Where is the Magic Writing Formula?

I love looking at all the books on writing and publishing. After the YA section, it's probably my favorite part of the bookstore. I mean, there's so much promise there. Write your novel this year! Write your novel in a month! No plot? NO PROBLEM. How to write science fiction. How to write short stories. How to write a sentence, a scene, a character. Plot-building, world-building, inspiration. I go into this part of the bookstore and I just feel like I need everything. I need to know how to create scenes and outline a plot and do writing exercises, right?

Right. Totally. Definitely.

So I start going through these books and flipping to random pages the way I do when I'm shopping for books and most of what I read is stuff I've heard before. Where is all the new information? Where is the magic formula for the perfect plot/character/scene/novel? Is it not here in this bookstore? OMG.


It always takes a while before I remember that reading another book on writing won't actually write my novel for me. It won't make it easier. It won't get me an agent or editor. It might give me more information, but without actually writing even that information won't be worth anything.

Thinking about writing won't finish the book.
Reading about writing won't finish the book.
Only sitting down and writing will finish the book. Or edit the book, rewrite it, polish it. Nothing accomplishes this except for actually working on it.

Of course, having said all of that... I actually did end up buying another writing book this time. I'm about a third of the way through The Art of War for Writers and so far I really like it.

my own rules

I've been doing some big thinking lately. Primarily I've been thinking about MY OWN PERSONAL BLOGGING RULES. Because while I don't want to offend anybody and definitely don't want to end up hurting anyone (including myself), I also want to talk about stuff.

And by stuff I mean books.

So I came up with some guidelines for myself, and while they're not exactly guidelines you need to know, I think it's nice to know what the blog you're reading is about. And what this blog is about (hopefully) is AWESOME THINGS. 

AWESOME THINGS ABOUT BOOKS

• I'll be talking about and featuring the books I read and love. This isn't going to be limited to YA because my reading isn't limited to YA, but you can bet that the majority of books will fall under that umbrella.
• I'll talk about the authors I'm a big fan of. Not all of them probably, because there is a lot, but some of them.
• I will be doing discussion and opinion posts (often about the YA genre), but these discussions will never be about any specific book, series, or author.

AWESOME THINGS ABOUT OTHER STUFF

• I'll probably/maybe end up talking about television shows that I love. These include (but are not limited to): Community, The Office, 30 Rock, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, and Cougar Town.
• And maybe (occasionally) movies. But there are very few movies I care enough to actually watch, much less spend time writing about.
• I might write the occasional personal post.
• I'll talk about geeky-awesome things such as: spies, robots, Star Trek, and Get Smart. 

THINGS I'M NOT DOING

• The biggest thing I'm not doing on this blog are book reviews. While I will discuss the books I love, I won't be doing formal reviews anymore. But you knew that. (This does make me wonder if this could be considered a book blog -- can you have a book blog if you're not reviewing? Or is it called something else?)
• I won't be participating in IMM (In My Mailbox) anymore. Not because I don't love it but because I don't want to mention the books I'm reading and then not feature them and have someone think I hate their book. Note: I don't hate your book, just trust me on this.
• Unless I have big news, I won't be talking about my querying/publication journey much (if at all). Right now I have exactly two people who are privy to all of my query news and I like keeping this information fairly private.

I debated continuing to do discussion/opinion posts quite a lot and in the end I decided that my opinions are fairly innocuous. I'm not mean, a lot of what I say is pretty positive, and I doubt that opinions on something as general as genre will end up hurting me or insulting somebody. There's cautious and then there's paranoid. If I gave up voicing any opinions I'd have to stop blogging, and I think the positives of having a web presence probably outweigh the few less-than-great opinions I'll be sharing.

Do you think I can still consider this a book blog even if I'm not reviewing? Or is that the definition of book blog?

books are lovelytimes

(via weheartit.)

I love different books for different reasons. Some of them make me laugh; some make me cry. Some characters are like me and some are who I'd like to be, or who I'd like to be friends with, or who I never could be but can understand anyway. Sometimes it's the story and sometimes it's the characters and sometimes it's something else altogether - the setting, the voice, the themes explored. Sometimes what I love is the very idea of the book, the premise  that everything else was built upon.

Different books.
Different reasons.

I want to share with you the books I love but my reasons won't always be your reasons and my reasons won't always be the same. I know how to analyze a book, how to look at the different parts and write a review based on it. But I don't always know how to put in words the reasons why I love a certain book.

I'll work on it though. I'll work on telling you not how a book is, but what it is. What's great about it, what makes me want to read it again, what I love about it, why you should read it. Sometimes these reasons will be sweet, sometimes they'll be insane, sometimes they'll be none or all of the above.

<3