Don’t Stop Believing, I Mean, Reading (Hold onto that Feeling)

I don’t know why April has turned into confessions of previously-held beliefs that turned out to be kind of lame. (Ahem. Ahem. Ahem.) This should probably be the point where I realize I’ve said too much, none of you respect me anymore, and that I should slink off to the corner.

I’m sure you already know that is not what I’m doing. With me, there is never a chance saying too much brings on a silence.

So when I was, well, not but a wee Ames, but a younger one, I was watching Oprah for whatever reason, and she was talking to a bunch of authors. (I guess, say what you will about Oprah, but that lady respects literature and that is awesome.) The writers were giving out some writing advice so I listened eagerly because this was before the internet (yes, I am so old I have a “before the internet” period that is not insignificant), so I wasn’t sitting in a plethora of advice and wisdom and information.

Anyways, some writer lady said NEVER TO READ EVER STOP READING NO READING if you are writing. OMG! I wrote all the time! I also read all the time, but I figured I had to listen to experts and STOP READING IMMEDIATELY. She said if you read anyone else you’d write in their style! I was all, NOOO I DON’T EVEN HAVE MY OWN STYLE YET UGH I DON’T WANT TO COPY SOMEONE ELSE’S.

So, yes. I was an aspiring writer… who did not read. At all.

Probably not shockingly, I wasn’t writing much either! Obviously books aren’t the only form of inspiration to people who… write books. There is music and television and film and theatre and, right, real life! Still. I think it’s no coincidence that my periods of least reading and least writing look a lot like this:

Anyways. I’ve personally found as long as I’m not mainlining one particular author, I do not suffer from style-stealing. Reading really just makes me want to write! Good books inspire me with their greatness. Bad books inspire me to be better. Books like mine make me feel like I’m on the right track. Books unlike mine make me think about things I might not otherwise. Reading my genre makes me understand it better. Reading other genres makes me understand mine better too. Books open me up to new ideas. Books reflect my own experiences, but also make me more empathetic toward others’.

Just remember that next time you watch Oprah.

Inspiration

When I was growing up, I always assumed if you wanted to be a writer, you had to write Very Serious Books, and to get ready to do so, you had to read Very Serious Books. That was really hard for me because in general I did not like Very Serious Books. I liked Middle Grade series about girls who did cool stuff and kissed dreamy boys and had neat pets and, also, I enjoyed reading about girls like that who had Very Serious Illnesses, but they also did cool stuff and kissed dreamy boys and had neat pets. That stuff made me love reading but I was convinced it couldn’t have anything to do with what I wrote, and what I read to be a better writer.

The good news is that eventually (I’m really not comfortable telling you guys how “eventually”), I realized I didn’t have to write Very Serious Books, and that I could embrace all the inspiration I could wrap my brain around. I thought about the books that I loved growing up, and I thought about the books that totally inspired me to start writing YA. Guess what? Most of them were not Very Serious Books. Most of them were not even A Little Serious Books.

And that is why, everyone, I am super-psyched that this morning I received a notification that The Summer Before has shipped to me. I am going to read the crap out of it.

Taking Care of Terrific

In a break from rewriting, I’m trying to get through my stack of library books. I’ve been slowly adding all the Lois Lowry books I haven’t yet read, and just started Taking Care of Terrific. Lowry does a lot of things I love, but I could probably sum it all up by pointing to the fact that she wrote this sentence:

The problem with most people’s lives is that they have lost the capacity to believe that Gregory Peck would be along.

And That’s Why You Always Leave a Note!

One year ago, only a couple weeks after I got my shiny new car, some jerkface mcgee scraped the back corner of it in the parking garage and didn’t leave any sort of note. I buffed it as best I could and used some touch-up paint, but I was honestly pretty devastated. MY NEW CAR. This was especially troubling because the main reason I got rid of my previous car was it appeared to be made out of no heavier a plastic than used to make cups for iced drinks at Starbucks.

Flash forward to this week. I arrived back at my car from a day writing at my usual coffeeshop only to find the same kind of damage. This time, however, there was a note!! And now, only a few days later, my beautiful car has been fixed and is beautiful again. Thank you, Note Leaver!

Now back to reading the books the library wants back.

Book Club FTW

The Pardon My Youth YA book club at Skylight Books continues on in its vein of awesome. This month we read and discussed Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied (moderator the always-fantastic and hilarious Lisa Yee) with next month’s book selection Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas (of Veronica Mars, ya know, not Matchbox 20).

Honestly, it’s fairly lame that I am such a lover of books and discussion about books and arguing about books and the search for meaning in books and BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS that it took me to my early thirties before joining a frigging book club. So I beseech you: if you too think books are awesome, do not wait! Get thee to this book club! Or one in your own town! Do it! You will thank me, or at least be happy you followed my advice.

Other discussions had: why we are all pro-library, and how we organize our books. Does anyone else out there adhere to my method of fiction alphabetical by author’s last name, just like a book store? I find it soooo easy to find my books this way, even if keeping them in this order when getting a pile of new books can be a pain. I was definitely an odd ball out for this though.

What Makes YA?

Earlier on Twitter I posted that while I’m enjoying Tender Morsels* by Margo Lanagan, I most definitely do not find it to be YA. There are other books I’ve read (such as the Spell Book of Listen Taylor) that I thought could go either way, but with Tender Morsels, it’s not that. I truly just don’t find it to be YA at all. It’s not even the dark themes – of which there are many, and I’m only halfway through! – but the storytelling style and the fact that teenage characters are in the minority.

At the YA Q&A I went to a couple months ago at Skylight Books, Cecil Castellucci gave the definition she liked the most, which is that YA is very much of the moment, whereas “adult” books with teen protags are written more in a looking back style (i.e. Prep). I think for the most part I agree with this definition, though of course there are lots of exceptions to any rule.

There’s also the fact that YA is in many ways just a marketing division, and since it’s hot now, I feel like a lot of books that could go either way are getting thrown into YA so that they can sell more or at least be seen as hotter. And if that works, great, I totally want YA to thrive! But every once in awhile, a categorization just blows my mind and I have to sit back and think about it.

What do you guys think?

*I will have you know that I only took this book home from the library because the cover looked like some still-to-be-written Neko Case song come to life.

One of my Favorite Things

Hot damn, I love reading a friend’s writing for the first time when it’s really good. There aren’t many exciting moments that happen while using word-processing software, but this is definitely one of them.

In Which I Totally Judged a Book by its Cover

I am incredibly embarrassed about this story, but I will tell it anyway.

Daphne Unfeasible raved about Gayle Forman’s If I Stay, so I went to my local bookstore to get it right away. I’m not working right now, so a new hardcover is a bit of a splurge for me, but I think books are an excellent use of funds, so, whatever. Skylight didn’t have it in stock, but they kindly ordered it for me and called me a few days later to come and get it. Which I did!

And I devoured it, and I cried, and it’s so effing lovely and it stayed with me for days.

So I went to put it on my shelf and thought, hmmm, that’s weird, I have something else written by another Forman? It was this ugly-ass ARC I got at BEA last year, and had never picked up because it looked like it was some badly self-published/designed book, and, whatever, aesthetics matter, right? But then I was thinking, “ooh, maybe I have another Gayle Forman book! I’m gonna plow through it right now!”

But what were the chances it was actually another book by the same author?

Well, pretty good, as you might have it. In fact, it was an ARC of If I Stay! I had owned this amazing book for ELEVEN MONTHS and never once touched it because I thought it was so ugly. I didn’t even remember TAKING IT.

Anyways, I wasn’t upset I’d spent the money on it, because I would be a pretty crappy writer if I only read free books, but my main frustration was that I could have been telling everyone about this book and living with it in my head since the previous May! Also I worried this made me a jerk to ignore a lovely book just because its cover looked like an experiment in MS Paint.

Take a look for yourselves:

Compare to this gorgeous cover:

What a jerk am I!

First Pardon My Youth Book Club Meeting!

I just attended the first meeting of the Pardon My Youth YA book club at Skylight Books, and I must say it was frigging awesome. The discussed book was I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak, and it was seriously fantastic to really dig into the plot, themes, and characters with others… including actual teenagers! SO great.

If you live in the L.A. area and love YA, you should definitely check out next month’s meeting! Next month’s book is What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell, and I’m super psyched about it because I’ve been wanting to read it anyway.

Pardon My Youth

If you’re in L.A. and love YA lit like I do (or even with a slightly less-rabid devotion) you should check out the Pardon My Youth YA Book Club, starting this Sunday at Skylight Books. I have never gone to a book club before, so I am super psyched!

(Well, once, right after the final Harry Potter volume was out, a bunch of us got together to drink butterbeer and eat treacle tarts and discuss, and that was nerdtastic lovely!)

There are a billion aspects of literature we can now thank, at least tangentially, Harry Potter for, but for me, one biggie is that it was really my kick-off to discussing the crap out of what I’m reading with my friends. Sure, back in grade school I was all about dissecting the latest Baby-sitter’s Club, so I guess in a way it’s all about continuing that excitement of reading with others. (And I’ll admit I sometimes get a great deal of joy from NOT enjoying something with someone else who did NOT enjoy the same thing. No! Strike that! I am all sunshine and roses and tiny scratches from kittens!)

Anyways! Locals, I hope to see you there!