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Who doesn't love a good list? Certainly, Buzzfeed readers do. On any given day of the week, Buzzfeed offers lists of advice from
Wizard Chic: 10 Ways to Look Like Less of a Muggle to the
25 Most Awkward Cat Sleeping PositionsThis week, Buzzfeed was one of several websites to focus on lists for writers. I have to admit, I got sucked in - I clicked on each one. So, for this week's reading pleasure, I give you my favorite lists of the week:
Click through, and then fill out your list:
- Did Buzzfeed miss any stages?
- Mashable certainly missed some quotes -- any favorites?
- How close did you come to Rory Gilmore's list? (Full disclosure - I scored a 78. Not even close.)
Confession. I'm a victim of the Palmer Method. I went to Catholic School and learned to write cursive in those notebooks with the dotted lines through the center. I spent many an hour looping my ds, ps, and qs to just the right height, my wrist never touching the desk. Somewhere along the line, I rebelled, and now even I have a hard time reading my scrawl.
But that doesn't stop me from filling up notebooks.
Recent circumstances have led me to a block of time here, a block of time there, and a lot of travel in between. Firing up a laptop became cumbersome and my writing time dwindled. I knew I needed a different approach, so I went back to basics. Marble notebooks.
I bought one in hot pink for my WIP. It makes me happy to open it up and write in it. It's completely portable and I'm finding a different connection to my writing in putting pen to paper. Typing up my scrawl a day or two later gives me another opportunity to add emotional depth and description I missed in my first go round.
I'm liking this notebook thing.
Anybody else out there going Luddite on their drafts?
Photo credit: npclark2k from morguefile.com
Like many writers, I suffer from a dreaded writerly disease: trying to write it right the first time. I agonize over sentence structure, search my thesaurus for the perfect synonym, and doubt every plot line.
So when I came across this
New York Times Magazine Article that reminded me how important it is to be wrong -- and "to be wrong as fast as you can," I considered once again how overrated right is. In the article, Hugo Lindgren reviews a list of ideas he's had throughout the years and wonders why he hasn't written them. He recounts a Charlie Rose interview with Pixar's John Lasseter:
Pixar’s in-house theory is: Be wrong as fast as you can. Mistakes are an inevitable part of the creative process, so get right down to it and start making them. Even great ideas are wrecked on the road to fruition and then have to be painstakingly reconstructed. “Every Pixar film was the worst motion picture ever made at one time or another,” Lasseter said. “People don’t believe that, but it’s true. But we don’t give up on the films." We've all heard it a million times -- the stories of successful writers slogging through page after page of mediocrity, never giving up. And that is the real difference between success and failure. Never giving up.
So as I finish what I hope is my last major revision of this novel, I'll welcome making mistakes that can be fixed. I'll keep my eye on the light at the end of the tunnel and take the express.
I like to inject a fair amount of humor into my work. I don't write a lot of slapstick or ROTFLMAO stuff, but I hope my readers are giggling frequently. Lately, due to some personal circumstances, I've had a hard time writing at all, let alone writing funny.
I needed a way to combat my writing inertia and get me and my characters out of their gloom. So I invented a writing exercise. At least, I don't know of anyone else who has done this before. Oh, except maybe Second City and other improvisational acting troops.
So here's what I do when the funny is missing.
I put my characters in ridiculous situations and see what happens. Like an audience calling out ideas to an improv troop, I don't spend a lot of time thinking of circumstances. I work with any idea that pops into my head and go for it. I'm not looking to use what I write in my novel, I'm just trying to make myself laugh -- at my characters or with my characters.
My MC has tripped into a ring at a three ring circus and found himself face to face with a lion. He and his love interest witnessed a nun boost some cash from the poor box and followed her around town as she made some purchases. His entire group of friends spent the night in one hotel room -- oh, wait, some of that may end up in the novel.
The point of this exercise is to relax and be silly. No one has to see it but me. Unless, like Julie said in her last post, I save it for some added value down the road.
My revision passes usually have specific purposes. When I've finished my first draft, my first revision deals solely with plot. I rearrange here, add or subtract there, build up plot threads and kill off and combine characters. I do additional revisions focusing on character, setting, dialogue, beginnings and endings, etc. But I've recently added another revision pass that has changed the way I look at the entire process. I call it the "make bad choices" pass.
I've written before about my tendency to make my characters too good for their own good. Sure, bad things might happen to them, but my initial impulse is to let them take the high road to get out of any mess.
Now, I still let them have their nobility in my first draft, but when I get to the make bad choices draft, well, I let them make bad choices.
So here is what I do. I go through my manuscript and mark up every time my characters make a choice. It could be as monumental as whether to have sex or as small as what flavor ice cream to order. Then, I make them make the worst possible choice and see what happens. The results could be as devastating as a teen pregnancy or as embarrassing as a white shirt with a chocolate stain in a strategic spot. I may not keep every bad choice, but I always end with a meatier, more tension-filled story.
Anybody else care to share about revision?
Over the months and years, we've talked a lot about the move toward e-books and digital publishing. But this recent
interview with David Levithan published in Digital Book World is an eye-opener. I'm a huge
David Levithan fan -- a fan of both his writing and editing. And in reading this article and understanding that he is also on the cutting edge of digital publishing and what it means to the middle grade and YA marketplace -- well, I just wonder if this guy ever sleeps! So please take a moment to read this article. It may open your eyes to some interesting publishing possibilites.
When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was knock on my son’s door. I knew he would have a hard time getting up for work. Last night he and a friend had gone to the midnight show of Batman.
I went downstairs. My husband had the TV on. And I saw what had happened at another theater halfway across the country. What had happened to other kids who just wanted to enjoy a movie.
Like everyone else in this county, I’ve been thinking about this tragedy all day. How unexpected it was. How incredibly, terribly sad and senseless. But, I still had to work. And work, for me, meant revising my novel.
As I sat at my keyboard, I thought about my characters, their problems and their emotions. While my plot lines don’t involve tragedies like those in Aurora, Colorado, my main goal as a writer is to connect with emotional truths. I think fiction is important like that. As a writer, it’s my job to create characters that allow my readers to feel emotions in deep and meaningful ways.
Writers like Jodi Picoult and Richard Russo have dealt with difficult subjects like school shootings. Patrick Ness left me in a big puddle when I finished A Monster Calls. These are works of fiction, but the emotional truths within the writer’s words lead us as readers to deeper human connections.
That is one reason why this writing job is hard. And why it is so important.
I'm camping in this June. Okay, maybe I'll spend some time on my deck with my laptop, but I'm camping in with
Camp Nanowrimo. Yes, for those of you who always yearned to write a novel in a month, but couldn't imagine speed writing in November, you can now attend Camp Nanowrimo in June or August!
Camp Nanowrimo works perfectly for me. I had already decided to buckle down and finish my revision in June. Now I have friends and emails cheering me on to reach that finish line.
So excuse me if this post is short -- I have a lot of work to do. And who knows, if all goes well, maybe I'll go to camp in August, too!
You never forget your first...car. Well, my son's first car is officially a goner. Purchased new by my mom in 1996, it was passed down first to my sister, next to my older son, and then to my younger son. We had so hoped it would last until he leaves for college in late August, but poor old Chrystal succumbed to a deadly mix of oil and antifreeze.
This got me thinking about what cars mean to boys. How cars mean way more than transportation. They mean freedom.
So I decided to give a car to a favorite boy of mine. Not my son. I adore the kid, but he'll have to share my Prius for the next four months. Nope. I'm giving a car to my main character.
One of my favorite books with a car as an important player is John Green's PAPER TOWNS. Quentin drives a lot. Unfortunately, he drive his mom's minivan. (Full disclosure, we have one of those, too.) And the scene where his parents finally give him a car of his own is laugh out loud funny.
So for funsies, I'm giving my MC his own set of wheels. Now he can get around, get out of town, get into and out of more trouble than before.My first car was a station wagon -- about as cool as a minivan in those days. But I loved it. Loved driving. Loved loading up the back seat with more friends than I should have and cruising about.
Remember your first car?
Plot driven vs. character driven-- I love them both. But even books with the most crazy, imaginative plots (HUNGER GAMES, anyone?) better give me characters that make me care. Characters I want to spend time with. Characters I HAVE to root for. Characters that break my heart.
When I read HUNGER GAMES, I was ready to jump in and watch Katniss's back. And I was Team Peeta all the way. But in John Green's latest novel, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, Hazel and Augusta did more than break my heart. They shattered it.
Green's writing is so much more than witty dialogue and gritty truths. He finds ways to show fierceness and bravery in simple, unexpected choices.
Augusta doesn't smoke cigarettes. He dangles them. His biggest character tic is one of choice. That unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth screams in frustration and pain, boasts of triumphs great and small, and shouts out laughter and fear.
All by choice. Augusta's choice.
In THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, lots of stuff happens that the characters can't control. And that broke my heart. But the choices they made -- well, that's what shattered it.
As I near the finish line of my WIP, I'm beginning to think about my next novel. Several ideas are fighting to be next in line, but today, one of them took the lead. I was in the mood.
Let me go back a few years. I had an idea for a middle grade ghost story set at the beach. I did some preliminary research, knew my two protagonists, and knew who my ghost would be.
But now I also want to write a book about a kid in high school band -- I've got the plot structure for that one, but no plot yet. I've got the beginning of a YA about a theater kid that I want to get back to, and a YA mystery begging to be solved.
So what happened today to make that MG jump to the front of the pack?
Well, I went for a walk on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ. I've walked that boardwalk countless times. My husband was born and raised there and my in-laws still live there. But today was different.
Today was...moody.
The sky was overcast, but the sun was breaking through in shafts of light right where the waves break. Sea Isle City, seen from a distance curving out and into the ocean, was shrouded in mist. The boardwalk was deserted. I was alone.
And more than anything, I wanted to write about it. I was in the mood.
I think my in-laws will see a lot of me this summer.
I'll share a photo when I get home to my own computer. Can't download from my phone on the one I'm using.
So does anyone else care to join me in a summer WIP? Plan it now and fast draft throughout the summer months? Come on in! The water's fine!
This is definitely one of the funniest YouTube videos on writing. I watched it as I took a break from my revision. And now I'm going back to work. Enjoy!
Question: When writing in first person, who does your main character talk to?
When I began writing, I always considered my audience. My first novel was middle grade, so my main character spoke to a middle grade reader. As I wrote it, I pictured him speaking directly to the reader -- to every reader who picked up that book. He would tell that story to anyone willing to listen.
But now, as I revise a YA, I'm giving very careful thought as to whom my main character will confide his deepest personal thoughts and feelings.
MY WIP is written in past tense, which gives me more options than my first novel -- written in present tense -- did. So who does this boy talk to? And how does this choice color the way he tells his story?
Does he talk to a girl he is currently in love with, sitting on a dock, watching boats sail in and out? Or is he a little tipsy and telling the story of senior year to his freshman roommate? Or, is he talking to the reader, and if so, how far away is he from the timeline of the story? Each choice changes the way the story is told, unbeknownst to the reader.
I'm not ready to reveal the choice I made. After all, I'm still revising. I may change it again. And again. And again. But I do know one thing for certain. My main character deserves to tell his story to someone who will really listen.
So I ask all you first person writers -- who does your main character talk to?
New York City has turned to haiku to warn its citizens of traffic hazards. So in support of looking both ways before crossing the street or hitting send, I offer up my haiku for writers anywhere along the submission process:
Submission sent out
Check email ten times per hour
Computer crashes
Add your submission comments--in haiku, of course!
I'm a great believer in passion. I want to be passionate about what I write. And so far I have been. I can almost reach delusional about my characters, they become so real to me.
But what about marketability? Isn't that important, too? I'm not suggesting abandoning the passion and writing to trends, but a market tweak here and a trendy tweak there, might be the difference between publishing success and publishing silence.
I recently finished Nova Ren Suma's beautifully written Imaginary Girls. The family-based themes of parental distance and abandonment and sibling reverence and rivalry ring loud, clear and true. But the undercurrent of mystery and magical realism give this book a real twist. I'm certain the author was passionate about her characters, but by placing those characters in her magical world, she's done something really different. Something trendy? Maybe. But when wonderful characters, plus great writing, plus plot with a touch of trend, equals success, who can argue?
We all write them.
Okay. Full disclosure. I just wrote, "We all right them," and had to delete and rewrite my first line. It was as if my brain wanted to help me prove my point.
Now I know the difference between write and right. I also know the difference between a sh%#@y first draft, a better second draft, and a good third draft. And I know how to keep going until one draft feels just right.
It took some time for me to get to this point. I wrote my first novel chapter by chapter -- rewriting and reworking each chapter many times before moving on. I didn't have the confidence to write a sh%#@y first draft. I thought I needed a really strong sense of every plot line, every character, every setting and sensory detail before I moved on.
I was wrong.
Now when I write a first draft, I look at it like dating. That first draft is just to get to know your characters. Having a main plot line and a few subplots helps, but even if you trash your plot, but you got to know your characters really well, that sh%#@y first draft served it's purpose. If you know your characters, you can put them in any situation and their dialogue and reactions will ring true.
The second draft, well, that's sort of like an engagement. You're making plans together, testing the waters, maybe having a fight or two. You're adding tension to that relationship.
By the third draft you're a newlywed. Everything is all sparkly. Sigh.
Every draft after that adds the grit of little details. The toilet seat is up. Somebody has to take the dog out in the rain. There is no clean underwear.
When you finally reach the point in your manuscript marriage when everything feels just right, it's time to submit...
And start looking about for the next batch of characters to fall in love with.
My Internet came back on about thirty minutes ago, after being down for days. Our phone is back, too. We only lost power for two days. And the television no longer blips every ten seconds. We were lucky that's all we lost.
Not everyone else was.
I grew up in Cranford, NJ. In my latest WIP, the town is called Crestview, but as I wrote every scene, my writer's eye saw Cranford. So you know those writer's tricks? The ones where you're stumped, have a bit of writer's block, so you throw an unexpected event in there to shake up your writing -- shake up your characters? Hurricane Irene really shook up my setting.
I was in Cranford on Tuesday, helping dear friends who live near the river. Tuesday was a gorgeous day -- brilliant blue sky and low humidity. I drove in to town from the parkway. Everything looked as I had remembered it. Sure, there was a couch at the curb here and piled up carpet there, but everything looked fairly normal until you got near the river. Then, every street was fronted with furniture from driveway to driveway. The entire town smelled like mud.
I can't say I thought about my writing then. I didn't. I thought about my friends and their neighbors. But now, as I polish my manuscript and get it ready to send to my agent, I'm reminded how important setting is to every story. Seeing my setting shaken on its head made me want to get those little details right. Because sometimes the smallest detail tells an entire story.
I'm getting close to the finish line. Yes, that finish line. The one where you get to type "the end" finish line. And for me, this may be the hardest part of writing.
I write realistic fiction. No vampires or zombies attacking. The world isn't ending. No need to try to figure out who done it. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'm a sucker for a blood-sucking or spattering, a huge fan of dystopian, and love a smoking gun.)
But I write realistic, contemporary fiction. And as I near the end of a novel, I know I need to raise the stakes, up the ante, make my main character suffer.
I'm set with the final crisis, the one that makes the world crash in, but I needed to come up with the final turning point -- that part in the story where the main character thinks it can't get worse than this (oh, what he doesn't know!). I've been pondering this for weeks. Nothing seemed big enough. I was drawing blanks. So I turned to my bookshelves, scanning books on writing, looking for some help. And all I can say is, thank you Donald Maass!
I read through his chapter on Turning Points in his Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. Maass uses some great examples of deep emotion as turning points. Addie, in Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls finally taking the sheets off her dead daughter's bed and saying goodbye as the fresh scent of Tide rises from the washing machine. In The Lovely Bones, Susie Salmon's father, unable to contain his grief and rage, smashes his collection of ships in bottles.
So now, as I work through this final turning point of my WIP, I'm focused on my main character's emotional arc -- I'm finding his reactions don't have to be extreme, but he does need to react and his emotions must be more volatile that ever before.
He has to suffer, but thanks to reminders from Donald Maass, his fictional suffering can put an end to my writer's block.
Here's to chasing away writer's block! Cheers!
Okay, I haven't read it yet myself, but I will buy it and I will read it. Why? Because Mary Glickman is my new favorite author.
And why is Mary Glickman my new favorite author? Well, if you read Chuck Sambuchino's blog at the Guide to Literary Agents, you've read Mary's inspiring story. You can click here for the full saga, but I'll give you one paragraph to wet your appetite:
Cynthia Ozick once remarked that being published for the first time at 38 was a kind of little death. For me being published at the age of 61 was a kind of resurrection. Home in the Morning is my seventh novel written and the first one published, although out of the seven, only one was really bad. The rest were damn good. But I’ve learned a lot of this business is all about luck. You can have the wrong idea at the wrong time (my first novel), the right idea at the wrong time (that’d be two through five), the wrong idea at any time at all (number six, the really bad one), and if you’re lucky, the right idea at the right time (Home in the Morning).
Open Road Books published Home in the Morning in November 2010. it's recently been optioned for film by Sundance director Jim Kohlberg.
So wherever you are as you read this -- at your desk with a cup of coffee, on your couch with a glass of wine, or in your bed with a water bottle on your nightstand, raise your drink and toast Mary Glickman, the queen of perseverance. And then buy her book!
Everyone has their favorite Dr. Seuss book or Dr. Seuss line. Here are some of my favorite quotes. Please share some of your favorites!
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
“If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
“I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”
"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not."
"You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So... get on your way!"
'The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.'
"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try !"
"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells."
"Be who you are, say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind"
"A person’s a person, no matter how small."
“I’m afraid sometimes you’ll play lonely games too, games you can’t win because you’ll play against you.”
“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”
Recently, we've talked a lot about the emerging digital market and how it will affect writers. But a recent GalleyCat post took a different point of view. 27,000 Horrible Kids’ Apps & Other Digital Book World Dispatches laments the overwhelming number off children's books apps that are --as Rukus Media CEO Rick Richter says, "horrible."
Now we've all seen good and bad self-published books. More bad than good, in all honesty. But published books still far outnumber self-published books and published books are far more available to every reader.
But it is highly possible that in this technology rush there are far more self-published apps than apps from traditional publishers, or newly launched, legitimate, digital publishers. As GalleyCat asks, who will curate the App space?
Who is ready to develop an app for that?
Whenever I write a first draft, my main character is totally selfish. It’s all about him, him, him (since I tend to write about boys). Oh sure, he has friends, family, maybe even a love interest. But in that first draft, my MC thinks solely of himself and his problems. But in that second draft, secondary characters have to steal a little thunder, and the layering begins.
As I work through that second draft, I begin to listen more to what the secondary characters have to say. They’ve got goals to fill and problems to solve, too. Sometimes the MC knows about them, sometime he doesn’t. But they always affect the emotional arc of the story. Each important character should touch the MC in a meaningful way.
In that delirious first draft rush, I sometimes create characters that must be killed off in the second draft. They really aren’t needed to tell the story. But why did that first draft mindset kick them into the story at all? While I never regret deleting a character, I do often take their main character trait and add a dash of it to another character. Maybe the character wasn’t necessary, but something about her was.
I’m currently working on a YA and I’ve killed off a number of darlings. The original idea for the novel began with a kid working his first job. As I revise, the job is still there, but is not as important as it was originally. So I’ve killed off a number of customers. The creepy customer plot thread is completely gone. But the boss absorbed a bit of the creepiness. The eccentric old lady kicked the bucket. But the girlfriend now has a grandmother with some eccentric qualities. And Dad?, Well, he was in a lot of scenes in draft number one. In draft number two, I shipped him off to Italy.
We’ve all had a hard time killing a darling or two. So tell me, who do you still pine for? Have you killed off a character that you swear will rise from the ashes of your computer and morph into a new manuscript? Have you written anything with a saved darling?
I am so guilty.
Guilty of getting dragged into volunteering yet again at my kid’s school. Guilty of answering the phone when I should be focused on my writing. Guilty of checking my email every time it beeps. Guilty of surfing just one blog/website/forum. Occasionally, I’m even guilty of Oprah.
So I’m climbing into the bubble.
The bubble as described by Deborah Heiligman, author of Charles and Emma, and this year’s keynote speaker at the Rutgers One on One Conference. In between lots of laughs, Deborah doled out some exceptional advice. Some of her advice I already follow, like always carrying a notebook. But I do thank Deborah for the handy dandy all-weather notebook that now graces my shower. Who knew they even existed? Now no idea will escape me!
But Deborah’s bubble talk is what really got to me. She laid it out. Pick your time. Let’s say, from eight to one. That would work just fine for me. That’s writing time. Time when phones go to voicemail, the old information highway turns into a parking lot, and the only breaks taken are the ones that help spur the writing on.
So who’s with me? Who will stand with me against the time sucking internet behemoth and write in a bubble? Who will echo, “No. I can’t, I work during that time.” Come on, writers! Climb into the bubble!
Next week it’s my turn in the hot seat. My crit mates have the first 99 pages of my YA WIP and will share their thoughts -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- with me. So I thought I’d take this time to write about how I prepare and follow up to get the most from my critique time.
First, let me tell you that this is not the first critique session for this WIP. We reviewed about 75 pages some months ago. And while I still consider my work in its first draft, I made a few significant changes based on suggestions, and deleted scenes and plot lines that had become dead ends.
Now I haven’t looked at those first 99 pages in weeks; I've been plugging away, trying to finish the manuscript, so we can do it all again soon with the next 100-plus pages.
So to get ready for this Friday, I will try to read my critique submission with fresh eyes and mark up places in my manuscript where I have concerns. Just like when I give a critique, I'll think about structure, plot layers, characters, action, settings, tone, voice.
At the critique session, I’ll listen as my crit mates take their turns and pull apart my manuscript. It’s always interesting when they address the same concerns that I had, wonderful when they trigger a solution, and totally gratifying when they bring up points that eluded me. When everyone finishes with their official critiques, I’ll ask any remaining questions from my preparation, or new questions that had occurred to me during the session.
Over the course of the following day or two, I’ll review each marked-up manuscript and cover note. I’ll transfer all comments onto one master document, so when it comes time to revise, I’m only referring to one manuscript, not eight.
And then I’ll tuck my manuscript in a drawer for a two-week R&R. When I'm ready, I’ll take it out, read through the marked up master, open up a new computer file, and start revising! For me, that's when the real fun begins.
Last night I wrote a scene in my WIP that was out of sequence. It was the first time I did that. And it was totally liberating.
Usually when I write, I open up my file and begin where I left off. I ask, “And then what happens?” and off I go. But this particular WIP has been giving me some trouble in the “what happens next” department. My main character has to undergo some real changes, and my writing was way too gradual. I can’t hand my agent a 250,000 word YA contemporary with a male MC and expect it to sell. Yet the writing has to be organic. The changes have to make sense. The tension needs to rise and the action must flow.
So last night, I let my MC take the plunge and change. He did some things and said some things that he wouldn’t have done in the opening chapters. I know I’ll have to add scenes in later—either as I continue toward the first draft finish line or in revision—to make those changes make sense. But I got to know my MC better. Now I can ask, “Why did he do that?” and fill in the holes.
And by the way—big plug for Scrivener—outlining and index cards functions in this program make it so easy to write out of sequence. I still have a lot to learn about Scrivener, but I am very glad I’m now using it. If you use a Mac, try the trial version.
So my question to you, fellow writers, is do you ever write out of sequence? Do you write some of those big scenes first and worry about justification later? Or do you plow through knowing you’ll do major word count dumps in revision?
Photo: Ian Britton
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1. On the buzzfeed list - I would switch out #5 for something that involved feeling despair and eating chocolate. (or drinking wine or going skeet shooting)
2. "As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
3. Um, no comment.
Fun lists! Thanks for sharing. =)
They missed listing a great ending: "It 'just happened to happen' and was not very likely to happen again."
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
Do you think they skipped chocolate because they know we secretly eat it all the time anyway?
And I could quote John Green a thousand times over.
Leandra, I have to avoid Buzzfeed, 'cause I'm such a sucker for lists!
Agreed!
This was perfect for today's lunch break... Especially the quotations form children's books.
Thank you
Love these lists J.A.! The quotes from children's books are so wonderful! Thanks for sharing!
These are a lot of fun! THanks
It can be great to take a break from writing for some silly fun -- as long as the break doesn't last for the rest of the afternoon!