Most writers love to read. I’ve noticed through reading, that many characters love to read as well. It must be the book lover in authors.

So my questions to you are: What books do your characters read? Who are their favorite authors? What genre is their favs? What kind of characters do they relate to?

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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Fire Petal Bookstore Tour

Michelle Witte has opened a bookstore for children and teens in Centerville Utah and we would like to offer up our support. Please visit Fire Petal‘s site and offer your support of this great effort.

Good luck and best wishes to Fire Petal Books and Michelle!

Let us know, in the comments, what you’re doing to share your love of books.

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A Writer's New Year

Nature does not know New Year. It is we that have set up divisions between time, so we can mark the changes that happen to us, record our histories, close our books, make new beginnings.

So New Year is an entirely “unnatural” way of seeing things, but a great one nonetheless. It gives us a moment of pause when we sit back and introspect on what has passed by, and what is still to come.

It is an especially important time for writers. They ruminate over what they’ve achieved over the year, the stumbling blocks they have encountered, and how they’ve coped with it all.

Queries sent out, books under edit, a book begun, a book that’s hit a writer’s block, each writer has something to think about and resolutions to make.

I’ve seen a few awesome New Year posts this time, one of them is here. It has made me think of my role as a writer, things I ought to do, or have undertaken.

I have spoken about my New Year thoughts here. What about you? What was running through your head at the turn of the decade? What resolutions did you make, what work did you feel proud of, what do you look forward to as a writer in the New Year?

All this talk about banned books … and my newest novel idea … has got me thinking about the subject of controversy. By nature I’m a pretty good girl. I had about one or two years of rebellion, but even that wasn’t too bad. So when it comes to writing a book that may or may not center around that rebellion, I have to admit I’m having a hard time. I’m terrified of being “too controversial”.

But

Is controversial really a bad thing?

Or

Is controversial a mere way of sparking untapped conversation by touching subjects people are too afraid to talk about?

I mean seriously, Dan Brown … Amazing Author! Still ‘The DaVinci Code’ sparked tons of controversy. However, how many books do you think sold merely to find out what the controversy was all about? I know that’s why I ended up reading it. And the conversations that stemmed between my husband and I about what was fact and what was fiction and “Oh my freaking goodness can he ever spin a story like he’s writing a history book!” (Ok I know not everyone agrees with that, but still … you get what I’m saying.)

So how do you feel about controversial subjects? Do you think books are really worth banning just because they crossed a line so many people can only dream about crossing?

Do you think you could write something controversial?

And really, what defines a controversial book?

So many questions … I’d love to hear your answers!

Marybeth is an aspiring novelist currently working on her second novel. For more information visit her website www.marybethsmith.com. She also has a blog Desperately Searching for my Inner Mary Poppins where you can keep up on her moments as mother, wife and writer..

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For writers, a wide reading is an asset. Whether you are a romance writer, a fantasy writer, or a writer of literary fiction, reading across the genres gives your writing a sort of depth few other things can provide. There is a cross germination of ideas as you read. Sometimes, you stand back from something you like and wonder how the author did it and at other times, you read terrible writing, and learn what not to do.

I’ve been reading Lost Horizon by James Hilton, and what I really liked about the story is the way Hilton has created a world–a hidden, legendary lamasery in remote mountains, the Shangri-la, where people live longer lives, where the lamas devote their time to contemplation and academic preoccupations.

I particularly love the descriptions:

“To Conway, seeing it first, it might have been a vision fluttering out of that solitary rhythm in which lack of oxygen had encompassed all his faculties. It was, indeed a strange and half-incredible sight. A group of coloured pavilions clung to the mountainside with none of the grim deliberation of a Rhineland castle, but rather with the chance delicacy of flower petals impaled upon a crag…An austere emotion carried the eye upward from the milk-blue roofs to the grey rock bastion above, tremendous as the Wetterhorn above Grindelwald. Beyond that, in a dazzling pyramid, soared the snow slopes of Karakal.”

So what have you been reading recently? And what has moved you the most in the books you have read?

Feel free to post an excerpt from your reading in the comments, so we may all get to know new and exciting, or old and undiscovered books for our future reading lists!

–Damyanti