Tag: words

writing

FWIS: deadlines

abby mumford

FWIS (from where i stand) is a monthly feature i’m doing with jessica corra and bria quinlan. all three of us are YA writers in different places in our journeys. (check out their links for this month’s FWIS from their points of view.)

today’s topic: deadlines

all of my writing deadlines are self-imposed which makes them more fluid than firm. i’m not proud to admit this especially since procrastination isn’t something i’m prone to doing.

(when i was growing up, my main motivator was my super smart older siblings. their brains naturally gave way to straight A’s while i had to work a bit harder for my B+s. our career paths have taken us down different roads, so they’re no longer available as bench markers…)

… and so, one way for me to circumvent this is by making writing a team sport.

how do you do that, you ask. isn’t the keyboard crowded with more than one set of hands, you say. is this some sort of tag team thing, you wonder. let me set the record straight. when i say “team sport” i mean that i’ve taken to transporting myself and my laptop out in public and have other writer friends join me. there’s something about looking across the table and seeing someone else diligently working. it’s a great motivator.

speaking of sports, i also take part in something called writing sprints with bria and her writing crew. they’ve very kindly allowed me access to the secret room where we chat and sprint (aka write as fast as we can for 20 minutes) and report in on our progress and chat and rinse and repeat.

the hope is that by doing all that, i’ll get my habits in order so that when the real deadlines kick in, my discipline will be in full force.

 

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book club

BOOK HUNGRY: an abundance of katherines

abby mumford

who says you have to be crowded into the living room, kitchen, and/or dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.

the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, vanessa noble, alyson peterson, cynthia reese, elizabeth ryann, and myself. here’s the deal. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email. we post a review on our individual blogs on the same day (3rd thursday of the month). we link to each other. done. i know, genius. click on each one of their names (above) and it’ll take you to their review. browse. enjoy.

this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is: 

AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by john green

what it’s about from amazon: When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washedup child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy–loving best friend riding shotgun—but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

my opinion: i’m glad i finished this book, but i have to admit, getting to the end took some work. i’ve read a couple of john green books, but the only one i liked so far was the one he wrote with david levithan (WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON). this story was interesting and colin was quirky in a very endearing way, but there was a lot of math in this book. i don’t like math and i’m certainly not a prodigy like colin is, so a lot of what he said was over my head.

it’s a good thing colin’s best friend hassan was a trip. the perfect foil for colin. he kept the story from getting too serious and yet, he was part of a scene that was one of the deepest in the book. AND I LIKED IT.

the pacing of the story was rather slow, but it was more that i wasn’t interested per say in the story. i could put the book down (and i did) and i wasn’t tempted to pick it back up. in fact, i read three books on my kindle app (ON MY PHONE) before i could bring myself to finish this story. however, as i said in the beginning, it was the end that made this book worth it. the transformations were well earned and even though i saw the ending from a mile away (and i rarely ever know what’s going to happen before it does), it still brought a smile to my face.

and this is why i love being part of a book group. even though i wasn’t in love with the book, it was challenging and knowing the other ladies were reading it too got me to finish this book, which ultimately, i did like.

p.s. i love the cover. just had to point that out.

 

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writing

tone deaf

abby mumford

i am extremely tone deaf. i can’t carry a tune (singing or whistling) if my life depended upon it and i definitely can’t tell an A from a B flat or a G minor. (is G minor even a note? or is it a chord?)

anyways, that’s not my point.

my point is: tone as it relates to voice in writing — it’s me, what else would i mean? :)

and see, that right there is what’s bothering me. the :). it’s so hard to properly convey the tone you want in writing, in emailing, and in blogging, and as such, it’s easy to be misread.

case in point.

my intention with that post was to be silly. i mean, look at that drawing! i can’t not giggle, but all of the responses and emails and conversations i had about that post (save one) thought i meant it in a negative way.

and that’s where i’m confused.

is it because my blog’s tone of late has been negative? (sorry about that. i’m working to remedy this.) or is it because you were in a bummer mood when you read it and that colored your perception of it? or is it because i didn’t put in a :)?

i think the :) is a lackadaisical crutch we have ALL been guilty of using. instead of carefully selecting the proper verb (like she skipped, he sauntered, they frolicked), we use tired, but tried and true verbs like (she jogged, he ran, they walked) and add in a :) to convey the proper tone.

but then again, what if i’d put in a :p versus a :D versus a ;)? would it make you laugh harder because you thought i was smiling bigger or winking at you? where does the writer draw the line? with a simple smiley? with no smiley? with bolder word choices? with illustrations?

what about sarcasm? how do you make your words mimic the deadpan expression on your face?

or on your character’s face? how do you establish a character’s identity before he even speaks so that when he does open his mouth, you (as the reader) will immediately know if the tone is sarcastic or serious?

i suppose this is a CHALLENGE ACCEPTED situation and i’m going to have to work harder on my word choices so that emoticons are no longer necessary. you should be able to read “i opened the window, glanced up at the stars, and relaxed in the chair as i waited for the alien invasion” versus “i closed all the shades and crouched behind the couch clutching a baseball bat as i waited for the alien invasion” and know what the intended mood is.

provided i don’t throw in an errant ;) after “i crouched behind the couch,” but then again, sometimes rhyming is just the thing you need to help pass the time until the aliens arrive.

unless they’re the kind of aliens that prey on tone deaf females.

*runs away*

writing

sacrifices

abby mumford

i was going about things all wrong.

first, i had twitter open. second, i had been listening to THE SCORPIO RACES by maggie stiefvater. third, i also had the book open on my desk as i perused it trying to turn it into a textbook because i can’t stop thinking about it and i’m basically in love with it and all that it does.

you might say i’m slightly obsessed.

this wasn’t the problem.

the problem was that by studying/reading/looking at another book, my focus had shifted away from my own work. even though i had the best of intentions when opening THE SCORPIO RACES (i.e. wanting to learn), it’s way too easy to compare my writing to the masterfulness of that novel and clearly, that’s not fair.

and then the downward spiral of self-doubt began, which is NOT the brain space you want to be in when revising your work.

but before i closed THE SCORPIO RACES, i, of course, turned to twitter to voice my opinion BECAUSE EVERYBODY NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK.

with the mystery of publishing revealed, i closed THE SCORPIO RACES and twitter. i read sean ferrell’s “pathetic email” post for the tenth time because it’s uplifting and spot on and exactly the right motivation i needed to dive back into my edits because it’s time to whip this WIP into shape.

now if only my neighbor had a cat…

book club

BOOK HUNGRY: life as we knew it

abby mumford

who says you have to be crowded into the living room, kitchen, and/or dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.

the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, vanessa noble, alyson peterson, cynthia reese, elizabeth ryann, and myself. here’s the deal. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email. we post a review on our individual blogs on the same day (3rd thursday of the month). we link to each other. done. i know, genius. click on each one of their names (above) and it’ll take you to their review. browse. enjoy.

this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is: 

LIFE AS WE KNEW IT by susan beth pfeffner


what it’s about from amazon: Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all–hope–in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

my opinion: i first read this book in december of 2009 and i’ve thought about it pretty much every month since. i wouldn’t classify it as a favorite book of mine because as soon as i finished it, i was relieved to be done and i didn’t want to ever read it again. why not? because this book? it is terrifying. not in a scary monster chasing you, things popping up to startle you, but in a way that this. could. happen.

and i don’t know if i’d survive if it did.

(side note: i checked the pantry at least five times while reading this to take stock of the canned goods we had on hand to see if my family could handle the moon shifting out of orbit.)

i willingly chose this book for this month and forced myself to read it again because i was curious to re-read it as a writer and not as a reader. this time around, i was still completely freaked out, but the fact that it wasn’t snowing out certainly helped and looking at it with an analytical eye definitely served to soothe the nerves.

even still, this read left me feeling completely desolate and isolated and creeped out.

this book is so hard to explain because it’s well written and compelling, but not in a good way. you don’t really want to know what happens, but you have to know things get better for everyone, or well, at least for the evans family. and so i kept reading.

(another side note: i love my sleep. there isn’t much that can keep me awake, but this book did. i read until the wee hours of the night hoping and searching for something redeeming even though i already knew how it ended.)

the other interesting thing about this book (besides the situations) is the characters. for one thing, miranda’s attitude is spot on. sure, she can be whiny and self-pitying, but that’s a completely normal attitude for a teenager. it just so happens she now lives in a world that’s absolutely abnormal and so her attitude can sometimes seem off-putting, but yet, still completely age appropriate. the mother was sturdy and consistent. the brothers are strong and reliable. this family survives in a world probably not many of us would want to survive in.

that’s probably why this book still haunts me.

i mean this literally.

various scenes and comments and characters and situations plague my brain and this story hovers over me as if it’s an overbearing mother, which, i’m grateful to have and who would probably save my family if something like this book actually happened.) what was i saying? oh yes, the EMOTIONS and SITUATIONS in this story are raw and honest and scary and true and overwhelming, which is what classifies this as a top notch book in my opinion because any book that can make you feel is one that deserves to be read.

and this book? oh yes, this book makes you feel EVERY SINGLE TERRIFYING AND BORING SECOND.

and, to quote patty from our group’s discussion, “i felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that this book was fiction.”

ME TOO. oh, me too.

now the real question is, will the other ladies forgive me for making them read something so horrifying (albeit compelling) during a month that’s usually filled with christmas cheer?

next month, we’ll break away from the dark theme of this month + of karla’s usual reading choice as she has us take on AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by John Green.

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