reading

Win a Book Contest

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Tell me about your favorite children’s novel–and win a signed copy of The Stolen Goldin Violin.

Do you remember one of your first favorite books? I’m excluding picture books, although there are, of course, wonderful picture books.  I want to hear about that first novel, that first full-length story you fell in love with. Tell me what you remember about it and why you loved it so much.  This contest is open to everyone, so children can tell me about their current favorites, older people can tell me about books they loved as children, or books they discovered by reading to their own children.  I can’t wait to hear your stories!

Email your stories to elizabethcfelt at gmail.com (replacing “at” with the proper symbol and eliminating spaces), or friend me on Facebook and post a description of your favorite children’s book on my wall.

Valid entries must include more than just a title–I want to hear about your connection to the book. One valid entry per person.  For every person who enters, I will write his/her name on a card and put it in my “hat.”  I will draw the winner on August 1.

Have questions about the contest?  Email me or post to me on Facebook.

A Goodreads Giveaway

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Have you discovered Goodreads.com? It’s a free, fun website for people who love to read. I’m excited about the discussion, bookclub, quizzes and many other activities and opportunities this forum provides. (Note: I’ve not been paid to say this.)

I’ve signed up as a Goodreads Author and am offering a free giveaway of The Stolen Goldin Violin.

The Goodreads giveaway details tell you how to sign up and win. Check it out!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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Last week I was at the library and looking for something light to read and remembered hearing about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Many of you know that Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books. I’ve read it at least a dozen times and seen all the movie versions. Well, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies follows the original: all the same characters, saying the same things (word for word in many places), following the same plot, but every now and then the regular story pauses to accommodate a zombie attack. The Bennet girls have been trained in weaponry and physical combat, so the zombies pose no serious threat to the main characters.

This book is such fun! You know how when you re-read a favorite book, you know what is going to happen, but you re-read anyway because you enjoy the story and characters so much. Well, in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you get to re-read a favorite and know everything that is going to happen, and you still get to be surprised.

I won’t pretend this book is for everyone. First off, I think you need to be a fan of Pride and Prejudice, and you also need to be open to having silly things happen to the characters in that literary classic.

Silly is sadly under-rated.

Selling Syncopation

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In my novel Syncopation, Adele Hugo writes her memoirs, and as she writes she sometimes argues with her sister.  These pieces of dialog fall outside the main narrative and are indicated by italics.

All of the people who have read only the first few chapters of  Syncopation comment that the dialog between the sisters is confusing and should be dropped.  All of the people who have read the entire manuscript say that the dialog between the sisters is brilliant, the best part of the story.

At one point, I took the suggestion about removing the dialog and revised for many months.  The story fell apart.  I put it back together, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good.  So, I’ve “trashed” that revision and continue to try to pitch the version with the dialog.

You see, as the memoir progress, the dialog develops and merges with the ongoing narrative.  The reason for it becomes apparent.

How can I get people to want to keep reading in order to see how good that part of the story is?  In particular, how can I get agents and editors to keep reading?  I’ve been hesitant to explain all of this in my query letter, but should I?  My query letter is getting responses, but my first few chapters do not.

Any ideas?

Backstory

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In my head, I spend a lot of time on backstory. I don’t write it down, mostly, but I try to get a clear sense of what has happened to my characters before they enter my story. For the main characters, this is essential. Otherwise, how could I understand them and their motivations and their desires, and write them with any sense of reality? I think most writers understand this and have a backstory for their main characters.

Strong writers have a backstory for every character. I am amazed by writers who can get their minor characters to grow and develop over the course of a story. This can only happen when the author has given them as much backstory as the main characters. An author who can do this and do it well is like God. God knows everything about everyone, and a writer should do be the same for her characters.

Of course, one does not want minor characters to start thinking they are main characters and take over the novel. Like God, a good writer must stay in control. If a minor character becomes too big, pull him out and give him his own story. Developing characters thoroughly is different than having a lot of main characters.

I create backstory for some of my minor characters, and I want to push myself to do it with all of them. I’ve found that when stuck on a scene or when having trouble moving through a minor conflict, if I start thinking about the minor characters involved, thinking about where they came from and what they want, my writing carries more purpose and complexity.

Backstory. It’s for everyone.

Bookmarks

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I love bookmarks. My favorite bookmark has a picture of my older son, age 1, on one side and a picture of my younger son, age 2, on the other. I’ve used bookmarks for as long as I can remember–but I’m never paid any attention to the way I place it in my book.

My husband places his bookmark in his book with the “front” of the bookmark facing the page he is on. Very clever! Since learning this, I have never been able to do it. If I remember to face the bookmark the right way when I close the book, then I don’t remember to look at it when I next open the book and remove the bookmark. I guess I don’t learn new things as easily as I used to!

About six months ago, my younger son stopped using bookmarks. He was so tired of his bookmarks falling out, that he decided to just memorize page numbers. So far, it seems to be working well for him. I can’t imagine that working for me. My memory is far too weak (see paragraph 2).

Best Books of 2010

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Here’s the list, in the order that I read them this year:

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
This story follows several families in Britain from the end of the nineteenth century through World War I. The characters and settings are rich, but what Byatt does that is most memorable is show how the attitudes and actions of one generation bear upon the next. I thought about this book for weeks after finishing it.

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
The story of Mary Anning, a nineteenth-century woman who found and identified dinosaur bones, and her friend Elizabeth Philpot. Their shared obsession with fossils occurred in a time when women were not allowed to be so engaged. Their friendship crossed class lines (Elizabeth was an aristocrat and Mary was not) and endured through misfortune and success. A wonderful story because so much of it is true.

The Conjurer’s Bird by Martin Davies
Fitz, a modern-day conservationist, is searching for the remains of the Ulietta bird which went missing from the extensive collection of nineteenth-century naturalist Joseph Banks. The novel moves between Fitz’s search and Bank’s life. Both stories are exciting: Fitz must find the bird before another who wants it only for its monetary value; Banks falls in love with a mysterious woman, whose existence is linked to Fitz’s search for the bird. Great book.

The Bells by Richard Harvell
I reviewed this for HNR and will import an abbreviated version of that review: When I look at my copy of The Bells sitting in front of me, I cannot believe it lies there immobile and lifeless. The sounds and music within its pages should make the book throb and vibrate across the table. During the time I spent entranced with this story, my body rang like the bells within its pages. The Bells is a fictional autobiography, a letter written by a castrati father to his son, explaining how their relationship came to be. The Bells is a love story, for Moses falls in love with a woman who is forbidden to him. The Bells is also a mystery – for how can Moses, a castrati, a musico, be the father of the recipient of this novel-length letter? Finally, The Bells is music. Harvell’s magical prose gives sound to Moses’ life: the bells, the arias, and the uneven breath of true love.

The Hunger Games / Catching Fire / Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
I wrote about this trilogy in an earlier blog. The story takes place in a dystopian future where children are put into an arena to fight to the death on national television. I know, it sounds awful, but it is a brilliant series. Collins’ minor characters are some of the best ever written. Powerful.

Ender’s Game / Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card
These two books are the same story told by different characters. Earth has been attacked twice by insect-like creatures, uniting the nations of the earth. The most brilliant children are found and trained to be an elite corps of soldiers to fight another invasion. Ender is one of these children (first book); Bean is another (second book). Exciting reads, but they make this list because of the complicated psychology of the characters.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde may be one of the cleverest men alive. I re-read this book and haven’t quite re-read the others in the series—but I recommend them all. The stories take place in a sort of alternative reality Britain where the Crimean War is still being waged, and where people go door to door trying to convince residents that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Thursday Next is a female literatec, a sort of police officer to keep literature safe. A bad guy goes into the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps Jane, making the story stop abruptly as Jane Eyre is a first person narrative. Screamingly funny, incredibly clever, and impossible to describe well. A must read for anyone who loves English literature.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Is it the best book ever written? Quite possibly. Another re-read for me. A comfort read.

I read sixty-seven books this year. It is the first year I’ve kept track, so I don’t know if that is a lot or not for me. I’d love to hear what you think of this list. Also let us know what were some of your best books of 2010.

Grief

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When I wrote Syncopation, I had never unexpectedly lost someone I loved. I had to imagine Adele’s grief. I had to create the things she would think and feel and do. When Adele learns that her sister has drowned, she wants to be there as quickly as she can. She feels that if she can get there soon, there will be something left of Didine.

My mother died this week. She was sixty-eight and in good health. She had a massive stroke and died quickly. I live far away from my mother, but I felt a passionate need to get to her as quickly as possible. The shock and surprise are nearly overwhelming.

People grieve in different ways, as I can see around me. I am disconcerted by the fact that I’m grieving so much like Adele. I guess I shouldn’t be, as she is my creation. I have a pretty accurate imagination, I guess. It is still odd, as Adele and I are so different.

I said a few blogs ago that I have the best mother. I’m so glad I said it. She was a writer herself and was my best reader. She was amazing at being both supportive and constructively critical. We talked regularly, spending some part of every conversation on books and writing.

When I was packing for this trip, I didn’t take the library book I had been reading, instead I grabbed Pride and Prejudice for the plane, as a comfort read. Yesterday my sister and I were going through things in our mother’s room, and I discovered that she had a copy of Pride and Prejudice on her bedside table.

My mom was a quiet person, a literary person. She was also actively engaged in a variety of volunteer jobs, all with the goal of making the world a better place.

Because of the way she died, my mother was able to donate many of her organs. I get great comfort from this. My mother would be so happy that through her death, others will live.

I was trying to think of the best way to describe my mother, and I remembered Matthew Arnold’s words:

Sweetness and light.

Book Signings

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Sat, Nov 13, Stevens Point:
We will be selling books all day at HolidayFest which is held in St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Sat, Nov 27, West Bend:
We will be signing books and the boys will be playing Christmas music at Fireside Books and Gifts in West Bend, Wisconsin.

Thurs, Dec 2, Stevens Point:
I will be selling signed books at the High School Writers Workshop at the student union at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.

Inspiration

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Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a workshop run by the UWSP English Department’s ACORN (A Chance tO Read in compaNy) program. The ACORN book this year is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, and the workshop sessions I attended were Tomoko Kuribayashi’s lecture on Margaret Atwood, Per Henningsgaard’s lecture on the role of colonialism in Alias Grace, and Sarah Pogell’s lecture on nineteenth century psychology.

The workshop was fabulous. The UWSP faculty were knowledgeable and interesting, and the topics fascinating. The day was fun and got me excited about literature again . . . . and made me question myself as a writer.

I began my first novel, Charlotte’s Inheritance, while I was in graduate school: taking literature classes, discussing literature, analyzing literature. I was immersed in the literary world. The idea of Syncopation came to me during the same time period, though I wrote it after I’d finished school. These books reflect my mind at that time.

I don’t want to say that my novels are in the same class as the novels of Margaret Atwood or Tracy Chevalier or A.S. Byatt, but they are heavily influenced by these writers. Charlotte’s Inheritance and Syncopation have themes and layers and complicated characters. They could be studied. I’ve spent many years trying to get them published, and a common criticism from agents and editors is that they are “too literary” for such-and-such a publisher’s list.

I’m a practical person. I want to be a published writer; I want to have an actual career as a writer. So, I’ve decided to write more light-weight novels in the hopes that this is what the publishing world is willing to publish—something like The Stolen Goldin Violin. I wrote this with / for my family with no illusions as to it having literary merit. The Stolen Goldin Violin is a quick, light, fun read.

In the past two years, I’ve gotten excited by a few ideas for light-weight books (see my previous blog postings), but after a little time, I find myself uninspired. This didn’t happen with either of my first two novels. I had slumps, but these stories were forged by a fire within me that raged until the story was out.

I don’t want to spend more years of my life pouring my soul into a literary novel which will never be published, read only by a few close friends. I’m not a literary snob. I read everything. I like fluff and didn’t expect to have trouble writing fluff.

Recently I’m just so uninspired, and I guess I’m just trying to figure out why . . . .