This Post is Dedicated to...Nobody

 

This is sort of an op-ed piece I decided to write today. I've had this subject on my mind, lately, and being an avid reader, how could I not? I see it so often....

 

Have you ever wondered why authors write those little one-line dedications at the very beginning of their novels? You may very well BE one of those authors dedicating a line to someone you deem special enough to have made writing your entire novel worthwhile.

I don't have anything against authors who like to do this. After all, show me an author who doesn't do this in their books. It'll be hard to find one. But, I personally can't understand why practically every author perpetuates this practice. It seems rather pointless to me. 

Consider that an "Acknowledgments" page gets included in just about every book along with this dedicatory page and I am really left scratching my head. Why bother to write some sentimental line to your dog or your mom when you've just spend a page-and-a-half thanking everybody under the sun you've ever known plus the kitchen sink? It's completely redundant. 

I know--it's a tradition and one that's been around for centuries. I looked it up, although I can't seem to find out why this tradition started. It just seemed to have popped up one day and never looked back.

I promise I won't judge you for keeping this redundacy alive, although you could avoid it by just not writing an Acknowledgments page. You know, pick one and not both! But, even if you insist on doing both, I won't hold it against you. I'm cool with people doing what they feel they have to do and one sentence is hardly anything to lose sleep over. 

But, I don't think I'll be joining this long-standing bandwagon. I feel the need to go against the grain and leave this little one-liner out of my future published novels. Acknowledgments will be plenty, since I see that page as being essential. What book can be made without tons of help from tons of people? But, why should any one person or animal or cosmic phenomenon get the sole dedication for any book I write?

So, what's your take on author dedications? I'm really curious as to what other people, especially authors, actually think of them. I'll admit, I laugh at the funny ones. If it's funny, I might just think it's worthwhile, after all. 

  

Week in Review (#9)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Time for another "Week in Review" post.



Last Week's Writing

I finished revising the 2nd draft of my novella Pink Knight, which took me about 2 weeks in total. I added quite a few more words to it, getting it to around 28,000 words in total. It went well and I added many things that I couldn't think of when I was writing the 1st draft. Writing is rewriting, right?

Last Week's Reading

I finished reading Persuasion by Jane Austen which is a book I'm ashamed to admit took me forever to actually read. I'm a big Jane Austen fan, but I haven't read all of her books, yet. It was pretty good, mostly at the end. I also read Torn by Amanda Hocking and that was much better than I expected it to be. I was seriously impressed. It's the second book in the Trylle Trilogy and Switched was pretty good, but Torn was better. 

I also started reading The Click Moment by Frans Johansson, a book about succeeding in life and business. There's an entire chapter on the random success of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, which I agree completely on. Her success was random as has been many other authors' over the years. The 10,000-hour rule doesn't apply to the book industry, otherwise Twilight would have crashed and burned because Meyer was a very inexperienced writer. The Click Moment is an awesome book about being open to the magic of serendipity and letting it guide you to something amazing in your life, if you let it.

This Week

I'll be doing my 3rd draft revision of Pink Knight and sending it off to my beta readers! I need to add about 1,000 more words to it, though, so I hope that goes well. I need to get it into some sort of decent shape as best I can so my beta readers don't think I'm crazy. 

As for reading, I need to get back to reading The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan. I left it off in order to finish Persuasion, but I'm hearing it kicks some major butt in the second half, so it's something to look forward to. I have an ARC of Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff to get to this week, as well. I love Japanese everything, so I was really excited to get this ARC, but I hear it's a nightmare for people who actually know a thing or two about Japanese culture. I'm scared now because the author, apparently, didn't do any real research into the culture and got quite a few obvious things wrong. We'll see how I react to it.

I also got approved for an ARC of Splintered by A.G. Howard, which is a YA fantasy inspired by Alice in Wonderland. How exciting! It comes out on January 1, 2013. From what I see of early buzz, it's super awesome.


Okay, that's it for me. I hope you've had a great week. Did anyone get their NaNoWriMo novels underway? Good luck with that if you're a participant this year.       

   

Week in Review (#8)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Time for "Week in Review"....


Last Week's Writing

I continued to edit and revise my YA fantasy novella Pink Knight, adding around 1,000 words to the overall word count. It's already reading much better and more detailed. I've been doing my editing from my Kindle because it gives me a different angle to see my writing and the story. Everytime I had left out a word, I noticed it on my Kindle, but couldn't for the life of me see it in my Word document.

There were so many things I either didn't think about putting into the 1st draft, or completely forgot to add them, so this 2nd draft is getting all that much needed extra stuff in there. I was feeling so discouraged about the lack of a potential audience for my novella last week, but I really feel tremendously better about that now that I realize I'll just have to keep writing and keep writing until I write some book series that finally resonates with people. If Pink Knight doesn't work out, something else I'll write in the future will and it's a matter of time until I get it right, provided I don't give up. 

Thanks for all your encouragement about that last week, everyone!

Last Week's Reading

I finished reading The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia and it really left a big impression on me. It's a very unique story and a good commentary on how women are treated in male-dominated cultures. It's so sad to see the robot woman, Mattie, try so hard to obtain her independence just to realize that she only got it because her creator granted it to her. She's a machine, so she doesn't have the natural born right to human freedom. Also, it has a super sad ending that I wish had played out differently. It's my main gripe about the story. 

Still, it was such a great read and it has inspired me to take a novel I had abandoned earlier this year (Ironworks) in a very different direction. I always intended to add cyborgs into that story, but I might just make them more prominent now. I love how the relationship Mattie has with her creator is so utterly strange because none of us can relate to knowing our creator, personally, whoever you believe that creator to be. 

This Week

I'll be finishing up my 2nd draft of Pink Knight and hoping that all my much needed additions help it seem more detailed and interesting. I'm hoping to get my beta readers to critique it in chapter chunks and answer certain questions after each chapter so I can see if the story is staying on-track, or going off the rails. I got the idea from Wired for Story by Lisa Cron and it sounds like a brilliant idea. Read that book if you want to know how to write a proper story.

Otherwise, this week I'll be reading for fun books like Torn by Amanda Hocking (Trylle Trilogy, #2) and The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan. I'm loving The Faerie Guardian!


That's my week. Thanks for reading and for your support. Anyone planning on doing NaNoWriMo in November? If only they had the editing/revising version of that, I might have been able to join.  Good luck to those participating!

      

On Critiquing Manuscripts & Top 3 Books Per Year

I think today's post is just going to be about what I've been doing lately, whether it's truly interesting, or not....

I've been critiquing my writing partner Lan Chan's manuscript (go find her blog over here) and just doing it in my own way, really. I thought if I'm going to take notes while I read each chapter, then why not write out those notes as coherent sentences and give them to her to read as part of my critique? Thus, I've been doing that, and it prevents me from forgetting largely what my notes mean after I'm done writing them. I think it's a good strategy. 

But, boy oh boy is critiquing HARD! Yeah, it is, isn't it? But, I'm so happy to do it because I also love being helpful and giving her input that will make a difference to her story. And, I have to admit that she really is a fabulous new author who writes like a pro already, so she's made my work a lot easier. Thank you for that, Lan!

Sometimes, I do weird things like research and statistics, just for fun. Can't get any nerdier than that, right? Well, lately I've been curious about the trends that have occurred in the book industry in recent years--namely the trend that has vaulted Young Adult literature over the head of everything else. 

I like to read YA literature and write it, although I read and write adult literature, as well. But, I thought it would be interesting to see which new YA sci-fi/fantasy series were the top 3 sellers in each of the past eight years. I can't even explain why I wanted to do this, but it just popped into my head and I went with it. What can I say?

Since there's no existing reliable way to research actual book sales statistics, I had to do my best to extrapolate from such free resources as Amazon.com and Goodreads.com. This is NOT a scientific nor perfectly accurate assessment, but it's as good as anyone else's not working high up in a big publishing house. From Amazon, I looked at current sales rank because past sales rank is not available, and from Goodreads I looked at the number of ratings each title received from members. These indicate books selling (Amazon) and books being read (Goodreads).

What were the results of my unscientificness? These are new series books and do not include sequel titles.



2012 (so far, but the year's not over yet!)

1. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (released yesterday!)
2. The Selection by Kiera Cass (have not read)
3. Cinder by Marissa Meyer (have not read)

2011

1. Divergent by Veronica Roth
2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
3. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (have not read)   

2010

1. Delirium by Lauren Oliver
2. Matched by Ally Condie
3. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

2009

1. Fallen by Lauren Kate
2. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
3. The Maze Runner by James Dashner (have not read)

2008

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Graceling by Kristin Cashore (have not read)
3. Gone by Scott Westerfeld (have not read) 

2007 

1. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
2. Marked by P.C. Cast (have not read)
3. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead (have not read) 

2006 

1. Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz (have not read)
2. Glass Houses by Rachel Caine (have not read)
3. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (have not read) 

2005 

1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (dropped)
2. The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (have not read)
3. Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder (have not read)


I haven't gone back further than this yet, but I plan to. Although, before 2005, YA wasn't selling as well as Middle Grade due to the popularity of the Harry Potter series. But, once Twilight came out in late 2005, it rocked the book world and teen fiction became all the rage for the first time.

I'm really surprised by the Graceling series because I just didn't know it was so popular. It debuted the same year as The Hunger Games, but still did very well, not nearly as distant a second place finisher as I thought it would be. And, I'm shocked by Life As We Knew It doing so well the year it came out in 2006. I decided to buy it on my Kindle because it's only $3 right now! I had no idea it was all that great of a book. 

I intend to read all of these books, even though I've read several of them already, and I pre-ordered Shadow and Bone. I really wonder how that book will hold up during its first 6 months and which 3 books will end up holding those spots when this year comes to a close. 

Stuff like this is so exciting! And, it's a good idea for those of us who write in this genre/reading grade to read the books that impacted in the industry the most from year to year. We can learn so much about the craft and how to write marketable fiction just from these gems out there.