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No, I don't need to see a therapist. Why?

How does your imagination react to things in your life?? Seriously, I can't be the only one who thinks like this.

Teen Writers Summer Blogfest: Blurbs!

So today for the blogfest, we're doing some blurb critiques. The point of this is to let some other people know what teen people look for when they are picking out books, specifically what they think about the "blurb" which is the little paragraph on a book jacket that tells you what the book is about.

Blurbs should tell what the book is about in an organized, interesting and slightly suspenseful manner. Right now I'm trying to think of what I, specifically, look for in a blurb.

I guess one thing that I really want to know is about the character. The characters in a book are an essential part of the book; they're what (who?) we connect to as readers. I also want reasons why I should stick around: is anything interesting going to happen? What's going to go wrong?, etcetera. There should always be conflict. And continuing with reasons why I should stick around, the blurb shouldn't give away the ending. It should end with something that should say (not  literally, though) read on to find out what happens!

But there's also the thing where usually I have to have some sort of connection to the book. For example, my sister has Down Syndrome, so I'm automatically drawn to books about people with disabilities. (It's like when I am automatically drawn to blogs by teens or Canadians, because I am a teen and a Canadian). But you can't really do anything about that.

ONTO THE CRITIQUE! :)

Working Title: TRIPP PARKER VS. THE WORLD: THE AFRICAN KIBOKO LEGEND

Genre: Upper Middle Grade Adventure
Blurb:

Eccentric debate club champ Tripplehorn Parker is certain he’ll be dead by next week, his body rolling around the stomach of an African beastie. He might be right. While his wildlife-researcher parents are thrilled to be entering the field again, Tripp can only mourn the inevitable loss of his limbs. Unfortunately, nobody will listen to reason from a friendless twelve-year-old, even one with a large vocabulary. The night before leaving home, Tripp receives a cryptic message ending with: Only you can stop them.

An eight-fingered woman and her eyepatched sidekick appear to follow the Parkers from America to the Ugandan bush. The guide is a suspicious meanie. The support workers are twitchy. Warnings and symbols continue to appear in Tripp’s backpack, finally prompting him to do a very scary thing. He teams up with a Ugandan girl to determine why hippo territory is so popular. Clues and village folklore point to a hidden hippo shrine containing power and gold galore. Unfortunately, ancient legend calls for a human sacrifice (or three) to access the treasure. If the shrine is found, the research trip may become a rather uncivilized hunting expedition, with the Parkers as prey. With no podium or moderator in sight, Tripp faces the toughest competitive duo he’s ever encountered: Mother Nature and a herd of really, really bad guys.

I think the biggest problem with this blurb is organization. I think it would honestly be really interesting, but it is kind of all over the place. It's like it follows several different stories: Tripp leaving for scary Africa, the mystery of the notes given to Tripp, and the hippo legend thing. And I don't get how they all connect. It seems like there are a whole bunch of random... balloons, or something, instead of a string that follows the main idea of the story. (That made no sense. I think I may need to work on my organization skills, haha!!)

I also don't understand the random bits of younger language. It just didn't seem to fit, in my opinion. "suspicious meanie", "herd of really, really bad guys". I realize Tripp is twelve, but I still think those things could be worded better (with better organization).

I would focus more on Tripp as a character, because from the first paragraph he sounded kind of funny and interesting. I like characters that dramaticize everything in a funny way, like Tripp did with the African beastie. ;)

I think with a little fixing up and a switch in focus with this blurb, I probably would read the book. As it is right now? No, I wouldn't.

What do you think? Do you agree with me? Why/why not?

Going to the Zoo Builds Character

Guess what III got to do yesterday?? Yes, I got to go the zoo. My best friend and I biked to the park where the zoo is and then walked around for an hour. It was pretty fun seeing all those animals. But one thing I noticed was how much character those animals have...

Hey, you can see my reflection in the glass..

There's some lazy lions lolling on the... shelf thingamajig. Maybe they have a larger version of the character of my cat, Venus:



See, it isn't blogging that's keeping me from writing! ... ahem...

 Yup, that there is one lazy lion. My cat Venus has quite a character. She is in love with first and foremost, my dad (she butts him in the face with her furry little head and then curls up on his chest and walks over his face at night and if he pets her then she starts purring. She even climbed up a stepladder to be with him a few times) and then second, the vacuum. When I was vacuuming the other day, she was rolling around and purring near the suctiony part. She loves it. Oh, she also loves to get wet. She comes running every time my dad gets the contact solution out.

Okay... maybe the lions don't have quite the same character as Venus...

Yeah, that's a peacock up on that shelter thing. Can you say show off? In addition to having that gorgeous shimmery blue neck and a huge fan of patterened feathers attached to their butt, they have to perch on top of things and squawk at us as if we were peasants to their king.

Oh, and to add in some random facts about peacocks because people should be educated about such things: a female peacock is not actually a peacock; she's a peahen and the entire species is called peafowl. And since they supposedly roost in trees, I'm guessing they do fly. So apparently it was mating season when I was at the zoo because those peafowl were squawking all over the place. Listen to some peafowl squawking here. 

Um, I think I'll let you make up some characterization for the flamingo. I just wanted to put a picture in because I think it's funny to stand on one leg to sleep. I advise you try it sometime...hmm.

 That's a monkey, in case you couldn't figure it out. And boy do those guys have lots of character. They like to show off too, in a performance sort of way, swinging back and forth with their long arms at the top of their cage with their cute little baby clinging to their fuzzy chest. It was also interesting seeing the little baby monkeys get trampled many times by the older monkeys... It's like my dad with my two years younger brother: "Well, you need to toughen up anyway. Wimp." *punches my brother in the gut*

If you ever have posture problems, find a bald eagle. They have it down: shoulders back, head straight, feet shoulder width apart...

I think these little guys were the best characters of all. Everywhere we walked in the zoo we saw another prairie dog, chirping and speeding away or somersaulting over one of their buddies. They grew on me, so much so that I think they could feel that I liked them, so consequently thought only one thing: Food??

Those are my shoes... yeah, they got pretty close. Don't worry,
they didn't eat us (like my friend thought might happen).

Unfortunately, I had no food so instead they scampered back into their holes and proceeded to chirp-scream at us until we left.

So this post was not so I could show you pictures of my trip to the zoo, o' course (ahem... well) but because I wanted to tell you that if you ever have problems building a character, you should go to the zoo to find some ideas there.