Dance Academy and Lemon Spice

What I’m loving these days:

Dance Academy. This Australian show about teenagers enrolled in a ballet academy in Sydney is my new fave obsession. Because of the ballet aspect, of course, but also because it’s one of those shows where I’ve fallen in love with all of the characters.

Lemon spice tea. This has become my evening writing drink, and it’s just so yummy.

Peter Bradley Adams “The Longer I Run.” A perfect Saturday morning song.

In Honor by Jessi Kirby. It’s the story of a girl who goes on a cross-country road trip after her brother dies in war. And since she brings her brother’s ex-best friend, whom she can barely stand, that means there are lots of sparks and adventures.

Happy Friday, everyone! What are you loving this week?

Watching YA TV (aka Team Damon 4Ever)

I watch a ridiculous amount of TV that’s aimed at people who are way younger than I am. But considering I mostly write for teenagers, too, I’ve decided to view it as research.

And it actually does teach me a lot about pacing, ratcheting tension, realistic dialogue, love triangles (or quadrangles, etc.), subplots, and structure, among other things. Seeing what works (and, often, what doesn’t work) with my favorite shows helps me understand what I want (and definitely don’t want) in my own writing.

So I’m proudly going to keep watching The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, Jane By Design, Awkward, and whatever new shows ABC Family and the CW come up with. Okay, mainly for the entertainment factor. But the research angle sounds more professional. :)

What are your favorite TV shows? Anyone else Team Damon with me? :)

So I Went to a Baseball Game

I went to an Astros’ baseball game this week. I’m not a huge Astros’ fan (especially since our team got so weak), but I actually had a wonderful time. Despite the baseball. :)

Turns out going to a baseball game isn't so bad. Especially if you sit way at the top of the upper deck and chat with friends and barely even watch the game. Though I did love it when one of our players would make a home run and the train set up along the side of the stadium would blow its whistle and travel toward us (See the train by the windows? Super fun).

I don't know if I'll be going back this summer, but I'm glad I went!

Happy Monday, everyone! Did anyone do anything fun/amazing/relaxing/productive this weekend?

Random Musings: Call Me Maybe and Hating Typos

1. I'm deep in the polishing stage of revision these days, making sure every word is perfect, that every bit of dialogue sounds at least somewhat realistic, that there are absolutely no typos. Typos are the WORST.

2. I'm reading Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer, and I'm loving it! It's about two girls in high school choir who used to be friends but are now sworn enemies, and both characters are complex and compelling. I'll have to do a connection post on this book soon, because that story reminds me of so many good songs.

3. Speaking of songs, is anyone else as obsessed with "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen as I am? Because I cannot stop singing that one.

4. Has anyone been watching Breaking Pointe on the CW? It's a reality show about dancers in the Salt Lake City ballet company, and there's so much drama! And you know I love ballet, so I have to watch it and tell everyone about it. :)

5. I've got more revisions planned for this weekend, so I'm going to be staying inside in the air conditioning. Not so much fun, but definitely necessary!

Happy Friday, everyone! Anyone have any fun weekend plans?

Reading Out Loud

As I finish up my revisions, I’m focusing on word choice and phrasing, for the most part. And there’s no greater trick for that than reading the work out loud.

I print out the entire document, because I find it easier to see mistakes when I have paper and a pen in front of me. And then, making very sure that no one can hear me, I start reading out loud it from beginning to end. I even make up voices for the characters.

It takes several hours, and my throat is crazy dry and raspy by the time I’m through, but I catch all sorts of mistakes: weak phrasing, poor word choice, repetition. It’s especially helpful for dialogue, because I can evaluate whether someone would actually say those words. I can’t recommend this part of the revision process enough.

Does anyone else use this trick? What other clean-up final revision tricks do you have?

Challenge #6: Go to a Baseball Game

This challenge is kind of cheating, because I’ve already made plans to go to an Astros’ game this week with my book club. We read The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (which I loved and devoured in a matter of days), so baseball had to be included somehow.

I haven’t been to a pro game in a while. I grew up going to my brother’s baseball games (where I would, without fail, be either climbing the back of the bleachers or reading a book, and I never knew which team had won). So I got over baseball pretty quickly.

Still, it’s a fun excuse to eat terribly wonderful food and chat with friends and trash talk umpires, which I just can’t pass up. I think I’ll have an awesome time.

Do you like baseball? Anybody else bring a book along to sporting events, just in case?

So I Went to the Ballet

Last weekend, I went to the Houston Ballet production of Romeo & Juliet. Followers of this blog know I’m a ballet lover (even though I know so little about it). I had never seen Romeo & Juliet as a ballet before, but this production was just gorgeous.

At the beginning, I was apprehensive. It seemed almost sacrilegious to take a Shakespeare play—a work with some of the most beautiful dialogue, a work of words—and make into music and dance, with no dialogue at all.

But that apprehension quickly dissolved. The emotion revealed in the dancers’ movements and reactions to each other made the story just as compelling as in the play version. The romantic pas de deux were my favorite part, and the final scene gave me chills.

It also helped that I got to go for free: someone had left their season tickets for that production at the ticket booth, and so my friend and I got to sit in the orchestra, close to the stage, for nothing. You have to love those random acts of kindness.

Happy Friday, everyone! Anyone have any fun weekend plans?

Construct a Couple by Talli Roland

Construct a Couple is Talli Roland’s sequel to Build a Man (check out my review of that one by CLICKING HERE), and I loved it just as much (maybe even more) than the first one. Serenity, an American living in London, starts work as a fact checker at a respected Sunday newspaper, hoping to spring right into a job as a journalist. When she uncovers the dark history of a fast-growing construction company, she thinks she’s found her big break. That dark history might be a bit too twisted up in her personal life, though, and soon Serenity is in the middle of another mess.

Serenity is one of my favorite characters, and she’s even more endearing in this new story. Her voice is snarky, fun, and sweet—she’s got a sharp but not caustic wit that makes you laugh out loud. The story zips along so compellingly that I couldn’t bring myself to put it down: I just had to see how Serenity would get herself out of the situation she mired herself in. If you’re looking for something light-hearted, fun, and insanely entertaining, this series is for you.

Visit Talli’s fun London, wine, and writing blog HERE. Details for buying the book (only 99 cents!) HERE.

The Head and the Heart

Friday evening, I got some friends together to go see one of my favorite bands in concert. The Head and the Heart are sort of indie-folk-ish (maybe? I’m really bad at musical genres), and I had seen them last year when they were an opening act. This time, though, they were the headliner, and it almost made me teary-eyed to realize that most of the people in the packed concert hall were singing along to the songs. That has to be such an amazing feeling for a musician, right? And when one of the lead singers came out with just his guitar and sang “Honey, Come Home” and the entire crowd started swaying—just beautiful.

Here’s one of my favorite songs of theirs.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Challenge #5: Go to the Ballet

I’m planning on completing challenge #4 and going to a concert this weekend, but I also want to go to the ballet. The Houston Ballet is doing a production of Romeo & Juliet, which I just have to see.

The ballet and the theater are some of my favorite “cultural” activities, and Houston has a wonderful company (with some of the most gorgeous costumes and sets I’ve ever seen). I’ll let you know how it goes. :)

Happy Friday, everyone! Anyone have any fun weekend plans?

Revisions: One Issue at a Time

I’m starting what I hope is the final round of revisions on my WiP these days, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to go about it. I’m making a list of all the things I want to change, characters who need to be deepened, details that need to be added. The good news is that I don’t have to do much to change the structure, but I’ve got just a random assortment of things to fix.

I think I’m going to focus on each issue, one at a time, rather than go through the book chronologically and fix whatever pops up. Then I’ll read through the whole book several times to make sure there are no inconsistencies. After that comes my favorite part of revision: reading the whole book out loud. Hopefully that will make sure that my piecemeal revisions don’t create any errors in the chronology of the story.

How do you revise when there are only random minor issues left? Do you go through the book in order or do you fix each issue separately? Does anyone have any tips?

Snow White and the Huntsman Review

Okay, people. So I saw Snow White and the Huntsman this weekend (don’t worry, this is a spoiler-free review). And I LOVED it. I’ve always been fascinated by the Snow White story, and this darker version fits in much better with the original Grimm tale, which is so much more compelling than the Disney movie.

The visuals were stunning: every shot seemed perfectly painted. The fairy land may have been my favorite. Charlize Theron absolutely eats up the screen with her powerful performance, and Kristen Stewart did well, though her character is so much weaker than the evil, complex queen.

Also, Chris Hemsworth? Kind of in love with him. So there’s that.

I could have used more romance, just because I’m a sucker for that, but I guess more wouldn’t have fit with the tone of the movie. Overall, it was a thrilling, incredibly imagined movie. And now I’m listening to this song on repeat:

Happy Monday, everyone! Have you seen this movie yet? Did anyone else love it as much as I did?