Things I don't understand week- comments at the end of news articles

The Internet is both amazing and evil at the same time.  It's a wonderful way to connect people all around the world. 

It a place where anyone can express his or her opinions.

On the down side, anyone can express his or her opinions.

Whatever, everyone is entiled to them-- that fine.

Expect for news stories.

When Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Gifford was shot over the past weekend, I read about it on-line. I get 99% of my news on-line.

The tragedy was haunting and senseless.

Then I read the comments about the article.

80% were horrifyingly negative, stating things like she desevred it.

I don't know anything about her politics and I don't care.   No one ever deserves that level of violence. No one

The internet makes us forget on the other side of the screen there's a person. 

Let's not forget-- let's be nicer to one another.  Let's get rid of all the internet trolls. 

That's all I have to say. 

Things I Don't Understand Week-Dinosaur mating

Yep I've run out of things to say. 

I knew that was going happen.

I've decided to focus things I simply don't understand.

Right now, as you're reading this, someone is studying dinosaur sex.

You read that right.

So one is trying to figure out the mating patterns of dinosaurs.

The issue is the many dinosaurs are big...really big-- in case you didn't know.  And the physics behind the sex would in fact kill the female dinosaur, if dinos did it in the "traditional" manner. 

Let's stop and discet that sentence...  someone crunched the numbers and figured out the physicis would kill the female dino, IF dinos did it in a so called traditional manner.

Whoever is researching this needs to make a living.  They had to write a grant or a proposal stating they wanted to figure out how brontosauruses bumped and grind.   People are either just giving money away for the hell of it or whoever wrote the grant is a master of persuasion. 

Dinosaurs died over 65 million years ago.

Their mating patterns are not at all relevant to today's world. 

Dinos lived, mated and died and now we have gas... that's what it comes down to.

It's something I just don't understand.

I don't recommend typing dinosaur sex into google images--- my brain will never been the same. 

Snow in Maryland.

Last year we had three blizzards, each dropping over a foot of snow. 

Here's a good picture to show you how much we got in 2010.

That's a lot of snow- and my daughter was trying to steal puffs for a snack. 

Today I have a two hour delay.

This is how much snow we got.  It looks like my deck has dandruff.  


Half the counties had a two hour delay today. 



Can you say overkill?

Why I love writing...

No System At All has been my labor of love for the past three years.  I write a little, get pissed off, spend my self into a deep suckfest spiral and then go back, rewrite, and fall in love again.

I've written before how I sent an epic failure of a query experiance.  It's cool. I've learned SO much and now I'm ready to try again...eventually.  Very soon.  Promise.

The hold up has been I don't trust myself.  I sent my books out to betas to read  I take their feedback and I make the changes.  Sometimes I think "um, no." Most of the times I think, "crap they're totally right." And sometimes I think "Holy crap that's awesome and I need to go off and write....right now!" 


So KO read the lastest draft and pointed out (citing my blog too) that How To Train Your Dragon introduces the conflict and all the main characters without getting bogged down with back story.


No System At All has has a new opening for nearly every draft. 

After reading a suggestion by KO I ran off and wrote this:

There was a rumor floating about the New Jersey suburbs of Princeton that the McCaffrey brothers destroyed lives.  If you were a douche of unspeakable proportions they paid you a visit.  The McCaffrey’s brothers' punishments, or pwnings, were so swift and fitting the douches, or noobs, either changed their ways, moved or went to jail. 

The rumor was true.

Bryce, nineteen, pwned noobz because he had a hazy moral compass. He knew God punished the evil but He took too long.  And he knew for a fact that God stole the good far too quickly. Bryce wanted to live as long as he fucking could.

Colin,  younger brother and  mastermind, pwned noobs because it made his life infinitely easier.  He was an easy target, skipping a grade and being the youngest Senior at Millbrook High School. He worked hard to keep a low profile, avoiding all the social trappings of  High School.  If something came onto his radar it must be bad and worthy of pwnage.  

They had been pwning since elementary school and the meek had finally inherited the school.  Or at the very least, they could walk down the hallways without being harassed.  But this was his senior year and he had a lot of shit on his plate.  The meek would have to take care of themselves, until he got his acceptance letter to Julliard.

So yeah, it might not stick around or it might.  I guess really its up to you guys.

But I write because I love that ahah moment.  That moment where everything clicks.  I love when I can't wait to get to a computer so the words can leak out of my fingers and fill the screen.  

That's why I write. 

Why do you?

Road Trip Wednesday- Best Book of 2010

Here's a list of my FAVORITE books of 2010

I read a lot of books this year--- most of them trendy and cool with lots of buzz.  The Duff, Paranormalcy, If I Stay...  these books were excellent reads and I highly recommend them, but there were a few books I wanted to feature because I enjoyed them more.

 Anna and the French Kiss, and not because I blogged about it yesterday or because it was the most recent book I read.  It was incredible and everyone who read it would agree.  Read yesterday's post for the full review.

Half Life of Planets:
I loved this book- I reviewed it on my blog and e-mail the author.  I loved this book more than Will Grayson Will Grayson.  It's a story told from two POV and one of the character is an boy with Asperger's syndrome.  As a teacher, every year I teach at least one student with  Asperger's syndrome and I never stop to think how they are going to handle their first love. This book touched me on personal and professional level.  And I wasn't the only one who loved this book.

The Ghost and The Goth
100% solid FUN.  Every page 100% fun.  The voices of the two characters were very distinct voices and very different motivations.  The plot was solid.  Will was one of the most interesting characters I've read all year.  I even gave him a Christmas Gift this year.  It is also the nominee for a Best Fiction for Young Adults award (BFYA) through the American Library Association (ALA),

Little Brother
Possibly one of the most important books I've read all year.  The story about a boy who's a techie kid and the government thinks he's a terrorist.  He's not and doesn't become one until the government kidnaps him and goes too far.   It's about friendship and impossible odds.  It raises lots of questions about privacy and safety. 

Perfect Chemistry:

HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT. Did I mention this book is HOT?  A gang member makes a bet he can sleep with the perfect girl in school.  Seriously her rep is that she's perfect.  However once the story goes on, she's not perfect by a long shot.  It reads fast and it's fun and powerfully touching.  I loved this book.

October Sky:
I didn't want to teach it.  I didn't want to read it. I was convinced my students would kill me or complain the board of ed and have me fired.  You know what? I loved it.  I cried at the end.  I whimpered. My students LOVED it- three students finished it in a week.  Before we left on winter break nine students finished the book.  20% of my students finished the book before the class got to page 60.  Nearly 50% of the students were further in the book then we were reading as a class.   The story is about a boy growing up in a West Virgina Coal mining town who decides to build rockets.  It's a wonderfully inspirational story. 


Does this post look shockingly a lot like a post from last week?  YES!!!  Thanks YA Highway for making this EXTREMELY easy for me.  It's like you knew today I was going to be with a computer today.  THANKS!!!!!

Go forth and read-- What are your top books of 2010?

Anna and the French Kiss

I spent my entire winter break either playing with my kid, watching Dino Dan *groan* smelling stinky dog farts, or reading.

Playing with my daughter and reader were the best parts.

I read over five books in 10 days. 

But Anna and the French Kiss was by far the best.

There was buzz about this book for a while.  Almost every blog I read did a review about it.  John Green listed it as one of his favorite things about 2010.


Back over Thanksgiving Break, I turned to my husband and said, "Hey, if your placing an order at amazon, there's a book I want."
My husband places at least 4 orders a month with amazon, 95% of our christmas shopping was done on Amazon.  I knew for a FACT he was going to be placing an order.  He was on the website as I was telling him I wanted Anna and the French Kiss.

Then the waiting started.  Boxes started to arrive, but no Anna. 
Presents were under the tree and wrapped, but no Anna.
More reviews more praises and for the LOVE OF GOD I WANTED TO READ THIS BOOK! But no Anna.
Then FINALLY I SNAPPED. "Babe, did you order my book?  It hasn't come yet and I'm sort of freaking out."
He went to the tree and handed me the wrapped christmas present, "I thought I was going to run short of gifts so I wrapped it instead."
I ripped the paper.  ANNA!  "How long have we had this?"
He shrugged, "About three weeks now."

But I didn't sprint up stairs and read it.  No, I had a library book and several books I needed to read on my fall reading list before I could dive into it.

Totally worth the wait.

So this is how I can tell I LOVE a book. I put it down. I walk away or I lie in my bed.  I ache to write my own book.  I remember the scenes I haven't gotten around to writing yet.   My day dreams lasts for a few more minutes and then I go back to the book.

Good books inspire me to write.

EXCELLENT books make me wish they would never end.  That's why I stop.

Because when I return to them, it's like coming home.  It's like Anna was my best friend and I so desperately wanted to talk to her again.  With every passing page I'm filled with a love and sadness because the book will be over soon and I'll never have the experience of reading it for the first time again. 

I fell in love on page 19.  I almost NEVER directly quote a book, but Stephanie Perkins nailed it.
"If this were a vacation I'm sure I'd be charmed. I'd buy an Eiffel Tower key chain, take pictures of the cobblestones and order a platter of escargot. But I'm not on vacation. I'm here to live and I feel small." 

PERFECT.  Variety of sentence length.  Embodies the typical tourist habits.  Sets up the internal conflict.  And while this experience is strictly Anna's.  Doesn't everyone feel small?

If you haven't read this book, stop what your doing and go order it. 
It's completely worth it. 

New Years Resolution-- Goals

Happy New Years--- belated.

It's Monday, the first Monday most of us are returning to our normal lives.  No more vacations.  No more sleeping in.  Now we have to return to work.  Reality.  Lame.

I'll be honest, I've been struggling on what I can blog about for a while.   It seems like 2010 was a crapfest for most of America-- I thought I was sort of Meh about the whole year,  I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. 

But 2011 it has a special feeling doesn't?  Can you feel the excitiment?  Can you?  Bizillions of new books are coming out.  Even the internet seems hopeful.

I don't do resolutions... mostly because it's a hard word to spell and it makes me think of pixels for some reason. 
I do goals.

Goals are achievible.
Goals you can write down and check off. 


Real life goal:
As always spend more time with the family and be in constant awe of what a cool kid I have. (She really is)
Say at least one nice thing to my hubby a day.  He's a good guy and doesn't get enough credit for it.


Professional goals
Grade papers in a timely manner.
Do at least one TOTALLY new lesson for every unit.
Try to keep my classroom slightly cleaner then it is.

Writing goals
SEND OUT QUERY FOR NO SYSTEM AT ALL-  After 3 years, and like 15 drafts, I finally feel like it's at a place where I can send it out.  I know, I know, I've said it before.  But I'm going to send it out to an agent who nicely requested it and then if that doesn't work out, I'll start to query in March.  I have the newest Guide to Literary Agents, I feel like I have NO REASON not to use it .

Revise New York Karma--- I haven't opened the document in over a year.  I think it's a deep and profound fear I have of rejection as to why I haven't worked on it.  Because then I'd have to query that one too.

Rewrite Penny and Hank--- As my writers group keeps telling me, Hank's voice is wrong and I need to fix it.  So some time in 2011 I'll do it.

Reading Goals

Read AT LEAST two books a month--- after all YA HIGHWAY keeps asking me which book was the best one of the month. 


Most important Goal

HAVE FUN-- everyday.