Pixar's Brave is Cool and Sweet and Funny, and You Should Go See It.

Like it says in the title. There are spoilers below the cut, so if you don't want to know anything about Brave before you see it, then you'd better click away now.

22 Brief Reactions to Snow White and the Huntsman

I  saw Snow White and the Huntsman with a friend this evening, and had a number of thoughts about it. Here they are, in no particular order. Be ye warned: spoilers abound.

State of the Book #4: April 13, 2012

Hello, and happy Mother's Day! I hope most of you were able to see and/or talk to your mothers today (or at least kept them in your thoughts). I'm lucky enough to live with mine right now, so I get to see her every day! It's a lovely change from the last four years, when I lived overseas and saw her only on vacations.  She's a tough, smart, fantastic lady, and I love her to pieces. XOXO, Mum!

The book is continuing apace. I'm on the last edit of Chapter 3 now-- that's the read-aloud stage I find so vital for a coherent final project. This chapter started at about 10,000 words, but I had to cut a lot of them when I realized they weren't adding enough to the story. Now the chapter clocks in at about 8,000 words, which puts the entire manuscript around 29,000-- about half the expected total.

Meanwhile, I've been reading some fabulous books. Just today I finished The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, which was an impulse buy I'm quite happy I found. It's exactly what it sounds like-- a fairly comprehensive look at the day-to-day workings of life in medieval England. It's been quite helpful already-- I was using it as a reference for a story I was writing, before I decided I didn't know quite enough about the period to do it convincingly and changed it to a modern piece. With all the "medieval-type" fantasy stories I've read, I was surprised by how many little details about the period I didn't know. For example, did you know that carrots, in their modern form, weren't known in Europe until the 17th century? It's a small thing, but if your characters are eating in a tavern and you put carrots in the soup, you've just committed the sin of anachronism.

Of course, a lot of people think that the "medieval Europe" setting has been way overused in fantasy, and to a certain extent I agree with them. I'm really interested in finding historical fantasy settings inspired by other parts of the world. Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon and N. K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon are two I've got on my to-read list, and I'd love to hear about others if you can recommend them! However, I'm also sure that the faux-medieval-European setting isn't going anywhere for a long time, if every, and there are some fantastic stories written in those kinds of worlds. If that's where your heart lies-- or if you just happen to be interested in the period-- then The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England might be a really good resource for you.

*Edit: I just learned that there's another one! Will definitely have to get my hands on a copy of The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, as well.

I was going to post about another book I'm reading right now, Zadie Smith's On Beauty. I've had a really hard time with it so far-- not because it's hard, but because it's intensely, mercilessly honest. I think it's going to be one of the ones that really stays with me. I think I'm going to have to wait till I finish to post about it, though, so that I can make sense of what I read before I try to talk about it. Until then, have a lovely week!

State of the Book #3: April 29, 2012

Hello again! I hope you're all doing well out there in the ether. It's been a lovely day here in Piedmont North Carolina-- clear skies, sunshine, warm but not too warm. Since I'm a bit of a vampire, I mostly kept to the shade-- got to preserve my ghastly pallor, after all. I did drag myself to the Y for a Zumba class, though, and while I was there I saw a food-truck festival, part of our local campaign against Amendment 1. I had all my gym stuff with me, so I couldn't stay long, but I did have a  Locopop and a nice little walk.  I'd like to live closer to downtown someday, so I could get to stuff like that more easily.

As for the book, you'll be happy (I hope) to know that I'm now editing Chapter 3. The new working title is THE WOODS AND THE CASTLE, though that might very well change when I get closer to the end. The manuscript now weighs in at about 31,000 words-- around half the projected total. So far I've been putting out about a chapter a month, but I'd like to do better than that-- it would be great if I could finish before the end of July. 

After WOODS/CASTLE is finished, I have decided to get started on the SNOWBERRY rewrite. It looks like it'll be a trilogy-- there seems to be a natural law that requires every YA fantasy writer to produce a trilogy. It's much easier coming up with titles for this project, for some reason: the second book will keep the title of SNOWBERRY, and the first will be called PUCK'S LUCK. 

I've also been working on the short story I mentioned last time. I'm on the second draft now. You may recall that I was supposed to have it done three weeks ago? I seem to have a much harder time writing short stories than I do novels-- which is unfortunate, because they're extremely educational. You can read two of my earlier stories here and here. 

I'm off to Game of Thrones night now-- missed last week and immediately regretted it-- so that's all she wrote for now. Have a great week!

--Kate

State of the Book #2: April 9, 2012

Sorry, you guys! I did mean to update last week, but Sunday ended up a little busier than I expected. Actually, it looks like that's going to be a regular thing: some friends of mine are hosting a regular Game of Thrones night at their house, and now that I'm actually in the right country to watch it with them I'm happy to spend my Sunday evenings that way! I'll try to do my Sunday updates a little earlier in the day so there won't be a problem. Today was a bit of an exception, since it was Easter: we had a nice (secular) family dinner, and there was a lot of cooking and cleaning and general puttering to be done. Delicious food, though!

The book: she is progressing. Not as fast as I'd like, of course, but slowly and steadily is better than nothing (and probably better than quickly and sloppily, in the end). I mentioned last week that I'm now on the third-- and, I hope, the final-- draft of this story (which still doesn't have a permanent title. Waiting for inspiration!). Tonight I finished Chapter 2-- which doesn't sound like much, but it's out of a projected five or six (I write long chapters!). According to Scrivener, my total word count so far is exactly 20,750, which puts me about a third of the way to where I want to be.

I've also started a couple of side projects. One of them is secret-- you'll find out about it if it works out the way I hope it will. Or if it fails, I guess-- that way I can tell you what not to do if you're attempting a project like this one. The other one is a short story, which I was "ordered" to have finished and submitted by Tuesday night. The order came from a friend of mine-- another writer who knows about my productivity issues and lack of self-confidence. I hope I'll have it at least most of the way finished by the time our writers' group meets on Tuesday!

I've used a lot of exclamation points tonight. I think I'd better go, before the punctuation police show up and tell me not to write anything else when it's so clearly past my bedtime. Happy vernal equinox to all of you, and have a lovely week!

Book Review: The Hunger Games

I finally read The Hunger Games last week. I’m so glad I did.

What follows will contain some spoilers, so be aware.

State of the Book #1: March 25, 2012

Hello, my dears! I've decided to start posting weekly updates on the State of the Book, starting tonight, which is Sunday night. Well, actually it’s Monday morning, but as far as I’m concerned “night” means “the time before I go to bed.” So:

Yesterday (Saturday) I read an interesting post on how to write engaging query letters. Naturally that’s a topic near and dear to my heart, as I hope to begin querying this book in the next few months or so. Therefore, though the novel’s not nearly finished yet, I worked up a bit of query copy: 

For thirteen years, eccentric outcast Addie Allen has shared her head with an invisible friend: the brilliant and devoted spirit she calls Julian. Julian is everything she could wish for in a companion: wise, charming, and fiercely protective of her. Every night they meet in a vast and complex dreamworld, where they have adventures the waking world could never compete with.

When an old enemy starts persecuting Addie at school, Julian reveals a disturbing new talent: he can possess the bodies of other people. Unfortunately, sharp-eyed Hector Reed is watching him, and guesses immediately that Addie’s not alone in her mind. 

No one has ever guessed the truth about Julian before, so Addie is instantly intrigued. She can’t get him out of her mind, and Julian quickly grows jealous. He imprisons Hector’s spirit somewhere in the dreamworld, then takes over his body. With Hector’s life at stake, Addie is forced to follow Julian to an abandoned house deep in the forest. Now her dearest friend has become her nemesis, and she must fight with everything she has to save a boy she barely knows. 

The title should come next, of course, but unfortunately that’s an element I’m still stuck on. As you may remember if you’ve been following for a while, the original title of this project was CREATURES OF THE MIND. It was a very different story then, and the name was appropriate, but since then the novel’s undergone some drastic changes. I thought about ANIMUS, but it didn’t seem quite right. Then I hit on INCARNATE, but it turns out that one’s already been taken. (It looks like a great book, though, and I definitely want to read it!)

So the title is still a blank. Nevertheless, the story is definitely taking shape-- which is good, since depending on how you count it this is either the third or the fourth time I’ve written it.