Blog: Bringing the Awkward with a book's subject matter.

There was a time where people asking what my book was about would cause me The Anxiety.  I'd say things like, "It's about a boy who... is in a band... and, um, his best friend died.  But it isn't as depressing as all that!  Because he takes this class and, you know, meets this girl.  And ...stuff." 

And people would stare at me  all 0.0 and I'd think to myself that I should never be allowed to tell anyone what my book is about ever again because I kept botching the pitch.

After the book deal, my contract described the book as "A dark contemporary YA about a teenage boy's emotional freefall after his best friend dies of an alcohol overdose." 

So I started telling people that when they asked what it was about. 

And they'd stare at me like 0.0

That's when I realized that it wasn't just my poor delivery of the "pitch" that threw people; it was also the dead friend thing.  I actually had someone (at a writer's conference!!!!!!) remark all sarcastic, "Oh.  That sounds like an uplifting book." 

My response was, "Actually, yes. It is."

I feel like people want to be excited for me.  Because I wrote a book!  And it's getting published!  And that's so great!  Oh, but there's this dead kid.  And emotion.  And won't it be sad?  And how can anyone speak with enthusiasm for this story when there's this poor dead boy and all the grief?????

At another contemporary YA author's presentation this year, I observed that I am not alone in bringing the awkward.  S/he spoke of a coming book deal.  There was applause.  S/he gave a one-sentence pitch, and then waited for a few seconds in silence.  The audience seemed like they didn't know how to react.  They were super stoked for the deal, of course, as their earlier applause revealed.  But the subject matter was dark so it was like they didn't know if they should clap again because it would be irreverent for the topic at hand.

Maybe it would have been.  I don't know.  I was comforted, though, to see that I'm not the only author out there whose pitch can throw people for a loop.  That's what we get for being so character/voice-driven and having "issues" as our main hooks, I suppose.  :-)

Cuh-RAZY Old Diary happenings

Okay, you guys.  If there happens to be anyone out there who actually reads my old diary entries regularly, you are in for a treat this week! 13-year-old Mindi is up to her usual antics of complaining about being on vacation and missing terribly a boy with whom she's had only a handful of conversations. Blah blah blah.

But 14-year-old Mindi? She is falling in love with someone who isn't Christian Slater!  For reals!  I mean it!  Well, kind of.  This entry is so long and filled with so much angst and longing and drama and a party involving Strip-Spin-the-Bottle (WHAT?) that you'll have to wait until next week to read part 2!

Blog: #SPEAKLoudly

I once read something to the effect of “Victims have no choice in becoming victims, but after it happens, victims are the only people who can make the choice to become survivors.”  

The first part of that statement can be the hardest part for a person who has been sexually abused or assaulted to accept.  Many victims believe that what happened to them was their fault.  That if they’d done this and this and this, they could have prevented it.  Sometimes other people imply this by asking questions like, “Why were you in that place?  Dressed like that?  Acting like that?  Why didn't you fight back?"

Being able to recognize the truth—that the abuser is the one at fault—isn’t a realization that always comes easily.  A victim can suffer years of confusion, pain, and guilt before getting to that point.   

For some, the thing that turns things around might be watching an episode of Oprah and hearing perpetrators of child abuse/rape admit that there was absolutely nothing their victims could have done to stop them from hurting them, from taking what they wanted. 

It can be someone who knows of your experience, looking into your eyes and gently repeating “It wasn’t your fault” until it sinks in and you finally, one day, start to believe them. 

It can be reading a book like SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson that shows the horror of rape and the difficult aftermath through a victim’s eyes.  Delving into Melinda’s thoughts, feeling her pain—it can help.  It has helped.  So many lives have been changed by this book.  So many victims have read and related to Melinda’s story and then found the strength within themselves to become survivors. 

Once upon a time, I was a girl who needed a book like SPEAK.  I didn’t have access to it because it hadn’t been written yet.  

But it exists now.

Don’t let Welsey Scroggins silence this story.  Don’t let anyone keep this book out of the hands of the girls, boys, women, and men who need it. 

Speak up.  Speak loudly.

Blog: The effects of binging (or not) on a televison or book series

(Worry not!  There are no Mockingjay spoilers in this post.  None at all!) 

Two weeks ago, I read HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins.  Last week, I read CATCHING FIRE and MOCKINGJAY.  I enjoyed the series very much, but it's too soon to say whether they are going to stick with me forever.  I do know that  as much as I liked them, I wouldn't have voted them as The #1 Best YA of All Time.

But what if I'd read the series the way that many others did?  Waiting a year between each book?  Would the anticipation of what was going to happen, how it was going to end, have made it have more of an impact on me?

It seems that for me, personally, the opposite is true.   I was really into the first four Harry Potter books, which I read boom, boom, boom, boom.  But I had to wait for book 5.  And then for book 6.  And then for book 7.  By the time the series ended, I still cared.  I did.  But I couldn't even remember a lot of the details of the earlier books.  I just wasn't as engaged as I'd been originally.

The same has held true for television.  I came into Buffy the Vampire Slayer late in the game.  I started watching the Seasons 1-5 reruns shortly before Season 6 aired on television.   Dwayne and I binged on it.  We started with Season 1 and watched two episodes a day, five days a week, for a full hundred episodes.  When that was over and we had to wait for Seasons 6 and 7 to air, I didn't like the series as much anymore.  I'm not sure if it's because the writing kind of sucked (which is what I tell myself) or if the time between episodes let my enthusiasm wane.  I hear of people saying Season 6 or 7 is their favorite season and I am shocked.  Shocked!

Veronica Mars and Friday Night Lights were shows that I quickly watched (and loved) the first season on DVD and then was let down by the second season, which I watched weekly as the episodes aired.  I wasn't sure if the quality decreased substantially (as I believe to be true) or, you know, that other option.  I loved One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy until I finally got caught up on the DVDs and then I grew to loathe and eventually quit them.

Battlestar Galactica and Alias were different.  Both series had ended before I got into them.  Which means I watched them both straight through.  Start to finish.  The quality did seem to decrease as they went on, but I wasn't as let down by the finales as many viewers who'd spent years of their lives watching these shows seemed to be.

I have no real conclusion to this entry, by the way.  I tend to think that binging on series can make for a more intense experience in the present.  The characters and storylines occupy my mind for those weeks/months and work their way into my dreams.  At the same time, binging can mean that when the DVDs are over, it's really over.  Everything fades more quickly because the show didn't have all those years to live in my subconscious.

Huh.  I guess I had a conclusion after all.  How about that?  :-)

Blogging like a fiend

I made a goal this month.  It was either to blog every day in September or to blog every day until Freefall comes out on October 5th.  I can't remember which. Regardless, here it is September 18th, and I have, in fact, blogged every day in September!  Do I get a prize?  :-) To check out my entries (the content of which varies from author interviews, my criticisms of other people's usage of the word "gratuitous", and Back to the Future), just click on the blog and scroll down as far back as you're interested in reading.