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You are here: Home / Archives for writing

writing

Monday Amusements 5

17th September 2012 By Julianne Leave a Comment

 Read. Or else. Photo by Ben Newcomer

Note: This post doesn’t have as many yesterday-recent links as I’d like. I’ve suffered with migraines for the past few days so pretty much just stuck the first link in today, the other links were ones-I-collected-earlier. Hopefully next week’s post will be ‘fresher’. ‘Til then, there are still plenty of great links here, but many of them are a couple of weeks old.

Raimy is running a Malorie Blackman themed week to celebrate the new cover designs. I’m pretty sure it’s also a slight rebundling of the series as well – I think ‘An Eye for an Eye’ was included in the last edition of Noughts & Crosses, and now it’s included with Knife Edge. I like the new cover designs, they’re very similar to the old ones but give the series a fresher, more up-to-date look.You can read my review of Noughts & Crosses here.

I’ve been thinking a lot about reading speed for quite a while now, as mine seems to have slowed considerably over the last few years. I have a theory that I’m reading slower because I’m reading more books by different authors than ever before. I used to stick with one author for a while and devour their entire ouvre before moving onto another, and I think this helped me to read more quickly. When I pick up a book by an author I’ve read before, I seem to read it faster than I would a book by an author that is new to me. It’s like my brain is used to their style and the rhythm of their words, and I just slip back into it. Books by Sarra Manning and E. Lockhart fly by (pun intended…get it? No?), and I just finished the second in Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, which seemed a faster read than the first. Read what Jen at Makeshift Bookmark has to say on the subject of reading speed, and contribute your own thoughts to the discussion.

‘Is There Any Sense Left In The World (Of YA Fiction)’ by Cicely is partly a personal post but I think it does make a good point about YA heroines. I do get a bit fed up if I read too many books in a row that feature protagonists who are well, a bit silly. When I was a teenager I was overdramatic and sarcastic and romantic in the way that’s not quite healthy but I was also quite sensible and cautious. I just couldn’t relate to fictional girls who would drop everything for the first boy to smile their way or fail to notice when somebody they trusted was actually clearly evil.

The Bookette asks: Do you remember learning to read? I taught myself to read before I started school and I can’t actually remember a time when I couldn’t read. I can remember being very competitive abiout it and wanting to move up the reading bands as fast as possible at school. I also used to read the dictionary to learn new words and write them down in my notebooks, with definitions. I still go through phases of doing this from time to time!

Y is for Young Adult is a cute poem about the joys of being a YA reader, by Jo at weartheoldcoat.

Red Riding Hood and Wolf, in Lego form!

This has been all over Twitter, but in case you haven’t seen it: The Publishing Process in GIF Form

Atom are holding a launch for Libba Bray’s new novel, The Diviners, this Thursday 20th September at Waterstones Oxford Street Plaza. I would be there in a heartbeat if I didn’t have to work.

Jo at Once Upon A Bookcase is seeking recommendations for her LGBTQ YA theme month.

Now onto the most intriguing reviews I’ve read over the last couple of weeks! Jen at Makeshift Bookmark is surprised by the ‘amazingness’ of the self-published Angelfall, whilst I was surprised by how interesting Clover at Fluttering Butterflies found Ghost Flower, a book I’d left languishing on my TBR (and will now have to try soon). I’m also looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang, thanks to another of Clover’s reviews.

Mel at Chicklish reviewed The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, which sounds excellent, as does Russian Winter, as featured by Kelly at The Broke and the Bookish. I love reading about dancers, I secretly wanted to be one for a while when I was a kid. From one kind of performance to another, Raimy’s review of Five Flavors of Dumb, by Antony John, makes it sound like a really interesting twist on the teenagers-form-a-band novel.

Finally, a review of a book I’ve already read – The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, reviewed by Jo at weartheoldcoat, included because her book heroine maths – “Hermione Granger + Mildred Hubble + Matilda Wormwood = Tiffany Aching” – made me laugh. Also, I loved that book, but have yet to get around to reviewing it myself.

Filed Under: Monday Amusements Tagged With: book chat, book covers, books, links, Monday Amusements, teen fiction, teenage, teenage fiction, writing, YA, young adult

Monday Amusements 4

27th August 2012 By Julianne Leave a Comment

Sh*t Book Reviewers Say:


It has to be said that most of these phrases are used more by srs bsns book reviews in srs bsns newspapers than by book bloggers. But there are a few that are awfully tempting to use sometimes, and may have snuck their way into a few reviews, such as: ‘Gripping’, ‘Riveting’, ‘But I just didn’t care about the characters’ ‘The characters come to life’ and ‘The pages practically turn themselves’!

The nominations for the Top 100 Best-Ever UKYA novels have been counted and you can now vote for your top ten. I voted for seven – I excluded most-likely-winners and books that were the first in the series and where I felt like I needed to read more of the story to fairly judge them. My selections:

Della Says: OMG! – Keris Stainton
Diary of a Chav – Grace Dent (side note, I’m addicted to Grace Dent’s restaurant reviews in the Evening Standard Magazine. I’ll probably never go to any of the restaurants she reviews because, well, my budget really only allows for Nando’s and Pizza Express with a voucher code but I love her sense of humour. This review had me laughing out loud!)
Diary of a Crush – Sarra Manning (obvs)
Girls Under Pressure – Jacqueline Wilson (went against my usual ‘not voting for most likely winners’ rule because I loved this in my early teens and read it over and over!)
Slam – Nick Hornby (thought I had reviewed this, but bizarrely, I hadn’t! It’s a refreshing twist on teen pregnancy drama from the male point of view)
Tiffany Aching series – Terry Pratchett (haven’t reviewed any of these but I love it!)
Noughts & Crosses – Malorie Blackman (I read this nearly nine months ago and I’m still recovering)

After all that hard work selecting and voting, how about some utterly bizarre fluff. Book covers matched with bikinis (via Gala). I’ve actually thought several times about doing a cross-blog project where I show what I’m wearing on my fashion/make-up blog and what I’m reading here. But I don’t think I’d have the patience to match it that well…

Spread the Word have just published the listings for their Autumn 2012 programme of writing workshops and other events. This time round they’ve included a workshop about graphic novels and one about writing for television, as well as the usual range of workshops on different themes for poetry, prose fiction and drama. If you’re a writer living in London or able to travel and haven’t been to a Spread the Word workshop before, don’t hesitate to book a place if one appeals to you. I have been to so many of their workshops that I have now lost count, both as a paying participant and as a volunteer and I think they’re really low-priced for what you get out of each one, especially for the full-day workshops!

Finally, the most exciting reviews I’ve read this week! Cicely’s review of Team Human, by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan is both enthusiastic and thoughtful. I’d never heard of that book before but now it’s on my wishlist for sure. I’m not sure how I’ll get on with Dying to Know You, by Aidan Chambers, but Clover’s review has convinced me to give it a try. I loved the sound of Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman, in Evie’s review – ‘fresh ideas, clever plot developments, and fascinating dragons’? Yes please!

Filed Under: Monday Amusements Tagged With: book chat, book covers, books, links, Monday Amusements, teen fiction, teenage, teenage fiction, writing, YA, young adult

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