IRL Fairy Tale.

So, I promised you guys my news! And as promised, here it is:

MY PARENTS GOT ENGAGED!!!!

I know some of you may be scratching your heads and asking, "Katie, how old are you again?" Trust me when I say this has been a long time coming, and I couldn't be happier about it.



Le happy family: My older brother Matt, The happy couple, my mom Tracy and James, and me, with my terrible haircut.

James met my mother about 12 years ago now. When he met her, she was a young mother of two, married to my father, and working show homes as a new realtor. He described it to me as, "I knew she was married, but I just thought she was so cute." He would make excuses to come by her show home to talk to her. He had to come up with some pretty good excuses, as her show home was across the city from where he lived. At the time, my mother was in an unhappy relationship, and she felt she needed to get out. That summer, she brought my brother and I to her hometown in BC to think about what she wanted to do with her life. James and my mom fell out of contact.



After the summer, my mother came back to Calgary and filed a divorce with my father. At the same time, James was thinking of moving, and a friend gave him my mother's card. They got back in contact and over the years that followed they became good friends. I remember being about 9-10, and James would come over and play with me. He'd run around in the backyard or wrestle me to the ground or talk to me. They made a strange pair. James was a high school dropout who worked hardwood floors. He had about 9 piercings in his face, and was covered in tattoos. My mom was a single mother of two children living in suburbia.



5 1/2 years ago, James and my mom started dating. Want to know how I found out? I was in Junior High, sitting in the back seat of my mother's car. James at the time had a DUI (Did I mention he went to prison for 30 days for it? No? James is the bad boy all right.) and couldn't drive. My mother was dropping him off at his house. We pulled up, and before James got out, he leaned over and kissed my mom. My jaw dropped, and I squealed something along the lines of "WTF!" and they explained that they had started dating.




James soon moved into our little house in suburbia. My brother and I were more than accepting. We had known James for years and he'd always been more than respectful to both of us. Unfortunately, James moved in during a difficult time for our family. I was a teenager and my brother was dealing with his own issues. There were a lot of bad times. There were good times too. But through it all he was there. He was more of a dad than my real father. Within two years, he was my dad. He was the one who threatened the boys with a rusty shovel when they came over. He was the one who joked, "I have a shotgun and no one's gonna miss you." He was the one who sat with me when I cried, and came to celebrate my successes. More than that, he was always there for my mom. He respected her, he told her everything, and supported her. He never hesitated to show he loved her, which was way more than my own father ever did.



My mom had never really been lucky in love. Her husband had cheated on her, she didn't get the big wedding or a fancy proposal. In fact, she didn't get any proposal. My father turned to her and said, "Hey, your family's going to be in town next month. Why don't we surprise them with a wedding?" My mother was a lot like me in her younger days, and kept quiet and accepted that her husband would never appreciate her with flowers or surprises, never help her with her kids, and would go out and cheat on her. The divorce was probably the best thing she ever did.



For the last few years, James has been studying to get his high school degree so he can get a better job. The hardwood job was hard on his body, but also hard on his relationship. Working late into the evening left my mother lonely, and he wanted to come home to her. Everyone (note: me) said they should get married. James had never believed in marriage, and never wanted to be one of those "sheep" that lives in suburbia, with a white picket fence and mows his lawn every Saturday. It strikes me as such a YA happy ending. The bad boy and the good girl become friends, deal with their trials and fall in love.



The plan was to wait until after James graduated before they got married. But that would have been another three years. This weekend, while my mother was in California for a real estate conferences, James came to a conclusion. He didn't want to wait. He talked it over with me and my brother. I was ecstatic. He bought the ring, prepared his speech, and I helped him with the details. Like the candles and rose petals and the quotes and the pictures and all that. James's plan was to bring her into her room and just propose. *snort* Boys.



So when James brought my mom home from the airport, he led her up the stairs and brought her into their room. Me, my brother, his girlfriend, and my hetro life partner Kirstie were huddled in the dark living room in silence. ("They home! Quick, everybody play Skyrim!") He got down on one knee, and asked her to marry him.

She said yes!!

James and my mom are the perfect fairy tale. It just goes to show that sometimes true love is right in front of you. That real love is worth the wait.

The best part? I GET TO PLAN A WEDDING!!!

Must-FUCKING-Reads + a Giveaway

(If you're just here for the contest and don't want to hear my ramblings, scroll down until you see a giant sparkly "CONTEST." )

So, SO, people of internet land. Some of you may know that I've been on vacation, which means a whole hell lot of READING. Which is awesome, because sometimes in my life I forget to sit down with a good book. Things can get crazy.

So I read this mofo:



Bumped by Megan McCafferty. I'd picked it up a few weeks ago, mostly because I was interested in this dystopian that had a very contemporary feel.

I read it in two days. Whoa, WHOA, this thing is... well, it's a BOOK. A FABULOUS book. A supercalifragilisticexpialidocious book. It's the kind of AMAZING, BREATHTAKING, absolutely MIND-BLOWING book that makes me incapable of leaving a review, because the review would only consist of me screaming "BUY THIS BOOK. BOOK GOOD. BOOK MAKE KATIE HAPPY. BUY MANY BOOK."

And as I reached the climax, my heart thumping, sitting literally on the edge of my seat, reading into wee hours into the night, trying to sit close enough to the fire for light but careful not to CATCH FIRE OR ANYTHING, I realized something. This book reminded me of another book. Another book that I read in two days. Another book that was so MIND-BLOWING, BREATHTAKINGLY AWESOME that I still pick it up and re-read it, which ladies and gentlemen VERY RARELY EVER IN A MILLION YEARS HAPPENS.

It happened to be this book:



The DUFF by Kody Keplinger. Again, another book I am incapable of writing a review for because I am unable to take my biases out of the picture.

So what do these books have in common? Yes, they both have fabulous plots and wicked tension that keep readers turning the pages long into the night. They have FABULOUS CHARACTERS! (Oh GOD, Wesley makes me want to MELT, and Jondoe is absolutely adorable! And can we talk about how perfect and real Zen is? Or how about how Bianca totally stole my heart with her no-nonsense attitude? Or the emotional growth and change that Melody goes through? Or how sweet and naive and innocent Harmony is, and her tumble through an alien world?) They have smooth writing which makes them an easy read. Flawless transitions. Fabulous voices that are easily discernible from each other.

All around, these books ROCK. But why are they so special that I feel I need to talk about them? What about these books throws me off my feet and then slaps me with my own socks?

Simple. Kody Keplinger and Megan McCafferty have BALLS.

That's right, you heard me. These ladies talk the talk and walk the walk. They are not afraid to jump on the controversial train. Hell, these ladies are fucking BULLETPROOF. Bring it, psycho parents who think their kids are darling little angels and this kind of literature RUINS CHILDREN AND OMG YOU'RE DESTROYING SOCIETY AND HOW COULD YOU???? Nah, Keplinger and McCafferty take it head on. They talk about teen sex, virginity, teen pregnancy, condoms, the whole shebang.

GASP.

CONDOMS?!?!?!?!?

Yes, that's right. McCafferty's Bumped is a fabulous satire on modern society. In a world where teenage girls are getting pregnant and selling their babies off, the idea of teens having sex for pleasure, because they're in love, is scandalous. Condoms are illegal. The mere mention of teens having sex for something other than reproduction is a horrifying thought. Girls are crying when they find out they're not pregnant after a wild tumble at MasSEX parties.

And in Keplinger's The DUFF, we're faced with a girl who uses sex (with a boy she thinks has more in his pants than in his head) to try and escape the troubles of her home life. These are not virgins bumping uglies for the first time. Both Bianca and Wesley have had sex before. They know what they're doing, and they enjoy it. And boy, do they get at it a lot. But she paints such a real and fresh image of teen sexuality. Yes, we do have the virgin first times. But what happens to the teens who are passed that point? Do they just... stop having sex?

A lot of writers are talking about teen sexuality lately. It's a hot topic. But these ladies don't just talk about teen sexuality (and they do. Kody's blog is a great place for talking about sexuality in literature and in everyday life) they WRITE about it.

YA comes under fire every once in a while. Most recently the Wall Street Journal published the article "Darkness Too Visible" (which I think everyone and their GRANDMA has seen by now) Not exactly about teen sexuality, but along the same lines. This prompted a huge response from the community in the form of the #YASaves hastag on Twitter, which is still ongoing. When they pushed, we pushed back, and it really makes me proud to be part of the young adult community.

That's why these women rock my socks. Because they're talking about teeen sexuality. They're getting their books out there. I'm sure they face their own bit of guff, but they keep going. People are always going to oppose change. We will always have parents or other misguided people who don't understand what we're about trying to shove their ideals down our throats. But we can't back down, because as writers for teens, we speak for teens. We give a voice to a lot of people who don't have one. We tell stories that are gritty, sexy, cute, simple, complex, dark, light, whatever. When we talk about sex, we show teens that it's okay to talk about sex. We show them that it's not taboo, and if they have a problem, or a question, or a concern, they can ask about it.

A world where kids aren't ashamed of themselves and the feelings and changes they can't control is a brighter world. It's one less thing they have to deal with while they're riding the uncomfortable roller coaster of adolescence.

I would chew off my left foot to write a contemporary. I suck at it. I would chew off both my feet to be able to write something half as amazing as The DUFF or Bumped. But, sadly, I'm not there yet, and until I find a magical fairy who will trade feet for contemporary-writing abilities, I'm SOL.

But, I can't stand idly by when I find writers like this. Who are TRUE heroes who are also AMAZING STORYTELLERS. I have to help these writers. I have to spread the MOTHERFUCKING WORD, YO.

So I'm having a CONTEST.


[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]


Here's the lo-down, peeps. I'm giving away a copy of BOTH Bumped and The DUFF. That's right, you guys are LUCKING OUT TODAY LET ME TELL YOU.

The contest is international, because I love you guys. It will be open until midnight (mountain time) on August 18th. If I receive over 25 entries before MONDAY, AUGUST 15TH, then I'm going to extend the contest until the 31st. (Because I'm going on holidays AGAIN and I might as well leave it open for many people to enter)

If I get over 50 entries, then I will add ANOTHER prize pack. That's right, a second person will receive a copy of Bumped and The Duff. HOW COOL IS THAT?

And if I get over 75 enteries (I know, I can dream, right?) then I will do something SUPER SPECIAL AWESOMESAUCE. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it's going to be HUGE, like, PRIZES FOR EVERYONE huge.

Here's how you enter:

--> Comment on this blog (with your email address for contact) in the comment section of this post

--> RETWEET this contest. RETWEET THIS LIKE CRAZY. Every time you tweet this contest, I will enter you again. DO YOU HEAR THAT? YOU COULD TWEET THIS FOREVER AND GET A BAZILLION ENTRIES. (Just make sure for every tweet, you post a comment with the link.)

--> Blog about this topic. Blog about teen sexuality, and you get another entry. You can also post a link for an old blog post that you did (because, you know, you're such hipsters that you guys blogged about this BEFORE IT WAS COOL.)
----> If you mention me, this post, or this contest in your post about teen sexuality, you will get YET ANOTHER ENTRY.

--> If you follow this blog or if you follow me on twitter, I will add another entry. BECAUSE I'M THAT AWESOME.

Also, when I announce the winners I will also post up all the blog posts about teen sexuality, so we can all have a chance to read more about the topic and talk about it more. Because the more we talk about it, the more we'll know.

AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE. YEAH.

So go, my minions. Spread the word!

Good News, Everybody!

If you thought the title in Professor Farnsworth's voice, I tip my hat to you.

So, some good news comes this way! I know I haven't been blogging much lately, and that's partly due to the summer and me being crazy busy, but also due to me buckling down and writing like a madman. I should be back to myself again, so never fear!

Which kinda brings me to my bundles of good news.

--> I FINISHED CRASH. WOOOOHOOOO. I'm a fast writer. Normally it takes me 3 months tops to finish a 100K book. Crash took 7 months, and ended up at 136K words. I have a lot of editing to do on that one so I'm far from through with it, but still, exciting!

--> Which brings me to my next bit of news. I get to start on my new project!! It's a YA steampunk with DRAGONS. I can't say more than that, though. You'll have to wait for any further details. ;)

--> ALSO, I'm up on Goodreads. If you would like to follow my reviews and keep more tabs on what I'm reading, you can friend me there. I will friend back. I will still be posting reviews on my blog, but I will be posting half-reviews on Goodreads that I won't be putting here. What are half-reviews? They're the books I got half way through but couldn't finish for one reason or another. I don't consider them full reviews, and it's really just what I didn't like about the book.

If you're following me on Twitter, you will still get updates for when I post both full reviews and my halfie reviews. So if you don't want to deal with following me a million different places, it's best to just follow me on twitter.

I think that's it! Hopefully my blog posts will get back to their regular frequency and I can go back to normal now.

Happy 4th of July to my American readers, and for everyone else, happy Monday. ;)

Peace,

-Katie

Spam of Cute!

So I saw my beta today, and we had a huge breakthrough with Crash. It's a huge cause of celebration, you don't know how long I've been waiting for this. This means that probably half the book is going to get axed, but I don't care because I've been trying to crack this book since November and I finally got it.

I'm breaking out wine and chocolates. That's how awesome this is.

Along with seeing my beta, I also got the chance to see her ducklings! They're a week old today. The yellow one she's called Golden, the small brown one is known as Special (he's the runt) and the third we've named Mysterion. (No, we aren't South Park fans, why do you ask?)

Spam of cute! Cute!

























Peace,

-Katie

Happy Moments

Besides some things in my non-write life that I'm stoked about (OMG! Job interview in like... an hour. SQUEE!) not much has been happening. Which lets me focus on working (note: fighting ) with my WIP. Today I finished another chapter ( 33K in and still rollin') and when I got to the end of the chapter, I placed in a high moment for my characters, which is my FAVORITE kind of writing.

I know. WTF? I don't write comedy. I don't write happy go lucky stuff. If you've been following my blog, you'll know I'm an optimist with a fascination with war, famine, death, racism, sexism, and the like. And I incorporate them all into my novels. I like dark stuff. I love conflict.

But it's because of that love of conflict that writing high moments is so wonderful.

I'm going to backpedal on the terminology here. Partly because my lingo may or may not be made up by yours truly.

A "high moment" in a novel is when your character (usually your POV character) is at a moment of extreme joy. They've gotten the girl! They've won the game! They didn't die fighting the giant sand worm! It's a moment when your characters are happy, despite the shit you've hurled at them left and right.

A "low moment" in contrast is... you guessed it, just the opposite. When your characters are beaten down, depressed, angry, just not around a happy camper.

I throw a lot of crap on my characters during the events of my novels, so naturally, they spend a lot of time down in the dumps. But in my writing I've found it's absolutely important to include high moments. Where your characters crack jokes and just enjoy themselves for once. They don't have to be long. The one I just wrote was about two paragraphs long, and it was two characters who had just survived a car crash. One cracked a joke and then they couldn't stop laughing. It was a high moment for them. They were happy to be alive. They found anything funny because they were so relieved that they made it.

High moments can be silly. They can be funny. They can just be ridiculous. A high moment in another novel I wrote included the characters beating each other with wet clothing.

I think I need to stress this now, however: High moments are for your characters, not for your readers.

I'm not making sense? Well, that's because I never make sense. Observe:

“Morning Seth,” Arthur said, breaking off his conversation with Dahlia and climbing to his feet. He looked stupidly bright for so early. Damn morning people. “How’d you sleep?”

“Coffee.” Seth pulled open the cupboards and began to shift through them.

“Did you want breakfast?” Arthur asked.

Seth leveled his stare on him. “Coffee.”

“We made tea, if you’d like,” Dahlia said.

“Coffee!”

This is a scene from my novel. Is this a high point? No. Will the readers be amused? Of course. This is purely for reader benefit to add a little lightness to the scene so the reader isn't dragged down with the darkness of a lot of what happens in the novel.

This is opposed to:

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d be some sort of… of toy to that thing back there. You’ve saved me from a fate worse than death.”

A wicked glint shone in Molly’s eyes. “I said thank me, not go full on chick-flick.”

The joke was lame, but it succeeded in pulling a smile from Arthur. The joy was addicting and it soon spread into laughter. Arthur couldn’t say whether it was the elation of escaping the crash, of being alive, or the need to distract themselves from the heartache ahead, but soon he and Molly were laughing until tears rolled down their faces.

This isn't as amusing to the reader. They may not find Molly's bad joke that funny, but that's okay. They don't have to. What this scene is supposed to do is not only lighten the darkness a bit, but also instill a sense of fondness in the reader. If you've done your job as a writer and your characters are sympathetic, then this should instill them with a caring for the characters. You feel more likened to them. It's bittersweet, because the reader knows that they're not going to be happy anytime soon, but you feel glad that they could have a few moments of happiness before things go to hell.

High moments should be spaced throughout the novel. Right after a mildly tragic event is good, but if you really want to hit the reader where it hurts, put it before a major tragedy. In another novel I have a scene where two characters are arguing about swear words (makes sense in context, I promise) right before one of them dies. It's amusing on the first read through, but on the second it's sad, because you know this is the last time they'll have fun together.

Even if you're not writing YA, these high moments are important. Because your characters are people. They have happy moments and sad moments and they're going to try to make the best out of their situation. They help create reader sympathy. If your characters are dorky and are messing around, they're going to connect well with your dorky readers.

Find dark spots in your manuscript. Are they heavy dark spots? Place a happy moment beforehand. Are they just bumps in the road for your character? Try it afterwards. Read it all together and see what works and what doesn't. Experiment, because writing is hands-on learning. Your characters, and your readers, deserve a pick-me-up every once in a while.

Peace,

-Katie

Dork Alert!

So, Shell is officially on submission. Which is great. I feel incredibly relieved, but at the same time... not. I think it's because I'm a control freak. With the querying system, I was in control. I sent out the queries, I did the research, I got the responses. Having someone else do it for me is stressful.

So besides working on my new project, I've found myself drifting back to a passion that I don't always pay attention to: making dolls.

I really love doll making, though after they're done, I don't really want them around anymore. It's something to do to occupy my hands while I'm watching TV or I have some time off. When I wrote my last book, In The Eye Of Death, I got into one of my frenzies and made some dolls based off of two of my main characters, Jonah and Alexis. My plan was that if my book ever sold, I would do a giveaway with the dolls along with a signed copy of my book. Of course, In The Eye of Death went into the trunk, and the dolls took up residence on my bookshelf.






There they are! They're hand made, of course. I know it's really dorky to make dolls out of your own characters, but I worked really hard on these guys.






Here's Jonah, my MC. (He doesn't really stand, but he leans quite well) His shoes are made out of foam board with a bit of paint that I added to try and put some detailing in (Won't be happening again. It just looks bad.) He does have a jem in his chest (part from the book) and he is 100% cuddly and soft. Except for his shoes and hair, of course. Though I am proud of his hair. I used golden felt and then added some touches of red paint to give it some dimension. I quite like his hair.






This is his love interest, Alexis. I didn't stuff her head quite enough, so she looks flat. She also looks smaller compared to Jonah. (I blame his massive coat.) Both of their faces are drawn free hand with black marker. (Extremely stressful when you can't draw it out first in pencil.)





Here's Jonah with his hood up. He is very cuddly. (And a great listener!)





Alexis with her bandana drawn up a bit. They look really white in the photos, especially Alexis, because her hair is near-white, but they actually don't look that bad in real life.


So those are my little secret, dorky joy! And just because I can:





This is Marta, she's my baby. Such a camera whore. She doesn't like the flash, so she always closes her eyes, which makes her look like some weird anime cat.


So there you have it. What do you guys think? Do you like my dolls? Would you enter a contest with them as part of the prize or would you prefer to just feed them to your dogs?

Peace,

-Katie