IWSG & Bloo Moose

The Insecure Writer's Support Group is the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. He, his clones, minions, friends, and fellow authors make it an amazing event every month.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

July 6 question - If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose?

So many options! 

If I weren't an author, I might be tempted to say PERN from Anne McCaffrey's series - such a fabulous world! Although I would choose my position (Dragonrider) and time in the world with great care.

Or maybe the Shire or Gondor after Frodo's journey. PEI with Anne of Green Gables. The Enterprise, Firefly...

Because I am an author, I'd love to choose one of the worlds I've created!

Bloo Moose is a quirky little town in Vermont (which is in a climate very similar to my own). I love the people of the world and the ways they take care of each other. It's an upbeat, fun place, with lots of things to do.

Bloo Moose relies on tourists coming to town (fishing, camping, winter sports, leaf-peeping...). I'd love to go to Fortini's for Antonia's lasagna, visit Noah's alpacas, take the tour at Bloo Moose Maple Syrup, have a tea at The Lucky, rent a kayak from LaChance Lodge, and play a tennis set at Kami's Kamp. I'd stay in Darby's B&B and pick up a few Bloo Moose themed t-shirts at Moose Prints. I might even get a chance to brainstorm writing with Max. The best time to visit would be a week before Christmas to join in the fun of Merry MooseMas Days!

My kind of vacation - my kind of life!

How about you? Would you go for the adventures or AFTER the adventures (like me!)? Would you like a medieval, contemporary, or future setting for your world? Which of your own worlds would you choose?

On another note, Reaching For Normal, Bloo Moose #1 is one of the choices for the IWSG Book Club this month! If you like romance and romantic suspense, you might enjoy this one - it's free at all retailers. 

I'm currently reading Ronel's book and it's a fun read too!

Favourite Couples

Valentine's Day is almost upon us. Cue the cardboard hearts and fancy chocolates!

Love and romance are part of human culture and obviously show up in many of our books. There have been countless couples throughout history who have captured the hearts of readers. Even young readers.

Some of the earliest couples I remember reading about are:

• Anne Shirley & Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables
• Nancy Drew & Ned Nickerson (had to look up his last name!)
• Amy March & Laurie (never did like that match up though)

There weren't really any YA books around when I was a kid and I moved pretty much from those books to Agatha Christie - not a lot of romance for poor ol' Hercule!

Current MG and YA books are full of couples and love triangles (but that's another post) and some of them are very memorable. One of my recent faves is in Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson. While it's totally an adventure book the realistic relationship that grows between the characters is fabulous. Shannon Messenger, Medeia Sharif, Elana Johnson, and Shelli Johannes are other authors who create strong relationships between their YA characters. Wish those authors had been around when I was a kid!

Who are your favourite couples from the books you read as a child or teen?

Non-Mom Moms

I'm one of the lucky ones. I grew up in a family with lots of love. I still have my mom and we still spend a lot of time together. Not everyone's so lucky.

Mother's Day always makes me think of the kids I've worked with over the years who don't have moms who live with them (or don't have them at all). Thankfully, most of them have someone in their life who takes on that role to help them through.

You don't have to be a mom to be a mom ... if you know what I mean. :)

Some of my favourite non-mom moms from my favourite stories are:

•  Matthew & Marilla from Anne of Green Gables - they pulled off a great tag-team mom for the lonley little girl and showed her how to love and be strong
• Gandalf in LotR - he really takes care of Bilbo and makes him a stronger, better person
• The Receiver of Memory in The Giver - Jonas has never experienced love. It's an un-used emotion in the dystopian community. The Receiver gives Jonas memories and strength and courage and hope .. and love
• Mrs. Beale in Maniac Magee - she takes in this runaway kid from the other side of the town and treats him like her own. She ignores the customs of her town and not only loves him, she gives him the thing he wants/needs more than anything else in the world - an address.

Moms make you better, stronger, happier people. They give you the skills required to be an adult. They give you unconditional love and a kick in the pants when you need it. Thanks Mom!

How about you? Who are some of your favourite non-mom moms?

Deja Vu

The Deja-vu blogfest is here! Our lovely hosts are DL Hammons, Katie Mills, Lydia Kang, and Nicole Ducleroir. The idea is to search and find a blogpost you think deserves a second look. I like this one because, even though I wrote it about 2 years ago, I feel the same.

"The idea is to write so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight into the heart."

-- Maya Angelou

My thoughts turned to Maya Angelou after hearing of her health scare. From what I can gather, she is still in hospital, but doing well. Hopefully that continues.

Maya has written so many wonderful things, and she is very quotable. I love the quote at the top of the post. To me, good story telling does just that. It touches the heart. I hope one day to be a strong enough writer to touch the heart of my readers. What an accomplishment that would be!

Many authors over the years have touched my heart. I vividly remember reading the Anne of Green Gables series when I was a child. Anne Shirley is a character who has stayed with me for years. I've reread her stories, and passed those books on to my daughter and my students. Anne's gutsy, optimistic, fun-loving, dramatic attitude has had so many readers fall in love with her over the years. Lucy Maud Montgomery is definitely one of those authors whose writing has arrowed straight to my heart.

How about you? Who was the first author or character who really touched your heart?

Timeless

After my post about couples for Valentine's Day, I downloaded a copy of Anne of Green Gables onto my iPod. I hadn't read it in years, maybe even decades. I wondered if I would still feel the same love for it as I did when I read it for the very first time as a child.

I did!
The language is so very different from most of what I read today. On my iPod, the first sentence goes on for pages! Semi-colons have the audacity to appear - three times - in that same sentence.

Lucy Maud Montgomery's style isn't the style I usually read anymore, but I loved visiting with Anne again. The words flow - the imagery is long and lovely. The characters are sweet and true and wonderful.

The Lord of the Rings is another of my favourites, another classic with a very different style from my usual reads - and a very different style from the way I write. I have the books (a glorious boxed set edition) - but maybe I'll see how long Tolkein's sentences are on my iPod too!

Do you have any favourites that are classics - favourites that differ from today's style? And from your writing style?

Let's Get Sappy!

In honour of Valentine's Day, let's get a little sappy. Let's talk about our favourite couples in the books we've read. Here are a few of mine...

Favourite Classic Couple: Anne Shirley & Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. These 2 are such fun. Anne is one of my favourite all-time characters. She's fun, feisty, gutsy, kind, and has such an imagination. Gilbert almost loses his chance for good by pulling her pigtails and calling her Carrot Top, but it all works out ... eventually!

Favourite Book-Turned-Movie Couple: Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings. I was so worried when they decided to make movies from these books. But, they did a great job. They kept the feel of the novels, the characters were all so well done! And who wouldn't want Aragorn to be happy? :)


Favourite Chick Lit Couple: Mattie & Kyle from Talli Roland's The Hating Game! This is such a fun story-line - filled with laugh out loud moments, "I can't believe she did that!" moments and, "Awwww," moments. If you haven't read Talli's book yet, check it out!


Favourite Romantic Suspense Couples: This is a favourite category of mine, so I'm including 3 authors! Eve Dallas & Roarke from JD Robb's In Death series. Frankie & Ryan from Terry O'Dell's When Danger Calls. Jules & Robin (& so many more!!) from Suzanne Brockmann's Troubleshooters series. Great stories all of them!


Favourite Couple That's Not a Couple: Alek & Deryn/Dylan from Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan are a wonderful pair! They are so very different and yet have much in common. They're both courageous and willing to learn and take risks. This is an awesome Steampunk read and I HAD to include it! :)

So, maybe not so sappy afterall!

So, tell me about one of your favourite literary couples of all time ... or, of the moment!

Canadian Authors, Eh?

Happy Canada Day! Even if you're not Canadian, you can join the celebration. Maybe some maple syrup with your pancakes, tortiere for lunch, or a little ice-wine or local brew later on with the fireworks :)

In honour of the day, I'd like to spotlight a few of my favourite Canadian authors.

All-time fave for me has to be Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne of Green Gables will always be one of my favourite books. I devoured the entire series when I was a pre-teen. And then I read them again. And again. Great characters! Anne is wonderful - fun and flawed. The writing style is different from what sells today - I seem to remember the first sentence being something like 20 lines long - but the story is timeless.

Margaret Atwood is my favourite poet. I read The Circle Game in high school and was literally blown away. It didn't rhyme! It wasn't about heartbreak! It was modern! It made me think! These were huge revelations to me. I'd enjoyed poetry, but Margaret Atwood convinced me it was something to love. She came to my hometown when I was much younger and did a poetry reading. Awesome stuff! She writes great novels too, but it was her poetry that hooked me.

Robert Munsch writes incredible books for kids. Every primary teacher I know has a box filled with Munsch books. Classics! Paper Bag Princess, Thomas' Snowsuit, Mud Puddle and Murmel, Murmel, Murmel are just a few of my favourites.

Farley Mowat is another timeless author. Reading Never Cry Wolf made me aware of the environment and how humanity is messing it up long before it became the popular thing to do. A Whale for a Killing is beautiful and haunting. I can read his works over and over again. His retelling of Dian Fossey's life in Virunga is another masterpiece.

Gordon Korman is a fantastic MG author. His MacDonald Hall series featuring Bruno & Boots is a riot. His newer adventure series are great to entice reluctant readers. It's easy to turn kids onto reading when you have a bunch of Korman's books available. I was lucky enough to hear him speak years back and have a signed copy of Bugs Potter to show for it! :)

Monica Huges is the last one I'll talk about today. She writes terrific science fiction for kids. Her Invitation to the Game is a fabulous read set in the near future. The twist halfway in always shocks the kids and makes them think about what we're doing to our world. She has a number of terrific books for young adults.

I could go on, but I won't :)

So do you have any favourite Canadian authors? Have you read any of mine?

Happy Canada Day, everyone! And Happy 4th of July weekend to my American friends! Party weekends all around! Anyone else celebrating this weekend?

Fave YA Couple?

My blog buddy Alexa over at Not Enough Bookshelves has a very interesting theme going this month. It's called Christmas Countdown.

Alexa is counting down her favourite couples from all of the YA books she's read this year. There are some very interesting people in YA! Alexa is also holding a contest in the same theme. Check out the rules here.

Anyway, Alexa's post got me thinking about some of my fave couples in the books I've read.

My all-time favourite YA couple has got to be Anne Shirley & Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. If you've been following me for a bit, that probably shouldn't surprise you :)

I LOVE Anne. She was everything I wanted to be as a young girl: outgoing, friendly, adventurous and so wonderfully creative. As a shy and serious kid, I knew the only thing we really had in common was a very vivid imagination. I generally kept mine to myself, but it was there -- still is :)

Anne and Gilbert make a great team - from the carrot-top comments and the pigtail pulling to the more serious stuff in later books, you never quite know what to expect from the pair. Just the way it should be :)

So, do any couples stand out for you? Are your faves from childhood or from something you've read more recently?

Comfort Books

Comfort books - what a great concept. Just like comfort food, only better. No calories, and they last a lot longer :)

My friend Belle over at Ms. Bookish is hosting the 42nd Bookworms Carnival. Her theme, you guessed it, is comfort books.

I can literally disappear into a book. I'm sure many of you are the same. The world, with its worries and despairs, just goes away. I'm whisked off to a new world. Sure, its got its own share of worries and despairs, but that's okay. I suspend my disbelief and fly with the characters.

The first book I fell into was Anne of Green Gables. I'd never met anyone quite like Anne. As a shy, serious girl, I wanted to be Anne's friend. I wanted her nerve, her imagination and her joy.

The Hobbit was probably the next book to completely capture my imagination. Bilbo is such a great character - and the magic! I couldn't get enough Gandalf. When my parents bought me a boxed set of the Lord of the Rings, I didn't resurface for weeks. I tend to reread these books every few years. Love them.

Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Riders of Pern series is another one I can't get enough of. I've read all of the books at least twice. The planet is perfectly created. The mix of science, fantasy, vivid characters and a unique society combine to make this one of my favourite comfort reads. I can slip into their world and wonder what it would be like...

Agatha Christie's mysteries are kind of like chocolate for me. Sweet, even when you know what the taste is and there's no surprise. I try to leave them for years so that I won't remember the murderer, but the writing is so strong, I tend to remember the clues. I've read "And Then There Were None" to several classes and they loved it. Such a great writer!

Those are a few from my list. What about you? What are your favourite comfort books?

Writing from the Heart

"The idea is to write so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight into the heart."
-- Maya Angelou

My thoughts turned to Maya Angelou after hearing of her health scare. From what I can gather, she is still in hospital, but doing well. Hopefully that continues.

Maya has written so many wonderful things, and she is very quotable. I love the quote at the top of the post. To me, good story telling does just that. It touches the heart. I hope one day to be a strong enough writer to touch the heart of my readers. What an accomplishment that would be!

Many authors over the years have touched my heart. I vividly remember reading the Anne of Green Gables series when I was a child. Anne Shirley is a character who has stayed with me for years. I've reread her stories, and passed those books on to my daughter and my students. Anne's gutsy, optimistic, fun-loving, dramatic attitude has had so many readers fall in love with her over the years. Lucy Maud Montgomery is definitely one of those authors whose writing has arrowed straight to my heart.

How about you? Who was the first author or character who really touched your heart?