Five Years With You

When Kristal Shaff and I got together and started a critique group in 2011, we decided to call ourselves

Operation Awesome! 

The name was Amparo Ortiz's idea, and it just fit. It was the era of WriteOnCon and Query Shark and Querytracker forums, where Kristal and I "met." Pretty soon after forming our little group, we decided to start blogging together, having no idea how this little adventure would propel us into the heart of the writer-blogger community and connect us to the pulse of the industry. Kristal invented Oliver, that adorable owl to match the blog background we'd nicked from thecutestblogontheblock.com, and an institution was born.

We launched with our first Mystery Agent contest, judged by Mandy Hubbard, author of Prada and Prejudice and agent with D4EO Literary Agency. Now she heads up the Emerald City Literary Agency.

Most of our operatives over the past five years have published books and moved on to various exciting endeavors beyond the exciting busy-ness of Operation Awesome's debut author interviews and agent-judged contests. I've been so blessed to know them and to work with many of them behind the scenes of this blog. Life has changed so much for me personally since those early days of patrolling the Mystery Agent entries and twitter-stalking agents.

When we started, my family looked like this:

Today, my family looks like this:

I am the last of the original OA founders, but the current operatives are continuing our original hope of connecting with and giving back to the online writing community through this collaborative project. As community projects and family are now blessing my life with nearly constant activity, and my own writing ambitions have changed significantly from what they were in 2011, it's time to say my goodbyes to this blog's readers. It's been amazing getting to know many of you and reading your work. You inspire me in more ways than one. I will still write reviews from time to time and you can contact me at katrina.lantz@gmail.com.

Thank you for the opportunity of connecting with you through writing. 

Stay Awesome.

Heroic Authors: Defenders of the Weak, Champions of Meaning and Substance

Lindsey Leavitt, Rick Riordan, Anne Riley, Suzanne Collins.

There are many others in their ranks:

Authors who brought to light something important and quintessentially human that otherwise might have remained unknown and obscure. 

They could have told any stories, but they chose to tell stories that taught, enlightened, and inspired.

On Goodreads

On the surface, Lindsey Leavitt's series about a girl who discovers she can act as a substitute for fanfare-weary princesses seems to be nothing more than a fluffy, pink book. One might be forgiven for assuming it held little of substance. But then again, we've been told never to judge a book by its cover, and for good reason. Through the clever, if silly, fantasy about princesses who just need a break, and the magical substitutes who replace them for such undesirable events as state dinners and arranged marriages, Lindsey Leavitt sneakily introduces young readers to diverse cultures they might never otherwise have discovered. In America, we hear "princess" and we think Princess Di and the Duchess of Cambridge. We don't think of a chief's daughter in an uncontacted tribe deep in the jungle. Or the royalty of small, all-but-forgotten provinces and countries throughout the world. Through each substitution story, we're given a glimpse into a way of life that includes unique culture, family life, and relationships. If you know of a teenager who could benefit from expanded horizons and increased empathy, give him or her this pink book.

On Goodreads

There are few populations more marginalized in schools and society than those labeled troubled teens and slow learners. Rick Riordan had tremendous sympathy for such kids, particularly because his own son suffered from dyslexia. What if, he imagined, what if dyslexia was something to be proud of? What if it only meant your brain was hardwired to read ancient Greek? And that because you were actually a demigod, half god and half human? This dynamic series took the marginalized and gave them a hero in Percy Jackson, a twelve-year-old troubled pre-teen with dyslexia. He is not only innately special, but he finds through his adventures that he is ultimately capable of making a very significant contribution to the world, even saving it from another war of the gods.

On Goodreads

Anne Riley's story about mystery, magic, and boarding school blends the mystic so smoothly with the mundane and miserable, you almost believe it's true. But in the midst of the magic, she takes page space to dwell on the real impact of bullying. The realism makes you want to cry for Natalie Watson who has already been through so much personal tragedy and who just needs a win. In fact, I cried a few times in the reading. In the interest of growing personal empathy, read this book. 

On Goodreads

Suzanne Collins did something that was nothing short of essential to this generation: she called us all out on our darkest obsessions in entertainment, our attraction to reality TV and ancient Rome-style gore. She showed us the disgusting excesses in which we'd indulged while others not so very far from us struggled for food enough to survive. She forced us to look hard at our relationships to war, fashion, entertainment, and family. She dared us to see through a well-crafted story and to see ourselves making the difficult choice between fighting for what really matters, or succumbing to a lifestyle of substance-less fluff; making the choice between self-sacrifice or betrayal of principle; making the choice between being brave and kind, vs. merely playing it safe. There are so many lessons and layers in this series--about community, government, human nature--you will likely learn something new every time you read it. By my definition, it's a classic.

All of these books/series are classics by my definition: a book that you can read over and over again throughout the years and continue to glean valuable insights from its pages. These authors are heroic because they used their talents at story-crafting to tell important stories, even the stories of the marginalized, the humble, the poor, the poor in spirit, and the forgotten.

I've written about them here in hopes of inspiring more of us to be like them, to write for something deeper than the fun of it--because it is so much fun! But when a writer takes on the challenge of telling an important story about seemingly unimportant, or forgotten, people... it changes the world.

What I Have Learned About Failure From Author Beth Revis...

Every writer has her own journey, but of all the author success stories I have heard and read over my years as an aspiring writer, Beth Revis's journey inspired me the most! So I want to share with you what she shared with me, and the thousands of people who have already seen...

...this video:

Beth says: Everyone says, "It'll get easier!" But they are lying to your face.




Failure is really just success in training. 

Beth's first book, Across the Universe was much hyped when it first came out, and for good reason. It had one of those beginnings that is so absolutely, perfectly written you would wait in line just to read the next chapter, and you would read through the night just to find the resolution of the killer problem she introduced so beautifully in chapter one. I read her first chapter online and was immediately hooked. In fact, I can compare it with only a handful of other first chapters that have moved and shocked me to a similar extent. Her first chapter alone guaranteed her a spot on that bestseller list. Of course the rest of the series is killer, as well, so that helps!

But seeing this video after I read her first book really gave me the greatest gift I could have received as a struggling and aspiring writer:

The Gift of Perspective.

Thank you, Beth Revis, for being so real! That amazing first chapter, that beautiful prose and shocking intro was the master stroke of an artist who had been honing her craft for years. It wasn't a first draft. It wasn't a lucky step into the darkness. It was the hand of a practiced surgeon. The perspective she gave me saved me from making the mistake of saying, "Well, she's just so talented, and I could never do that." The knowledge of her nine previous unpublished manuscripts forced me to acknowledge the fact that I simply wasn't trying as hard, that I could be a better version of myself if I did.

One more lesson from Beth:

Always write the story of your heart. 

In the first installment of her book series for writers, called Paper Hearts, Beth explains what her particular objective was as a writer--to be published by a big press--and that she didn't regret writing any of her "practice" novels, except for one.

That was the book she wrote "for the market." The book was good, she explains, because she was up to date on all the trends in the publishing industry and she knew exactly what tropes to keep and which to avoid. But as she came closer to getting it published, she pulled it, and the reason was that there was nothing of her in it. It was empty.

Her advice to aspiring writers is not to make the same mistake by trying to please the market. Write the book of your heart, every time, no matter how painful it can be to let go if it's not "the one."

This advice came to me at a time when I needed to hear it, too.

(Her Paper Hearts series is chock-full of great counsel for writers in all stages of development. The video above came from the first free online writing conference ever, WriteOnCon, and is a great example of the many ways Beth has given back to the writing community. The founders of Operation Awesome were inspired by all the writers who put together WriteOnCon, and since our launch in 2010, our ever-changing team of operatives has been working toward that same worthy ideal.)

THANK YOU, BETH!

Have you ever heard the perfect writing advice for you at exactly the right time? What's the best writing advice you've ever received? 

Stranger Than Fiction: Using Personal Experience

Have you ever played the game, Three Truths and a Lie? It's one of my favorite getting-to-know-you games because it requires people to think of three true things about them that are so unique they seem unlikely, and it teaches you something about how they lie. Will the lie be obvious or so detailed, it blends right into the truths? But what's really remarkable about playing this game is the discovery that TRUTH really is STRANGER THAN FICTION.

For instance, my three truths always include these: 

I survived a plane crash when I was two years old.
I went skydiving in Canada, and I jumped twice.
I never saw snow in real life until I was eighteen and went away to college.

My lie would always be somewhat lame. I'd exaggerate the number of kids I have (say 8 instead of 5) or say I've been to Hawaii (sadly, still a lie). It turns out I'm terrible at lying. I guess there are worse things! But each person's lie is true for someone else. One of my favorite friends in my neighborhood does, in fact, have 8 kids. And two of my siblings have lived in Hawaii. Did they fly me out to see them? Of course not. Everyone who lives in Hawaii is broke. But am I bitter?

So when we are writing fiction, basically telling lies we hope are convincing enough to convey ideas and themes, we actually rely on an ample portion of the truth, whether that truth belongs to us personally or not. If I were to write about Hawaii, my family's experiences there would factor into my narrative. If I were to write about a 19-year-old girl about to jump out of a small airplane that resembled the small airplane she crashed in with her family when she was 2 years old, I would draw on my own anxieties from that experience.

For this reason, I find that the best UNIVERSAL advice for good writing is this: live.

Living gives us scope and empathy, the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes that's essential to good fiction. In the absence of time traveling to China in the 1960s, however, you may find it preferable to read someone else's truth. Memoir should have a respected place on every fiction writer's bookshelves. Memoir is great writing because it's true and that truth is stranger than fiction.

The last memoir I read was Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang. If I hadn't been told it is a true story, I would not believe it. The happenings are so alien to my ideas of proper government and community action that it strains credibility. Why would people act that way?

Memoir brings us to the heart of all good fiction: the WHY, the motive of our heroes and supporting characters. Why would his sister betray him after spending all their childhood mothering him? Why would her lover kill himself on the eve of their anniversary? Why would the pull of glory be so strong it could make a young child change her name and give up a rich cultural heritage to act on a foreign stage?

And in every answer there is room for still more questions.

That's what makes the truth so much stranger than fiction. How do you infuse your stories with the clarion ring of strange truth?

Why Write a Picture Book?

Some amazingly successful picture books seem to be created on a whim or as art for the sake of art. Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham to win a bet, which apparently never paid out. Good thing the book did! It is still his best-selling work. 

David Weisner's reason for creating the winning picture book Art and Max was to explore and capture the creative process.

But Dr. Seuss was a writer (in advertising until his breakthrough into children's publishing)...

and David Weisner is an award-winning artist!

It's fascinating to read about the very strong reasons regular people feel drawn to the picture book format. 

For instance, there's Nicholeen Peck.

Her bio:
Nicholeen Peck is a mother of four and previous foster parent of many. She has been trained and certified in using the “Teaching Family Model”, which was developed at Boys Town and is used by the Utah Youth Village. Nicholeen did foster care for very difficult teens. She taught children with ADHD, OCD, kleptomania, compulsive lying, anger control issues, etc.

Would you believe she's written an entire manual for families on teaching self-government in addition to four beautiful picture books that reinforce what she calls the Four Basic Skills?

available here

People inspired by a sense of mission write picture books for a different reason than whim or artistic passion. Undoubtedly Nicholeen Peck would agree with Dr. Seuss when he said:

"Children’s reading and children’s thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion, writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential for good or evil than any other form of literature on Earth."

Sarah looked up from her piano music and saw Jessica through her window. 

Bolting outside, Sarah caught up with her neighbor. "Hi Jessica! Can you play?" 

 A sense of mission is what's brought me to the endeavor of picture book writing. And my first picture book is not likely to break any records or win any awards, despite my illustrator's obvious talent (see the gorgeous black-and-white sketch above). But that's okay, because my story isn't art for the sake of art. It is art for the sake of change.

My story is about a little girl and her homeschooling family, and the opportunities they find for growth and connection as they look around their community and see the needs of others. Specifically, it's about a family who looks to their community's deep historic roots and considers starting something new, a commonwealth for cultural enrichment, to strengthen those roots, even as the great branches of the community tree continue to spread outward to the bigger cities surrounding it. I'm writing it to explain my vision for a new commonwealth we're building in our area. I hope when parents in our community read it to their children, they'll feel a sense of loss and longing for the connectivity we've long-since outsourced to technology and big institutional programs. I hope to stir up some of the nostalgia that brought many of my friends to these small towns in the first place, and to remind them what we're capable of when we come together to share our most personal passions and talents with one another on a collaborative, volunteer basis.

That's my why.

What's yours? Have you ever felt inspired to write a picture book that would reach the rising generation? What would you say if you had to say it in pictures and less than 1000 words?

Secret Formulas and Inspiring Stories (from the Wizard of Ads)

On goodreads

This book was recommended to me by a fellow writer and entrepreneur, someone who personally seems to ooz success in every endeavor. In fact, one of his Life Manifestos hangs in my entryway as our family theme. Stephen Palmer is a worthy mentor for any writer, most especially because he approaches life with a holistic, full embrace of every valuable thing, from family to business to civic duty and community enrichment. I highly recommend learning more about him.

When I first picked up my hold at the library, I was taken aback by the seeming antiquity of Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads. (It was the 1999 Business Book of the Year!) But honestly, antiquity has always charmed me, so I opened it up eagerly to see what wisdom this old book had to offer.

Wisdom and humor shone back at me from every page. I laughed. I pondered. I was uplifted. I was inspired. Through a mixture of unlikely and little known biographical anecdotes about famous leaders of industry and state, stories from the advertising industry, and fascinating facts about the brain, Roy H. Williams kept me flipping the pages and soaking up his playful wisdom. 

More than once I began reading about some poor sap with all the chips set against him, only to find a few paragraphs later that he became Abraham Lincoln, or Teddy Roosevelt, or Frank Lloyd Wright. 

The Wizard is a man after my own heart. He's someone who sees the patterns and connectivity in everything, and realizes the value of applying more than just fancy advertising terms and spreadsheet statistics to marketing. In fact, he understands the importance of selling only what you love. As writers, I think there's a key in there for us. Do we love what we write? Enough to sell it with passion?

Since every writer is his or her own best advertiser at the end of the day, I highly recommend you read Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads. If it doesn't inspire you to take up mountaineering or to become president of the United States, at least you'll find real, working solutions for your need to advertise what you love.

Bid on an Awesome Package from our Operatives!

For this year's Pens for Paws Auction, our members are offering an entire package that includes:

From Karen McCoy:
Signed ARCs of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, The Marvels by Brian Selznick, and Winter Falls by Nicole Maggi

From Katrina Lantz:
 $15 gift card for Amazon.com

From S. L. Saboviec:
E-books of Guarding Angel and Reaping Angel (books one and two in the Fallen Redemption series)

PLUS A Critique of your first chapter 

From Kara Reynolds:
Critique of Twitter pitch, query, and synopsis (between Kara's crits and Samantha's, you could have an entire submission package ready to go!)

From Angelica R. Jackson: Signed paperback of Crow's Rest plus swag

This item will close on May 8, 2016, at 9:00 PM EST, so hurry over and get your bids in!

Resistance: Fight it!

What Steven Pressfield says in The War of Art about resistance is changing my life.

You can get a little glimpse of the idea from the front cover, that little flower growing out of a block of concrete. It reminds me of the opening image of one of my favorite cult classic movies, Joe vs. the Volcano. The human condition includes a whole heck of a lot of resistance, no matter what we do. But Steven Pressfield opines that resistance is greater when we're about to do something soul-enhancing for ourselves and others. In fact, the more good we're about to bring into the world, the greater the resistance comes pushing back against us.

There was one part of his section on resistance that especially resonated deep within my soul, and that was the impeccable ability of resistance to find true north and fight against it. In fact, he said, you can use the resistance you are feeling against your goals as a COMPASS. Look where you are feeling the most resistance in your life. Without a doubt, that is the area where pushing through persistently will bring the greatest growth to your soul and the greatest good to humanity.

Writers are artists and we understand resistance... or do we? We surely know about writer's block. We know about BIC (Butt-in-Chair) persistence. We know about treating it like a job and putting our noses to the grindstones of our typewriters, pens, and laptops. But I wonder if we truly understand what Steven Pressfield is trying to tell us about resistance.

When we give in to resistance, we are giving in to darkness and depriving the world of a great light! When we let it stop us from creating, we are limiting ourselves, yes, but we are making an impact on the world by our absence!

As writers, we may see the choice we make daily as two options: 1) to write and 2) not to write. But if writing is what you're feeling called by the muse to do, and you don't do it, the consequences are much greater than what this either/or suggests. Every person, Steven Pressfield reminds us, has unique life experiences, unique talents, a completely unique voice in the panorama, the vast puzzle of humanity. When a writer doesn't fill her mission, the world suffers for it. When an artist gives up on his art, humanity feels the lack.

Think of the last time you came across something beautiful created by another human being. Think of how it made you feel. That's what you have to offer someone else, maybe some dozen someone elses, or some million.

I wanted to pass on the inspiration I got from this author. Fight the resistance you feel, that nagging hopelessness that sometimes keeps you from sitting down at your desk. Fight it with productivity. Fight it with vision. Fight it with affirmations. Fight it with prayer. But fight it! It will be worth it.

Family Relationships in Fiction

Good fiction tells an important story.

Great fiction draws realistic relationships and plays on tropes that don't end where you expect.

For instance, Katniss and Prim in The Hunger Games. When Katniss volunteers for the Hunger Games in Book 1, it's to protect Prim from almost certain violent death. But by the end of the series (spoiler alert) Prim is the heroine of her own story, rushing into a war-zone to protect those she deems worthy of her protection. She becomes a protector through her own nurturing way, a way that is as alien to Katniss as Peeta's incomprehensible kindness. Her character arc honors the differences between Katniss and Prim; it doesn't make her into Katniss or their mother. She is inspired by Katniss, but also shaped by her own internal voice.

In Pride and Prejudice, sibling relationships are central to the romantic plot between Darcy and Elizabeth. It is Darcy's little sister who, long before Elizabeth is even aware of her existence or importance, draws Darcy to Elizabeth as he sees her defensiveness and protectiveness of her own family. Though many characters are drawn comically--Mary with her pious studiousness and Lydia with her opposite flagrance and lack of piety--Elizabeth does not treat them as static stereotypes so neither can the reader. As she tries to teach them, sometimes gently and sometimes sharply, we see them as people capable of change and growth. Even the old father, set in his ways so long and comfortable with his escapes from five silly girls, is capable of growth and determines at the end to take a more active role in his children's upbringing while he can. His relationship with Elizabeth redeems him as a careless father because of his obvious love of her and the growth her story inspires in him.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie's grandmother arranges to marry her off at the tender age of sixteen. This seems to be done for Grandma's own peace of mind, to know Janie will be taken care of after the old woman's death. Janie never fully forgives her grandmother for this bit of selfishness, though her grandma tells her she is doing it for her own good. Such an act of desperation gives us sympathy for the grandmother at the same time we may feel shock at the decision, and especially shock at how little say Janie is given in an era when slavery has already been abolished. (spoiler alert) However, when we think that her grandmother came from slavery during the Emancipation Proclamation and was the victim of rape, having very little say in her own relationships, we understand better how her opinions about marriage and the freedom of young women were formed. Though the grandmother dies early in the story, her influence remains through the entire book as Janie experiences levels of freedom in her marriages and eventually rejects the ideas that made her grandma make that pivotal decision.

The Weasley Family from Harry Potter is my favorite family in fiction because the sibling relationships ring so true, from jokesters Fred and George trying to put their little brother under The Unbreakable Vow for a laugh, to the fierce loyalty they display to each other during the final battles of the epic saga. The parents, too, display all the characteristics and behaviors of real parents overwhelmed by raising responsible magical children on a shoe-string budget. Like most parents, they believe school is the surest road to financial success, and are horrified with the decisions their children make that take them off the well-beaten path. Then, when success comes unexpectedly, they are unduly proud as if this unorthodox living were what they wanted for their children all along. It's their foibles as much as their virtues that make them feel real to the reader.

I hope you feel inspired as you consider each of these examples of family relationships in fiction, and get some ideas for your own writing. Reading about family relationships in fiction can help us heal and forgive in our own real-life relationships. It can inspire us to change something in ourselves that we see in a relentless parent or unkind sibling.

March 2016 #OABookClub: Emma by Jane Austen

Welcome back! In March, the members of Operation Awesome read EMMA, by Jane Austen.

Emma is a classic, by a revered author. So why did some of us have trouble finishing? Read on, and please add your thoughts in the comments!

Kara

I have struggled with reading "classics" all my life. While a part of me would love to be "well-read," the actual reading of most of those books has been onerous. I often can't read them unless I've seen the movie (Pride and Prejudice is one that comes to mind).

Well, I've seen Clueless, so I figured that would be enough to get me through EMMA. And it helped; I kept reminding myself "Okay, Harriet is Tai, Mr. Knightley is Paul Rudd's character..." While I was able to keep the characters straight, I still kept falling asleep while reading! I do intend to finish EMMA, someday, but alas I could not finish it in March. It's not like I didn't have free time this month; the amount of Gilmore Girls I watched can attest to that. But when the choice came down to watching Netflix, working on my own book, or reading EMMA, somehow EMMA always got picked last. In fact, I only read it when I was donating plasma and the internet wasn't working (meaning no Netflix).

I tried to pinpoint what it was about EMMA that kept putting me to sleep, and I think it's the pacing. It moves soooooo sloooooooowly. Most of the beginning of the book is dialogue or exposition. Emma's governess/companion moves out, but we're mostly told that, not shown it. Harriet becomes Emma's friend. And then the Travis-equivalent proposes to Harriet (that's as far as I got). But somehow there is endless talking about FREAKING EVERYTHING even though barely anything is happening!

It reminded me that while dialogue often helps us get to know characters and love them, it is not a good device for advancing a story. Action is important. Stuff has to happen on the page, not just be talked about.

I'll finish this one, eventually, if the internet isn't back on at BioLife. At least it was free!

Samantha

Honesty time: I did not complete the homework assignment. I DNFed this book at 7%. And what's more... I was the one who picked this out.

I spent most of my life avoiding Jane Austen. Her writing isn't exactly my thing. I'm more into space operas, gritty fantasy, and psychological thrillers. That's about as far from her prim romantic interludes that you can get. My BFFs in high school were obsessed with the Gwyneth Paltrow movie, yet I never read any Austen works until a couple years ago.

However, I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice. It's quaint. I liked the voice, and I can understand why people go crazy over her writing. I've also been bingeing Downton Abbey on Netflix lately, so I get it. I get it. I GET IT.

What I didn't get was who all these people in Emma were. OMG, so many people. And her father went by "Mr." or whatever? Like, how am I supposed to remember that? I spent half the second chapter thinking I'd been introduced to someone new and being confused about someone's second cousin's childless marriage and... Yeah.

March has been a stressful month for me overall. I might have persevered longer if I had more energy. I really thought I'd like it, but that's the verdict: DNF, 7%. Sorry, Ms. Austen.

Karen

I have to confess that the only reason I read this book is because a good friend of mine told me it was a digestible Jane Austen. I had a history of DNFing all the Jane Austen books because, oh my goodness, they dragged. And dragged.

This one was a bit more readable for me though. Perhaps it's because I'm older, reading more, writing more, and I have a different relationship to words than I used to. It probably also helped that I saw the movie Clueless first, which made it easier to keep track of everyone, especially with a double-check to the wiki. But I definitely agree with Samantha that it was chock full of people.

Emma is a beautifully complex character, so much so that I still rooted for her despite her frivolity and stubbornness. She's smart and clueless at the same time, all while being so wonderfully interesting. Something very difficult for a writer to pull off well.

As much as I liked the book, however, it is, as of this post, still a DNF. I'm more than halfway through, and intend to finish. And I'll definitely be watching Clueless again.

Katrina

I am a sucker for Jane Austen's dry humor and spot-on characterization of people who seem too real to be made up. Frank Churchill, for instance, while charming in every movie adaption of Emma I ever saw, is really quite a cad in the book. Take this excerpt, from when Emma catches him staring at his secret fiance.

He started. "Thank you for rousing me," he replied. "I believe I have been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a way--so very odd a way--that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw anything so outre! Those curls! This must be a fancy of her own. I see nobody else looking like her. I must go and ask her whether it is an Irish fashion. Shall I? Yes, I will--I declare I will; and you shall see how she takes it--whether she colours."

Not quite the charmer Ewan McGregor had me crushing on! As much as I have loved the characters in Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion, I believe Emma holds some of the most ridiculous and yet life-like of any Jane Austen wrote. While the story line may drag a tad, the actual conversations are so much fun, you couldn't get any more entertainment from watching The Bachelorette, which is, of course, how Emma likes to describe herself.

Wendy

I'm a big fan of Jane Austen's work, and of all of them, I love Emma the most, and not just because I think Mr. Knightly is the best Austen love interest.

The characters in this book are people you can identify the world today: Emma, who means well and says things that sound correct but doesn't realize how unnecessary her advice and "assistance" really is; Harriet, who values her friend's opinions over her own, much to her detriment; Mr. Woodhouse, who's content in his comfortable little world of consistency and hates any kind of change; and the rest of the cast, whose blunders and antics and interactions are so relatable, even so many years later.

Yes, the plot isn't exactly action-filled, but with Austen, I'm in it for the characters, the clever dialogue, and the little hidden gems of understanding, rather than a riveting plot.

On the topic of "hidden gems" -- for fans of Austen, or those who may have read the works but feel like they're still missing the "inside jokes," I'd definitely recommend What Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved by John Mullan. This literary criticism outlines twenty insights into Austen's world that make reading these novels even more enjoyable and might make some of those tough-to-get-through chapters make more sense. It contains insights on what those books were that Harriet told Mr. Martin to read, why Austen had her characters play those particular card games, and how much the age difference between characters would have really mattered during those times. You may be surprised what you've been missing!

***

April's Operation Awesome Book of the Month

In April, we're reading A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC, by V.E. Schwab.

Kell is one of the last Travelers—rare magicians who choose a parallel universe to visit.

Grey London is dirty, boring, lacks magic, ruled by mad King George. Red London is where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London is ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. People fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. Once there was Black London—but no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell smuggles for those willing to pay for even a glimpse of a world they’ll never see. This dangerous hobby sets him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a dangerous enemy, then forces him to another world for her 'proper adventure'.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive—trickier than they hoped.

Come back on Monday, May 2, to discuss what you thought of the book!

Click to Tweet: I'm reading A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC by @veschwab in April for @OpAwesome6's #OABookClub. Join me?

#LesMisRead2016 Update from Samantha

Quick update: As I mentioned above, I've had a hard month. My father-in-law died on Good Friday. Before that, my husband went up to see him in his final days, and I had the week off from work to (supposedly) potty train our toddler. But Morrigan was very upset that Daddy was gone, so that didn't happen. No potty training with depressed toddlers. Then hubby got home, and his father went into palliative care, and we took the twelve hour drive up there. As I'm writing this, we're on the road back home.

So that's more of a life update than a Les Miserables reading update, but all that to say: I'm behind, but not because I'm not enjoying it. My big overall thought on the novel is, "Poor Cosette. Poor Fatine. Poor Jean Valjean. Poor everyone." But then, with a title like that, what do you expect?

Hopefully I'll be caught up by next month!

Thanks for stopping by. Let us know what you thought of Emma in the comments!

The #BestBooks on Writing: Help Wanted

I'm trying to compile the best library I can for budding writers. I have a few budding writers in my home, not to mention me, still blooming over here.

I've already got:

Save the Cat!

Writing the Breakout Novel

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

What else do I absolutely need in my writer's library?

If you want to chat about it on twitter, talk to me at @katrinalantznov with hash tag #bestbooks.

What makes a book GREAT: a look at THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

In addition to #OABOOKCLUB, which is reading EMMA by JANE AUSTEN this month, I also sometimes take part in a local meet-up to have dessert and talk literature with some lovely ladies. Last month we read THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by ZORA NEALE HURSTON.

It's an amazing book, and I want to talk about what makes it great, what made Alice Walker tromp through an old, snake-infested cemetery looking for the author's unmarked gravestone so she could replace it with a decent memorial, and what made some old, out-of-print novel make a comeback so many years after the author's death.

~

“It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

~

Goodreads

When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...
'For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive. There is no novel I love more.' Zadie Smith

Reading Zora Hurston's book was a rich cultural experience for me, one that made me laugh and cry with the people. 

It was culturally rich because she put so much of her own cultural heritage into it. Parts of it even seem autobiographical. For instance, there's a line where one of the main characters jokes that Janie's greatest sin is taking a few years off her age, and that never hurt anybody. This little line has more meaning when you realize that Zora Hurston herself took ten years off her life at the age of 26 so she could go back to high school. She never added those years back on, but from thence forth was ten years younger than herself. You can imagine that the maturity she took with her into her education gave a dawn-light to every master and principle she studied, and made her appreciate the impact she could have on the world through writing. 

Part of the cultural richness is the language:

"Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore."

~

“If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all.”

Part of it is the way the characters interact with one another in the community, mostly around the store porch where gossip, philosophical debate, and fighting all shape the relationships and thus the society in which Janie lives. When she's allowed to partake in these shaping conversations vs. when she feels silenced by a mayor-husband, that makes all the difference in Janie's happiness and sense of purpose. 

“...she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see...”

In the beginning, it's the silly stories and this, for me, alien culture that keep the book from dragging during a time of Janie's life when she's really not allowed to be all that interesting. The ripening wisdom she attains, even through the suffocating ages of oppression she chooses to endure, turns her into someone you can't help but love.

“She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”

It's in the poetry of the book, foolish toward the beginning, and then wise toward the end, that you see Janie's character develop best.

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.”

~ 

“Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!”

~ 

"She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop."

~ 

“Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”

~ 

“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”

Race was naturally woven through the story, but the people were just people. They could grow or stagnate according to their own choices.

While there were commentaries from different characters on race and racial divisions, the characters themselves were drawn as simply human- all of them. You could feel the regret in each character when he or she acted against conscience. You could see the very human justification happening in their minds and hearts, and occasionally one or another would choose to change despite his self-justification. A triumph of humanity! The most tragic character, in my view, was the one who wouldn't be changed. I won't give it away here, but Janie laments at the end of his life that he wanted to change the world but wouldn't have the world change him. 

Each story surprised me with its genuine quality, no matter how bizarre (vulture parson at a carcass funeral). 

There's a bizarre story about a mule carcass being dragged out of town ceremoniously, which ends with vultures presiding over their own sort of ceremony, complete with a vulture parson who does an investigation of the carcass before every other vulture can partake. As silly as this all sounds, it has a poetic aspect in the writing of Zora Hurston, and it makes you feel it all really happened.

I was tickled by the personalities brushing up against each other, for good or ill. What really made the stories was the way the people reacted to one another, like the lazy townsfolk who greet Janie's second husband with surprise when he asks to see their mayor. They hadn't even gotten up to thinking about electing a mayor, much less imagining they'd be allotted a post office by the government for their little not-quite-a-town. Janie's and Jody's coming to Eatonville flips the town upside down, or right-side up! And while many of the people respond gratefully, others are jealous and petty from the start. 

Later on when Janie has completely different adventures with her third husband and she's fully invested in her life, she doesn't seem as affected by the foibles of the other characters. That's part of her later-life wisdom, to let everyone be who they are. It's in this part of the book that I really started to enjoy myself and let the lessons of human weakness and human strength and human connection just sink into my soul. 

Most of all, the poetry at certain parts elevated my spirit. I felt improved for having read it.

Beautiful language is only half of poetry. The other half is depth of meaning. Zora Neale Hurston is a true poet. 

"There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought."

~

"Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them."

 ~

 So, to sum up, WHAT MAKES A BOOK GREAT?

• Rich cultural backdrop that is alive and breathing through characters and community
• Poetry, and tone, that evolves with the character through her arc
• The people aren't stereotypes, but regular people
• Each story feels true, no matter how bizarre, and lessons of human nature and connection come through in the narrative
• The reader's spirit is elevated, her life better for having read it

What do you think it is that makes a book truly great?

For more of the story of Alice Walker and the cemetery or Zora Hurston and the missing ten years on her age, check out the book from the library and read the forewords and afterwords. 

NaNoWriMo 2015 Updates! How You Doin'?

From NaNoWriMo: I wrote a novel! Now What?

I had to pull it out of my rear end, but I finished National Novel Writing Month 2015 with a complete novella.

Mine's an allegory about the end of the world. What did you write about?

And how is that project doing today? Have you looked at it since November 30th?

I purposely haven't! But now it's January and this is the month to take the next steps for me.

My first steps are to...

1. Print the whole thing out.

2. Smile at it.

3. Get a cuppatea and lie down in bed with it, pen in hand. 

4. Make little notes in the margins. Correct typos. 

5. Set it aside.

6. Move notes to the computer copy. 

7. Start revision. 

How about you? Have you already landed an agent or publisher for your NaNo project? Or are you just about to dust it off, like me?

Bizarro Twilight by Stephenie Meyer: an Analysis

Remember Bizarro from the Superman legends? He's that guy from Htrae, instead of Earth. Htrae is a cube-shaped planet, where Earth is a sphere. The S on Bizarro's chest is backwards, and he even thinks backwards. 

Buy it

Well, that's the first feeling you get when you open up Stephenie Meyer's 10th anniversary edition of Twilight upside-down and backwards. The title becomes Life and Death. The apple is green, not red. The hand is a man's, because the forbidden fruit isn't Bella anymore, it's Beau Swan. 

But it gets even better. Turn the page and you get to read a letter from the authoress herself, apologizing that you're not reading Midnight Sun, the much-hoped-for, unpublished volume of The Twilight Saga that tells the story from Edward's point of view. This is not that. But it's the second-best thing. I loved two things about Stephenie Meyer's foreword:

1) Her publisher contacted her with the idea in mind of having her write an exciting letter for the 10th anniversary edition of Twilight, but Stephenie thought that might be difficult. How could she make a simple letter exciting? It sounded boring to her. So... 

2) She decided to answer the critics of Bella "Damsel in Distress" Swan by doing what she often suggested one could easily do: switching Bella out for a human boy, who would be just as distressed when surrounded by superhumans. 

I have to confess that I have been a Twilight fan from the beginning, and I survived all the comparisons between Katniss and Bella, as if they were anything close to comparable (I think it's more honest to compare Katniss to Scarlett O'Hara, that self-preserving socialite from the Civil War era). I have pretty strong feelings about Bella's personal strength, a strength evident on every single page of The Twilight Saga. 

For example, the first page of Twilight has Bella explaining how dying in place of someone she loves is a pretty good way to go. But try to figure out which someone she's talking about, and you realize she isn't saving just one person; she's saving, in her mind, at least nine. Possibly all of Forks. Everything she does is calculated to save someone else. That's not damsel-in-distress behavior. Last I checked, that's hero behavior. 

Don't get me wrong, Katniss has her selfless moments, but she really has to milk them for all they're worth for the screens, doesn't she? In contrast, Bella spends every waking minute thinking about others. Now, we could argue about the psychological health of someone so martyred, so thoroughly invested in the idea of her own ordinary-ness. But her status as a hero is unquestionable. It's her mission in life. It's who she is. 

And it's who Beau is, too. :)  

First thought as I started reading: This is weird. I had to focus to keep all the names and genders straight. Okay, so this is a girl name, which means it represents a boy name from Twilight, so who had blond, straight hair and a round, cute face? Oh, right. McKayla is Mike. Got it. You may not suffer as I did if you aren't quite as OCD. In fact, I think the best way to read Life and Death is to pretend you never read Twilight. And if you never did read Twilight, you'll really love Life and Death. 

Now for ten observations about Life and Death:

1. Beau makes a better Bella that Bella does. I think this feeling comes from my initial disconnect with Bella as a fellow girl. I'm a girly girl and she's not. She doesn't like to wear pink, paint her nails, go shopping, nada. Hence, when she became a boy, it just worked for me. If you read Life and Death first, you'd think Beau was possibly sexist, insisting on opening doors for Edythe, even after he knows she could crush him with a pinky. He refuses to lie down after almost being slammed into his truck by a sliding van on an icy day. He tries to be tough even when he faints at the sight of other people's blood during Biology. Everything tough Bella tried to do in Twilight looks stereotypical male when Beau does it.   
2. Edythe makes more sense than Edward does. She writes in pretty calligraphy, just like Edward does. She listens to classical music, just like Edward does. She laughs at everything Beau says and does, like Edward did to Bella. The graceful way she moves--a vampire thing, I know--matches a female more than a stereotypical male. 
3. The spider-monkey scene is awkward. So awkward I couldn't even picture it right. Beau is super tall, even taller than Carine (the female counterpart to Carlyle) and Edythe is short. Wearing Beau like a backpack just isn't feasible. My brain hurt a little trying to see it.
4. Traditional stereotypes of the cultures represented in the book become glaringly obvious. For instance, I hadn't noticed that all the teachers at Forks High School were men until they all became women. The office receptionist became a balding guy, which reminded me that all office receptionists are actually women. The alpha male system for the werewolves is now matriarchal. Carine becomes the father of the family, er... mother. There is a definite power shift from men to women that I think has less to do with Stephenie Meyer's prejudices and more to do with the standing cultures she is writing about. I could sense the author was having fun with this shift.
5. Royal is less forgivable than Rosalie. I recognized this may be my personal bias, and likely is. Even after hearing his backstory, I felt less sympathy for him than I had for Rosalie. It's sad, really, that I could recognize he had been a victim and yet still want to blame him when I wouldn't dream of blaming Rosalie for her victimization, no matter how shallow she had been prior to her death. Something for me to think about.
6. Jules is more pitiable than Jacob. For some reason I didn't feel bad for Jacob during Twilight. Not really. But I felt really bad for Jules. I attribute this to two things: 1) I already know how Breaking Dawn ends and it could never end that way with Beau being unable to create life with Edythe. 2) Again, my natural bias and sympathy goes to women and girls because of what I am. 
7. Beau is funnier than Bella, and Charlie gets along with him better. (Only Beau's parents remained the same gender for reasons Stephenie Meyer explains in her foreword.) The relationship between Charlie and Beau lacks the over-protectiveness Charlie endearingly feels toward his only daughter in Twilight. While Charlie still does protective things, like ask about Beau's social life and put snow chains on his truck's tires, it feels less--for lack of a better word--patriarchal. When Charlie says, "Beau, you're easy to live with," it's easier to believe. This is probably due to the simple difference between dads and daughters and the slight anxiety which is healthy to any relationship in which one does not naturally understand the other. It's that anxiety of not understanding, after all, that impels us to try to understand. Just as Bella relates more to Charlie than to her mom, Beau is basically a miniature Charlie. This makes it all the more heartbreaking when Beau lies to Charlie to protect him, and tells him his worst fear is ending up like him, trapped in small-town Forks. 
8. Beau's voice is easier on the ears. Despite Bella's tomboy-ness, there were still times her voice came across as a bit whiny. Beau's voice is literally different. His character is almost exactly the same as Bella, but the way he talks to people and to himself is different. 
9. The teasing at school feels different. When the guys tease Beau about his aversion to blood, it feels more mean-spirited. Jessica's envy and passive-aggressive behavior toward Bella was easy to write-off as harmless. Beau seems to have a higher bar to clear.
10. The ending. That's all I have to say about that. Read it. You'll see. *wink*

In closing, read Life and Death. You'll get a kick out of it, and maybe have an opportunity to analyze your own gender-based assumptions, always a good thing. In fact, I can see this being a great English class project or Gender Studies essay prompt. 

I can't resist a book that gives me this much to think about.