Ruby is used to taking care of herself. But now she’s living in a fancy new house with her sister Cora—a sister she hasn’t seen in ten years—and her husband Jamie—creator of one of the most popular online networking sites. She’s attending private school, wearing new clothes, and for the first time, feels the promise of a future that include college and her family. So why is she so wary? And what is Nate— the adorable and good-hearted boy next door— hiding behind his genial nature? As Ruby starts to see, there’s a big difference between being given help, and being able to accept it. And sometimes, in order to save yourself, you’ve got to reach out to someone else.

Sarah Dessen on Lock & Key:

When I was writing my first book, I lived in a little yellow farmhouse in the country. Three years and two books later, we moved into a big new house we’d built ourselves far on the other side of town. However, I still thought about that little house a lot, and how it represented the life I’d had before: before I was a real writer, before I was even an adult, at least in my own mind. Last year, I was out that way and decided to drive by, only to find that it was…gone. It had not been occupied by someone else, or renovated, but had vanished completely, demolished and cleared away to make room for a huge gated community. I remember pulling over to the side of the road, unable to believe my eyes. There was such a big difference between our little farmhouse and these enormous, fancy mansions. It got me thinking about the ways your life can change in an instant, while it often takes much longer to change yourself.

This book resonated with me, even more so than previous Sarah Dessen books I’ve read. I adore fish-out-of-water stories, and Ruby is the ultimate stranger in her own world. She’s tough, determined to make it on her own, and ultimately, lost and longing to be found.

This book talks about trust, and about letting go. Of your past, of your fears, and of your prejudices towards others and yourself. Reading this book, it struck me how strongly Dessen manages to weave her theme through every aspect of the story. Every character has their own version of being lost, and of not trusting fully. Everyone has baggage.

It’s a story you wish you’d written and a book you’ll want to read again and again. Don’t believe me?

Download a free excerpt and see for yourself.

Rebecca James is our guest today on WeLoveYA. Her debut novel “Beautiful Malice” will be published next year. The story behind publication is one most authors dream about. Rejected by countless agents/publishers she had the audacity to keep plugging away and found representation, then had a bidding war that would rival some of the most notable popular fiction books published recently.  And this lady has twins… that makes her a saint in my opinion (and she survived the terrible twin twos without going insane).

• What was the catalyst to get you to start writing?

…for publication?

…for others to read? (possibly bunnies.)

…because you can’t not write, no matter how infuriating it may be?

…to express yourself?

…because it keeps you sane?

…or just because you want to be a glamorous, classy, really-ridiculously-good-looking author?

…or a combination of these things?
Do share!

–

Steph Bowe
http://stephbowe.com

Personally, I love to read in the bath. Preferably with bubbles, essential oils and LOTS of time to enjoy.  “Don’t you get pruney?” You may ask… but hey-who cares. There’s just someting about water and words for me…Where do I like to write? Anywhere I can, but in bed is always good. I like the garden too but I reckon if I could set it up in the bath so as not to you know electrocute myself…..!!! The bath would be my IT place for writing as well. How about you?

Scott Monk presented a great workshop at the recent CYA conference in Brisbane, my daughter sat in and took notes and came back raving about how funny Scott was. So I thought we should invite him to our blog today to have a little chat and find out why this mild mannered guy is so popular with reluctant readers.

• My teen came straight home from the CYA conference and demanded that I get your latest book “Beyond the Knock-Knock Door”, can you tell me where on earth you got that great title?

Titles are incredibly hard. Sometimes they’re just as difficult as a novel’s first sentence. From the beginning, I wanted something catchy like some of the great titles of the 20th century including Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left, Where the Wild Things Are, and the Faraway Tree series. Each gave a sense of otherworldliness. When I first wrote my scene involving a gigantic door that needed a riddle to be unlocked specifically by children, the first reaction of my heroes was to knock. I wrote it twice, and suddenly I had my title.

• Now while it’s more a middle grade book than YA it seems a bit of a departure from your other books like “Boyz R Us” which deals with racial tension; “Raw” in which the main character gets sent to rehab; and “The Never Boys” which looks at identity. How did you come up with the plot?

Beyond the Knock-Knock Door was a story that I always intended to tell my own children. I had the idea of a pirate, a knight and a princess wandering through a forest and being chased by a monster that was almost impossible to kill. As I haven’t been blessed with children yet, I decided to start writing it eight years ago, but I could never connect the dots of the plot. It kept falling into a heap. Then, on my way to The Writers’ Centre in Adelaide, I passed a costume shop that looked kind of creepy. I later asked the writing class I was teaching to come up with a story idea about the costume shop. I had my own idea and that involved a somewhat sinister owner hiring out costumes that would turn real at the worst time imaginable. This later became the start of Beyond the Knock-Knock Door. I got rid of the princess and made her Samantha the pirate, who had ratty brothers and a love of burritos. It took several more failed attempts before I had that “prickly moment” – the moment of shivering clarity when I knew I was on the right track and my triplet heroes were running ahead of me, yelling over their shoulders for me to catch up.

• You’re known as a Monster Hunter, have you ever really hunted down monsters?

You have to remember, not all monsters have horns, sharp teeth and long tails. Some of them work in politics or are bullies at school. Some of them are in our nightmares. We all have to choose whether we fight for good or fight for evil.

• If you had to hunt them what would be your weapons of choice?

Probably a trap built from a wooden box set up on a twig, a length of string and chocolate as bait. Not good chocolate, of course. Some of that cheap, nasty chocolate that you buy at petrol stations. Failing that, a Gatling gun for particularly annoying monsters, a light sabre or Chewbacca’s bowcaster.

• The Bowman triplets fight, each other, monsters, everyone they come in contact with it seems, did you draw from your own childhood when creating these boys?

Absolutely! My sister and I fought like cats and dogs all the time when we were growing up in the country. She’d try to kidnap my Star Wars figures for tea parties and I’d rip off the heads of her Barbies. I’m amazed at how many books have siblings who love each other and are rosy-cheeked - that’s a work of fiction if I’ve ever seen one! Michael, Samantha and Luke are normal kids who go stir-crazy at school, at home and across the universe.

• You seem to be able to get reluctant readers to pick up your books, what’s your secret?

Treat teenagers as adults. Don’t look down to them – especially in storytelling. I think it’s also important that characters shouldn’t be superhuman. In fact, they should be flawed and vunerable and not sure of themselves. Another thing that annoys me is writers thinking that teenagers are only driven by sex. They’re meat. They’re a buzz of hormones. They’re walking movie cliches. However, many teenagers I talk to are creative, insightful, passionate, inspired and funny.

• What advice do you have for teens trying to write their first novel?

First, keep a diary. Both girls and guys. Your teenage years start to disappear from memory once you’re out of school, because you don’t want to remember all the embarrassing stuff. However, all the embarrassing stuff makes great fodder for stories. Second, get into the habit of listening to conversations on the bus, at school and at McDonald’s. Be a spy. You’ll hear the weirdest and funniest things. Third, and most importantly, grammar has little to do with it. Novelists are storytellers. Start collecting stories from your own life and those around you. Retell these stories to see what people enjoy or hate. Think of pranks, your worst day, your funniest moment, what’s the story behind your name, how did your parents meet etc. Be a bower bird.

I’ve just got back from seeing The Time Traveler’s Wife, so I thought I would post about time travel today.

I enjoyed the movie: it was sweet, it featured a whole lot of Eric Bana (and I’d never complain about that) and it dealt with the time travel issue in interesting ways.  (I always thought it strange that the time travellers wouldn’t take advantage of knowing the future to make life more comfortable…but Henry had no such scruples).

There were some plot holes that stood out to me…why did Henry never vanish when he was in front of  a whole crowd of people?  That really would have caused some chaos in their lives.

Perhaps I need to read the book. I did start it a while ago, but I guess I just wasn’t in the mood for time travel at the time because I didn’t get too far into it.

But seriously…how annoying would it be to have a hubby that just vanished like that (especially on your wedding night!)  Honey, can you put the garbage out? Guess not, he’s gone back to visit me as a kid instead.  Very convenient alibi for hubby though!

There are a couple of other classic time travel movies I can think of from my younger years.

The Back to the Future trilogy starring Michael J Fox will always be a favourite, especially Back to the Future 2 where Marty McFly really starts to mess with time.

But my favourite time travel has to be Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

This is just sheer fun and great escapism.

Party on Dudes!  Keanu didn’t have to have any acting ability in that one – he just played a dude.

So I’ve been thinking about where I’d time travel to.  Of course, I’d like to see Ancient Egypt and other ancient lands but that would be more of a ‘fly on the wall’ type thing. I wouldn’t want to be suddenly thrust into the time with 21st century clothing (or worse! no clothing) on.

No, my time travel desire is more personal. I would like to travel to 30 September, 1967. I’d like to be a guest at my parent’s wedding and meet my father. One of the most touching scenes in Time Traveler’s Wife was when he met his daughter for the first time, and that was the first bit that I choked up in. Because it was very personal for me and touched on my own desire.  As my father died when I was two years old, I never knew him. It would be great to meet him and it would also be great to meet my mum again.

What about you? What are your favourite time travel movies/stories? And where would you time travel to?

It seems like ages since I’ve posted on We love YA…… that’s because it is ages. I’d like to tell you it’s because I’ve been writing up a storm and the day job is  running me ragged. So, that is partially true, but my other problem is I suffer from the writers curse…… procrastination.

My writing to do list can be as long as you like but still I find every conceivable excuse to do something else instead. Even ironing!!!!!

When I’m in bed at night I make all these grand plans….. outline a new book, blog (on all three blogs I’m part of), research….. you name it, I plan it. Then some time between making plans and getting up the next day the procrastinating bug attacks……

Does anyone else suffer? And what do you do about it?

How providential that today, Friday the 13th, happens to be the draw date for our BEATLE MEETS DESTINY competition! I totally didn’t plan that. Thanks to all who commented on last week’s blog post.

My magnificent black cat, Pinklepurr, took time out of his busy napping schedule to randomly draw a winner. And that person is…

..Llehn!

Congrats, Llehn! Please email your postal address to ness (at) vanessa.barneveld (dot) com and I’ll send the book to you asap. And, everyone, please give Pinklepurr a cyber pat for helping out today.

Speaking of Friday the 13th, what’s the luckiest or unluckiest thing that’s ever happened to you?

I’ll start. UNLUCKIEST THING? Tumbling all the way down a big set of stairs on my first date with a gorgeous guy. You could say I fell for him. Love was the last thing on my mind as I lay sprawled at the bottom of the stairs with my dress hiked up to my chin. LUCKIEST THING? The same gorgeous guy asked me to marry him. Sure, it only took him 10 years, but at least by then I had emotionally and physically recovered from that spontaneous stunt.

So these days it’s hard to go on the internet in November and not hear about Nano (National November Writing Month) - which is, in a nutshell, a call to action for all writers. It urges them to abandon their procastinating ways and to actually write a book in a month.

Well,  I’m not going to lie, I’ve written a lot of books in under four weeks, but for some reason, I can never manage it in November. Perhaps it’s just the weather? A flashback to exams? A dislike of months beginning with N? I honestly don’t know, but for whatever the reason, every year I sign up to do Nano and every year come December I’ve only managed to write a pittance of words.

So, this year, because I do actually want to get a book written this month, I decided to trick myself by NOT signing up to Nano but still trying to get my book finished (and started). But do you think I could fool myself? Er, that would be a big, fat NO.

In fact, my subconscious was onto it immediately. At first it was being quite co-operative and then it suddenly stopped and sniffed the air before folding its arms and glaring at me (what? your subconscious doesn’t glare at you? Well, lucky, lucky you!).

So anyway, after a lot of sniffing, arm folding and glaring it shook its subconscious head and informed me that just because it was the place that had invented my books about dead girls getting kicked out of heaven and about zombies trying to eat the prom queen, I wasn’t to be thinking it was stupid and NO WAY was it writing a whole book in November.

So, once again, my nano (and my non-nano) is a bust. Still, at leat the book is started and I’m pretty sure it will be finished before Christmas  but it would’ve been nicer to have it done in the next two or so weeks. Though, interestingly enough both of my nano failures have gone on to become real life books.

I started Fairy Bad Day two years ago and it will be coming out with Puffin in Spring 2011 and last year I started my untitled Djinn book which will be the first in my mid-grade series, again coming out with Puffin in Summer 2011.

So what about everyone else? Do we have some nano-goers in the crowd? How is it working out for you (and if it’s going good, then don’t worry because my anti-november thing isn’t catchy!!)

Today’s guest is Aussie author Kathy Charles with her new book “Hollywood Ending”.

• You were the recipient of a Varuna scholarship with Peter Bishop, can you tell us a little of how that helped you develop as a writer? Would you recommend it to others?

I was fortunate enough to be a recipient of the Varuna Harper Collins Award for Manuscript Development in 2007, however the novel I was working on at the time was ultimately never published. Staying at Varuna gave me the validation I was desperately craving, that someone felt like my writing might actually go somewhere and was worth investing time and effort in. Varuna also has a fantastic reputation, and got my work looked at by more people in the publishing industry. One of the best aspects of staying at Varuna is being given the opportunity to become part of the Alumni program. The Alumni community are so generous and supportive and run a fantastic blog site that I recommend to all writers (http://varunathewritershouse.wordpress.com/).

* Your story is quite dark at times, and follows two characters who have an obsession with hollywood stars (the dead kind), have you ever stalked a dead celebrity like they do? Or if you haven’t who would you stalk if you could? (promise we won’t tell the authorities)

I have a bit of an obsession with John Belushi, who died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont in 1982. John Belushi was a famous comedian who started his career on Saturday Night Live, then went on to star in films like Animal House and The Blues Brothers. He was going to play the Bill Murray role in Ghostbusters when he died, and it’s rumored that the character of ‘Slimer’ was largely modeled on Belushi and his hard-partying ways. On my last trip to LA I got to see the room at the Chateau Marmont where he died, and in ‘Hollywood Ending’ the characters have a party in this room in Belushi’s honor. He was only thirty-three when he died, and his death had a massive effect on a generation who had grown to idolize him.

* Hank and Hilda hit it off as if they were old friends, which at first seemed strange because most teens I know aren’t at ease around the elderly, the friendship they form is refreshing where did your

Taken from The Age newspaper

inspiration come from?

I’ve always been interested in tales of ‘unlikely’ friendships: relationships between two people who on the surface appear to have nothing in common but end up connecting on a deeper level. One of my favorite movies is ‘Harold & Maude’, a love story about a teenage boy and a woman in her 80s. ‘Ghost World’ is another movie that features an unlikely friendship between a teen girl who is into punk and a man twice her age who collects gospel records. Hank and Hilda at first glance have little in common, but as the story goes on we discover they are both harboring terrible secrets about their pasts, and are desperate to connect with someone who understands their pain. There is a need in human beings to connect that transcends gender and age.

* Do you ever act out any scenes as you are writing them just to see if they add up? Which would be your favorite scene to do if you haven’t?

I work in the film industry so I often visualize my novels as movies, complete with opening credits and a soundtrack. I’ve actually visited many of the locations mentioned in ‘Hollywood Ending’, like the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, Marilyn Monroe’s crypt, and the site of the Twilight Zone Movie accident. In the novel Hank and Hilda go to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to watch a movie, something I have never done before but would love to do. They run movies there during the summer and people bring blankets and fold-out chairs and sit amongst the gravestones, watching horror movies like The Shining and Suspiria. It sounds creepy but it’s meant to be a lot of fun.

* What advice would you give teens who are in the middle of writing their first Great Australian Literary debut novel?

Write what you are passionate about. Writing a novel takes a very long time and an enormous amount of dedication, and you have to live with that same story for months, even years. If you are successful in having your novel published, that story will be with you forever, so it’s important that whatever you write about is important to you. Don’t try to write what you think will get you published or what the latest trends are. Vampire novels might be hot at the moment but that could all change tomorrow. A lot of people thought I was really weird for writing about dead celebrities, but it’s an area I am really passionate about, and since ‘Hollywood Ending’ came out I’ve found plenty of like-minded people who are fascinated by exactly the same thing (there are still plenty of people who think I’m weird, though!).

* How has becoming a published author changed you?

When you’re unpublished you think if you could just get that one book published everything in your life will finally be okay. Then, when your book is published, you find a whole heap of other things to worry about, like if it’s selling well, if the stores are stocking it, how much publicity you are getting etc. You get to a point where it all becomes a bit overwhelming, and that’s when you realize that all that stuff doesn’t really matter, that it’s the actual process of writing that’s important and enjoyable. I’m starting to rediscover that joy again, but for a while I was really distracted by things that were superfluous.

* What story are you working on now?

I’m working on a manuscript about people who collect serial killer art, then after that, I don’t know. I’m eager to start writing in a different medium, perhaps a screenplay. I like the idea that in a feature film your characters can come to life in a way they don’t on the page. I’d love to write something in the horror genre, but I’d also love to write something about rock n roll mythology. But I’m still in that dreamy state where I’m waiting for the story to come along and convince me it has to be written. Until then I’ll just space out in front of Beatles Rockband.

Thanks so much for being part of our blog today. Kathy’s book is available at all good book stores.