New Location!

Hey guys, sorry it took me so long to post this, but my blog now has a new location. I will no longer be posting to this website. Instead, all updates will continue at alisonverhalen.com.

I have my very own website! How cool is that? I figured, since I'm going out on my own as a freelance writer full time now, I would need a more official address on the internet so I had some awesome friends of mine set up that website for me. Once that was done, it just made sense to start putting my blog up there. As soon I start actually publishing those novels I've been working on, you'll be able to get updates on those from that website and even buy them!

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you at alisonverhalen.com!

The Anti 9-to-5 Guide

Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube

by Michelle Goodman

I am so done with my day job. I feel pretty safe saying that here for a few reasons. 1) I'm pretty sure no one at work reads this blog. 2) I doubt they would fire me during holiday season. 3) I'm going to quit anyway, so who cares if I get fired? I have decided that I will work through the holiday season and then start off the new year on the unemployment line! I mean self-employment line!

Without getting into the details of my day job, I do want to say that it's really not that bad. I've certainly had worse. It's just the commute that I hate, and there are so many other things I want to do with my time that twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the phone to ring at work just is not cutting it for me right now.

So I read this book hoping it would give me some tips on what to do after I turn in my notice. Turns out, not a whole lot. Goodman quit her day job without even really knowing what she wanted to do (done) or getting any kind of client base (done) or even saving a little money (not quite done, but I have come up with a  budget and ways to minimize expenses), so I'm already a few steps ahead of where she was.

That said, I still highly recommend this book. If nothing else, it's very amusing, as well as informational. Goodman has a great sense of humor and a conversational style that kept me reading. She also has a ton of information on how to go about quitting your job regardless of what you want to do. Thinking of starting a non-profit? This book has some excellent resources to help you get started. What if you still want a day job, you just don't want an office job? Or you want to work from home? This book still has you covered.

Goodman knew that her path to self-employment was not the only one, so she interviewed entrepreneurial women working in all sorts of fields and included their words of wisdom in this book. The result is a wealth of information that Goodman sprinkles throughout the book, rather than leaving it compacted in one interview section. Each chapter contains quotes and advice from women doing whatever you want to do, and I think Goodman did a pretty good job of covering all her bases. From self-employment, to volunteering, to working travel into your budget and schedule, to just spending more time doing what you love. She has advice on how to go about easing yourself out of the 9-to-5 lifestyle and into the kind of life you want.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to change up their work schedule. It left me more knowledgeable about what I'm about to do, more confident, and entertained me the whole way through.

Paper Towns

by John Green

I was kind of disappointed in this one. Until now, the only book I had read by John Green was The Fault in Our Stars and I kind of lost my shit over that book. I still have yet to see that movie, although I really want to. So when I heard that Paper Towns was going to be the next John Green book to be made into a film, I immediately put it at the top of my to-read list.

It was only OK. I can't say I loved it or hated it. Just that it contains more of the teenage whining than I can really handle. The Fault in Our Stars had a surprising lack of whining, despite the fact that it was about kids dying of cancer who totally have the right to whine their hearts out.

In Paper Towns, the whining might be warranted, but I'm less sure as to why. This girl (Margot) runs away from home (not for the first time) right before she's about to graduate from high school. The main character (Quentin) has always had a huge crush on Margot, even though they haven't hung out since grade school. So while he's trying to find Margot after she disappears, Quentin spends a lot of time wondering if he ever really knew her.

It's a valid question. How many of you have fallen in love with someone, only to realize that they are not at all the person you thought they were? Did they change, or had you been assuming they were what you wanted them to be? There's a lot to be said for the fact that they way we treat people is based on our perceptions of them, rather than how they really are, and I'm sure that goes double for self-centered teenagers. It's also why we tend to act differently around different people. Our friends expect us to behave differently from our parents, whose expectations are different from our teachers/boss.

So Quentin spends a lot of time learning about himself and other people and poetry. And whining. Because Margot has run off before and has been known to be a bit of an attention whore, everyone else pretty much goes back to resuming their regularly scheduled end of senior year. This upsets Quentin because he thinks everyone should care as much he does about his idealized Margot, even though you could probably argue that they know her better than he does by not worrying about her. If she wants to come back, she'll come back. If not, she can take care of herself.

I won't ruin the ending for you, but I will tell you that I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I kind of liked it. It was pretty romantic, but it was also unsatisfying. I think it was meant to be unsatisfying, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. All I can say is that Quentin probably did more growing as a character in the four weeks that we see him than he did in the rest of his high school career.

5 Reasons (Not) To Do National Novel Writing Month

Last year was my first adventure with National Novel Writing Month after rejecting it the year before. I'm glad I participated once, but I don't think I'll ever do it again. With that in mind, here are five reasons to do NaNoWriMo and five reasons not to.

5 Reasons To Do NaNoWriMo

1) It's a good exercise, especially if you're in a rut. I lucked out last year in that I hadn't written anything new for awhile, so I got to rediscover the joy of creating a new world and new characters. I blew through the first few ten thousand words before I started to get stuck and slowed down.

2) It teaches you time management.  Are you one of those people who needs two hours set aside to sit down and just focus on you're writing in order to get anything done? No, you're not. You may think you are (I used to think I was), but the pressure of NaNoWriMo teaches you to take advantage of all the little bits of time you have in the morning before work, after work, between dinner and bed time. You really can write whenever, wherever and NaNoWriMo is great for making you aware of that fact.

3) Community. This is the one time of year when thousands of writers are going through the same thing. Look on any writing forum and you'll see columns of posts of people who are doing just what you are. There is no better way to get tips than from forums like these, especially when you're all going through the same thing. Just don't use them as an excuse to kill time when you should be writing!

4) You might actually get a novel out of it. I already had the rough draft of my 1st novel done before I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo, and I didn't actually finish the rough draft of my 2nd novel during the challenge (though I did write 50,000 words in one month, so I still call that a victory), but there are plenty of people who do NaNoWriMo without having actually finished a novel. For some people, the pressure of the deadline is just what they need to motivate them to finish that manuscript. So if you've always wanted to write a novel, but haven't gotten around to it yet, you might want to try this challenge.

5) Bragging rights. You just wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. How many of your friends/family members can say that?

5 Reasons Not To Do NaNoWriMo

1) Word count is stupid. Yes, it's great to say that you wrote 50,000 words in one month, but how many of those words are you going to end up deleting when you go back to edit? 50,000 is the bare minimum length for a novel, and if you're going to try to get it traditionally published, most editors won't even look at anything shorter than 80,000. Although having a rough draft done is a huge accomplishment, the fact is that's just the first step. You still have a lot of editing to do before you can send it out into the world, and if you spent a month filling your manuscript with extraneous words so you could meet your word quota for the day, you'll have that much more work to do as an editor.

2) Poor writing/life balance. I don't think I actually turned down any social engagements when I did NaNoWriMo last year, but I did spend a lot of time writing at my parents' house. This was mostly to get free food, but also because I love spending time with them. But how much can I really say I was spending time with them when I was telling them to be quiet so I could write? It's excellent to have an exercise that teaches you to take advantage of all the moments in the day you have to write, but not at the expense of your relationships.

3) Stress. It's very stressful to spend every waking minute either writing, or wondering when your next chance to write will be, and I'm not a fan of stress. When I started last year, I told myself it was on the condition that I would not stress out over it. I did not live up to that promise. Admittedly, there were other factors in addition to the writing challenge, but as that deadline drew closer and my writing block got worse, I freaked. My family can attest to how much not fun I was to be around in those last few days. Stress is a killer and I try to avoid it at all costs, including things that can be fun for a little while.

4) It's better to do it right the first time. No first draft gets published (with the exception of some ill-advised self-published novels). Everyone needs to edit their manuscript, at least a few times, before printing, even if you used an outline. The time constraint of NaNoWriMo does not promote good writing. It promotes fast writing, and I have always been a fan of quality over quantity. You may be able to write more than other people, but how is that going to help you if your writing is so bad no one wants to read it? If you do take the time to edit your manuscript to correct all the mistakes you made in those 30 days, how much of that time could you have spared yourself by taking the time write well in the first place?

5) Thanksgiving. I have never understood why NaNoWriMo has to take place, immediately after a big holiday, during one of the biggest holidays of the year (let's not forget the busiest travel day of the year), and right before THE biggest holiday of the year. I don't think a sugar coma is the best state to write in, nor do I want to be distracted by the knowledge that I have shopping to do, when all I want is to focus on my writing. Also, some of us (by which I mean me) tend to spend a week baking in preparation for Turkey Day. Can't we just reschedule NaNoWriMo for a better month? Like June? How about January, to coincide with all those New Year's Resolutions?

So that's my take on this particular challenge. Here are the pros and cons as I see them. Feel free to do with them what you will and make your own decision.

Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

I'm now almost all caught up on the Rainbow Rowell books. I just have Landline to go before she comes out with another one.

I read Eleanor & Park first and that was so adorable that it was really hard to live up to the level of expectation that it set. Then I read Fangirl, which was pretty great, but not as great as Eleanor & Park. Now I've just finished reading Attachments and it's my least favorite of the three, and I think that may be entirely because of the ending.

I really enjoyed most of the book. It's about a guy who is hired by a newspaper to read the emails that get flagged by the security system and send a warning to whoever sent the message. He starts reading the emails that two women (Beth and Jennifer) send back and forth. He never brings himself to send them a warning, and once he realizes that he's never going to send them a warning, he knows he should stop reading their emails, what with the invasion of privacy and all.

But he can't, and I can totally understand that. He gets wrapped up in the communication between these two best friends and I don't think it's any wonder that he was unable to make himself stop reading. To be clear, he only read the emails that were flagged by the security system. He had access to all of their emails, but he did have the decency not to cross that line. It may be a minor distinction, but personally, I think it's a pretty important one.

So the main character (Lincoln) starts to fall in love with one of the women (Beth) by reading their correspondence. There are two problems with this: 1) Beth has a live-in boyfriend, and 2) how do you explain to someone that you want to date them because you've secretly been reading their personal emails?

It's a pretty tricky situation, and although, like I said, I can totally believe that Lincoln got himself in that mess without actually being a super creepy cyber stalker, I'm still not entirely sure that Beth would be able to just get over it and start making out with him in a movie theater.

That's not to say that Rowell let them off easy. They had to talk it through and admit that it was pretty weird, but I would have expected Beth to need at least a little more convincing. How do you approach a guy you barely know who knows all about your personal life, like your last break-up?

The Last Olympian

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 5

by Rick Riordan

This is my favorite of the Percy Jackson books. It's mostly fighting and only minimal amounts of Percy being a dumb teenage boy. I recognize that, when your protagonist is a teenager, there are going to have to be some things that they don't understand, even though they're painfully obvious to the rest of us. This is a large part of the reason that I'm kind of having a hard time with YA right now. I can't stand all of the "Why is that person being nice to me?" "Why can't I stop thinking about so-and-so?" "What if I die a virgin?"

OK, so that last one isn't usually included in YA books (explicitly, but it is a valid concern for most of them). The point is that I spent enough time living in a whiny, confused teenager's head, and I really have no desire to go back.

I think Harry Potter did this well because we weren't actually inside his head. It was told from third person limited, rather than first person, so we got that Harry was confused about girls and stuff without having to hear all of the "But, whyyyyyyyyy?"

Riordan also needs to seriously stop using anything other than he said/she said. There was a time when I thought I would never write that, but here I am: a convert. Everyone's asking and insisting and arguing are so painfully obvious that there really is no need spell it all out for the reader. While I'm on the topic, Riordan's dialogue is pretty weak. Most of the time it feels very forced and stunted, often like he's trying too hard to be funny or poignant or whatever, when he needs to just let the moment be what it is. I realize he's writing for a younger crowd, but still, give them some credit.

OK, now that that's out of the way, I can talk about what I liked about this book. Mostly, the battles. I had so much fun watching New York get torn to shreds - again. That poor city gets so much abuse in our media. The gods are as snarky as ever, and I love them for it. I liked the idea of Demeter as the annoying mother-in-law, but I wish Persephone could say something other than "Mother!" Once is funny. Twice is pushing it. Three is beating the dead horse with a stick. She said it at least four times.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the fulfillment of the prophecy. Obviously, I knew that Percy couldn't die, being the narrator and all, although other YA books have been known to kill off their main characters, so I guess that didn't necessarily mean he was safe. It's just that Riordan spent five books building up to this moment, and in the end it passed without Percy (or the reader) even being aware of it.

I think that part of the anti-climactic feeling comes from the fact that the reader always knew that Percy was going to choose the side of the Olympians, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it made it easier for the reader to know who to root for, even when the gods weren't at their best. On the other hand, I think it would have been more interesting to watch Percy struggle with that decision more and leave the reader guessing.

Then again, this is YA fiction, and black-and-white good and evil sides are kind of par for the course.

Create Your Writer Platform

The Key to Building an Audience, Selling More Books, and Finding Success as an Author

by Chuck Sambuchino

The title of this book is pretty self-explanatory. Every writer these days needs this thing called a "platform": a way for your readers to find you. Or, depending on how you look at it, a way for you to find your readers. There are so many books coming out every day now that, in order to sell anything, you need a way to differentiate yourself from all of the other writers out there. If you simply publish a book and post about it on Twitter and Facebook, you're essentially shouting into a room that's already full of screaming people.

You have to give people a reason to buy your book, and one of the most effective ways to do that is to build a platform, a.k.a. a brand for your writing. Get known in the world of writing (or whatever it is you write about) and let people know what they can expect from you. What kind of writing? What kind of topics? What is your take on these topics? Why should people read what you write?

This book touches on a lot of the basics of building a platform. Namely, that you have to provide value to your audience and you have to provide that value consistently. Sambuchino also stresses the importance of getting speaking gigs, but much like How to Sell Your Book Like Wildfire, I think this book was mostly focused on non-fiction writers. This is largely because Sambuchino has been writing and publishing mostly non-fiction books, but fiction and non-fiction are two very different animals. I have been sufficiently convinced though, that there are speaking opportunities for fiction authors as well, and those should definitely be taken advantage of.

Speaking of providing value, this book has one thing that I love that I have not come across anywhere else: a whole section of interviews with 12 different authors on how they built and maintained their platforms. This was excellent because otherwise, as Sambuchino points out, he can only provide his experience with platform and publishing and there are many routes one can take. Personally, I very much appreciated the fact that there were two fiction authors included in this section. It was great to see what they did differently from the non-fiction authors, as well as the things that seem to be universal.

Now all I need is to figure out how to write a blog that people will actually want to read. Any ideas?

Lock In

by John Scalzi

I'll admit, I was a little skeptical about this book. I love Scalzi and am willing to read just about anything he writes, but I have to say that, at first glance, my impression of this book was "meh". Books about epidemics aren't really my thing.

Then Scalzi was on Twitter promoting his novella Unlocked which was his precursor to Lock In. He entertained me so much just by promoting the book, that I had to buy it. Plus it was only $1.99 for kindle. So I bought it and read it and I actually really liked it. It was written as a kind of documentary of Haden's Syndrome and the style was very different from what I had seen from Scalzi before. So I was willing to give Lock In  a try.

If you liked Redshirts, you'll enjoy Lock In. It's a mystery with a major conspiracy behind everything, and the characters are as enjoyable as Scalzi's characters always are. Speaking of which, I have determined that Scalzi only has one main character that he uses for all of his stories. Personally, I am OK with this.

The premise of the book is that there was an epidemic of a particular flu virus. It was much more deadly than the normal flu strains and has one nasty side effect. Some people got the flu and were fine a few days later and that was that. Other people got sick, got better, and then experienced a second phase of the disease, which manifested similar to meningitis. Once that happened, a fraction of the population experienced what became known as "lock in": they were completely paralyzed. They were still conscious and aware of everything going on around them, but they could not move or speak. Major bummer.

Technology to the rescue! So they created a computer that they put in these people's brains that could control a robot (technically called "Personal Transport Units" but more commonly known as "threeps" after C3PO). By using these robots to get around, people with lock in could experience most aspects of a normal life.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. When someone looks like a robot, are you going to treat them like any other person? Of course not! That would be way too rational. So there's loads of prejudice and hate crimes and all the political ramifications that always go along with it.

The book is told from the point of view of a Haden (which is what they call someone who has lock in), so the reader gets to experience all the pros and cons of living life mostly as a robot. I was pretty impressed with Scalzi's attention to detail and the way he foresaw the future if something like this ever happened. Everything from the prejudice of those without Hadens Syndrome to the different functions of threeps to the technicalities of having to use a machine to get around. It was pretty cool and Scalzi is as entertaining as ever, so if you like reading his stuff, I definitely recommend reading this one.

On a related note, Lock In has already gotten a TV deal and this was Scalzi's reaction to the news.

Colorless Tsukuru Tasaki

And His Years of Pilgrimage

by Haruki Murakami

I only recently heard of Murakami and wanted to give him a try. I think his IQ84 sounds interesting, but I wasn't willing to devote 900 pages to a writer I might hate, so I started with Tasaki instead. Turned out to be a much better choice because, not only is it much shorter (386 pages) but the pages are pretty small too, so it was a quick read. I blew through it in two days.

As it happens, I really liked this book. It's about a guy named Tsukuru who has no friends. He had four very close friends when he was in high school and they were the only friends he had. Then one day, in the middle of his sophomore year of college, they collectively decided that they no longer wanted to see, or hear from him ever again. They gave him no explanation. They just said, "Think about it, and you'll figure it out."

Of course, Tsukuru never did figure it out. He could not think of a single thing he had done wrong and everyone had acted normally the last time they had seen him.

It turns out I can relate. I had something similar happen to me when I was the same age. Not as drastic, of course, but I can absolutely empathize with Tsukuru spending the next six months just wishing he could die.

Now it's sixteen years later. Tsukuru is 36, still has no friends to speak of, but he has a job he likes and he's had a stream of steady girlfriends. Now he has a girlfriend he really likes (Sara) and he tells her all about his four friends from high school and I how they cruelly rejected him. He has never talked about this before to anyone, not even his parents, but Sara wants to know about his childhood and so Tsukuru finds himself opening up.

Sara insists on getting to the bottom of what happened. She asks Tsukuru to give her the names and last known addresses of these people so she can hunt them down. She's convinced that it's all just a big misunderstanding and that Tsukuru needs to find out what really happened so he can get past it and move on with his life. She thinks that he still bears some serious emotional scars that need to be dealt with. Given that he still has no friends, she may very well be on to something.

Sara tracks them down via the stalker's best friend that is the Internet and strongly urges Tsukuru to find and talk to the three of his four friends that are still living. He does, and it turns out that the group fell apart not long after he was shut out. It was a misunderstanding that led to cutting him out, but I won't spoil it for you.

I like the book, but Murakami is pretty heavy on the similes. Everything is like birds, or water, or rocks. At first I thought it was kind of cool. I thought his similes provided some wonderful imagery for his story and I wondered how he did that.

Then I realized he did that all the time. It started to get to me around page 300 and reminded me of Winter's Tale, which I hated. It makes me think that reading a 900-page book by him might not be such a great idea. Actually, I seem to have lost patience for most books over about 600 pages, so maybe I should just leave IQ84 to the Murakami fanatics.

The other thing that got me about this book was the open ending. I don't like open endings. I know life is full of them, but that's why I read fiction: so that everything can have a definite beginning, middle, and end. Fiction is my escape from life's uncertainty. Tsukuru does settle things with his friends (as much as something like that can be settled after 16 years), but we don't get to find out what happens with him and Sara and that kind of drives me crazy. I like Sara and I think she's really good for Tsukuru and I want him to be happy. I know a lot of people think that the open endings are cool, but personally, I think it's just lazy writing.

13 Little Blue Envelopes

by Maureen Johnson

I read this book because 1) it was on sale and 2) Maureen Johnson is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter. I love her to pieces on social media, so it makes sense that I would love her books.

It turns out that's not quite the case. Not that this is a bad book, it's just not particularly good. It's a solid "meh".

The premise is that this girl (Virginia/Ginny) has just found out that her eccentric, unreliable artist aunt has just died of brain cancer while touring Europe and left Ginny with 13 blue envelopes. Each envelope contains instructions and Ginny can only open them in certain times and places. Each letter has an assignment like "Find that cafe in Paris that I lived in for a month" and "Ask out an Italian boy". Once she has completed an assignment, she can open the next envelope.

Ginny is also not allowed to take along any maps, guidebooks, or any kind of electronics (including cell phone, camera, and computer) and she is forbidden electronic communication with anyone in America. Only letters and postcards to let the family know she's still alive are permitted. She does manage to find ways around some of these rules, and at one point she flat out breaks one of them, but for the most part I am in favor of these rules.

Ginny (16-years-old) is shy and introverted and has never been away from home on her own before, so to say that this experience is new for her is an understatement. In that sense, this is largely a coming-of-age story as Ginny explores the world and meets all sorts of people and gets to know herself better. She discovers that she can do fun and exciting things without her aunt, and at the same time, she comes to terms with her aunt's death. Despite the slow death that is brain cancer, Aunt Peg was in Europe and out of contact with her family when she got sick, so her poor family never even knew she was sick until she was already gone. One minute she was fine, then she left with no explanation and no forwarding address, then they got notice that she had passed and that they should go to the airport to pick up her remains.

The letters were also kind of Aunt Peg's way of saying good-bye to Ginny. In the letters, she got to tell Ginny about her travels and let Ginny experience parts of them for herself. She also told Ginny things that she never told anyone else, and I think that probably helped her cope with what was coming.

I know that Maureen Johnson has done some traveling. I don't know how extensive, but I do know that she did an excellent job of immersing the reader into every place that Ginny went. She boiled down each city to its most basic elements and presented them to the reader. In doing so, she was able to transport the reader all over Europe with Ginny, without taking away from the story. It was really quite brilliant.

The Primal Connection

Follow Your Genetic Blueprint to Health and Happiness

by Mark Sisson

This is the first book I have ever read by Mark. Up until this point, I haven't felt the need to read any of his books because I read his blog almost every day and I didn't think I could get much information from his books that I wasn't already getting from his blog. This book did kind of intrigue me, though, so when it went on sale for $1.99 for the kindle a few weeks ago, I went ahead and bought it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mark Sisson, he is huge in the Paleo/Primal world. His blog is full of wonderful advice about how to eat and exercise in a manner that more closely resembles the way our ancient ancestors ate and exercised, with the theory that this is better for us. He talks a lot about diet and exercise in his book The Primal Blueprint, which I really have no desire to read, because at this point, I think I have that pretty well under control. It's a great resource for those who are just starting on their Paleo/Primal journey, though, and I know it has convinced a lot of people to give up the grains, sugars, and processed foods that make up the standard American diet (SAD).

The Primal Connection is about incorporating other aspects of our evolutionary history into our lifestyle. The idea is that, if we didn't evolve to eat grains, sugars, and rancid vegetable oils, we certainly did not evolve to spend our days sitting in a cubicle staring at a computer screen. Not that Mark is advocating that we all quit our jobs to walk around in the sun all day (although how great would that be?), but that we need to be aware of the health risks involved in extended periods of sitting inside and what we can do about it.

To a large extent, I was right about the overlap with his blog. There was a lot of information in here that I already knew, but there was also some information of which I was not aware and that alone was worth purchasing the book. My favorite was a section on posture. I was ready to breeze through this section, convinced that the rods in my back are sufficient to keep me from having to worry about that. Turns out that's not quite the case. My rods don't extend to my neck (thank the gods), and according to Mark, the most common form of poor posture is when the head juts forward instead of extending straight up from the shoulders. Of course, because I spend all of my time in front of a computer, a TV, or a book, my head is always jutting forward. Since this book made me aware of what a problem that is (in addition to an injury I'm still dealing with as a result of said poor posture) I have been using the techniques mentioned in this book to straighten my spine and keep it straight. It's a struggle, because every time my mind wanders, my head juts forward again, but I do think that simply being aware of the problem has helped immensely.

Anyone who is familiar with Mark's blog knows that he is not one to say something just because it sounds good. All of his statements are backed up with hard scientific evidence and he is excellent about providing links and references to the science he uses to come to his conclusions. Which means reading this book has provided me with a list of other books on related topics that I now want to read. Just what I need: more books to add to my to-read list :P

Reality Boy

by A.S. King

This is such a beautiful story. King really knows how to tug on the heartstrings.

It's about a seriously messed up boy (Gerald) with a seriously messed up family, and what do we do with messed up families? We put them on television! So this poor boy's life as a five-year-old was broadcast all over the world. Except, as most of us know, it wasn't his real life that got broadcast. It was the stuff that made him look the worst, because that's what America wants to see.

Now that boy is seventeen and that show still haunts him. People recognize him as the little boy they saw on television twelve years ago and they judge him based on what they saw on that. Needless to say, the poor boy doesn't have a whole lot of friends. He is also still trying to deal with his completely dysfunctional family and the fact that his oldest sister and his mom just don't love him. His other sister left the first chance she got and doesn't even bother to call. His dad loves him, but doesn't know how to stand up for him. So the kid is pretty much on his own when it comes to surviving his family, and I mean literally struggling to survive.

But it's all OK because he meets a girl! OK, that's true, but it's not as cheesy as it sounds. Yes, he meets a girl, and yes, she makes him happy, but it's not that simple. This book, like all good YA books, is about defining yourself, rather than letting the people around you define you. OK, that sounds cheesy, too, but I swear it's not. The fact that his five-year-old self was broadcast on national television adds a whole new dimension to idea of not letting others define you. 

I think we've all heard the story of the poor tortured high school student whose family expects her to get straight As and get into Stanford, or whatever, but there are fewer stories of kids whose family expect (even want) him to end up in special ed and in jail. 

So Gerald demands better. This is after his anger management coach has spent the past couple years telling him that he cannot demand anything. Any time that Gerald demands, or feels that he deserves, or should get something, could become a trigger for anger when he gets disappointed. So he doesn't demand anything. He doesn't even demand to to live in a safe place, until of course, at the end of the book, after he and his girlfriend run away from home.

The girlfriend is interesting because Gerald's anger management coach has been telling him that it's not a good idea for him to be dating. Girls are untrustworthy and infuriating, which just made me wonder what makes him think that boys are any better. Turns out the coach doesn't really know what he's talking about. Or maybe he taught Gerald so well that Gerald is now able to handle a relationship, because Gerald totally handles this relationship. It is far from perfect, and of course there are times when the girl (Hannah) infuriates him, because any time you care about someone they will eventually infuriate you. But Gerald and Hannah learn and they get past their differences and they end up running away together.

This is where the demands come in, because they're not just a couple of dumb kids who run away because they think it would be fun. OK, they kind of are, but there is a very legitimate point to them running away. They refuse to come home until their parents treat them better. Hannah might never have been on TV, but it turns out that her life is far from perfect. Her older brother left and both her parents have checked out, so she runs away with Gerald and the two of them come up with a list of demands (as in "I have kidnapped your child and will return said child only after you have met my demands"). After a few hundred panicked text messages, her mom finally gets it and agrees to make some changes. Gerald's dad takes a little more convincing, but in the end, he comes around, too.

Before They Are Hanged

The First Law #2

by Joe Abercrombie

VACATION READ! Only one this time. Despite the fact that I had a lot of time to read on this vacation, this book is pretty long so you only get one review.

Before They Are Hanged is awesome and I definitely recommend it as a vacation read. Despite being long, it's pretty light and fluffy and definitely not one to make you think too hard when you just want to zone out. If you read my review of the first book of this series, then you pretty much know what to expect from this book. I was undecided for a while as to whether I really wanted to read this book, because there was some poor writing (and editing) in the first one. In the end, I'm really glad that I decided to continue reading the series, because I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Before They Are Hanged picks up right where The Blade Itself left off. Glokta is in Dagoska, trying to defend it from invaders and simultaneously find out what happened to his predecessor, who mysteriously disappeared. Jezal, Ferro, and Logen are following Bazal to the ends of the earth (literally) and they're still not entirely sure why. Meanwhile, up north, Bethod is dancing circles around the Union army, possibly through the use of magic. Threetrees and his gang are with West and the Union army, having taken pity on the poor naive fools and decided to help them out.

Without giving too much away, that's pretty much what's going on in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I got to be reunited with all of my favorite characters. Abercrombie may have his failings as a writer, but boring characters is not one of them.

Glokta is as sarcastic as ever and he was my favorite to read about. I was happy to see Jezal turn into a real person instead of the whiny little bitch he was in the first book (and the beginning of the second book). Then West became "Furious" and that was just awesome. It was great that Dow helped him to find that side of himself when he most needed it, and I loved that he gave him the nickname "Furious". While I'm on the topic of Threetrees and his gang, Grim was probably the best. The one who never said a word until he needed to and suddenly it turns out that he can speak multiple languages effortlessly. Then he's the only one who can manage to say a few words for the dearly departed over his fresh grave and they were really great words. Go Grim.

I don't remember any battles from the first book (just lots of fencing duels), but it turns out that Abercrombie is really good at writing battles. They were gripping and suspenseful and there was more than one occasion when my family tried to get me to do something and I said I couldn't because I was in the middle of reading about a big battle and I had to find out how it ended.

Other than that, a lot of the things about Abercrombie's writing that bothered me in his first book still bother me in this one. He's got a little bit of the overly explanatory narrator going. I don't know if he's gotten a little better, or if it just didn't bother me as much in this one. He definitely still has a tendency to repeat words when he should just let it lie and he uses way too many adjectives and adverbs. There was at least one (short) sentence where I wanted to cut about five words because they were all superfluous.

The Editor's Eye

A Practical Guide to Transforming Your Book From Good to Great

by Stacy Ennis

I actually bought and started reading this book immediately after having sent my manuscript off to an editor, so you might think that was too late for me to glean any use from it, but you would be wrong. Aside from the fact that there's always the next book, I really learned a lot from this book that I'm sure I can apply to my very first novel.

The most important thing I learned was the number of times I will need to have my book edited. I was kind of hoping that the editor I've already sent it to, plus maybe a proofreader later on down the road would fix me up. Turns out that's not the case. After the substantive editing stage (which is where I'm at right now, and I hadn't even known it was called that), Ennis recommends at least two rounds of copyediting and three rounds of proofreading before publication, and the last round of proofreading should be after the book has been formatted. That is not something I ever would have thought to do, but it makes sense. I know formatting is something a lot of people complain about with self-published books and I myself have come across at least a few that were badly done.

At this point, we've probably all heard about the stigma of self-publishing and how it's reaching a point where that bad rap really isn't warranted anymore. I don't think I need to add to that fight, so I'll just stay out of it (for now). The point is that editing your book is an integral part of getting that clean, polished look that will help make it unrecognizable from traditionally published books. This book emphasizes that point, and by extension, the need for multiple revisions.

There are a couple statements Ennis makes about the editing/writing process that I don't agree with. For starters, she defines editing as everything you do to get a book from the idea stage to the published stage, including writing the rough draft. I can't agree with that when I've heard so many other people say that the best thing to do is to turn off the editing part of your brain while you write. Just get the words down on the page before you review and try to change them. They are, in fact, two different processes. Writing is messy. Editing is cleaning up and organizing the mess.

I also disagreed with her position that every writer needs an outline. Her evidence is a few bestselling authors who use outlines. Good for them. They've found a system that works well for them and that's awesome. That doesn't mean that system works for everyone. Personally, I hate outlines, and I know I'm not the only one. My stories tend to be very character-driven, and in order to get a good story where everything flows and makes sense, I need to just dive into my characters and their world and see what happens. I've had too many major plot twists happen that way and I don't want an outline holding me back from staying true to my awesome characters when they decide to surprise me.

I've also heard writers complain about getting bored with their story when they use an outline. The way I see it, that's the worst thing that can happen. If you get bored by your own story, what are the chances that your readers will stay engaged?

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

I never had any desire to read Steinbeck. This was most probably due to the fact that I never had to read any of his books when I was in school, and the kids who did read them said they were terrible. So I took their word for it and avoided him (avoid is a pretty strong word. It's more accurate to say that I did not seek him out).

That all changed one day when the receptionist where I work raved about this book called "East of Eden". She mentioned that they are remaking it into a movie with Jennifer Lawrence, and that's all I needed to hear to get interested. So I checked it out from my local library to see what it was all about.

It was awesome. I read the description on Goodreads before adding it to my "to-read" shelf, but had forgotten it by the time I got the book. I actually prefer it that way because I don't like to have any preconceived notions going into a book. I just sat back to enjoy this one and enjoy it I did.

The story is hard to describe. At it's heart, its really about destiny and human nature and the need for acceptance. The story starts with two brothers, Adam and Charles (their initials are significant. Think Abel and Cain). Adam has a good heart and is strictly nonviolent, and Charles is the opposite. I think Charles has a good heart, too. He loves his brother and his father. He just has this uncontrollable temper. Adam learns not to ignite Charles's temper, but one day he's not careful enough. Charles beats him within an inch of his life and comes back to finish the job, but Adam hides until Charles gives up and goes home.

A decade or two later Adam, being sweet but not too bright, names his twin sons (who are probably actually Charles's sons) Caleb and Aaron. Caleb does not directly kill Aaron (who decides to go by Aron), but he does do something very cruel which ultimately results in Aron's death.

The best part of this book was the depiction of the struggle between good and evil that happens inside each of us (OK, most of us. The mother of the two boys is just a sociopath). It also addresses the fact that this struggle is different for everyone. Caleb laments the fact that Aron doesn't struggle the way he does, while simultaneously admitting that he doesn't actually know that. Everyone else may assume that Aron is pure good, but Aron might not see it that way. Who among us cannot relate to that?

I have two favorite parts of this book:

1) The discussion about the story of Cain and Abel and how exactly it is written in the Bible, including different translations. That was a great conversation that brought to light a number of good points about the story, including the observation that Cain really got the short end of the stick and the possible origins of the story.

2) Lee. He was my favorite character. Part stereotypical wise old Chinese man, part mother. He is not only wise, but also hilarious at times. He would do and say things that completely surprised and delighted me. I probably loved him most for his blunt manner. Adam would try to dance around a topic, but Lee wouldn't let him get away with that. He always saw right through to the heart of the matter and he would talk about that and nothing else. I've always admired people who could do that, fictional or otherwise.