Emily Vander Ark

Review: Greenglass House

I know I bombarded last week’s post with mini-reviews… so here’s a longer one! Kate Milford’s Greenglass House is a wonderful read for curling up by the fire or Christmas tree with a mug of hot cocoa. There’s no better time of year to read it! For one thing, it’s snowing throughout the entire book. For another, it takes place during Milo’s Christmas vacation. For another, it’s set in a huge, mysterious house full of both people with secrets and secrets of it’s own.

Themes of the book include treasure hunts, roleplaying, making friends, and figuring out who is trustworthy and who is not. Milo is a somewhat compulsive child who likes everything to be just how it is supposed to be, down to the placement of pencils and notepads on his desk. This is a trait he both accepts about himself over the course of the book and is able to overcome when necessary.

Greenglass House reminded me of the Mysterious Benedict Society ( highly intelligent, quirky children, a house full of secrets, unique and funny grown up characters who do not treat the children as if they are stupid) and, weirdly, of Murder on the Orient Express (lots of people confined to a small place, a mystery that must be solved before they are able to leave). Both of these similarities are big check marks in my book. Plus – just take a second and appreciate that awesome cover!

Cleverly written and with a bit of a twist ending, readers of any age (advanced lower grade and up) would enjoy snuggling up with this story over their own Christmas vacations.

Happy winter reading!

Holiday Gift Guide (Go Buy Some Books!)

It’s my favorite time of year… to go shopping! I love the thrill of finding the perfect gift for someone I care about, and I love it when that perfect gift is the perfect book. Here are some book recommendations for everyone on your list, including new, old, and some you may have missed. (Follow the links to purchase!)

Young Children:

Probably my favorite and most recommended picture book of this year is the wonderful, brilliantly illustrated Sam and Dave Dig a Hole (Mac Barnett). Two boys digging for treasure are in for a surprise when the dog finds his own gold. A close second would be Sparky (Jenny Offill), the story of a girl and her pet sloth – if you can call it that. What good is a pet if it doesn’t do much? I have such a hard time narrowing down picture books – other suggestions would be Have You Heard the Nesting Bird (Rita Gray), and Say Hello to Zorro! (Carter Goodrich) and it’s sequels.

Lower Middle Grade:

Danette Haworth is the author of four books for lower middle-grade readers, including Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning and The Summer of Moonlight Secrets, sure to please your cousin, niece, or little sister. For your brother, nephew, etcetera, Neil Gaiman‘s The Graveyard Book (a boy named Nobody who grows up raised by ghosts) or Fortunately, the Milk (a father’s tale about how the milk saved his life from the catastrophe that made him late for breakfast) would be sure winners.

Upper Middle Grade:

I’ve reviewed the second book in Jonathan Stroud‘s new series before, but I’m going to recommend Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase yet again! These books are original, fun, and scary all at once, sure to please lovers of mystery, suspense, ghostliness as well as fans of Sherlock Holmes (It’s kind of a young Supernatural.) The only downside is that book two ended with a bit of a hook… and we’re still waiting for #3! Not so with The Chronicles of Kazam series by the hilarious Jasper Fforde – the complete trilogy begins with The Last Dragonslayer and ends with The Eye of Zoltar, which released in October.

Young Adult:

J. Gabriel Gates‘ Sleepwalkers is a new take on classic horror that anyone who likes a good scare would enjoy. For your loved one who isn’t so keen on scaring themselves to death alone in the dark, Rainbow Rowell‘s Fangirl is a book I will gush over until the day I die. Twin sister’s Cath and Wren share a college freshman year full of fandom, uncertainty, love, and disappointment, wrapped up in a beautiful story structure that will keep the pages turning.

Adult:

For your mother, grandmother, aunt, or anyone, Jolina Petersheim‘s The Outcast and The Midwife would be a great choice. These stories are told in a Mennonite setting, but break the conventions of the genre like nobody’s business. For the nature/history/humor buff on your list, anything by Bill Bryson would be the ticket. My personal favorite is A Walk in the Woods, about a long (but partial) journey along the Appalachian Trail.

P.S. I may or may not have used this post to shamelessly plug some friends in the hopes that you’ll buy their books. But whatever you do, just please buy books!

NaNoWriMo: The Way Out

You will notice that the banner on this post is not a winner banner.

On November 30th, I can tell you that I have no clue if I’ll be able to make up the (way too many) words I would need to reach the 50,000 word goal by midnight tonight. But I do know that the story I’ve developed this month, my first attempt at middle grade fiction, is a great story, and I can’t wait to continue working on it and revising it in the months to come.

Part of the reason I’ve fallen behind is because… Christmas is coming! That kind of excitement makes it hard to contain enough to focus so intently on a story. It’s time for cookies and carols and indoor trees. and being excited about that is enough to take away any discouragement at not reaching 50,000 words.

If you’re like me, and Christmas shopping has fallen by the wayside as your novel has taken priority, have no fear! Next week I’ll be posting a gift buying guide for your favorite readers of all ages – or your favorite people you’d like to convert to reading. Stay tuned!

NaNoWriMo: The Power of Titles

As I’ve been away at residency in Louisville it’s become glaringly obvious to me that my NaNoWriMo project is stuck. When I arrived, I had 24,000 words (no, I haven’t added to that in a week) and no idea where my story was going, what it was about, or what I needed to write next.

This is not to imply that I’ve been uninspired. While here, I’ve drafted two picture books and a flash creative essay. Thanks to workshop, I’ve been more than successful in figuring out what last year’s project needs in it’s next revision, but I’ve made little progress as far as my current project is concerned.

Which leads me to a conversation about titles. Great titles are amazing. They’re like a muse that is always there to remind you what your story is about, and never fail to lead you back to the heart of the book when you’re floundering. Without a title for this project, I feel like I’m wandering around in the wilderness with no idea where I’m trying to go. So my new goal is: come up with a title. Even a placeholder, a throwaway, a horrible title that would never market.

Naming the thing makes me more powerful than the thing itself.

So that’s what I’ll try to do. Then I’ll try to write 25k+ in the next ten days. That can be done right?

Shh. I don’t want to know your answer.

NaNoWriMo: Halfway

Time flies when you’re having fun, and also apparently when you don’t have time for fun! Here we are halfway through the month, and I have a confession: I am not halfway through my novel. Or even halfway to 50,000 words.

This scares me, if I let myself think about it. So I’m trying not to, and trying to find the time to write during a week that is all about writing in a way that means there is no time. My second semester of Spalding’s MFA program has officially begun, and I couldn’t be happier to be back in close quarters with this wonderful community of wordsmiths. After just 24 hours, I’ve already experienced the same stimulation, exposure, and inspiration that characterized my experience in May, and it feels wonderful to be in this community of the like-minded, of those who are striving for what I strive for, and pursuing what I pursue.

Perhaps the atmosphere of this place is getting to me, but here’s what I’ve decided to say to my lowly 23,700 words: you didn’t exist before, and now you do. Maybe 26,300 more will join you. Maybe they won’t. But you, my words, are worth making time for, and I am so glad that you exist.

NaNoWriMo: A Room of My Own

My whole life I’ve imagined what it would be like to have an entire room in a house that was dedicated to books, both their creation and consumption. In honor of NaNo, here’s what that looks like!

When we bought our three-bedroom cape cod in August, I knew exactly which room I wanted for this purpose. It’s on the main floor, not too far from the kitchen (caffeine access), gets great light in the morning, has a tiny closet for crafting and art supplies, and has a perfect view of our back yard. We painted the room a lovely, inspirational shade of green, put up some pretty curtains, and filled that sucker with books. Every writer is familiar with Virginia Woolf’s recommendation that each writer needs a “room of her own” to think, read, and write in. This is my room, and I love it to bits.

My desk and the matching chair were a craigslist find, and the items on this wall were gifts. The desk provides the perfect amount of space to work in, and it has a wonderful view.

When I write at this desk, I am surrounded by the whisperings of the hundreds of books that have influenced me with their pages. There are two more bookcases in other parts of the house, but this is the bulk. On the leftmost bookcase I have antique books, filled journals, writing reference, and to-read. Next is nonfiction with blank notebooks and school binders at the bottom. On the other side, young adult books get a shelf, with filled sketchbooks, art journals, and photo albums at the bottom, and lastly is the fiction shelf with magazines and oversize books at the bottom. This room is such a happy place for me!

Do you have a room of your own? I highly recommend it. 🙂

NaNoWriMo: A Pantsing Planner

Everyone familiar with National Novel Writing Month knows there are exactly two types of participants: the planet and the pantser. Each group is simply doing what works for them, whether that is extensive character sketches, maps, and 3,000 word outlines, or nothing but a vague concept of this character in that place.

Me, I’ve typically been a planner. Even the year that I started my novel over on Day 4 with the same characters in a very different story, before I dove into it I had to sit back and think about where the action of this story was going to lead. (The NaNovel I wrote that year is my favorite one, ever.)

This year, however, I haven’t planned. I just sat down last night to figure out what my character names are. Writing begins at midnight tomorrow and I haven’t the slightest idea what my opening scene is. My outline, usually a humble of events and actions and scenes that I know need to happen in sequence but also want to write is merely a structural shell. (I’m attempting to use an adapted three act structure for the first time this year.) Simply put, between work, Halloween, dewallpapering and degluing our bedroom, and still finding time to play with the dog, I’ve become a panser.

I’m not entirely comfortable with this.

If you’re reading this and you’re a pantser, please give me your best advice! And if you’re a planner, I welcome your pity. I’m also open to advise about writing middlegrade, which I’ll also be attempting for the first time. Whatever your NaNo strategy, I salute you. Have a fantastic month!

NaNoWriMo: Why “serious” writers should promote rather than dismiss

Many of you will shake your heads upon reading this. Or perhaps even roll your eyes. Maybe blow a raspberry, send a prayer heavenward.

I’m going to say it anyway.

NaNoWriMo season has arrived.

This year, more than usual, I’ve seen a number of posts by those lofty, unattainable beings who claim to be, above all else, serious writers. They scoff at the mention of month-long noveling, turn up their noses at the thought of it. Discourage whoever they can from participating. Wait patiently for that far off day (December 1st) when Twitter, tumbler, and the internet at large will return to it’s regularly scheduled programming.

And I am here to set the record straight, at the risk of sounding like a broken one.

Serious writer or first time participant, you absolutely should try National Novel Writing Month.

Let me tell you why.

NaNoWriMo is fun. It’s a month-long (distressingly, horrendously, terrifyingly hard) party, where we spend time with people who are working toward the same goal that we are. Whatever our methods, our means, our motivation, or our end result, we’ve all attempted (and hopefully achieved) the same result: a 50,000 word piece of crappy first draft fiction. Maybe that’s all you do. Then the next time you’re buying coffee at your favorite place or books at your favorite shop (please buy books from shops) or groceries at the supermarket, you can say, truthfully, without guilt, remorse, or modesty, “Yeah, I wrote a book once.” But maybe you go on and spend a long, long time doing the hard, hard work of revision that gets you, eventually, to final draft fiction. And maybe somebody somewhere likes that final draft, a lot, and your name gets to be on the cover of a book. And you become an author.

There are plenty of wildly successful, quality authors out there who cannot be described as serious. Just check out a few of their YouTube channels. Being a not-so-serious writer can be key to getting in touch with your audience, making friends, and (someday) selling books. Any aspiring writer who finds that one of their favorite authors thinks they should (attempt, try, stumble through the process of) write a novel will be inspired and pleased and instantly find a little more space to add to the box in their heart that belongs to that writer. An author who discourages (snubs, belittles, snickers at) this endeavor, however, might actually loose some of their holy-authorness in the eyes of readers.

Besides, any writer, serious or not, who says they aren’t pleased to tell people in coffee shops that they’re a writer and yes, they’ve written novels is lying.

A Note About Quality: Or, Mediation

To the Naysayers: anyone who has read Sara Gruen’s Water For Elephants cannot truthfully declare that NaNoWriMo is a worthless, awful feat. Don’t allow you negativity to discourage the next book that good from being written.

To the Wrimos: Water For Elephants was not the book that it is on December 1st. As described above, there was a long, long time and a lot of hard, hard work between then and publication. Don’t send you 2014 NaNovel out to agents or publishers until after January 1st, 2016 (no, I don’t mean 2015). And only then if you’ve given it everything you possibly have to give. And don’t self-publish it just because you can.

To the One Who is Just Considering: Try it. You’ll like it.

Okay, I rest my case. Here’s to NaNoWriMo 2014, my fifth (hopefully) completed NaNovel, and more crazy than any other time of year. Futher up and further in!

Writing Prompts to Keep Writers Writing

This past Wednesday I attended just one day of the Michigan Library Association’s annual conference, held in Grand Rapids, and learned lots of great library stuff. We recently started a monthly writing group for 6-12 graders at my library, and the final session I attended was presented by the two lovely staff members of Read and Write Kalamazoo (RAWK). They are a nonprofit organization in Kalamazoo that empowers kids of all ages who both love to write and struggle with it, showing them all kinds of ways to have fun with words. In other words, they’re awesome. After they explained their program they presented their captive audience with writing prompts just like the ones they give to the kids who come to their events. It was so fun to do some carefree writing, and to hear the words of the other adults in the room as well.

Below I’ll provide some of the prompts we did, as well as my own products from them (unedited in the spirit of the times prompts). If you’re having a dry spell, get your pen moving on these and don’t worry whether the end result has moved your work forward. You will have been writing – and that is enough. (PS: This is good NaNo prep!)

Freewrite: keep your pen moving no matter what, even if you are writing a grocery list, or the same word over and over. (90 second timer.)

The Fall has come to Michigan. The leaves are on the trees, but they are no longer green (like the grass, but darker). instead they are the yellow of the mums on my front porch, the orange of the pumpkin waiting in a patch for me to pick it and carve out it’s face.

Poetry: write six lines that begin with “I am looking…” It is suggested that at least three of the things you are looking for be concrete objects.

I am looking for the apples in an orchard by my home,

I am looking for the curtains that will hide my living room from the night,

I am looking for running shoes that will take me down a path less traveled;

I am looking for the return of romance.

I am looking for my warm puppy’s soft ear;

I am looking for a well-lived life.

Haiku: Write a haiku (three lines, 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables) about your favorite food, your least favorite food, or a food you have never tried.

Purple Beans

Crunchy, green inside

Sweet, crisp, cultivated gift,

Plucked from my garden.

Your turn!

What I’ve Been Reading

After then end of my first semester of graduate school (!) I threw myself back into reading, knowing I only have a little more than a month before things pick back up again. So far, I’ve managed to take quite a chunck out of that long Goodreads list marked “to-read.” Here’s a few of my favorites.

Lockwood & Co. #2: The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud – Last spring I heard about the first Lockwood book, The Screaming Staircase, and I knew I had to have it for my library. Though the series is aimed at upper middle-grade readers, the story was inventive, the prose intelligent, the characters rounded and mysterious. Not to mention, the story got a bit scary when the plot was at its thickest, which I am never opposed to. The second installment was, fortunately, just as good as the first. The books are set in England in a future where a Problem has arisen in the form of the dead. Hauntings dictate where people go and what they do, and no one goes out at night. The only people who can see the ghosts, however, are children. They have their own business agencies and adults hire them to come get rid of problematic, ghostly, visitors. I highly recommend the series!

Popular: Vintage Wisdom From a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen – There’s been a lot of hype about this memoir written by a fifteen year old girl about her eighth grade year. I was drawn to the book because 1) memoir, 2) a high school girl, aspiring writer, who is now widely read, and 3) Maya’s story takes place where her family lived in Brownsville, TX, where a brother-in-law of mine and his family happen to live. The book follows Maya through her school year, her personal life and friendships, and her quest to follow all of the advice about how to be popular put forth in a 1950’s book by model Betty Cornell. The resulting narrative is smart, funny, and honest – not no mention the bravery it must have taken for Maya to share her inner thoughts about her school, her friends, and her crushes with the world at large.

Kiss My Aster: A Graphic Guide to Creating a Fantastic Yard Totally Tailored to You by Amanda Thomsen – I confess: I wanted to read this book because of the illustrations. They’re just great! This book is funny and helpful, a combination that should be more common. Gardening season is over for we who dwell in the mitten, but Caleb and I are still dreaming about how great our now-drab yard is going to be next summer. The book provided a lot of great ideas and considerations in the least boring way possible – it would be a great addition to any gardener’s shelf. In other news the author also writes a blog with the same name as the book.

Coming up: writing prompts courtesy of Read and Write Kalamazoo at MLA 2014! AND…. NaNoWriMo is coming.