Author Archives: TheHouseworkCanWait

Review: SALT TO THE SEA by Ruta Sepetys

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This past week, I had the privilege of attending Ruta Sepetys’ launch for her newest novel, Salt to the Sea. Although Ruta is a Nashville author and this is her third book, she’s never had a launch party before. Another friend mentioned she was nervous no one would show up (most authors worry about this, no matter how successful they are).

Turns out, she needn’t have worried.

Photo by Parnassus Books

A standing-room-only crowd packed into Parnassus Books in Nashville, and together, we listened, rapt, as Ruta talked about the story behind Salt to the Sea. Like her debut, Between Shades of Gray, which shines a light on the Baltic deportations in the early 1940s, Salt tells the story of a forgotten and tragic piece of history — this time, the sinking of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945.

Most people know about the sinking of Titanic and Lusitania, but far fewer have ever heard of Wilhelm Gustloff, even though it’s the largest maritime disaster in history. Over 9,000 people lost their lives when the Wilhelm Gustloff was ripped apart by Russian torpedoes, more than three times the casualties of the Titanic and Lusitania combined.

Over half of those, Ruta told us, were children and teenagers.

And yet most of the world doesn’t know about it. There are several reasons why this might be; I won’t get into them here. If you ever get a chance to attend one of Ruta’s events (and you should if you can), ask her about it. It’s fascinating. Equally fascinating are the true stories of the survivors Ruta interviewed while researching Salt to the Sea. She told us a couple of them at the launch, and by the time she finished, many of us were in tears. It was a dark, terrible period of our history, but much like in Between Shades of Gray, Ruta was able to uncover stories of heroism, of love, of sacrifice and compassion in the midst of all that horror. These true stories served as the foundation for Salt to the Sea, a fictional account of four teenagers who set sail on the doomed Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

Winter, 1945. Four teenagers. Four secrets.

Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies…and war.

As thousands of desperate refugees flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom.

Yet not all promises can be kept.

Inspired by the single greatest tragedy in maritime history, bestselling and award-winning author Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray) lifts the veil on a shockingly little-known casualty of World War II. An illuminating and life-affirming tale of heart and hope.

My Thoughts:

Ruta Sepetys has a unique gift. She finds the tragic stories that history forgot and brings them to life through her books, educating her readers on these lost pieces of the past while simultaneously taking them on a heartfelt and emotional journey alongside her characters. Salt to the Sea is a work of historical fiction, but it is based on a very real event — the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945 — and the true historical backdrop is every bit as compelling as the stories of the fictional characters.

Salt to the Sea is told from the point-of-view of four different teenagers, each with a secret. There is Florian, a disillusioned Prussian art restorer; Joana, a clever and determined Lithuanian nurse; Emilia, a young Polish girl struggling for hope in a world that continues to betray her; and Alfred, a young Nazi sailor desperately seeking recognition.

I am going to pause here, because you may be nervous about the same thing I was during Alfred’s first chapter — namely, is this book going to attempt to make me sympathize with a Nazi? The short answer is no. I’m not going to say Alfred’s chapters are easy to read — on the contrary; Alfred is an infuriating character, what you would get if you took Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice, aged him down a bit, and handed him a copy of Mein Kampf. And while Salt to the Sea never tries to make the reader sympathize with Alfred or make excuses for him, some readers may not be able to stomach reading his toxic and hateful inner monologue. Only you can decide whether you can handle reading from the POV of a Nazi (and a sniveling, lazy Nazi at that), and I won’t try to change your mind if you don’t think this is something you can do. All I will say is that Alfred’s chapters do contribute to the narrative as a whole, and neither the stakes nor the tension would be the same without his perspective.

However, as much as Alfred is The Worst, the other characters balance the scale. Joana was probably my favorite, a wonderful combination of resourceful, smart, kind, and brave. (Joana also ties into Between Shades of Gray, for those of you who have read both books.) But they all had their moments. Emilia is kind and sweet, but with an underlying determination and selflessness that, on several occasions, took my breath away. And then there is Florian, reserved and secretive, yet motivated by a quiet nobility that kept me rooting for him throughout. I was so very invested in the fates of these three characters that I find myself still daydreaming about them days after finishing.

As for the story itself, I was surprised to find that the characters don’t even board the Wilhelm Gustloff until the second half of the book. (Perhaps I would have been more prepared for this had I realized that the Gustloff was only scheduled for a 48-hour trip, not a weeks-long voyage like the Titanic. So it makes sense that most of our time getting to know the characters happens before they reach the ship.)

The first half of the book chronicles the long trek of the refugees through the snowy countryside on their way to the port (or, in Alfred’s case, his preparations to sail). The journey to the ship is harrowing, as the characters are constantly trying to avoid both German and Russian soldiers, while also staving off frostbite, dehydration, and malnutrition. On the way, there are several horrifying incidents that show the terrible price of war, and even once they reach the port, the descriptions of the refugees are gutting. Sepetys thankfully never lingers on any single gruesome image for long, but through her careful descriptions and meticulously crafted sentences, you get a thorough mental image of the squalor, desperation, and terror of the characters and their surroundings.

Then there is their time on the Gustloff, cut tragically short by the sinking. Since I don’t want to get into spoilers, all I will say is that even though I knew the ship was going to sink, it was still devastating to read about. I was invested so deeply in the characters that watching them go through such an awful experience — no matter their personal outcome — was heartbreaking, and I spent the last chunk of the book reading through tears. It’s one thing to know about a tragic historic event; it’s another thing to experience it. Salt puts the reader right on the deck of the sinking ship, making us feel the panic and terror of the passengers, the biting cold of the water, the hopelessness of the death all around them, and, in spite of that, the steely resolve to keep struggling for survival.

As in her previous books, Ruta Sepetys’ prose shines, instantly transporting the reader to the world of her characters. Some authors struggle to convincingly juggle multiple points-of-view, but that is not the case in Salt to the Sea. Each of her four main characters has a distinctive voice and way of thinking which makes them easily distinguishable from one another. Also, the chapters are very short, with most lasting only two or three pages, so you never have to wait long to hear more from your favorite character. The brief chapters make that mental nudge to read “just one more chapter” easy to indulge, making this an incredibly swift read.

Salt to the Sea is a beautiful tale of a forgotten tragedy, set during one of the darkest periods of our history. It is respectfully and meticulously researched, but never feels like it’s working too hard to educate; instead, it sweeps the reader up in its vivid characters, gorgeous prose, and compelling storytelling, and if we are more historically knowledgeable by the end, that just feels like a bonus. One may expect a tale like this to leave the reader with a sense of despair, but although the story is full of moments of horror and death and unspeakable devastation, it balances them with moments of friendship, love, sacrifice, heroism, generosity, and kindness. In spite of the bleak time in which it is set, and the disastrous event that serves as its centerpiece, the Salt to the Sea ultimately manages to be hopeful, moving, inspiring, and immensely satisfying.

STAR WARS: The Spoilers Awaken

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Guys, I tried. I did. I tried to write a review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens without posting spoilers, because posting spoilers on the Internet is the path to the Dark Side. I thought I could be vague (“There’s a thing that happens and it’s amazing!”) and still get most of my pertinent feels across.

But…I can’t. I thought I could, but I can’t.

So if you haven’t seen The Force Awakens yet, please — and I really can’t emphasize this enough, because this is a movie that deserves to be viewed completely unspoiled* — STOP. READING. This is not the spoiler-free review you’re looking for.

*I don’t care if you think you don’t mind spoilers, just this once, you should care.

Okay, so if you’re reading this, you’ve already seen the movie, right? RIGHT?

Don’t you lie to me.

*looks around* So now there shouldn’t be anybody left that hasn’t seen Episode VII. If you haven’t seen it and you keep reading, that’s not my fault. Your fault. Not my fault. Got it? Cool.

*clears throat*

STAR WARS, GUYS, I CANNOT EVEN, CAN YOU EVEN? NO? GOOD BECAUSE I CANNOT EITHER.

Seriously, despite being One of Those People who teared up at every single trailer (how could you not at “Chewie, we’re home”?), and despite being an unapologetic Fan of J.J. Abrams (say what you will about the endings of LOST and Alias or Star Trek Into Darkness; the man knows how to begin things), I was not prepared for how much I loved The Force Awakens. I was ready to love the characters from the Original Trilogy, but I’d figured the others would require a warming period. After all, I’ve loved the Original Trilogy my entire life. I have three decades worth of emotional investment in these characters. How could the new blood possibly measure up?

Oh, how gloriously wrong I was.

So let’s take them one at a time, in the order they are introduced, shall we?

Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac)

I was surprised that Poe is the first major character we meet. Based on the trailers, I thought it would be Rey, or possibly Finn. I also didn’t expect to have all that many feelings about him. But in just a few minutes of screen time, I was solidly Team Poe. His first line when he comes face to, er, mask with Kylo Ren endeared him to me forever. (“Do I talk first or you talk first? I talk first?”) Everything about Poe Dameron was utter perfection, from his clear affection for BB-8 (another surprise! I’d been all prepared for the Rey-BB-8 buddy show, but much as R2’s loyalty was to Luke, BB-8’s metal heart belongs to Poe Dameron) to his affable swagger when he teams up with Finn (“I can fly anything”) to his triumphant return later in the movie and his elated hug with Finn when they realize the other is still alive.

Let’s just dwell on that hug for a second. Poe and Finn had met exactly once, and while Finn latching on to Poe as his BFF is semi-understandable since Finn was a brainwashed Stormtrooper and had exactly zero friends, Poe is a charismatic guy with, presumably, other people he cares about, and who care about him. (Granted, probably a lot of them died in that opening scene, but hopefully not all of them.) And yet he is so elated to see Finn alive. It warmed my heart to see him care so genuinely and deeply about poor displaced Finn, and I am now significantly hopeful that a good chunk of Episode VIII will include The Broscapades of Finn and Poe.

BB-8

First, let’s just get out of the way how utterly adorable the bond between BB-8 and Poe is. When Leia entrusted R2-D2 with her message for Obi-Wan in A New Hope, she was all business. There was no affection between her and the droid (C-3P0 didn’t even really know who Leia was, other than that she was a figure “of some importance”), and it wasn’t until R2 delivered his message to Obi-Wan and Luke that we really saw an emotional bond begin to form. But The Force Awakens puts the human-droid bond front and center, with Poe literally tearing up as he gives vital information to BB-8 and tells him to get as far away as possible, then promises, “I will find you.” (Dangit, now I’m getting emotional about Poe again, and I’m supposed to be talking about BB-8.) But I thought this was an excellent way to get the audience immediately invested in this new droid (I can’t have been the only one highly skeptical about a new cutesy addition to the Star Wars-verse, right?), since if Poe Dameron cares so deeply about him, and Poe Dameron is so clearly awesome, then surely I should care about him too.

And it didn’t take long for BB-8 to establish himself as worthy of that emotional investment. From the delightful physical gags (how a bike helmet on a beach ball managed to give a thumbs up was one of the funniest visuals of the movie) to his sassy personality (sure, we can’t understand him, but Rey can, and watching her react was enough), BB-8 quickly proved that not only did he deserve his place beside R2 and C-3P0 as one of the most beloved droids in Star Wars, but he might…actually…be my new favorite?

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)

I am so excited about Kylo Ren, guys. Until now, Star Wars has given us a very clear line between the Light and Dark sides of the Force. Even Luke and Anakin/Vader, the only truly conflicted characters, tended to not straddle the line so much as pole-vault across it when it served their purpose. But Kylo! He is something we haven’t seen before. A character who actively chose the Dark Side but is tempted by the Light. A character estranged from his parents (no one was really surprised to find that Kylo Ren — formerly one Ben Solo — was Han and Leia’s son, right?), pressured by his father to turn away from what he knows and give into temptation — but in the opposite way of how we’ve seen this play out before.

Kylo Ren is like a film negative of Luke Skywalker, and I love it. Such possibilities for future installments! Will Kylo give into his temptation to join the good guys? What was it that pushed him to join the Dark Side in the first place, since his full heart clearly wasn’t in it? (Obviously he has some anger issues, but that can’t be the whole story, can it?)

I know now is where I should talk about That Major Thing He Does, but I’m not ready for that. I’ll get to it in a bit. Just as soon as I talk about —

Finn (John Boyega)

I’d like to thank J.J. Abrams, along with whoever else was responsible for casting, for bringing John Boyega into the Star Wars-verse. From surprising fans at Star Wars screenings to freaking out on his first viewing of the Force Awakens trailer to just being genuinely classy in the face of some genuinely unclassy comments about his casting, he’s just been a real treat to watch and I’m glad that Star Wars brought him onto my radar.

But I’m not here to talk about John Boyega. I’m here to talk about Finn. Finn.

Admittedly, we don’t get a ton of backstory on Finn (which is nothing new for Star Wars; the Original Trilogy gave us practically nothing on the Main Trio), but what we do know — taken from his family at an age so young he doesn’t remember them, trained as a soldier, treated as a slave, “conditioned” not to have any thoughts of his own — makes him even more interesting. When we see the Stormtroopers burning Poe’s village to the ground, Finn is the only one hesitates to kill the innocent civilians. Finn is the only one visibly shaken by the death of his comrades (perhaps even friends?). Finn is also the only Stormtrooper in the entire series to willingly remove his helmet (correct me if I’m wrong, as I’ve purposely blocked out the prequels, but in the Original Trilogy, the only helmets we see removed are worn by Luke and Han).

What is it about him that allows him to break free? Could it be…a capacity for the Force? Or is Finn just an innately good person, and that goodness couldn’t be wiped out of him, no matter how much First Order conditioning he received? Surely his line when he rescues Poe — “It’s the right thing to do” — shows his strength of character (where did he even learn the difference between right and wrong during his conditioning?). Despite Finn’s struggle throughout the movie between taking care of himself and taking care of his new friends, nothing highlights that inner strength more than at the end when he takes up Luke’s lightsaber(!) and battles (!) Kylo Ren(!!!).

Compared to how flashy and over-choreographed the prequel lightsaber battles were, can I just tell you how much I loved how raw the fights were in The Force Awakens? You have Kylo — a partially trained Jedi with a serious temper problem — and Finn, a former Stormtrooper who knows his way around a blaster, but has never trained with any other form of weaponry, just flailing madly at each other. It’s not polished, it’s not pretty, but it is amazing. Never before have any of the other Star Wars movies ever driven home the pure brutality of these weapons, but in this fight we have sizzling snow and smoldering garments and burned flesh. Even when Vader was lopping off Luke’s hand in Empire, it was all very clean and precise, but this fight was messy. And so when Finn loses — Finn loses — it hurts. It hurts him, and it hurts us, because we saw how much effort that battle took, how scared he was, how far out of his league, but how he kept fighting a losing battle because it was the right thing to do.

I need a minute. I’m awash in Finn feels and my screen is suddenly blurry. And I need my full wits about me to talk about —

Rey (Daisy Ridley)

Can we just…take a moment and bask in the glory that is Rey?

I was not prepared for how much I loved Rey (and how much I loved Daisy Ridley as Rey. It reminded me of the feeling I had watching Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, another character I was not prepared to love half as much as I did/do, and how even though I’d only seen her in the one movie, I was now willing to follow her to every movie ever). Every time I thought, okay, this is it, I love her as much as I possibly can, the movie would give us something else to love. The entire sequence where she meets Finn, from her knocking out her assailants before Finn can “rescue” her, to her constant “I know how to run without you holding my hand!” protests, to her reluctance to steal the “garbage” Millennium Falcon, followed by her surprise!ability to pilot the Millennium Falcon, was pure gold.

And then I could take you through all the best Rey moments in the rest of the movie, but I won’t, because that’s like the entire movie? Every single scene she was in was magical. When she taught herself to use the Force on the Stormtrooper? When Luke’s lightsaber flew past Kylo into her hand? When she met Leia’s eyes and went straight into her arms without ever meeting her (IN THIS MOVIE, ANYWAY)? When it was just understood that the Falcon was hers now, and Chewie was her new co-pilot, and she found Luke and held out the lightsaber and a world of understanding passed between them?

*deep breath*

Suffice it to say that Rey is a phenomenal character to hang this new franchise on, and I can’t wait to see the rest of her journey.

The Original Trilogy Characters 

I don’t want to say I was worried about seeing Han, Leia, Chewie, C-3P0, R2-D2, and Luke again. I wasn’t. I was actually overjoyed to see them again. But I worried a bit that they’d feel shoehorned into the new story, that their inclusion would wind up feeling more sad than triumphant, that they’d feel peripheral to the main plot.

I was so wrong. I was so pleased with how the old and new wove together seamlessly. I loved that we are not dealing just with “the next generation” in terms of age, but with the literal next generation of these characters, since Kylo is Han and Leia’s offspring. Not only did they fit in this story, but this story could not have existed without them. But at the same time, the new characters were allowed to carry most of the weight. That is no small feat, and I was so, so impressed with how they pulled it off. I’ve rarely (right now, I’d say never, but I could probably think of something if I gave myself enough time to think about it) seen such a smooth passing of the torch in a franchise.

I loved the little ways they aged up the characters. Han and Leia, being human, aged more obviously, but they also gave us C-3P0’s red arm (“You probably don’t recognize me.”), and even Chewie has become a bit of a crotchety old man. I was nervous about Mark Hamill, having just seen him as The Trickster on The Flash, where he was looking markedly un-Jedi-like, but I thought he pulled off the Force Hermit look well. I do wish we’d gotten at least one line out of him, but with Han gone, I’m guessing Episode VIII will be the Luke and Rey show.

Which brings me to…

That Big Thing Kylo Does

Guys, I know, I know, I am as devastated as you are, but Han had to die. Not just because Harrison Ford has wanted him dead for 30 years, but because this is not Han’s story. It never was, really. It was always Luke’s story. Han arguably had a small arc in the original trilogy — he went from being someone who was only out to save his own skin to someone who would risk himself to save his friends — but Star Wars has never been about Han Solo. At its core, one of the central conflicts of Star Wars has always been about identity, and the struggle between who you think you are vs. who others want you to be. Han Solo has always had a firm grasp on who he is and what he wants, and that hasn’t changed throughout the entire saga.

But by killing Han Solo off — killing him at the hand of his son, so that he can complete his transition to the Dark Side — we’ve once again put that central conflict of identity front and center. Because it’s not about Han, it’s about Kylo. Who Kylo wants to be versus who Han still hopes he is. It’s that pivotal Luke Skywalker choice all over again, but flipped, and it is even more gutting than Luke’s original confrontation with Vader, because when Kylo triumphs over his father, it’s not what we want at all. For so much of this movie, we were lulled into believing that if Rey is this generation’s Luke, Kylo is Vader, but that’s not the case. They’re both Luke — one as we know him, the other as he could have been. And this choice — for Kylo to kill Han as Rey looks on, horrified — drives that parallel home.

So much of The Force Awakens was re-treading familiar ground, but Han’s death sets the story on a new path we haven’t been down before. What if Luke gave in to the emperor’s taunts and struck down his father? What if, despite the part of him that still felt pulled toward the Light Side, he chose the Dark? What if, instead of balancing on that line, he toppled over it? Could he ever climb back to the other side? Would we even want him to?

Honestly, my only beef with that entire scene — which was so, so well done — was that the writers missed an opportunity for this exchange:

Kylo: [holds out saber hilt]

Han: [taking Kylo’s hand] Your mother and I…we love you.

Kylo: [tears in his eyes] I know.

Kylo: [stabs Han]

WHY DID THIS NOT HAPPEN? I can only imagine it’s because they’re saving the “I love you”/”I know” exchange for Leia/Kylo in a future installment. Because if this franchise does not give me the Solo Family turning that iconic endearment from an expression of romantic love into one of familial love, I just don’t even understand what I’m doing here.

ETA: Also! I just want to point out the beautiful symmetry between how we meet Han in A New Hope and how he leaves in The Force Awakens. The first time we see him, after he’s finished wheeling and dealing with Obi-Wan, is when he’s confronted by Greedo, and Han — as all true Star Wars fans can attest — shoots first. It’s Han on the offensive, acting before anyone else can, motivated by a strong sense of self-preservation.

But in his last scene, his death is the direct result of Han deliberately choosing not to act. Han Solo has finally found something he cares about more than himself, and he is willing to forego that self-preservation instinct — to go as far as having a weapon placed in his hand and still not using it — if there’s a chance it might save his son. Like so much else surrounding Kylo Ren, this scene mirrors that first one, but takes it in the opposite way of what we’ve seen before. I thought it was a brilliant, moving way to say goodbye to this beloved character, and highlighted the character growth in Han that’s been happening off-screen for the past 30 years.

So there are (most of) my spoilerific thoughts on The Force Awakens! (There are more, but this post is already a dissertation.) What were your favorite parts? Who was your favorite character? I can discuss this forever, so please, if I forgot to mention something awesome, LET ME KNOW.

ETA: Rey is totally Luke’s daughter, right?

Ten Tips to Surviving #NaNoWriMo

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It is the beginning of November, which means a few things. The Pumpkin Spice Everything is transitioning to Peppermint Everything. The seasonal aisle at your local mega-mart is switching from costumes and cobwebs to tinsel and candy canes. Daylight has been saved, which somehow means that it gets…dark…earlier?

And, if you’re a writer, you may be considering — or already be in the throes of — NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

What is NaNo? Simply put, it’s a challenge for writers to churn out 50,000 words of their own original work of fiction in 30 days. Thousands of writers take the challenge every year, to varying levels of success. And though you may never have heard of it before, some of the bestselling novels of the past few years have gotten their starts as NaNo projects, such as The Night Circus, Water For Elephants, The Scorpio Races, and Fangirl. (It’s worth pointing out that none of these projects were finished — not even a complete draft — in a single month, which we’ll be circling back to in a bit, but NaNo was absolutely part of their origin stories.)

Confession time: I’ve never officially done NaNo. As in I have not signed up on the website, picked a username, and filled up my progress bar until I “won.” (Really, the main reason I’ve never participated in NaNo is because I know me, and I’m pretty sure I’d get way too distracted by the social aspect of Officially NaNo-ing to…you know…actually write a book. But if you are not as distractable as me, you probably won’t have this problem.)

However, I have written over 50,000 words in a month of my own original work of fiction, so I’m not coming from a totally ignorant place here.

If you’re braving the NaNo waters this year, congrats! Bonus congrats if you’ve never attempted to write a novel before, or have but have never completed one. Novel writing, much like training for a marathon, requires determination, perseverance, and the willpower to press ahead even when your mind and body want to quit. It’s a trudge, not a sprint, and you have to put in a lot of time and effort before you feel yourself making significant progress toward your goal. NaNo helps speed the process along by forcing you to slap a whole bunch of words onto paper in a relatively short period of time, but when you’re pushing yourself, even a month of consistency can be a huge challenge.

So if this is your first NaNo, it’s understandable if you’re daunted. But you can do this. I believe in you.

To help you out, both with the process and with your expectations, here are ten tips to get you through the month. As with all writing advice, YMMV, but hopefully some of this will help.

1. Prioritize your writing time.

Here’s a secret. No one ever “has time” to write a book. There are always day jobs, families, schoolwork, housework, extracurriculars, kids, travel, on and on and on. Anyone who thinks “I would love to write a book one day when I have time” will probably never write a book. Most first novels are written in the cracks of life — during teacher planning sessions, after the kids go to bed, on the on the subway, in the car rider line after school, in the mornings before work.

The trick, like with anything else you value, is to make your writing time sacred. Don’t think you’ll just squeeze it in around all the other, more important stuff in your day. Block off time each day to write, and hold yourself to it. Even when you don’t feel like it. Get off social media, turn off the TV, put on a pair of headphones, and buckle down. You don’t have to get all your words in at once — if the only way for you to fit writing into your schedule is 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there, then by all means, write in chunks. But during those chunks, make writing the priority. All the other pulls of life will still be there when you come up for air.

2. Be realistic about your capabilities.

50,000 words over 30 days comes out to about 1,667 words a day. I consider myself a fairly quick writer (although there are those who put me to shame), but even when the words are pouring out, I can only hit about 800-1,000 words in an hour. So for me to hit a 1,667-words-a-day goal would involve blocking off around two hours of devoted writing time. But there are many who write slower than that — maybe only 300-500 words in an hour. And that’s okay. Speed has nothing to do with the quality of the end product. But if you are a slower writer and want to hit that daily goal, know that you’re either going to need to block out bigger chunks of your day, or make up the deficit somewhere else (like only working an hour on weekdays but full days on weekends).

The other thing to keep in mind is that even if you have eight hours of free time a day, it’s really hard to be productive for eight hours in a row. I don’t know any writers — not even multi-published authors — who can crank out 1,000 words an hour for eight consecutive hours, every day of the week. (Maybe on a tight deadline, or at a writing retreat, but that kind of burst of productivity isn’t sustainable over the course of a month.) Me, I am at my most productive when I write in 30-60 minute sprints, then take a break. It doesn’t have to be a long break, but I need to step away. And once I hit about 2,000 words in a day, my productivity tanks. It’s really hard for me to push past that. The words dry up in my brain like old toothpaste.

So for me, saying “I will block off three consecutive hours every day to write, and will set a goal of 3,000 words each day” would be highly unrealistic. If I have three hours available to me, maybe I block off two of them to write, and set myself a 1,500 word-a-day goal. Which is a little shy of the 1,667 needed to win NaNo, but close enough that I can make up the deficit on the weekends, when I have more free time, and can also take more breaks.

3. Don’t look back.

I fully understand the impulse to go back over what you wrote yesterday and clean it up. Maybe it felt clunky as you were writing it, maybe you learned something about your character that would affect their earlier actions, maybe you’ve realized you don’t want your character to go through the forest, but across the river instead. So you need to rewrite those earlier scenes, right? Wrong.

Remember your goal: 50,000 words in a month. It’ll be a lot harder to hit that goal if you begin each writing session by deleting words or messing with what you already have. Make yourself a note of what you want to change, then keep pressing forward. I promise, no matter how much tweaking you do along the way, your novel will still need to be revised once it’s done. So why spend time on that work now? Save it for later. Write the next chapter like your character chose the river, and once you have a complete draft, you can go back and polish it up.

4. Embrace your crappy first draft.

I know it doesn’t seem like this when you read your favorite authors’ published works — or maybe even when you beta read works-in-progress for friends — but no one is happy with their first draft. No. One. But you can’t edit a blank page, so it’s important to get those ideas out of your head and onto paper so that you can then revise them into something you’re happy with. Think of your first draft like slapping down a wet blob of clay on a potter’s wheel. It may be ugly and malformed, but without that raw material, the true art can never be created.

5. Eyes on your own paper.

I am blessed to have a lot of extremely talented writer friends. I am also cursed to have a lot of extremely talented writer friends. It can be so easy to fall into the trap of reading their books — especially when they’re published books — compare them to my crappy first draft, and think, I am such a hack. 

The funny thing? They feel the same way. Maybe not about me, but about someone. If everyone gave up who looked at someone else’s work and thought, I can never create something as good as this, we would have no art. Nada. None. Zero. Zilch.

Similarly, everyone’s process is different. Just because your buddy John vomited 10,000 words into his computer during the first day of NaNo and you wrote 300 doesn’t mean anything. Maybe John now has a word hangover and needs to take a week off to recharge. Maybe he’ll write 100,000 words this month. It doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with you, your project, your abilities. Keep your attention on what you are doing, not what everyone else is.

6. Understand that 50,000 words may not be a complete novel, and that’s okay.

Unless you’re writing Middle Grade, 50,000 words is probably not going to be a complete book (and even with Middle Grade, maybe not). Most YA and Adult books have a higher — sometimes significantly higher — word count than this. So if you find yourself panicking in the last week of November because you’re only halfway through your novel, that’s okay. There’s no rule that if you don’t finish in November, you won’t finish at all. Give your book the time (and words) it needs to be its best self.

For comparative purposes, here are the word counts for some popular books across several genres. (If you’re writing Adult Fantasy…buckle up for a long ride.)

Charlotte’s Web – 31,938

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – 36,363

Matilda – 40,009

The Phantom Tollbooth – 42,156

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – 77,508

Shadow and Bone – 81,215

The Lightning Thief – 87,223

The Hunger Games – 99,750

Ender’s Game – 100,609

Divergent – 105,143

Twilight – 118,975

Gone Girl – 145,719

The Fellowship of the Ring – 177,227

Mistborn – 212,417

Game of Thrones – 292,727

7. Get yourself an accountabilibuddy (or several). 

Whether or not you participate in the social aspect of NaNo (forums, hashtag chats, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), I highly recommend finding one or two people to hold you accountable, and vice versa. While the “we’re all at the same party” aspect of NaNo can be great and highly motivating, it’s good to have a couple people who are specifically looking at you. These are the people you can confide in when you totally blow your goal for a day, who will cheer you on when you aren’t sure you can keep going, who give you virtual high fives across the internet when you hit a milestone. While I’m not NaNo-ing this month, I do have an accountabilibuddy of my own that I’m checking in with as I work to finish my current manuscript, and I guarantee I am more productive knowing I have to check in with her at the end of every day.

8. Allow yourself to adjust your goals.

Maybe you realize a week in that you actually can’t churn out 2,000 words after working a full day at work. Maybe it just occurred to you that you probably won’t write while hosting your entire family for Thanksgiving. Maybe you get sick, maybe you get called in for overtime at your job, maybe your kid breaks her arm. Whatever the reason, life happens, and sometimes the goals we set at the beginning of the month aren’t realistic two or three weeks in. It’s okay to change them, adjust to whatever your new circumstances are. It’s also okay to realize maybe you were just too ambitious, and downshift. Every person is different. And you know what? Not winning NaNo is not the end of the world. Not one of those books I mentioned above that started as a NaNo book was completed during NaNo. Some of the authors didn’t even finish NaNo. But their books still got finished and still got published.  NaNo is a tool in your author belt, nothing more. If it doesn’t work for you, throw it out and get a new tool.

9. Don’t let the creative well run dry.

It may seem like common sense to forego all other forms of entertainment while trying to churn out a book in a month, but it actually may hurt more than it helps. Sure, you probably shouldn’t binge all of Breaking Bad in a week instead of writing, but don’t go cold turkey either. Much as you may think you can create in a vacuum, this is rarely a good idea. Allow yourself to keep consuming art, whether that be books, TV, movies, music — whatever it is for you that stimulates your creative juices, keep it coming. Maybe dial it back a bit, if that’s what typically takes up all your free time — you do need some of that to write, obviously — but don’t feel like a failure if one day, the words just aren’t coming, so you decide to watch an episode of Daredevil or read a few chapters of whatever’s on your nightstand instead. Art begets art. Sometimes, all it takes to get the words flowing again is a solid infusion of someone else’s fiction.

10. Acknowledge the hard work that comes next.

Once you’ve hit your 50,000 words or completed your book, it’s easy to throw up your hands and think, Huzzah, I’m done! Alas, this is never the case. Never. Remember how we were embracing the crappy first draft? Well, now begins the hard work of polishing that sucker into something worth showing people. Read through your work. Take notes on what doesn’t make sense, what needs more fleshing out, what plot threads you abandoned mid-draft. Then go back and revise, revise, revise. Get some beta readers. Listen to their notes. Revise again. This part takes time — maybe even more time than drafting the book itself — but it’s what turns a crappy first draft into a book.

Once you have revised the heck out of your book and honestly feel it is your Very Best Work, then, and only then, are you ready to take the next steps. That may be self-publishing, it may be querying agents and pursuing a traditional publishing deal, it may be printing up a handful of print-on-demand paperbacks to pass out on street corners, I don’t know.  I can’t tell you which path is right for you. All I can tell you is that the road from Crappy First Draft to Book Worth Reading is long and filled with tears and red ink.

BONUS 11: Don’t sell yourself short.

It’s easy to become daunted. To think that this is beyond you. That other people can write a book, but you can’t. Your ideas are too small. Your talent isn’t enough. You never finish things, and this is no different.

Don’t do that to yourself. Yes, writing a book is a big challenge, whether you do it in a month or a year. But just like climbing a mountain or running a race, it’s possible. All it takes is putting one foot in front of the other, one word after another, bit by bit, over and over. Don’t look back. Don’t look down. Don’t stop. And when you reach the top, the finish line, The End, you’ll be so proud to look back and see how far you’ve come.

Film Review: THE MARTIAN

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You may remember how much I loved THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir, the novel about an astronaut accidentally stranded alone on Mars, forced to become a sort of Science MacGyver in his efforts to survive, while his crewmates and NASA and basically all of humanity band together in a heroic and desperate attempt to rescue him. This book was amazing. Absolutely my favorite book of the year, and probably one of my favorite books of all time.

You may also remember that the reason I read the book was because I’d seen the trailer for the movie, which also looked amazing. And after reading the book, I was even more excited for the film. It looked like it would be a faithful adaptation that really captured the spirit of the novel — but of course, trailers often lie. So. Did it hold up?

This is going to be part film review, part compare and contrast with the book, because although the movie totally stands on its own, I find it really difficult to talk about it without referencing the source material. I’ll hide all spoilers, so don’t worry if you haven’t read or watched yet.

Let’s just get this out of the way up front: I loved the movie. Loved. I thought it was one of the most faithful book adaptations I’ve seen in years, the visuals were stunning, the casting was terrific, the writing was tight, the pacing was solid, and the humor, optimism and collaborative, heroic spirit of the book were all wonderfully represented. So. Even though I’m going to get critical in a minute, keep in mind that it’s the criticism of a true fan who enjoyed this movie and wants to watch it a dozen more times.

First, let’s talk about things I think the movie did better than the book. The big one is character. Watney aside (Matt Damon/Mark Watney is a category all his own), I cared about the characters in the movie — the Hermes crew in particular, but all of them to varying degrees — far more than I did in the book. One advantage to seeing the movie trailer before reading the book was that I was able to picture the movie cast as all the characters as I read. So although I’ve heard a few people here and there say Matt Damon was not “their” Mark Watney, for me, he was Mark from page 1.

It also helps (or maybe hinders, if you read the book first and pictured a character totally differently) that there is almost no physical description in the book for any of the characters. We are given names and genders and personalities, occasionally ages, but that’s it. No skin or hair color, no ethnicity beyond what’s implied by their names, no body types or backstory. So when it came to casting, there was a lot of leeway to cast the person who best embodied the character, and personally, I thought that worked out in the movie’s favor.

The vast majority of the cast was tasked with the daunting challenge of fully fleshing out their characters with relatively little screen time, and they managed it admirably, giving the non-Watney scenes an even greater depth and humanity than they had in the book. Whereas in the book, my heart was on Mars with Watney, making me anxious to return to him anytime the point-of-view would switch to another character, in the movie, I was fully invested in every scene, not just those on Mars with Watney, but on earth with the NASA team and in space with the Hermes crew. With an ensemble cast like this, it’s hard to call out individual players without it turning into a laundry list, so suffice it to say, everyone brought their A-game to this production.

The Hermes crew, ltr: Matt Damon, Sebastian Stan, Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Aksel Hennie, Michael Peña

The movie was also able to drive home the physical deterioration of Mark Watney in a way I never fully felt with the book. It was one thing to read about how he had to severely cut his rations in order to stretch them, but another to see him go from a clean-shaven, muscular guy at the beginning of the movie to a bushy-faced, skeletal figure covered in malnutrition bruises by the end. His transformation really underscored the brutality of passing time in a far more tangible way than reading about it could.

Also, while I loved the [highlight for spoiler: final rescue scene by the Hermes crew] in the book, in the movie it was extended, and thus felt both more harrowing and heroic to me. I also really enjoyed that the movie ended the equivalent of a few pages past where the book ends. It gave the story and the characters a better sense of closure, and viewers a greater sense of satisfaction.

Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Matt Damon’s fantastic performance as Mark Watney. I don’t think he was better than the book, per se, but he totally embodied the Watney in my brain, from his grim optimism, to his nerdy, irreverent, and sometimes fatalistic sense of humor, to his conversational and accessible way of talking about sciencing his way out of certain death. While I’m sure there are other great actors who could have played Watney and done the character justice, I can’t imagine anyone portraying him better or more true to the book than Damon. He was my Watney, from the first minute to the last.

Matt Damon as Mark Watney

However, there were some aspects in which I think the movie didn’t fare quite so well. Even though the movie runs long for Hollywood, at 141 minutes, it never felt like it had enough time to fully convey just how perilous Mark’s situation was. Like in the book, the movie sticks solely with Mark on Mars for his first couple weeks of isolation, but it never really has time to build up that sense of profound loneliness and desperation before cutting to NASA. And from then on out, by constantly cutting between Mark and NASA, the movie is never fully able to make us feel that every minute of Mark’s life is teetering on the edge of complete and utter failure, because we can see NASA working the problems and coming up with solutions — seemingly, almost instantly.

I don’t want to say the film felt rushed, because it didn’t. The pacing was, as I said before, solid. But in adapting the story from the book, it had to lose a lot of small scenes that, while not integral to the plot, may have been helpful for the tone. [Minor spoilers follow, but nothing that’s not in the trailer.]

We see Mark having to make soil to grow potatoes, but we never understand just how hard or unlikely that process is, or how long it takes. We never become emotionally invested in those potatoes, like I did reading the book. When [spoiler: the HAB airlock explodes and Mark loses all his crops, it doesn’t have nearly the impact of that scene in the book, where it felt almost like the death of a beloved character.]

Mark faces many of the same problems he does in the book — lack of water, lack of communication, extreme cold, limited battery life for his equipment — but instead of getting stuck, instead of feeling like he’s run up against an insurmountable obstacle, instead of being struck over and over with that sense of imminent failure, his problems are often solved in the very next scene. Sure, the timestamps may tell us that a few days (or Sols, as time is measured on Mars) have passed, but for the movie-going audience, it was only a minute or two. While in the book, he spends multiple chapters prepping [spoiler: for his 2-month drive to the MAV], building up a huge sense of anticipation in the reader as he details everything that could go wrong, in the movie, he conceives his plan and then — time jump! — executes it.

Matt Damon as Mark Watney

At that point, a friend leaned over to me in the theater and whispered, “I doubt it felt that quick and easy for him.” And that, I felt, was an unfortunate theme throughout this movie. While the actors did an amazing job of showing us how worried and conflicted they were, and while we could see Mark putting up a wall of humor to push away the hopelessness in every one of his scenes, without the time to really linger on each setback Mark and NASA faced or to mourn their failures, their problems never felt impossible. The solution was never more than a scene or two away.

So while the movie didn’t need [spoiler: Mark hiding in the Rover with no idea what to do when he realized he’d accidentally turned the HAB into a bomb, or shorting out Pathfinder and losing his only means of communication, or rolling the Rover on his way to the MAV], by losing all those moments where Mark had to pause and really face the question, is this what kills me?, I felt like the movie never quite managed the overwhelming part of “overwhelming odds.” There were odds, sure, and I believed them. But overwhelming? I never thought it got there.

Also, this is not really relevant to anything, but I was pretty bummed that we never got Watney measuring things in units of pirate-ninjas. Just needed to state that for the record.

All that said, I still think this was an excellent film, and a wonderful adaptation of the book. Plus, in a story landscape littered with supervillains and antiheroes, this is one of those rare stories with no bad guy. I love me a good villain, but this is a tale of Man + Science (+ Duct Tape, really) vs. Nature, and really, that is fully enough. It is hopeful and optimistic, both in its vision of what humanity might someday be able to accomplish, and in its characters, who push themselves beyond their limits to help one another. So while it may have a few shortcomings, as all movies do, I can still fully endorse it for what it is — a beautifully told, riveting, inspirational tale of survival, cooperation, and loyalty, peppered with humor and science, IN SPACE.

Really, if that doesn’t get you to the theater, I don’t know what will.

Review: WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER by Rae Carson

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It’s no secret that I loved Rae Carson’s GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS trilogy, so when I heard she was beginning a new fantasy trilogy — a historical fantasy, set during the California gold rush — my fingers immediately began itching for a copy. Fortunately, I had a friend who generously offered to loan me her ARC (once she was finished reading, of course — there is generous, and then there’s just plain ridiculous), so I was able to read WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER a few months early.

And guys, I didn’t even think it was possible, but if the first book is anything to go by, I think the Gold Seer Trilogy may be even better than GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS.

I know. Take a moment.

The Plot (from Goodreads):

Lee Westfall has a secret. She can sense the presence of gold in the world around her. Veins deep beneath the earth, pebbles in the river, nuggets dug up from the forest floor. The buzz of gold means warmth and life and home—until everything is ripped away by a man who wants to control her. Left with nothing, Lee disguises herself as a boy and takes to the trail across the country. Gold was discovered in California, and where else could such a magical girl find herself, find safety?

Walk on Earth a Stranger, the first book in this new trilogy, introduces—as only Rae Carson can—a strong heroine, a perilous road, a fantastical twist, and a slow-burning romance. Includes a map and author’s note on historical research.

My Thoughts:

Before I dig into my thoughts on the first book in Rae Carson’s new Gold Seer Trilogy, let’s discuss genre for a minute. While WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER is being marketed as a fantasy, and while the opening chapter firmly establishes Leah Westfall’s ability to magically sense the presence of gold, once you move past the events that set Leah off on her cross-country journey, I was surprised to find that the majority of the book reads like a straight historical. Who knows, maybe future installments in the series will play up the magic more, but going off of just this first book, it feels a bit more accurate to call WOEAS historical fiction with some magical realism elements, rather than a fantasy

That said, even though I’d been prepared for a fantasy, I was not disappointed in the slightest to find magic missing from the majority of WOEAS. Leah — who starts going by “Lee” early in the book, when she disguises herself as a boy — is an utterly compelling narrator, and Carson’s prose is simultaneously lush and gritty, masterfully evoking the visuals and sounds and smells of a late-1800s America. The staggering amount of research that must have gone into this novel is evident on every page, immersing the reader in the endlessly beautiful — yet unforgivingly harsh — American frontier.

Though the ensemble cast seems kind of sprawling at first, Carson skillfully manages to develop her characters into fully three-dimensional people after surprisingly little page time. It didn’t take long before I was rooting not just for Leah, but for the families and individuals traveling alongside her. I won’t name names, because some characters have pretty impressive arcs (and some, um, die), but suffice it to say, Leah isn’t the only one who ends the book loving these people like family.

For those of us who grew up playing the video game Oregon Trail, Leah’s journey will come with a distinct sense of nostalgia. While (spoiler alert) Leah never hunkers down for days on end to shoot squirrels, she, along with her fellow travelers, must ford rivers, maneuver covered wagons, manage sick oxen, and battle disease (although not quite as much dysentery as I remember from my Oregon Trail days). Though the wagon train’s trek to California moves agonizingly slowly, the plot never does. Carson is a master of infusing her story with moment-to-moment tension, and even when the characters were sitting still, I found myself flying through the pages.

As with Carson’s first series, [what I suspect will be] the main romantic subplot doesn’t get much exploration in this first book. While there are hints, this is a story of survival and endurance, not romance. However, as a fan of the slow burn, I thoroughly enjoyed the foundations that were so thoughtfully laid in this book, and I think that even readers who prefer a lot of swoon in their fiction will find that, while sparse, there are enough tidbits in this book to carry them through to the next one.

Overall, I found WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER to be a beautiful, vivid, and compulsively readable portrayal of life in Gold Rush-era America, with just a dash of magic. I unequivocally loved it. Whether you are a lover of fantasy or historicals or simply a good story well told, I think you’ll love it, too.