Justine Larbalestier's Blog

Well, that was a long break, wasn't it? I return refreshed and ready to resume blogging activities.

First boring admin: I have yet to tackle my mail, given all the totally urgent work on my plate, I won't get to it until the new year. Resend if urgent. I do try to answer all mail so if I still don't answer in January could be my spam filters ate it.

And now some commentary over at the Misfits' Book Club on the new covers of E. Lockhart's Ruby Oliver books. It made me really happy for two...

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I have fallen in love with yet another city. Istanbul is glorious. We have met with our lovely agent here, Asli Ermiş, who took us to meet our publishers, Omer Yenici at Epsilon (who will be publishing Leviathan) and Ilgin Toydemir at Artemis (who will be publishing Liar and already publish Midnighters). They in turn took us out for fabulous lunches.

In Istanbul we have eaten.

A lot.

First course at Borsa restaurant.

A baklava shop, which sells many sweet and wondrous things. Yes, we bought...

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Or getting in a plane again. This time to Istanbul, which is a city I've never been before. Am I excited? Yes, I am. But it does mean that blogging may not be as every single day as I like it to be. Might be a couple of weeks before normal service resumes. On the other hand, there may be kickarse wireless in the hotel and I'll blog like a demon. Just to keep you on your toes.

Have fun in my absence—I know it will be hard—and patient with my slow response to emails and questions etc. If you do ...

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I'm very sorry that some reviewers of YA were upset or worried by yesterday's post. I truly was not talking about you. If you're reading my blog. odds are you know and care about the genre, which is something the people who write those kinds of reviews are often lacking—especially the knowledge.

There are two groups who are writing the kinds of reviews I was mocking:

Reviewers for trade mags/journals/newspaper who are being asked to review outside their area of expertise

Amateur reviewers...

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I have a rule that I never respond to bad reviews. I have blogged on several occasions about why I think doing so is pointless. However, I can't help noticing a certain tenor in many Paranormal/Fantasy YA reviews lately. Everything seems to be talked about in terms of Stephenie Meyer's Twlight books.

On the one hand it's inevitable given that they are the most popular books, not just in YA, but in the entire world. Meyer's had a huge influence and, yes, there are many Twilight knockoffs out...

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I have a rule that I never respond to bad reviews. I have blogged on several occasions about why I think doing so is pointless. However, I can't help noticing a certain tenor in many Paranormal/Fantasy YA reviews lately. Everything seems to be talked about in terms of Stephenie Meyer's Twlight books.

On the one hand it's inevitable given that they are the most popular books, not just in YA, but in the entire world. Meyer's had a huge influence and, yes, there are many Twilight knockoffs out...

View full post on Justine Larbalestier's website »

Sarah Rees Brennan pointed me to this article about Gone with the Wind by Elizabeth Meryment. It annoyed me. So prepare yourself for a rant. Basically Meryment argues that all criticism of Gone with the Wind (book and film) over the last few decades has been dreadfully unfair, especially from feminists, and why can't we all just enjoy such a women-centric book with its array of fabulous strong female characters. Now, I happen to agree that Gone with the Wind features many wonderful strong...

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This is it the very last tip of NaNoWriMo 2009! At the end of this day you will be done! Woohoo!

Of course, you're not really done. Not even if you managed to finish a whole novel in one month. Though if you did, congrats! I've never managed that. My hat is off to you. As it is to everyone who took part this month no matter how many words you wrote or how close you got to completion.

But what to do with your finished zero draft? How do you turn it into a first draft? Or better yet a finished...

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One of my highlights of NCTE was doing a panel on blogging with Laurie Halse Anderson, Maureen Johnson, Barbara O'Connor and Lisa Yee. The panel was put together and moderated by Denise Anderson, who was just splendid and had done a tonne of research. I was very impressed. They've all now blogged about the panel. (Links to their posts are on their names.) All except for me and Maureen. As I think it's a sign of deep failure not to blog about a panel on blogging I am now fixing my omission. I ...

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It's my second last NaNoWriMo post! Wow, that went fast. You've all been at it for 28 days now.1 Which leads me to suspect that some of you may be feeling quite sore about now.

Writing, like any job that involves spending hours in front of a computer, has a high injury rate. Almost every pro writer I know has some kind of neck/back/wrist problem. Carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive strain injury are very common.

At the end of almost every first draft deadline, when I've been writing e...

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