Brigid Kemmerer's Got Lots Of Irons In The Fire This Month

Brigid Kemmerer and I have been blog buddies for 5 or 6 years now, as I've moved from blog to blog, and as she has become more and more famous.
But this is a big month for Brigid, and I'd like to take a little blog space to promote her.
She's got a series out called Elementals, which deals with a town full of kids who can control the elements.  It centers on one family of not-particularly likable brothers, each of whom can call on one of the four traditional elements (which would be earth, fire, wind, and water).
The first story out was an e-book, a prequel which centers on the oldest brother Michael and his element, earth.

Personally, I found this one just  a touch confusing, so I'd recommend either reading it after Storm, or else being ready to read Storm immediately after finishing Elemental.
Now, Storm is really the first book in the series, and it's been out since April.

This first full-length novel tells the story of Chris, the youngest brother, who controls the air.

Fortunately, both Brigid and her publishers realize what so many publishers don't seem to get: readers lose interest in a series if they have to wait too long in between books.
So, out TODAY is another e-book novella: Fearless.

Now, I haven't read this one yet, but I do know it tells the tale of an important side character, Hunter, who has some unusual abilities of his own.

And, by the end of the month, you can buy Spark, which is Gabriel's story; he's one of the twin middle brothers, and his element is obviously fire.

Of course, since Brigid is all that super awesome, she sent me a copy of Spark a week ago (neener, neener, I have it and you don't!), and I can assure you it's the best of the bundle that I've read.
She is SO nailing in-depth characterization!!  Look, these brothers have ISSUES.  They have had a rough past, and the nasty folks are out to get them, and they are not exactly nice little Harry Potters about it.  They have bad tempers and huge communication problems.  They're stubborn.  You probably won't like any of them.  I don't.
But here's the catch:  how cool is it when an author can make nasty characters that you just HAVE to keep reading about???  Because the plot is just THAT good?  And because you've just GOT to stick with it and figure these people out???
Bronte's Heathcliff is like that.  And Catherine, too.
And Shelley's Viktor Frankenstein is hugely unlikeable, but you just have to stick with him.
Stevenson's Dr. Jeckyll is loathable -- even when he's not Mr. Hyde.  But he captures the imagination.
This is what Brigid Kemmerer does with these brothers; she makes them fascinatingly awful -- so you just are compelled to find out what happens to them.
Plus, her pacing is awesome!  There are just no dull moments anywhere.
So, are you ready to try one?  I know you are.  Click one of my links above and buy a book.  You'll be back to thank me for telling you about them.  :)

How To Get Boys To Read Books With Girls As Protagonists

There is a MG author who hates teachers.  Really.  A few years back, Ms. MG ranted about how teachers are evil for teaching the classics and that they should teach only newer books (because classics are "outdated.")  More recently, she has started ranting that teachers are evil because we make boys think they can only read boys' books and that homeschooled boys read girls' books because they are free from the evil teachers.  Then, another author, this one a YA author, got into the rant as well.
As a teacher AND as an author, I'm pretty POed about this.
Neither Ms. MG nor Ms. YA has ever been a teacher, and neither woman has parented teenagers (yet).
I suspect that neither one of them knows much about pre-teen or young teen boys.
I've been a teacher longer than either one of them has been a writer.
Let me put out a few basic facts about junior high kids, and then we'll play a little game to see if you readers can predict which books teen boys would not want to read and why.  My goal here is to point out that it's not the teachers who are preventing boys from reading books with female protagonists.
Factoid #1 About Junior High Teens: In their own minds, they believe the entire world is watching them all the time.  They are the center of the universe and everyone will know if they are cool or uncool.
Factoid #2: The worst possible thing that can happen to a junior high kid is to be socially excluded.  To have the wrong hair/shoes/complexion/slang/folder/lunch period/hobbies/music/whatever is to be socially excluded.
Factoid #3: To avoid exclusion, which everyone else will know about because -- after all -- everyone is watching, one must appear not only to be incredibly cool but also to be far distant from anything uncool.
Factoid #4: Puberty-ridden teens are fairly often confused by all the hormones surging through them in unpredictable ways.  Most of them have no idea that their friends and classmates feel equally confused. Many of them also are willing to accept that some people are gay/lesbian, but they fear it might happen to them -- which would make them a minority and therefore possibly uncool.
(Please note: to any gay/lesbian readers or friends/parents thereof:  I am not implying that being gay is "uncool" or "bad."  I am merely pointing out that most junior high kids fear being different, which often leads to their fearing being perceived as gay -- even some of the kids who are gay.  I am merely trying to point out that these identity struggles play a part in how a lot of boys choose books/music/etc.)
Homophobia is a common problem, therefore, in junior high, and we teachers work hard to stamp it out -- like we do racism and sexism.

Now that you have these tidbits under your belt, let's see how well you do with predicting which books the average 12-year-old boy would NOT want to be caught dead with. lest he be perceived as uncool.
We all know the saying, "you can't judge a book by its cover."  Yet we all do that very literally all the time.  A great book with a bad cover will not sell many copies, and a bad book with an awesome cover will often sell well at first.  So let's look at some YA book covers.  Pretend you know nothing about the books.  Pretend you are a 12-year-old boy.  Which of the following would you NEVER, ever want to be seen with?

Choice A:

Choice B:

Choice C:

Choice D:

Choice E:

Choice F:

Have you got your choices in mind?  Good.  Hold that thought for a moment.  We'll come back to it.
Now, pretend you haven't seen any covers.  Pretend you are a 12-year-old boy and you are listening to your teacher describe books to the class.  Which of these books would you NEVER, ever want to be caught dead reading, lest you be considered uncool?

Choice A: This is about a warrior princess who leads her armies against a huge empire trying to take over her country.  It has werewolves, snow leopards, and vampires in it.

Choice B:  This is about a girl who must fight to survive in a government-run reality show that pits people against each other in a fight to the death for other people's entertainment.

Choice C:  This is a Cinderella-type story about a girl who is chosen for her beauty and talents to compete in a type of beauty pageant to be the wife of a prince.

Choice D:  This is about a girl who is part of Robin Hood's band.  The band is fighting against the unjust government by a usurper to the king of England.

Choice E:  This is an updated version of Cinderella, but it's science fiction, and the Cinderella character is an android and a mechanic.

Choice F:  This is about a girl who's trained to be a spy/assassin, but when she's sent on her first really big mission to find the traitor, she falls in love with the guy she's supposed to be spying on.

Okay.  Are you ready to tell me which books would be completely avoided by the 12-year-old boys?  And can you tell me why?

Notice that these are all fairly recent books, all YA, and all with female protagonists.  But I, as a long-time teacher, can guarantee that certain books on this list will be treated as leprous by the boys in the class. AND THIS WILL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TEACHER, BUT EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE BOOK COVERS AND THE STORYLINES.

You see, it is not the teachers who are making certain books so that boys will not want to read them; it is the authors and the artists who design the covers who do that.

The two authors I mentioned before are dead wrong about who's to blame -- and they are not looking at their own work to realize that.  (No, I haven't put either of those two authors here on purpose.)

Well, then, my readers.  Please be brave.  Put your comments as to which book(s) you think the boys would avoid and why in the comments section.

Tomorrow, I'll post the teacher's answers and explain why.

UPDATE:  The post with my answers is now ready.  Just click here.

The Archaeology Of A Tote Bag

I am a tote bag queen.
Somewhere among the years of folkdancing and travel and hauling things back and forth to school, I failed to acquire a pack mule and got roughly 2 dozen tote bags instead.  Some are huge, capable of holding a full-size pillow (or 4 petticoats for folkdancing), some are small -- only large enough for a book -- but most are medium-sized, and I have 3 from Lands' End that I use as purses.
The oldest of these 3 is in need of a good wash, so today I emptied it.
Oh my.
Besides the three mini-packs of tissues, numerous cough drop wrappers, a small screwdriver, hand sanitizer, and tickets to three separate plays (dating from 2010), I found eleven pens and pencils.  ELEVEN!!!
Obviously, this bag had been my companion to various academic games, and I must have dropped a pencil in every now and then just to be sure I had an extra.  Well, I have quite a few extras now!  Goodness!  They don't even all fit in the pencil holder on my desk.  I'll have to take them to school with me, as I go through a fair number of pencils (I still keep an old-fashioned gradebook, having learned that computer grading programs are likely to screw things up without notice, so my gradebook is the OFFICIAL copy if things go wrong elsewhere) and green pens (for grading) during the year.
(Okay, I KNOW some of you former students smiled when you saw the phrase "green pens," didn't you?)
Certainly, the evidence of this past dig has shown me that the washing for this bag is long overdue.  :)

Things I Don't Understand About Blogging And Twitter

How did someone end up at my blog this week after searching for "books in the library"?
Why do my newest Twitter followers include a site for scotch drinkers (I don't drink), SLC Golf (I'm athletically retarded), and a self-described restauranteur/astrologist?  Do these people actually think I have anything in common with them?  Why would I follow back if we share absolutely NO interests?
And why has an autism activist been following me for months?
Oh, and on Pinterest, I got an invite to join a board on pet protection.  What the heck?  Like I'm going to join a society that encourages people to get more dogs -- yeah, right.  *eye roll*
My favorite what-the-heck Twitter follower, however, has been following me for weeks.  It's this one:

Crop circles ‏ @CropCircles_012

Latest crop circles videos, photos and news!

*shakes head in wonderment*

The Joys Of Misplaced Modifiers #3

From an article about US Olympic soccer player, Hope Solo:


Conceived in jail during a conjugal visit, the Washington native's father, Jeffery John Solo, was in and out of prison throughout her childhood. 

Wait.  So her father was conceived during a prison visit?  Does that mean her grandparents were jailbirds, too?  And THEN he was in jail when Hope was a kid?  HUH???

And It Shall Be Called "The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook"

And it shall be steampunk dystopia.  And it shall have airships and gypsies. And it shall have alchemy. And it shall have a love pentacle, for behold, I am sick unto death of love triangles.  And it shall have action and humor.
(I hope.)

And, on the 25th day of the seventh month, it did begin thusly:

In which I introduce my unusual life predicament to my readers.

My mother, being both a Scot and the third plural wife of Elder Otis Elijah Russell of the Cedar City Fourth Ward in the Country of Deseret, decided her offspring should bear her name in life rather than their father’s.  So it was that on the Sunday after my birth, Bishop Lunt gave me a blessing an a name by which I would be known on the records of the Church: Olivia Viola Laird.

That name is carved upon a wedge of sandstone in the city cemetery.

 The Fever of ’61 fell heavily upon my family.  It robbed my mother of her husband and a child.  It robbed my father of his own life, the lives of two of his wives, and the lives of three of his sons.

It robbed me of my identity.

Titles

Usually, I'm quite good at thinking up book titles.  I have them in my head before I start typing the manuscript for the first time.  I scribble all my ideas along with plot and character jottings in my notebook, and then settle on one before I begin the actual manuscript.
A few people have complained to me that they thought Confessions of an Average Half-Vampire was too long a title.  But it actually used to be longer than that.  You see, the title was supposed to make the reader think of James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.  At any rate, the variations on the title which others have offered to me never had the right rhythm, so I stuck with the title as it is.
I don't even recall when I came up with the title Becoming Brigid.  It was just so obvious that that is what the story is about: Brigid figures out who she is -- and who she isn't.
And the title for The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay popped into my head, whole and complete, as soon as I realized it was a tale about a girl struggling to be seen who accidentally makes herself unseen instead.
And, although the sequel to Nerissa is nothing more than an idea in my head, I've already got the title, as it's a line she speaks near the end of the first story.
But I'm stuck with this new ms.  I'm ready to start writing at any moment.   I have character names and histories.  I have several conflicts and a basic plot outline (which will, of course, change several times before I get to the end of draft #1).  But I have no title.  At the moment, all I have is a Pages file with the working title of Something Chocolate And Steampunk.  While that is an amusing title, I'm really going to have to do better than that.  Soon!