Death in the Family.

I am sorry to say that my grandmother passed away over the weekend, which is why I have been absent all week.

She was 93 years old, and lived a long life. I'm sure my grandfather is happy to have her with him, wherever they are.

While clearing out her apartment earlier in the week, we found letters my grandfather had written Grandma while he was on the frontlines in Germany during WWII. My grandmother had even saved the telegrams she had sent him during that time, which was an amazing find.

Through all this, it's so important to have family and friends, and I'm very grateful to everyone in my life - including you. I may be absent on this blog for a while longer, though I will try to keep track of other blogs. Thanks for your understanding.

Much love, Elena

Read My Book.

As some of you may know from my previous post, my young adult fantasy, The Whip-Slip, is a quarter-finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

(and I haven't heard the end of it from my novel - the ego!)

The excerpts have been posted for viewing, and I'd love people to come by and comment. Feel free to leave an honest review.

The link to access the excerpt is here. If you don't have a Kindle, you'll need to download the free Kindle app for PC or Mac. It's super-quick, and you can do that here.

If you want to view all the excerpts, visit the ABNA page here. The links by category are on the left side of the page. The Whip-Slip can be found in the Young Adult category, #206 on page 8.

I'd also be extremely grateful if you spread the word with a link. Getting into the semi-finals is not dependent on number of reviews, but I'd love to get my book out there to as many eyes as possible.

**ALSO NOTE: It seems the excerpts are not available to those outside of the U.S. If for whatever reason you cannot get the excerpt via Amazon, please email me at esolodow at gmail dot com and I will gladly forward you a copy.

I have posted a summary of my novel below, for all interested parties:

The powers aren’t the problem – it’s Left-Hander.

Sixteen-year-old Thea Vans has always hidden her ability to heal or infect with a touch, but when a voice in her head named Left-Hander steals the powers, Thea’s more worried about giving someone the Black Death than her GPA. Unfortunately for Thea, Left-Hander prefers hurting to healing.

Thea hoped to graduate without a criminal record and keep her best friend Sully in the dark about her freak status, but that was before Left-Hander gave the Queen Bee a coughing fit, the attendance lady heart palpitations, and a dose of projectile vomiting to the field hockey team. Now the cops want her for questioning and Sully’s trying to set her up with a good exorcist. 

It’s time to figure out who – or what – Left-Hander is, where the powers come from, and how Thea can get her life back. But the soldiers of Life and Death find her first. In their secret, war-ravaged world, having both powers means Thea’s either a threat to eliminate, or a weapon to exploit.

It would be easier to run, except Sully is injured. Only the soldiers of Life can help. If Thea pretends to be as pure as them, maybe she and Sully will make it out alive.

As long as Left-Hander cooperates. 

**Thanks again for your tremendous support! I'm excited to be at this stage, and look forward to feedback!

Love, Elena

YA?

Genre: Young Adult.

Hobbies: Yeti Appreciation.

Compliments: You're Amazing.

Expressions: Yikes! Anacondas!

Community: Yams Association.

Secret Society: Yak Alarmists.

School: Yale Alumni.

Redundant: Yank American.

Repressed Memories: Yardstick Accident.

Threat: Yeast Attack.

Description: Yellow Attributes.

Food: Yogurt Addict.

International: Yorkshire Accent. 

I've Been Quartered.

I'm quite honored that my young adult fantasy, The Whip-Slip, is one of the 250 quarter-finalists for this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

The link to my excerpt will be made available as a free Kindle download, and a viewable document to all Amazon customers...but the links have not been posted yet. I will let everyone know as soon as they're up - I'd love everyone to stop by and let me know what you think!

And remember, Rongdoers, never give up. There's always good news around the corner. You just have to keep walking.

***
In other news, my bloggie friend SM Schmidt is having a contest. Check it out here and win some swag!

Dear Anonymous Commenter.

Happy [Early] Friday, Rongdoers! Fill in the blanks.

Dear Anonymous Commenter,

I'm so happy that you've chosen to ----------------------, and while I appreciate your --------------------------, please note that this is a writing blog, and I have to say ------------------------.

Not that I -------------------- or ------------------------------.

I love all my followers.

I just don't think that your ------------------------------ is appropriate here. But I really do wish you the best with your ----------------------------. I know a lot of people who have had success with -------------------------.

Thanks again for your comment, and please come by again. Just not with your ---------------------------.

Sincerely,

Elena Solodow

Flushing the Goldfish.

Remember when your pet fish, Rambo, died and Mom flushed it behind your back?

"He swam out to sea," she told you.

Well, here's some sayings for those of you not ready to accept your novel's been shelved:

"My novel's out celebrating National Recycle Day."

"My novel decided to query Heaven."

"The Great Big Publisher in the Sky needed it for a special mission."

"It's just out buying ink cartridges."

What are your excuses?

How To Misinterpret Book Covers.

A boy on a broomstick struggles to catch a golden unicorn turd.

A blonde girl struggles to fight her massive dress. 

A New York City boy with sword determines to clean up the East River.

Evil pillow.

An emo girl loses her way to the prom. Cries.

Editor's note: These are all covers I love. No insult meant toward the book designers, just havin' a laugh. 

There will be Movie Monday...but not today. 

The Twilight Curse. My First Editorial.

Anyone familiar with the young adult fantasy genre knows that Twilight changed everything. For better or for worse, I won't get into here.

I love Twilight. I read the books before the movie, before the craze. Could the writing be improved? Hell yes. But I could say that of a lot of published novels.

Why do I love the series? Because it's original. Plain and simple. Yes, sparkly vampires. Yes, werewolf hunks. But I think it's a fascinating tale about a girl who lives for nothing else but love.

It's twisted and wrong. Bella and Edward are not a representation of a sane, loving couple. They are obsession in its truest form. And Twilight is an exploration of everything that love is, good and bad. All of Bella's relationships in the novels focus around different types of love. What's truly great about Twilight is that it can be viewed differently by women (and men) of all ages based on their own experiences with love.

I think that most people hate Twilight, not because of its content, but because of how it's portrayed in popular culture. Stephenie Meyer, the Mormon mother who dreamed a plot and hit pay-dirt. Robert Pattison, the British ultra-hottie. Kristen Stewart, the awkward indie princess. Catherine Hardwicke, the overly-enthusiastic female director who started work on a small-budget independent fantasy flick that turned into a media sensation.

I see the Edward in the novel as an obsessive-compulsive, controlling, isolated, and egotistical vampire. The media turned him into the man every woman should want simply because he's attractive.

The Bella in the novel is an intelligent yet simple girl, wrapped up in the eighteenth-century concepts of love laid out for her by authors of the age such as Jane Austen. And if you read Twilight carefully, the girl's obsessed with death. There's mention of using her Sheriff father's rifle to kill herself early in the first novel, and then the drug overdose when Bella takes one-too-many pills to fall asleep. Not to mention her near-death jumping off a cliff in New Moon, her self-mutilation at the end of Eclipse, and her insistence on keeping the baby that's killing her just because it's Edward's in Breaking Dawn. She sacrifices her own happiness for that of her mother. She loves Edward because he might kill her, and loves his world for the same reason.

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a female heroine that I've never read in the young adult genre. And I love it.

But the media turned Bella into a sex-starved idiot trapped between the affections of two hot men. Simplified much?

That is why Twilight is easy to hate. And I don't blame people. I really don't. This is not the stuff of lasting literature. This is not the be-all end-all of the young adult genre.

But it is interesting. The girl who's obsessed with death chooses immortality.

One solid proof of how media's got it somewhat wrong? The repeated mention of fangs in any critique of Twilight. If many of these reviewers had actually read Twilight, they'd know that the Twi-vamps do not have fangs.

Really. They don't.

The reason I'm writing this post, however, is because of films like Remember Me and Red Riding Hood. I'm fresh off a viewing of Red Riding Hood. Prior to seeing the film, every review I read mentioned Twilight. After seeing it myself, I don't see many similarities other than the fact that Catherine Hardwicke directed it. Yes, there's a werewolf. Yes, there's two hot men vying for the affections of one girl. But is it about a vampire? No. Is it about a death-obsessed high school girl who falls in love? Uh, no.

Red Riding Hood as a film has a lot of issues that I won't get into here. What I wanted to write about is the fact that critics seemed to pan it simply because of it's association with Twilight. Never before have I seen films reviewed and critiqued because of the fact that their director made another film that critics didn't like. Really? Is Twilight so bad that its reputation bleeds into the works of those associated with it?

I'll say the same for Remember Me. There was not a single review that didn't mention the fact that Robert Pattinson played Edward Cullen. His performance in Remember Me was based, in many cases, on the fact that he was the star of Twilight. As though Robert Pattinson is in fact Edward, and deserves a bashing because he's trying to play something other than a sparkly vampire.

Is that fair?

Not in my opinion.

So to bring this all together, the Twilight Curse seems to be that its own popularity and representation in pop culture has perpetually damned its content. Twilight and those associated with it are not seen as what they are, they're seen as the tropes the media has made them out to be.

This is my plea: if you read Twilight, read it as a book named Twilight and judge it as the same. This is a book. The movie is a movie. The actors, the directors, they're people with careers.

You can hate all of them. But if you do, hate them because of your own experience and opinion. And for goodness' sake, don't mention the fangs.

The Truth.

There is more bad writing than good.

More rejections than acceptance.

More criticisms than praise.

More who would advise against than for.

More doubt than assurance.

More dry spells than inspiration.

And it takes years.

Thousands of words and thousands of pages.

No certainties. No guarantee.

But you are a living, breathing fire, ablaze with imagination.

Light those pages. Watch so many burn until a chosen few are reborn from the ashes.

And that is the book. The one you'll master. The one you'll love.

Cherish it.

Then write another. And shine on.

Smell Me.

Odors for Writers:

Eau d' Binding.

Typeset for Men.

Quill for Women. Ink sold separately.

Antagonist Cologne. For Protagonists with an edge.

Eau d' Outline. Order now.

Heroine Perfume. For the icon in you.

Genre. For All Types. Smell the Fiction.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes.

As much as I love life, it never calls to let you know it's coming over. It just shows up on your doorstep and makes all these changes, and you're left scrambling.

In other words: I'm swamped.

Movie Monday is now going to be bi-monthly, to give me some added time for filming and editing.

I'm also expecting my daily posts to be not-so-daily for the time-being. More of a as-I'm-inspired basis.

But I will continue following blogs, commenting, and crusading. I appreciate all of my readers, and want to thank you for stopping by. It means a lot.

Drafts at Dinner.

Final Draft scurries around the table, ensuring that all knives and forks are in the right place, the dishes are laid out in a straight line, the glasses polished, and the candles lit.

The doorbell rings. It's Third Draft.

"Didn't you bring the others with you?" Final Draft asks.

"Second Draft had a complete replot and I never know where First Draft is," Third Draft replies.

"Oh well." Final Draft plucks a speck of dust from Third's shoulder. She notices there are some loose threads on his coat, his shoes need a bit more polishing, and perhaps he could have brushed his hair better - but for the most part, he's in good shape. "Well, come in, come in."

"How are things going?" Final asks as she pours wine in Third's cup.

"I have the occasional errors. Sometimes my grammar are no good. But others than that, everythins okay. I had to kill off a character last week. But I'm almost at your level."

Second Draft enters and slams the door behind her. "Do not let First Draft in here, I swear! We had such a huge fight!"

"About what?" Final asks.

"Well, he got mad that I changed his plot and he insists that I'm going the wrong way. I didn't feel the need to remind him that he didn't even have an ending until I came along!"

Final and Third shake their heads.

"Come, sit." Final makes sure Second Draft is settled, but she promptly falls on her chair and gets lost under the table.

Third Draft helps her out. "Sit by me."

"Thanks." Second Draft straightens her ill-fitting shirt, and forget about her hair. Even porcupine quills couldn't sort it. "I'm just so frazzled."

"It gets better," Third says.

"I finally have a plot, at least. I just can't figure out if I have all the right elements."

First Draft comes in, sans shoes and his hair has changed color since his last visit.

"You're late," Final Draft says.

First Draft sits, and the stench of days-old sweat wafts across the table. "I'm a First Draft, would you stop pointing out all my mistakes already?"

The other drafts sigh.

"Stop using that as an excuse," Second Draft says. "You have to get better."

"No, I don't," First Draft says. "In fact, I'm going to get published."

A collective gasp.

"You can't stop me. I'm ready," First says. He downs his wine, splashing half on his bleach-spotted shirt, and leaves the house.

"Maybe he'll come back," Third Draft says. "I remember trying to get published. It was hard enough being a Third Draft - he'll never make it."

"Anyone want some brie?" Final asks.

THE END

Fortune Cookies.

One who strives for an agent must surely write a book first.

You will write well and query widely.

The writer who gets a rejection and sees failure fails to be a writer.

Your characters will make you happy today. Feed them this cookie.

Crit partners are like rivers. You can't always see where they're coming from but they are vital source of life.

Your edits will be swift.

Listen to the Music.

Mr. Chris Phillips is hosting me as part of his Music To Make Write To feature. Go check it out here to see some of my musical favorites.

Fellow Crusader The Writing Nut has a great contest going on here. Win a character profile card set and a Birthday book. Spread the word. Help a Crusader out.

*Update:

Join the Partners in Print Book Drive over at TK Richardson's.

Sommer Leigh is offering up a free copy of Donald Maass' book, Writing the Breakout Novel, here.

AND Mystery Agent March for YA/MG is going on over at Operation Awesome. The cut-off is at 75 people and they're about halfway full, so enter now!