Where I left off...Part One

Here is where I left off.

April 2015

Such a precious little critter

. 

                   

Mid-June 2015

Then it happened.  The Stuff.   

Bad break. Freak accident.

Then this happened

Size reference:  that plate is only 1" long

Then this happened

August 2015

A  second surgery was require to remove the plate due to complications....

Then this happened

Cast finally off..

Good as new!

Here she is today, happy and very healthy...and in need of a spa day lol. 

Thus ends part one. 

 

Why I Love YA/NA Books And Other Musings

Yet another 'two blog posts in a day' anomaly. I was encouraged to make my blog posts a bit shorter and make them more frequently-let's face it, I can get wordy.

I get a lot of eyebrow raising and ribbing because I prefer to read YA/NA (Young Adult/New Adult) books. Don’t get me wrong-I love reading almost everything but I prefer this niche.

 I know people don’t get why I do but despite what you might think, most YA is well-written. Yes there are the epic fails, but those occur within any genre. Blaming YA/NA books for ruining literature as we know it? I say BS, baby.

With the influx of books to read in the genre, it’s actually upped readership overall. People who haven’t read in years have found a gateway through YA/NA. Some stay tethered to it while others branch out to other areas of literature. I stay centered in YA but I read everything except extensive self-help books.  Those just don’t do anything for me.

Some of the best books I’ve ever read in my life were YA/NA.  (Anne McCaffrey and John Green I’m looking at you). I’ve read a few YA/NA series’ several times over and they never get old or lose their appeal for me.

Someone asked me how I could read kid’s books at my age. First off, I make no bones about being an old lady with a young heart.  And secondly I don’t read kids books. I do write them, however. Some of you pre-read “Mommy are you Broken” for me about The Midget’s issues when I had my surgeries).

It’s completed and edited, but on hold for now while I decide  whether or not to write a couple more and release them as a series. The kid book market is one of the hardest to break into in the business, so I want to make sure the quality and marketability for it is top notch before I toss it out and shop it.

Another thing I get is “How can you write that stuff?” when dealing with sensitive or gritty subject matter, or even language. It can be difficult to separate the writer from the character.  It can be difficult for me to write, but it’s a process and character development is its own beast. 

Some things I’m working on are very gritty and raw and show sides of human nature that is at its basest level. Again, that’s the character, not me. I’m not writing anything too over the top, rest assured. Sometimes I draw from my own experiences to add depth to a character, sometimes it writes itself and I can only hang on and go for the ride.

I’m a very emotional person and I can relate to the intense and gut wrenching all over the place emotion that is written into these books. Of course my memories of my teens were old school-before the age of tech. The internet didn’t even exist then. Books were my main escape and I read nearly anything I could get my hands on. I just related to YA/NA more.

I love it all-paranormal, dystopian post-apocalyptic, fantasy, and so on. 

I just like what I like. You shouldn't feel like you are cornered just because you read it. We have a finite number of days in this life and it’s too short not to do what you love, unless you are a serial killer but that’s a discussion for another day.

I've decided to take part in a read along for one of my favorite series and I’m kind of excited about it. I’ve never taken part in one and while I’m much older that most of them, I still feel the same enthusiasm that they do. One thing I found interesting is that a large majority of YA/NA readers are older-not always as old as me, but you get the idea. 

Often times when I’m making new online friends I start with “your favorite old lady from Idaho.” (Because I AM old).  Some find me odd, others get where I’m coming from. Once you get over your initial head scratching and trying to figure me out, you’ll find I’m just as complex and nutty as everyone else on this planet-but most of all I am sincere.  I just happen to have the mindset of a twenty-something. It’s led to some interesting adventures.

 A big home project is to sort through my bookcases and donate the books I don’t want or read anymore. With my Nook and the 4-5 shelves full of books stacked double thick, I won’t ever run short of reading material.

Even after I thin down what I have and go through the 8 boxes (yes, 8) of books in my garage I will have a full house, book wise. As much as I love my Nook, there is nothing like the smell or weight of a book in your hand. *cue the schmooze*

Some of my current favorites are:

 Jennifer Armantrout’s Covenant, Lux, and Dark Elements series.

John Green’s The Fault in our Stars and Looking for Arizona.

VeronicaRoth’s Divergent series.

 Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as we knew it series.

Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series.

Just about everything written by Anne McCaffrey.

.If you have any good book recommendations or would like me to review one for you, comment or shoot me an email and I will see what I can do.

If you are an author, I would be happy to ARC and review. (Wend Peltzer, I am looking at you.)

Happy reading!

Until next time,

-Robyn 

How do you like your purple?

 

Purple prose.

 

 It might not bear the hallmarks of the more emphatically debated topics, but it’s there nonetheless and almost everyone I’ve talked to has an opinion on it.  It can be a tool or a death sentence to a story.

 

The consensus seems to fall into three categories:

Camp one says that it’s a writing style filled with useless words that aren’t important to the crux of the tale being told and can be quite distracting. Such readers prefer to have lots of room for interpretation.

She smiled, enjoying the sun and watching the leaves blow around.

Camp two indicates that they prefer a middle ground-enough detail to describe an environment and a character’s physical sensations without creating a gauntlet the reader is forced to endure.

She smiled as the sun’s warmth shone down on her shoulders in between

 the scattered clouds being tossed about on the breeze.

 

Camp three says that they enjoy the enhanced details and that it greatly enhances their reading experience, giving them an intricate and detailed view of what the author had in mind.

 

She smiled as the heated tendrils of light flowed down, her shoulders soaking

up the heat with a rapturous joy.  Scattered clouds moved languidly, occasionally

passing over her, denying her warmth, and causing her shiver.  A breeze blew

softly around her, pushing the offending darkness away, restoring the connection

between life, light, and skin.

 

 I am the first one to admit I tend to favor the visceral side of things, and that it gives more insight to the workings of my characters’ minds.

 

I was actually doing a bit of research on purple prose since it is something I deal with almost daily.  It's automatic with me.  It could be worse....

"In Defense of Purple Prose, " an  online article from the New York Times, Paul West writes:

             "Of course, purple is not only highly colored prose. It is the world written

up, intensifies and made pleasurably palpable, not only to suggest the

 impetuous abundance of Creation, but also to add to it by

showing - showing off - the expansive power of the mind itself, its unique

knack for making itself at home among trees, dawn, viruses, and then

turning them into something else: a word, a daub, a sonata. The impulse

here is to make everything larger than life, almost to overrespond, maybe

 because, habituated to life written down, in both senses, we become inured

and have to be awakened with something almost intolerably vivid. When

 the deep purple blooms, you are looking at a dimension, not a posy. "

            (http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/15/books/in-defense-of-purple-prose.html)

Combining cerebral with visceral has been a challenge to be sure.  My past writing style was one that was written such a  cerebral that it required extra purple so that the reader would not become lost.

 

A few readers really got it and went out of their way to tell me how much they liked it, while the majority ended up confused and not getting the story at all. Looking back I can’t help but cringe a bit. (Okay I cringe a lot).

 

 I think many writers aim for balance. I prefer to walk a bit left of that. A touch of unbalance makes my world go ‘round.  

 

Wishing you a purple day,

 

 ~Robyn

 

 

(Note: This is an entry from a blog long ago, that has been reworked and updated as it's still very applicable for me today. It was too good to waste and there are a couple I will be reworking and posting in the coming months. I will note them as such.)