Yearly archive for 2013

The Key and the Flame by Claire Caterer!

By on April 11, 2013   /   Book Lists  

Today at The Mixed-Up Files we have a bonus post!  We are lucky enough to be included in the blog tour for Claire Caterer’s The Key and the Flame which just released on April 2nd!

the key and the flame

Eleven-year-old Holly Shepard wants nothing more than to seek adventure outside of her humdrum American life. She gets her chance at last when her family travels to England and Holly receives an unusual gift: an iron key that unlocks a passage to the dangerous kingdom of Anglielle, where magic is outlawed and those who practice magic are hunted. When her friend Everett and brother Ben are captured by Anglielle’s ruthless king, Holly must rescue them. But that means finding—and using—the magic within herself and learning which magical allies she can trust. The Key & the Flame is the first in a brand-new fantasy adventure series for ages 8 and up.

 

 

Me:  So where did you get the idea for this awesome book?

Claire:  The idea of trees as sentries and guardians has always resonated with me. Trees are strong, and they inspire a reverence that is central to The Key & the Flame. I was walking in the woods one day and felt that awe wash over me. The story of a great tree serving as the passage to a simpler, less industrialized world came to me quite suddenly out of that experience.

Me:  That’s awesome!  Kind of reminds me of the Ents in Lord of the Rings.  What is your writing day like?  Do you have a routine?

Claire:  My ideal writing routine is to write first thing in the morning, before I check email or social media, when my mind is still a little fuzzy with dreams. Coffee is essential, though. It’s my crutch. But failing that, I have written at any time of day in many settings. Sometimes it’s good to get out of my office and go to a coffee shop or the library. Breaking the routine can spark something new on the page.

Me:   As a mom of three, I can vouch for how much easier it is to write in a cafe!  Speaking of cafes….do you prefer vanilla or chocolate? Cupcakes or Twizzlers? Unicorns and glitter or aliens and slime?  Okay, that one was a little unrelated 😉

Claire:  If it’s ice cream, vanilla. I adore vanilla in all its complexity. But I love candy bars and especially melted chocolate.  I’d take cupcakes over Twizzlers, but I do love all kinds of sweets. I’d steal a Twizzler on my way out the door after eating the cupcake.  I confess, I tend to favor unicorns over aliens, though I go back and forth. But unicorns need some darkness, and aliens need something redemptive, or both get boring.

Me:   With the exception of the vanilla ice cream, my sentiments exactly!  So why middle grade?  Why write for 8-12 year olds?

Claire:  I love middle grade because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Even in the darkest Harry Potter books, there’s a lot of humor. Middle grade is the time of life when you’re reaching, discovering, and becoming, and despite all of that, you’re still hanging on to your ideals—and sometimes, your teddy bear.

Me:  I couldn’t agree more.  Thanks Claire!

The blog tour concludes tomorrow with a chat and a giveaway at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia! Get the full blog tour schedule right here.

claire


Claire M. Caterer was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in the suburbs of Kansas City. A writer from the age of five, Claire has published fiction in Woman’s World magazine as well as in Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines. She holds a degree in French from the University of Kansas and spent several years working in New York publishing. Today she is back in the Kansas City metro area, where she writes full time and shares her home with her husband, daughter, two dogs, and a host of imaginary friends. The Key & the Flame is her first novel.

You can visit Claire’s website or find her on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.  You can purchase The Key and the Flame at Amazon.  

Or….you can win a copy right here on The Mixed-Up Files!

Just enter here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Amie Borst writes twisted middle-grade fairy tales with her very own middle-grader.  Their first book, Cinderskella, releases October 2013.

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Dreams & Beans

By on April 10, 2013   /   Book Lists  

The dream I chase is known as BeAnAD [bean-add]. And no, I’m not counting beans. BeAnAD stands for “Being an Author Dude,” and this pursuit has consumed way too many hours of my life to keep track of.

Reading.

Writing.

More reading.

More writing.

A quick break for writer’s cramp.

Then still more writing. And reading.

City of Ember As the years zip by like a Crisco-coated monkey on a Slip-and-Slide,   I perpetually catch myself “reading like a writer.” I’ll stop to admire an   original simile such as this one from Jeanne Duprau’s The City of Ember:

She pressed a finger against the side of Granny’s throat to feel for her pulse, as the doctor had shown her. It was fluttery, like a moth that has hurt itself and is flapping in crooked circles.

 
Or I’ll pluck that tidbit of setting that effectively paints the mood of a scene such as this excerpt from Gary D. Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars:

I walked home under gray clouds whose undersides had been shredded. They hung in tatters, and a cold mist leaked out of them.

And lately, I’ve given myself some official homework as I study the craft of other writers. I’ve been reading through a variety of children’s books, recording three things for each chapter:

1)      The word-for-word START of the chapter.

2)      A few sentence SUMMARY of the chapter.

3)      The word-for-word END of the chapter.

 The Wednesday Wars

For example, I’m currently going through this start-summary-end process with Ivy and Bean, a chapter book by Annie Barrows. My notes look like this:

 Ivy and Bean Chapter One: No Thanks

START: “Before Bean met Ivy, she didn’t like her.”

SUMMARY: Bean’s mom encourages Bean to go play with Ivy, the new girl across the street. Bean doesn’t want to because she’s convinced Ivy is boring.

END: “So for weeks and weeks, Bean didn’t play with Ivy. But one day something happened that changed her mind.”

Chapter Two: Bean Hatches a Plan

START: “It all began because Bean was playing a trick on her older sister.”

. . .

This start-summary-end look at each chapter helps me create a basic outline for the flow of a story and consider how my own writing might be improved. How does the start of a chapter draw me in and make me want to read on? What sort of conflict and/or action (either major or minor) moves the chapter forward? How does the author use the chapter ending to propel me into the next?

So . . . are you looking for a way to give your writing a boost? Read a children’s book with a pad of paper and a pencil in hand, recording a start-summary-end outline as you go. When you’re done, study it. Consider it. Then create a chapter-by-chapter, start-summary-end outline for your own manuscript, looking for opportunities to strengthen your creation.

My BeAnAD dream may not be worth a hill of beans at this point. But hopefully, that will change one day. And when it does, I may have to stop and thank Ivy and Bean for their help along the way.

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A Girl Called Problem

By on April 9, 2013   /   Giveaways  

Katie Quirk is a woman prone to wanderlust. She’s lived in India for four years,  Tanzania for two, and France for one.  Her debut middle grade novel, “A Girl Called Problem”, is set in Africa and has been getting lovely reviews.

girl problem

From Amazon: Thirteen-year-old Shida, whose name means “problem” in Swahili, certainly has a lot of problems in her life — her father is dead, her depressed mother is rumored to be a witch, her family bears the weight of a curse, and everyone in her rural Tanzanian village expects her to marry rather than pursue her dream of becoming a healer. So when the elders of Litongo make a controversial decision to move Shida’s people to a nearby village, Shida welcomes the change. Surely the opportunity to go to school and learn from a nurse can only mean good things. Nonetheless, mysterious calamities plague Shida’s people after their move. Desperate to stay, Shida must prove to her people that life can be better in their new home.

Katie is giving away two copies of “Problem” to MUF readers. To be eligible to win, please leave a comment below. And thanks, Katie!
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