Joy Preble's Blog, page 10

Took a longish hiatus from reading the Outlander series. Deadlines, other books I wanted or needed to read, life, etc. got in the way. It had been a lovely late spring/summer/ part of fall run-- all the way to the middle of Book 6 when it was time to stop for bit.

Unfortunately, I'd left off in the middle of a lengthy section about William (Jamie's illegitimate son who is being raised by Lord John Grey and is now a British soldier while Jamie is now on the American side of that pesky Revolution) being lost in the middle of something called the Great Dismal and then getting rescued by Quakers and his (unbeknownst to him) cousin Ian Murray, who is mostly a Mohawk now but not always. So I returned to lots of slogging through bogs and fog and losing his horse and more slogging and on like that for a very long time until hooray! Ian wandered in to orient me and save the day.

It's been on fairly quickly since then, remembering that Diana Gabaldon tells Claire's parts in 1st person but everyone else's in 3rd and finally some Jamie and Claire time (which is why you read this series, among other things) and some cleverly smexy times and more Ian and the Quakers (who seem to get in a lot of trouble) and more than one leg amputation and some other grizzly deaths and talk of herbs and oh yes, both Claire and Jamie need spectacles now, and in fact he has just told her they'll have to wait until they get to Edinburgh (God knows when?) where he knows a guy and then he'll get her two pairs. Of course, this reader assumes that those words are queuing up the arrival of Ben Franklin, spectacle maker supreme! Hopefully he will make Claire a pair of bifocals! Cause these things happen in this series. I'll let you know.

And yet… There is just something about Outlander that makes me come back for more. Even if I occasionally skim pages about the Great Dismal or too much scenery or too much herb analysis. And even if the Quaker story line is feeling forced and honestly William is rather a jerk at times, but no one has told him who he really is and he seems a bit of a dim bulb about those things…

The romance is quite fine. (Just read an article about how the director of 50 Shades is hoping she's created a stronger, more feminist narrative for the film than the book. Well, good luck with that.) Outlander has strong women. And strong men. And love and sex and romance on an equal basis. I mean let's face it, when they first got married, Jamie not Claire, was the virgin. (He's made up for this since then, but still) As I like to remind people it's the women in this series who killed a buffalo with a hand saw. (specifically Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna.) And yes sometimes the whole Brianna and Roger in Scotland in the future story line feels a bit like just a set up for a time travel kidnapping. But the series has dealt with death and loss and rape and starvation and war and love and revolution and fear and joy and everything in between.

It is big and bold and wonderful. It has jumped the shark any number of times (see: killing buffalo with a hand saw and my prediction about Ben Franklin and the glasses). But never mind! It is about flesh and blood characters who are living big and small lives against an ongoing historical backdrop. It is about life and love and the joys and sorrows of both. And I haven't even mentioned about 98% of the plot lines!

And the STARZ series, coming back in April, is mighty fine, too. (see: the wedding night between Jamie and Claire. And a bunch of other stuff.)

So yes, each book is like 1,000 pages. Fine with me.

Outlander!
If you haven't read it, find a copy and catch yourself up!

Did you know next week is Valentine's Day? Already?!

And with that out of the way, the Friday five:

1. Huge congrats and awesome sparkly things to my friend and amazing author Crystal Allen, who was chosen as the Thurber House Writer in Residence for this coming summer! This is a huge honor and Crystal is wonderful writing coach and teacher, as well as the author of lovely MG/tween-ish titles HOW LAMAR's BAD PRANK WON HIM A BUBBA-SIZED TROPHY and THE LAURA LINE, both from our mutual publisher, Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins. Read more about it HERE

2. Author lunches. With cake. And industry talk. Went to one yesterday and I'm feeling recharged and focused. And not just because of the cake. Writing is such a solitary activity. It's easy to be neurotic some days. Most days. Well, maybe that's just me, but I don't think so. Anyway, it's always a true gift to hang out with other people who are battling the same battles.

3. Okay, so maybe possibly Scandal has jumped the shark for me with this new #saveOlivia plot. Because seriously? The most powerful man in the world is afraid of the VP and all his crazy machinations? Not working for me. Not even as over the top satire, which I don't think Shonda Rimes means it to be. If you do, Shonda, then, okay. Cool. Your dialogue is still stunning. But the plot is the kind of thing that I fear my editors would toss back at me and say, really? I was, however, relieved that Olivia was able to get a clean outfit and have her hair blown out. Although honestly, I like Olivia's hair when it's gone rogue. Just clean it up and it's just fine. But I know that's not Olivia. Which is a whole interesting discussion of its own, perhaps for another day.

4. So excited for two other author friends! The very kind and very talented Michael Northrop has a new series out, TOMB QUEST, from Scholastic. And book one, Book of Dead, just debuted on the NYTimes Bestseller's List! Hooray!!! You can grab a copy at your favorite bookstore. Or one of my favorites, Blue Willow: http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/76350

And the delightful Cory Oakes from Austin has a new middle grade out from Sourcebooks, DINOSAUR BOY! http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/77457

5. Getting excited for two upcoming book festivals: Montgomery County Book Festival, north of Houston in The Woodlands will be 2/21. I get to hang out with a bunch of my favorite authors and bloggers and readers and librarians. And the two keynotes are both authors I admire so greatly: Ellen Hopkins and Andrew Smith. So hooray for that! Then on 2/28, it's off to Corpus Christi for the first ever Teen Book Fest by the Bay!

And now that I just spilled my coffee, I'd say it's time to go.
Happy Friday.

Still thinking about the power of those opening few sentences in a novel and I came upon this, by author Beth Kephart, a writer whose prose I deeply admire.

http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/2015/01/does-entire-book-lie-within-its-first.html

I love this idea that not only do those crucial first lines set the tone, they also encompass the book in miniature.

I think back to what I shared yesterday, the first sentence of my forthcoming FINDING PARIS. "My sister leans over me while I am trying to sleep."  In many ways both large and small, this sentence reflects everything that happens after that. I'll be honest here and say that when I wrote it, I knew it felt like the right place to start, but I didn't think about it as containing the book in miniature. But I read that first chapter aloud at a book event the other night and I thought, hmmm. My subconscious is smarter than I am!

So today in between writing and other work, I am pondering this again.
Would love if you pondered with me!

Reading the brilliant A.S. King's Glory O'Brien's History of the Future. It begins like this: "So we drank it--the two of us. Ellie drank it first and acted like it tasted good. I followed. And it wasn't half bad. / When we woke the next morning everything was different."
There's more on that first page, but those are the first lines we get. Later we find out they've somehow drunk petrified bat and can now see the future-- and a grim one it is. I'm not that far into the novel so I'll talk more about it in a later post, but I love that King gives us SO MUCH in these first few sentences. I don't know how much of this will be the truth later, but I know that I'm pondering.
Let's deconstruct:
She begins with the act of drinking…. something.She uses the pronoun 'we' followed by 'the two of us' and so I think that partnership/friendship/relationship (I'm not sure yet here in paragraph one) is significant. She tells us that Ellie drank first and then 'acted like it tasted good' which probably tells me a lot about Ellie even before I really meet her on the page. And then she writes, "I followed." Which also tells me a lot about the narrator, whose name I don't yet know.We writers talk and think a lot about openings. It's that first page that I often write and re-write many, many more times than anything else I revise. Because it's everything, really. It's a reader's gateway into the novel, into the characters, into relationships and conflicts and things to come.
So we want to get it just right. It's not just about drawing the reader into the story. It's about telling things without telling them fully, which is sometimes-- many times-- harder than it looks.
The opening line of my forthcoming FINDING PARIS (April 21, Balzer and Bray) reads, "My sister leans over me while I am trying to sleep."
This was not the original first line. Or the second draft first line. Or even the third. In fact, it wasn't even where the book began in its first iteration. But eventually, I knew where the book needed to begin and what it needed to begin with. 
More on that later.
For now, a question: What are some opening lines that have stuck with you/made you wonder? Lines that when you finished and went back to them, you realized what they were doing?

Somehow January is almost gone. Crazy, that! And I am in that waiting mode for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the first full draft of It Wasn't Always Like This is done and I am getting input from editor, beta readers etc. That 'take a breath' couple of days that comes before I dig into revision.

And so the five:

1. Very thrilled to announce that I will be teaching a Full Novel Workshop for a whole glorious week at The Writing Barn in Austin, along with Tim Wynne-Jones and Nicole Griffin and a host of other visiting authors! This is the first time I've taught at something so comprehensive. My friend Sandy said "It's like writing camp!" and I guess it really is. Here is the link: http://www.thewritingbarn.com/barnpresents/full-novel-revision-week-ya-mg-tim-wynne-jones-nicole-griffin-joy-preble/
If you're working on a novel, I would love to see you there!

2. Still reading Blue Lily, Lily Blue, the next Raven Boys installment. Maggie Stiefvater is a true genius. I know I say this every time, but it is absolutely true. Her descriptions and word choice and her plotting! Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

3. Scandal was back last night. Oh Olivia Pope. Although I have to say that the machinations of the plot made absolutely no sense to me. *slight spoiler alert here, but not much* Did the bad guy seriously have to do ALL THAT to find out that the President loves you? Like, if he could do ALL THAT crazy sh**t, wouldn't he already know?? It's NOT A SECRET from like, what? A zillion people? I mean even if you are denying it. So how stupid is he? Why didn't he just get right to his attempt to force Fitz to do whatever he's going to attempt to force Fitz to do?? Seemed like an obscene amount of effort for no particular reason. #justsaying

4. After having not eaten s'mores for like 2 years, I have now had them twice in January and let me say, yay to that!

5. Had a lovely time on last Friday night's panel at Champions Forest BN with debuts Susan Adrian and Becky Wallace and me and awesome author Mary Lindsey!  Got to chat some about Finding Paris! After which my friends Ed and Deb introduced me to a sazerac -- which is this amazing cocktail of whiskey, bitters, pernod, and flaming lemon peel and sugar. (Pernod is an absinthe type liquor; the original absinthe was strong enough to fry your brain, I do believe.) Oh my goodness, I love this thing!

So thrilled to announce that the venerable and very tough Kirkus  has weighed in on FINDING PARIS (coming 4/21/15 from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins) and they have some lovely things to say! I am over the moon, people!!

The pull out quote I enjoy most is: "Fast-paced with intriguing teen characters, a budding relationship and a bit of mystery—curiosity will keep those pages turning. (Fiction. 13-17)"

And you can find the full review HERE 

The sun is finally shining here, after having disappeared into grey clouds before Christmas. Seriously. No sunshine in Houston for almost a month. But today it's peeking it's head out. Hooray for that!

A quick five today.

1. Finishing It Wasn't Always Like This and fascinatingly, it's the 40th anniversary of Tuck Everlasting this year… which is relevant because IWALT is Tuck Everlasting meets Veronica Mars. A girl, a boy, a fountain of youth, and what happens when you're stuck at 17.

The big question driving the book being: Would you want to live forever? Not as a supernatural being like a vampire but as just you? And if you did want that, would you want to be forever seventeen? And if you and your true love-- also seventeen-- were parted by crazy circumstances….

That's all I'll say for now except writing this book has been a wild and wonderful ride and I can hardly wait to talk about more later this year!

2. Reading the next in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boy series: Blue Lily, Lily Blue. Holy cow, she can write. I've said that here many times, but it always bears repeating. Her way with words is phenomenal and brilliant and I can't turn those e-reader pages fast enough.

3. Got to hear an excerpt from the equally brilliant Jennifer Mathieu's forthcoming DEVOTED last nite.  We were appearing at a fund raiser for Montgomery County Literacy Volunteers and so we were reading from our forthcoming novels (which meant that I read chapter one of FINDING PARIS!) and in any case, oooh! DEVOTED! About a girl who's been raised in this ultra-fundamentalist family (think Duggar family only more so) and begins to wonder about the outside world and what she really wants in life. It's a theme that's fascinated me for a long time--and one that's been written about in a variety of religions (even something like Potok's My Name is Asher Lev-- which has been turned into a stage play currently running here in Houston). I am sooo looking forward to this book!

4. And in all things TV, I'm finishing up season one of Transparent and if you are not watching this show, get Amazon Prime and watch this show. Have dipped my toes into Broad City and I think this Jezebel article -- which quotes from a Slate article-- covers some of my thoughts about its fascinating and awful and cringeworthy and weirdly fierce characters. And of course, RHOBH is in full swing and Brandy has been crazier than usual, tossing wine in Eileen's face for NO REASON AT ALL. (I have a whole treatise on this in my head, but I'm on deadline, so another time) Plus the waiting game for the new season of House of Cards (Frank and Claire = the Macbeths on steroids) and you know it's almost time for Blacklist to come back… Okay if I keep up this list you will say how do you have a life? And possibly that's a good question except I really do.

5. Mostly, I'm still riding on the wonderful high of a 3 nite writing retreat with awesome writers in the wilds of LaGrange, Texas, where we wrote for hours, hiked the icy woods, and ate delicious and generally healthy meals, punctuated by popcorn and chocolate and the occasional glug of wine.

Til next time...

Hello 2015! Glad to welcome you, brand new little year.

In some ways, it does indeed feel fresh and new. In others, just like an extension of last year. I'm still anticipating FINDING PARIS on 4/21/15. I'm still finishing IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS, which needs to be done (in its first full draft version) in a couple weeks. Still working on some other projects that I was working on in 2014.

But! A new year. Full of hope and promise and the potential of that page turned. Okay, I could go on. But I think you know the drill. We're starting over. Let's get this right. We honestly have no idea what's around the corner. And yes it all sounds cliche, but it's really true. I hope the book I'm finishing makes my editor happy. I hope the world loves Finding Paris as much as I do. Leo Hollings is one tough main character. I want everyone to hold tight to her story. I hope I figure out this other really cool book idea I'm working on. I hope some other ideas that are germinating in my brain turn out to be books, too. I hope I figure out a way to afford a new master bathroom. I hope I get to take the trip to Scotland I keep planning my my head. I really hope that the people I love stay happy and healthy and successful beyond their wildest dreams.  I hope I don't fall on my face during certain yoga positions.

And the bigger stuff, too--like world peace and harmony which would be awfully nice, don't you think?

And on like that.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I started the year as I often do, with the following:

I updated my personal 2015 calendar. Put in events that I know are coming. Noted the birthdays and anniversaries and other big stuff of the people I love. (more than once each year, someone asks me how I remember. And yes, FBook is a good cheat in that regard. But mostly I remember because I make sure I remember. It's as simple as that.)  I went to eat dim sum with a group of friends that I love very much. We sit at a big round table at one of those restaurants in Chinatown that seat like 1,000 people and the carts roll by and we eat and drink tea and laugh and talk and get ready for whatever the year is going to bring. We celebrate having survived whatever it brought us last year. We goof off and someone tries to make me try the chicken feet and I say maybe next year. And then I went home and played with dog and wrote some words I hope are good ones and eventually it was time to make dinner. I talked to my kid. My husband remembered to put the sack of dog poop in the garbage.

Tomorrow I'm hopefully going to write until my fingers cramp. I need to finish that book and tweak that proposal and its sample chapters. I need to keep dreaming big stuff and hanging out with people who believe in dreaming big stuff, too. (This is not a requirement, but I will admit that honestly it helps. Good energy breeds more good energy.)

I'm reading a bunch of books that I was reading two days ago as well, including The List by Siobhan Vivian; The Andy Cohen Diaries by Andy Cohen; Blue Lily Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater, who is such an amazing genius wordsmith that I am humbled each time I read her work.

I'm excited for so many other books that are coming out this year, including More Happy Than Not by debut author Adam Silvera, whom I have not met but who seems a cool dude, which of course he is since we share an editor. :)

I am looking forward to this month's writing retreat with a bunch of my favorite Texas authors and a house in the country, full of really creepy taxidermy.

What about you?
What are you looking forward to?
How do you start your year?

The whole review will go live next month, but for now, I can share that School Library Journal's review of FINDING PARIS calls it: “An intricate guessing game of sisterly devotion, romance, and quiet desperation.”

Needless to say, I am thrilled!

Happy Thursday!

It's the best live television you may not be watching. Okay, it's not always the best. Sometimes it panders. But often enough it's surprising and fresh and rude and provocative and very New York, and it makes me laugh. It's Bravo producer Andy Cohen in his Clubhouse interviewing a wild mix of celebrities and 'Bravo-lebrities' and other famous folk, some of whom are famous for real and serious reasons. As Andy himself called it on NPR the other day, he likes to have a mix of guest that you might find on either the cover of The New Yorker or US Weekly. Think about that, okay. (Also, yes, NPR! He was hawking his new book and playing a game show where he answered questions about houseflies. Yes, really. Here's the link: http://www.npr.org/2014/11/22/365599417/not-my-job-we-ask-real-housewives-producer-andy-cohen-about-house-flies   It made me smile so much that I tweeted and lo and behold my very awesome editor was also listening. It was a bonding moment. But I digress)
If you don't know, Andy Cohen is the one who's responsible for the Housewives franchise on Bravo. Yes, yes, I know you're too cool and serious to be watching. But I watch. And while sometimes it's too much even for me, I find it fascinating on more levels than I can discuss here and if nothing else, it's like a little morality play some days. And trust me when I say I'm not the only one who has this at the top of her guilty pleasure list.
 NPR has actually talked to Andy a lot about the whole issue of pop culture. Here's another one:http://www.npr.org/2012/07/26/157248143/at-bravo-a-pop-culture-kingpin-works-day-and-night
But back to WWHL and the Clubhouse. They sit in this tiny space and drink cocktails and talk. They play a few games. On Wednesday nights it's Shotski night, which means that midway through, Cohen and his guests simultaneously drink shots from glasses attached to a ski. So yeah. Dan Rather taking a shot. Julie Andrews, for god's sake! Dick -freaking- Cavett. (if you are too young to know his importance to television interviewing, just google it.)
Even The Daily Beast has talked about this show that you're probably not watching but should be! http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/16/andy-cohen-reveals-his-watch-what-happens-live-dream-guests.html
Guests offer up surprisingly candor in silly games like Plead the Fifth. (Maybe it's cause they're drinking cocktails. Maybe because it's the kind of down and dirty talk show that no one else is doing, not even cute little Jimmy Fallon (who does, I have to admit, do other things make me laugh, like photo bombing family pics on top of 30 Rock with Cameron Diaz) It's why he gets one on ones with Cher. And Oprah. (Who gave in and said his name in that Oprah voice. "Andyyyyyyyy Cohennnnn" which made him delighted in a real way) And Lady Gaga, who, according to WWHL lore, also peed in the dressing room trash can. (one can only wonder.)
Mashable has talked about this, too! http://mashable.com/2012/05/08/watch-what-happens-live/
So yeah, he's also interviewing Teresa and Joe Guidice of New Jersey Housewife and indicted for tax fraud fame. And the episodes that air from SXSW in Austin sometimes feel a bit self-conscious. But he paired Tori Spelling with George Takei once! And Soleil Moon Fry (little Punky Brewster!) with Dr. Sonjay Gupta. Seriously. It happened. And a recent favorite: Amy Sedaris and Deeprak Chopra. Sitting together for 30 minutes. Talking.
I could go on. But I have a book due by the end of the year and I finally know where the plot is going and so I better jump in there and finish the darn thing.
If you're not watching -- it's on 3 or 4 nights a week on Bravo. You won't be sorry. I promise.