I go through these little seasons where I’ll read all middle grade fiction or all adult fiction or all young adult fiction. Recently I’ve been on a bit of a young adult fiction kick, so I’ve finished a couple of young adult books that I thought I’d share with you.
A couple of months ago, my book club read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light, which is part of the Austin Family Chronicles, a collection of five books. This one was the fourth book, but it doesn’t feel like you’re being thrown right into the middle of things. L’Engle does a great job of writing her series so that people can pick up the books at any point and not feel completely lost.
I’ve been a fan of L’Engle for a long time, but I had never read this series. I still plan to read the rest of the series, but for now, my shelf is a little full. A Ring of Endless Light was a sweet story about a girl visiting her dying grandpa. While her family seemed a little too perfect to be true, I found that the elements of science and poetry that L’Engle introduces into the story seemed to move it along more than the actual plot line. Vicki Austin, the main character, is trying to come to terms with grief and identity and how the world is the same or different after a beloved person has passed from it.
The book begins intriguingly with a funeral, and Vicki’s voice was curious, open and relatable, one that young adults can still identify with, even though the book was written many years ago.
The second young adult book I wanted to share was one called All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven. This was the story of two teenagers, Violet and Finch. Finch is a disturbed individual who has attempted suicide and suffers from a mental illness that’s not entirely clear until close to the end of the book. Violet is a girl who suffers from depression, and they find each other on the top of a bell tower at their school, where both of them are considering suicide.
It’s a sweet romance, but incredibly sad. One of those books I’ll probably only read once—not because it wasn’t fantastic but because it was so tragic. So you’ve been warned. You’ll probably need tissues for this one. The story was heartbreaking, the characters unforgettable, and the issues shared so openly and vibrantly will be life-changing for teens who struggle with depression and other mental illnesses. It could even save a few lives, which I believe is a valiant thing and makes this story quite necessary to the literature world, especially the young adult one.
Learning
Lately I’ve been lost in Telling True Stories: a Nonfiction Writer’s Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. This is a book about telling true stories, as the title suggests. But let me just tell you. When you start reading the collected essays from famous nonfiction authors and journalists, you will be more than learning. You will be inspired to write your own contributions to the world of nonfiction—whether it’s essays, narrative nonfiction or daily news stories.
This book is an incredible resource of have on hand for those who are interested in pursuing a nonfiction career. You’ll learn from people like Malcolm Gladwell, Nora Ephron, Gay Talese, Phillip Lopate, Tom Wolfe and so many more masters. You’ll learn about things like the proper way to conduct an interview, how to go about excelling at participatory reporting, how to write personal essays, developing characters in your nonfiction stories, and so much more.
My wheels are turning now about a narrative nonfiction project that’s been on the back burner for quite a long time. I’m looking forward to carving out space to begin using the skills I learned as a reporter again. So stay tuned for that.
Personal
I just returned from observing a Sabbath week, and I cannot tell you how much I needed it. Just before we broke for the Sabbath, I launched three more episodes of my Family on Purpose series, and we were working our fingers to the bone to get everything done on time.
Now, in a couple of weeks, I’ll be releasing the first season of my Fairendale series, so we’ve hit the ground running again. But it was so great to have a break, where I could just read and soak in the lives of my boys and celebrate my husband’s birthday and get away from work.
It doesn’t matter how much we love our work, we need breaks every now and then. And because we’re working so hard, breaks help us avoid burnout. It’s always necessary to take a step back and do something for us for a change. So that’s what I did. I mostly read, but I did a little sewing, tried to make the end-of-year gifts for my boys’ teachers and did a little organization around the house, because I’m a neat freak. I couldn’t stay away from brainstorming, and there were some necessary things I had to do for the upcoming Fairendale release, but, for the most part, I did a pretty good job resting.
And now I feel like I can breathe.
Writing
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I’m an author who self publishes but also is working to become traditionally published. There are a lot of differences between self publishing and traditional publishing. You do a whole lot of work for both, and there are rewards to both and drawbacks to both. What I’m learning is that self publishing takes a whole lot more time, and maybe has, at least for now, when my following is relatively small, small rewards for that. Traditional publishing, which doesn’t have great monetary awards—only about 3 to 5 percent of book sales—actually reaches way more people. And that’s why I’ve decided to do both.
It’s not easy to pursue both. On the one hand, I’ve been consumed with book releases this last month, so I haven’t had time to send out any of the projects I’ve marked for traditional publishing. On the other hand, I get immediate return on all those efforts—because when I publish a book myself, it publishes immediately.
When I send my manuscripts out to agents, it could take two or three years, sometimes longer. I’ve had a manuscript out with an agent for a year already. I’ve done edits, I’ve played the waiting game, I haven’t seen any return for that investment yet. I know I will. But traditional publishing is a much longer game. Which is okay. Because it also means that one day, I’ll be on the shelves of local libraries and in physical bookstores, which only happens with runaway bestsellers in the self-publishing world.
All that to say, more and more authors are becoming what’s called a hybrid author—they’re self publishing but also traditionally publishing. What I do myself is I evaluate my manuscripts. Traditional publishing isn’t as open to what I’d call “nontraditional manuscripts.” I have several nontraditional manuscripts that I’m releasing on my own.
The rest I’m saving for traditional publishing. I’ve given the publishing world five years for each project, and if the project isn’t sold or optioned, then I’ll publish on my own. That time period may change after a while. I may decide it’s not worth it to wait five years. But for now, I have so many manuscripts that it’s worth my while to wait.
Not everyone has that ability. So, really, the decision has to be up to each individual author. Traditional publishing works for some. It doesn’t for others. Self publishing works for some. It doesn’t for others. There is no one right way. Isn’t that good to know?
Listening
I’ve probably mentioned before that when I write my fiction stories and even my nonfiction essays, I write to music. Sometimes I listen to music and words, but lately I’ve been listening only to instrumental music. Specifically the music of Carmina Burana. If you’ve never heard the music of Carmina Burana, you should.
See, when I was in high school, our high school band was really, really good, and one year, for contest season, our band director had us perform three of the movements of Carmina Burana. So not only does listening to this bring back so many memories, but it’s also really great orchestral music.
When I’m writing to Carmina Burana, I feel like my characters can make it through any tragedy that comes their way, because it’s strong, passionate, wild music. I feel like I myself could make it through anything, too.
The University of California Davis Symphony Orchestra has a great rendition of it. Settle into it, because it’s more than an hour long. But you can listen to it in pieces. You’ll be glad you did.
Also, fun fact: I used to be a drum major. That means I conducted all the music for the marching band. So maybe you’re not ready to know I was a nerd. But I still have great memories and pictures from that time in my life. All you band nerds, here’s a shout out. There’s nothing cooler than band. Except being a bookworm.
Yeah, I was really popular in high school.
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