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Sorry if it took me a while to reply to this message; college started back for a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't been able to get on here as much as I've wanted to.
What did you think about the ending of Forever, assuming you finished it? And I think my favorite Sara Zarr book is probably Sweethearts, but it might be because I connected with that one on a personal level; I'm not sure someone would enjoy it as much as I did if they didn't relate to the feelings the protagonist was having.
I liked How to Save a Life, but I found the ending a bit predictable and a couple of the characters annoyed me. Still a pretty great story, though. It's probably not my favorite Sara Zarr book, but if you've liked some of her past work, I think it's definitely worth a read. Even if you're already a fan of her previous work, I would give it a try. Despite some of the characters occasionally grating on my nerves, I still enjoyed it.
Ugh, don't even remind me of the ending of Forever, haha. I haven't been able to re-read those books since I read that one. :/ I can still think of about three series that ended worse, but...yeah, definitely not a fan of how it ended. Hope you enjoy it anyway, haha.
Ahh I'm such a victim of the dreaded plot bunnies, too--I'll start writing on something and then get an idea for another book and I'll think "Hey, I can work on two at once" but it never works out; usually I end up not finishing either of them haha.
I would hope that my characters are nothing like me lol, but I do think I can see some of myself in each of them. Usually I start out with one idea for my characters, like I want them to be a certain way, but as the story progresses they usually turn into something completely different. I've still not determined if that's a good thing or a bad thing haha. I think it's good if you're writing characters that reflect yourself--write what you know, haha. (I don't do that nearly enough.) (Which results in hours of research and sometimes readers e-mailing me back saying "Hey you got this wrong.")
Sure--I'd love to read it when you're done, and I'm sure it's great writing! And I'm really busy right now myself; I've not had the chance to edit as much as I'd like (I've also been working a little on the second book but this one is going surprisingly slow, maybe because I've been so busy). So far editing has been terrible; I'm finding so many things I'm just rolling my eyes at haha. And there are some parts I felt needed to be fleshed out a bit more, so I wrote some new scenes to add in this morning. There are a couple of parts that are so terrible I don't even know what to do with them. One of them I want to delete altogether but it would change the entire plot of the second half the book, and some of the things that particular moment resulted in were things I actually sort of liked. So I'm not sure if I should leave it in and feel a bit of embarrassment every time someone reads the book, or delete it, change the whole plot of half the book, and lose a lot of really great, character-defining moments.
Update me on how your ideas are going, too! I can't wait to hear about some of them! Even if you don't get the chance to write it all down right away, sometimes it's just exciting to do a bit of plotting in your head.
Thank you. (: Yeah, I really wanted to have an ensemble cast but still develop each character, which is hard to do if you're writing in first person, which is what I'm doing. (I have a hard time writing in third person, just because it's more difficult for me to make the characters sympathetic, and most of mine need all the help they can get in that area.) (I like writing about people you wouldn't want to be friends with if you knew them in real life lol.) I literally just finished the first draft of the first book, probably around 12:30 a.m. this morning, and I'm pretty satisfied with everything but the ending. It needs work. But I like where I've gone as far as the length of the story; I didn't expect to get 60,000 words out of this one but I did. I think the second book will be better, or at least I hope so--I like the characters narrating that one better. (: I don't feel like I've been working on this one since October, it seems like it's not been that long, but it may just have been that the last series I wrote took a year just to plan so I'm not used to moving this fast. Still, it's a lot of fun so far.
I'm glad you're enjoying Italy! (: I bet your blog is great--I'd love to read it. I hope you have fun visiting your family, too.
Haha I need to do that! I have a lot of plot bunnies hopping around in my head so I really need to make a folder just for them. That's awesome that you're studying in Italy; I would love to visit there someday. (: I hope you're enjoying it.
Angelfall is by Susan Ee. She's an indie author; I lowered my expectations slightly because of that, but I'll know to never do that again because it was better than some books published by big-name publishers that I've read lately.
Yeah, I have a general plan for books 1-5, and 6 is a bit muddled at the moment, but I'm sure I'll figure it out once I get farther into the series (I'm only on the first draft of the first book right now, haha). Since the storyline is going to be so big and so long, I'm not sure I have space to explain it here (I mean, I have space, but I don't know if I want to send a ten-thousand character block of text lol). But there will be angels and demons at war and I want to show both sides. So even though I guess the angels will be portrayed as ~the good guys~, there will be demon main characters, too, and the narrators (two per book) rotate every book and idk it sounds like it sucks but if I thought I could type a good description of it that was less than ten-thousand characters, I would haha. I hope it doesn't end up terrible, because I did a lot of research for it, I mean beyond just watching Supernatural and reading Paradise Lost lol.
Oh dear, it seems as if I've neglected Shelfari altogether for a while, haha. I haven't logged in probably since I sent you that last message. I'm glad I remembered my password! Now I have a ton of books to add. :/ Yeah, if you were unsatisfied with Linger, I definitely don't think you'll like the way Forever ends, though you may feel differently. I personally thought it could have ended better, but that's just my opinion.
I'm working on a series about angels. It would seem as if I'm on a bit of an angel kick right now (watching angel shows and movies, reading Paradise Lost haha) so it only seems appropriate to go ahead and write a book about them (or six books, if all goes as planned). I find myself thoroughly unsatisfied with a lot of the angel-related books for young adults out there today (I read an excellent one, Angelfall, that also crossed over into the dystopian genre, but...yeah that pretty much sums up good YA angel books) so I figured, why not write one myself? I agree, college has definitely gotten in the way of my...well, everything, haha. My first semester went okay, though, so hopefully the second one will go just as well.
I'm really sorry I've not replied lately, I've been really busy with college and working on the book I'm writing so I've not really been on Shelfari in a while. I haven't got the chance to finished A Great and Terrible Beauty because of how busy I've been but I really like what I've read of it so far. (: Yeah, what happened in Linger...I was hoping they'd fix it the way I wanted them to in Forever, but it didn't get corrected that way and I'm a little mad over the ending. :/
I have all of the bones books :p
you can borrow them when you come back for school
I'll try finding Julie and Julia when I'm at the library next time
other than Deja Dead?
nope, but I just started death Du Jour, I think I'm gonna work my way through my box of the books and then get my hands on a copy of the new book in my series
Haha yeah, definitely always an exciting class. xD
~Wishing I was at Comic Con~ lol
Haha yeah, hopefully I'll get them started watching and reading some of the stuff I love.
That might be weird, though, because class would turn into nothing but conversations about that stuff. xD
Ha, I hope so. My first order of business will be to teach them how to tie a "magic knot" with their laces lol. I'll be like "Okay, sit down, take your left shoe off, I'm going to change your life forever." xD I plan on turning them all into fanboys/fangirls for my favorite ships. Maybe we'll have Ship War Fridays? (The more I plan this crap, the more I think no fangirl should ever have a job as a teacher lmao.)
Haha I would never say this to any of their faces but I swear the weeks leading up to graduation were full of me saying "God I hope I never see those people again..." Lol I'm horrible. xD
Some of these people I'll be so glad to never see again (God what a horrible person I am lol), but then I'll genuinely miss some others. There will be two or three I'll really miss a lot. ): And yes, it's so exciting to finally be done with it lol.
I'm already looking forward to my college graduation. Honestly, sometimes I can't see myself being an English teacher, though. I suspect I won't have matured past having pictures of Misha Collins on my classroom walls, haha. And I'll probably recommend some traumatizing books for the students to read. Parents will have their kids pulled out of my class so fast it'll make my head spin. xD
Yeah, it would be great to just coast senior year. I'm trying to hurry up and get everything out of the way for my major; I'm honestly not anxious for some of the classes I'm going to have to take, but I'll tough it out lol.
Our graduation was last night. ;_; I thought I was going to cry because before graduation I'd been sitting in my car curled into sort of a fetal position in the seat rocking back and forth and crying while I listened to "To Sir With Love", but I came out of it eventually and by the time I got inside I was so nervous that I was going to fall in those damn shoes I cannot walk in and will never wear again and so hot in that stupid cap and gown that all I could think was that, if I died, I hoped one of the ushers got my body out of the way so nobody would step on it lmao. I sort of blacked out on my way to get my diploma, but I'm smiling in all the pictures while I took it and shook the superintendent's hand, so apparently I'd went to my happy place lol. After graduation was over, I went into the auditorium and went running down the aisle toward someone I knew and THAT'S when I fell. :| But she was the only one who saw me haha.
He forgot to give us one again this semester, too. :| He really has forgotten lol. Anyone who reminds him dies.
I have such a bad case of senioritis that I couldn't stress over these finals if I wanted to. The Spanish one looks hard. I didn't finish the study guide. Eh, whatever. I'm sure I'll pass with a solid C as I always do in that class, lmao.
I went for orientation at college on Wednesday and it was pretty great. (: I met one of the professors (nobody I have next semester, unfortunately) and he was really cool. I'm mostly worried I'll run around looking like an idiot trying to find my classes. At my high school, everything is clearly labeled (there are signs over the entrance to the halls that say stuff like "Math Department" or "Science Department" so you really can't get lost unless you can't read haha). Luckily, my classes are pretty staggered out, so I'll have a while to run around looking like an idiot lol.
For some reason I don't understand (no, I know the reason--damn you, math workshop), I have 17 hours a week instead of the 15 hours all my friends have. I guess it's an advantage that I'll get more hours in, but the last reason I wanted to have two extra hours a week is because I have a second math class. :P It was either take College Algebra + Math Workshop, or take Remedial Algebra. Remedial Algebra is not the place I hang out haha.
I have most of my finals in 2 weeks but my classes are so ridiculous that I have the feeling it's not going to be anything too bad (or I hope it's not lol). I already took my Law final last week and my English final a couple of weeks ago, and my Art final is just to turn in my art project haha. My Career Options teacher forgot to give us a final last semester (no lie, he really did) so I'm hoping he's going to do that again haha.
It's mostly a lot of preparation for college that's getting in the way of what I'm wanting to do right now. I'm going for registration on Monday. Not excited at all lol.
Awesome! (: I keep trying to remember to re-read it because Forever is coming out in a couple of months, but I'm so behind on my books that I've still not got around to it yet. The teasers Maggie has been giving away for Forever definitely have me wanting to read it lol.
I'm definitely nervous about those sequels, simply because those were two of my favorite books by Ellen Hopkins. I don't want to see them ruined. I'll admit that the ending of Burned may have been ambiguous enough to warrant one (did she kill anyone or not?) (although I like those kinds of endings where it's up to the reader to decide what happened next, but I know some fans hate them) but in my opinion, Impulse didn't need one at all. It's supposed to be more of a "companion book" than a sequel because it's about Conner's sister, but still...Impulse was definitely my favorite. I hope the sequel does it justice.
Maybe it would just be best to skip out on THG. I'm pretty sure the third one angered everyone, no matter which character they were a fan of, haha.
Haha most people think I'm crazy for doing things like that, so it's great for me to talk to somebody who understands. (: It just really bothers me if I look at a specific series on my bookshelf and all the books don't look the same.
I loved Crank--read it in a day--but then I couldn't find Glass and I had to order it online, so I went ahead and bought/read Fallout from a store while I waited for Glass to ship since it was billed as just a "companion" to the other two. I was a little confused while I was reading it because I was thinking "Where did all these other kids come from?" but in the end, I liked it, although not as much as Crank. When I got Glass, Fallout had completely spoiled it for me, and it ended up being my least favorite of the trilogy. It took me forever to read. So it's not just you. I thought she should have stopped at Crank, but that's just me. I still liked the other two, but just not as much. I hope the same thing doesn't happen with Impulse and Burned, because she's making sequels to those. Some books just don't need sequels. Maybe Crank needed one, but not two.
I often find myself thinking "If the author would have just left this book alone and not wrote a sequel, it would have been better." Call me crazy, but sometimes I think that about Shiver. Don't get me wrong, I thought Linger was good, but Shiver was still better, and if something spectacular doesn't happen in the third book, I'm going to be thinking that about that series. The Hunger Games is one book that I'm so adamant in my stance on that issue over--the only thing that doesn't keep me from writing a strongly-worded letter to Suzanne Collins telling her she never should have wrote two sequels to that book is the fact that my favorite character was introduced in the second one. The only series I can think of right now where I feel as if it got better as it went along was the Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness (the first was better than the second but IMO the third blew all the rest out of the water--anything that can make me cry that hard for that long is really good).
/rant lol.
Haha I'm the same way. I bought my hardback copy of Shiver off eBay because I couldn't find it anywhere else.
I have very few series that are both paperback and hardback. I only buy both if I really, really love the series and I absolutely can't wait to read the next book in the series, but all I can find is hardback.
There are a few series I have like that--Vampire Academy, Crank--but for the most part, I try to get all paperback or all hardback.
It really bothers me that my Maximum Ride books are all paperback (except "Fang") but one of them is in the "adult" format so the cover looks different. It's not shiny like the others. I'm picky about that stuff, haha.
