This is Me Thursdays - Dishin' on Pretty Little Liars!!

How's your Thursday treating you?  Good?  Fabulous!  :)  *Quick shout out to any new followers here from the Crusade or just because ~ welcome!

Ok - so this is a little bit for the YA writers out there.  Also for voracious tv fans, like me....
The elusive "they" say that to write a genre, you should also read that genre.  I'll take that a step further and suggest that you also watch your chosen genre.  And the trendy teen show that's out there for the youth of the world right now?  ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars  (In Utah, for Comcast users...that's channel 28 on Monday nights @ 9pm MDT).  It's one thing to read a YA novel and picture the MC in your head, how they look, how they talk, what they wear, if they flip their hair, how they look at a cute boy/girl, how they walk, etc.  It's a WHOLE different thing to see how the world sees them on screen, and how the actors/actresses slated to play your favorite characters choose to portray them.

Ok - but, enough with my soap box...let's introduce you to the players!  *Quick synopsis - 4 teenage friends deal with the aftermath of their friend's unsolved murder and band together to find the elusive, omniscient "A" who threatens to air their dirty laundry to the town and might even be the killer!  **note:  all pictures posted courtesy of the official PLL website found HERE or IMDB.com.

First - the dead girl:



Ali...aka "the-best-friend-you're-lucky-you-never-had"

  Her 4 friends:
              

Hanna                Spencer               Emily                   Aria

Hanna is the former fat-girl turned popular (sort of clawed her way to the top).

Spencer is the uber-rich over-achiever, pressured to be the best.

Emily is the athlete, who's struggled in the past with her sexual identity.

Aria is the artsy, would-be-writer, old soul who hooked up with her English teacher.

*Side note - but, seriously!!!  By the show of virtual hands, how many of you went to school with a quartet of girls this ridiculously beautiful and put-together?  I mean, really???  I digress...

Ok - now meet the could-be, elusive "A"s:

         

         Ian                                    Jenna                               Lucas                                    Maya

 

             Toby                                  Melissa

Ian - the "older" man, who before Ali's murder was dating Melissa (Spencer's older sister), all the while having a side-fling with Ali AND Spencer.  He was also with Ali the night she died...dun, dun, dun....
Jenna - I know she doesn't look it in her pic, but she's blind.  Compliments of an prank-gone-wrong by Ali and her friends.  Revenge, anyone?  She's also in lurve with her step-brother, Toby.
Lucas - token geek boy, relentlessly tortured and publically humiliated by Ali.  She called him "Hermy the Hermaphrodite"....so cruel, poor guy.  He's also crushing hard on Hanna, but she just likes him as a friend...
Maya - new girl in town and love interest to Emily.  Oh!  And guess where she lives?  Ali's old house.  Guess what she threw out on the first show?  Some stuff left in Ali's old room.  Could there have been a journal there?  Tapes?  Dirt needed to, say...oh...blackmail people?  Hmmm....
Toby - This poor guy's the current patsy.  He lived in Ali's neighborhood.  Ali didn't like him.  (The stink bomb set off in his "special place" by Ali and her friends is the cause of Jenna's blindness).  Ali knew about him and Jenna and threatened to tell.  But, the poor guy's innocent I tell ya! INNOCENT!  (or is that what they want me to think?)
Melissa - the jilted sister.  There's a darn good reason she'd have killed Ali.  Her quickie marriage to and even quickie-er pregnancy with possibly the last person to see Ali alive is just a bit too convenient for my liking...

Ok, admittedly - this is a show sprinkled with cheese.  But, it has taught me some valuable lessons about what's trending with teens today.  Apparently, the beret is back in style.  I could never pull it off, but that's another matter.  And have you heard about "glamping"?  Heck, when I went into the woods with a tent - all I came away with were mosquito bites and a serious urge to shower!!  Oh, and texting is the new way to stalk and blackmail people.  Just so you know.  But, seriously - this show's a great look into what's all the rage with teens right now.  And how can that do anything but help the aspiring YA Writer!!

And for serious fans of the show....tell me?  Who do you think "A" is?  My theory?  Melissa did it in a jealous rage, upon finding Ian and Ali together.  He said he'd keep her secret, but ran away for awhile to avoid suspicion.  Now that he's back - they hurried and tied the knot because spouses can't testify against eachother.  (that's a law, right?)  And the pregnancy is to beg leniency from the jurors on the off-chance she's found out.  Am I right?  Guess we'll find out eventually.....  :)  Happy Thursday!!

NeToReMo – An Experiment in Writing!!

Happy Wednesday, everyone!! It’s the first day of December and the first day of an experiment in writing for me. Now, once you hear my little plan, you may actually think this is an experiment in reading, but I promise you it’s not. (Of course, if the experiment doesn’t work, I claim the right to retract this statement…)

A while back I posted a list of Inspirational Quotes from Writers (mmmm….s’mores….). There was one by William Faulkner that really struck me: “Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the most. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”

Now, I know we’ve all heard this before – to be a good writer, you must read, read, read! Oh, yeah – and read some more.

Confession time? I’ve never really taken this to heart. Don’t get me wrong! I read. Of course I do! But, have I ever read, say 10 novels in a month? Well….ummm….no. *sees jaws dropping* (I know, I know…but please keep reading. You can throw stuff at me later…)

So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m declaring December NEED TO READ MORE month!! Or NeToReMo!! (Pronounced in my head as “neat-oh ream-oh”, so say that out loud with me, thumbs up and in a slightly high-pitched voice – it’s fun!!)

I soo hope I’m not plagiarizing this term from somewhere…hold on, please. *googling* Nope. Well, there’s someone using this as a name…I clicked on the site and it froze my browser! (so – don’t do this, please) October is National book month, March is national reading month….but, well…I think I’m ok. Crap! Some dispute on whether September or December is Read-a-new-book month…There is a NaJuReMoNoMo thing in January…..BUT MINE’S DIFFERENT!

Anyhow, here’s what I’m going to do. The obvious – read. A lot. A ton! More than I’ve EVER read in one month EVER! And if Faulkner knew anything, I’m also going to absorb it all in. The good, the bad – all of it.

I’m going to abstain from writing my novel. *more jaws dropping* At least until Jan. 1st. I may make special exceptions when something I’ve read touches/inspires me so much that holding in my own ideas about my novel may literally kill me and I just have to get it out. But December is all about the absorption!

Here’s my list of books to tackle:

Going Bovine – Libba Bray
Demon’s Lexicon – Sarah Rees Brennan
Fire – Kristin Cashore
If I Stay – Gayle Forman
Princess of the Midnight Ball – Jessica Day George
Into the Wild Nerd Yonder – Julie Halpern
The Reformed Vampire Support Group – Catherine Jinks
The Forest of Hands & Teeth – Carrie Ryan
Lament, and Shiver – Maggie Stiefvater
Leviathan – Scott Westerfeld
Ash – Malinda Lo
Beautiful Creatures – Kami Garcia
The Ever After – Amy Huntley

But, I’m not just going to read these. That’s the easy part. I went to a Writer’s conference a few years back and part of their particular plan to make you a better writer was to have you copy, by hand, a very long passage of words and paragraphs from well respected stories, over and over and over again. Now, I’m not necessarily a proponent of this method, BUT I think it holds some merit. I’m going to challenge myself to write down things that really pop out at me as I read. Great metaphors, snappy dialogue, quirky/unique characterization. I’m going to try to pick out the inciting incidents. Make my choice for the overall best first line! Stuff like that.

Ok. Admittedly. Most of this is nothing new. No advice here you haven’t heard before. But, I’m challenging you anyhow! Anyone who would like to join me in NeToReMo this month, here’s what you’ve gotta do:

1. Read 50,000 words in ONE month!! (What’s that? OH! That’s only challenging if you WRITE 50,000 words in 1 month? My bad….) Let’s up that to: 650,000 words in 1 month. A nice round #
2. No your-own-novel writing! (Unless absolutely necessary…)
3. Jot down the best bits. (as mentioned above: metaphors, similes, dialogue, characterization, description, climax, inciting incidents, etc)
4. Make your picks for the best first line. (There can only be one winner!)
5. Post all about the experience on January 1st. (Oh, and write, write, write on this date. WRITE like you mean it!)

My expectation is that, by the end of the month, I’ll be so full of the written word that I will spew forth some fabulous ones of my own! It will be all about writing, revision and querying at the start of 2011. But, to end my 2010 with a bang, baNG, BANG!! I’m reading my way through the Holidays. Care to join?

*special note on #1 – to get to those 650,000 words, this might be an excellent time to get to all those beta-reads or critique your CP projects. Just a thought… I listed books, but I never said they had to be published ones! :)

Oh, and don’t forget to enter my GIVEAWAY! Ends midnight, Dec. 4th…