Bryce Moore's Blog, page 151

Working with Sequels

I’ve finished writing at least a draft of 15 novels, but up until MEMORY THIEF 2, I’d never written a sequel. Why not? Because you can’t sell book 2 if you haven’t sold book 1, so what was the point in devoting time to a book that would be in that situation? That always made sense to me, but now that I’m actually writing a sequel, I’m finding some of it is (go figure) tricky, and I’m examining other sequels to see what they do right and wrong.

The problem is finding the right balance between old and new. People who turn to a sequel want to find more of what they found in the original. This is where things went wrong in the Star Wars prequels. Some of the stuff from the original was there (lightsabers!) but a whole lot of it felt very different. Too different. So people rejected it.

On the other hand, people also don’t want a simple rehash of the original. Ironically, this is where some critics have focused with the Star Wars sequel. It was too much like the first movie. (For the record, I loved it, and I don’t agree with the criticism.)

I watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 last week, and it was another good example of how hard it is to get a sequel just right. In this case, the original was so fresh. So out there. That recapturing that feeling is likely impossible. It’s the same as the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean. Depp’s Jack Sparrow can only be 100% fresh once, and since a whole lot of the power of that movie came from that freshness, the sequels can’t help but feel staler in comparison.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Guardians sequel. I thought it was exciting, full of humor and adventure, and that it had a cool story (even if it was a bit more convoluted and contrived than it could have been.) It found some ways to make old things fresh (Groot is now little!), but it still couldn’t be quite the same as the feeling you got when you watched the first.

So how does all of this connect to MEMORY THIEF 2? I’ve been going through the same process. Trying to decide for myself what the right balance between old and new should be for the book. I started by going pretty far into “new” territory, but as I’ve been revising, I’m reeling quite a bit of that in, weaving the new to the old, so that it’s shown to be all part of the same cloth, if that makes sense.

Of course, in the end, you might be like George Lucas: making a sequel the way you want to, only to discover that what you liked in the original was totally different from what everyone else liked. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen in my case . . .

Back in the Saddle

I’m back at work today. Back at life, it really feels like. There’s so much I just put on hold over the past bit, and I need to get on top of so many things. Often when I’m in this sort of a situation, it helps me to make a list of the things I need to be focusing on. Today I figured I’d do that as part of this post, so you can share in the fun.

THINGS I NEED TO DO

MEMORY THIEF 2 Second Draft–This is the biggest item on my list, and the one I need to focus most on. I finished the first draft, but after reading it through, there were a lot of changes I wanted to make. I’m well into them, but I need to really plow through them and get them incorporated. Some of them are going to be pretty extensive, so it’s stressing me out. But the changes I’ve already made have felt solid, so this should be a good thing.
Weight–I’ve gained 7.4 pounds in the last month. That’s a lot of pounds. I justified it to myself as I downed sugar galore, and I’m honestly okay with the fact that I stress-ate my way through the last week, but there comes a time when enough is enough. A time to remind myself that I’m avoiding sugar and overeating so that I feel better on the whole. That starts today.
Getting caught up at work–There are tons of emails to write, meetings to reschedule, etc. Little things that pile up, so you can feel like you’re drowning in them when you return. I’ve been working on this all morning and will keep at it until it’s done.
Trip planning–I’ve got two coming up. One to Virginia to get some furniture and drive it up to Maine. That should be fairly straightforward, but I need to iron out the little details. The second is larger, first to Chicago for ALA, and then on to Utah again for the original trip we’d planned for this summer. That’s one that I need to figure out a bit better. Having just gone and having things change so much, I need to work out what we want to do while we’re there. It’s still a month away, so I’ll let that percolate some.
Getting back into chores–Now is the exact sort of time that goals like the chore chart could easily slip into oblivion. Which is why now’s the most important time to stick with them.
House renovations–We’re having a ladder and railing put in at the house sometime soon. A second bathroom will be coming in the fall. It will be very good to have the space completely finished.

That doesn’t look too terrible, I suppose. The biggest stress is the book revision. If I just tuck my head down and really focus on that, I should be good. Right?

Right.

On Dying and Funerals

A month ago or so, I watched Guardians of the Galaxy with my kids. The movie opens pretty bleakly, with the main character shown as a young boy in a hospital. His mother is dying of cancer. She sits in a hospital room, bald and frail and surrounded by grieving family. Her son is brought to her, and they have a tearful scene where she asks him to take her outstretched hand. He refuses, and she pleads again.

And then dies, all at once. The heart rate monitor goes monotone, and she’s gone. Here’s the scene. See for yourself:

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Hollywood would show idealized versions of death scenes, but this past weekend was my first real encounter with what an actual death vigil is like. Perhaps it’s different for others. Perhaps there are occasions where Hollywood gets it right.

But it didn’t this time.

Death is incredibly hard and difficult. It involves sleepless nights. Uncertainty. Despair. You go from wanting the person to stay with you and have as much time as possible to being convinced they’re going to pass at any moment. But they don’t. Hours and days go by, and you realize there was so much further to go.

Part of me really wishes this were talked about more. Perhaps it would have prepared me for what was coming. I certainly scoured the internet once I was in the middle of it all. Trying to figure out what to expect and how it would all play out. I get why it isn’t discussed. Death can be frightening enough without people going around saying just how miserable of a process it can be. Even in this post, I’m shying away from really discussing it. Putting it down in written form would be a way of reliving it, and I have no desire to do that again. Even though I know I most likely will at some point in my life.

Actually, the thing it reminded me most of was a birth. How nature is suddenly in complete control, and you wish you could have some sort of an influence over any of it, but you’re just kind of helpless, waiting for things to take their course.

Of course, it’s not over once death has arrived. This trip has been so tough in so many different ways. We arrived Thursday in time for us to say goodbye, and then we were here at the house with our kids Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning as Laurie passed away. Then there was planning for the viewing and the funeral, and of course the actual events themselves.

I understand why they’re important, but those two meetings just about did me in. I can’t imagine how difficult they were for my father. I’m a person who doesn’t even like going to the barber’s, because I don’t like making small talk with people. The viewing Tuesday night was three and a half hours of standing in a line, shaking hands with people and thanking them for coming and for their support. Then there was another hour before the funeral. If death was like birth, the funeral is definitely like a wedding, only so much sadder.

I’m not trying to complain about any of this. Just trying to wrap my head around everything that’s been happening the last few days. The viewing and the funeral were both lovely. The talks were poignant and inspiring. The burial service touching. But it’s all been so. hard. I was asked to give the family prayer right before the funeral, and I just about lost it during that. But you can’t just break down into a sobbing wreck. At least I can’t.

And of course my children are with us through this all. Tomas and DC are both old enough to know what’s happening. MC still doesn’t really understand why Grandma isn’t coming back, though she’s now worried that she’ll die the next time she gets sick. And she can see everyone else being so sad, and it definitely rubs off on her.

I had hoped there would be a feeling of completion after the funeral. That I’d be able to move on. I’d been able to do that with most of the other funerals I’ve been through. They were times I could visit with loved ones, reminisce on times gone by. But I found out there’s a big difference between attending a viewing as family and attending one as one of the people who were close enough to the departed to mean that you’re standing in the line greeting people.

Some holes are just too deep to be filled so quickly, and some wounds can’t help but leave a scar.

This last week will leave a permanent mark on me and my family. I told Denisa last night that I probably have a fair bit more gray in my beard after yesterday. I hope and pray that I don’t have to go through anything like that again any time soon.

Thank you to everyone who came and all who have offered support, whether in person or on social media. It does help. It’s been so nice to see everyone again. I just wish it were under better circumstances.

And I suppose that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.

Tribute to Laurie

My step mother passed away yesterday. I’ve mentioned she was dying on Facebook and perhaps tangentially on my blog, but I haven’t really gone into any details, mainly because I haven’t felt like it was my place to go into detail. As anyone who has dealt with cancer will tell you, the path from diagnosis to where we are now was a rocky one. First it was “There’s something that’s not quite right. We need to run some tests.” Then comes the diagnosis itself, then trying to treat it, then discovering it can’t be treated, followed by an estimate on life expectancy. But that estimate is just that: a guess. We’d been told she had months to live, and so we planned a trip to Utah for this June/July.

Two weeks ago, “months” was changed to “weeks.” We planned to leave last Friday to see her. Then the estimate changed from weeks to days, and we moved the trip up a day. We got here in time to say goodbye.

When I made the plane changes, it occurred to me that I’d be writing another tribute post on my blog in the not too distant future. Somehow, that realization made everything much worse. I’ve written tributes for my grandparents as they’ve passed. My Grandma Moore died before I was really into blogging, but Grandpa Moore, Grandpa Cundick, and Grandpa Coltrin each got their post, one by one. I’d write about the memories I had of them, and what they meant to me. The posts have been cathartic in some ways, but they’re incredibly draining to write, for obvious reasons.

Here it goes.

As I’ve thought back over the experiences I’ve had with Laurie over the years, there are just so many to think about. I must have been about ten or so when my dad remarried. (I’m bad with ages in my memories.) They lived in Utah, and I lived on the East Coast, so I’d see them for a month every summer, and then every other Christmas. When I was out at BYU I saw them much more, of course. There’s always been that “step” in her title. Step mom. And every step parent relationship is different, and people have seemed hesitant to know how to react when I’ve mentioned that she’s passing away. “How close were you?” is the question that often comes up.

I’ve explained it like this. Imagine someone who has been in your life for more than twenty-five years. A close friend you’ve talked with regularly. Exchanged presents on birthdays and holidays. A person who’s been a grandparent to your children. Who’s offered love and support and advice. Who watched you grow up. Who helped you move dorms in college. Went with you on family vacations. Cooked you birthday dinners. Flew out to visit you wherever you were living. A person who’s incredibly close with most of your family.

That’s who Laurie was to me.

I remember finding out my father was remarrying. It was a strange concept, just like the divorce had been strange in the first place. I went to the wedding, and I mostly remember it as the time I began my life long love affair with chocolate eclairs. (Seriously. They had a ton of them at the reception, and I think I ate around fifty.) But the wedding was one thing. My siblings and I had flown out for it. We were there, and then we flew off. Things didn’t get real until that summer, when we moved out for a month.

It must have been incredibly difficult for her, though most of that blew over my head at the time. Having three kids show up for a month? Kids she doesn’t really know? Hard stuff. She handled it very well. Here’s a sampling of memories I have of her over the years:

When we’d visit in the summer, my father had a house that had two floors, but the lower floor had been sealed off as a rental before he’d bought it. The only way to get between floors was for us to go outside and around the house. He decided to fix that one day. He sawed a hole in the floor, right behind the front door, and built a ladder going between the floors. There was a trap door and everything. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Laurie was less than enthralled with the idea. As a homeowner now, I can’t really blame her. (I wonder if that ladder is still in the house. They moved. What did the later owners think of it?)
We would go on trips around the west. Phoenix. Southern Utah. Las Vegas. My father had a Jetta, and my brother and sister and I would pile in the backseat and drive for miles. We had our Gameboys. Laurie was skeptical of those Gameboys for years, it seemed. I remember trying to teach her how great Tetris was. In the end, she came around. Sort of. She’s been an avid Free Cell player for what seems like decades now.
Laurie has always been a big fan of discussion topics at the dinner table, or at least when we’ve all been together for Christmas dinner or Easter or the like. I, on the other hand, have not. I think I moaned and complained about those conversations over the years. Now, of course, I try to do the same thing to my kids. Come up with a topic to discuss. I definitely see the value in it, and she’s been the best example of it to me. (That said, I still tend to check out when the discussions go on too long or get too sappy. Some things never change.)
She had a sports car when she married my father, and the for the first while, they kept it, even though there wasn’t really enough room in there for the family when we visited. I remember getting into the back window to drive places. I’m sure we were breaking a million traffic rules. I thought it was pretty awesome, though. What other kid got to drive around in the trunk of a sports car?
When we were kids, Laurie would send us “candy grams” on holidays. Cards with candy bars on them in place of words. She’s always been incredibly creative.
She was also a huge fan of oldies music. I was always impressed that she seemed to know the words to any song that ever played on an oldies station. Seriously. We used to test her. Turn on the radio at a random time. She was able to sing along to the song, every time.
I sort of had a rep for being non-emotional. (Probably still do, I guess. I’m not one for tears or breaking down in public, for sure.) Laurie’s father passed away while I was still in high school(?), and years later she found a letter I wrote to either her or her mother (I’m not sure. Memories and me aren’t the best of friends, I suppose.) She commented to me how impressed she was that I’d written it, and how nice and caring it seemed. I’ve always felt bad that I didn’t even remember writing the letter in the first place. Then again, people will often say to me that something I’ve written on the blog touched them or helped them, and I don’t remember writing it. So maybe I just have a crummy memory.
When I was moving out of Deseret Towers after my mission, I got a migraine in the middle of the move. Laurie was there helping me schlep boxes up and down from the sixth floor of the dorm. Fun times.
We went camping one year, right before Denisa and I took Tomas and moved off to Maine. We were up near Mount Timpanogos, and Tomas was having a great time. Until it started raining caterpillars. They were all in the trees. Tons of them. Whenever the wind would blow, they’d showed down  on your head. Tomas freaked out, each time. We all thought that was pretty amusing.
Whenever we would drive up to our family’s cabin in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, we’d pass through Peoa. She had a Peoa fight song she’d typically sing then. I don’t remember most of it, but I do remember “Our colors are brown, brown, and brown. It’s the best darn school around!” For years I thought that was the actual fight song, and that they were pretty silly to have such a strange song.
When Tomas was born, she came over to our apartment to get it “babified.” We had one big room and a bedroom, so we had to somehow turn that big room into a bedroom and a living room. She helped put in a wall of bookcases and a changing area. She was always great at interior decorating.

I could keep rattling off memory after memory, but I have to cut this to a close. It’s been a rough few days. The viewing is tomorrow. The funeral is Wednesday. There’s been a tremendous outpouring of support from family and friends in the area. Banana bread, dinners, snacks, and treats appear like magic, left outside the front door or side door. Laurie was always organizing meals for people in troubled times and constantly reaching out to support others. It’s touching to see so many reach out in return at this time.

I don’t know how to end this post. Writing a final “Goodbye” feels incredibly depressing, so I won’t. I’ll just say I was grateful for all the support and love she showed me and my family over the many years I knew her.

She will be missed.

Hunkering Down

I’m in Utah for the next while. Going offline for the most part for the next few days at least. I’ll explain more in detail later. For now, just know while I’d love to see all of you lovely people, I can’t do it this trip. Not for now, at least.

I’ll post more Monday, perhaps.

Mormons and Older Scouts Split

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has ended its ties with the older Boy Scout program aimed at youth aged 14-18. This is huge news in Mormon circles. I think it will really shock some, disappoint others, and cause some to celebrate. I’ve always been very vocal in my personal views on the matter.

I’m squarely in the celebratory camp.

For my entire life, Scouting has been almost synonymous with the LDS youth program for boys. I was told time and time again that it was an inspired program, and I’ve been pressured (both as a child and as a parent) to participate in Scouting. There are many things I’ve gone along with in the Church, because why not. If I don’t see a particular reason to speak out against something or dig my heels in, my baseline response is, “Sure.”

But Scouting has been something I’ve consistently resisted.

As a boy, I think it was for a variety of reasons. First off, I really don’t like being sent on a guilt trip for silly reasons. We lived about a half hour from the church, and getting over there each week just wasn’t feasible. But each Sunday, I felt self-conscious of that fact. I was active in almost every other way, but I didn’t come to Scouting events, didn’t do much with the Young Men’s program in general. (They were the same thing.)

I don’t think church leaders really thought about what they were doing when they tried to pressure me to go. They thought I’d have fun. They thought that’s what they were supposed to do. Most of the time, it wasn’t out of any ill will. But I hated that. Hated feeling bad about it.

So when it was time for Tomas to possibly start Cub Scouts, Denisa and I gave it a shot. We went once. The pomp and circumstance and ceremonies and oaths really rubbed Denisa the wrong way. Where she grew up in Czechoslovakia, all of that stuff was heavily used by the Communists.

We didn’t go back.

I’ve written about my views on the Church and Scouting two years ago. In my post on the Ordain Women movement, I observed the disparity between the way the Church approached the youth programs for boys and girls. My views on Scouting have always been staunchly against it, from a religious view point. It’s expensive, run by regular people. Having such close ties with a private organization might have made sense in the past, but it made no sense to me in the present.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Scouting as an organization, just as I have nothing against Little League. But if my kid were pressured to join Little League because “it was the Church’s youth program,” I’d balk. (Did you see what I did there?) Kids can do Karate. Sports. Lego League. Scouting. Whatever they want. And the Church can have its own youth program for boys, just as they do for girls.

Anyway. Can you tell I’m pleased with this development? I can’t even feel too bad for the people who have had such strong views in favor of Scouting, because Scouting will still exist. If they feel it’s great for boys, they can continue to participate. Continue to support it.

I just don’t have to be told any more that God wants me and my son to participate in it too. It hasn’t been phrased quite like that. Not so openly. But that’s always been the undercurrent running beneath it all.

I’m happy it’s done.

The Whispers: Memory Thief Chapter Eight

Welcome to another chapter annotation, a chance for me to tell readers a bit about the writing process that went into THE MEMORY THIEF. As always, this will have plenty of spoilers, so don’t read it if you haven’t already read the book.

Now we’re finally to the point where it’s all new territory. Chapter Eight was written entirely fresh for later drafts. In fact, it didn’t appear until the fifth draft, after my editor got back to me with her first round of revision notes. (Yes. That means I’d done four drafts of the book before I even sent it to an editor.) In the letter, she noted:

The idea of each person’s mind looking like a different library that reflects that person’s personality is fun and provides for interesting set pieces. One important addition of world building would be increasing the stakes of memory thieving by incorporating a kind of ticking clock that only allows a person to be in someone’s mind for a short amount of time before they are stuck there and go brain dead (or some other potential problem). This would increase the intensity and urgency for every memory-thieving scene that we have with Benji.

Up until this point, the Whispers didn’t even exist. Jordan (my editor) rightly noted that it really had a detriment on the tension of Benji could just dart into a Memory Library whenever he felt like it and be safe. It was a like a giant “Pause” button just hanging over everything, waiting to be used. It also meant that he could really dink around whenever he was in a Library. Take his time. No pressure at all.

Of course, it was up to me to figure out what sort of form that “ticking clock” could take. At first I considered making it just that: a literal limited amount of time a Memory Thief could be in any one Library at a time. Jordan’s suggestion of imminent brain death was definitely appealing as well. But I rejected those ideas for one main reason: I wanted the book to be creepier. During each revision, I did my best to “up the creep” factor and bring the novel more in line with my original concept of Disney Horror. I discovered I don’t naturally do this. I have to really focus on writing scary scenes, and even when I believe I’ve done a good job, when I go back to read it through, it was never scary enough.

A ticking clock might scare someone with a phobia, but at that point, there was nothing visceral about the book. All the conflict was pretty much cerebral. I wanted something people could think about. Actually see. Actually run away from.

The Whispers is what I ended up with.

I’m a Robert Jordan fan, and I’ve read Wheel of Time multiple times through. In that series, there’s a thing called the Black Wind, a terrifying something that first manifests itself as incoherent whispering. I always thought that was high on the creepy scale, and perhaps that’s some of what I drew on for the Whispers. But where Jordan takes them in a different direction, I fused that idea with the shadow demon things we now see in the first book.

I was very pleased with how they turned out. I didn’t know much more about them than the basic idea when I started writing this chapter, and I discovered a whole lot “in scene.” It’s my favorite way of brainstorming.

The Whispers are playing a big role in the sequel at the moment. So many readers had questions about them. They ended up being one of the things that caught people’s interest the most. I’d definitely say they were one of the best late additions to the book, and they’ve given me a whole area to play with as I further explore the world of The Memory Thief. What are the Whispers? Where do they come from? Those are questions that were on my mind as I approached the sequel.

Anyway. That’s all I have time for this week. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more . . .

Learning Slovak Online

When I married Denisa, I had a simple goal: become fluent in Slovak. That goal never really went away, but I’ve been absolutely terrible at accomplishing it. I tried several things over the years. Bought a text book. Tried to set small goals. Bought kids books in Slovak. But it just hasn’t happened. I speak some Slovak, but nothing more than caveman level stuff, really. Sixteen years, and I’ve been a pretty big failure at that. Other things always seem to get in the way.

So for the last while I’ve tried to alter my approach. “Become fluent in Slovak” seems like it’s just been too big of a goal for me. I’m admitting defeat, and changing the goal. Now it’s “Become better at Slovak.” The mental shift is something I did toward the end of last year, and I’ve been able (it seems to me) to stick to the goal much more diligently than I had before.

What it means in practice is that each day during my lunch break, I take about fifteen minutes to focus on learning Slovak. I read vocabulary lists, watch some Slovak television. or go over Slovak grammar online. There are a few resources I’ve found particularly helpful:

joj.sk is an online Slovak television station. You never know what you’re going to see when you turn it on. (Well, I suppose there’s a schedule printed somewhere, but I don’t worry about it.) I’ve seen bits of Finding Nemo, but I usually end up watching the news, trying to focus on understanding as many individual words that I can.
rtvs.sk is another TV station. In my experience, they have many more blocked programs, so often I try to watch them but can’t.
slovake.eu is the most helpful resource I’ve found. It’s got a wealth of online language lessons, all available for free. I’ve been working my way through them, and I think it’s had the biggest impact on me so far. (The biggest problem I have is that I get off track, and it’s hard to get back into it sometimes. But that’s just me, not it.)

In the end, I just made a simple observation: if I’d spent 15 minutes a day working on my Slovak for the last 16 years, I would be in such a better spot when it came to the language. Because I was too worried about doing a “serious” job of it, I instead did nothing, just started and stopped in little bursts of energy. This is true with so many huge projects I try to undertake. Split them up into smaller pieces, and you can do so much better.

Here’s hoping.

Dealing with Bullying

One of the biggest challenges I’ve found as a parent is wishing I could do more and not knowing where to stop. There’s a pull between wanting to help your kids out as much as possible, and wanting to let them be self-sufficient. In some cases, the choice is clear, and you don’t really need to debate too much about whether to help or stand back. Cleaning their room, for example, is a task best left to the kid. I’ve stepped in to help my kids clean their rooms over the years, and I’m discovering in hindsight that was only enabling their “live in sloth” habits. Now that we have the newly made chore sheet, I haven’t had to do any room cleaning, and the kid rooms stay much cleaner.

On the flip side, there are times it’s definitely worth it as a parent to step in and help. When they’re struggling with homework, for example. A case in point has been my efforts with DC to improve her reading this year. (Proud Dad moment: DC has been reading books on her own for a while now, and entered in a “Bikes for Books” program at school. You got one entry for every book you read, and she did six or seven, telling us she wasn’t taking to too seriously. She won a bike. I know compared to Tomas 6 or 7 books read isn’t a huge accomplishment, but I also know that the DC from the beginning of the year would never have voluntarily read through 6 or 7 chapter books on her own. She’s come a long way, and as we read in the evenings (We’re up to Castle of Llyr now in Prydain), I’m consistently impressed by how much her reading has improved. I’m not saying that’s all due to me reading with her, but I know I’ve helped, and that feels great.)

But not every decision has an easy answer, and I think that’s where the whole Helicopter Parent route becomes an easy trap to fall into.

You want your child to succeed. You want to do everything in your power to make sure they do, because heaven forbid twenty years down the line, when they’re struggling with finding a job, you wonder if you’d only pushed them harder in school in second grade if this all could have been avoided. That’s partly a joke, but there have definitely been times when I’ve felt like the failures I make as a parent now are messing up things for the future, and that’s a bad feeling to have. (Interestingly, I don’t blame my parents for any of my screw ups as an adult, though I do credit them for many of my successes. Is that called “paying it backward”?)

But it’s more than just schoolwork. Fact: middle school is hard stuff. I remember living through it, and it wasn’t an easy ride. I went into Junior High with one group of friends and came out with an entirely different set. The friends I’d had before pretty much turned their backs on me, and I had to flounder a bit to find my place. My old friends stopped being interested in the same things I was. They started being meaner. Or maybe it was just to me. I know not everyone goes through that, but I certainly did, and I see my kids going through rough times at school as well. Times that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives, the same way I still remember those times way back when.

And I want to step in. I want to shield them from insults and bullying. And Denisa and I do step in from time to time, emailing the school and making sure they’re aware what’s going on. But it’s Lord of the Flies in there sometimes. Teachers can’t watch kids the whole time they’re at school. There’s recess and gym and lunch, and you should never underestimate the ability of kids to find a way to make their opinions known. I hear what’s been said to my child or about one of my child’s friends, and I just want to run into the school and Hulk out on the people saying it. At the same time, I think back on the careless things I said in school, and I try to assume the same thing is what’s happening now. It’s so easy to focus just on yourself as a child. To not realize the words you say have real impact on other people. Kids can be so set on proving how normal or cool they are they that they’re willing to stomp on just about anyone or anything to get there.

That said, if any of you have experience helping your kids through bullying at any age, I’d love to hear how you handled it. I learn a lot from others, and I’d definitely like to crowdsource this one. Thanks in advance.

Book Review: Bluescreen

Bluescreen by Dan Wells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve read a fair number of dystopian books. I’m a big fan of the genre, from City of Ember to Pretties to Hunger Games and everything in between. But after a while, many of them begin to blend together for me. It’s been a while since I read one that really stood out and made me take notice.

Dan Wells’ Bluescreen did that and more. For one thing, it’s not set in the distant future or on an Earth that’s gone through some horrendous world-changing disaster. It’s set in 2050, and Wells does a fantastic job of presenting what America might look like at that point, realistically. There are self driving cars everywhere, for example, and the young protagonists are shocked anyone might drive a car by hand. (It’s so dangerous! Why would they want to do that?) There are delivery drones sailing through the skies everywhere you look. Almost everyone has an internet connection built directly into their body, and the display is right in their vision.

But it’s not all bright lights and sleek chrome. The disparity between the haves and the have nots has only increased, and the main characters are stuck in lower middle class, struggling to try and stay afloat, and life is getting harder every day. The main character, Marisa, tries to help her family’s restaurant stay afloat, and also dreams of being an esports pro. Her neighborhood is run by gangs, and it looks like they’re going to get stuck between the crosshairs of a gang rivalry.

And then a new drug enters the scene: Bluescreen. You pop it directly into your brain via a USB-like drive, and it basically overloads your body, giving you a rush–and potentially destroying your life.

That’s all I’ll go over now, because I don’t want to spoil anything. I’ll just say that I enjoyed the book from start to finish. It reminded me in many ways of the movie version of Minority Report. Cool future tech displayed in a way that makes you believe it could happen. The plot is great, the characters well written.

Really, there’s nothing I can complain about. It’s a fantastic book, and I’m already halfway through the sequel. If you’re looking for a quick read, and this sounds even remotely interesting, you should give it a shot.

Loved it.

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