There are a couple of tropes that have long bothered me--not necessarily in each instance of their use, but I wish those uses were less frequent. One is the character whose unrequited love persists for decades; the character forgoes all other chances at happiness and clings to the love that can never be. Now, this story line can be done well, and it has been ... but in real life more often than not, people get over it. Even if they carry a small torch somewhere in the backs of their minds for a lost love, they still find new relationships and happiness. As my friend Kelly Fineman has pointed out, Jane Austen knew this--her Rakes who Didn't Get the Girl did not pine away for the heroines forever. Mostly, they married others and had lives of their own. I find the unrequited love especially annoying when it's a minor character who seems to exist solely for the purpose of having a futile crush on the main character (and sometimes, to cheer on the main character's successful union with the main love interest).

The other pattern I dislike is the one where only the main couple in a story gets to have a love life, and all the minor characters are window dressing with no romances of their own. One reason I liked the TV show The Office was that the secondary characters, like Phyllis and Erin and Angela and Oscar, got to have their own love lives. (Although it bothered me that Toby ended up falling into the other trope, with an endless unrequited crush on Pam.) The rounded secondary characters in that show delighted me, and I've always wanted to recommend it to writers for that reason (and now the show is ending. But hey, it lives on in syndication.)

In reality, we're all the stars of our own dramas, and not likely to sacrifice our love and all our hopes and dreams to the interests of some other "main character." In our own minds, we're the main characters. Every side character in a story is the main character of his own life, and his actions should happen accordingly. If he helps or hinders the story's main character, it should be because his own interests happen to intersect (or conflict) with the main character's interests.

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Courtesy of the creek walk near the library...on a beautiful spring day. :) Happy Memorial Day weekend all! (Any relaxing and/or fun plans?)

I used to write terrible books all the time.

I've talked about this before, my terribleness. I have even posted some of my terribleness on the internet. By the time I went to college, I had over thirty manuscripts in various stages of finishedness laying around my house and ancient computers and word processors.

Terrible manuscripts.

I wrote novels about talking dogs, missing unicorns, IRA men with hearts of gold, enchanters with hearts of gold, missing dogs, missing IRA men, kids in suburbia who were secretly kings and queens, fairies who were secretly kids in suburbia, missing kids and fairies in suburbia . . .

Terrible. They were all terrible.

But like I said. I've talked about all of this before. I wrote a lot of terrible books. Today, however, in honor of Entertainment Weekly sharing the prologue of The Dream Thieves, I am going to share with you a very particular terrible book from my teens.

The Dream Thieves.

Well, it wasn't called that, back then. It was called The Llewellyn Society. And Gansey was an old man. And Ronan was named Sean. And Noah was named Adam. But it was the same. Mostly. Sort of. Except that I wrote this version longhand. Oh, and it was terrible.



Here are some more terrible bits that sort of stayed the same in the real version, only I made them less terrible.





And a typed version from a few months later:



And like I said. Here is the prologue of the real version, and an interview, over at Entertainment Weekly.

I hope you find it not terrible.

(And as a reminder, you can pre-order a signed and painted in version of it over at Fountain Bookstore)

(and here is what I am painting in each of them:
)

It's a misty, quiet morning (isn't that a song?), and I finished up all my school responsibilities (until the last day, which is one week from today) yesterday. I'm not sure what to do with my time now (ha). I have a list of organizational things which need to be done around the house (a loooong list). The kiddos and I talked about our plans for the summer (the 'schedule' we'll follow), and they're kind of excited, I think. Of course, part of the excitement is simply being on break -- yay!

During the week, I try to follow a similar schedule to the kiddos'. Since I'm having them spend time in reading/writing/math and music, I'll do the same. Maybe I'll actually learn something about the guitar this summer (or maybe I'll just play around on the piano, like I did last summer). I'll definitely use the reading/math/writing time to both read and write (well, let's hope). We'll also be outside for part of each day, playing tennis or basketball or going on a hike. Just like a school day, we stop around 3-ish, and they get 'free' time. ;) It worked pretty well last year, so I'm excited to spend time with them again.

We don't have any weekend plans (yet), though we are heading to Glenwood Springs to visit some caves (E is very excited -- her 'passion' project was on caves) and take a cool hike near there.

So, for any of you who also have charge of kiddos during the summer break, what types of things do you do to keep everyone busy and relatively happy? :)

I've always loved the "Author Insight" feature at the Wastepaper Prose blog. This week's question is "How do you make yourself write when you aren't in the mood?" The answers ranged from people who take a break and don't force it, to those who push on through, reasoning that this is a job and sometimes you just have days like that.

I've approached it both ways. Part of developing a writing process is knowing when to push through a "block" and when to step back and take a rest. Sometimes reluctance to write is a sign of burnout, but other times it's a sign that we're nearing a scene we need to write that will be emotionally or technically challenging, and sometimes it's a bit of laziness that dissipates once we start writing. Sometimes the subconscious needs more time to work on the story, and other times sitting down at the keyboard is the act that unlocks a new plotline.

I show up almost every day at the keyboard. I usually get at least a few words, often many more. Sometimes I can hear the wheels in my head creaking while the muse strains to come up with something, anything. It's kind of comforting to know that not all writers race to the keyboard and type as if they're taking dictation. I've been reading Sylvia Plath's journals, and she records day after day of struggling, doubting, wondering if she really has what it takes, feeling unmotivated. In other words, sounding like practically every writer I know.

And a bit of dueling titles, dueling type, dueling genres. 

Some of you may remember that I went to the public library in Belmar, NJ on September 29th of last year to read At the Boardwalk at their cute, historic library. I put up a post about the visit. Thirty days later, Hurricane Sandy came ashore, with what used to be the eye passing just over Brigantine, NJ, a bit to the south of Belmar. Towns to the north of the eye were walloped, including Belmar, which lost its entire 1.3 miles of boardwalk to the superstorm.

The town of Belmar started construction on its new boardwalk in January. Today, I was invited by the library to attend the grand opening of the new boardwalk - all 1.3 miles of it have been rebuilt, stronger and better than ever - and to read At the Boardwalk to some of the schoolkids on the beach after the ceremony was complete. (All of the school children from the public and Catholic school in town had been bused to the beach, wearing their "Tougher Than The Storm: Belmar/Belmarvelous" T-shirts.) There on the right you can see Mayor Matt Doherty, Governor Chris Christie, and Senator Bob Menendez cutting the ribbon to make it official.

I was extremely fortunate that my friend John Rowen decided to make the trek from Pennsylvania to take pictures of me during the reading. He did a really great job, and I'm just going to share a few of the photos with you below.


Here I am getting ready to read to the kindergartners on the beach. With an airhorn.



Here's me, reading to the kindergartners. You can see the ocean in the background.


Here I am again, from another angle. That's Liz Cole from Belmar Elementary holding the book.

It was a privilege and an honor to be asked to attend the grand opening of the boardwalk and to share my book with the kids from Belmar Elementary School. My thanks to the good people of Belmar, and to John Rowen, for a really wonderful day.