RTW: Lovely Things

Welcome to our 144th Road Trip Wednesday!

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.

This Week's Topic is: 

(Inspired by Stephanie Perkins' post on Natalie Whipple's blog) 

What is your novel's "Love List"?

A love list, according to Stephanie Perkins, author of Anna and the French Kiss, is a list of things, which can be ideas or concrete objects, that make you love your WIP. I've never thought about making lists like this before, but since I really like making lists writing this post was fun (my favorite kind of lists are the grocery kind). 

Explosions. In the sky. Over my house. 

Off the top of my head, here are a few of the things on my love list for a little WIP of mine that I like to call "Super Duper."

1. Ireland

2. Spanish moss

3. red hair

4. super powers

5. blue-eyed boy

6. sarcasm

7. a green man

8. betrayal

9. growth

10. explosions

11. more explosions

12. yummy food

13. mind control

14. the elements

15. family

As you can see, I like my novels to be a bit more combustible than most. So what are y'all's love lists?

Until next time...

RTW: Best of May

Welcome to our 133rd Road Trip Wednesday! 

 Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. 


We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.

This Week's Topic: What was the best book you read in May?

Well, I've done quite a bit of reading since classes officially went kaput, so I actually have non-class related choices this time. That's always fun.

Let's see...best book of May...has to be Cinder by Marissa Meyer. I already blogged about it and all (Burnt to Cinders), but I'm perfectly content with mentioning it again. Since it is such a great book. I also have to give a shout out to Lamplighter and Factotum by D.M. Cornish.

Also, to give you a taste of Cinder (if you haven't already partaken of that wonderful fairytale/alien concoction), here is the book trailer that I made for it a few weeks ago. I've already posted it once, but hey, where's the harm, right? Right.

Well, that's all I have for today. I've been working on a new WIP (it's super top secret, even I don't know what it's about to be honest) and I'm all worded out. (And yes, I realize May was like 6 days ago. It's summer.)





Until next time...

RTW: A Thousand Words

Welcome to our 125th Road Trip Wednesday!

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.


We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link in the comments - or, since this week's topic is a short one, you can include your answer in the comments.


It's been a while since we had an inspirational photos post, and we always love those. So...

This Week's Topic:

What images inspire/ represent your WIP or favorite book?

Out of habit, I am always accruing images of inspirational things, places, people, sights, etc. Just yesterday I was trolling the Internets looking at pretty things on Nat Geo's site. Lovely images. 

This is my favorite. 

It makes me feel a sense of wonder at nature and wildlife. It's a feeling that I try to convey in one of my WIPs. It's a profound sense of the connection between nature and man, or the lack of connection thereof. There's a certain mysticism about the natural world that cannot be penetrated or fully understood by man, but we try all the same. It's that search for belonging in the natural order of things that I find so fascinating. This stag and his posture of utter serenity speak volumes to me and I just want to capture it so I can recall that feeling again and again. 

It's almost selfish in a way. Yet, I can't help wanting to hoard the feelings inside of me. 

I am haunted by this image in much the same way as the previous one; however, this picture evokes more of an otherworldly quality. I want to dive into those leaves and relive past lives. I want to wander in those trees and hear the ghosts of our pasts. In that forest, there is no time. It doesn't exist. This timelessness is what I want to convey in my WIP about nature. Seasons may change, but images like this stay with you forever. 

I hope y'all are having a lovely Spring. I know I, for one, am looking forward to Summer. I've been planning out my class schedule for Fall and I'm already tired. But I'm on the home stretch! Only two more semesters of classes, an Honors Thesis, and one semester of student teaching, and then I'm done!!! *excited dance*

Until next time...

RTW: Deja Vu? Methinks Maybe

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.


We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link -- or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.


This Week's Topic:
What themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work?

I'm BACK! And in more ways than one apparently, as it seems very appropriate to be discussing recurring themes and such after returning from a RTW dry spell. These past few weeks have been uncommonly hectic, what with classes and the writing and the newspaper and the helping of EDM310 students, but thank goodness for slow times in the lab. That's how I'm here right now typing at y'all.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff! *ahem*

Themes:
I tend to be on the side of Good a lot more than Evil, so really that's the only theme that I follow, at least overtly. My WIPs are many times following some sort of conflict either internal or external, perhaps even a combination of both. It may sound a lot cliche, but that's how I think. In cliches, haha! Although lately I've been stepping out of that "cliched" comfort zone and writing characters who have problems and seem more three-dimensional. It's been really fun. At the moment, my MC of the month is an ex-streetfighter who took over running a bar when her dad passed away. She (yes, this girl can fight!) has a penchant for cussing and does odd "jobs" to keep the bar afloat. Her past hasn't exactly been left behind despite what she may claim.

Settings:

This old store in Mississippi isn't that far from where I grew up.
Spooky. Also: tombstones?
Scooby and Shaggy would have none of that place.
None. Of. It. 

Oh dear, this is a doozy. Well, I have one WIP set in the South...then it's in Ireland...and then I have another one set in the South...and I think it stays there. Umm, then there's this one that's set in space...but then it's on Earth, but I haven't really decided where yet. Oh and then there's the one set in a place kind of like Metropolis for Superman, but I never really named it. I think I see a trend though. The settings tend to change or be a little Southern. Except for the WIP of the moment. It's set in a Chicago-like borough that never had a heyday. It's cold and dark and I love it.

Scenes:
I have a lot of introspective scenes, mostly because I write in first person quite often. But other than those, it's either very descriptive third person or ginormous conversations. It's, as we say, a work in progress! I'm constantly learning how some scenes can be made better by adding different elements or by subtracting them. I don't think I'll ever stop learning.

I think that's enough for now. I don't want to be sore tomorrow from all of this fun! Until next week...

How's This For A Promotion? (aka Non-Sappy Sunday #1)

Hello people of the blogosphere! Thank you for stopping by, if indeed you are actually reading this. You're so special and I love you. I. Love. You.

Anyway, I've been following a certain blogger's blog (blogger's blog...haha...that sounds so funny for some reason...) for a few weeks now, and she really knows her stuff. I don't readily admit when someone is younger than me and can write circles around what I do, but here I go:

She can write circles around me, and I like it.

She likes to go by the name Silent Pages, and quite frankly, I'm glad. As long as she's hiding behind that pseudonym, I can still have that tiny belief in the back of my mind that she might just be a figment of my imagination concocted to make me feel bad about my own writing skillz. Those things do happen, you know. Really, they do.

But, since I'm on the topic of great ideas, writing tips, and so on, I would like to pass her link on to you folks so y'all can each get an idea of what I'm trying to say. Whatever that may be.

Without further ado, I give you Silent Pages' blog. Go crazy. (Warning: Her blog posts are so amazingly long, wonderful, and wise that you will feel inadequate, but be comforted in the fact that everyone else is feeling the same way.)

RTW: Flavor of the Month

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.

This Week's Topic:
(Back by popular demand!) What's the best book you've read this month?

The best book I've read this month? Somebody give me an easier question.

Do WIPs count? Because I would totally say one of Kelsey Sutton's WIPs completely hooked me and if she doesn't finish it, I will surely die of not knowing what happens. The end. (And I hope she reads this and feels compelled to finish it. Yes, I'm looking at you, Kills. Right at you. But seriously, finish that rewrite of the other WIP first.)

But as for published books (which I know that WIP will be someday), I have to say that the best I've read this June was States of Confusion by Paul Jury. And watch the video that his name links to. It's great.



I don't usually read memoirs, but this one was hilarious, and I don't say that lightly. There were moments when I was reading it that I almost choked on my own laughter. Surprisingly, that can be done. I was planning on doing a more in-depth review of the book next month after my book review of it was published in the upcoming July issue of The Vanguard, but might as well mention it now.

Well, that's all for this Road Trip! See y'all next week!

It's Not What You Think

It's worse.

I'm way too busy for a person who likes to be...not busy. Non busy? Un-busy? Whatever. The fact remains that my schedule looks like I've taken a bunch of other people's lives, chopped them up into irregular pieces, tossed them at a calender, and then hoped for the best.

Actually, that sounds like something I could handle. Right now I'm toeing the line between not knowing what day it is and wanting to murder some tourons (tourists+morons=tourons.)

So far I've managed to come out victorious in my battle against giving into said temptations that would land me in the poky. I do this by rewarding myself with Yoohoos and dill pickle chips. I might have to step it up to ICEEs though for the rest of this weekend. Memorial Day brings all kinds of folks out of the American wood works.

I might get more sleep in the slammer...

I've had a little time to write; cue my WIP ADHD and you have no progress on the WIP I should be working on. *looks fretfully at Word document*

But that's okay. Summer has only just started even though it feels like I've been out for a month. Oh wait. I have almost been out for a month. Weird. Anyway, I've been in a sort of time stasis because of my brother's high school graduation, my jobs (I have three now, woohoo!), and the fact that summer classes start on the 30th of this month.

At least my sister is turning 16 in a few weeks. That way I won't have to be her chauffeur the rest of my "break." Somewhere amidst those various activities, I'm going to have to schedule in some time to write. My typing fingers are getting anxious.

I feel like this post doesn't really have a point except to confirm the fact that I'm still alive and kicking. Don't worry, I haven't actually kicked anyone in a while. Mostly I just swing one leg back and forth as I'm leaning against the counter at work (and trying not to snap that last thread holding my sanity in check whenever someone asks me, "Do the restaurant beepers work in here?" or "I'd like to see that purse." *points to the purse on the top shelf so I have to go find the step ladder in the furthest corner of the stockroom and then after having me take all the stuffing out of the purse decides she doesn't like it because the inside isn't 'pink enough'*)

And I'm not bitter at all. Really. *eye twitch* I just have allergies.

To tourons.

So...how's it going in the blog world y'all?