Why Bella Swan Is Kind of A Bad Ass Heroine by Megan Crane

I wouldn't call myself a huge Twilight fan.


I didn't like the first book.  I read the other three just to see what the fuss was about, and ended up loving Jacob the most and only tolerating Bella and Edward.  I had no desire to see the movie--and was ultimately dragged to a showing by a friend who insisted I'd love it.

He was right.  I loved it so much I saw it ten times in the theater.  I saw New Moon on opening night, the next two in opening week, I'm pretty sure.

And just last week, I went to the Twilight Marathon, which means I watched all five movies back to back in a theater with a motley crew of other fans, most of us wearing some or other item of Twilight swag (t-shirts, jewelry; I wore a Forks High School sweatshirt I have no memory of buying--did I block the purchase out of shame?  Was it a gift?  Who knows?), and all of us prepared to spend twelve hours in a theater submerged in all things Twilight.

I had a great time.  I loved every minute of it.  But I still wouldn't call myself a huge Twilight fan, despite the evidence.

It's the Bella thing.

We all know how easy it is to hate Bella, don't we?  Isn't that the major problem people have with the series?*  She's so passive!  She goes catatonic when Edward leaves!  She has no identity!  She's a blank slate onto which readers paste their own sentimental fantasies...  Etc, etc.  I'm certainly guilty of thinking these things.

But the thing is--they're not true.  Think about it.

The friend who dragged me to the theater to see Twilight in the first place also told me this: Bella gets every single thing she wants.  And he's absolutely right.  She does.

She isn't a passive character wafting about on the whims of others, bending to everyone else's will.  She wants Edward, she gets him.  She wants to provoke the Cullens to return, she does.  She wants Jacob in her life on her terms, she gets him there.  She wants that baby, she has it.  She wants to become a vampire, she does.  She doesn't want to be like a wild animal with the initial bloodlust, she isn't.  She wants to sort of tell her father what's up so she doesn't have to disappear on him--she gets that, too.  The only thing I can think of that she doesn't get that she wants is premarital sex with Edward, and it isn't like she doesn't want to marry him, she just doesn't want to be seen as a teenaged bride.  Meanwhile, she's the sexual aggressor in their relationship, which is something you don't often see in a teenaged heroine, because they rarely have the confidence.  But Bella does.  How is that not bad ass?  She knows what she wants.  She gets what she wants.  And while she might be sorry that her single-mindedness hurts others--most notably, her father and Jacob--she's not sorry enough to stop, and she's not afraid to go forward even when Edward himself is against her.

My point is, she's not really that passive.  She just maybe makes different choices than we would and then she pursues them stubbornly and with clear focus.  I'm not sure why that makes her a terrible role model for girls.  I was a mess at eighteen with no goals or focus whatsoever, but that doesn't mean every eighteen year old is that way.  Some eighteen year olds marry, have kids, and are all grown up pretty much then and there, while others (who shall remain nameless) are idiots who waft about in college being deeply stupid and then waste their twenties being even more stupid, before deciding to act like adults in, maybe, their thirties.  Bella is obviously in the former group.  And I think that's pretty bad ass.  And I think that if you have a bad ass kid who knows what she wants, that's a good thing.  Maybe even a kind of role model.

And I also think you should watch all five Twilight movies, but maybe not all at once.



*I know, I know--the other major complaint is that Edward is a creepy stalker 108 year old vampire who preys on a high school girl...  I guess I think that's par for the course in a vampire story.  I feel like if that's going to bother you, you shouldn't read/watch a vampire story.  It would be like reading a historical romance and complaining that none of the characters were adequately bathed and didn't they SMELL?  There is a certain level of disbelief you have to suspend, is all.  Vampires are creepy stalkers.  Angel lurked.  "Moon Over Bourbon Street" is a vampire stalker's anthem.  That's what they do.  I read Anne McCaffrey's Pern series when I was at an impressionable age, and I REALLY wanted to impress a dragon or, failing that, a fire lizard.  I thought about that a lot.  But I didn't run off and fling myself a komodo dragon to see if I could develop a telepathic link with one.  I just daydreamed.




Megan Crane is the author of twenty-seven books at last count, some of them written under the name Caitlin Crews, but none of them involving vampires, sadly.  She has fannish tendencies, as you now know, and really, Twilight isn't even high on the list.  IMAGINE.  You should hear her wax rhapsodic about Buffy.  You can find out more about her at www.megancrane.com, where you can also check out her latest novel ONCE MORE WITH FEELING (Buffy fans: yes, but still, no vampires) which will be out in the UK on December 6.  

Dieting and Writing Through the Holidays

by Maria Geraci

In just a couple of days we’ll be entering the most wonderful time of the year. Or as I like to call it, the most stressful time of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I love the holidays. I love getting together with friends and family (yes, even my mother-in-law). Love eating lots of good food. I love the lights, the music, the decorations, and especially the renewed spirit of giving that infects so many people between Thanksgiving and Christmas.And okay, I confess, I also love the Charlie Brown Christmas special and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (never too old for that!)

What I don’t like is the stress. The stress of trying to do too much (and spend too much!) and the added pounds and the disruption of routine. In particular, my writing routine. I’m not a NaNoWriMo person. I’ve tried crash writing (just like I’ve tried crash dieting) and it doesn’t work for me. Routine is what works for me. And lists. I love making lists. So I decided to write down a list of tips for writing through the holidays, and I stumbled across an article titled How to Stick to your Diet during the Holidays (WikiHow). Amazingly, eating healthy and effective writing habits have a lot in common. I took 5 of the best tips and tweaked them up (Girlfriends Book Club style).

1. Focus on People, not the food.  Focus on the big picture, not word counts. While word counts are important, sometimes it’s just as important to make progress by figuring out what happens during a scene or what happens next in your story. Some of my most productive writing days have occurred when I’ve done negative word counts. In other words, when I’ve figured out that a scene wasn’t working and decided to cut it out. Usually, this propels me to something important in the story and gets my creative juices flowing.
2. Make the Occasional Party the exception to your diet, not the rule. While it’s okay to skip a day of writing (because let’s face it, we all have days we just want to have fun), try not to skip more than 2 days in a row. Writing inspires more writing. Like exercise, it’s hard to get back in the routine if you’ve let too much time pass. So don’t let too much time pass.
3. Choose wisely from foods available during holiday functions. In other words, eat more shrimp, less chocolate. Same goes with writing. If you’re on deadline during the holidays (which I am!) your writing has to sometimes come first. It’s a job, not a hobby. Sometimes we just have to say no to holiday fun. Pick what’s really important and skip events that you won’t be missed from.
4. Eat Slowly and Mindfully. Savor your writing time. Protect it. Let your family know your writing routine and what you need to get accomplished so that they’ll help you, not sabotage you during the holidays.
5. Reward Yourself. In the end, remember that life is all about balance. Set realistic goals and then take time out for what’s important in life. Family, friends, and love.

 

Happy Thanksgiving (and Happy Writing!) 

Maria Geraci writes fun, romantic women's fiction for Berkley, Penguin USA.  Her latest release, A GIRL LIKE YOU, is available online and at bookstores everywhere. Please visit her website at www.mariageraci.com.

MeNoWriMuInNo by Melissa Clark

This, of course, stands for my own writing practice: Me No Write Much in November. Congrats to all the true NaNoWriMo participants - I applaud your courage and tenacity and especially your ambition to pound out a draft in 30 days. 30 days! I wonder how many novels are born this way, and even more curious: do some people think they can really write a solid, polished novel in this time?

Everything I know about drafting comes from my television writing career where we started with a pitch, moved to the premise, then the beat sheet, outline and first draft. After the first draft came notes, then a second draft, and more notes and a third, and more notes and so on and so on... until there was a polish draft, which still left room for more notes. Often, it would be an entirely different episode from pitch to final draft, just as I find it is from fictional premise to published novel. What a journey this writing process is!

And since I have yet to participate in NaNoWriMo, what is it that you really hope to get out of it? Is it a kick in the tush? a first draft? a taste of what it means to write a novel? I'd love to read your answers in the comments section below. Hey, with 11 more days left, what are you doing reading this? Get back to work!

Melissa Clark is the author of Swimming Upstream, Slowly (1 year 3 months to write), Imperfect (4 years) and just completed her third novel, Bear Witness (3+ years).

Sunday Book Review: A Big Little Book, Looking Back at Ellen Foster

Great books aren’t always long books.  Such is the case with Kaye Gibbons' debut novel, Ellen Foster.  I read this little book with a big heart over ten years ago.  Ms. Gibbons' deft ability to capture the voice of her eleven year-old protagonist is reminiscent of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Ellen Foster is looking back at her life with two years in between then and now.  She never utters an untrue word.

“When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy.

The way I liked best was letting go a poisonous spider in his bed. It would bite him and he'd be dead and swollen up and I would shudder to find him so. Of course I would call the rescue squad and tell them to come quick something's the matter with my daddy. When they come in the house I'm all in a state of shock and just don't know how to act what with two colored boys heaving my dead daddy onto a roller cot. I just stand in the door and look like I'm shaking all over.

But I did not kill my daddy. He drank his own self to death the year after the County moved me out. I heard how they found him shut up in the house dead and everything. Next thing I know he's in the ground and the house is rented out to a family of four.” 

Speaking from a writer’s perspective, Ms. Gibbons makes it seem like she sat down and wrote this novel in an afternoon.  It reads effortlessly which I suspect means that it was not written in an afternoon.  Ms. Gibbons went to great lengths to perfect every line.

If Ellen Foster is a book you’ve somehow missed, I highly recommend it.  The simplicity belies its complexity.  This could have been a sad and dark coming-of-age novel, but Ms. Gibbons keeps the story lively and enticing through Ellen Foster’s witty and true story telling.  

Kaye Gibbons captures southern mentalities and wounds without being cliché, and the greatest thing about this big little novel is that Ellen Foster rescues herself.

I give it 5 out of 5 STARS.       

Michele Young-Stone

Michele Young-Stone is the author of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors.  A resident of North Carolina, Michele's next two novels are under contract with Simon & Schuster.  micheleyoungstone.com

micheleyoung-stone.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/michele.youngstonefanpage

Saturday Book Giveaway-The Perfect Poison

by Maggie Marr

Today I am giving away a copy of The Perfect Poison by Amanda Quick.  This is book 6 in the very successful Arcane Society series.

The Book Description as provided by the publisher:

Victorian London holds many secrets. But none are so closely guarded as those of the shadowy Arcane Society. In her suspenseful new novel,New York Times-bestselling author Amanda Quick delves into this underworld of passion, greed, and powers that lie beyond this realm . . .

Plagued by rumors that she poisoned her fiancé, Lucinda Bromley manages to live on the fringes of polite society, tending her beloved plants-and occasionally consulting on a murder investigation. For the notorious botanist possesses a unique talent: She can detect almost any type of poison, especially ones that have their origins in the botanical kingdom.

But the death of a lord has shaken Lucinda to her core. At the murder scene, she picks up traces of a poison containing a very rare species of fern. So rare, in fact, that only one specimen exists in all of England-and it was stolen from her conservatory just last month.

To keep her name out of the inquest and to find the murderer, Lucinda hires fellow Arcane Society member Caleb Jones who runs a psychical investigation agency. A descendant of the founder of the Society, Jones is very skillful at protecting its secrets-and frighteningly good getting at the truth. Immediately, Lucinda senses both a raw power and an undeniable intensity in the imposing man.

But as a nearly overwhelming desire blooms between Caleb and Lucinda, they are drawn into the dark heart of a deadly conspiracy that can be traced to the early days of the Arcane Society -and to a legacy of madness that could plunge Caleb into the depths of his own tortured soul. . . .


To win The Perfect Poison by Amanda Quick please leave a comment about your favorite Thanksgiving Food--I am preparing my menu today for our big feast and food is on my mind.  Also leave your email addy.  Random.org will select the winner.  You must leave your comment by Sunday, 11.18, 11:59 pm to be entered to win.  

xo Maggie

Maggie Marr is an attorney, a former motion picture literary agent and the author of Hollywood Girls Club, Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club, Can't Buy Me Love, numerous ghost-written projects, and the upcoming Courting Trouble.  She is a producer with Dahooma Productions and also writes for film and TV.  

Already NaNoWriMo Fried? Give NaNoWriDe a Try.

Based on the wisdom of those great sages the Brothers Gallo who spent a good chunk of the 80’s famously promising to, sell no wine before its time, National Novel Writing Decade is the alternative to that revered November pastime beloved by you hares who can whip out 50,000 words in a mere month. NaNoWriDe (pronounced Nanoride), which you’ve never heard of before because I just invented it, is for we the turtles of the writing world.

The rules are simple:

1.     There’s no need to sign up until I create an actual website, which may be a while since I’m currently working on two projects, one of which is due to my editor a good six months sooner than I’ll likely be ready to turn it in.

2.    There’s no need to get nervous and procrastinate because you’ll have an entire decade, starting January 1, 2013 and ending December 31, 2023 to get your manuscript done. If my own experience during the last NaNoWriDe (which I won since I was the only participant) is of any benefit, you’ll likely have time to get multiple manuscripts written, polished and even sold.

3.    Find other NaNoWriDe participants in your area for support and form a longstanding critique group. They’re easy to spot due to their meager, if heavily thought out and painstakingly edited, word counts. If you’re not sure you’ve found a kindred spirit, drop the phrase brick by brick and see if their eyes light up.

4.    If you finish a novel in the assigned time, congratulate yourself by cleaning the house and catching up on all those TV shows and films you missed and that your friends, the hares, seem to somehow able to fit in while meeting their friends for lunch, raising their super-children, getting to the gym and putting out those astonishing daily word counts.

5.    Above all accept the fact that even though the rest of the writing world may be able to whip out a complete novel in a month, you’ll get to the finish line and accomplish miracles of your own.

      A little skeptical?  Believe me, I was too. After ten years and four completed manuscripts, I was convinced it was way past time to give up on the frustrations of being a slow-plodding, ultra-detail oriented, forever pre-published author and say, get a job as a stripper at a nursing home (since I’d aged out on working at a regular joint). Then lightning finally struck. Twice. First, I got a three-book deal for my Mrs. Frugalicious mystery series, starting with ETERNALLY 21, which debuts in June 2013. Then, my standalone suburban satire/pregnancy whodunit, THE BIG BANG sold.  In fact, as you are reading this, I’m likely nursing a long-overdue hangover, having spent last night celebrating November 15^th, my book release party.  

Right smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo. 

I’m giving away a copy of THE BIG BANG. If you’re a kindred spirit take a day or three and post a comment telling me why you too qualify as a founding member of NaNoWriDe. One of these days, one of you will find a signed book in your mailbox.

Here’s a description:

At Melody Mountain Ranch, the local residents are too busy with home shopping parties, Fundamentalism-Light, and each other’s business to notice their superficially well-constructed houses are literally rotting beneath them. Secret affairs, teen witchcraft, and a power-hungry homeowner’s board have their personal lives deconstructing even faster.

On Wonderland Valley Way, interior decorator Hope Jordan is desperate for a baby. As Hope struggles, her neighbors Will Pierce-Cohn, a stay-at-home dad and community activist, Frank Griffin, a minister-cum-homeowner’s board president, and Tim Trautman, a soon-to-be father of five, jockey for her attentions.

When Hope inadvertently eats hash-laced brownies at the playground ribbon-cutting gala/Memorial Weekend poolside potluck, she falls into the arms of one of her three wanna-be paramours. When she discovers she’s pregnant and tries to piece together what happened, with whom, and what to do about it, the homes on her cul-de-sac begin to crack and sink. Hope and her neighbors appear to be stuck in a hell of their own making.

Linda Joffe Hull is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, but currently resides in Denver, Colorado with her husband and children. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. When she’s not schlepping the kids to a variety of activities, Linda is plodding along on her next novels. Visit her online at www.LindaJoffeHull.com

How to Write a Novel in 3 Easy Steps

by Ellen Meister

There was a Monty Python skit in which the ostensible host of a children's television show  demonstrated how to play the flute by saying, "You blow there and move your fingers up and down here. And next week we'll show you how to rid the world of all known diseases!"

That's sort of how I feel about this blog post. You want to know how to write a novel? Just follow these three simple steps!

Still, I stand behind the advice here. As a novelist and creative writing teacher, I find myself coming back to these same basic principles again and again. So whether you're pounding away at a NaNoWriMo novel or struggling (as I do) at a slower pace, these three essential rules might help you focus:

1. Make sure your protagonist wants something 

This serves two purposes. First, it enables reader to relate to your character, even if he or she isn't especially likable. But more importantly, it's the essence of your narrative drive. Once there is some goal or yearning your main character aspires to, you will hook your reader, and the book's journey can begin. Make sure this is a strong goal, and that there are obstacles to achieving it. That's the entire basis of your plot.

2. Give your story a climax

Whether or not your main character achieves his goal, there must be a climactic scene toward the end of the book where everything that's at stake comes to a head. Often called the "final battle," this is where your hero will discover hidden strengths and come face-to-face with the toughest obstacle of all. If your character achieves the thing she was after, terrific. Your book has a purposeful resolution. If not, that's okay, too, as long as your protagonist has a satisfying arc. In other words, she must learn something that either changes the goal or creates an understanding that it wasn't really what she wanted after all. (Remember the ending of Gone With the Wind? Scarlett doesn't get Ashley or Rhett. But she learned so much that she finally understands what's most important to her—Tara.) Which brings me to the last item ...

3. Create both an outer journey and an inner journey for your main character

The most satisfying stories are those in which the main character has an arc. The more closely this inner journey is tied to the outer one, the better your chances of writing a successful book.

For many writers, this is where the seed of the story lies. To use my own novel as an example, I knew that I wanted the main character in Farewell, Dorothy Parker to be a woman whose timidity had cost her dearly, as I needed her to have an arc in which she discovers her "voice." (The ghost of Dorothy Parker helps her get there.) So I created  a storyline in which she needed this voice to achieve the goal of gaining custody of her orphaned niece. So as you can see, her inner journey  (becoming bolder) and her outer journey (gaining custody) are in sync.

If you have any questions about all this, please feel free to post them in the comments section. In the meantime, good luck with your writing. I know you can do it! And if all else fails, there's always the flute.

____________________________________________________

Ellen Meister is the author of four novels, including The Other Life, which was optioned by HBO for a television series, and Farewell, Dorothy Parker, which comes out this February from Putnam. She lives in Long Island and teaches creative writing at Hofstra University Continuing Ed. 

For more information on Farewell, Dorothy Parker--and to order a free signed bookplate--please click here.