Queen Mindi's Castle

(I read it with the plainer red cover with bow and arrows, but isn't the first cover gorgeous? Found it when googling - must be a foreign version or something.)

Fire by Kristin Cashore:
Okay so I think most of you have noticed that I have an obsession with castles and courtly drama. With that in mind, THIS BOOK WAS FREAKING AWESOME. It had everything a good book needs: a beautiful, butt-kicking, flawed heroine; a hot prince; a war; some fantastic monsters (in this case quite literally - they were called monsters); and a liberal dose of court drama, complete with romance.
It's the prequel/companion to Graceling, which I read and I remember liking a lot, but I think I like this one even better. It reminded me in a really good way of Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith, who's my new favorite fantasy author since I ran out of Diana Wynne Jones books to read.
Even if you are not as fixated on castles as I am, I still recommend this book. You don't have to have read Graceling to get it, since there's only one character that's the same, and it's like telling his origins, so the events of Graceling haven't happened to him yet. Anyway, I think it would appeal to any reader of fantasy for its (literally) colorful cast of characters, creatures, and settings. By FAR my favorite of this batch of reviews. :)

Deadly Little Secrets by Laurie Faria Stolarz:
I've read Blue is for Nightmares by this author, and honestly wasn't impressed enough to take on the rest of the books in the series. But this book looked decent, so I thought I'd give it a try... figuring some authors are better at writing about one subject/character than another.
And... IDK. This one smacked strongly of Twilight, especially in the beginning, when the MC is almost run over in the parking lot at school and the mysterious, hot new boy saves her. As if that weren't enough, I then had to sit through a chapter about how Hot New Boy sits next to her in science class and acts really psycho when she touches him. But after it was done ripping off Twilight, it took a more original turn. Instead of Hot New Boy being a vampire, he turned out to be psychometric - that is, he can read her feelings and/or her future when he touches her - and he was predicting that she was going to end up dead. Meanwhile MC is being stalked by some creeper, whose thoughts/journal (?) we get to read between the chapters. And I'll say this, the creeper did NOT turn out to be who I was expecting. So the ending was nicely surprising.
Basically: if you can get through the highly Twilight-ified first half, the second half is better. And I think I'm going to read the sequel, which is another mark in its favor. So yeah. Not the most amazingly original, but entertaining nonetheless.

Libyrinth by Pearl North:
Honestly, this book bored me. I expected it to be better than it was - it kind of had a cool premise - but the plot, or possibly the writing style, made it a chore to get through. This could just be personal preference, but I wouldn't recommend it if you have better stuff to read.

~went swimming with sisters and not-sister. it was fun. pretty much solid inappropriate innuendo, "that's what she said" and "your mom" jokes the whole night. plus we went driving through downtown Lake Stevens (all ONE block of it) and the J crew hung out the back windows and barked at people. goooooood times.

~read a lot of books. and by a lot I mean at least one per night, after I went to bed. these included The Tear Collector, Devoured, and my personal favorite, Magic Under Glass. (you might recall me putting up a book trailer about that one a little while ago. well, now I've actually read it, and I thought it was awesome! Possessed robots are apparently the new vampires. Tell a friend.)

~actually did my homework. *jawdrop*

~did not get any editing done, argh. I have discovered that revising a novel on a computer screen is extremely difficult to do without going blind or ending up on facebook by accident. Ergo, this week I shall go use the university's library printers to print myself a hard copy of The Queen's Knight and take a red pen to it. Bah editing sucks. >.< But it must be done before I send out any queries! Also to do: write a decent synopsis. And get myself some SASEs. And check out my list of agencies on their websites to make sure they're all legit.

~randomly started watching Sailor Moon, and finished the Sarah Jane Adventures (which I don't like as much as Doctor Who - seems to be aimed at a younger audience). Sailor Moon kind of cracks me up. The MC is annoying and I want her to die or at least pull on some big girl panties... but for some reason I'm still watching. & also it gets that song "One Week" in my head: "get in tune with Sailor Moon cause that cartoon has got the boom, anime babes that make me think the wrong thing." Riiiiiight.
Also the Vampire Diaries series is supposed to have a new episode coming out this week? I'm more excited than I probably should be. (oh and speaking of vampires, I Kissed a Vampire makes me LOL with glee and amusement. It's like High School Musical crossed with Twilight. And Lucas Grabeel (who is my mental image of my character Leo) is in it! Bahahahah. So funny.

~found out about Pants On the Ground. Lulz.

Ok so my thoughts about this book are basically: MUST. GET. HANDS. ON. SEQUEL.

It was one of those books where it's just a normal level of good, enough to keep you reading, until you hit the halfway mark and suddenly it's so good that you know if you put it down you will die/the world will explode/other miscellaneous bad things will happen. I stayed up 'til half past midnight to finish it. And now I'm pretty sure that if I don't read the sequel soon, I will die/the world will explode/other miscellaneous bad things will happen.

Seriously.

I loved the first-person present tense narration, because present tense is my BFF right now. I loved Katniss in all her not-quite-heroic heroism, and Peeta and his character's ambiguities from Katniss's unreliable-narrator POV. I loved the fact that it was set in this futuristic sort-of-sci-fi world that reminded me of a mix between Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series and the territory of Quillan from the Pendragon books. And I loved that, despite a lot of the elements being stuff that I'd seen before, I still cared SO MUCH about the characters and wanted them to win, and I was still able to be surprised by the twists and turns.

I must admit, the reason I took so long to read it was because the first person to recommend it was my fourteen-year-old sister, and the last book she recommended was that awful Ridley Pearson book that made me laugh in a horrified kind of way. But my faith is restored in her literary taste. I may even have to humbly ask her if I can keep her copy of the book in an honored place on my bookshelf. And beg her to get "Catching Fire" for me, since I'm stuck back at university with no car.




...have also just started reading "The Book of Dreams," O.R. Melling's final book in the Chronicles of Faerie series. I'm pretty excited about this book (I actually said "YES!" out loud when I found it in the bookstore, and got a weird look from some girl) because I loved the former ones. This one contains all the same characters, only now they're facing down some kind of Greater Evil With Slimy Green Tentacles (IDK, I'm only on chapter 5). Good thing the first week of the quarter doesn't usually involve a whole lot of homework, because apparently I will have my nose stuck in a book for the rest of the week.

How is it New Year's Eve already? D: Party tonight. Will probably end up playing Pit, aka the Shouting Game, again. Haha... that seems to be a New Years tradition, amirite Deanna?

Anyway... writer's retreat to my aunt and uncle's Schweitzer cabin was excellent. Started a new story on Christmas day (about a ghost who can only communicate through text message). Am trying out the Choose Your Own Adventure format, because I can. Will probably go back and change it to normal narrative, because CYOA is extremely hard to plot out.

Also read "The Time Traveler's Wife," which I liked a lot. It was really well-written and believable. I should have read it BEFORE I saw the movie, but I didn't, so I knew how it was going to end... ah well. I still liked the book just as much.

Now am trying to get through "Mansfield Park." I think I like the movie adaptations better... the book goes too slowly for my taste. :( They took major liberties with Fanny's character though. She's way more shy in the book than she's represented in either of the movie versions I've seen.

In other news, have been watching the TV show "Firefly." LOVE it. I must be going through another sci-fi phase because anything with spaceships is automatically my favorite. (Although what really charmed me about Firefly was the scene in the pilot episode where Wash is playing with his plastic dinosaurs. EPIC.)

And now for something completely different... my sister showed me this list and gah. now I have to fill it out to prove my literaryness.

( have you read more of these than me? )

 

Watched "The Princess and the Frog" today. SO cute! Disney made the right move going back to princess movies. Those just don't get old. (I really want them to do "The Ordinary Princess" someday - that was my favorite princess book growing up.) I thought I would be annoyed by the talking animals - which mainly consisted of the alligator Louis and the firefly Ray - but they surprised me by being un-annoying fun side characters who actually added to the story.

I won't comment on the fact that Tiana's the first black Disney Princess, because everyone else has beat that topic to death and back with a stick and frankly I couldn't care less. What I will comment on is that I love the way they portrayed her as a strong role model who's willing to work for her dreams. The early Disney Princesses were beautiful but useless weaklings who had to wait around for the prince to do the saving. The trend, which started with Ariel and reached its peak in Mulan, of having princesses who can look after themselves is something I heartily approve of, and Tiana was a great way to carry on that trend. (in fact, the PRINCE was the one who came off as the useless weakling - at least at first. He did redeem himself eventually.)


 

Also, I read Libba Bray's "Going Bovine." It was ah-may-zing! I loved it so much, I almost cried a single tear at the end. I liked that the MC was a total jerk, but I still liked him and rooted for him anyway. I liked that there was a garden gnome-slash-Norse god, a punk angel, and a nerdy mama's boy dwarf involved, and the story didn't even try to keep a straight face about it. And I liked that it managed to be serious and funny at the same time.

It was a lot different than Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle trilogy, but that was okay. I liked those books a LOT (uh, hello, butt-kicking girls in dresses... with magical powers) but this teenage kid getting mad cow disease was just as fun to read about. It's a delightfully random premise and she's a delightfully random author.

This book is definitely on my to-read list - it sounds awesome. :) Posting for a contest.




Want to win a hardcover of MAGIC UNDER GLASS by Jaclyn Dolamore plus more prizes? See http://fabulousfrock.livejournal.com for details!

Just hit 15,000 words, which is my estimated halfway point. Prince Martin has just been kidnapped, and Leo is about to find out the truth about Saray's family.

Wordcount wise, this NaNo is failtacular. But in quality, I think it's turning out less horrific than my last attempt, simply because I'm not throwing in random pointless scenes to add words. It may possibly be something I can salvage at the end of the month!

Now back to work. I'm going to try to get another 1000 words in before I go to bed... may or may not happen, we'll see.

Since this is a super boring post, here's a teaser to make it less boring. (or more so, haha) Backstory: Leo's at a ball in the Syrenian court. Sir Alley Lake is Saray's father; Jared is her brother.

( Eavesdropping is bad, Leo. )

After a rather bad start involving multiple Halloween parties and Moby-Dick homework, I am NaNo-ing away, wearing a plastic purple bat ring that I got as a Halloween favor this weekend. As of now, it is my NaNo lucky charm.

Since procrastination is, of course, a time-honored NaNo tradition, I am taking precious writing time to tell  you all this, and also to post an excerpt of my first chapter. Warning: will probably not make a whole lot of sense unless you've read "The Queen's Knight," but feel free to read it anyway.

 

( first impressions (suck) )

I just finished The Queen's Knight!



*cheers* *dances*

Wordcount: 42,539. Page count: 112. Chapter count: 15. Final sanity percentage: 65% and decreasing.

On to NaNoWriMo! Ohhhh yes. I feel like I can finish anything right now. Even, possibly, my homework. (well, maybe not.)

True story.

Happened in 10 minutes. Wrote it down in half an hour. Warning: am still not quite sane.

(and still haven't done my Eng456 story or read White-Jacket. Yay for procrastination)

 

( surprise thunderstorm )

Under cut are reviews (and possible spoilers) for:

Silver Phoenix
The Fetch
Curse of the Pharaohs
Swoon


( reviews! )

Back at Western. Has been interesting so far... I keep finding new things to be sarcastic about, or to angst about, or just downright complain about. But I have already mentioned those elsewhere, and besides, they are probably not interesting unless you're as bored as me.

My classes are pretty decent. I'm taking Latin 101, Major Authors: Early Melville, and Special Topics in Fiction Writing: Story, Interrupted. Diagnosis: Latin is crazy but potentially fun, Melville is... eh, well, the teacher seems enthusiastic?, and Ficwriting will be scary.

I hate that all college fiction classes focus on being all literary. I am NOT a literary fiction writer. I just cannot. I write YA fantasy. I make people laugh with stupid fart jokes. Deep, Hidden Meanings are not my style; neither are Dark, Angsty Characters that show the Plight of the Human Race. In fact, it's hard enough for me to write about the real world at all...

But that is one of my angsting topics, and I said I wouldn't mention those.

In other news, this morning a scary-looking plot bunny ambushed me before class and forced me to scribble down some ideas. For some reason, 31,000 words into "The Queen's Knight," this plot bunny thinks I need to add a brand new character... who will change the outcome of the ending, add a bunch of new scenes, and basically screw everything up. Worst of all, it's actually kind of a good idea. But why NOW? Why not 8 chapters ago? Argh! Well, guess that'll be my project for this weekend... after I finish my homework. (Ew. Homework.)

If I can finish "Queen's Knight" in October--and I'm getting close, I think--I might try doing the sequel for NaNoWriMo. It'll be a cheat-tastic NaNo, since I don't have a word count I'm aiming for, I've written this book once before, AND I've already got the first thousand words written; but who cares. I'll just use it as an excuse to make myself write more (and to drink lots of mochas and mope around in the library with my computer when I'm supposed to be doing homework).

Mmkay, I'm going to dinner now, so time to stop rambling. TTFN!

♥ Mindi

While dorm-supplies shopping in Target this afternoon, guess what I found?

This:


 

Being an enormous fan of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I was like, "MUST BUY THIS NOW." So I did. I have yet to read it, but it looks ah-may-zing.

This is especially funny after Maggie Stiefvater's recent post about how Krakens are the new Vampires. It looks as if she may be right. o_O

And speaking of books and sea monsters and funny, last night I read "Sea Change" by Aimee Friedman. Guess what the names of the main character and her love interest are?

Miranda and Leo.

What are the odds?

Plus, there was a certain line that made me LOL, when Miranda's mother was telling her to go get tanned or something, and called her "Ms. Alabaster." HAHAHA.

(for those of you not in on the joke, my current story project "The Queen's Knight" is from the POV of a knight called Leo Galaway, who's in love with Queen Miranda Alabaster.)

Anyway, "Sea Change" was really good and the romance was yummy, but I spent most of my reading time having a laugh over the crazy coincidence of character names.

Okay, since all I've posted for the last several weeks is book reviews, how about some Real Life news?

I sent out some queries the other night, and... drumroll please...

I just received my VERY FIRST rejection letter!

Woohoo! I'm insanely proud of myself for getting this far. I finally feel like a real author. :D Now, you may ask, "Mindi, what is wrong with you? Why are you not disappointed?" Well, my friend, this is why: because I am keeping my expectations low. I never expected to get an agent to represent me on the very first try. That happens to, like, nobody. So I'm probably not going to get depressed about rejections until the tenth one or so. Bonus: if I get accepted before then, it'll be twenty times better because I won't be expecting it!

In the meantime, I'm totally swiping Shannon Hale's idea, and laminating all my rejection letters. (she brought out a whole roll of them at a booksigning I went to.) That way, I can have something to gloat about (and/or wallpaper my living room with) when I'm a published author. :D

And now for some storybabble, since that hasn't come up recently:

( warning: this may only make sense if you've read my stories and/or live inside my head. )

In non-writing news: I'm getting my braces off next Monday! FINALLY! I'm stoked. I can eat corn on the cob, Swedish fish, and apples like a normal person for the first time in four years!

Spoilers under cut for:

Vampirates: Black Heart
A Posse of Princesses

( pirates and princesses )

Possible spoilers for:

The Dark Griffin
A Kiss in Time
The Mislaid Magician


( reviews! )

EDIT: Meme! I'm blaming this one on m_stiefvater . Procrastination is contagious, it seems.

CREATE YOUR DEBUT YA COVER

1 – Go to “Fake Name Generator” or click

http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
The name that appears is your author name.

2 – Go to “Random Word Generator” or click

http://www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml
The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title.

3 – Go to “FlickrCC” or click

http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php
Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.

4 – Use Photoshop,

Picnik, or similar to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in.
5 – Post it to your site along with this text.

My result:



Hmm, it actually looks kind of good. I'd read it.

m_stiefvater is doing another contest, which means... oh yes... I'm advertising her books again.

They're good, though. Really.

Anyway, here's the book trailer for her newest book, BALLAD. I have to say, it looks... rather delicious.

Book reviews!

I had this whole long entry written out that took me an hour to compose, with in-depth summaries and comments on these books. And then when I went to post, my Internet crapped out on me and deleted all of it except the first one.

Since I don't have the energy to rewrite my clever and witty summaries (ha) in addition to the comments, I'm just going to link you to the Amazon listing for them and save myself the summarizing.

Under cut are reviews (and possibly spoilers!) for:

Shadow Kiss
The Demon's Lexicon
Dust of 100 Dogs
Thirteenth Child
The Amaranth Enchantment
Warrior Princess
The Reluctant Heiress

( reviews )

Anyway, just got back from an awesome church convention. Loved it! Can't wait to go back later this week. The only thing that spoiled it for me was having to work. I may have to work during this week too, but I'm trying to get them to let me off. The novelty of having a job has worn off, and now I realize that it was a very, VERY bad idea for me to work at a brand-name clothing store that sells clothes I never even wear. Also, one of my managers kind of hates me and has been really sharp with me, even threatening to fire me on Friday. *sigh* I took it kind of badly, even though I tried to be polite and apologetic at the time.

Oh well. At least now I know that my calling is not working in retail and selling overpriced clothes. And now I have a reason to look forward to going back to university--because when I do, I have a good excuse to quit.

Coming soon... reviews for:
The Dark Griffin by kjtaylor  (who sent me a free copy--and signed, too! Thanks so much!)
Vampirates: Black Heart by *Justin Somper (oh yes, this is going to be epic. It might even get its own entry.)

I FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE ANTAGONIST LAST NIGHT.

WOOHOO!!

Now am getting to work on the whole publication thing. Just sent off my query to the Query Shark--am kind of scared of the Shark's teeth, but I need to know if my query is good or not before I start sending it to agents. Even if that means getting my ego, I mean query, torn to shreds.

And, no, I did not make my goal of querying before my birthday. But I might get some letters out before the end of the summer... which is close enough.

Do I dare to start working on The Love Interest now? :/

As I am now officially not-a-teenager, I feel the need to say something wise. So here it is:




...anyway, I managed to avoid having a party this year (which is a good thing--I'm not a party person) and instead went shopping with my mom and sisters. I did spend some of my birthday $$ on clothes, but most of it went to Half-Price Books. I just had to rearrange my bookshelf because it's overcrowded again.

True story: I picked up a hardback copy of Princess In Love by Meg Cabot, which is one of my favorite Princess Diaries books (it's the one where Mia and Michael get together), assumed it would be about seven bucks (which was half off the original price), and decided to buy it because I didn't have a copy of the book yet. But when I got to the register, the lady informed me that it was in fact $20--because it was SIGNED! I went ahead and bought it, even though it was way too expensive, because LIKE OMG A BOOK SIGNED BY MY FAVORITE AUTHOR.

And, okay, it's signed to someone named Kendyl, but I crossed out their name and wrote in mine, so it's almost the same. :)

Also, although I'm not finishing my JulNo novel, I might be finishing SOMETHING this month. I just wrote what I hope is the second-to-last chapter of The Antagonist. Now I just have to figure out how to end it. New goal: write some kind of ending before July 31.

Ugh, gotta go to work now. I have the suckiest hours EVER this weekend. 3-8 pm today and 5-10 pm on SATURDAY. Blahhh. Oh well, at least I'm getting paid!