Reading, Writing, and Me

Teen Book Con was a blast! I had a great time. Lani Taylor gave an amazing Keynote that set the tone of a great day of fun and learning from some epic, accomplished YA authors. So from my notes on each of the five panels I went to, I'm compiling a list of top helpful writing tips for aspiring authors as well as some interesting questions that were asked about the behind the scenes of what goes in to publishing a book. On Writing a Book: 1) Where do you get your ideas? Both Benjamin Alire Saenz and Katherine McGee weighed in on the question and gave similar answers. Observing people is really the greatest tool for finding story inspiration and building characters. I completely agree with this. 2) Do you plot or just write? All of the authors had totally different answers to this question. Nina LaCour said she writes snippets that come to her and then pieces them together into an outline and later a story. Kathleen Glassglow said she has to write out the whole novel befor

I had a crazy, super busy week this week with school and homework, so I only got around to reading two books this week, but they were both amazing! To make up for the fewer books this week, and because they both deserved standout features, I wrote longer articles on them which I've posted to the Standout Books section. I'll also link them below with information about them and links to Amazon. I'm also going to post an article about my adventure yesterday at Teen Book Con! When We Collided  by Emery Lord (355 pages)  https://www.amazon.com/When-We-Collided-Emery-Lord-ebook/dp/B01A8MYZ3C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491174795&sr=8-1&keywords=when+we+collide Here is the link to my article on it:  http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2017/03/standout-book-when-we-collided.html Please Ignore Vera Dietz  by A .S. King (326 pages)  https://www.amazon.com/Please-Ignore-Vera-Dietz-King-ebook/dp/B003F3PK3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491175548&sr=8-1&

Please Ignore Vera Dietz  by A.S. King I've had a really lucky run of finding amazing books lately! This one was no exception. While the description was intriguing enough to get on my list, I wasn't entirely sold. Actually, I only picked it up because it was the first one on my list I spotted at the library, but I'm glad I found it! Overview:  This is the story of Vera Dietz and her friendship with next door neighbor Charlie. That's really what it is about. Of course the back talks about Vera working to clear Charlie's name after some unnamed disaster that subsequently ruined his reputation and caused his death. This, much like I said about To All The Boys I've Loved Before , is a piece of the puzzle, but in my opinion not the main point in the grand scheme of things. Instead, it is more about the expansion and contraction between the friendship of a boy and a girl over time. Told both in the present and the past, starting at age 11, we see it grow and cha