Karen Sandler

Author: Karen Sandler

  • RTW – Doing the Groundhog Thing

    This week on YA Highway, the prompt asks, If you could be reincarnated as any fictional character, which would it be? Which made the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, pop into my mind, hence the title of my post.

    Moving on, I gave the question my usual three seconds of thought, figuring that the quickest answer to come into my mind would be the best. I did briefly consider Katniss (but for only the first second of those three), then realized everyone in the world wants to be Katniss (admit it). So I spent the next two seconds digging a little further back and came up with a character I’ve loved for years.

    I’d want to be Lessa from Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey. If you haven’t read Anne McCaffrey’s dragon books, I suggest you check them out. Yes, some are better than others (the first three, Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon are very worthy, as well as the more YA companion series, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums). But McCaffrey created such a great world and society that I’ve often fantasized about living on Pern with its genetically augmented dragons.

    Lessa is a pretty kick-ass character who doesn’t let anyone push her around. She doesn’t actually run around in that cheesy white outfit shown on the cover, by the way. When she’s riding her golden dragon, she wears practical riders’ leathers. But she’s a feminist’s feminist, insisting that yes, female breeding dragons can fly and they can carry a rider. They can even help fight Thread, the menace on Pern.

    So there you go. I want to be Lessa and fly around on a golden dragon. That would be my fantasy come true.

  • Taking a Risk

    My husband and I spent the week before last helping my son and daughter-in-law move into their new house. New to them, that is. The house is close to 90 years old, and has many of the “glitches” you’d expect an old house to have. Maybe more than glitches in some cases.

    I knew there was another house they’d looked at in the area and from what I recall from the Realtor’s photos, it was a newer, less glitchy home. I really liked the looks of that house and the fact that it was right next to a park. But when I asked my son about their choice between the top two, he said, “Well, there was the safe house, and there was the interesting house. We chose the interesting house.”

    I bring this up because it made me think of the whole issue of taking risks, not only in life, but in writing. If I’d been the one choosing the house, I’m pretty darn sure I would have picked the “safe” house. Yes, it was more of a suburban tract home. It didn’t have much in the way of intriguing features (unlike the “interesting” house, which has wonderful windows, a stately entry and living room, and a dining room with a cool little built in china cabinet). The safe house looked comfortable, but it was a bit blah.

    To connect this to my writing, what if I always chose the comfortable, but blah? Would I have ever sold a book, let alone the 20 that I’ve sold in my career? Would readers have eagerly looked for my books, read them with enjoyment, sighed with the satisfaction of experiencing a good story if I’d stayed “safe?” I’m thinking not. I’m thinking I’ve been better off taking the interesting road rather than the safe one.

    How about you? Do you take risks in your writing? Do you create characters, scenes, stories that are safe, or are they interesting? It might end up being more work, a more difficult endeavor. But in the end, when you take the interesting path, you have a much better chance that the book you’ve written, the literary house you’ve built, will be wow and anything but blah.

  • RTW – Creative Inspiration

    This week’s blog prompt at YA Highway is When you need creative inspiration, where do you go? My first, off the top of my head response, the shower, is a little too cliche, so I’ll offer up some other options.

    First of all, I don’t so much pursue that creative spark as find ways to leave myself open to it. That’s why the shower, cliche as it is, really does work to get me past a creative logjam. For me, writing is a problem-solving exercise and for some of those problems, I need to be away from the manuscript for clarity.

    Some favorite ways to spark my creativity:

    • meditation
    • driving
    • riding my horse
    • brainstorming
    • conference workshops

    With the first three, I can’t just grab a piece of paper to jot down notes (well, I suppose I could when I meditate, but that would defeat the purpose of meditation). I don’t have a phenomenal memory, so instead I’ll work through the solution in my mind enough times to ingrain it (I hope) well enough that I’ll remember it later.

    I often end up brainstorming with my husband when I’m driving, which leaves him to take the notes. At a conference, I’ll have either a notepad or notebook computer to jot ideas down.

    There’s a theme here: I need to put my brilliant ideas in writing as much as possible. Often once I’ve written them down I don’t need to refer back (the act of writing sets it in my brain), but if I don’t inscribe them somehow, they dissolves like mist. Frustration ensues.

    Regarding the last item on my creative inspiration list–conference workshops–I should mention that I don’t find inspiration in workshops about inspiration. Oddly when I’m sitting listening to an agent speak about the publishing market or a bestselling author talking about their career, solutions to my current writing problems start popping up in my brain. I guess just being in the milieu helps me be creative.

    So my secret to creative inspiration–walk away from the problem, give your brain time to clear. And the answer will flow right in.

  • RTW – Best Book in June

    YA Highway‘s blog prompt for the last Road Trip Wednesday of the month is always about the best book you’ve read for the month, in this case, What was the best book you read in June? When I took a peek on my iPod and saw the prompt, I thought, Hah! An easy one! because my mind immediately went to a fabulous book I read in June, the only one I read in paper form.

    Then I took a peek at my Kindle list to see what else I’d read and realized, Dang! There’s a second one!

    So I’m afraid I’m going to have two favorites again this month. First is Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld, the second book in his steampunk Leviathan series. As I mentioned, I read this one as a trade paperback rather than e-book. I had dropped into a fabulous indie bookstore in Davis CA, The Avid Reader, to ask if they would order in my YA science fiction book, Tankborn. I made a point of buying a book that day (a Jasper Fforde novel), then when I returned later to autograph the copy of Tankborn that they’d ordered, I again wanted to support the store by buying a book. I spotted Leviathan, a book I’d been wanting to read, and realized the trade paperback cost the same as the Kindle version, so why not buy it in paper?

    It turned out to be a smart decision because the book is loaded with wonderful illustrations that I’m sure would not have been so beautiful on my Kindle screen. Once I finished Leviathan, I desperately wanted Behemoth, but I was determined to support the Avid Reader next time I was in Davis by buying the book there.

    Finally I made it back to Davis, bought Behemoth and devoured it in just a few days. Both Leviathan and Behemoth are great on-the-edge-of-your-seat adventures, with a mondo cool steampunk world that meshes beautifully with actual history. I’ve been a Scott Westerfeld fan for a while, but these two books just up the fan gush.

    You might think these are the two books I mentioned earlier. But no. I read Leviathan a couple months ago. The second fave book that I read in June is The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. I follow Maureen on Twitter (is she a hoot, or what?), so I’ve known about the book for quite some time. But I avoided it because I’m pretty squeamish when it comes to gore and I feared this book would be full of it (the Jack the Ripper angle clued me in).

    But although there are some pretty ick scenes that made me cringe, they don’t dominate the book. There’s such a great story here, I couldn’t stop turning pages. Plus, I loved the characters, the setting, and Maureen’s trademark humor (yes, many funny bits even in a book centered around Jack the Ripper).

    So if you haven’t checked out the Leviathan series and The Name of the Star (also slated to be a series), I suggest you do, forthwith.

  • RTW – Summer After Graduation

    For Road Trip Wednesday this week, YA Highway asks How did you spend/how will you spend the summer after graduation? First of all, my high school graduation was so long ago, I spent it TPing dinosaurs and riding saber-toothed tigers. It was tricky climbing on those big cats without getting bitten, but pre-historic catnip usually did the trick to lure the beasts into submission. We’d also grab fronds off the tree ferns to use as shade since air-conditioning hadn’t yet been invented.

    This summer, it’s my son and daughter-in-law who have graduated (PhDs in economics) and part of my summer will be involved in helping them move from the West Coast to the East Coast. We have a regular translocation conga line planned, with my son and husband flying out one day with the two cats, and my daughter-and-law and me flying with my beautiful toddler granddaughter the next. Those two days should be quite the adventure.

    I hope you all have a fabulous summer.