Thought for the Day:
"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You
get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other
people is we notice when we're doing it."
~ Neil Gaiman ~
Gifts for My Writer Friends:
The Writer Magazine has a good article HERE on using visualization and immersion in making your fiction come alive.
Dialogue can always be better. The essay HERE from Poets and Writers Magazine can help you polish yours up.
We all need to write author bios now and again. The post HERE from Anne R. Allen can help you do just that.
I am going to try to get this written while I watch the Oscars, so if there are a few typos, be forgiving. Multiprocessing is not my long and strong suit.
Last week I offered a gently-read hardback of Lily's Mountain by Hannah Moderow to one of you. Our winner is Joyce Moyer Hostetter, a prolific and wonderful writer from North Carolina. Congratulations, Joyce! If you don't know Joyce, what rock have you been living under? Oh, I mean, how unfortunate for you. You can find out more about her by reading her blog HERE. If you haven't read any of her books, you are in for a treat. Blue, Aim, Comfort, Drive, & Healing Water are all worth your time. Joyce, I will get your book out to you soon. For the rest of you, I have a fun one to give away this week, so stay tuned.
I have stacks of books all over my house that I mean to get to some day. We all do. I am fairly well caught up on my review books so grabbed a novel I have been meaning to get to for a looooong time. So glad I finally got to it. It is Newbery Honor winner Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage. First of all, I am obsessed with the cover. It has been sitting on top of one stack calling our to me, "Hey, I'm a fun book! Get to me soon!" And fun it is. What a romp.
Mo is a girl who started life abandoned to the water in a hurricane and rescued by a crusty amnesiac, the Colonel, who lost his former life and memory in the same storm. But he finds Mo, naming her for Moses for obvious reasons. They both are embraced by the small town they land in, Tupelo Landing, NC, and are made a family with the lovely and imaginative Miss Lana. The town is populated by a wide variety of quirky characters -- Mo's best friend, Dale; his brother and the love of Mo's life, Lavender; Mo's sworn enemy, Anna Celeste a.k.a. Attila Celeste; and many more. They all contribute to a fun, twisted, amazing mystery story that includes murders, robbery, kidnapping, evil villains, and more, and keep the pages turning at a rapid rate.
Author Sheila Turnage may well be the queen of metaphors. I am in awe of her
marvelous, mirthful metaphors. Here are a couple of my favorites. "He looked at her the way a cat looks at a bird, his eyes glinting." You know he's up to no good, don't you? Here's another. "The people streamed toward the glistening white church in busy, crooked lines, like ants heading for a sugar cube." What a picture! Love it. If you want to see how it's done, read this book. The writing overall is crisp and smart and the storytelling is formidable. I just love this book. I can't recommend it more highly. If you haven't read it yet, please get to it soon. It's just sooooo good. And I was very excited to find out there are two more books in the series! Hope I can get to those soon.
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| Sheila Turnage |
I know I will probably not have time to read this again, although I would like to, so I am offering my gently-read paperback to one of you. To win, all you need do is have a US address, be a subscriber or follower, and tell me that in a comment you leave on this post. If you are reading this in your email, click HERE to go to the blog so you can leave a comment. If you would like extra chances, please spread the word by posting the link on a Tweet, blog post, Facebook, or any other way you like. Let me know what you have done in your comment, and I will put in extra chances for you for each that you do.
Don't forget to check out Greg Pattridge's blog HERE for many more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday reviews and giveaways.
