Alright, folks! Judging from the response to the last post, most people are reading my posts over at the blogger, and I don't really need to mirror-post everything here anymore. :)

Feel free to still add me as a friend here; I really do read through my friends feed, and I'm always glad to meet other writers/readers/etc.

Anyway, here's my blogger: http://katacomb.blogspot.com I update Sundays mostly (aka today) and look forward to seeing you there!

Thanks for hanging around :)

Bests,
Kat

 Hey LiveJournal people :)

I've realized over the last couple weeks that I'm really getting the majority of my traffic over at my blogspot, and I dunno if it's worth it to double-post everything over here. Does anyone read my posts here and not at the blogspot? There haven't really been comments, so I'm not sure.

I won't delete my account or anything, because I do use it to keep up with a number of my friends on LJ, but if most people have meandered over to my blogspot, then I'll stop the double-posting. I post every Sunday night or early Monday morning, so the schedule's pretty easy to follow. :)

Thoughts?

Blogspot: http://katacomb.blogspot.com

(and yes, there is an actual new post up over there!)

 I'm too excited to even post this twice >.< Please go here to my blogger for all the details!! 

 Okay, seriously image-heavy post today, so as usual when that happens, I'm going to have to direct you over to my blogspot.

But it's an informative post, I think! If you're querying or planning to query and you don't know the ins and outs of Querytracker.com, you should really check this post out. There are lots of great tools you can use, and for free!

 You may have heard already, but if not, Diana Wynne Jones passed away this past Saturday. Ms. Jones wrote HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE, along with a myriad of other fantasy books for both YA and adult. I’m still waiting to get my hands on THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND, which I’m sure I’ll love as much as her other works.

Sophie Hatter, the heroine of HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE, was one of my favorite book heroines as a kid. I loved her no-nonsense manner and how she reacts to being suddenly transformed from a girl to an old woman :) The book is much more complicated than the Miyazaki movie and definitely worth a read (though I love the movie, too!)

A little while ago, a lot of people were talking about their favorite heroines and what they thought made a strong one. I’m not sure about “strong” heroines, but I know which one was my favorite, in addition to Sophie Hatter!

Lyra Belacqua was literally my hero(ione) as a kid. I wanted to be Lyra! I first read THE GOLDEN COMPASS when I was about eleven, so we were around the same age, and I wanted more than anything to be living in her world with a daemon and running wild in the streets of her Oxford. Lyra was clever and headstrong and a brilliant storyteller, and she inspired other people. She was wonderfully brave and she was a kid with faults and everything, but she helped save the world anyway.

What about you? Which character (hero or heroine!) was your hero as a kid? And if you haven’t read any of Diana Wynne Jones’ books, you should get on it! :)

 So, I've got a few exciting things to announce today :)

First off, HYBRID is on subs! Hooray! I won't get into the details now...maybe in a few weeks once things on that front have calmed down a bit. But I thought some of you, especially those of you who have been around since I first started querying HYBRID, would like to know.

Secondly, I'm participating in Crits for Water, a rather amazing event put on by the even more amazing Kat Brauer (you know someone's cool when they're named Kat! :P). Here's a little about the event in her words:
Sounds really cool, right?? Here's a growing list of authors, agents, and other cool people who are donating critiques you guys can bid for. Yours truly is offering a 5000 word critique, but with the sheer amazingness of the other people on that list, I understand if your bidding goes toward someone else ;P Just remember that ALL the money goes toward helping people in need, so I encourage you to at least take a look and see if you want to participate!

Finally (wow, long post, I know), I've been thinking about offering query critiques here at the Katacomb. What do you guys think? Anyone interested? You guys would send in queries, and I'd critique them and post them, sort of like how we do for Query Week on LTWF. Here's a link in case you'd like to see my query critique style. 

Any who knows...maybe I'll share my query for HYBRID, as well :P

Have you ever caught yourself wondering if maybe your life isn’t real? That out there, somewhere, someone is writing your story and...OMG, it’s a YA novel? Never fear! Just ask yourself if the following statements are true. Then you, too, can know for sure if you’re living in a YA novel world!

1. You have never, in your life, done a group/partner project that didn’t end in drama of some kind.

2. When you’re stranded somewhere, your crush just happens to show up and ask you if you need a ride. Bonus points if his car is something old that he fixed up himself, or something that he got handed down from his father/older brother/uncle that he apologizes for but that you find rather vintage and cute. Super bonus points if he sticks in a CD that you just happen to LOVE and you shout, “Oh, I thought I was the only one in the world who liked ____!” and the two of you Bond.

3. The waitress checks out your crush on your first date. Bonus points if she tries to leave him her number.

4. Your worst enemy likes the same guy. Bonus points if your worst enemy used to be your best friend years and years ago, before you two hit puberty and she went off to be a cheerleader.

5. Your mood swings change the weather. You don’t remember the last time you cried when it wasn’t raining outside.

6. Your parents always seem to ignore whatever you do until it’s convenient to the plot to ground you—I mean, until you’re ABSOLUTELY needed somewhere for something VERY important. (but then, isn’t that real life, too?)

7. If your best friend’s a guy, you’re either together by the end of the book (I mean, um...the end of...um...well, you know what I mean) or he's gay. If your best friend’s a girl, she’s prettier than you are. Bonus points if she’s smarter/more athletic/both, as well.

8. Your grandparents are awesome. And quirky. And probably less conservative than your parents.

9. And finally, you know you live in a YA novel when your life is a constant stream of ups and downs, ups and downs, but you can afford to be completely chill because hey, you know you’ve got a 99.9% chance of everything working out more or less perfectly in the end :)

Do YOU live in a YA novel world?

(PS, please nobody be offended by this, ‘kay? I’m not pointing these things out to make malicious fun, and having these things in your story does not automatically make it stereotypical or cliche. And yes, I’ve used these things in my own stories, as well! :P )

Two weeks in a row :D Okay, this is basically because I've been on a mad HYBRID revisions rampage, and, having just finished tonight (yay!), I celebrated by...writing some more! Oh the joys of being a writer...

This is from a story I've honestly been working out in my head since I was twelve. I've no idea when it'll actually get written down in its entirety, since I seem to enjoy just jotting down bits and pieces of it from time to time that don't really connect or form a coherent plot. Maybe when you read the excerpt below, you'll see why.

Hope your own writing and revising is going well!

~*~

It’s summer, and it’s God-awful hot. Blazing hot—the kind that sends all the locals down to the lake to ease into the cool water, the girls in tiny bikinis and the moms in those big straw hats and the little kids running screaming along the shore, trying to build castles out of the rocky sand like they’re on some kind of beach.

Any other day, they’d be right down there with the rest of them, saying polite hellos to the people they knew (everybody), walking around their usual hang outs, trying to catch minnows with their bare hands. He always catches more than she does. He says it’s because he’s more charismatic. That’s his word of the week, it seems. Charismatic. Heavens only knew where he’d picked it up. He always likes to sound smart.

“You know they say only idiots catch colds in the summer,” she said, jabbing her orange creamsicle at him. He snaps his teeth at it—just a second too late. She jerks her hand back, pulls a face at him, and sticks the creamsicle in her mouth, careful not to let it drip on her white camisole.

His voice is nasally when he talks, his nose is so stuffed up, and she can’t help a smile. “No they don’t.”

“Do too,” she says.

“Do not.”

They’re getting too old now to have arguments like this, but it’s summer and it’s so, so hot, and the creamiscle’s sweet and cool on her tongue. She’s sweating buckets because the air conditioner’s broken at both their houses (“Those kids are so close, even their houses break in sync”), but she’s blissfully happy.

“Move the fan,” he whines. “It’s blowing on me.”

It’s blowing on him because she directed it at herself, and the two of them are sprawled out on the same couch, the two of them just short enough to both fit on it without touching each other. He’s got a blanket and a box of kleenex and she’s got her creamsicle, rapidly melting. A bit drops on her camisole, despite her caution, and she sighs.

“Move the fan,” he says again, and adds extra whine to his voice because he knows it always gets her to do whatever he asks of her. She knows he knows it, and she frowns at him—a teacher frown, he always calls it. So he turns his expression around in a split second, and now he’s laughing at her and she sighs again, finishing off her creamiscle and pushing herself off the couch to head for the fan.

This is the year they are ten, and in the years and years to come, this will be one of the memories that sticks in her head the random way memories sometimes do. She doesn’t recall anything else that happens that day—what they did before they got on that couch or where they went afterwards. She remembers just those moments, the heat, the chill of the fan. His kleenex box. The syrupy sweet of the creamsicle.

The bliss.

Haven't had one in a long while, hm? And since I'm buried under a pile of revisions and midterms and all that jazz, you guys get an excerpt :)

This is from a wip I worked on last summer while I was querying HYBRID. Eventually, I let it go as I realized I'm not the best writer of traditional fantasy. Elements of this story got bundled into my current wip, though, so hopefully another form of this story (less traditional, horse-back-riding-on-a-quest fantasy and more dark, twisted fantasy) will get published someday :D

Again, like almost all the excerpts I post up here, the following is in its unadulterated first draft glory, lol. So forgive any roughness.

Let me know what you think?

~~~

I began my goodbyes with the daffodils because my mother and I had planted them last, before the weakness had sunk into her bones and made it too painful to kneel in the dirt. They bowed their sunshiny heads at me, accepting my farewell without any fuss.

The wisteria were next. These I had planted three years ago, a little after my fourteenth birthday. The purple flowers draped like feathery grapes from their vines, thick and soft to the touch. I walked all around the garden, my home and sanctuary since I’d first walked, and bid goodbye to each flower and shrub. I kept my voice soft, as my mother had taught me, and my touch softer. I closed my eyes and wrapped my fingers around the sun-warmed branch of the dogwood, rubbing my skin against the knobbly bark, and cleared my mind.

But I heard no response.

I’d never heard a response.

Anger reared, fierce and hissing. I snapped the thin branch from its mothertree, destroying it in my hands as the tears fell hot and furiously onto the dirt.

I was a sator, and yet I was not. I had my people’s dark, thick hair, their copper skin, and slight build. I had the ornate, curled symbol of life tattooed in tender leaf green above my ankle—my mother’s own work, done the moment I was old enough to hold still under the needles. I had my mother’s long fingers. I had her smile. Some said I had her laugh.

But I did not have her powers.

I could not make the seedlings push their heads above the soil with a song. My touch did not mend the caterpillar's work, nor ease the blight from a head of corn.

I stared down at the broken branch in my hands.

No, I was not a sator. I did not make things grow.

Instead, I destroyed them.

“Miss Salym?”

Immediately, I threw the branch into the shrubs and rubbed my eyes dry. “Yes?”

The young boy at the door had an unfamiliar face, and he stared, wide-eyed as I drew near, wiping my hands on my skirt.

“T-They say the horse is ready, Miss,” he stammered.

I took one long last look at the garden, trying to imprint it in my memory. I would be back before the year’s end, if I was lucky, but that was months away. I clenched my hand so it didn’t tremble.

“Thank you,” I said. He gave a little half bow, unsure, probably, of how much respect I was actually due. Then he was gone, the door shutting quietly behind him. I’d almost reached it when my back stiffened. Slowly, I turned and stared at the fallen dogwood branch, now tangled in the shrubbery.

Careful, plodding steps brought me back to the tree. I bent down. The branch was light, insubstantial in my hand. I fingered the shattered end, then found the matching wound on the dogwood. Silently, not daring to breathe, I pressed the two ends together. I prayed, willing the snapped fibers to reknit, the bark to smooth over the wound.

Please, Mother. Please, let me be like you.

Then I let go of the branch.

It fell immediately, silently, cutting through the air on its way to the soft soil below. I stared at it without speaking.
Then, closing my eyes, I whirled around and left the garden.

 Hey guys! Today, I’m going to cover a couple of things to watch out for in your writing. These are simply “issues” I’ve encountered while critiquing other people’s mss or while reading sample pages/mss for my internship. Or, heck, even just reading random stories at fictionpress and such online.

1. Over-formality: Of course, this doesn’t really apply so much if you’re writing historical fiction set in Victorian times or something, or for some types of fantasy. But otherwise, making your voice too formal can really throw off a reader. The example I notice the most in stories is use of the word “for.” Not as in “I bought this for her,” of course. As in “I always went to the gym on Monday mornings, for I cared a lot about my figure and my health.” I guess I read mostly YA, so perhaps this isn’t so jarring in adult, but I know no teens who use “for” like that in everyday speech. And for some reason, many writers use “for” like this; it always throws me out of the story for a moment.

2. Broadcasting your characters’ emotions: This is mostly a problem in first person, though it can certainly sound strange in third person as well. It’s just that “Mary was overwhelmed by grief. She had loved him so much, and now his betrayal hurt like nothing else she had experienced. She couldn’t imagine how she would go on” sounds slightly better than “I was overwhelmed by grief. I had loved him so much, and now his betrayal hurt like nothing else I had experienced. I couldn’t imagine how I would go on.”

This is especially true if the character is thinking this while the horrifying event is happening. Contrast the above with “Oh my god. He—He’d what? I sat down. Hard. But yesterday, just yesterday he’d said, and I—Emily? Anybody else, and I might have believed it, but Emily? Hadn’t he always said…always said she...she had that awful hair and I—I sucked in a shuddering breath. No, no. I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t cry. God, no.”

Okay, so that wasn’t exactly Booker Prize winning material, but I think you get my drift. The thing about first person is that you are literally in the head of your character. Unless the story is very clearly told in retrospect, there are few filters between what your character is feeling and what is conveyed to the reader. Your character is not going to be able to clearly and calmly define her feelings seconds after realizing her fiance has cheated on her with her cousin, you know?

3. Omg, teen characters talking, like, majority weird: If you’re writing YA and you haven’t been a teen in a while, don’t hit the “voice” too hard :P Reading YA mss, I’m actually put off a lot more often by YA voices that go overboard with the “likes” and the slang than ones that sound too adult-like. I’m nineteen myself (nearing twenty! Gasp!), so perhaps I don’t have the best perspective on this, but I think it’s better to err on the side of “oh, that protag sounds pretty mature for a teen” than “wow, she sounds...weird…”