I've changed.

I used to be roughly the next step on from being Amish when it comes to technology. However, I have owned my lovely laptop for nearly a year now.
It is V pretty.
It is V fast.
It lets me dance around the internet like a ballerina on speed.
It lets me follow the sun and its warmth around my house while I am writing. 
It has just had to go in to the fixing pixies, as the screen is buckling (!?!?!).
I MISS MY LAPTOP!! I feel lost without it. 
I've changed....

*Cue fanfare* (on time for once) My Spring '15 TBR pile.

(Well it was on time, if the scheduling had worked for March 1st as meticulously planned! so much for technology...)

Spring!!! I figure if we all say it loud enough and often enough, the  planet might pick up on it and move us into the warmer weather. Deluded? Moi?

Meanwhile here are the books I plan to  spend the season reading, huddled up in the sofa with the fire on.

The pile looks like this:

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (YA)

We'll always have summer by Jenny Han (YA)

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) (Crime)

Breaking Silence by Linda Castillo (Crime)

West End Girls by Jenny Colgan (Women's Fiction)

Amanda's Wedding by Jenny Colgan (Women's Fiction)

You're the one that I want by Giovanna Fletcher (Women's Fiction)

About a Girl by Lindsey Kelk (Women's Fiction)

A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger by Lucy Robinson (Women's Fiction)

On the e- reader;

One Hundred Proposals by Holly Martin (Women's Fiction)

Trinity by Nigel May (Women's Fiction)

Long Lost by Linda Castillo (Crime)

It is Women's Lit heavy, but I think I had pre-warned about that. I'm revising one of my own so I'm trying to get in the zone!

Other than that there are a couple of YA's and some nasty crime books. Given the state of things going on in the world, I think the justice and resolution at the end of crime books is something I'm craving. Is that just me? Isn't that why crime fiction, both on telly and in books, is so popular?

I nearly failed on the male authors, but there is one, with Nigel's May's Trinity. Phew!  

What are you reading this season?

Winter 14 Gut Reactions

 Ah, almost the end of Winter although the chilblains on my toes are not convinced..

 I almost made it through the pile. I was commanded to switch one of the books (Lola and the Boy Next Door) to Stephanie Perkins' first book, Anna and the French Kiss (YA), as it is The Law to read this one first it seems. (Ok, so it wasn’t quite that draconian, and I do prefer to read books in order if there is even the remotest sniff of a link between them. I am ALL about the Chronology.)

And there were a couple of interlopers in there too, which just snuck in, addicted me and meant that others had to step aside.

It appears that I am getting much better at ditching books that don't grab me. I stopped reading three in a row. I know! Three.  Ok, so I don't just slam them down and stop, because a) that feels rude and b) I will think about them. I need the closure. So I cheat and skim to the end. And generally I made the right decision, because at the end pages I could see that I would probably have been thinking "Really, is that it? I would have been very miffed if I had read all the way and this was the end."

You can read the details of the pile here.

So, my Star of the Season, a schmaltzy choice, was My true love gave to me because a) it was Christmassy and just hit the mood at the right time, b) it was a YA anthology and we know I adore those, c) there were several stories that I had to go back and re-read and d) both my Lovely CP and I sent this to each other, along with Blue Lily Blue Lily as Christmas presents, without any pre-arrangement. Spooky!  
A lovely book. A fab Christmas gift for any YA fan, for those who like to be ready early.

The interlopers, were Linda Castillo's Kate Burkholder books; Sworn to Silence and Praying for silence - grisly but gripping murders set in Amish country. I am a sucker for Amish stories/programmes, so these grabbed me from the word go. I have more on order and will bump them into the next pile without apology or warning.  I guess the gore here offsets the schmalz of the previous choice.

If the book of the season hadn’t gone to the anthology, I might have given it to Robin LaFever’s His Fair Assassin series. Mmmmm, history, courageous women, romance. Happy happy reading for me.

I hadn’t read any Stephanie Perkins’ books before, though I have seen them raved about. Her story in the anthology was one of my favourites. She has a relaxed engaging tone and I wasn’t disappointed by Anna and the French Kiss. Classic YA contemporary romance. Fab.

As I have mentioned before, in Women’s fiction, I really warm to Jenny Colgan’s writing voice. I can add Sophie Kinsella to that list. I know I am really late to her, and unlike the rest of the Chicklit reading world, I’m not tempted to the Shopaholic series, but the stand-alone stories might well be popping up in TBR piles in the future.

And the other stuff;

 as mentioned I ditched three books before the end mainly as they bored me.

 -One was Women's Fiction and so I am trying to dissect that one to work out why, and hopefully not do the same in my own writing.

-In another case, I found that the main character wasn't appealing - nothing wrong with that, there are some wonderful unpleasant MCs out there, but generally there has to be something about them that makes you hang in there. Not this one.

- One was a second chance for an acclaimed author, and yet again I found myself thinking that it was no great shakes.

The next pile is going to be extremely Women's fiction heavy (except when the grisly murders come in at the library…) I'm revising a story in this genre and I'm feeling the need to immerse myself.

Anyone read anything good this season?

Eeeking again.

Happy New Year!

 It's now all of 12 days into the new year, and people are already letting go of their resolutions, which is why I generally don't make them. (My pilates teacher managed one day of her dry January. This is exactly why I go to her, she is a regular person, not some Infallible.)

I did however list a couple of aims last year. I wanted to up my game in 2014; more quantity and more quality.  I did the quantity . I wrote three 100k women's fiction vomit drafts. I cannot comment on the quality aspect. Most importantlythough I practiced plotting, writing to quotas and deadlines and the big one, the hardest; the finishing. I learnt how I write a vomit draft in a way that doesn't maim or kill me. 

This year then, I aim to do something with them. I need to learn how I best revise to a first draft without it maiming or killing me either. I'm aiming to do this to one of them by April. Then there's the 2nd, 3rd and more drafts.  I have done such things before, with YA stories, but I have somehow forgotten my practice. This time I aim to write it down as I go, so that I can remind myself again and again, until I have it down as routine.

Last year, the aims felt rather daunting, (the post back then was called Eeek! afterall) Now having done it, having worked out my method, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Considering that the concept of redrafting has me quaking too, I'm just going to have to dive in and with a bit of luck, the same might apply. 

I'm hoping - hoping rather than aiming - to have something in a some submittable state some day soon, late 2015/early 2016 say, because wouldn't it be ace to see one's aims, even if not resolutions, bear fruit?

What aims have you got for this year?

*Cue jingling bells" My Winter 14 TBR Pile

And here it is, a few days late as seem to be the fashion nowadays, my Winter TBR pile;

Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers

Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers

Happy Ever After by Adele Geras

Jessie {hearts} NYC by Keris Stainton

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes

I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

Amelia Grey’s Fireside Dream by Abby Clements

Welcome to Rosie Hopkin’s Sweetshop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

How to be Good by Nick Hornby

I keep thinking that it is smaller than normal, but turns out it’s only by one book and there are still those neglected ones pending on the e-reader since summer.  I’ve finally finished that vomit draft I was working on, so now I figure I can submerge myself in other people’s words for a little while. The next writing sprint is planned for February and March.

The pile is very Women's Fiction heavy, but there is still a male writer in there and few YA represented too. My Lovely CP loves Stephanie Perkins and I have never seen so much as a word she's written, so this pile will change that. 

I’ll let you know at the end of Feb how the reading  went.

What are you reading this season?

Autumn 14 Gut Reactions

Soo, autumn books. This feels a little odd this time. I’ve made my way through the pile but not with the same rate that I normally do. I've also been writing a vomit draft, on which I have just knocked the 90K mark, so I have been slightly laying off other people's plots, trying to keep my head in the game. (I also enforced a Twitter-ban which made all the difference, but that’s another story.)

So thinking back it's a bit of a haze. And I haven't quite finished yet. I'm still on Saskia Sargison's The Twins. And I didn’t get to catch up the ones on kindle. (I like reading in bed, so the e-reader doesn’t really work for me, as I end up lying there with my eyes buzzing if I read from a screen at night. My sleep is duff enough as it is, I don’t need issues falling asleep too.) So the e-books will have to carry over again. I must try to apply myself during the Christmas break.

The pile looked like this; 

 I also snuck in Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers, because it appeared on order at the library, and Gayle Forman's Just One Night as it finally came out and some things just cannot wait.

Star of the Season, is sinner. Now, I know I always gush about Maggie Steifvater, but this genuinely was my favourite. A companion book to the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, I loved it -except the end, which I would have liked to have been a little more considered. The MC makes a decision and I wasn't convinced by it, at least not the speed of it.  But the dialogue to each character is perfect. And I love dialogue…

That sneaky one by Robin LaFevers, that was a good'n too. A historical YA novel based on Death's female offspring being trained as assasins in 15th century France. I do like me a bit of history, and I've ordered the remaining two of the trilogy in too. Brutal and dark in places, but romantic and intriguing too.

Gayle Forman's Just One... series is an oddity to me. I read the first one and the ending annoyed me so much that it was still bugging me when the sequal came out- so I had to (begrudgingly) read that too, to find out if it got resolved, but that ending annoyed me even more. So finally this novella turned up to finish it, and finally I got the ending I needed. Normally I would have left the series and not bothered, but this was like an itch that had to be scratched...

Morgan Matson's Second Chance Summer was a fab YA Contemporary story, and at risk of stirring up some people I preferred it to Matson's highly acclaimed first book Amy and Roger's Epic Detour. Set in a vacation resort it had everything about summer down pat. One of those books where when I finished I wanted to write something set in the same kind of place. Is that just me…?

Dawn O'Porter's paper aeroplanes promised to show girls’ experience through GCSE years. It pretty much nailed it. Angst, awkwardness, bitchiness, buffoonary and friendship in the 1990's, this book did covered it beautifully.

Part of my aim with this month's pile was to read more Women's fiction, in light of it being what I am currently writing. I've been enjoying Jenny Colgan's books a lot, she has a natural amusing tone, smooth and easy, without going overboard playing for laughs.

If you know any teen girls who like history and horses, then you can't go wrong with Marie-Louise Jensen's Runaway. I'm not a particular fan of horses, but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment. Perhaps I just got consumed by the romance and the Regency history, which were luscious.

Now that I look at it, there is a lot of history in the pile this season, whether recent to my life time, or far far back. Enemies at Home goes as far back as Roman times. I love Lindsey Davis. Love Her. She writes humorous Roman detective stories, which I know is niche, but for me it's a perfect cocktail. (For me, having been brought up on Inspector Clouseau films,  murder and funny is a lovely mix - Janet Evanovitch anyone?) Davis also wrote the book that I read once a year every year, but that too is a story for another time. Enemies at Home is the second in her new series and had the most delicate, fragile, tender love scene in it. No sex at all, but so intimate it was fabulous. And funny too. How skilled it that?!

Abbi Glines is one of the front runners of NA. Rush Too Far is a companion to her Rosemary Beach series, in so far as it is the male POV to the first of the series. I like reverse angle books a lot, so this one was a treat. 

Wonder. Simpl-, Every MG class in the world should read this book. By law. The world could be a nicer place. I made my 10 year old read it the moment I put it down.

and the rest;

  One of these books was a long struggle. Like another book in the pile, it was set in the past that I've been around for. So many people have raved about it, which is why I read it, but in the end it was so very slow. A few of the references were fun to be reminded of, but by and large I wanted more speed. (I suppose it is my issue now of having read lots of YA stories, adult fiction just moves at a much slower pace and it loses me.)

 One of these books, apparently a classic now in its genre or at least a forerunner, the sense of humour was soooo dry that I couldn’t warm to the MC. As in boyproof in last season’s pile, she came across as aloof and IMHO, I’m not sure if that works so well in Women’s Fiction.

One of these books gave me that feeling that there was hope for me yet. Essentially there was nothing wrong with it, it was fine but some of it felt clunky here and there and I came away feeling that given it has been published then maybe I can too. (I don’t know. Is that a mean thing to say?)

Not sure when I’ll post the Winter pile (due..oh, that would be today), because

a)    It currently isn’t much of a pile, more a wee stack

b)   I’m trying to bring this draft to conclusion

So any recommendations, get’em in!

(PS. Sorry about the font sizing. Not sure what is going on...)

Oh! I surprised myself

Please disregard that last post. Not the bit where I said Good Luck to Nanoists as that still holds, but the bit where I said I couldn't write 50k words in November. 

Turns out I just did.

Am smug. Sorry.

Still not finished yet though......