I'm back, and ready to blog!

Hello, hello! I'm back from my unexpected blogging break, and fully recharged. I hope you all had a wonderful (insert holiday of your choice here), and are enjoying the last few days of 2011.

I've had a great few weeks in terms of reading. Since I went on break, some highlights were: The Circle Opens (series) & The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce, Inheritance by Christopher Paolini (still in the middle of this one, but I like it so far!), So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld, and Legend by Marie Lu. All were great. I also got a bunch of books as gifts (and bought a few for myself) that I am so excited about and cannot wait to begin. Thank you, bookish gift-givers!

In a few days, I will be participating in the Squeaky-Books-hosted oh-my-word-the-year-is-over-and-I-haven't-reached-my-goal read-a-thon, which takes place on December 30th and 31st. I have actually met my goal of 200 books in 2011 (yay!!) but I'd love to get a few more in before the year ends. I have huge stack of library books that I can't wait to open up, not to mention all the wonderful books I received in the past few weeks. The picture to the left links to Squeaky Books for more information and sign-ups.

One last thing: I saw this video today on Victoria Schwab's (amazing author of The Near Witch) blog, and I'd love to share it. Videos like this make my day. Hurray for YA authors doing fun things!

Happy post-holidays relaxing!

A Quick Update

Hello, readers.
I just wanted to let you all know why I haven't been posting on Pica Reads nearly as much as I would have liked recently. In September and even October, I had time to write posts for at least an hour a night. In November, my workload increased significantly, and I now have time for about a half an hour a night to write, which is usually spent on other activities, such as sleeping and that "one more chapter" of whatever book I'm reading. I wish I could share with you all the wonderful books I'm reading, but I just don't have the time to review them all. So for now, I've suspended Weekly Review and IMM posts, and I've been focusing on reviews as well as a new feature I hope to start posting soon. I have a few reviews lined up that I'd like to tweak just a little more before posting, so you'll be seeing those soon.

Happily, though, Winter Break is just around the corner, and I'll be able to jump right back in.

If I don't get to post reviews of some of my new favorites in the coming weeks, here's a list of recent reads that I loved:

• Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu
• Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick
• Icefall, by Matthew J. Kirby (I did review this one, see my review of Icefall!)
• Chime, by Franny Billingsley (AMAZING!)

I also checked out a ridiculous number of books out the the library, and I'm really looking forward to them. They look fantastic!

Until later,

Teaser Tuesday, 17th Edition

I'm sure at this point it won't surprise anyone that Teaser Tuesday is late yet again. I might as well just give up and call it Teaser Wednesday. This week I actually do have an excuse though. My computer is getting fixed (again) because last time it got fixed, they put in a logic board with some problem or other and I had to take it in again. Anyway, now I'm sharing a computer with my mom (thanks, mom - love you :D) and I haven't brought the Teaser Tuesday books out of my room, where I work when I'm on my own computer. (By the way, those of you who also read my other blog, The Bookbird and the Wordgirl, it also means that I don't have my writing on this computer. So you'll have to be a bit more patient for Chapter Two.) Anyway, here is this week's somewhat belated but very fun Teaser Tuesday. I've been reading some really good books this week.

***

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I am doing a slightly different version of Teaser Tuesday. Since I go through books so quickly, I'm going to put a quote from any book I've read in the past week.

***

"She wanted to set the knobs to FitzFaeren and go slither into the cupboard downstairs to watch the dancers. She wanted to look for her grandfather." - Dandelion Fire, by N.D. Wilson

"His face was as bleak and yellowish and wrinkled as the moors. 'Listen, Christopher,' he said, ' those folk at Chrestomanci Castle are not going to be pleased to find you've been here doing this.'" - The Lives of Christopher Chant, by Diana Wynne Jones

"'What you need to know may be very different from what you want to know. Didn't your unfortunate accident teach you that?'" - The Throne of Fire, by Rick Riordan

"Whatever the reason, the argument raged. Anxious Antonio talked of going to England and cosulting someone named Chrestomanci about it." - The Magicans of Caprona, by Diana Wynne Jones

"'They ruined you for a normal life, but that's not your fault. There was nothing you could do about it.'" - The False Princess, by Eilis O'Neal

Thanks, Logan

Sorry for not posting much recently. I keep looking at my blog, thinking "What? Haven't I posted something by now?", start writing a post, and get distracted/ have to go do something else.

But I have to post about this weekend, because it was great. My dad and I flew to Logan, Utah to see five of my favorite authors speak. (More info in this post) I got there about an hour early and spent the time helping set up, which was incredibly fun. Then people started filling into the auditorium, and I joined them, having saved a seat for myself when I first arrived. (This turned out to be a great idea, because the auditorium was packed. Apparently the people who organized this event were expecting a couple hundred people to show up. They were wrong - there were over 1,000 people.) We sat down to hear the authors speak. This was the highlight of the night. They were hilarious. I could not stop laughing. They talked for about an hour, and then there was book signing. Of course, with 1,000 people, signing took a very long time. But it was so much fun. The entire time I was practically jumping up and down. My parents wouldn't let me take all of my books on the plane, but I brought 1 or 2 from each author, and I got them all signed. The event wasn't over until 11:45. During that time, I met and got signatures from all five of the authors (who were all so nice), made friends with the person behind me in line, bought 2 books (The Journal of Curious Letters, by James Dashner, and Yearbook, by Ally Condie), read Rapunzel's Revenge twice, and read about 100 pages of Yearbook. I, for one, was incredibly happy that the signing went on for so long. I loved every moment of it. Thank you, dad (for taking me and waiting in 2-hour-long lines), thank you, wonderful authors, and thank you, Logan.

On Buying Books

Today, Shannon Hale, author of The Books of Bayern, Princess Academy, Rapunzel's Revenge, and many other wonderful books, posted this post on why it's important to keep bookstores. Also today, Kristin Cashore, author of Graceling and Fire, posted this post on why we should support independent businesses. I decided I had to find an independent bookstore near my house (and quickly). So I found one that was just a few minutes away, bought The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and put another on hold to buy later this week. It was a very nice little bookstore that I'd actually walked right by many times before and not known it was a bookstore.

I also put a button on my sidebar (you have to scroll down a bit, but it's there) that is a pledge to read the printed word. I'm not going to get a kindle or a nook or anything, but I'm going to stick just with regular old printed books. I've actually been opposed to buying a kindle for a long time, even though everyone says I should get one. I buy so many books that I'm constantly running out of space to put them. I have 4 separate bookcases in my room because every time I fill one up, I put another in. But I've tried reading on other people's Kindles and it isn't the same as reading a physical book. You don't get the book-ness of it, the feeling of the pages and the cover and so many other things I can't really describe that make a book special. When I see I book that I love in a bookstore, I take it off the shelf even though I know I'm not going to buy it because it's like a friend. When I look through bookstore shelves, I see so many books that I've read and enjoyed that I see on my own shelves every day and it's like they're all saying hi to me. I know all their stories and beautiful descriptions and characters. I'm obviously in love with books; I wouldn't have a book blog otherwise. But getting back to the point, books are special and stories are special. That is why we must keep the printed word alive.

Picture Book Marathon, Day 10

Finally I'm back on track. I wrote two picture books today, one that obviously has to do with stuff happening in my life right now, and one that's not so obvious and I actually came up with the idea for before it applied to my life.

But before we get to that, I have exciting news (to me anyway). My computer is all better! Apparently the mac store called while I was at school and said my computer was ready to be picked up. I'm so happy because I thought it would take at least until Sunday. I went straight from swimming (with my brother's carpool in the car) directly to pick it up. It made my day to have it back. But anyway, now getting back to PBM--

Picture Book #9: Mike and Millie
Millie was a very nice girl. She had a lot of friends. One of her friends was Mike. Mike was not a very nice boy. In fact, he was downright mean, but he pretended to be nice because he wanted to be Millie's best friend. But Millie saw that he wasn't as nice as he was pretending to be, so he stopped pretending and acted like the horrible jerk he was. Millie was furious at him, but being a very nice person, she didn't want to do anything mean. But when Mike started being mean to Millie, her friend Haley punched him.

Moral: Violence isn't always the answer, but you should stand up for your friends. Also, don't be a jerk. Seriously, don't.

Gahh, high school drama. I obviously changed some stuff for the book, but this is an event that recently happened to my friend "Millie". I was outraged when I heard, and although I wasn't going to punch "Mike", I was going to go yell at him. But "Millie" and I decided that since "Mike" lived on attention, It'd probably not be the best thing to do. I did a great illustration that I'm want to post without messing with it on photoshop first because I don't want to ruin it.

But you can't really see it cause scanning doesn't work with pencil drawings. So,

I don't like the photoshop tracing nearly as much as the original, but at least you can see it. 

[EDIT: I just figured out that you actually can see the pencil drawing much better if you tilt your screen back and look up at it, so I didn't have to do the tracing after all, oh well. It was fun even though I don't love the end result] 

And now, onto the 2nd book of the day.

Picture Book #10: When I Grow Up

Every day, Kacey went to her 1st grade class. This week, the kids in her class were talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up.
On Monday, Darren talked about how he wanted to be a doctor.
Kacey thought that being a doctor would be fun.
Teddy bear with band-aids in Kacey's hands, Kacey with doctor's kit.
But then she remembered that she didn't like being around sick people.
On Tuesday, Maya talked about how she wanted to be a teacher.

Kacey thought that being a teacher would be fun.

Stuffed animals in rows w/ paper in front of them, Kacey in front, teaching.

But then she remembered that she didn't like little kids. (Panel on side, 4 yr olds running around)

On Wednesday, Jack talked about how he wanted to be a detective. 

Kacey thought that being a detective would be fun.

Kacey in hallway with flashlight and dark coat, hallway is shadowed, clock in background reads 8:30.

But then she realized she didn't have anything to detect.

On Thursday, Jane talked about how she wanted to be a writer. 

Kacey thought that being a write would be fun.

Kacey sitting at desk with crumpled paper in wastebasket behind her - see cover drawing.

But she didn't know what to write about.

On Friday, it was Kacey's turn to speak. She stood up in front of the class, took a deep breath, and said, "I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but right now I want to be a KID!"

I drew this cover when I was preparing for the marathon, before I got some photoshop strategies down (scroll down to see some of my other more pathetic photoshop works) and I was going to edit it after I wrote the story but before I posted it, but I kinda like it now. The more I look at it, the more it grows on me. (That and the fact that I can't really spare an extra half hour to edit this.) So I'm keeping the original for now, but if I end up changing it, I'll post that version too. Now that I have my computer back, hopefully I'll be better about doing the art for my picture books.

I thought up the idea for When I Grow Up as one of my pre-PBM qualifying ideas. When I actually started writing it this morning, I realized that it was more relevant that I had originally thought, because this week is placement testing week, and we've been asked to think a lot about what we want to do next year, which will dictate what we do the year after that and so on and so on for what seems like the rest of our lives. I just don't think that these tests can possibly be that important, but it is a bit of pressure. But I'm just taking tests for everything I can and deciding what I want later.  So anyway, that's the connection.

Well, that was an excellent way to procrastinate. Now, back to work.

Until tomorrow,

Oh No! And, Picture Book Marathon, Day 8

Yesterday I broke my posting every day streak, which was unbroken since January 14. Sigh. See, what happened was, yesterday was the first day of swim season. So I went to practice, and swam, and came home, and fell asleep. Until the morning, when I overslept. So my homework didn't get done, my picture book didn't get done, and I didn't write a post for yesterday. I thought about semi-cheating and writing a post today and time-stamping it for yesterday, but I didn't have anything to say. And also my brother needed his computer today, and since it is his computer, I gave it back (and realized how computer-addicted I was). But I did write a story for PBM that I transcribed onto this computer, but I don't have any names for anything yet. My name-creating inspiration was missing today. But anyway,

Picture Book #6: Untitled So Far
(this turned into more of a short story, but some picture books can be long, right?)


For Ceri

Once upon a time there was a girl named Sara who was very upset that in fairy tales, boys went out to seek their fortune when girls had to stay to home and wait for a handsome prince to find them. She recognized that there were far fewer handsome princes out there than there were girls waiting for them, so she decided not to wait for a prince but to go out and make a life for herself. So she cut her hair, disguised herself as a boy, and went to seek her fortune.
When she got to the nearest large town, she decided to find something to do while she was busy seeking her fortune, because being a country girl, she knew very well that money did not grow on trees. Eventually, she found a job as a blacksmith’s apprentice. But, being a girl, she hadn’t done very much hard labor and tired quickly. The blacksmith didn’t want to put up with that, so he fired her. Then she got a job as a stable boy, but, being a girl, she hadn’t had any experience with horses, so she was fired from that job as well.
For months, she lived like that, being fired from one job after another, when finally, exhausted and almost ready to return to her hometown, she got a job as a bookbinder’s apprentice. She was fascinated by the stories in the books, the beautiful words and pictures. And so she began to write stories, in secret, at night.
Each morning she would go to work and learn bookbinding until the shop closed. Then she’d have dinner, go into her room and start to write. She filled pages and pages with her stories.
One of her stories was particularly interesting to write, and she kept coming up with new ideas for it, so she brought it to work with her so that she could write down her ideas and not forget them by the time she got back to her room that evening. By accident, she put it down on the pile of books to be bound that day and the bookbinder picked it up and began to read it. When he saw her name on the back cover, his eyes widened. He told her to go back home for the day and closed the shop, taking the book with him.

That's all I have so far. That's the story from yesterday. I'm not sure where I want to go with it. The original idea is from a game my friend Ceri and I were playing over the weekend, where we would tell a story in the usual fairy-tale fashion, with all fairy-tale cliches intact, bust making it up as we go along.  This particular story was a variation on one I told, but fixed up and edited, and minus quite a few of the inside jokes. The story from today also has roots in that game, but the plot is different from any of the stories we told. Which transitions nicely into....

Picture Book #7: Also Untitled So Far
(this one obviously needs a lot of work)

In the town of ___________, there was an infestation problem. But this wasn’t an infestation of rats, or bugs, or (something else that infests). No, this was an infestation of dragons. Well, there was only one dragon really, but one dragon can be an infestation all by itself if it decides to be destructive.* (List stuff dragon did: burn houses, carry off maidens, be a general nuisance, etc.) In ________ there lived a young man named ___________. Like many of the other residents, he was unhappy with the dragon problem. But unlike the other residents, he decided to do something about it. So he went to the local witch and asked for help to get rid of the dragon. Luckily, she didn’t turn him into a toad and decided to grant his request. So she gave him a sword and three gold pieces and sent him home to kill the dragon. So _________ went home, but not being the brightest young man, he gave the three gold pieces and the sword to the first youth he met and told him to go slay the dragon. The youth left the next morning in the direction of the dragon’s cave and never returned. So ____________ went back to the witch and asked for her help again. Again she gave him three gold pieces and a sword and sent him home to kill the dragon. But __________ hadn’t gotten any smarter since the last time he went to see the witch, so again he went to the first youth he saw and gave him the gold pieces and the sword and told him to go slay the dragon. The youth left the next morning in the direction of the dragon’s cave and never returned. _____________ decided to go again to the witch and ask for help. By this time, the witch was getting annoyed that he kept coming back, so this time she gave him the sword without the three gold pieces, and told him to go slay the dragon himself. So ___________ didn’t bother waiting for the morning, but went that night and slayed the dragon while it was asleep. The next day he went to the witch to thank her. By this time she was really annoyed at him and didn’t ever want to see him again. So she turned him into a toad. The end.

*I got that line from Maurice and His Amazing Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett. I don’t think it’s the exact line, so it’s sort of mostly not copying. But I changed it to be about dragons rather than rats, and I’m citing Mr. Pratchett like the diligent English student that I am.

Also, I was really disappointed that I couldn't go more than a week without taking a rest day, and then I find these two wonderful comments on my last post that helped cheer me up and get me back in the game for the marathon. So thank you so much, Literally Lynne and Shaunda!

One more thing and then I will go to bed: I finally got around to scanning and coloring my sketches from the last few days. So first, here is my fully finished drawing for Green Yarn, which I may want to turn into the title page later. It didn't turn out the way I was expecting, and the girl looks a lot more like how I imagined the girl from Untitled So Far (book #6), but I like the way it turned out.

[UPDATE: I just realized I forgot her hands. Gack, I hate drawing hands. Oh well, if I ever do anything with this drawing I'll add in the hands.]

And here's the sketch for Untitled So Far (#6) which somehow got flipped horizontally.I'll fix that when I color it. I'll color tomorrow or the day after, depending on... well, depending on everything. On how my life works out tomorrow. Right now, I'm figuring out every day as it comes. Stressful as it is, it makes a nice change.

[UPDATE AGAIN: I just realized I forgot to do Teaser Tuesday. I'll do a double Teaser Tuesday next week to make up for it, once my life gets organized again. I'm super busy and not reading as much anyway.]

Until tomorrow, hopefully with two more picture books,

This Weekend

...has been crazy.

First, I volunteered at the library again, which was very fun. I re-shelved the books in the large print section, crossed out the bar codes in discarded books and magazines, and I made a poster display for the YA section. It was incredibly fun, even more than last week.

And then  I went to my friends birthday party which was SO FUN and we stayed up until all hours of the night. Yay! By the way, starting a movie at 11:30 - so great. Custom Apples to Apples (where you make your own cards before the game starts) - best game ever. Happy Birthday Emi!

And then I got home today, realized I didn't write a picture book yesterday, went to turn on my computer, and... nothing happened. My computer would not turn on. At all. So I took my computer into the mac store (I have a mac) and they said they could fix it, but it would take them a week. A WEEK. So started freaking out because all of my schoolwork (including notes) is on my computer. And then I realized all of my notes for PBM are on my computer. But I didn't really have a choice because my computer wouldn't work even if I brought it home, so I might as well have them fix it.

So I went home and called my friend (thank you!) for the notes from last week (I backed up my computer last weekend, thank goodness so I'm only missing stuff from last week, which includes everything for PBM) and borrowed my brother's computer, a PC which I can barely use (with lots of "gahh"s and "darn it"s and "oh my gosh this freaking computer"s but which I'm using now, and I'm going to make do for this week.

Except that by the time I finished my homework after all of this, it was 11. And I just didn't have the energy to write 2 picture books without any of my notes. And my brother's computer doesn't have photoshop, so I can't draw covers and be done with it.

That is my excuse for why I missed two days in a row. And it's a much better excuse than "I had a lot of homework" which I'm sure I'm going to use a bunch of times in the coming weeks, especially in the week before finals (gack!).

I'm going to try to write THREE tomorrow (yeah, right). I'll probably end up with 1 completed book and 2 ideas. And since spring sports start tomorrow I'll be too exhausted to make those 2 ideas into 2 full books. Which is what double frees on Tuesdays are for. I also want to finish the drawing I started for the inside page of Fox & Sparrow (which may have to wait since it's on my computer) and make a cover for Green Yarn. Goodness, I have a lot to do.

Until tomorrow,