Tag: writer

Interview

Welcome to The Lichgates Hidden World Blog Tour…

Elodie

I had the chance of connecting with the very talented S.M. Boyce on Twitter and as she announced her Hidden World Blog Tour, I immediately raised my hand (or sent her a message :D).

First let me introduce you to her book:

Lichgates (Summary from Goodreads): The Grimoire turns its own pages and can answer any question asked of it, and Kara Magari is its next target. She has no idea what she’s getting herself into when she stumbles across the old book while hiking a hidden trail. Once she opens it, she’s thrown into Ourea: a beautiful world full of terrifying things that all want the Grimoire’s secrets. Everyone in this new world is trying to find her, and most want to control her.  Braeden Drakonin grew up in Ourea, and all he’s ever known of life is lying. The Grimoire is his one chance at redemption, and it lands in his lap when Kara Magari comes into his life. He has one question to ask the book – one question that can fix everything in his broken life – and he’s not letting Kara out of his sight until he gets an answer.  There’s no escaping Ourea. There’s no going back now.

Then we have a special message coming directly from S.M. Boyce:

And S.M. has been kind enough to answer the questions I sent her. It is the FIRST interview I publish on this blog (and I really enjoyed it so probably not the last :D)

  • When and where did you have the first idea for LICHGATES?

The first idea for Lichgates came almost a decade ago in my aunt’s basement, when my brothers and I were making little wands and spell casters and other fun things out of clay. I actually still have them, somewhere! These toys sparked a constant daydream about what creatures would use them, and that daydream snowballed into 7 years of development and world building — and, ultimately, the complete removal of the original spell casters from the series. Haha. But, as the old writing adage goes, you need to be able to “kill your darling passages” to write successfully.

The Grimoire Trilogy has been a long while in the making, and I’ve put every ounce of creativity I could spare into making it the best it can be. I really hope you enjoy it.

  • One sentence of your book which you’d like to share with us:

This one is really hard for me to answer. I hope you know that! One of the hardest from this entire blog tour! Ultimately, though, I have to say I’d go with this one:

“Kara thought of Twin and Adele and Garrett and Braeden and wondered how many of the few people she still had left in the world would survive, since she didn’t quite have the best track record with that sort of thing.”

  • What are you the most proud of when it comes to your writing?

I think we writers are inherently self-depreciating. It keeps us modest and constantly striving to improve, so it’s hard for me to be proud of anything more than having a published book. That is an incredible, surreal, tear-jerking feeling.

I guess if I had to pick any one thing, I’d say I’m fairly good at describing the world around the characters. I’ve had many readers compliment my world-building description, and I love immersing myself in the ‘where’. You can check out a few of these reviews here  and here .

  • Your most embarrassing writing moment was…

Contradicting myself in one of my first drafts of Lichgates. You know how you can get so into a story that you can’t see beyond the words on the page? I don’t remember the details, but the first reader draft had someone saying they would never do something one sentence…and then they did that without a second thought later on in the book. Oops! I turned red when my beta readers pointed it out, but that’s why we have writing circles!

  • Where do you usually write?

I live on the edge of a nature preserve, so I tucked my desk in a corner where I can look out the window. It’s beautiful! And when the wind gets going, there are all sorts of crazy noises. It’s both tense and beautiful. I love my writing spot.

  • One piece of advice for writers:

Write for yourself.

You are putting your name on this story, and it ultimately reflects what you think is artistic and beautiful. If you write for others and always bend yourself around others’ input, you will lose the story you originally wrote. It will lose its meaning. So write what makes you happy. You will never be able to please everyone else, so it’s crucial that you are happy with what you put out there.

  • Imagine you can go back in time and have a face-to-face with teenie S.M. Boyce: what advice would you give her? (yes I’m all about giving advice today :-))

I would probably tell myself to invest in Google. Short of that, I’d sit back and sigh deeply as I watched myself do stupid things. The mistakes I made make me who I am today, and I’m better off for them. It would be hard to watch, but I know it’s for the better that nothing in my past change. Except maybe a nice investment in Google. Money, I’d like. Haha!

For those who would like to snag their own copy of Lichgates, you can go to any of these sites:

And as S.M. Boyce explained, she prepared a treat for you 😀  By clicking on the Rafflecopter image, you will access the giveaway for an e-book copy of Lichgates or a set of Grimoire Book Swag…

And of course you can win a Grand Prize  – including Amazon gift cards, signed books… – on her blog (just click the banner below).

Thanks again for stopping by, S.M. Boyce :D!

personal, Road Trip Wednesday, writing

My life version of The Butterfly Effect

Elodie

If you have not entered my “I love reading” giveaway, you can still do it :-): You can win 2 books (up to a total of $30): one for you and one for a teenager or a child or a baby you want to share your love of books with.The giveaway is open to all countries that The Book Depository ships to. Just fill out the entry form by Friday March 16th.

 Today is Road Trip Wednesday 🙂 RTW is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.

This Week’s Topic

Name this life: What would your memoir be called?

I cry, I laugh, I smile, I yell. I make mistakes. I learn.  I find it unfair sometimes but I’m grateful for all the hardships and all the joys because it brought me to where I am today. I love my life even if it’s not always easy. Looking back, I realize that sometimes the small decisions, the tiny steps turned out to become milestones. I don’t think I’ll write a memoir, but I do like to look back…So my title would be:

My life version of The Butterfly Effect

International life: As a child, I used to say that I would never leave home. I enjoyed the comfort of my place. Always a tad anxious, going to summer camps was not easy. My parents always pushed me. I am so grateful for them. Why? Because 10 years later, I decided it was time to see the big big world and to go to the United States. My parents once said to me: “We know we did a good job with you girls if you can leave us but are always happy to be back.” I am definitely always happy to go back home.

Funny how it works out: At the age of 11, I decided German was indeed quite an interesting language to learn. 9 years later, in the United States, I met a cocky boy who was surprised a French girl could speak German and English (yes he’s funny :-)). 19 years later, I live in Germany with a charming man I am lucky to call my husband (he’s still cocky).

Writing: My parents read to me at night. They encouraged my passion for books. My sisters read my first attempts at poetry, not mocking me but nodding along.  My teachers gave me positive feedback when I was young on my imagination. My sisters, my brother-in-law and my high school friends didn’t cringe away from my drafts when I tried my hand at writing a novel. My husband trusts that I can do it. He tells me several times a week or a month or a day (depending how stressed I am). All those little moments encouraged me and are still with me today.

These are only little moments but I am just amazed by how those little moments help shape who I am today.

How would you call YOUR memoir?

Editing, Observations, revising

The beauty of words or the pulchritude of morphemes?

Elodie

If you have not entered my “I love reading” giveaway, you can still do it :-): You can win 2 books (up to a total of $30): one for you and one for a teenager or a child or a baby you want to share your love of books with.The giveaway is open to all countries that The Book Depository ships to. Just fill out the entry form by Friday March 16th.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet

This famous quote by Shakespeare reminds me of two things 1) he didn’t use any big words, he could have said: “woody perennial of the genus Rosa” but he didn’t, 2) reading Shakespeare for a class at the university in the US was a lot of work for me (which involved using a dictionary very often).

As I go through the process of revising, I worry much more about little details which don’t cross my mind when I write.

Most of you know that English is not my mother tongue. French is. I used to write in French. I could show feelings in French, I could create metaphors easily, I could either use simple terms or play with the so-called “big” words. Since I lived in the US for so long, studied at the university mainly in English or German and now use English pretty much all day, I cannot do this any longer.

I write in English. It comes naturally to me and I love it.

However, I sometimes wonder: is my English good enough?

(for some reason, I just experienced a Zoolander flashback)

Stephen King explained in his book On Writing (by the way, thanks again Sara for organizing a discussion on this book in April 😀 You should join if you already read it or maybe are planning on reading it):

“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.”

This made me feel better somehow.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy reading novels with big words. I know that the more I read, the more I learn. My vocabulary expands naturally but I cannot force big words into my work. It doesn’t feel right. So I will listen to Stephen King on this and promise to him (and mainly to myself) that no I will never say “John stopped long enough to perform an act of excretion” when I mean “John stopped long enough to take a shit”. (hmm yes I just used the word “shit” and yes it kind of feels weird to have that word on my blog :-)…).

Do you sometimes doubt your vocabulary or your grammar? Do you consciously use big words?

Editing, Giveaway, Happy Friday, reading, revising

Happy Friday #8: Giveaway, Books and Thanks!

Elodie

Yay it’s Friday…and it’s Happy Friday 😀

My fingers have been itching to type this post but I had to stay longer at work so it´s a bit later than usual…Ready? Here are some of the reasons why I smiled this week…

My “I love reading giveaway”: This giveaway is to celebrate my love of reading with all of you. There will be one winner (but I probably will repeat this in a few months) You can win 2 books (up to a total of $30): one for you and one for a teenager or a child or a baby you want to share your love of books with. If you’re a teenager, that’s one for you and one for a friend or somebody younger than you. The giveaway is international (open to all countries that The Book Depository ships to). Just fill out the entry form by Friday March 16th.

Revising: Two weeks ago, I sent my first chapter to Tarah…I was anxious to receive her feedback. How would I react to the possible criticism towards the words I put on paper? What did she think about it? Was it awful? Was it good? and wow, I never thought I would be so happy to see her many comments on this chapter. Tarah: again THANK YOU! She not only took the time to read it but she gave a lot of thoughts to it. She edited some and pointed out where it could actually get “tighter”. I am very grateful because I just have the feeling, that thanks to her, my story is moving forward. It´s getting better. I´m excited to dive into the story again!

Reading: I started reading Incarnate at the beginning of the week. I was not sure what to expect…but I was in for a treat. I had plenty of time while waiting at the French consulate to finally change my papers (got married in August and only getting around to it but that´s another story). I will probably do a full review soon but let me just say that Jodi managed to make me miss my piano even more. I also really enjoyed the world-building, the development and the romance. Right now, I am thoroughly enjoying Amy and Roger´s Epic Detour (thanks Jaime for pointing this book out to me some time ago :D)

So tell me what made YOU smile this week?

Observations, writing

Triple I of writers: Inspiration, Ideas, Imagination

Elodie

 “Inspiration, Ideas, Imagination”  are only a part of the writing process but they are a MAJOR one.

Stephen King mentioned in his book On Writing (which I still have not read – I need to get on this) that he gets his ideas from a “small, bloodthirsty elf who lives in a hole under my desk”.  Hmm any of you have one of those little elves (they do sound scary though). While this elf is less scary, I also don’t think Mister King has Will Ferrell under his desk.

Ok Mister King also said that: “I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it’s seeing two things and having them come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question ‘What if?’ ‘What if’ is always the key question.”  So it appears that M. King is both active and passive in his ways of getting the Triple I.

“Where do writers get them?” vs. “Where do they hit writers?”

 The construction of those two sentences says it all. In one case, we’re the subject and in the other we become the direct object.

Are we passive or active in our quest for the shiny twist or the unforgettable character?

I started pondering about this because of the flash fiction I posted on my blog on Monday and which you can read here. This little piece which started with a given sentence has since then tickled my fancy.  I enjoyed the voice, it felt easy and right but the characters would like me to tell their story. I have to shush them right now because I’m revising and I already started another draft of another story. But I digress.

I never stopped to think about my ideas. I have them. Or not. Depending on the days but I do rely on them to keep me going. Sometimes, they flow through my fingertips. Sometimes, I go through the creative process, where I try to find new ideas, new twists and whenI stop to ask the “What if?” question. I can ask this question in very random places or just by watching people go about their business. I am very good at the “What if?” I can get a bit on the anxious side  using this way of thinking in my daily tasks.

My husband who reads this is probably rolling his eyes at the words  “a bit”…

While I need to lower my “What if” scenarios when it comes to my non-writing endeavours, I think it does help me a lot, even subconsciously, with my creative process.

I strongly believe that writers are both active and passive in their quest. We have integrated certain processes and our imagination runs wild at unexpected places. However, we also work towards our “Triple I”. How? We read a lot, we scrap entire passages in our writing process because we know it does not work and we buckle up for the tough ride which is writing. We trigger our “Triple I” buttons by consciously taking part in prompts, in discussions…We type, even if it is only a few words, even if those words hurt because we know that, for the most part, the triple I is around there with us. It helps us to almost forget about those difficult moments when the writing gets going and when we fall in our happy, fulfilling, exciting writing place.

What do YOU think? Are we passive or active with our Triple I?

Platform-Building Campaign, writing

First Campaigner Challenge: Look, don´t touch…

Elodie

The first Campaigner Challenge is on 🙂 My mission which I accepted with opened arms and a wide grin is the following:

Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “Shadows crept across the wall”. These five words will be included in the word count.

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), do one or more of these: 

  • end the story with the words: “everything faded.” (also included in the word count) 
  • include the word “orange” in the story
  • write in the same genre you normally write
  • make your story 200 words exactly!
And I´ve done all of this: you will see an orange tank top, everything will indeed fade, I wrote the story in my Young Adult contemporary romance voice (or tried to at least) and the story is exactly 200 words 🙂 I am proud to present:
Look, don´t touch

“Shadows crept across the wall”

As the voiceover tries to scare the crap out of the movie theater, I glance to my right. Casually. Of course.

David sits next to me. Maybe if I look scared, he’ll put his arm around me. Protectively. I can be a damsel in distress. It does not matter that I’m 5’10. For crying out loud, I was  Juliet in the last play put on by the wonderful school drama club.

Suddenly, everybody screams. I turn my attention back to the screen. Some girl with an orange tank top is running up the stairs, bleeding. Doesn’t she know that she should try to get out of the house? Unless she has wings and knows how to fly away, she’s not going to make it.

David laughs, “Look at you, toughie.” I jump. The movie doesn’t terrify me but the little butterflies running through my entire body when David, my best friend’s boyfriend, whispers in my ear freak me out. I look pass him and notice her smiling happily at me. My stomach hurts. I concentrate on the stupid movie. The voiceover starts again.

“Before she turned into a monster, she closed her eyes. Everything faded.”

Hope you enjoyed it!  You should definitely check out the other entries there. I already read some amazing writing  and it´s really funny to see how we all come up with something different!

Road Trip Wednesday, writing

Dear Idea: are YOU a keeper?

Elodie

I’ve been a bit out of the blogosphere and twitter the past days cos’ I’ve been a tad sick…I’ll be back full speed soon though 😀

Now, on to Road Trip Wednesday (get ready for a long post!)…

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.

This Week’s Topic: What Shiny New Idea were you psyched to work on, but discovered it was too close to something already done?

I finished my first draft of my first-ever-finished-draft last month so I don’t have a lot of experience on this and I have plenty of ideas for my second/third/and upcoming WIPs…none of them I am tossing aside yet.

The question would be: How close is too close for comfort?

Let’s say I am writing a dystopian book and my new shiny idea is: a world where each year tributes from different sectors fight to death until only one stays alive.

This may sound a tad too close to something already published (*cough* The Hunger Games)…unless…it takes place in an avatar-like world and it’s beasts vs humans and we see the perspective of the monster and it’s in an arena where everybody can cheer them on and nobody volunteers for somebody else and the humans become more monstruous than the beast and a beast rescues a human and they flee the game and the winner of the game needs to kill them both if he wants to survive and it’s her brother and the monster and the beast discover they have more things in common and….the story is actually different. 

  • Does my actual draft (the one I wrote, not the imaginary one I just made up above) have similarities to something already published?

Yes.

  • Is it a bad thing?

I don’t think so.

My book has witches in them. It also has love, steamy kisses, sad moments and learning to know oneself. 

Plenty of books have witches and love, just like plenty of books had vampires before Twilight. And don’t get me started about books where love plays a role in…

  • Would you pick my draft  up and think: wow, wait a second, I read this and this French lady should totally be sued for copyrights’ infringement, like Deforges for Gone with the wind? (by the way I love the Bicyclette bleue series)?

No

I will not toss my idea aside for two reasons:

  1. By the time I am actually done with the process of seeing my book on shelves: revising, sending it to my beta-readers, making changes, querying, getting-the-agent-who-loves-my-story-and-the-way-I-tell-it, making changes, landing the contract with amazing-publisher,  possibly making more changes…, the market may be curious for new stories about witches.
  2. The story will be different. Let’s take another example the fairy tales re-telling…they have the same idea in them but the way they are told make them stand apart,

Let’s talk movies.

See, I love that movie!

And I love that one too 😀 (not ashamed to admit it)

And wow, Drew Barrymore in that one? (amazing…)

Ok to get back to point 2) 🙂 The story will be different because this is the one I wrote. We all bring ourselves to the paper, one way or another, if we recognize it or not. Books are not written in a vacuum – New Historicism amongst other literary theories help us to see this.  I get inspired by other people’s writings, by the sun, by the clouds, by music, by a certain light, by a smile…by many things. I get better thanks to other people’s writings but the story I am telling is still my own.

Sometimes, as a reader, we see story lines which ring a bell but we still dive into a novel because of the craft of the writer, because the characters become endearing, because this story becomes fresh in our eyes when we do so.

My story is original and I certainly hope that it will get the chance to see the wild wild world…And if it does not, it might get tossed aside for awhile but it will always hold a special place in my heart!

Wow…this was a looong post 🙂

I cannot wait to read your thoughts on this!

Road Trip Wednesday, writing

Two worlds collide…

Elodie

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.

This week’s topic: Write a dialogue between two of your favorite YA characters

Two worlds collide in my imagination even though they may have more in common than what they think: Sean from the Scorpio Races meets Anna & Etienne from Anna and The French Kiss.

Or where a boy from the Island ends up in Paris…

I know it has to be a dream. Puck always sleeps right next to me but as I extend my arm, I realize she is gone and I hear whispers above my head.

“Do you think he is awake?” A girl’s voice fills my ears. I open my eyes slowly and I am taken aback. Nothing seems familiar. My soul needs to venture where the salty air can steady my breath so that I know I am alive.

“Hello mate, are you alright?” Another unfamiliar voice, this one coming from a man with a strange accent…Maybe they took me to the mainland, maybe Puck is around somewhere, waiting for me to wake up.

“Where is she?” I finally manage to ask.

“Who are you talking about? I remember when I first arrived, I cried a lot but you’ll get used to it. I mean it’s not all that bad. You’re in Paris after all…and if you like movies, you’re in the right place. Etienne and I are will go see one tonight. You’re more than welcome to join”

My eyes widen as I slowly process what she is telling me. I try my best not to stare at the blonde streak inside her brown hair. I notice the way she says the boy’s name. A caress to him.  The way he looks at her tells me all I need to know.

“It cannot be.” I do not say another word. They cannot know that my heart is longing for the one I know will share my life. She and I do not question our future; we found each other and ourselves at the same time.

I block out the noise and as darkness surrounds me, I simply wish to be back where I belong.

The End

Do you sometimes wonder what a character from one novel would say to a character from another novel?

What did you think about Sean’s encounter with Anna and Etienne?

Looking forward to your comments 🙂

Editing, personal, Query, writing

Don´t be scared…

Elodie

That would be me hiding away on Friday after posting my draft query to be reviewed. I thought “hmm sounds good…let’s get this baby rolling”…After receiving some very constructive feedback, I realized “hmmm that sucked”

The wonderful thing about feedback is that it helps to make us better and stronger. Plus, I realized there was something positive in my very crappy-I´m-even-wondering-if-I-should-not-delete-the-message-on-forum-first-query (somebody liked my voice in that mess :-))

I also appreciated something else which for somebody a tad perfectionist can be difficult: I will not be perfect at my first-go. This will take time and it’s ok. I am swimming in unknown waters. Finishing the first draft is just the first step in a looong process. On a brighter note, I started editing and even though it is kicking my butt, I can see my story getting to a better place 🙂

Now, tell me 🙂

What do you do when you just want to put your paws (huh I mean hands) in front of your face?

writing

The music muse part deux…

Elodie

Not too long ago, I blogged about the music muse for my novel (you know the one I actually finished on Sunday *happy dance again* :D).

I still wonder if the inspiration is already there and the music just seems to fit or if the music actually inspires me.

I had one of those moments waiting for the train last week. I have the musical Mamma Mia in my ipod (yes I do :-)) and as I stood in the cold at around 7am, I listened to these particular songs:

and this one

Both of them always move me. No doubt about that.

However, this time I immersed myself in my WIP and it made “click”. The first song inspired me a scene or released it, it was a very tough one to write (and no it´s not a break-up per se 🙂 but gosh the emotions flowing through it ripped my heart apart).  The second one showed me I need to add some details about the mother/daughter relationship in the story.

Do you have one song which inspired YOU to add something to your story? or inspired you an entire scene? Do you listen to music when writing/editing?