#IReadYA Week: "Literary Merit"--Who Decides?

It’s #IReadYA week this week, and I’ve read a lot of tweets and posts about the general awesomeness of the YA genre, and that’s not surprising. Actually, what is surprising: given the brilliance of so many YA works, how is it that any of us still need to defend or explain YA—to anyone?

I write YA, but I’m also an English teacher; my students and I talk a lot about what constitutes a “serious” work of literature. On the AP Lit exam, there’s an “open” question—the third free response essay, which gives a fairly broad prompt, then suggests a list of works. Test-takers are directed to select one of these books OR “a work of similar literary merit.” We teachers learn in our training that more recent writers, and mostYA writers, are not considered by College Board to be of literary merit. This means, for example, that J.K. Rowling is not on the list. I always tell my students that she will be—if nothing else, age grants a work that status (consider a writer like Alexandre Dumas, whose work was not regarded as Serious Literature in its own time, but today, it is). 

How different, really, are The Catcher in the Rye and Looking for Alaska in terms of story and emotional resonance—and quality of writing? Yet my students can write about one on the AP exam, but not the other.

Who decides what’s “serious” literature anyway?--is one question my students always ask, and it’s a good one. Time is definitely part of the equation, but if we just look at books released in the past fifteen years, there’s definitely another layer of prejudice at work. Genre, for one: books set in the real world are often automatically viewed as more serious or literary. And the target audience is definitely another factor. Many adults dismiss books written for kids. Of course, many more do not. I have an annual pass to Universal Studios and I never get through the day without running into adults in full Harry Potter regalia. Maybe most YA is just too darn much fun for some folks?

There will always be people out there deciding what’s highbrow, what’s fancy, and what’s Serious Literature. And to me that’s part of what #IReadYA week is all about. It’s a time for those of us who get it—that it really doesn’t matter where a book is shelved—to share our love of not just YA but reading in general. I hope that someday we won't really need the hashtags anymore: #WeNeedDiverseBooks will be redundant, because we’ll already have loads of them. And like all good book nerds, I dream of a world when every day is simply #IRead day.

Does this Sock Spark Joy in Me? and Other Tough Questions About House Cleaning

A lot of folks have been posting lately about a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The article I read called it “a mysterious Japanese organizational manual.” The subtext here, of course, as with most self-help books is that the way you currently organize your life, by the way, is wrong.  I’m sure this is true for me—first, there’s nothing either Japanese OR mysterious about my organizational system.

Also, I learned from this article that according to Marie Kondo, the author of this inspiring tome, I am also bad at throwing things out. The way you’re supposed to do it is, find everything of one kind in your house (like every piece of clothing, for example), then put it in a giant pile, sit down and go through every single item, one at a time, and ask—does this item spark joy in me?

What?? I think it would be faster to just keep my dog and that one pair of Lucky jeans from the late nineties that I’m convinced are labeled with the wrong size—because literally nothing else sparks actual, like, joy. I mean, she’s not asking, does this item make you happy, or content—nope, the litmus test here is JOY. That's a lot to expect from a t-shirt or a spaghetti strainer or a wall sconce.

The system gets weirder, though—this Kondo person also suggests that if you do give an item away, you should first thank it for the role it’s played in your life.

What I want to know is, when did we get so chatty with our material possessions? When did it become socially acceptable to start a dialogue with our sock drawer? Kondo also suggests socks be stored flat, because they work so hard for us while they’re on our feet. I’ll bet if socks do talk, she’s their number one hero. Finally!—the socks will say. Marie Kondo is the Sock Advocate we’ve been waiting for!

It seems to me that all this personification of stuff is likely to lead to more issues, not less. I’ve seen a few of those hoarding shows, and those folks always have these mysterious (there’s that word again) relationships with their stuff. Everyone around them is screaming that they should throw away those National Geographic magazines from 1975 already. But the hoarder woman says, like-- no, I need to keep them, because my father loved lizards, and there’s a great gecko article in the July issue, or some such. 

Here's the thing. It’s just stuff. You don’t have to apologize to your castoffs before putting them in the Goodwill bag. I’m also going to make the radical claim that you don’t actually need to feel joy when looking at your kitchen utensils or your upstairs closet. When I look at probably eighty percent of what I own I think, wow, I’d really like to buy a new one of those. And that’s okay. It’s aspirational, even—right? Instead of digging through my closet looking for joy, you can probably find me shopping, which, if you ask me, is where the magic really happens.

TRACERS Release Day!

I’m so excited to reveal the cover of my new novel, TRACERS, which is releasing today, 1/8/15 from Putnam.

The book cover was first revealed a few minutes ago on Just Jared JR.

Tracers is full of action—but even more romance:

In the vein of great box-office blockbusters, the high-stakes romance here sizzles within this page-turning thriller that will leave readers feeling like they are flying through the streets of New York.

Cam has come to accept the rhythm of his life as a bike messenger: racing up and down the streets of New York City from one run to the next. With no family to rely on and a mountain of debts, at least it’s an honest way to help pay off his dangerous debtors. Cam’s whole world comes crashing down on him one day when he runs into a beautiful stranger. After falling out of the sky and wiping out Cam and his bike, she disappears before he can find out anything about her. When he starts to see her around town, he quickly realizes that she is part of an underground group of teens who have turned NYC into their own parkour playground—running, jumping, seemingly flying through the city like it’s an obstacle course. Cam becomes fascinated with the sport—and the beautiful stranger, Nikki. He falls in with the group, and they offer him the chance to make some extra money. But when the stakes become life or death, Cam is torn between following his heart and sacrificing everything to pay off his debts.

I don’t have a book trailer to share with you…but check out the official movie trailer for TRACERS on Youtube!

School Visit Raffle

If you work or send your kid to a school (other than the one I go to every day ;) please pass on this info about the raffle for a school visit from me! I can't wait to visit an Orlando area school to talk about writing YA!

Here's the link, and some more info below.

School Visit Raffle-J.J. Howard

J.J.Howard -School Visits

PRESENTATIONS

Presentations can be tailored to fit the needs of the school, but here are some samples of J.J. Howard’s programs:

The “Who Am I” program - J.J. talks about her background, how she came to be both a teacher and a writer, how she manages to structure both careers, what in her teacher’s life lends itself to writing, and what her literary influences are. She also discusses her inner world: how she develops ideas, where her imagination takes her and how she decides which imaginings she would like to explore in her books.  

Exploring different types of writing/different types of books - She explores different kinds of writing: fiction, including various genres such as SF, mystery, and dystopian, as well as non-fiction writing. She discusses differences between short stories and novels as well as differences in formats (novels and graphic novels, books and e-books). She may even talk about the differences between poetry, short stories and full length books. These topics can just be touched upon in a 45 to 60 minute program or broken down into several different programs, depending on the needs of the school.

Common Core - As a teacher, J.J. can connect to specific Common Core benchmarks or exemplars upon request. In addition to being an ELA person, her master's is in Humanities, and she teaches a Humanities elective which focuses on Art History, Music, and Theater. She also teaches Media Studies, with units on Journalism, Documentary Film, Film History and Film Studies, Television History, and special effects. Also, she teaches AP Literature and Composition (a fiction course) and AP Language and Composition (nonfiction).

Programs for Adults - She is available to speak to adult groups of teachers, librarians, parents or really any type of audience. She can speak on any subject mentioned above and below or any topic of your choice.

Writing Workshops – J.J. teaches English and writing, and has taught from grades 6-12 and run summer classes for younger kids, so is very comfortable teaching writing.

Mini-writing workshops or full length writing workshops (45-60 minutes) may include:

Voice Lessons - Imagine wearing a blindfold. Could you still recognize your friends’ voices the moment they walked into the room? How about if their voice was disguised? You would probably know instantly when your best friend walked in: her voice is so well known to you. Maybe she always makes a sarcastic comment. Or maybe she punctuates every comment with a giggle. When we write, our voice should be just as distinct as when we speak, but because we use different tools (and much less giggling) sometimes it’s a bit more challenging to develop a distinctive writing voice. But with some tips and tricks, everyone can develop their own unique writing voice – one that’s easy for everyone to recognize!

Word Funeral - “Her heart was beating so fast it seemed that it might jump out of her chest!” Some phrases are just plain tired, and need to be put to rest. We’ll explore some of these old, worn-out words and phrases and explore some new, fresh ways to paint a picture with our words.  We’ll select the words and phrases that need to be put to rest, and work in groups in a challenge to find new ways to tell our stories.

All Talk - Do you love to write dialogue? Or do you try to find ways to skip over the talking parts? Whether you love or loathe the process, putting words into your characters’ mouths is one of the most important skills in writing. We’ll explore how people really talk, as well as working on speech tags, dialect, and interior monologues.

SKYPE OR FACETIME CHATS

She is also available for Skype or Facetime chats. She would give a short talk (10 to 15 minutes) and the rest of the 45 to 50 minutes would be Q&A. It would be most helpful if schools could have the students prepare questions in advance of the chat.

Star-Crossed and Freeze-Dried-To Netflix or Not to Netflix?

I intended to love the show Star-Crossed. Don’t get me wrong, I fully expected it to be cheesy. The fact is, I enjoy cheese, and the show had many of the elements I enjoy in my cheesy escapist CW viewing: cute aliens! romance! great soundtrack! Unfortunately, the show is also taking itself way too seriously.

So far the plot is suffering from what I like to call Season-3 disease, but the weird thing is, we’re only on episode 9. Season 3 disease is named after two of my favorite shows, Veronica Mars and Roswell. Both shows were awesome because of the characters in their first two seasons (though the latter started to go off the rails in season 2). But in their final seasons, both became very episodic and more like cookie-cutter versions of their respective genres, mystery and SF. Star-Crossed is already there: they’ve packed the first nine episodes full of science-fiction nonsense, including, but not limited to: an alien plant that cures cancer, a different version of the same alien plant (you just change the name of it by adding the word “black”—so clever!) that kills people, a spaceship crash, a human/alien hybrid baby, and a secret group of aliens who are passing as humans because they’ve had their tattoos removed (more on that last one later). Also, when they put one of these aliens in prison, they just keep them in a dry room. One thirty-something pretty alien woman came out looking like she was eighty, or maybe just an alien raisin. 

Roswell had essentially the same premise: the forbidden love between a human girl and an alien boy, but they lost focus when they tried to go big with the sci-fi, giving the alien race a name and a space ship powered by a diamond and all kinds of other crap, which didn’t gel with the romantic elements they’d already put in place. The Star-Crossed aliens already have a name, and it’s pretty moronic: they’re called Atrians, which sounds far too much like the entrance to a building for my taste. All the Atriums have a bunch of tattoos and they are really good swimmers, which made Earth a pretty perfect place to crash land, I guess. Since they look like perfectly hot human models without the tats, a bunch of rebel aliens got theirs removed, although the marks still show up when wet, which means their entire system of espionage can be foiled by a light drizzle.

I guess water is pretty important to this species. There was also a scene last week in which an alien was released from prison, where they had her all dried out.  They led out a seventy-year old alien, put her in a bathtub, and presto! She was like thirty-five and hot. Freeze-dried aliens. So that happened.

I also can’t possibly keep track of which are the good Vestibules and which are the bad ones, because some of them are they are using their bad plant to kill people, which is a real bummer, because, as previously mentioned, these alien boys are in fact super hot. The main character is named Roman, so his parents must have known he was going to crash-land on Earth and maybe they figured he could just pretend to be Italian. 

The actor who portrays him is also thirty-one, and playing a junior in high school, a proud Earth tradition going all the way back to Beverly Hills 90210.

According to the story, Roman is in love with the human girl who saved him when he was a kid, but it’s hard to get fully invested in the relationship, as the actress who’s playing her seems to have done some training at the Kristen Stewart School of Acting. He's not bad--it's just--he's clearly not seventeen. Maybe they keep going to high school into their thirties on his homeworld. 

Update: so this show actually got better in its final four or five episodes of the season--so of course the CW had to cancel it. I just re-watched them in order on Netflix, just as a background show to have one while I was working on the computer, etc. And you know what, there was an inescapable element of cheese. But I'm still kind of bummed it got cancelled, because they set up one heck of a cliffhanger. I'd say if you like aliens, teen drama (and if you're old enough to remember V-human/alien baby hybrids!) this one might be worth the binge. 

How to Write a Synopsis

Step 0: Make coffee.

Step 1: Figure out what the heck actually happens in the story you haven’t written yet, even though you’re the type of writer who figures out the plot as you write.

ààAfter Step 1 is unsuccessful, find something else useful to do, like clean your room or the kitchen. Sit down to rest, feeling that at least you accomplished something.

ààààThen, it’s Monday and time to go back to work. Work hard all week, then try again with Step 1 the next Saturday—after taking Friday night off to watch Netflix, of course.

Step 1, Take 2: Start writing. When everything sounds cheesy and wrong, send it as an e-mail attachment to your friends, who later confirm that there are numerous problems with the plausibility of the story, just not the same problems you saw.

ààAdd coffee. Start over.

ààààWhen the result is terrible, print it out, because hitting the delete button on a computer just doesn’t provide that satisfying paper-crunching sensation, and you are, after all, a traditionalist.  Crumpling wads of paper also reminds you of movie montages in which five minutes of failing and then trying again leads to ultimate success, which is reassuring.

Step 1A: Make cookies. Eat them.

Step 1B: Make a project playlist. Get lost on iTunes...

           

ààAccidental online shopping detour.

Step 1, Take 3: Start writing again. Fight urge to go all Office Space on work laptop.

           

ààBaby name website detour. This is okay. You are searching for a new

character name. This counts as work.

ààààAdd coffee. Are there any cookies in the house?

Step 1, Take 4: Write another draft. This one’s got to be it. You can feel it.

            ààWrite blog post instead.

Step 1, Take 5: Write another draft. This has to end sometime. Might as well be today.

Send out as an email attachment. There will be more revisions, but for now, you are allowed to watch Netflix without feeling like a failure.

(ààMake more cookies.)

Top 5 from the '13

2013, contrary to the opinions I held in childhood, did not mean hover-cars, clones, and trips to the moon. But it was still a pretty weird year for all that.

For one, though this isn’t my first time at the year’s-best-list rodeo, I’m noticing how challenging it is to list stuff from this year. I’d like to put stuff on here that I discovered this year, but a lot of it came out ages ago. I was never too great at reading books right after they come out—but thanks to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, now my TV and movie diet is pretty asynchronous too these days (mostly thanks to number 1).

So here are my standouts from the year that was:

1.     Netflix

Once upon a time, Netflix was this little envelope service that occasionally sent me movies on disc. I say occasionally because that’s how often I got around to watching the actual movies and remembering to send them back. Today, the power of the ‘flix is hard to ignore. For example, Sea World had kept its head down, riding out the Blackfish controversy in silence—until last weekend when the documentary debuted on Netflix. Suddenly Sea World was taking out ads in major papers all across the country to share their side of the story. This was the year of Netflix. They even broke into programming with a bunch of original shows. It’s a coach potato dream come true.

2.     Gluten

At the start of 2013, I barely knew what it was. Now everywhere you look: gluten. Well, the word is everywhere...the actual substance is being subtracted from food all over the place. There are even books, like Grain Brain, claiming that wheat is making us dumber.

Crackers and pasta: maybe they’re the reason I’m so bad at math.

I’m hoping next year the big discovery is that trans-fat is actually pretty good for you, and there’s a fad to eat more snack cakes and Cool-Whip.

3.     Clones!

While there weren’t any in real life, that I’m aware of, hands-down the best new show I watched this year was Orphan Black on BBC America. Tatiana Maslany is a genius—I’ve lost count of how many roles she plays...just do yourself a favor and watch this if you haven't already. 

4.     Recycling

I don’t mean glass and plastic—I mean stories. It’s not a new phenomenon, but a look at this past fall’s network TV schedule is full of lots of cutting edge new tales—like Dracula, an oldie but goodie from 1897, the story of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman, first published in 1820, and all the motley crew over at Once Upon a Time from lots of way-old fairy tales (along with the spin-off about Alice, who was hot off the presses in 1865.) And lots of these were movies and scads of books before they ever made it onto the TV lineup.

I guess it’s because hardly anybody’s writing books anymore. Shame about that.

5.  New deals

We are seriously getting a Veronica Mars movie next year, thanks to Kickstarter. I know of several authors who broke out this year whose work came out first as a self-published e-book. That girl from Tumblr who’s upset she’s in her twenties is getting a TV show. Everywhere you look, people are finding creative paths to success. 

Here's to an even more interesting 2014!