Thursday, March 15, 2012

2nd Edition - March 15, 2012

Reminder: E. T. Barton's name was drawn as the lucky winner of our Kindle giveaway, however, Canyonland staff have been unable to make contact for delivery. So if you're out there E. T. Barton please email us ASAP. If the contact has not been made by April 1st we will pick another winner. 
"Ask An Author"
By Marie Higgins

Welcome to the first segment of "Ask An Author". I have received two questions.

**The first one came from Luke Albertson a 16 year old who is very interested in writing. His question is: I have my plot figured out, but I don't know how to end the story. Please help! Well, Luke, the writing world I came from believes in 'happily ever afters', so if your story has any kind of romance in it, a HEA (happily ever after) is a MUST! But make sure you have closed all the loose ties in your story even if there is a sequel or series, there should be some kind of closure. And if boy falls in love with girl and they want to ride off into the sunset - let them. Bring a smile to your reader's face!! This will make them want to keep reading more of your stories.

**The second question is from Melissa Blue. She is a reader and a writer, and she asks "Do your characters ever talk to you?" Melissa, in my early years of writing, I worried that I would be put in a padded room because of the voices in my head. Actually, in my case, it's not really voices as much as it's a movie playing out. But yes, my characters do talk to me. They let me know when they want their story written - and they especially let me know when they don't like the way the story is going because then they stop talking. I have realized that I need to let THEM write the story for me. So my advice to you is let your characters talk! And Melissa...several other authors tell me their characters talk to them as well, so don't think your crazy. Most writers have this problem, and so far, none of them have been put in a padded room - that I know about... (grins)

READERS - if you would like to ask a question, please go to the main page and find the picture on your right and follow the link. THANKS!!

Finding Treasures at the Library Part II
By Mary Martinez
Just a refresher: Last month I wrote about our library's reader's choice award, which of course prompted us to have our very own award. So don't forget it's up to you to read each book nominated so come September, you can vote for the best.

On to the other treasures I found the day I visited my library. Kid stuff! So many resources for our kids that I didn't have growing up, it was amazing. They had brochures of every color, entitled 'Kids Booklist' and these consisted of everything from Caldecott Awards to Scared Witless.

I'm sure you have already guessed what the scared witless was, scary stories for older kids. Inside it had a list of spine tingling chills and thrills for the youngsters. An added two sentence blurb and the location in the library where they could find each book to check out.

The Caldecott Medal winners and Honor books is basically a list like all the others, but the books were nominated as their adult counterparts were for the Reader's Choice awards. The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of 19th-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott.  This award has been around since 1938, and in this treasured list are the winners from 1938 through 2011. What a list of finds for your child. What am I saying, some of the winners on this list I am going to check out myself.

The other booklists were brochures targeting age groups from Babies Love Books, Toddler read aloud, preschool, First Chapter Books (transition to from easy readers to chapter books) to 6th grade. Happy reading for all ages. I'm sure every library has something unique. Visit yours and share with us what is available in your area.

I know that the new age of technology has come and many of you no longer read an actual book with pages to turn. Most of us have our Kindles, Nooks or iPads (with the apps) for our reading enjoyment. So why am I so excited about finding treasures at the library? Because, I don't know about yours, but mine has gone digital. I can check a book out on my Kindle app if I'd like. More and more books are being made available to everyone through the libraries, in all formats.

No matter what though, a visit to the library to find a treasure map to discover new books is a MUST!

What do you Read?
By Anna Sugg

I can’t remember where I heard it, but someone, somewhere, said that in contrast to all other earthly animals, we humans have an unquenchable desire to continually make changes to better ourselves.

So we read.

What do we read? Self-help books.

There are dozens of self-help books on how to improve your health, your happiness, control your depression, your impressions, anxiety disorders, build confidents, self esteem, motivational help, behaviors, spiritual, success, self-hypnosis, quiet your critic – ok, my gosh, the list goes on. If you’re a parent, how many self-help books on parenting are there?

I don’t think you’ll find a book on how animals have improved parenting, at least I don’t think so, not since Noah released them two by two; they just go on decade after decade doing their parenting thing. But, you’ll find shelves packet full of how to be a better parent for the human race. If you don’t believe me, go to Amazon and check out all the self-help books, or check the library shelves.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against self-help books. We all need to read them once in a while. But, to spend your life reading only self-help books, IMO, you’re missing out on some terrific reads.
My mother-in-law, bless her soul, read every self-help book she could get her hands on. But it didn’t help. I won’t go into her problems, which could be a book on its own, but she thought she would be happy if she just could read and learn to apply all the information in one self-help book after another.

Once I suggested she read a romance novel. Well, she thought like lots of other people, that romance is not real writing. I just said, try a few, you might like them. Several months later, with a sheepish expression she told me that she had bought a Danielle Steel book and read her first romance. She was hooked. I must say, she even seemed to be a happier person, maybe because she wasn’t focusing on herself so much.

Okay, I’m not a psychologist. I just know how incredible it is to read fictions, whether it’s suspense, romance or women’s fiction, or any of the other creative fictions out there. These stories can lead you down roads of adventures where one can get lost in other worlds, living a factious life through wonderful, imaginative characters during an enjoyable read.

So what  are you reading?

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