Yes, oh yes, it is almost November.  In 5 short days I’ll be kicking off NaNoWriMo 2009, my first attempt to write a novel.  To prepare I’m being conscious on my personal pitfalls.  I’ll be starting early and hard, knocking out Act One by the end of Week One.  I have no ideas how long Act One will be or how many words I really can write in a day with my other commitments, you know feeding myself, my job.  I’m preparing for next week to be eye-opening.  I plan on doing something NaNo related everyday rewarding myself on Sundays with a Write-In in Lincoln Square. 

Although it feels like I’m diving in head first I actually have a rough plan, basic character sketches and some random notes.   So to that end I’m going to write out my outline, probably leaving out the ending with the super suprising twist you all will probably see coming.  Also because I’ve yet to figure what that will be.  So here it is, the rough, so rough, outline of Cumberland.

Act One opens with the main character, Allison Roberts or Ally, being woken at 5 am by her phone.   Her best friend Lis Davis is on the other hand freaking out because it is the first day of high school for both.  Ally gets ready for school early and meets Lis so they can walk to school together.  Ally has to walk through Cumberland Cemetery to meet at Lis’ house.  Typical first day school antics ensue, more so because Ally and Lis are 15 and have previously been home schooled by their parents.  The are starting at Varna High(could change) so they can take Drivers Ed and have a normal high school experience.  Their other home schooled friend Jensen Marshall was supposed to join them but he is mysteriously absent.  On the walk home from school Ally and Lis run into Jensen and find out he will not be joining them at school.  Ally is pissed.  (Okay so that was way detailed for a rough outline but it’s the first part I’ll be righting so I’ve thought about it, in the car, overcome by the urge to write it down now.)

Act Two is when we’re introduced to Ally’s family at dinner, Mom Joan an organic farmer/orchard and Dad Greg a Short Haul Truck Driver.  This is when we also learn Ally’s Big Secret.  She can see and talk to ghosts.  She knows she shouldn’t, that it only encourages them but it’s her crutch when she gets upset with the living (Jensen).  She goes to Cumberland to talk to her friend Georgie Darnell, son of the founder of the settlement that grew to become the town (none of which named Cumberland, internal debate on whether to use the names of real places or make em up.)

Act Three involves various school shenanigans like class elections, a cat fight at the Friday Football game, continued fighting/bickering/flirting between Ally and Jensen.  Also creepy things start happening to Ally at home and she thinks a ghost is trying to scare her/send a message.  Ally meets a new ghost Dawn after an ill-advised senance and works with Lis to find how she came to be at Cumberland so she can be at peace and leave Ally alone.

Act Four will probably include a Fall Ball to continue with the school whatnots.  Ally and Jensen will makeup and probably some PG-13 making out only to have an even bigger fight over Ally’s abilities.  Things also escalate with Dawn and Ally finds out new things about Georgie.

Act Five will tie everything together and there’ll be a Big Showdown with the Big Bad where good will win, Ally and Jensen finally make up (and maybe some more of that PG-13 making out) and all will be well again in Cumberland. The End

Oddly enough my Word of the Day email has been giving some great quotes in the last week for an epigraph or chapter openings.

“The first symptom of love in a young man is shyness; the first symptom in a woman, it’s boldness.” Victor Hugo

“Death must be so beautiful.  To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head and listen to silence.  To have no yesterday and no tomorrow.  To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” Oscar Wilde.  I haven’t verified these yet so proceed with caution.

I don’t always say it but it does happen and I’ll freely admit it here.  I may have been wrong about Book Trailers. 

The first few I saw were uninspiring.  They were filled with strange voiceovers narrating a synopsis with shadowy figures and bland tracking music.  I also did not get how these would work.  How would people see them?  Find them?  Are they suppose to build anticipation with established fan bases or introduce new works to new audiences?   All around it was a head-scratching, no thank you on my part.

I now give Exhibits A, B, and C that prove how wrong I was.

Exhibit A

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28931

Created by one of my favorite blogger, Ransom Riggs over at Mental Floss, it was on point.  It captured the book’s appeal, the charm of Austen mixed with crazy B-movie monster action.  How better to explain that than in video format.  Sure that’s the point of the book trailer but this is the first time I saw how well it could work.

Exhibit B

This one came out a few months back and I was floored.  Not only did it include great graphics and animation (yeah steampunk!) but the voiceover worked!  There is a real sense of drama and urgency about the story being described.  It fits the time period as well as the new world Westerfeld created.  I already loved him for the Uglies series but now my esteem has been taken to a higher level which is another result of a well made Book Trailer.

Exhibit C

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/friday-videos-know-whats-next/

Let me introduce you to another author who is now on my must-always-read-list, Maggie Stiefvater.  I read Shiver and enjoyed it (thank you ALA!) but after this video I have to check out her other book.  I liked Shiver but I was always saying  because “werewolves are the new vampires.”  I put it in the Twilight category of YA supernatural romance.  Quick read, impossible love, mythological creature.  Well written for sure but that’s where I put it in my mental file folder.  Talk about being put in my place.  The Holly Hobbyness of the production, the gentle mocking of the genre, the animation… I cried with laughter.  People thought I was having a fit for trying to hold it in.  I love how the author is promoting her material in a unique and engaging way. 

As better products come out I’m willing to change my opinion on Book Trailers but I still have to wonder, besides sitting around and admiring them for their cleverness, does this work?  Where are they placed to be viewed for maximum exposure?  And bringing it all back to me, how can libraries use this model to promote their services and programs?  Are we clever and engaging with our promotion material?  Where can we place ourselves to be seen and enjoyed by our community?

I’m doing it.  I’ve thought about it since my good friend Rachel suggested it back in July.  I signed up, I have some plot ideas, I’m buying a book tonight, I’m probably crazy but… I’m writing a novel next month.

As of today I’m an official participant in NaNoWriMo aka National Novel Writing Month.  The purpose, since 1999 is to write a complete novel, whether it be crap or not, of 50,000 words by November 30th and win.  Win what?  The Grand Prize?  Vacation for Two?  Toaster Oven?  No you win what I like to call at life.  Writing a novel has been a crazy pipe dream of mine since high school and I wanted to move on from angsty poetry.  And NaNoWriMo’s mission fits with my needs, dedicating time to simply writing.  As they say quantity, not quality counts.  I need to do this, I need to break the mantra down that I could do this if I…blah blah blah.  No excuses I’m telling myself.  I’m doing this.  I might start believing myself soon but I’m writing a novel next month.  It will be crap and I will share with you all, and I might throw up and chicken out of the whole thing but it’s happening. 

Not sure how this is going to effect my 100 books in a year challenge.  I just hit 77 so I’ll be in good shape if I take a month off.  I’ll just end the year strong with a string of kids and romance novels. 

If you would like to join me in madness my id is akmargie.  We’ll be writing buddies.  In insanity.

My friend, the one I introduced last week, is thinking about grad school.  Not MLIS so I still have yet to find a convert, but still grad school.  We talked this weekend about the pros, the cons and all the in betweens.  Her bottom line quickly became, why wouldn’t I go back to school?  I’m blessed to have wonderful people as friends who value education as much as I do and celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day with me.

  The whole conversation made me think back to the few days I took to consider going back to school.  For me too, it was a no-brainer.  I didn’t discuss my decision with anyone until I actually applied because it felt right.  Few things in life have felt that good.  I’m still surprised at how quickly I  moved forward because usually I sit back and debate with myself for spell.  I like certainty and grad school was always that, certain.

I also spent time telling my friend how different grad school is from undergrad.  Maybe it was my program specifically (which is all-round fabulous) but there was a real sense of community I didn’t feel in undergrad.  Even though everyone’s backgrounds were diverse, our connection through our commitment to the course and the program was evident.  Sure, things weren’t always kittens and roses but for the most part the hard work was always balanced by great discussions and experiences. 

People ask me if I’m going to pursue my PhD now.  I chuckle and say absolutely not but I’m starting to wonder.  Certainly not right away.  I want and need to get more experience but one day I think I would like to take that challenge on.  I think I miss school. 

Image source: Internation Talk Like A Pirate Day

I have this friend. We’ll call her Angie because that’s her name.  Angie recently ventured into her local public branch library.  YEH for Angie!  She later confessed being intimidated by the experience.  Nothing terrible happened, she wasn’t shushed out of the building.  She simply didn’t know how to navigate the library.  She didn’t know who to ask her questions, what computers to search the catalog with or where to find her book.  My friend Angie can talk to anyone, be in any situation and be confident and fabulous.  Seriously, I can leave her for a minute and come back and she’s already talking to someone.  So I find it very curious that the library would throw her off so much.

I walk into any library and feel right at home.  Sure each one is unique like beautiful snowflakes (insert s

norting noise here) but libraries tend to have similar areas with similar functions.  Working in one and utilizing many, I know the drill, ref desk for questions, circ desk to check out, phone calls taken outside.  For the general population though, outside of school, how familiar are they with the basic layout and function of the library?  It doesn’t help that there are specialized areas, staffed by specialized people, called by terms that are not commonly used outside of the field.  So how do our patrons know what to do?  Where to go?  Who to talk to?

What my friend does know and myself as well, is retail.  Yes a dirty word, but the retail model is more familiar to people in their 30’s and 20’s.  We’re the mall culture.  New stuff up front on pretty displays and a greeter to tell you about the sales, staff walking the floors and fixing displays, registers conveniently located for browsing in the back.  My friend likes that set up too, besides being comfortable with it.  So do I.  Take for example the big B bookstore I used to work at (yes, I played for the other team once).  Many hours were spent on where things went.  There were the integrated endcaps with the movie, the book tie-in cover, the board game and some CDs for good measure.  There was the placement of the bestseller table, the new fiction bays, the staff recommendation endcap.  As my friend said, it is visually pleasing.  And she made another point.  Why can’t libraries be like that?  What experience do we offer our users, patrons and clients?  Why can’t you ask anyone with a name badge your question?  Why do we call it the circulation desk when it’s the checkout?  Do our practices benefit us or them?

While asking these questions I also recognize that libraries should not be copies of big retail stores.  We offer services that retail has no interest outside of selling another item.  I strongly believe though we need to look closely at what makes sense or what we do because it’s always been done that way.  There is no lamer phrase than “we’ve always done it this way” and it means nothing.

I wonder how many other people, like my friend, avoid the library because they don’t know how it works or they associate it with school?  How far do we have to go to change perceptions and how far should we go?  At what point are we just talking to ourselves?

It’s here, it’s here, it’s here…Catching Fire.  Look at that sexy cover.  I haven’t been this excited about a book, or film, or show for a while (although HBO is developing a pilot called “Game of Thrones” with some yummy actors but this is year or so off) 

 Part of my excitment is that Hunger Games, the book before Catching Fire, was the most surprising, exciting and intriguing book I read in 2008.  It also featured a tough/strong female lead, a touch of romance and some great action.  She out runs a freaking forest fire!  I don’t know where this love of a good action sequence came from but it’s almost required for my enjoyment of anything.  So I loved the first book, but why the itchy, burning desire for the next amoung all the other series I read?  And why do I crave that shiver?  That antici…pation.

But anticipation is as much a motivation to read as escapism or information seeking.  The desire, nay, the need to find out what happens next is why we start, finish and fight over books.  That’s what good authors do, make you care about the characters or the story enough to find out how it ends.  I’m afflicted with the need to know how something ends.  I’m notorious for jumping to the end, reading spoilers, watching episodes in reverse order.  I remember asking a friend who died at the end of Pearl Harbor so I wouldn’t have to see it.  But when I hold back and restrain myself, oh, OH, how sweet the anticipation tastes.

To tease myself a bit more, I’m finishing my stack of library books before I start Catching Fire.  Okay maybe I’m waiting for the weekend because I know I’ll be up until all hours, half blind, reading just one more page, one more page.  I’m stretching this out because the next book will be so far away and once I give to the anticipation I’m a slave to the just one more page, one more page.

The year is halfway gone so I wanted to evaluate progress on my 100 books in a year challenge.

On my ever helpful Goodreads page I have tagged 64 books as “2009.”  Of those, 20 are adult books, 37 youth (kid and YA), 8 graphic novels, 2 did not finish and 5 that I am currently reading.  Yes that does not equal 64, I cross tag certain books. 

I am continuely suprised that I don’t finish books as fast as I think I do.  True I read some books faster, like Nora Roberts or Meg Cabot because its delightful yet mindless drivel.  And I have a habit of retiring books if I can’t get into them *cough* Ghostgirl *cough*.  I wonder if the challenge is taking a toll on my reading habits.  I pressure myself to finish so I can move on to the next book, get that next notch. 

I need to read 36 more before December 31.  Things should start picking up now I read all the Printz books I wanted to and am moving on to the Caudill nominees for this year.  I started with Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life which was amazing.  I have two more that came in this week so I might get to them this weekend.  But first I have to get my Matt Cruse fix.  Kenneth Oppel and his Airborn series might be my new favorite Potter replacement.  Adventure, mystery, like our world but not quite.  And it has this Steampunk vibe that is very cool.  Probably stay up tonight and finish it, my last nod to summer break.

Wouldn’t Colin Morgan from Merlin make a great Matt Cruse?  Sure he’s bit old but he plays the skinny and awkward, yet smart and sensitive so well. 

It always comes back to haunt you.

I picked up Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley  and thought, wow this looks great and I love the tagline “Rest in Popularity.”  The Edward Gorey goth girl on the cover, the gothy typeface, the coffin-shape of the book were all very attractive.  A funny satire on popularity was promised.   Unpopular Charlotte attempts to become popular but her plans are ruined when she dies.  Sounded promising.

I was disappointed.   Very.

First off, it wasn’t funny.  The jokes were pointed out with lines like “she said jokingly.”  That is the laugh track of books and usually signifies someone is kidding/being sarcastic, not actually telling a joke. 

Second was another problematic line.  After our heroine dies and wakes up in her high school, she finds she needs to graduate from Dead Ed to move on. There is mention of no desire to see her family because teens are too self-involved.  Excuse me?  Huh?  Seriously?  If your average teen died and was a ghost they wouldn’t take a peek back home?  Just for the satisfaction of seeing them cry, knowing you were missed, especially considering at this point of the story the main character’s obsession is attention.  No, I’m sorry, I’m calling BS.  That’s lazy writing.  “I don’t want to write about the family because they won’t have a large role so I’ll put this throw-away line in and be done with it.”  This is how we should find out and care about Charlotte.   How does she talk to people in her life, like family?  How important are they to her?  Do they know of her obsessive desire to be popular?  It frustrating as a reader because there is a giant hole in the main character by page 52 and there is no way to fill it.

And lastly, characters.  Even secondary ones need to be rounded and distiguishable.  All the dead kids blended into one and with the shifting view points and human possession so that one character was acting through another…confusing, flat, and for just great potential, boring.

Why am I nitpicking this book apart?  Why can’t I move on?  Am I that bitter?  Probably yes to the bitter but mostly I wanted this book to be better.  I wanted to love it and have it be my new “you gotta read this.”  I also resent that it panders to the worst stereotypes of teen girls.  If you’re not popular than you’re either an outcast trying to break in or a rebel trying to break out.  Is this true anymore?  After the Queen Bees and Mean Girls stories does this trope really work or has it become a cliche?  Maybe if it was funnier, maybe if it was shorter…something, this whole thing needed something.

Then I had a revelation while viewing Ghostgirl’s well-designed website, and wanted inexplicably to like this book.  Ghostgirl should have totally been a graphic novel.  I could have forgiven the flat characters and unaminated plot.  And after viewing the website it seems the whole set-up from book design to the “Rest in Popularity” tagline to the Gorey-esque cover dead girl are a marketing package for the Hot Topic/Torrid crowd.  The merchandising is fantastic.  Really, if I was back in my jeans/teeshirt high school uniform I would covet the “Rest in Popularity” tee.   And then, thank you Wikipedia, I found all the answers.  Of course Ghostgirl started out as website character.  Of course it makes sense all the cross over merch was in place.  I just wish the story lived up to design.   Or that I wasn’t so critical.  Or bitter.  Same thing right.  Going with Lame on this.

I hate to abandon books.  There is nothing that leaves me with a greater sense of lost and utter despondency.  Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  I do feel like I’m betraying the author by not giving the books a fair chance.

Mostly these are books I want to like too.  Eithere the title, or the cover or the subject interest me on some level.  But then I start getting into the books and lose steam.  Or the book doesn’t get going fast enough.  Or it’s not what I expected.  Or the worse, I stop and never start caring about the characters.

I’m trying to finish the Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Gothgirlby Barry Lyga.  Great title right?  I’m slowly getting into comics and this is about a comic Fanboy.  Solid YA premise.  But it’s going nowhere, for me.  Maybe that’s part of the issue, the book’s not for me.  Maybe I really need to be a 15 year old male comic fan and not just empathise with one.  And there is nothing bad or offensive about it, it’s just kinda, blah. 

I have a decision to make, drop it and move on or muscle though.  Either way my life won’t be drastically changed, no one will die.  But it is disappointing.

I decided at the beginning of the year, since I have been using my goodreads account regularly, I should create a 2009 tag so I could see how many books I read all year.  And then I thought one step further, why not test myself and see if I could read 100 books this year.  Back in January I thought this would be a piece of cake.  I easily read that much in a year. 

As it turns out, not so much.  As of today I’ve only read 33 and the year is inching to being half over!  And I feel like I read all day.  Which is partially true considering how many blogs and online articles I read.  But still!  Another issue is lately I’ve been driving to work since it cuts about 30 mins off my commute.  So that’s leaving me with over 2 hours less I read every day which I’ve been spending on going out and watching Supernatural.  I would read more at work but it’s easier to pretend to be working when you’re staring at a computer screen.  I’m feeling very book lazy lately.  Part of it might be the current JOB situation.  I miss my storytime internship, I really do. 

But I’m determined to reach my goal so I’m going to buck up and try to finish three books before next Tuesday, Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman), Stiff (Mary Roach) and Nation (Terry Pratchett).  Ambitious but I believe I can do it.