Emily H. Bates's Blog, page 12

Look what I can do!

You might guess that I have a thing for books. I read books, I write books, I hoard books, I quote books, I can barely get through a conversation without bringing books into it in some way.

So I have this friend who makes beautiful handcrafted books. (You can see her work at Pickle Bound Books.) Not only does she create these lovely books, she shares her talent and teaches other people how to do it as well!

I attended her Oriental Stab Binding class this week, and it was amazing! I took a bun...

Would you rather . . .

My fabulous phantomy friend Amy tagged me to answer some fun bookish questions! I haven’t done anything like this for a while, so I’m excited to take a stab at it.

1. Would you rather only read trilogies or only read standalones?
Ahhhh. Can I exchange “series” for “trilogies”? Because Harry Potter would not be present in either of those choices. I think I would go for series. While standalones have a very satisfying sense at the end (usually), I love the depth of familiarity that comes from s...

What? June?

Hey there, guys. Remember me? It’s been a few weeks, but I’m still here. Since we last met, I wen to California, turned a quarter of a century old, killed my old cell phone, caved in and got a smart phone, finally met one of my amazing critique buddies face-to-face, and ran across an entertaining children’s book series about a quirky British family of artists by Hilary McKay.

I suppose writing is in there somewhere, too. And mapping. My fabulous map-making brother sat me down and talked throu...

Soliloquize!

Have you seen the Hamlet with David Tenant and Patrick Stewart? One of my favorite performances ever. I watched it again with my cousin last week, and while I was basking in the glorious soliloquies, I started to wonder . . .

What would my characters say, given a moment to face the camera and speak their mind?

So this is my challenge to you this week, my friends:

***

Pick a character at a certain point in your novel, and soliloquize.

***

Dodging Burnout

Do you ever get so fed up with your stubborn characters and tangled plots that you just want to throw it all out the window?

I do. Regularly.

Writing is one of those professions that you have to be crazy to do, but you don’t have to let it make you completely crazy. This was a lesson I learned the hard way, after trying to push my way through a burnout and finally shutting down my writing altogether for almost a year.

I’m getting better now at seeing when I’m headed for a burnout and taking s...

Heading back to school . . .

May has been a whirlwind month! I ended up back in Northern California last week and had a great opportunity to do some school visits—one of which was at my very own elementary school, where my fourth-grade teacher still teaches! The kids were fabulous, with so many great questions and great answers to my questions. Totally loved geeking out over Harry Potter fanfiction with a couple of girls from Franklin, and I loved seeing so many of the kids come to the signing on Saturday night! Many, ma...

Cast from Fiction!

Okay, maybe it’s 9:00pm, but I’m going to get this writing challenge out on Monday this week. Story behind this week’s writing challenge: ever since I got a contract to publish Demon’s Heart, I’ve had people asking me if it’s going to be a movie. My inner response to that question is a subject for another day. But one of the things that has come up in this relentless drive to push another novel to Hollywood screenwriters is who would be cast in various roles. I’m totally clueless when it come...

A peek at the old bookshelves…

I’ve been a delinquent blogger. I know. But guys, the past two weeks have been jam-packed helping with last-minute moves, scribbling down spur-of-the-moment story inspirations, organizing school presentations in California, enjoying these rare sunny Washington days, and using PowerPoint for the first time since college.

Which, by the way, I’m still questioning. Should I use PowerPoint or Prezi for my school presentations? I love the eye-catchiness of Prezi, but I feel like PowerPoint is easie...

Boggarting your character

Remember meeting boggarts way back in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? A creature that shapes itself into whatever you fear the most. How terrifying is that?

But what a brilliant creation! Forcing the characters to face their fears and showing their reactions not only developed the characters better, it humanized them, brought them a little closer to our hearts. Fear is a universal emotion, but everyone deals with it differently. Therefore, fear is a great way to make your character...

The fading trauma of poetry

I loved all of my freshman creative writing class except for one section: poetry.

For the first week, I tried really, really hard to appreciate the poems we read and to remember the forms we talked about. But it was pure torture, and by the time I had to write 100 lines of poetry, I was desperate to get it over with as quickly as possible. Among the gems I composed were a free-verse poem about narwhals and a rondeau about the misery of finals week. Instant classics, I assure you.

This was not...