Point of View

I absolutely love reading. In fact, I read four books this past week. It was amazing. The first book was Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce. She is pretty amazing, you should all check her out. But anyway, Jackson's first book As You Wish is told by two characters, a girl and a guy. I loved this. This was one of my second time encountering more than one narrorator, the first was Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver and Linger, which are also amazing. But anyway, I absolutely have fallen in love with multiple points of view. Shiver is told by Sam and Grace. Linger is told by Sam, Grace, Cole and Isabel.

So anyway, Sisters Red is told in the points of View of Scarlett and Rosie, the two main characters of the book. Now this was great because they are such different characters that it is amazing to be in both of thier heads not just one, most people would call that an unreliable narrorator.

The second and third books I read were Leaving Paradise and Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles. These books were amazing! I read the first book in five hours and the second one in approximately the same amount of time. They were just fantastic. These books are told in multiple points of view as well. That of the main characters Caleb and Maggie. Like in Sisters Red, each chapter is told by a different person. In all three books every other chapter is told by switching points of view: Scarlet, Rosie, Scarlet, Rosie and so on. This is the same with Leaving Paradise and Return to Paradise: Caleb, Maggie, Caleb, Maggie.

The Fourth book I read is called Where She Went by Gayle Forman. This book is the sequel to If I Stay. If I Stay was told in the perspective of Mia, she has been in a car accident and is looking at the world as if she is a ghost. Where She Went is told in the perspective of Adam, Mia's boyfriend from If I Stay. I just loved the switch from Mia to Adam. I also love this book being told in Adam's view because not too often in YA literature do you get to see what goes on in the guy's head and I love getting that opportunity. Most YA books that I have read are told in the girl's point of view and I always want to know how the guy is feeling about a certain situation.

I love looking into different characters and how they view different situations. A lot of the time when I read a book I am wondereing how the other characters are feeling about different things and different narrorators gives me that opportunity to take a glimpse into their world and I just love it.

The novel I am working on is being told by two different people, the two main characters, boy and girl. Now, telling the story from multiple points of view can be difficult because you really have to know your characters and be able to differentiate them on the page as well as in your mind. If you do not have a good enough handle on your characters they may read as the same character and your reader will get confused or disinterested.

So, the consensus of the day, I wish more books were told in multiple character's points of view because it lets us gain insight and even lets us fall in love with a certain character more easily that if we were just to see them through someone else's eyes.

I hope you enjoy!

Novel or Short Story?

That is the question.

So you may have been able to tell from my other posts, but I love to read. But most of what I read are novels. This semester in my Advanced Fiction workshop class, our focus is on Flash Fiction, which is a very very short story, usually ranging in word count from 500 to 750 words. I have found that I love writing these stories. They are fun and short and easy and yet difficult, but Flash Fiction is all about 'the moment'. And it is so fun to write 'the moment'. But I also love writing my novel, it is equally fun and challenging.

So now I pose my question. Which is more fun to read? A short story or a novel? And what I have in answer to that question is: why not read them both.

The short story can be read in one sitting and is simple enough to enjoy in the moment. A novel is deep and complicated. It takes you a while to read but can be equally enjoyable.

I enjoy the short story, and even though I say why not read both, I personally love reading a novel because I love to fall in love with a character and have a vested interest in them. I hate it when a novel ends and I can no longer read about the characters I have fallen in love with.

So, somewhat of a disorganized and possibly incomplete blog post, but the point is, you don't have to chose. You can read whatever you like.

Later homes!

time on my hands, or lack there of

I really wish there was more time in a day, or at least that we didn't have to sleep. Yes, I really do love sleep, like, I really love my sleep, at least a good ten hours a night, but if I didn't need sleep to properly function, I could get so many more things done.

I work, go to school and am trying to write a novel, as well as developing new ideas. Trying to find time to do all these things and get an adequate amount of sleep as well as nourishing myself is somewhat difficult. I find myself telling myself that I will have time do to it all, but then I find myself running out of time and going to bed because, fail sauce! I ran out of time. Now, saying that I ran out of time is true but it is also somewhat my fault. I tend to get very distracted, very easily. I also find myself doing or reading things that I want rather than what I have too.

Time management people! That is what I need. And once I have figured out time management, I need to put myself in a place where I can not possibly get distracted by ANYTHING!!! Also, along the lines of time management, I need to learn not to procrastinate! I find that I am one of the worst procrastinators EVER!! I always tell myself that since I know what I am supposed to do a long time before it is due, I will get it done really early then will not have to worry about it, but I never follow through with the getting it done early. NEVER!!

In my novel writing class we are supposed to turn in fifteen pages a week on Mondays. I happened to have thirty pages done before we even started the class so I was like yes! this gives me two weeks to get even further ahead, but what happened you ask? I got behind and am finding that I am still behind. How many pages behind am I you may ask? About fifty pages, and though I try to get, not even ahead, but just caught up, I find that it is exceptionally difficult.

So, though as you may be able to tell, I am terrible at time management, I believe that we all should be better at it, and stop procrastinating! Especially us creative folk!

My Characters part II

So, I know I talked a lot about characters the other day, but when I read over it, I realized I left a few things that I deem important out. One of those things is that a lot of the time, your characters need to be in some ways like you but yet different. And the other is that in some ways and in some cases, you need to let your characters do the talking.

Thing one: When I write or develop a character, I think about the ways I can make them like me, or the things I like about me that I can put into my characters. I absolutely love music, so about 99% of the time, my characters are going to love music. I love movies, so I am going to incorporate movies into my story or into my characters.
Some times I make my characters into what I want myself to be. Smarter, taller, skinnier, get the perfect guy (although my guy is pretty great so I'm not complaining) have green or purple eyes, have the perfect hair, preferably black or deep red. But you get the point.
And sometimes I make my characters completely different from me, well not exactly completely different from me, but some ways like me and some ways not. I am writing a character now who loves to run. I hate running so I can't really get into that mind set. But what I can do is let my characters tell me why they love running, and that leads me to the second thing.

Thing two: I was writing a scene about an hour ago where I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen but when I was writing it, it changed drastically. But I felt it was something my character was telling me she wanted to do and I just had to let her do it. You may be the writer, but your characters are what make the story, so sometimes you just have to let them do what they want to do and trust that they know what they are doing.

Tata for now!

My Characters

As you all know, a few days ago I got Delirium by Lauren Oliver. I cracked it open as soon as it arrived and read till I was finished. It was great, I suggest you all read it. The characters were dynamic and very interesting and were just great. And on top of the characters, the book itself was amazing!

Developing your characters can be daunting and challenging but if your characters are no good then your story is more than likely going to be no good. And you may think oh she's only twenty and still in college so what the hell would she know about developing characters and writing them. But I can tell you that I am an avid reader and like to really get to know my characters so the author really needs to know them.

I started writing my first novel a few months ago and let me tell you, I knew everything about my characters and their lives and how they were going to end up before I even started writing. There are many different ways to develop a character: through dialogue, through their actions, the way they carry themselves, etc. I will admit right now I am not very good at detail and it is something I really need to work at, but what I am really good at is dialogue so that is mainly how I develop my characters, by the things that they say. And I try to throw in a little detail and action to help accentuate them.

I also think that a name is very important to a character, not necessarily what you name them or how you choose their name, but just making sure their name fits who they are. The way I choose a characters name is simple, if I like a certain name I will give it to a character. Sometimes that means that my characters develop around their name and sometimes that means that I have a character and because they act a certain way I give them a name I think fits and I have to like it. I chose Malia for the main female character of my book and had a whole personality for her and I could see her so clearly in my head. She was sweet and caring but also independent. Shortly after starting my book, I fell in love with the name Blair and thought that my main female character had to be named Blair, so I switched it from Malia to Blair, but as soon as I did that, my character and her personality disappeared from my head and I had no idea who my character was. So I thought about it a lot and wondered if I should change her name back or change it to something different. My final decision was to name her Jaden because her eyes were green. As soon as I decided to name her Jaden I could once again see her very clearly, but in some aspects she changed very drastically as a character. She was now very sarcastic and very independent but also had a softer side.

Jackson Pearce has a video of her in an airport talking about characters and saying that they must be real, people must be able to relate to them and must be able to sympathize with them and I think that is so true. Characters are the center of your book or your works so they need to be the most important part of your developing process.

So anyone who will actually talk back to me or comment on this, let me know what you think and how you develop your characters. I'll talk to you all later. 

Look what I got in the mail/ preference

Look what I got in the mail today, if you can actually see it, because right now, as I'm typing this, I can't. But anyway, so I ordered Delirium but Lauren Oliver and though I paid extra for the 1 to 3 day shipping, it came in 5, but that's beside the matter. It came in the mail today and I'm so excited I can't wait to read it. And this is the basis for today's blog post. What I like to read.
My favorite books happen to be Ya or Young Adult books. Now, most people I talk to will tell me that I should be reading intellectual books and I say if they were interesting I would. In some of my classes my professors ask me if I've read Faulkner or Tolstoy and other authors like that, to which I cower in my seat as my classmates raise their hands and I say no. But you know what, I am down, I will no longer cower in my seat because I read YA books and I am damn proud of it.
It's not that I don't read them because I think they are bad or anything, they just don't seem to appeal to me, eccept for those books that are actually bad. Now there are probably a million reading lists that have the top 100 books you should read before going to college, and the top 100 books to read in your lifetime or before you die and these lists always include books like As I Lay Dying, The Good Earth, My Antonia and other books like that, but not once have I seen a reading list that says what books we should read that include YA books. Now I have to say that that really pisses me off.
A lot of those books happen to be written in the high modernist era and I won't go into much detail about that but those shit heads like TS Elliot and Ezra Pound were so high on their own shit that they thought the common person had no business reading their works that they made their works so high over people head they didn't want to read them, but the fucking dumb ass part of that is that they didn't even want their writing to sell. How fucking dumb could you be. I want to be able to write full time, and the only way I can do that is to have people like and buy my books, but they must be able to understand them first.
I love reading! When I was young I couldn't read very well, so I hated it, but I got better at it. When I was a freshman in highschool my sister told me to read the Harry Potter books, and that is when I fell in love with reading. And I have not been able to catch up ever since. There are too many books and not enough time to read them, so what is the point in reading books I don't like when I can read the ones that I do like. When I was a junior in highschool I started reading the Grapes of Wrath. When I got at least 100 pages into it the only things I could remember were something about a hitch hiker and something about a turtle so I quit reading it because I didn't think it was worth my time to read a book I didn't like.
Ok, so enough of my ranting and defending, well, not that I did much defending, but I will get there. Here are some of my favorite books and authors of the YA genre, in no particular order.
Hush, Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick
The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
Fallen series by Lauren Kate
Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
The Wolves of Mercy Falls series by Maggie Stiefvater
The Dark Divine series by Bree Despain
As You Wish by Jackson Peace (you should all check out her blog by the way http://www.jacksonpearce.com/)
The House of Night series by Kristen and PC Cast
Evernight series by Claudia Grey
Night World series by LJ Smith
Dark Visions by LJ Smith
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Beastly by Alec Flinn
and the list just goes on

Now for the defending part of my blog. I really don't understand why people who think they are intellectuals or even so many other people think YA is a terrible genre, I really don't. If anyone can honestly tell me, like really give me a legitamit answer to why YA are such terrible books please let me know. Even though I couldnt give a rats ass because that is what I like to read and that is what I plan on writing for the rest of my life.
When I read a YA book, which they tend to all be mostly series, I love it. I get into the story deeply and really care about the characters so much so that I cry when they cry or root for one certain guy in a love triangle and so many other things you would not believe. These authors fill these books with their whole heart and soul and it really shows. Yes these books may be meant for a teen audience but have you ever seen a twilight mom? OMG! do they love their Edward.
By the way, Jackson Pearce says it perfectly when she defends the YA genre in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC7BRavnPWg
So anyway, to sum this all up, I love reading YA books and I am not going to stop anytime soon. I would really like to know your feelings on the matter. You can tell me what you like reading and why you like reading what you like. So leave it all in the comments. Thank you and goodnight!

What do you want to be?

I am a junior in college and for the past three years, the people around me have asked me what I want to do/be when I graduate. Now, for the past three years I have told these people that I want to be a writer and an editor. The more I tell people this, the more I realize that I am wrong to tell them this. Yes, those are both what I want to do, so you may ask how I am wrong to tell them this? I will tell you. The reason I am wrong is because, I am a writer, I write all the time so therefore I should consider myself a writer and that what I want to be is an author. So, to all of you out there who say they want to be a writer, if you already write like a maniac, then consider yourselves as writers and say that you want to be an author. That is my little piece of advice for the day. Enjoy and go with confidence.

Enough Already

Ok, so I've had enought of this winter shit! I hate winter and everything that goes along with it. Well, I have to take that back because I love Christmas!!! But I really hate snow and the cold temperatures, and ice, and everything else that is bad about winter. So, I don't feel that it is necessary to tell you that I wish winter was over, but I really do.

On another note, I just wanted to say that through out my blogging, I will be talking about my life, the music I like, the books I like, movies, ect. I will also, as if you couldn't tell by now, be talking about things I don't like, people I don't like, ect. Not that any of you care, but that is what I will be doing. I hope you enjoy.

Hello World

Well hello there! I'm new to blogging, and dont have the slightest inkling that anyone will follow me, but I wanted to get my thoughts out here, and what better way to do it than this, so here we go!