Heather Finley

          Last week I was lucky enough to see a reading with Audrey Niffenegger of her newest novel Her Fearful Symmetry.  Afterwords she answered questions from people.  I meant to do a little write up about it last week but as things seem to be going this year, I just now got time.

          First, I would like to start by saying Niffenegger is an absolutely talented writer.  If you have read either books (I unfortunately have only read The Time Traveler’s Wife as this point but the other book is in my to read soon pile) you can easily see that fact.  With TTTW I was very fascinated with her ability to give the perspective of two completely different characters and to weave them together.  Beyond that, the concept of the story is very unique.  I enjoyed that she took something straight out of a science fiction novel and turned it into a completely different genre.

          After the reading a lot of people asked questions about her writing process and getting published.  Those were the two things I was most curious about as well.  As a writer, a lot of  her answers gave me more confidence in my own work.  For example, someone asked her about if she will ever write sequels.  Her answer, which cracked me up, was that if you see her writing The Time Traveler’s Daughter it means she made very bad investments.  She also went on to say when she is writing novels, the characters are constantly in her head.  They are talking, interacting, so on.  When the story is done they just go away.  My characters are for sure in my head all the time.  Especially during the first draft, I would hear things happening with them and could not wait to sit down and write it out.  Now they have faded out a lot since I’m refining things but they are still there.  Guess I’m not going crazy.

          The other very interesting thing she talked about was the process of actually getting published.  She basically sent letters out to everyone possible, got rejected a lot, then had one publisher and one agent respond.  First off, the fact that a book as amazing as TTTW got rejected so much will be something to help keep my head high if I get rejected a lot too.  It happens.  It takes time to get the perfect fit for your book.   The other thing it helped me understand was that it was okay to go about things your own way.  I have always been an against the grain type of person.  When someone told me I couldn’t play a hard song on guitar without learning chords, I did it just fine.  When I go to concerts where everyone is in black tees and jeans it seems like, I rock a pink dress. That is just who I am.  Thinking about getting published makes me nervous because if you read online or in books, it makes it sound like you have to do everything perfectly and by the book or it isn’t going to happen.  Well Niffenegger proved that wrong.  I’m not saying that I will follow what she did (although I’m also not saying I wouldn’t) but it is good to know that I can do it my way and that might work out.

          Overall, I am extremely happy that I went to see Niffenegger talk.  In person, she is brillant but in a quirky way that made me really look up to her.  I look forward to see what is coming next from her.

Who thinks the two plots are actually one? Anyone?

The temple part is 2007 and the plane/not crashing is in 2004 right? Instead of them being different realities are they somehow just different times of the same story?

Sorry this is really random. I would love to hear at the end of the series what exactly the writing process was. I’m just jumping on the Lost train so maybe I missed some kind of explaination. Did someone come up with a master plot first?

So hooked on Lost now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/books/23kindle.html?pagewanted=1&ref=global-home

          Give something away free and if it is good enough, people will want more.  This is such an easy concept that we see all over the place.  A month free trial period of tv channels, free lipstick samples, free song downloads…this list could go on a long time.  When I came across this article talking about the benefits to an author/publisher for giving away a book, it definately made complete sense. 

          One fundamental part of the arguement was that reading one book will lead to buying others.  Sure you can say that maybe the person wouldn’t like the book and therefore not spend money but I think that in most cases that wouldn’t be true.  Why would you download a book that you weren’t into at all in the first place?  Personally, I tend to get stuck on different authors until I have read all their works or quite a few of them.  This idea works even better when you take series into consideration. If the story and characters lure you in, you will want more.

          I really do think this is a great idea but one flaw is that this  would not work well with brand new authors.  If you only have one book out there is going to be nothing else for people to buy.  I’m making an assumption here but if you are a digital book reading kind of person, you probably wouldn’t go buy the physical book after downloading a free digital copy. 

          Overall though, I think this is a very interesting story because it highlights how digital can help the physical world.   It was something that I hadn’t really considered before.  I think if I was an author in the position to do something like this, I would.   Actually I would be more inclined to do something like dollar downloads and giving all the money to the humane society.   Someone should get all over that idea. Please steal that one from me.

          Writing has become more and more of a focus for me lately.  I started getting into a new book I was writting but now have decided to focus back on editting the one I finished already.  I’ve been away from it for a while so it feels good to look at it again.  It is like that cliche, looking at it with new eyes.

          At this point, I’m starting to get very excited.  I just finished editting the first five chapters. I am extremely happy with them.  It is funny because all of the sudden I am wanting other people to read it.  Today was the first time since I started that I had that feeling.  There was one line I editted that I just sat back and said, wow, I can’t wait for someone else to read that.  It was such a good feeling.  Pride in your work is important no matter what you do and I feel like in this case it is saying that things are falling into place. 

          I also had a huge realization.  I am not Angelina Jolie nor am I John Green or Kathy Reichs.  I am never going to write something that I think is as life changing as Notes from my Travels, as well written as Paper Towns, or as interesting of a read as Deja Dead.  That is fine.

            But the catch is, none of those writers are going to ever tell the story of Natalia Rizzello like I am.  Plain and simple, they can’t tell the story I am writing like I can.  Absolutely nothing against them but it is true.  It is the same of most books and authors out there.  Like Nicholas Sparks could never write a Harry Potter book as well as J.K. Rowlings even though obviously he is a great author. 

          I’m not trying to say I think I’m this absolutely amazing author or anything but I do honestly feel that I’m doing justice to the story I am telling.

Just saying. 

I have been a huge New Jersey fan forever.  I have vacationed there three times.  It is amazing.  The show makes me laugh.  The only part of the Jersey Shore I’ve seen is Asbury Park which is completely different.  When I’ve been there it was all emo kids.  Again, amazing.   I have given serious thought to moving there.  I could still see it happening.  I feel like I belong there, lol.  The book I’m currently editting is placed in NJ.

Off topic, I know.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6988740.ece

          So here we are in 2010.  Technology seems to be the ‘it’ topic right now.  From tons of sources lately I have heard things like, don’t buy external hard drives, back up online, no more cds and dvds, everything needs to be digital, and of course, move over paper books, e-books are here. 

          This article I found was interesting because it made some really interesting points about these changes.  It brings up a very good point that there is a huge advantage of paper books vs e-books.  Much bigger than cds and dvds.  I still am all about buying mine but I get why people don’t.  I still feel better about buying physical cds because it feels more like supporting tons of people.  For one example, I sorta dated a kid that was a photographer and did album layouts.  I love seeing his work and actually having it verses seeing it on a screen.  Sorry, I’m getting off topic.  I get distracted when talking about music because I’m so passionate about everything that involves it.

          Anyways, this article reminded me of a point that was made in the book Dewey by Vicki Myron.  “Books have survived television, readio, talking pictures, circulars (early magazines), dailies (early newspapers), Punch and Judy shows, and Shakespeare’s plays.  They have survived World War II, the Hundred Years’ War, the Black Death, and the fall of the Roman Empire.  They even survived the Dark Ages, when almost no one could read and each book had to be copied by hand.  They aren’t going to be killed off by the Internet.”

          I fell in love with this paragraph when I read it.  Myron is making such a true point.  Books are not going anywhere.  Maybe e-books might have their place but they are not going to replace the real thing. 

          Plus come one, is there anything better than curling up with a good book.  A cold digital device is never going to have that feeling.  It is the romance of reading a book on the beach or by the fire,  the adventure of having a book to thumb through when you are on vacation, the prestige of sitting in a coffee shop reading an intellectual books, it is having bookshelfs full of books that you take pride in knowing that you have read; those are a few things that make a book special.  Technology is great (I make a living off it) but some things are perfect as they are.

          While reading Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins last night, I was completely shocked while reading about cheating in schools.  If I remember correctly, the statistic was that 90% of teenagers cheat on homework.  There was other percentages about test and that sort of thing as well.

          At first I thought, who on earth would do that?  Sure, some people do but how could it me that many.  I started to think that I was one of the 10% then actually realized that wasn’t true.  Let me confess, here and now, I often copied other people’s math homework right before class.

          Shameful, I know.

          To defend myself a little, the ironic part was I always did well on the test.  The person who I cheated off of for homework, cheated off me for test.  Plus, I never cheated in college.  That degree is one hundred percent mine.  I think that was maybe the big difference for me.  High school was something that you absolutely had to do.  College was a choice I made so I felt a drive to do it well. 

          Another thing this book has made me think about so far is where I fitted in on the Overachiever vs Slacker scale while I was in school.  My high school was definately very different than the one described in the book.  The first school I went to consisted of a large numbr of kids that knew they would go to college at BYU, go on a mission, or get married right away.  As a freshman, I took AP classes but the stress of high grades didn’t come through yet.

          The last three years I attended a fairly small high school.  I think there was maybe 200 people tops in my graduating class.  Because the school was small, there was not a huge range of classes.  There was only a handful of AP classes.  I think I took the only science one available and all the english ones.  Grade wise I got mostly A’s.  A few B’s and gasp, a C in advance math which I dropped the following semester.  On my SATs I got 1280 (I have no clue how I actually remember that since I never actually needed it since I transfered into college).  I was editor of the school news paper and on dance team.  I also had a part time job.  Wow, I honestly never realized how much I did until I wrote it down just now.  I definately felt like I floated through school.  Looking back, I guess I was an overachiever.

          College I think I was an overahiever in some places but not in others.  I got nearly straight As.  My GPA would have been better if there wasn’t a huge problem with being in the wrong math class.  Two seperate advisors put me in a particular class. I strugged to no end.  I ended up failing once and dropping out half way a second time.  The third time I talked to someone I found out that all along I was in a class meant for engineering majors, not english.  I was extremely mad but at least aced the real class I needed.  Spanish was the other class I slipped down to a B a few semesters. Besides that I worked my ass off to me the top of all my classes. 

          Were you an overachiever in school?  Did you ever cheat?

          Over the last year I have read a lot more young adult books than I have in the past.  I came up with a concept for a book and the more I got into mapping out how I wanted it to go, the more I realized that it would be a YA book.  The problem was, I had not read that genre for quite some time, with the exception of the occasional book that a movie was based on.  For example, I did in fact read all the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books after the movie as well as the Twilight saga before those came out.  Yes, call me crazy but I like to read books that movies come from.

          Anyways, I realized that if I was going to write a certain genre, I should get familar with it.  I started with the Harry Potter books (although I guess those are more youth than YA)  and over the last year read quite a few teen books.   Most of them were very good. It opened my eyes a lot to the fact that just because it is written for young readers does not mean that it isn’t extremely good writing.  John Green for example quickly became one of my favorite authors. 

          While reading these books I tried to come up with my own version of what made a YA book YA.  Originally I would have said content but I realized that really isn’t it.  It really almost seems that as long as your characters are young, nothing else really matters.

          This stood out to me the most while reading The Immortals series by Alyson Noel.  Let me preface this by saying I do love her books and think she is a great writer.  I am in no way putting her down.  With that said, the series seems to have a lot to do with sex so far.  Especially in the latest book, Shadowland.  Ever is made she can’t consumate her relationship with Damen.  Later she starts to think in her past lives that she might have been sleeping with someone else.  It is a lot of sex for a teen book I would think.  Is that what it takes to be a popular teen book?  Gossip Girl certainly had a lot in it.

          I guess it is another sign of how much things have changed since I was young.  I know it wasn’t all that long ago but I do not remember reading a single book with a much sex in it.  Even the shows I watched didn’t have much in them.  I remember Sabrina the Teenage Witch being my favorite and seeing it in reruns lately confirms that it was all sweet, innocent entertainment. 

            Call me old fashion, but I think in my writing I’m going to stick to sex only in the non young adult ones.  If it does get in my books, I see it more in a realistic fashion.  The way John Green involved it in Looking For Alaska was very real and age appropriate. It was completely awkward like I feel that it should be for kids  that age. 

          Any thoughts on teen books and sex from anyone else?  Do you think it fits or not?  Do you think it reflects a change in society?

Did anyone else see Jennifer’s Body? I saw it the day it was out in theatres then bought it today. So good. It reminds me a lot of Heathers. Amanda Seyfried is great in it. I personally think she is a great actress and in the movie she shows a broad range of emotions. Megan Fox, well she looks hot. I’m not saying that in a bad way. I absolutely love her but that role was all about being a sexy bitch. She pulls it off well.

Oh wait, I can make this relevent with books; Diabo Cody not only wrote this movie (and Juno) but she also has a book out called Candy Girl. It is about her stripper days. I have it but haven’t read it yet. One of these days soon.

******Contains details from Sookie Stackhouse books and some spoiler/info I’ve found on season three.*********

          So I’ll admit, the first few Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris did not really catch my attention.  The first two books I thought were okay but they did not stand out to me.  I found them entertaining but I thought the television series was doing a better job at really filling out the story.  Obviously, the show varied a lot from the books but it did it in a way that stayed true to them.  Does that make sense? Anyways, I ended up deciding to pick up Club Dead as a fast read.  I am now completely hooked on the series!

          Club Dead really picked up for me because there was more than here is Sookie and Bill and here is a problem happening.  It made it, here is Sookie and Bill is gone but Eric is there and another guy and Sookie has tons of stuff to deal with.  I absolutely love what a strong character she become in this book.  She basically kicks ass.  Plus I think Harris really caught on to Sookie’s voice in this novel.  It came alive more than the previous books in my mind.

          The next book, Dead to the World was actually my favorite in the series so far.  Hate to spoil this to all the Bill fans out there, but he’s out and Eric is in (at least for this book) and I absolutely love it.  Pam also starts to have more personality in this book.  This book was funny, sexy, and a story that I could barely rip myself away from.  Now I’m only two books (plus the short stories) away from being completely up to day.  I’m actually quite sad about that.  I want more!

          Besides the books,  I can’t wait for more True Blood. I liked both seasons so far (yes even the crazy Greek stuff in season two) so am interested to see if it will follow the book.  If so, I think the book is going to get better and better.  Before I wrote this, I decide to see if I could figure out where season three was going.  Let’s just say, big question mark at this point.

          I tried not to read too much since I don’t want to spoil the season for myself.  I have never been one to read television spoilers.  The anticipation of watching it each week is better.  I found two sites that said a little bit and interestingly enough, the said complete opposite things.  First was IMDB.  It has episode one listed as “Pack of Wolves”.  There is two other titles for episodes listed two but it has no details on any of them.  This makes me super exicited because Club Dead introduces us to the super sexy werewolf Alcide.  He sticks around for more of the books too.  Plus, who doesn’t love a werewolf/vampire/girl with weird mind power love triangle?  Sorry, I had to referred to Twilight at least a little.  I bet you anything that people will say True Blood is copying Twilight even though Club Dead was out years before Twilight.  

          Personally, I really hope this is the way that the story goes.  It makes sense with the ending of last season, if I remember right.  Could Bill have suddenly disappeared because of A) vamps trying to get his computer disk, B) Lorena calling him, or C) the Queen showed up?   All of these (well minus A, since we don’t know about his computer stuff yet) would fit with the last season plus the book.  Plus didn’t I hear rumors about Evan Rachel Woods showing up more in season three.  Sidenote to anyone that has read the books, how perfect is she for that role?

          I also found a site that listed news about a girl being cast as Crystal.  This makes me super hopeful for the show following the books.  She doesn’t actually show up until Dead to the World but she is definately a big(ish) character. She is a character that is meant to be disliked but not exacted hated. I think seeing her on screen will be funny.  Maybe the show is going to roll two books into one season. I’d be okay with that because I can’t wait for more Eric! Plus that would make Quinn show up sooner too. He is going to be someone super hot, obviously.         

          Another site I found that I can’t remember the name of listed episode one as “Mine”.  It then gave really long details on every little thing that happens in this episode.  I scanned through it (again, not wanting to ruin it for myself) and found that it was giving a completely different story than Club Dead.  There was something about other vamps trying to take Sookie and Bill saying “She mine.” There was a lot of stuff on Layfette and Tara.  Layfette is not in the books at all so it would seem if they are focusing on him that they are getting even further from the books. 

          Only time will tell I guess.  What do you think will happen in season three?  Have you read the books?