A New Outlet for My Geekdom

I've been studiously posting book reviews here for every book I read. But I've also been holding back. In a review, I don't always go into detail about what I liked or didn't like because I know people like Anne-Marie and Yvette and even Lacy probably just read the rating, if that, and get on with their lives.

There are other things I'm holding back. Like cool writing exercises I come across. And why I started but didn't finish a certain book. And how do you possibly decide what to read next when your to-read list is almost a thousand books long?

Adding to that, I know there must be other people out there like me—wannabe young adult writers who devour the latest, hottest YA creation hoping to learn from it, or just to be close to what we so desperately want.

So for the other YA wannabes, but also as an outlet for myself, I've created...

YAnnabe

I can geek out to my heart's content on reading and writing for YA, and you don't have to wade through book review after book review when all you really want is just a cute picture of Abby every now and then.

Still, I will probably post a monthly roundup of book ratings here because I will always want to spread the word about good books. And you won't be free from my non-YA book reviews.

But if you like all those YA book reviews, or if you just can't get enough of me and my opinions, I'll totally understand if you want to sneak over to YAnnabe and subscribe by email or feed reader.

2008 Books in Review

This year, I read almost as many books as the previous 2 years combined. 70 was the grand total for the year. (Who knew having a kid would give me more reading time?)

I'm always looking for book recommendations, so tell me: What were your favorite books last year?

Okay, okay. I'll go first. My two favorites of the year also make it to my all-time favorites list, so I would highly recommend them to anyone and everyone:

• Nonfiction: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
• Fiction: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

And there are a few more I'd recommend to specific folks...

For the Kids (or Kids at Heart)

• Feathers
  
• Flush
  
• Olive's Ocean
  
• The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (start with The Penderwicks)
  
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard
  
• Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
  
• The Underneath

For the Teens

• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
  
• Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing (start with A Great and Terrible Beauty)

And go ahead and read the Twilight series. It's not the best stuff in the world, but it's fun as hell.

For the Aspiring Writers

• How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights
  
• No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days
  
• Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids

For the Expecting or New Parents
Yes, I know you're tired and/or have a lot to do. But these are all worth it, I promise.

• Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love
  
• Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk
  
• The Diaper-Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative
  
• Good Nights: The Happy Parents' Guide to the Family Bed (and a Peaceful Night's Sleep!)
  
• The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer
  
• Nursing Mother, Working Mother
  
• The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child

For the Other Parents

• Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
  
• Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family

Finally, Some 2008 Stats
I tend to read a novel or two in between every nonfiction book, so these numbers make sense:
Fiction: 66%
Nonfiction: 34%

And here's the breakdown within the fiction category:
Adult fiction: 13%
YA or kids' fiction: 87%

Review: No Plot? No Problem!

Title: No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days
Author: Chris Baty
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: Advice from the founder of NaNoWriMo on how to write a novel in 30 days.

Review: This made for a fun read during my crazy month of writing. And this book is what convinced me I didn't need to stress out about writing an outline before NaNoWriMo because according to Baty, "plot happens." Which is completely true. The story arc and ending I first envisioned for my novel are completely different from how they actually turned out. That's a good thing, I promise you.

The week-by-week guide was helpful, even if my writing motivation didn't track it exactly. The book also had writing exercises throughout that I haven't tried yet but sound fun, like the person and thing game.

You take your notebook, pen, and an unread newspaper and go to a public place with lots of foot traffic. Close your eyes, count to fifteen, then open your eyes. The first person you see is your Person. Write down everything you can about them before they leave your sight. Then take your newspaper, close your eyes, open it to a random page, move your finger down the page a few seconds, and open your eyes again. Whatever you're pointing to has a deep connection to your Person. What's the connection? Figure it out and write about it. And bonus points for integrating your Person into your current writing project!

It's Done

I wrote a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. 51,340 words, to be exact.

I never could have pushed myself this hard without these wonderful, wonderful souls:

• Erik, I owe this all to you. Thank you for taking care of Abby while I finished just one more sentence, one more paragraph, one more scene. You deserve a whole month of whatever beer your heart desires.
• Abby, Mommy does love you, even if she was looking at the computer screen more than your beautiful face in the last month.
• April, you put the bee in my bonnet to do this in the first place. Thank you.
• Linda, you have no idea how much it helped to know you were amazed at what I was trying to do and rooting for me all along the way.
• NaNoWriMoers of NI, I couldn't make it to any write-ins but knowing that you were all plugging away at the same bizarre, improbable goal was a tremendous motivator.
• Margaret and Johanna, thank you for being the carrots out in front of me, luring me along with your ever-increasing word counts.

So what happens now? I put together a little FAQ that will hopefully answer your post-NaNoWriMo questions.

Can I read it?
Not yet.

Aw, c'mon! Lemme read it!
This first draft is raw, flawed, and vulnerable. The idea of someone besides my husband reading it right now fills me with a sense of dread not unlike that dream where I show up at work without having remembered to put on clothes.

There will very likely come a time when I will be begging each and every one of my friends to read it and give me constructive criticism so I can make it better. But that time is not now.

What happens now? When do you start the revisions?
Whoa, mama! I just finished it today. I need a breather from this writing business right now. And I need some distance from this story before I can go back to it and decide whether I want to work at making it better. Because lemme tell you, it will take a lot of work.

So what's it about?
A 14-year-old girl who lives in Texas. The working title is Church Row. That's all I'm saying for now.

How did you celebrate?
We got pizza from The Parlor for dinner...mmm. Then I baked some homemade brownie bites while Abby directed from her high chair and Erik read the first 3 chapters.

What will you do with all your free time?
Sleep. Play with my baby girl. Also, sleep.

Do you think you'll ever do this again?
Hell yeah!

What was the hardest part?
Getting started every time I sat down at the computer. After I was 15-20 minutes into a writing session, it all came much easier. But those first minutes were PAINFUL.

What was the easiest part?
Eating lots of snacky foods to keep up my energy during the late nights of writing. I will really miss the excuse to pig out.

Are you sad it's over?
I didn't think so, until I left my sleeping family in bed to get up and write this post. I guess I am missing the writing already.

Now, onto that sleep stuff I've heard so much about.

NaNoWriMo Update

I realized today it's been a couple weeks since I've posted. I promise it's for a Very Good Reason.

But I thought I'd give you a quick update on where all my writing energy has been going the last 3.5 weeks.



Today, I broke 40,000 words, and it feels oh so good. 5 days and less than 10,000 words left.

I can taste the end, and it tastes like Uncle Eddie's vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Review: How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead

Title: How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights
Author: Ariel Gore
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 4/5
Summary: The author of several books presents her advice for launching a literary career.

Review: The advice in this book is by no means earth-shattering. You'll recognize most of it from other writing guides. Example: Want to be a writer? Then write. (Sure sounds simple, but I have yet to develop a habit of writing every day.)

But unlike most other writing guides, this book will keep you laughing while it injects you with a good dose of writing wisdom. This book also has some great ideas for exercises—for example, go through a piece you wrote and remove all adjectives and adverbs, rewriting where necessary.

Gore includes several interviews with literary stars, some more interesting than others. One of my favorite interviews was with Ursula K. Le Guin: "Stories are like feral kittens. You have to be very patient and careful and quiet and put out little bits of chicken on the floor."

The chapters in this book are fairly short and the advice is so fun to read that I'm going to get a copy of this to own.

(By the way, the first day of NaNoWriMo went well. I wrote over 1700 words, which keeps me on track to finish 50,000 by the end. 1 day down, 29 to go.)

Win a Free Audio Book!

In 2004, an essay I wrote was one of 50 published in a book called MoveOn's 50 Ways To Love Your Country: How To Find Your Political Voice And Become A Catalyst For Change. It's a pretty handy little book, with lots of fun ideas for getting involved no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.

This has been my closest brush with literary fame, so I like to bring it up as often as possible. I did so just today.

"Kelly, how do you type that e with an accent?"

"Gosh, that reminds me of that time I was typing an essay of mine, which was 1 of 50 selected from thousands to be published in a bestselling book. And did I ever tell you about how Al Gore—you know, the Nobel Peace Prize winner—also wrote a piece for that book?"

A couple months after the book came out, the publisher called to ask if I'd record my essay for the audio version. I don't particularly like my voice, but do you think I'd pass up an opportunity to wallow even deeper in my faux fame?

As payment for my oh-so-gifted voice work, the publisher sent me some of the audio books. Lots of them. They are currently sitting in a box in my home office. FOUR years later.

I'm sick of looking at that damn box. And they're certainly not doing any good for the world by sitting in my office not getting listened to by any living soul. So last week I was giving that box the hairy eyeball, and I said to myself, "Self, you should set those audio books free. And it will give you more opportunities to refer to your literary stardom, and that is always A Good Thing."

Just Get to the Free Stuff, Lady
If you want a free audio version of MoveOn's 50 Ways To Love Your Country, this is how you enter to win:

1. Submit a comment on this post.
2. In your comment, convince me that you're going to vote in the upcoming election.

Tell me where your polling place is—a church, a school, a grocery store? (You can look it up on Google Maps if you're not sure.) Tell me what kind of ballots your county uses. Tell me that it's your first time but for real, you promise you really are going to vote. I don't care what you do to convince me, just do it. Because if you're not going to vote, you obviously don't love your country so what good is this book gonna do you anyway?

I might give away 1 book, or I might give away 20. I don't know yet. So wow me with your comments!

The Fine Print

• US residents only, please.


• I'll randomly draw the winners on Saturday.


• I'll pay the shipping.

More Free Stuff
If you like this whole comment-and-enter-to-win gig, you'll want to check out Bloggy Giveaways for a list of oodles of giveaways going on this week.

NaNoWriMo

This year, I'm doing NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it happens in November every year. To participate, you commit to writing a 50,000-word novel, from scratch, in one month. Getting through the first draft is the hardest part for most people (myself included), so NaNoWriMo harnesses the power of peer pressure and builds on the fact that misery loves company.

Considering I haven't even completed my last two once-a-week writing assignments for my writer mamas group, I'm feeling pretty nervous about having committed to writing 1,667 words a day for 30 days in a row.

When you sign up for NaNoWriMo, you get an email with some tips, one of which is:

Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

So here I am. Consider this an invitation to ask me how it's going in November and to mock me if I say I've fallen behind.

Here are some of the excuses you might hear from me and some ideas for what you can say to get me back on track:

• I have an 8-month-old, so back off!
  You can gently remind me that lots of moms have found the time to fit in NaNoWriMo, and that not all of them have such supportive partners so why the hell can't I find 90 minutes in the day to sit my lazy ass down and write?


• I'm tired. Waa.
  Aren't you always tired? And don't you always make time to do other useless crap—check Facebook, read blogs, check your email a million times a day? Just cut the useless crap for a month.


• This novel really sucks. Nobody will want to read it.
  You're right. Nobody will want to read your shitty first draft, as Anne Lamott would say. Everybody's first draft sucks—even Irving, Atwood, Kingsolver. But you'll never get to the good stuff that comes later if you don't get. that. first. draft. done. first.

But do you know what would really help me?

Do NaNoWriMo with me!

C'mon! It'll be fun! And when we're old and gray and reveling in our literary stardom, we'll look back on November 2008 fondly. It's going to suck as we're actually going through it next month, but don't think about that. Think about after November. Think about us sitting on the back deck, margarita in one hand and our published work of genius in the other. What have you got to lose?

Literati

Some friends of ours from San Francisco were in town this weekend, so of course we took them to the downtown Whole Foods. But we didn't time it right and showed up right during the lunch rush. I could sense an imminent system shut-down if we didn't get them somewhere less overwhelming, so we whisked them off to my favoritist store in the whole wide world, BookPeople. (I have seriously considered getting a part-time job there just for the employee discount.)

I was feeling splurgy, so we picked up a few things while we were there:

• Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z


• Our Tree Named Steve


• The Original Rubber Duck for Abby


• A fair-trade necklace from World of Good for me


• And...Literati Challenge, a board game

We tore into the game as soon as we got home and played it after dinner, and ohmygosh. It rocks!

You pick 5 cards and put them on the table for everyone to see. Each card has a word on it, like "laconically" or "egress" or "laud". Then everyone gets a slip of paper to write a story using as many of the 5 words as possible. You start the timer, everyone writes, then when the time's up you go around and read your stories out loud. You get points for every word you use, and you can use some twice to get more points. And if you write one sentence with all 5 words, that doubles your points!

We're going to pursue publication for the liquid gold that poured from our fingers that night. But I didn't want to make you, our faithful blog readers, wait those few months until publication before you could enjoy these wonderful stories. So here is a special sneak preview for you!

Best story beginning to end (throughout the rounds, even) was Ant's, for sure. But best single sentence out of the whole night? Well, see if you can spot it in Round 6.

I imagine this is going to be particularly enjoyable for those of you who, unlike us, actually know what these words mean.

Round 1
Featuring: sanction, odious, obligedly, imprimatur, and some 5th really hard word that none of us knew so it's not in any of the stories

• Ant: A girl was sanctioned to eat cookies. She did eat them and they were fucking odious. She didn't ever want to eat cookies again, but she did, obligedly.


• Nif: The odious sound coming from Erik's mouth was sanctioned by Kelly, who obligedly set story time for Abby from the imprimatur hour of 8 pm to 9 pm.


• Erik: The repentant terrorist obligedly sanctioned his tongue that had an odious stench due to the anthrax he bought from the imprimatur men on the corner of 5th and Main.


• Kelly: The United Nations sanction was odious to the terrorist nation. They felt obliged to not blow up the world, and that was unacceptable.

After this round, we reviewed the rules and realized that if no players are confident in the meaning of the word, no one's likely to challenge you if you don't use it right. And after seeing our fellow players' stunning vocabulary knowledge in the first round, you can probably predict what happened next...

Round 2
Featuring: demure, paucity, garrulously, plaudit, knottily

• Ant: The cookie girl sat demurely on a cushion, like a girl. The paucity of manliness was extreme. Her mother garrulously ventured to tell her this, but gained no plaudits because her voice was knottily.


• Nif: The demure feline took paucity before diving under the bed knottily.


• Erik: The plaudit pundit with the smooth demur danced garrulously around the subject without ever giving paucity to his knottily assembled rhetoric.


• Kelly: The cat garrulously complimented the gnome's jaunty belt with the paucity of a plaudit. "I demur," said the gnome knottily. [You must read Cat & Gnome.]

Round 3
Featuring: nettle, laconically, facetiously, omniscient, gustatory

• Ant: I was stung by nettle. Cookie girl put balm on it laconically. "Are you fucking kidding?" I said, facetiously. "God," said the cookie girl, taking the omniscient being's name in vain. A gustatory wind was blowing.


• Nif: The lactating bovine laconically gazed at the field of nettles beneath the omniscient sun while the farmer licked his lips in a gustatory fashion.


• Erik: The chef, known as a gustatory master, assembled a nettle pie that he facetiously called the everyday meal due to its omniscient presence on the menu.


• Kelly: I threw the nettles on the compost heap with a gustatory flourish. I then facetiously appealed to the omniscient God of the Maggots to laconically bless my stinky heap of rottenness.

Round 4
Featuring: radiantly, desist, begrudge, admonish, laud

• Ant: Cookie girl smiled radiantly. "Desist that shit," I told her. Begrudgingly, she did. She does not usually listen to my admonishments, so I laughed in her face laudably.


• Nif: Anthony radiantly deflected the Texas sun onto the criminals to get the criminal to cease and desist. The ground lauded his efforts as his skin melted off. He did not begrudge them.


• Erik: He begrudgingly admonished the cookie girl for her ability to desist his advances in a radiantly manner that left him feeling laudacious.


• Kelly: "Cease and desist with the cookie girl stories," I admonished him. "I will never laud them."
  
  "Don't begrudge me my cookie fiction, anti-baked-goods bitch!" he added radiantly.

Round 5
Featuring: daringly, bamboozle, afoot, apocryphal, yearly

• Ant: We daringly bought a winter home in Austin to bamboozle the weather, yearly. Our cleverness was afoot. This story is apocryphal. And I killed cookie girl daringly, with a spoon. She was a bitch and she had to die.


• Nif: Erik's apocryphal words run in Kelly's ears as she daringly bamboozled their guests with a herd of dogs as she dove for the cookies. Cookie girl made her yearly visit and said something is afoot.


• Erik: He daringly set afoot into the woods where last year he had an apocryphal vision of melting ants marching circles like a bamboozling circus freak.


• Kelly: The suburban lifestyle of Cedar Park is apocryphal. Yearly bamboozling is afoot in the quiet suburban homes.

Round 6
Featuring: stratagem, laboriously, abhor, pernicious, egress

• Ant: My stratagem was to dig laboriously til the grave was done. I abhorred cookie girl, and I was glad she was dead. I never gave her no egress. Her pernicious little comments sickened me. My stratagem paid off.


• Nif: I abhor the laboriously pernicious efforts of our President to egress lame stratagems.


• Erik: He laboriously struggled with the stratagem set for him by his pernicious superiors, who he secretly abhorred. Plus he was a fucking egress.


• Kelly: I abhor the pernicious persnicketiness of Cedar Park suburbia. Our friends will egress to the horrible land, but I am laboriously working on a stratagem to rescue them from its grasp. [Apologies to any readers who live in Cedar Park. It's just that our good friends were about to abandon us to go stay with some other friends who live in Cedar Park.]

Review: Writer Mama

Title: Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids
Author: Christina Katz
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 4/5
Summary: Freelance writer Christina Katz offers advice for moms wanting to begin a freelance writing career.

Review: I'll definitely be purchasing a copy of this book to keep. The advice for starting a freelance writing career is straightforward and practical, especially how to start off small and work your way up to bigger publications. And by doing just the first few exercises in the book, I got a ton of ideas for articles I could write.

If you're interested in writing fiction, some of the advice will be helpful to you, but in general the focus was on nonfiction freelance writing for magazines, newspapers, and so on.

Review: Writing Motherhood

Title: Writing Motherhood: Tapping Into Your Creativity as a Mother and a Writer
Author: Lisa Garrigues
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: Writing teacher Lisa Garrigues offers advice on chronicling your experience of motherhood.

Review: This book has a lot of great ideas for writing prompts. I was expecting more practical information about balancing motherhood and a writing life—there was some, just not a lot. But this book would be worth owning for all the great prompts. You would never be able to say "I don't know what to write about!"

If you're looking for a book with more practical advice for moms about launching a writing career, check out Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids.