The Fault in Our Stars

RTW: Best Book ‘o the Month

by sarahenni on February 1, 2012

Welcome to another Road Trip Wednesday, a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway posts a weekly writing- or reading-related question and anyone can answer it on their own blogs.

This week’s topic is:

What was the best book you read in January?

In addition to getting me out of my Game of Thrones writing rut, John Green’s newest kept me up until 2:30 AM reading, crying, and hugging my cat, teetering on the verge of an existential crisis. It made me feel ALL THE FEELINGS.

GPOY

But it’s disingenuous of me to say that I just love the book. I do love the book. Certainly it would stand on its own, but what raises The Fault in Our Stars specifically and John Green generally is a community of YA readers called Nerdfighters. I met them, en masse, at Green’s Jan. 11 Washington, D.C. book tour stop. Through being a fan of John Green I got to see real teens (a crapload of them) find a connection to books, to a thirst for knowledge, to the desire to think about more than what MTV thinks they think (what), and most of all a connection to each other*.

John Green, by being a nice guy, an incredible author, and someone who does not ever talk down to teens, got a room filled up like this:

With teens who greeted an author like a rock star, sing along to songs about Quarks, and ask questions about feet and the meaning of life and get equally thoughtful answers. Teens who sit quietly and soak it up when someone talks to them like the intellectual-conversation-starved people they are, instead of just asking what college they’re going to.

The Fault in Our Stars was an incredible book. Amazing. Read-it-with-a-pencil-because-you’re-gonna-want-to-underline-stuff good. It flirted with too patently philosophical, but never crossed the line. I recommend it to humans who like thinking about humanity.

What awes me even more than John Green’s prose, though, is the opportunity he’s giving teens to find their like-minded peers. To celebrate life and all its complexities with them. If I’d had the Vlogbrothers in high school, I might’ve done some things differently. I would have met a lot more people I felt connected to, probably, and I would’ve felt less embarrassed to like the weird shit I liked like.

But you know what? I’m 26 now, and he’s still giving me that.

(A substantial portion of the DC Mafia, from right to left: Rick Lipman, Jessica BS, Cristin Terrill, Sara McClung, and Lindsey Roth Culli. Not pictured: Me and Sasha)

So The Fault in Our Stars gets my nod for best book I read in January. And John Green gets my thanks for making this month more incredible than it would have been without him.

What about you?? What was the best book you read in January? Did you get a pre-signed copy of TFiOS? Did it have a Hanklerfish?!

*And yet the boy to girl ratio was horrendous. Seriously, nerdboys, you need to come to events like this. Play the odds game, fellas.

Tagged as: Best Book 'o the Month, Can you tell I spent two weeks dealing exclusively with Tumblr?, DC Mafia, John Green, Road Trip Wednesday, The Fault in Our Stars, Writing Besties

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A Writing Slump/A Mummer’s Farce

by sarahenni on January 20, 2012

No, the second phrase in that title is not some secret dirty lingo. It’s a commonly used phrase in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books (maybe you’ve heard of them?) that means, basically, that something is a ruse, an act, a joke. And that is exactly what my attempts to write have been lately, friends. For serious.

I always take a healthy break after finishing a first draft, because drafting is difficult and tiring for me. So after wrapping up the WiP sometime after Thanksgiving, I set it aside and focused on the exciting trip I took, and the new friends I made. Something I enjoyed—like, a lot—during my break was reading Martin’s series.

If these books were food, they'd be a controlled substance.

I got… um… quite into them. In about three weeks I read the first three books—a total of more than 3,000 pages of a high-fantasy series that features kingdoms, swords, horses, dragons, wolves, and just about every single thing that is NOT in my contemporary YA WiP.

So when I opened up Scrivener and began to clear the cobwebs from my book… I couldn’t quite do it. Everything was “m’lady” this, and “by the seven gods” that. I couldn’t shake the urge to sit and read A Feast for Crows; I just wanted to immerse myself in that world again.

Frankly, it was getting a little bit weird.

Then, like a just-in-time life vest tossed from the U.S.S. YA*, came January 10 and the release of John Green’s (brilliant, wonderful, Kleenex-box-crushingly sad) novel The Fault in Our Stars.

It was a jarring switch from 27 characters that mostly want to put each others’ heads on spikes to an introspective 16-year old cancer patient that watches America’s Next Top Model. But it was like changing from fun but intense party shoes to sole-worn ballet flats. The same thing that always gets me about YA—the colloquialisms, the youthful cadence, the ability for authors to USE CAPS LOCK IN DIALOGUE—got my creative side to wake up again. My thoughts started returning to the WiP of their own accord, and I stopped having nightmares about undead strangers in the snow.

I’ve read countless tweets and blog posts about people carefully selecting the books they read while drafting, worried that the voice or style would interfere with their writing by being too different, or too much the same. But I’d honestly never experienced it ’til now! It was confusing and strange, and overall I’d say I don’t recommend it. I’m back on the path and gearing up for revisions. But man, that was a wild sidetrack!

What about you?? Are you careful about what books you read while drafting/revising/rewriting? Have you had a book/series take over your creative brain? How do you break out of writing slumps?

*Yeah, you're right, that was a bit of a stretch. I told you, I've been outta the game!

Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, George RR Martin, John Green, Overly-complicated metaphors for YA, The Fault in Our Stars, Writing slump

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