Gae Polisner's Blog, page 29


Sometimes I just need to be upside down. Okay, you (may or may not) know the RULES.


Here they are again.

There are only 3: (If you want more details, read this blog post here: http://ghpolisner.blogspot.com/2010/12/friday-feedback.html) otherwise, just follow along.


I would like the following feedback (and will offer the same to you if you post an excerpt for me to read in the comments):


1. If it is the first few paragraphs of a novel – today it is NOT, so skip to #2. – tell me if it "hooks" you enough to make you want to keep reading, or not. If yes, why? If no, why not?


2. What works for you, draws you into the piece (if it does) and why?


3. What doesn't work for you (if something doesn't) and why?

If you would like the same feedback, please post your brief excerpt at the end of your comment (and tell me what it is -- e.g. opening to a novel, short story, poem, etc...). Please post no more than 3 -5 paragraphs, 5 if they're short, 3 if they are long. If there's more, I will only read the first 3 -5. If the comment gets too long, feel free to reply in two separate comments. If you are a student from a particular class, please identify yourself as such. If not, let me know how you found me.

Today, I am posting a piece from my young adult novel, Frankie Sky (ages 12+), about a 14-yr old girl who has been living in the shadow of her dead younger brother for years, until she meets a little boy she thinks may be her brother reincarnated. Hope you enjoy.


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My eyes go to her living room window. The blinds are open, the room empty and still.

I squint my eyes and let my vision blur, and imagine Mrs. Merrill there in the window in her short black robe, the man who looks like my father embracing her, their lips locked, their hands frantically moving over each other's body, the action cut into tantalizing slices by the slatted blinds. I take a deep breath and let my mind wander further, to Mrs. Merrill running her hands through his thick hair as he – unable to help himself from her any longer – undoes the belt to her robe and pulls her into him, and they disappear down beneath the window sill.

I close my eyes and lie back on the cold cement stoop, and replace Mrs. Merrill with me, and the unknown man with Bradley Stephenson. How badly I want to feel someone wrap their arms around me and breathe me in (Bradley Stephenson, God let it be Bradley Stephenson!) as his lips cover mine and his hands roam over me and we slip down and disappear from view.

I think about my parents. It's been so many years since I've seen them kiss or hug or do anything romantic like people in love are supposed to do. Not since the day that Simon died. I wonder if they are even in love anymore. I'm guessing, not. Maybe they love each other, but they're not in love. Isn't that what people always say?

-gae

And why I like them, in no (you hear me? absolutely no!) particular order.

Author's important notes:

These are all YA-related links.

These are NOT  all the links I like, nor all the reasons I like them.

I posted this on a whim. If you are not on the list, it doesn't mean I don't like you or your link immensely, it just means you weren't in my immediate, momentary radar, and thus weren't part of my whim this morning.

I may, however, make this a regular Sunday/Monday feature, and if I do, you may track me (and hunt me down) if you don't eventually become part of some momentary whim: 

1. This writer's website that I just discovered for Angela Cerrito. I like it because she's nice, her book sounds intriguing, and I love her idea for reader participation;

2. My friend Mike Wood's blog, Blog of Wood, because as you can tell from the name, he is ridiculous and cannot (I repeat, canNOT) help himself from a good (or terribly bad) pun if his life depends on it (apparently, it does not). Also, he is funny;

3. The Class of 2K11 Meet Team 2K11 feature and Class Trailer because it's a small group that I belong to and all the writers are awesomesaucy. Okay, fine, *some* (ahem) are just saucy. :);

4. Raw Ink Online. If you read about this, it will speak for itself (speaking of awesomesaucy). If you are an author, sign up to participate;

5. Cari's Book Blog. Why? Because it is a good YA book blog and more importantly because Cari allowed me to act the fool there for days at the end of 2010 without ever letting on that I was driving her absolutely f***ing mad. :);

6. Sarah's YA Book Blog, YA Love, because she posts honest and thoughtful reviews from the perspective of a high school literature teacher, and is starting a cool feature to watch for in 2011 that has to do with just that;

7. Miss Caroline's Blog, because besides posting from the perspective of 19-yr-old, I need to keep checking in to see how her background has evolved from sparkles to glitter to stripes to argyle to snow. . . sometimes all in combination; 

8. The Day in the Writing Life feature on the Elevensies website (my personal one being here if you missed it and want to see it), because it gives you a good look in and at us debut writers as if we were display in a fishbowl. er. ;

and, last but not least, for today...

9. Emily @ RedHouseBooks because it's another great YA blog I was reading MONTHS before google alerts notified me that somewhere out in the social networking universe Emily had named The Pull of Gravity as the YA debut she was most looking forward to reading for 2011 (if she HAD to be pinned down to choose and name just one, of course, that is). Thanks, Emily!

If you want to read my New Year's resolutions, they are here on my regular blog (click on the link below):

http://gpolisner.blogspot.com/2010/12/three-rs-of-2011-renew-resolve.html

Here, on my YA blog, I've decided to leave myself a little reminder gift to close out the year.

Here are my two author "blurbs" for The Pull of Gravity, each from a YA author I admire greatly, making them all the sweeter. I am honored that each of these authors read my book and felt strongly enough to allow their names to be on it. Such a good thing. Happy New Year to you all.

- gae



K. L. Going (author of Liberation of Gabriel King, St. Iggy, King of the Screwups, etc.):

"Gae Polisner writes with fluidity and grace.
The Pull of Gravity is a very moving story with so much heart. . . It will draw you in and keep you thinking long after you've closed the book."


and, Francisco X. Stork (author of Marcelo in the Real World and Last Summer of the Death Warriors):

"Part love story, part adventure story, funny and serious, the Pull of Gravity is a delightful read."

As writers, and as humans in general (presuming writers fall into that category), we tend to hold on to the negative moments, the defeats, the upset (the one bad review amidst ten good reviews *crosses fingers and prays for this ratio*), while the good ones -- the things we thought nearly impossible but strove for and accomplished-- seem way more slippery and fleeting, somehow devalued, or at least harder to internalize and hold on to.

It's the human condition. In buddhism, it's referred to as Samsara.

I know more and more, as I embark on this sometimes-fickle journey toward publication, it is important to take the time to bask in the good things. I'm not good at it. At all. Instead, I'm always quickly thinking of what I didn't do, what more I could have done, and how much better I should have done it.

So, I'm making this post to memorialize for all the world (read, me) to remember: whatever the sales numbers, whatever less-than-glowing reviews the future may hold, here are four remarkable things that have happened already to The Pull of Gravity so far, and, by extension, to me.

As they say, if I die tomorrow, I should die happy*:

1. My family and a few friends read it and liked it a lot, and believed in my writing and the story (if you are amongst them, thank you);

2. My agent did the same;

3. The remarkable Frances Foster of Farrar Straus Giroux read it and loved it and then fought to acquire the manuscript;

4. KL Going and Francisco X. Stork, two of the young adult authors I admire most in the world, read it and liked it enough to give me a blurb knowing their names will be on its cover. That last part humbles me to no end.

And if you have not read The Liberation of Gabriel King or Marcelo in The Real World, and their many other magnificent books, you should. READ THESE BOOKS.

So, here's the deal. I'm walking away from the computer for an hour or so to internalize and really appreciate the good. Plenty of time for all the negative stuff later on...

and for burpees. Ugh. Yes, those too. ;)

-gae

*prefers not to die tomorrow.

Okay, you (may or may not) know the RULES.

Apparently three or four of you do. But just in case, here they are again.

There are only 3: (If you want more details, read this blog post here: http://ghpolisner.blogspot.com/2010/12/friday-feedback.html) otherwise, just follow along.

I would like the following feedback (and will offer the same to you if you post an excerpt for me to read in the comments):


1.  If it is the first few paragraphs of a novel – today it is NOT, so skip to 2. – tell me if it "hooks" you enough to make you want to keep reading, or not. If yes, why? If no, why not?

2.  What works for you, draws you into the piece (if it does) and why?


3.  What doesn't work for you (if something doesn't) and why?


If you would like the same feedback, please post your brief excerpt at the end of your comment (and tell me what it is -- e.g. opening to a novel, short story, poem, etc...). Please post no more than 3 -5 paragraphs, 5 if they're short, 3 if they are long. If there's more, I will only read the first 3 -5. If the comment gets too long, feel free to reply in two separate comments. If you are a student from a particular class, please identify yourself as such. If not, let me know how you found me.

Today, I am posting another piece from my WIP (Work In Progress) In Sight of Stars (upper YA, 16+). It's from p. 67-68. It is severely unedited, but still up for grabs. Hope you enjoy.
---------

She reaches the gleaming, silver, art deco entrance ahead of me, stands huffing, her head tilted way back, eyes cast up toward its eerie pink glow.


"It's awesome, Klee, really. Can you believe I've never been here?"

The line to the observation deck isn't long. I guess the city's too cold and, with the holidays long over, it's mostly New Yorkers left, who don't tend to frequent the building. We wait for our turn to board the elevators to the promenade on the 86th floor, which is where you can go outside.

If you've never been on the observation deck of the empire state building, you really should go. I'm telling you, eighty-six floors up in the air is way different than thirty or even forty.

When we step outside, the wind blasts our faces. A mist hovers, shrouds the dusky sky. The city sparkles below like some hazy, drugged up Oz.

"You know those are clouds?" I say to Sarah. "We're as high here as the clouds."

"It's amazing. I can't believe I've lived an hour from the city my whole life and never been up here. That my parents never took me here."

"Most New Yorkers don't," I say. "Especially not the city ones. It's here, so we take it for granted. Like it's some place that only tourists go. Same with the Statue of Liberty. But my father, he used to take me up all the time. The city through the mist, how it forms those lights and halos? Well, it always reminded him of a Van Gogh painting."

"Well, whatever. It's just awesome," she says.

There's a waist-high wall all around, and above that, an enclosure made of diamond-shaped bars that lead to vertical steel bars that curve above our heads, but don't obstruct the view. Above that, it's open to the sky. The truth is it feels like if you wanted to, you could easily squeeze out between the bars.

There are at least two dozen other people up here with us. Sarah takes my hand, and pulls me around, following the curve of the wall, trailing her fingers along the grates and wedging us between bodies to look out at things.

Each several steps reveal a completely different view of the city. On two sides, the city is dense with buildings as far as you can see, the north-south avenues weaving between them, heavy with traffic, white streamers of headlights filing in one direction, fiery orange processions trailing off in the other. On the east-west sides, the buildings give way to the water, the Hudson and New Jersey, to the west, and the East River and Staten Island and Brooklyn on the east.

When we reach the east side, Sarah stops and leans against the metal grates and tips her head way back so that her hair slips through the grates and flies loose in the air. Her eyes are open, glued to the sky.

"My head is in the clouds, Klee," she says, but it's hard to hear her words in the wind. I move close to her so I'm pressed against her thighs. "You should do this. Put your head back. There's nothing above us. It feels like we're in heaven."

I move beside her and tilt my head back and watch the illuminated mist swirl by. It's disconcerting as it moves, feels as if the whole building sways along with it. I close my eyes against it, but then open them again. Suddenly, I wish the grates would give way and release us both, send us sailing into the cold night sky. Like Icarus falling from the sun.

***

-gae