Ch1 Con // i went to a writing conference and loved it!

This past Saturday (the 6th) was one of the happiest of my life, and a very major reason was that I spent most of the day at Chapter One Young Writers' Conference in St. Charles, a suburb of Chicago. A short summary of why this conference was awesome:

• Published and agented authors giving superb advice!
• Meeting online friends in real life!
• Free books and swag!

Let's start with the advice :-)

First, there was a query writing workshop, led by Christina Li and Patrice Caldwell of the Ch1Con team, and even thought I'm not anywhere near querying yet, I'm filing away all the awesome things I learned in my mental folders (and hopefully it'll still be there when I'm in need of it in a year or two). One of the most useful things I collected at this workshop was: The Hook, The Book, and The Cook. This is a general outline of a query: first, you grab the reader with a one-sentence Hook. Then, you summarize the Book in a paragraph or two. And finally, you talk about yourself, the Cook, in a few final sentences. What a handy outline!

Next, Jordan Villegas, an unpublished but agented author, gave us a general overview about the non-technical aspects of writing. It really helped me feel better about not writing every day when he pointed out that we are not robots of inspiration, churning out stories. Perhaps there's a reason why you aren't producing writing on your slow days - you were experiencing some other aspect of life. After all, you can't write if you haven't lived!

Another one of the most useful things I got out of his talk was his "solar system" analogy when it comes to finding the theme of the novel. A good novel is like a solar system, where the theme is the sun in the center, and the plot points are the planets surrounding it at a good distance. But you have to be careful so the sun doesn't turn into a black hole and suck in the entire novel (the theme is too heavy and overwhelms the story), or so the sun doesn't shrink and allow the planets to float away (the theme is too light and doesn't hold the story down). 

Next, Susan Dennard talked about her path to becoming a writer. I'm currently reading her book Truthwitch so this was perfect timing! She shared many of her own insecurities when it came to feeling valid in the publishing world, which is something so many writers face but you never hear about, and she said that even now, with a bestselling book like Truthwitch, she still faces those same insecurities every day. But one of my favorite things she said was - "There are no expiration dates on dreams." We've got to keep trying because no one gets it right on the first try!

The next talk, by Jennifer Yu, was about finding time to write in college, and was mostly focused on the high-school and younger audience. I agreed with a lot of her advice, since I'm two years into my college adventure, and I'm sure that were I in high school I would have gotten a lot of good advice out of her talk.

The final talk was by Francesca Zappia, whom I forgot to take a picture of. (Ooops.) It was about character building, and super useful! She suggested we draw pictures of our characters, even if we weren't good artists, and that we write out scenes from our characters pasts, even if those scenes didn't end up in the book. 

Finally, there was a panel by all the authors, and here is a photo that I stole from the Ch1Con website. :-)

In addition to meeting these wonderful writers who spoke at the conference, I also got to hang out with people who's faces I only knew from their twitter profile pictures! Here are only a few of those marvelous people:

Brett

Brianna (on our Friday Chicago adventure where I got to play tour guide for a bit :P )

Lily (center) and Katie (Right)

And THEN. I got books signed! I also acquired some ARC's and swag. The most exciting was an ARC of The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart, MG author of The Mysterious Benedict Society series, which my sister and I ADORE.



All in all, it was a fabulous Saturday! I drove the hour long ride home with the windows down and the radio blasting (even on the interstate - ESPECIALLY on the interstate) and I legitimately almost cried because I was so full of happiness. (The gorgeous glowing clouds of afternoon sunlight didn't help either.)

If you are a young writer (as in college age-ish or younger), I HIGHLY suggest you check out Ch1 Con. I am definitely coming back in 2017!

Have you ever been to a writing conference? What's your favorite bit of writing advice?

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

So I wrote this review last month and forgot to post it. Wow, go me.

Anyway, the MOST important thing that I have to say here is:

I met the author!

Look --

The book was lovely, the event was lovely, Sabaa was lovely, everything was lovely. <3

Laia is a slave. 

Elias is a soldier. 

Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

Something to know is that this book was advertised as a standalone. BUT. There is a definite possibility (if the publishers cooperate) that this will be a series. I wish I knew this before reading the book because that ending was a little too open for a standalone, in my opinion. But as series starter, it's totally fine.

My favorite thing about this book is the worldbuilding. It's kind of a mixture of ancient Rome and the ancient middle east, I think, so two thumbs up for not just Western-Europe-Fantasy! I'm always game for some non-medieval-Western-Fantasy. And the depth of this world was just marvelous. I felt totally comfortable in it and such a part of it. I absolutely adore when you can FEEL the world around you - smells and tastes and sounds and everything.

My other favorite thing was the sheer amount of twists in the plot. I literally had NO IDEA what was coming next - anything could happen. Up until the ending, I was entirely unaware of where things could go. This goes for the love triangle/rhombus too... but more on that later.

As I said, the ending kinda disappointed me, but now that I know it's a series, I'm totally cool with it.

My other favorite thing (this whole book is a favorite thing) about this book were the characters. It is told in a dual POV - on one side we have the slave Laia and on the other, the soldier Elias - and their voices were adequately different and understandable.

I found Laia quite a unique character. In these sorts of YA adventures, it's customary to have a heroine who learns to stand up for herself and is badass and heroic and lovely. Which is fine. But seriously, if I was in their shoes, I'd probably curl up in a ball and die. (Seriously, would you survive even the first minute of the Hunger Games? Don't kid yourself. And as much as we appreciate Tris' ability to sacrifice herself over and over again in Divergent - would you?) But Laia is scared. She's feels she has to do something, and save her brother, but she's too scared for her own life to make the right move most of the time.

And frankly, I'm like that too. If a situation comes up where it's asked of me to risk my life to save someone I love - would I? It's a freaky thought, and I hope I'd never have to face it. I wouldn't doubt my desire to save the person - just like Laia so wants to be brave - but I might hesitate just too long and then they're dead. Laia resonated with me so much because I feel like I'd be the exact same in the situations.

Elias is also interesting, but he's more of your traditional YA hero. He has a mindset different from those around him, and is trying to change the way society works. He wants to make the bloody traditions of the soldiers' castle less brutal - and not only less brutal, but completely Good and Ethical. I found his drastically differing opinion a bit of a struggle to believe, since he grew up among these warmongers, so it seems odd that he wouldn't grow up with at least a bit of acceptance of "the way things are." He gets mad at his friend Helene for agreeing with the twisted mindset of their cohorts but - Helene has been trained to think that way. It's her life. It's the only thing she knows.

Where did Elias get this idea that killing people is All Bad, when he grew up in a place that raises people to be killing machines? I get that there's an innate aversion that we are born with when it comes to killing other humans, but it's not all Nature, right? There's Nurture too.

Anyway, that's a minor complaint. Elias is lovely.


Not only did the main characters have requisite depth, all the other surrounding characters had it too. I LOVE THIS. This is authorly skill.

Talking about characters.... the villain was OH SO CREEPY. Those villains that just have 0% concern for human life just freak me out, and she was one of them. But she wasn't shallow and "just evil" either. She had a killer backstory (no pun intended) and I love it. 

Let's talk love rhombus, because - yup - there is one.
Somehow, I don't mind it, though. Usually, when there's a love triangle/square/whatever, I ship people almost immediately and stick with the same ship for the rest of the story. (And, not to brag or anything, but my ships rarely sink. So I will continue with this method.)
BUT. In Ember, I have no extreme-OTP-ohmygawdthey'reperfecttogether. Nope. I still haven't figured out who's best for whom. I LOVE THIS. Since I'm so used to being able to predict who'll end up with whom, I love this unpredictability.

At first I was mad because the ending kinda resolved the rhombus but not really, because two people were left in the corners without a pairing. (Is that a spoiler? I hope not.) But as a series I'm excited to see where this goes. Thumbs up to logical writing out of the love stories and legitimate deep characters which just made it real. There wasn't a "bad boy" vs "nice boy" choice which IS SO REFRESHING. I realized I wasn't rooting for one over the other. I MYSELF WAS CONFLICTED AS MUCH AS THE CHARACTERS WERE. Good job, Sabaa. 

Highly recommended. Go read it now. NOW.

Have you read Ember? What did you think? And what's your opinion on badass heroines? Where do you think the line can be drawn between fearless/awesome and realistic?

Fierce Reads Tour (My First Author Event EVER!)

You may know that Classics were my first love, and will always have a special place in my heart. But the one big problem with Classics is - all the authors are dead. You can't follow them on Twitter, you can't write them fanmail, and they sure as heck won't be going on a book tour anytime soon. (Unless - they come back as zombies. But no.)

This past year or so, I've discovered the beautiful world of YA lit (and a lot of beautiful YA lit bloggers, too!), and through that, I now have a bunch of favorite authors who are very much so alive! That means that I can actually meet them face to face and speak to them and get all nervous about it - how exciting!

So last Friday, when the Fierce Reads tour (with Marissa Meyer!) stopped by at Arlington Heights Library (about 45 minutes from my house), I stole my mother's van and set off.

This was, momentously, my first ever author event, so I was unbearably excited. (Just drive, Sophia. You don't want to get into any car accidents. Focus on the road.) (I made it to the library quite safely.)

Out of the authors at the event, I had only read the books of Marissa Meyer, but I had heard of the others through Twitter and other blogs.
Oh here they are: Jessica Brody, Nikki Kelly, Gennifer Albin, and Marissa Meyer. They all were hilarious.

I had a grand time, bought books and got them signed, and ate cake. Here is what else happened:

1. I met other people who love the same books I love.
It's great to see how many different kinds of people are at events like this. At first I felt out of place because of all the young kids, but then I realized this is YA for heaven's sakes. They are the target audience. I guess in the book blogger community I'm used to older people reading YA, and tend to forget that it's main audience is actually a good bunch of years younger! Ha.
But there were adults too. I sat next to a friendly English teacher who chatted up with everyone she would meet.

2. I met the creator of some of my favorite books. It's so inspirational. That sounds cheesy, but it's true. I have a dream, and these women - not much older than I - are living that same dream. It's possible!
There were three friends behind me in the signing line, and one of their mothers had come along as chauffeur. I over heard the mother say, motioning to the authors, "Girls! Take these as your role models. These are young women who have worked hard to publish books and become successful authors. They should be an inspiration to you."
I wanted to turn around and say, "Pay attention!" to the girls, because they were NOT. And what the mother was saying was the absolute truth!

3. I got some excellent writing advice. Love Q&A. I didn't get to ask any questions of my own, but it's just so wonderful hearing advice and encouragement from other authors. It made me so excited for NaNo!

4. I got books signed! And I got some pretty awesome swag.
Poster signed by all four authors, a blueprint of the Rampion, and some glorious stickers (which will stick on my laptop once I actually get one):

And finally, the books:

The Lunar Chronicles, as the newest additions to my library, get to sit (temporarily) on the shelf of honor.

Though I WAS disappointed that there were no hardcover Cinder's or Scarlet's for sale, because I totally would have bought them. Oh well.
I came home utterly glowing (and safe - no car wrecks on the way home either). I SO want to go to more of these events!

If you want to read an actual logical recap of the event, you can head on over to Polished Page Turners, who transcribed the entire Q&A session.

What author event have you been to lately? Do you remember your first? Or - if you haven't been to an event - whom would you LOVE to meet?

~Sophia