Sarvenaz Tash's Blog, page 34

Birthday Bash #25: The 80s

In my family, birthdays were a big deal. Since we didn't celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, your birthday was when you got the big presents and the big celebration. My birthday happens to fall exactly one week before Halloween.

This is my setup as to why, for the past five years, I've thrown myself a big, themed bash where I've forced my friends to dress up in all sorts of manners. My first theme, for my 25th birthday, was the 80s.

This is what I wore:
That is my cousin's actual prom dress and...

A Couple of Characters

Whenever I see a strong, complex female protagonist--be it in a movie, book, TV show, video game, etc.--I get really excited. Sadly, they're still much rarer than their male counterparts.

One of my all-time favorite kick-butt female protagonists is teen super-sleuth Veronica Mars (from the criminally canceled TV show---wait for it--Veronica Mars). Veronica is:

- super smart
- super sarcastic
- has an unusual job that puts her in the way of adventure and danger
- still deals with some very real tee...

It's a Helluva Day at Sea, Sir!

Everyone has them: movies you love that don't seem to get the credit you feel they deserve. The underrated gems. The cult classics or even the should-be-cult classics.

Here is one of mine: Overboard. This 1987 romantic comedy paired Hollywood dream couple (they are STILL together, people) Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Playing against type, Hawn is a rich not-nice-person-that-rhymes-with-witch who hires a "sweaty carpenter" to build a closet on her yacht. She ends up insulting the carpenter and...

Having Faith

J.K. Rowling is one of my all-time heroes. Not only do I LOVE the Harry Potter books and think they are timeless, brilliant masterpieces but I also find her extremely compelling as a person. To me, she represents so many things I hold dear: perseverance, determination, grace under pressure, and generosity to name just a few.

I've had the immense privilege of seeing her in-person twice. The second time is probably the most exciting (and I will go into that in a different post) but I wanted to w...

Proof of Life

So I got the proofs of my author photos last week. Looking at them wasn't as painful as I expected. However, no one should really look at 167 pictures of themselves in a row. It is, as predicted, weird.

Also, showing your mom 167 pictures of yourself and NOT expecting her to ask you for copies of all of them is totally unrealistic. Equally unrealistic: her expecting you to actually follow through with that. Because no one needs 167 pictures of me. Not even my mom.

In related news, however, I sh...

David Lynch Fiction Prompt

I love David Lynch's work. I wouldn't say I'm an expert on it or anything--or even that I've seen everything he's ever done--but I greatly respect the man because I feel like he's someone who has true vision, style, and an incredibly unique point of view. Sometimes, this means I have no idea what on God's green earth is going on in his movies. But, like I said, I respect that.

Yesterday, I saw this tweet from him:

You must be able to get to NYC on your own to win.

I scrolled down a bit and real...

Writer's Retreat

retreat n.
    1  : a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director
    2  : an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable

I wish that this blog post was about the former definition and that I was on my way to a rambling country estate where I could write all day and then banter with other writers while we play croquet. Alas, it is not.

Somewhere in my latest WIP, I took a wrong turn--I suspect it's about...

Which Synopsis Tickles Your Fancy?

Yesterday, my manservant Google and I were having a fine chat in the drawing room. Through our profound conversation, I discovered that The Mapmaker and the Ghost is listed in Bloomsbury's rights catalogue that they will be presenting at the Bologna Book Fair at the end of this month. The Bologna Book Fair is pretty renowned in the publishing industry and is where a lot of foreign rights are bought and sold.

1) Foreign rights mean my book could be bought in multiple languages, with kids all ov...

Writing Dirty

I'm about 15,000 words into my latest project. That's 65 pages in Word. In book terms, it's not very long at all.

I cannot express strongly enough how much I hate first drafts. There's often an initial excitement when creating a story (obviously, because why else would you go to the trouble of writing it down?). I can usually see certain characters very clearly. Certain scenes come to me, too--often the beginning and the end. But then there's that dreaded middle part. You know, the part with o...

Seasons of...Boooooooooks

It's really hard to get all those 'Seasons of Love' trills and arpeggios across in writing.

Anyway...

If you look around at some debut author's sites, Twitter feeds, etc., you might notice that instead of a release date for their books, they will have listed a season. Mine for example says Winter 2012.

For the most part, actual release dates don't come into play until pretty late in the process. But, usually, an author will know what season they're being published in.

To add just a bit more confu...