What's Up Wednesday No. 4: The Raw Story

Before I go into my What’s Up Wednesday post, I wanted to quickly remind you guys that the YA Book Club will be chatting about Morgan Matson’s Second Chance Summer on September 3. (More info here.) You have almost a full week to read it, if you’re late to the game.

And, as they* tend to say, more members makes for more fun, so we’d love to have you.

Onward!

What I’m Reading: I recently finished Maggie Stiefvater’s The Dream Thieves, the follow up to The Raven Boys. I’m going to do a more in-depth review of this, but here’s all you need to know: The writing is gorgeous, the characters even richer than before, and the story engaging. Blue and Gansey are still my favorites, but I loved getting to know Ronan more. It’s definitely his book (though the POV still switches among the major characters), and his is a fascinating mind to be in.

What I’m Writing: Ask my inner editor and she’d say, “Absolute crap.” Despite the feces I’m producing with keystrokes, I’ve been making progress and got to write an intensely awesome blow-up fight between two characters. The glee I get from making two characters verbally abuse one another is similar to the glee I get from writing kissing scenes. I’d prefer if you didn’t try to psychoanalyze that.

What Else I’ve Been Up To: I’ve started a raw diet, which has really helped me appreciate those cavemen who invented fire. Round of applause to you, sirs. I now walk around with a permanent craving for a cheeseburger. If I were a cartoon, my eyeballs would jump out of my head and illustrated hearts would float around my head at the mention of Five Guys.

During one particularly low moment, I asked The Man to eat his snack in front of me so I could watch him enjoy it. I know, I KNOW. Not my finest moment. That said, I feel better. And since I’m doing this for my health, that’s the most important part.

I’m just gonna chase that speech down with a freshly made carrot-apple-celery juice and pretend I don’t hear you crunching cookies…

What’s Inspiring Me: I loved this post by Mary Kole about adding too many questions into a character’s interiority. Do my blog readers know what I mean? Should I go on or would that bore them? Or do I already bore them?

She makes an especially good point about using such questions to make a reader suspect a character versus letting readers figure out for themselves that a character’s actions and words (through showing) are suspicious. But she does a much better and more thorough job of explaining this, so check out the post.

Also, I just wanted to point you to this really awesome description of love:

I have no idea what it’s from or who wrote it (if you do, let me know!) but it felt like such a fresh way to describe why one character loves another.

What’s up with you today?

* “They” are obviously not teens because in that world fewer members makes for exclusivity and as a result popularity and ultimate power. Aren’t you so glad this book club doesn’t take after high school?