Love, Leigh

Take a winter walk in the woods with Lizziebelle. You're welcome. ;-)

I love these days between Christmas and New Year's. I get to spend more time at home than usual. The trees are bare, the woods are quiet, the December light is pure. Yet the world is still dressed up in holiday finery. I share this affection for holiday finery with my character Julia in The Secret Year. As she says, "I love the lights and decorations, the red and gold and glitter. I've always hated it when they tear everything down in January, when everything goes gray and white again."

This December has been more than usually eventful, in good ways and bad. I'm looking forward to the peace of the coming week, and more hours spent with my current writing project. The Secret Year goes out into the world in just 11 days. In the meantime, I'm doing what I can, which is to write something new.

Whew! Another Christmas comes and goes. I was saying to my Mom that we should celebrate every second or third year. So much work!

Anyhow...my parents came and there were lots of great holiday moments...ones like this:



Superson is obvs a big fan of Star Wars/Clone Wars.

My parents brought my sister's dog, Mya, so our dog Meeko had a blast, too. The dog came because sister and her family of three beautiful teenage daughters spent Christmas ON THE BEACH! Note to self. Plan Christmas on beach soon.
Mya's version of Christmas exhaustion:


We tobogganed, went to church, ate lots of food with the other set of grandparents on Christmas day, took the dogs for walks and to top it off went to see Avatar. What a great movie!!

I have some books to settle down with over the next week, plus I got a Kindle, so will try out reading Shiver on that!

Also have some writing planned and some exercise and then it's back to real life in another week!

Happy Holidays! Hope everyone enjoys some R&R over the next week!!

Sheer buzz compelled me to buy Beautiful Creatures, even though I usually refrain from buying new hardcovers and often shy away from bestsellers, having quirky tastes. This book, however, did not disappoint. Rather, it has cemented in my mind what I now consider one of the unfailing, essential truths of its genre: good fantasy isn't about the magical, but the mundane.

What do I mean by that? Think about it. When you read fantasy, particularly that set in the modern world, you expect a balance between the normal and the paranormal. But it's more than that. Too many boring grocery-shopping and tooth-brushing scenes, and the reader chucks the book against the wall. Too many arbitrary rules of magic and weirdly random creatures, and the reader stops caring. The key, I believe, is when the fantastic abstracts and amplifies the ordinary. In a nutshell, fantasy is one big metaphor that allows us to feel our ordinary lives more vividly. Beautiful Creatures demonstrates this brilliantly.

What I love most about this book: not the magic, curses, and creatures, but the way the authors detail the small-town life of Gatlin, South Carolina, right down to the gravy and biscuits Amma cooks, the way everyone in Gatlin talks about the Civil War as if it happened yesterday, and the yearning Ethan feels to escape this Southern tradition and small-mindedness. Amma's cooking ability is echoed by her ability to cook up voodoo; the Civil War, by ancient conflicts between the magical families of Casters; the small-mindedness, by the way people treat the clearly different, magically gifted girl Lena.

Reading this book is like eating a layer cake. You get a big bite of real Southern life, then a taste of magic that isn't overwhelmingly strong or sweet. These two flavors perfectly complement each other. Take out the magic, and you would still have a good novel, but perhaps not a great one. Take out the mundane, and the magic wouldn't have nearly the same resonance. The whole effect is of an expertly crafted metaphor about love overcoming prejudice, and whether your past determines your future. All mixed up in one batch of Southern Gothic.

I won't go into much of the plot, since it's a long book and most of the fun comes from discovering all its secrets. I will, however, highly recommend you try a taste of Beautiful Creatures. I found it delicious.

Originally published at KarenKincy.com.

Here is what “Santa” brought me:

A puppy who likes to pee on my floor and chew my moldings and jump off the back of my couch like SuperPup. But she’s a sweet little shelter dog, so we’re working on it.

Some CDs.

Lots of gift cards (which is awesome because I have muchos libros to buy).

Some clothes (including a great black sweater from my aunt and a black coat from my grandma, both of which I’ve been wearing non-stop, minus laundry day. Because black is my favorite color and they know me so well.) A black belt (not the karate kind) and a black purse from my mom.

Some makeup and jewelry, etc. A great new wallet.

The Twilight Game.

And even though the guy I’m sorta married to but not allowed to talk about online and I had a spending limit for each other, he totally blew it by buying me a new laptop.

I’m so spoiled.

How about you? What did you get for Christmas?

But man, I just got splattered all over the walls trying to heal a PUG 25-man Ony. Ug. Lee.

Originally published at MSUFaL. You can comment here or there.

Thank you to everyone who participated in my blog challenge to benefit Heifer International. Thanks to you, I ended up donating $60. Some of the challenges are still ongoing, so please stop by Nathan Bransford's blog if you haven't already, to click through the links and leave comments on the participating blogs.

I must say, participating in the challenge and giving and receiving those lovely comments really helped put me in the Christmas spirit.


Today, if you're in a humorous mood, I suggest Karen Healey's post, "Back away from the novelist, buddy," for a look at what it's like to have your family members read your work through copy-editor spectacles.

If you're more into homemade cookies and holiday wishes, see Lisa Schroeder's Little Corner of the Internet.

If you'd like to watch the new Tenners trailer, follow this link.

If you just want to gaze at a pretty picture, here you go:


Wishing you peace and joy in the coming days, however you spend them.

Taking a break from the Christmas Eve dash for some eggnog lattes. YUM. Here's the recipe if you want to try. Have a fabulous holiday everyone!!!

I never make New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because I’m bad at it. It’s hard for me to tell the difference between what I want and what I can actually achieve on my own. (Resolution 1: Sell a new book this year.)

And though I thrive on writing deadlines, life deadlines just make me anxious. (Resolution 2: Get to 2 miles on the walky-steppy thing at the gym.) Instead of chopping my life up into specific things to do this year (Resolution 3: figure out Grandma’s fried chicken recipe once and for all,) I keep an everyday resolution, which is:

Keep going.

It applies to everything. To writing, to family, to hard times, to the walky-steppy thing at the gym- I’m okay as long as I keep going. And there are some years when this is harder than others. But I find it encouraging when things are going great- all right, yeah, this is awesome! Keep going! and inspirational when things suck- I may well die from all this, but glar, to spite the universe, I’m going to keep going!

Everything else is dreaming- I want to sell another book, I want to find out what that thing at the gym is really called, I want to actually make my Wee’s Halloween costume this year- and if dreams come true, it’s fantastic. But if they don’t, I haven’t failed. I’m disappointed, but it’s okay- I just keep going.

So this December, I wish you all the best of luck on your resolutions. I can’t wait to see you guys mark them off! And until you can mark them off, I wish you good luck and hope that no matter what, you’ll also keep going.

Originally published at MSUFaL. You can comment here or there.

Remember our library-lovin' blog challenge? (I included the link just in case you don't!) My agent, Nathan Bransford, is currently running a similar challenge to benefit Heifer International.

The challenge is today-only, and this is impromptu, but I'm joining in. I'll also donate $1 per comment on my blog for the first 50 unique commenters (no 50 comments from the same person!).
EDITED TO ADD: Since I exceeded my goal in the allotted time, I decided to give $1 per comment for ALL the comments, and then round up. So you inspired me to donate $60 total! Which I did through Patrick Rothfuss's Team Heifer page, where there was a matching donation.

My challenge is now closed, but several people are still raising money, so you can still help!
This costs you nothing. If the spirit moves you, please do any or all of the following:

Go to Nathan's blog (I provided the link above); his own comment challenge is closed, but he has the list of all the other participating blogs, many of whom will have their challenges open for days to come.
Visit those other blogs listed at his post and leave comments there. Make them donate too! You have the power! ;-D
If you're still inspired to do more, spread the word about this via Twitter, Facebook, and whatever magical elves you may know who spread information.

This also won't be the last challenge you see from me: I'm planning to do a mini-library-challenge during my launch week in January, and then we'll reprise the big library-lovin' blog challenge later in the spring.

It’s been a busy week and it’s just going to get busier, but that’s all part of the fun. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday, whatever you celebrate, filled with family and friends and good food!

And a special thank you to those who are giving GIVE UP THE GHOST under the tree (or however you do your gifting)! Even Cass appreciates a little holiday cheer.

Originally published at Megan Crewe - another world, not quite ours. You can comment here or there.

If no man is an island, then our characters shouldn't be islands, either.

There are exceptions. It is possible to write an entire book with only one character. But what a challenge--and that character had better be doing something reeeeallly interesting, like making a major scientific discovery or fighting a killer storm or canoeing through a wilderness full of adventure. Even then, inanimate objects or forces of nature are likely to function as characters.

Most of the time, we will have multiple characters in our stories. These can be allies, antagonists, love interests, rivals. They can serve multiple roles: the best friend who at first aids but then betrays the main character; the villain who unexpectedly helps the hero. Their presence should help or hinder the main character in some way (if the character serves only a neutral role, why have her at all?), but the secondary characters' lives should not revolve entirely around the MC.

Every secondary character has his own life, in which his own wants and needs are central, even if the MC is very important to him. We don't need to see all of those wants and needs and prejudices and preferences of the secondary character, but the character's actions should always be consistent with that background information. When we ask what the MC wants, it's a good idea to ask what the secondary characters want, too.

Thank you all for the warm and sympathetic response to my last post. I'll continue to thank people individually for their comments, but what I want to say now is that this is what writing is for me: the communication that sparks recognition, that forges a link between people. That "me, too" moment. So many people have said variations on this: I know what you mean; I'm going through that, too; it happened to me. It's one of the things I seek from reading, and what I hope to bring to my writing: the recognition of our common humanity, the feeling that we're not quite so alone.

Originally published at MSUFaL. You can comment here or there.

At one of the Christmas parties I attended this weekend, I asked a friend if she was ready for Christmas - all the gifts bought and wrapped? She answered that Santa doesn't wrap any gifts so she was done. Really? ALL the gifts are unwrapped? Interesting. When I was growing up big gifts like a dollhouse or a bike were unwrapped but the smaller gifts were packaged up and tied with a bow. Isn't that half the fun of Christmas - the anticipation - what's in this next package?

I asked my husband and turns out Santa didn't wrap much for him in his household either...so I wonder, does Santa wrap gifts under your tree?

This weekend, I’ve been mourning the sudden death of a good friend. I’ve been debating whether to blog about this, since this blog is largely about writing and I tend not to say much about my personal life. Also, I have found the greatest consolation in talking about this with the people who also knew my friend.

But writing is inextricably bound with the emotions that make us human. I have been finding solace in my writing—in what I have already written and what I am writing now. I’ve even found myself turning to the pages of my own book, which is in part about grief and loss—the loss of a different kind of relationship, to be sure, but still loss. I remember that one of my early critiquers questioned this passage:

“I knew then. But some part of me didn’t believe it, and in the days after that I kept waiting for more information, waiting for the story to change. Even when everybody knew she was dead, when the obituary came out and the funeral was scheduled, I kept expecting to see her ...”

Would the character, asked my critiquer, really be in such denial? I didn’t hesitate to say yes, having experienced it with other losses, and I’ve been living the truth of it all over again. I have been going in and out of that same denial all weekend.

This is one reason I read, and one reason I write: to share the emotions and experiences common to all of us.

My friend was one of those people who brought joy to everyone who knew her, the kind of person who’s always giving, and doing for others, and thinking of others. She was at my wedding, and we shared walks and birthday celebrations and countless other occasions. She cheered on my writing career; she took care of my cat when I was away. That joy is my other consolation: having given so much of it to all of us, she would not want us to throw it away. So I feel cheated to have lost her and lucky to have known her, both at the same time.

One of my favorite books to read when it snows: The Centaur, by John Updike (because of the big snowstorm at the end).

"This discovery is ever surprising, that Heaven can so prettily condescend. Snow puts us with Jupiter Pluvius among the clouds. What a crowd! What a crowd of tiny flakes sputters downward in the sallow realm of the light above the entrance door! Atoms and atoms and atoms and atoms. A furry inch already carpets the steps."

"The storm walks. The storm walks but does not move on."

"Peter had forgotten what snow is. It is an immense whispering whose throat seems to be now here, now there. He looks at the sky and it answers his eyes with a mauve, a lilac, a muffled yellow-pearl. ... Wherever he looks, now that his eyes are attuned to its frequency, there is this vibration. The town and all its houses are besieged by a murmuring multitude."

I'd forgotten how much repetition Updike uses. I like it, both for the emphasis and the prose rhythm. But these snippets are just tiny bits of from a novel that is one of my all-time favorites.

Some quotations I find compelling:

"Sometimes if there's a book you really want to read, you have to write it yourself."
--Ann Patchett, "Why Not Put Off Till Tomorrow the Novel You Could Begin Today?" Writers [on Writing] Volume II: More Collected Essays from the New York Times

"I think there’s an innate dangerous quality to the human psyche that makes us doubt ourselves if we feel like we are doing something 'different'. But seriously, we need to get over that instinct because we are ALL doing something different.
So that’s my resolution: no guilt over writing the way I need to write."
--Deva Fagan, in her blog post here

Because it’s the season of holidays and gifting.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman – The alethiometer the Master gives to Lyra guides her on an adventure more treacherous than she ever imagined.

Lost It by Kristen Tracy – Tess hoped her Christmas present for her boyfriend would keep her on his mind, but instead it reveals an inadvertent lie.

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner – An unwanted gift of a pair of earrings becomes the key to deciding two wars — one of politics, the other of the heart.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – The burnt loaf of bread Peeta offered kept Katniss’s family from starving, and ties her to him even when she tries to stand alone.

Nation by Terry Pratchett – It was meant as an act of self-defense, but the gun Daphne holds out and Mau accepts becomes the beginning of tragedy-defying bond.

Originally published at Megan Crewe - another world, not quite ours. You can comment here or there.

1. I should be at work already. I have so much to do. So many toys to put out at so many stores. Leaving soon...

2. Christmas is in exactly one week and I have to clean my entire house and wrap presents and cook and shop and and and...... how about you??

3. I bought my very first Ellen Hopkins book. For some reason I have put off reading her books but finally felt the time was about right. I have a nice stash of books to keep my company over the holidays.

4. Want to see some movies over the holidays, too. Blind Side. Any good recommendations on new movies? Or classic old ones. Girl Flicks. Tear jerkers. That's what I'm in the mood for. I get enough testosterone movies with hub and Superson.

5. Ever chomp your lip or cheeks in your sleep. I took a big chomp from the inside of my cheek yesterday. Hursts. Anyhow, feeling guilty and must go to work now. See number one!

Happy Almost Christmas/Holidays!

It’s a pleasure to be part of Cynthia Leitich Smith’s debut author series, NEW VOICES, today! Find out where Shadowed Summer came from, what books I loved growing up, and how I approach marketing for my own novels! It’s all right here.

Originally published at MSUFaL. You can comment here or there.