Annie Cardi's Blog, page 18
October 16, 2015
Friday Fifteen
Happy Friday, guys! I’m powering through revisions and am emotionally unprepared for how cold it’s going to get over the weekend here in the Boston area. In the meantime, here’s a look at what I’ve been reading and writing in fifteen words or under.
Reading: The Martian by Andy Weir
Fun and funny and loved how it embraced science. Mentally cast as Watney.
Writing: “…pretend that I have a little more creativity than spiking the punch at College Night.”
Character has standards for his pranks.
October 15, 2015
In Dreams, We Enter a World That’s Entirely Our Own
Because fall always makes me feel like rereading Harry Potter, I couldn’t resist sharing this lovely stop-motion video by unPOP:
I love how Harry Potter fans have made such awesome work–videos like this one, fanfic, song parodies, etc.–based on the book series we love. Books like these definitely outlast the individual reading experience.
October 9, 2015
Friday Fifteen
Happy Friday, everyone! I feel like we’ve had about five weeks packed into one, so I’m glad to be heading into a long weekend. Here’s a look at what I’ve been reading and writing in fifteen words or under.
Reading: Wildlife by Fiona Wood
Sensitive, thoughtful, real—a new favorite contemporary YA. What is it about Australian YA writers?!
Writing: “Dante does also play a mean clarinet…The band people notice stuff like that.”
Back into revisions after a helpful workshop with my wonderful crit group.
October 8, 2015
Links Galore
A few good links for your Thursday:
An important post from Jewish writers about anti-Semitism.
Stories created from dictionary sample sentences.
Not a huge surprise, but I love family stories.
And speaking of family, on Anne of Green Gables and the definition of family.
The delightful Mackenzi Lee on Frankenstein, writing playlists, and her advice for writers.
For all you fellow punctuation nerds.
Excellent post on writing transgender character and transitioning.
The confession to fellow writers..
Kill your darlings and cut these words.
Great look at how to write compelling action scenes.
How the blurb-sausage gets made.
If book lovers ruled the world.
Breakdown of gender in YA and SFF.
How to organize your home writing space.
Nailing voice as a writer and for your characters.
Get ready for NaNoWriMo!
I need the new illustrated Harry Potter like whoa.
October 7, 2015
Read Local in New England!
New England’s a great place to be a children’s/YA author. We have a fantastic network of enthusiastic readers, booksellers, educators, librarians and fellow writers; we’re the kind of people who show up for book events even during a winter of 100+ inches of snow.
So what better place than to read local? New England educators, librarians, and readers, take the Read Local Challenge!
The logistics, from wonderful New England author Jen Malone:
The challenge is open to any school, library, homeschool cooperative, or book club and will run throughout the 2015-16 school year. Working off the poster to the right (contact me to request a free copy by mail), groups work together to read the featured titles. Each book featured is written by an author who calls New England home and is appropriate for middle school readers. (Note: some titles are classified as Young Adult. Please contact me with any questions about possible content within a particular title.)
If at least one student in the school/library/group completes a book, mark it off on the poster. In April 2016, groups will send in their tally and we’ll award the top four groups an author visit by one of the four sponsoring authors. If more than four groups achieve the highest possible score of 30/30, we will hold a drawing to select the winning group.
How cool is that? I’m beyond excited to see The Chance You Won’t Return on the list, along with awesome books like Monstrous, Fish in a Tree, Becoming Jinn, The Hunger Games, and more.
To get started, click through, get the poster, and start reading local!
September 28, 2015
Quote of the Day
I love this illustration by Debbie Ridpath Ohi. The quote by Madeleine L’Engle seems particularly apt for Banned Books Week, as her most famous book, A Wrinkle in Time has been on banned and challenged book lists since its publication in the 1960s.
Debbie has lots of other awesome illustrations available for sharing and printing. Make sure to check out her great work and share your enthusiasm for reading!
September 23, 2015
Links Galore
A few links for your week:
Christa’s necessary post about publishing and writing and how to find meaning for yourself.
An infographic for outlining.
“To me, and many teen librarians, YA isn’t for anyone’s bottom line. It’s one of the ways we help support the intellectual, emotional, and recreational needs of teens.”
Accepting and learning from writer envy.
Editors have to love your book at tattoo-levels to publish it.
Oxford, I love you.
And good to remember–writing does not equal publishing.
Looking forward to being in Memphis, TN later this fall!
The non-guilt, non-stress approach to book marketing.
The international lives of teens in YA.
These documentaries about teens look fascinating.
Reading aloud to kids fosters bonding and learning.
September 18, 2015
Friday Fifteen
Happy Friday, everyone! I feel like this week has been about three weeks long, so I’m psyched to get to the weekend. Here to start things off, a look at what I’ve been reading and writing.
Reading: Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel
A very tough but very necessary read about veteran care and PTSD.
Writing: I haven’t gone to confession since I started junior year.
A new WIP, a new first page I’ve re-written about five times.
September 16, 2015
Quote of the Day
From “The Battle of The Pen and the Scissors” by Shem Tov Ardutiel (Santob de Carrión):
I recently read The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 by Peter Cole (translator) and I loved coming across poems about the act of writing. Like in the one above, even though they were written literally hundreds of years ago, it was so cool to see how writers face the same frustrations and challenges.
So take it from Shem Tov Ardutiel–tomorrow’s writing doesn’t matter today. Focus on getting the work done now.
September 9, 2015
Quote of the Day
Art is not linear. Neither is the artist’s life, but we forget that. We try to “plan” our life and “plan” our career–as if we could…And yet experience teaches us that life, especially life in the arts, is as much about mystery as it is about mastery.”–Julia Cameron
Reading The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity and really digging it. It feels like a book you could just pick up and flip through whenever you needed it.
(image: Sound wave by betmari)
