Farworld Nominated for the 2008 Cybils Awards!

Whoo hoo! You can read more about it here. It was nominated under MG Fantasy (which is not such a big suprise, conisdering that it is a Middle Grade Fantasy. ) Anyway, I'm excited.

Happy Halloween

"Funky Frankenstein"
by Ray Villafane
Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you are having a great time and eating and/or scaring yourselves silly. Since it is the season, I thought I'd share a true story I wrote about a couple of years ago on another site.

In the summer of my thirteenth year I discovered a secret passage to another world. Since then I have continued to search for that passage on and off with most of my efforts in vain.

The year was 1976—when everything from quarters to appliance sales was labeled bicentennial. Our small New Jersey town was gripped tight by a summer heat that usually lasted from mid-June to early-September. The only relief came from the cloudbursts which regularly lashed the countryside with torrents of rain and spectacular lightning. But even then, the rain was warm, hitting the hot sidewalks and streets and immediately steaming back into the atmosphere.

Nights were marginally better. The air was still so heavy and moisture-laden you could taste it as you breathed in and out, but at least the temperature dropped a few degrees and the occasional breeze wafted fireflies to and fro like our own private star show.

From our sleeping bags on the screened-in porch, my younger brother and I waited for our parents’ bedroom light to finally go out. We were both as anxious as if it were Christmas Eve—although our pursuits were of a rather different nature than celebrating the birth of our Savior.

Clutching flashlights to our chests, we conferred in hushed whispers about how soon we could safely slip away.

“You think they’re asleep yet?”
“I don’t hear Dad snoring.”

“Maybe he isn’t going to snore tonight.”

“He always snores.”

“Yeah.”

Still completely dressed inside our sleeping bags—right down to our shoes—we turned our attention to our planned adventure while we waited for the buzz saw that was our sleeping father.

“What if we get stuck down there?” my brother asked.

“We won’t get stuck. The pipes are too big.”

“What if it rains?” My little brother was ever the pessimist. Perhaps because of experiences with the previous adventures I’d planned.

I, on the other hand, was sure this adventure would come off flawlessly. “It’s not going to rain. And besides, even if it did, we could float out of the drainpipes back to the river like a waterslide. That would be cool huh?”

“I guess,” he said, sounding less than thrilled with the concept. After a moment’s thought he asked, “Are there animals down there?”

“What kind of animals?” I hadn’t considered that possibility the day before when we’d laid out our plans.

“I don’t know.” He turned on his flashlight making a yellow circle inside his bag. “Rats. Or skunks. What about alligators?”

Alligators? Were there alligators in the drain pipes? The idea seemed at once both impossible and utterly believable—the way so many things do to young boys. Sensing my momentum slipping away, I made the executive decision that it was time to leave.

“Come on,” I whispered climbing out of my sleeping bag. “And turn off that light in case Mom and Dad are still awake.”

After a second’s hesitation he turned off his flashlight and we tiptoed across the sagging boards of the back porch, through the kitchen, down the stairs, and out the front door, holding our breath all the way. I pretended I didn’t care whether he came or not, but in truth I’d never have been brave enough to try this on my own. An eleven-year-old brother probably wouldn’t be much help against an alligator, but at least there was a fifty-fifty chance it would go for him first.

The trip to the river—really not much more than a slow moving creek with occasional deeper spots where we sometimes swam—was short and uneventful. We’d been playing there for years. But it wasn’t until a few days before, that it suddenly occurred to me the big concrete pipe, which dribbled out moss-colored water most of the year, probably connected to the pipes which ran beneath the gutters in front of our house.

Theoretically we could enter the drain at the river and follow it all the way home. We never thought to consider how we would exit the pipes once we actually reached our destination.

Gripping the trunks of the willows and saplings that lined the bank, we climbed down to the water’s edge and worked our way upstream to the pipe. By now we both had our flashlights on, casting everything around us into a collage of elongated shadows. As we reached the dark opening, I could feel my stomach tighten. My brother dropped back a few steps.

“It looks kind of scary,” he said.

It did look scary. Much scarier than it had in the light of day. Like a giant blind eye or worse, a large toothless mouth. It looked like the kind of place where a kid might enter and never be seen again. Still, I knew if I showed the slightest hint of fear my brother would turn tail and the entire adventure would be ruined. He’d probably tell our mom too. He had an incredible streak of honesty when it came to getting other people in trouble.

“It’s just a pipe,” I said, shining my light into the dark tunnel. “See. There’s nothing inside but a little water.”

My brother edged up beside me and peered into the pipe. Emboldened by his company, I leaned halfway inside. “Hello!” I shouted. Hel-looo a voice echoed back. It was creepy, but also kind of cool.

“I think you better go first,” I offered. “That way if the pipe gets too small I can pull you out.”

“Huh uh!” He shook his head. “You go first.”

With no way to back out, I took a deep breath and climbed the rest of the way into the pipe. Resting both hands on the smooth cool concrete—my light tucked under one arm—I waited to see if anything would come scuttling out of the darkness further inside. Deciding the coast was clear, I began crawling forward and threw a disgusted look over my shoulder.

“See. It’s easy.”

My brother cast a last look toward the river, as though trying to memorize the face of freedom and then followed me into the darkness.

The first five or ten minutes were uneventful. The pipe kept a roughly even course into the darkness and other than an occasional broken toy or candy wrapper, we didn’t come across anything unexpected. Crawling on our hands and knees, arms and legs slightly apart to avoid getting wet, we were able to move quickly and rather easily. The smell—musty with a hint of sour—reminded me of an old basement, and the air down here was much cooler than it had been outside.

We actually became comfortable enough to joke about what we’d do if someone flushed a toilet. Not knowing the difference between storm drains and sewer pipes, that seemed a distinct possibility, but somehow we weren’t bothered by the concept. In fact after the first few hundred yards we started to get a little bored.

“What if we found an opening and we looked through and it was someone’s bathtub?”

“What if there was an old lady in the tub?”

“What if I reached through the opening and pinched her wrinkly behind and shouted, ‘Crab claws?’” We both found the idea highly amusing, and laughed hard at our own joke. Our joking lasted until we reached a fork in the pipe.

“Let’s go right.”

“No. I think we should go left.”

“If we go left we might end up over by the high school.”

“If we go right we might go under the freeway.”

What if we went the wrong way and couldn’t remember how to get back out? In my plan we’d been guided by sewer grates every so often where we could peer out and judge our general direction. So far we hadn’t come across any grates. What if this pipe didn’t connect to the grates? For the first time I began to question the soundness of my idea.

“Right. Definitely right,” I decided at last, and quickly began crawling in that direction.

“I’m not so sure about this,” my brother muttered. But not wanting to be left behind, he followed along. A hundred or so feet further the pipe changed from concrete to corrugated metal and the diameter shrunk so that we had to duck our heads to keep from hitting them.

As we continued through the metal pipe, knocking our knees on the metal bumps, the bottom of the pipe began to fill with dirt and sand, making the diameter of the pipe even tighter.

“I think we should turn around,” my brother said. By this point I did too. My hands and knees were aching and I’d hit the top of my head more than once. But now we couldn’t turn around even if we wanted to. The pipe was too small.

About then we both heard something moving around inside the pipe. At first it was only a scratching like something digging in the dirt. But then echoing through the pipes we heard what sounded like a baby crying. Panicked, we wanted nothing more than to get away from the sound. Only in the confined space we couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Sometimes it seemed to be behind us, other times in front of us.

“Come on,” I said, trying to sound like I wasn’t about to cry. “It’s probably just a bird or something.” Of course it didn’t sound like any bird I’d ever heard. It sounded for all the world like an infant lost and crying inside the pipes.

For the next ten minutes we crawled like crazy. Shining our lights desperately back and forth. At one point we were sure we heard a man’s voice say, “Who’s down there?”

After what seemed like hours and miles from where we started, I saw a ladder extending up into the darkness. Grabbing the cold metal rungs we climbed quickly up and discovered a metal circle. I pushed as hard as I could and the circle moved. Another shove and the sky opened up before us. I can honestly say I have never been so happy to see haze-dulled stars in my life.

As we climbed up onto the street, a huge sense of relief, freedom, joy, and gratitude washed over us. We were only a few blocks from home. Looking across the street we noticed a boy of seven or eight sitting on the front porch of his house. He was staring wide-eyed at the two boys who crawled up out of the sewers and onto the street.

I looked at my brother, then turned back to the boy and said, “Hello. We’re the sewer rats.”

At my words, he jumped off the porch and ran into the house screaming, “Mom!”

Before he could return with his mother we had pushed the manhole cover back into place and disappeared.

When we returned home, we found we had been gone less than an hour. We never did find out what we’d heard in the pipes, although we did find out later that a man who lived a block away from the manhole had heard something in the pipes and called down to see who was there.

Eventually the fear went away. But the memory never has. The feeling of being in a world completely distant from the one we had left only minutes earlier. The adrenaline rush of thinking something would leap out of the darkness any minute and the relief when we finally managed to escape. I recognize that world in certain authors that I read. I intimately understood the power of Stephen King’s IT.

This is a world I want to create for my readers. But now I just use a different entrance.

The More Things Change . . .

I am typing today’s blog from inside a tent in my backyard. You might think I am a little bit old for that, (and my knees would agree with you), you might also think that late October in Utah it’s a little bit cold for that. (All of me would agree with you.) But my son turns 11 next month and in order to get his Arrow of Light, he needed to camp overnight in a tent he set up. So here we are. Actually it was kind of fun roasting hot dogs and making s’mores with my little guys. I’ll see how good I feel about it in the morning. So if my slightly frozen fingers mistype, or if my eyes are not as clear in the dark of the tent, blame Cub Scouts!



But that isn’t actually what I’m blogging about tonight. I wanted to respond to a post I was directed to by my good friend and fellow author, Annette Lyon. The post was written by author, Gregory Frost. It’s starts out talking about how his series has been pulled from the shelves of Borders. But it’s really about much more than that. It’s (if I’m interpreting right), about how chain bookstores are limiting what we read. You can read the whole post here: http://www.wildriverreview.com/oped_bookswoutbordes.php.

Now before I respond to Mr. Frost’s post, let me say that I totally understand the pain of having a book pulled from the shelves of a store. I’ve been there. Let me also say that I am going to go out and buy his series. And I’m going do it at an independent bookstore. Some of my favorite bookstores are independents, and we do need to support them I also think that Mr. Frost provides a lot to consider. Which is all I ask of a good post.


If you sense a “but” coming here, you are right. I personally feel that this post has a “the sky is falling” feel to it that I don’t think is warranted. In fact, if anything, I think we have more choices than ever before.

I’ll address a couple of his points.

Mr. Frost laments that, “When the million-copy bestseller is required every quarter, you have a business model doomed to failure — either you publish fewer titles, or fewer copies of those more complicated, subtle, and dare I say it, difficult books.”

Here’s the thing. For as long as I can remember, this has been the model of big publishers. It’s the very fact that there are best selling books that allows them to publish books that make no profit at all. Or that may not make any money right out of the gate. It’s the lure of the next bestseller that lets the publisher take chances. I’ve published with small publishers, and I can say for a fact that it’s not a lot of fun. Yes, a small publisher doesn’t need bestsellers per se. But because of that, books get little churned out in minimal numbers with little or no marketing. There’s a reason authors strive to get published by the big guys. They have the money.

Next, he complains that Amazon and other on-line booksellers do not offer the benefits of brick and mortar stores. “Bookstores, for their part, came against that borderless phenomenon called Amazon in 1995. That year, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com which now operates separate stores in the UK, Germany, China, Japan, and elsewhere. Without needing to maintain stock — without needing a shop at all — Amazon.com offers virtually every title put out by every imprint, in multiple languages. No “physical” chain can offer all this.”

Why is this a bad thing? It’s as if Mr. Frost is saying that Amazon is bad for author or book buyers. On the contrary, millions of people can sell books across the globe that never could before the internet. No store could offer all of these titles and smaller authors were out of luck. Now anyone can find virtually any book, either new or used, and see reviews of it. And if you don’t like the Amazon reviews, you can check any of the millions of other on-line reviews. The internet is the savior of small publishers.

The next thing he complains about is co-op. Basically a publisher pays for premium shelf space. “If you took your books, approached a bookstore, and offered them money to place your titles by the front door, this would be called graft. When publishers do it, it’s called business.”

The odd thing about this is that in the paragraph just above, he compares bookstores to a supermarket that stops carrying milk. But the fact of the matter is that every supermarket does exactly what he is complaining about. They sell shelf space. The cereals that get the best spots paid for it. And yet, milk is still where it’s always been (along with the other items that don’t pay for premium space), because it sells. Maybe Borders has cut down on the books they carry. But they still carry a ton of books. And Barnes and Noble carries a ton. Heaven forbid that you have to go looking for a book.



Anyone who lives in today’s world understands advertising. Does the Super Bowl tout Bud because it’s the best beer? Of course not. They are paid for it. But that doesn’t stop you from drinking whatever you want.

Does every bookstore employee know every book? Of course not. But to suggest that the only bookstore employees that read and care about books are independents is crazy. I just spent an evening doing a book signing at a Barnes and Noble in Layton, UT. Not only did the bookstore set up school visits for me. So I could encourage kids to read. But once the line of gets buying books was gone, I talked books with the employees. And guess what? They know books. They suggest titles. And it’s not just the publishers that pay big bucks.

Finally he makes a point that I agree completely with. “My solution is no different than all the writers who've shouted from the battlements before me: Buy your books from independent bookstores; the ones that have survived the onslaught, the ones that we hope will arise to fill the gap.”

Of course! Buy books from your local independent stores. I love the little bookstores on Main Street, Spanish Fork. I go there all the time. I love King's English in Salt Lake, and Clayton books in Clayton, CA. There places are some of my very favorite stores and I encourage everyone to shop there. But the thing is, there is room for the Amazons, the Costcos, the chains, and the indies. Costco will never carry a wide variety of books, and they certainly will not have someone to point you to a new author you will love, but they sell a ton of books which helps authors, publishers, and readers. Amazon offers everything under the sun (and thank goodness they do, because no one else can.) If you are tight on cash, you can even buy the book used, and become a loyal follower of the author’s new books when you do have cash. The chains offer the great service of a wide variety and people to help you.

Where do the indies fit in? Well that’s up to the indie store. If they don’t offer something more than the stores listed above, they won’t stay in business. They can’t offer the variety or the discounts. But they can offer a personal touch that no one else does. I have done signings at many independent bookstores, and the great ones know their customers. They know the local schools. They know about books with local flavor. They take great care of the authors that come by. They survive, not because of pity, but because they offer a truly valuable service.

I don’t think the sky is falling. I don’t think our choices are being limited. I think this is the greatest time to be an author or a reader the world has ever known. The opportunities to hook up a good author and a good reader are limitless.

Let me make one other comment here. Another good friend and author, Rob Wells, commented back to Annette, me, and some other authors that print on demand will make all of this obsolete. You’ll walk into a bookstore and ask for a specific book and they will print it for you. He feels this will even out the playing field. To some extent, I agree. Bookstores will be able to offer the inventory of an Amazon through this method.

But I also disagree, I still think people want to touch books first. And they want high quality hardbacks that POD doesn’t offer. And bookstores know that face out displays sell books. POD will offer greater distribution. But, with few exceptions, it will not affect demand. Will things change? Of course! But what won't change is readers finding the books they love and telling other readers about them.

Surviving in a Tough Economy

I assume I’m like everyone else in that I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple of months watching the economy with interest and not a little trepidation. We are just finishing refinancing our house. The company I work for has had a significant slowdown in sales (and I’m over sales!) I’ve stopped checking my 401k. Oh, and yeah . . . I have my first national book trying to find a place in the market.

Obviously none of us know what will happen with the economy. I’m personally of the belief that while this is a major correction—even bigger than the dot com bubble and ’87, both of which I remember clearly—it is not the end of the world. I’ve had a lot of authors ask me how this will affect my book sales and theirs. I think that my answer is not what they expect. I believe book sales are much like the rest of life when things get tough.

At my office we had to do some layoffs. Letting people go is the worst part of being a manager. Especially when you have to let people go who you know are trying their best, and are good people. You know you have to make the cut, so you look carefully at the people who work for you and you decide who will have the least negative impact on the company. Not no impact. If they would have no impact, they shouldn’t be working there in the first place. But if you have to make a cut, who will it be.

The same thing is true at home. You may eat out less. You may have spaghetti more. You turn off lights and drive less. You look over your budget and decide where you can cut and where you can save. But many things are left alone, either because you value them more than others or because there is no room to cut.

How is this like books? People are still buying books. I know this because I track my sales as closely as I can. I know this because when I go into the bookstore, I see other people—like me—buying books. Maybe not as many. Definitely not as many. But they are buying books. And publishers are still publishing books. Of course book sales are down. The stores know it. The publishers know it. And the authors know it.

Buy that doesn’t mean the publishers have stopped publishing or that the bookstores have closed. Just like your home, and just like my work, people are just being a little more choosy. That means that if you want to sell books, your book has to stand out a little bit more. If you want to sell a book to a publisher, it has to have more going for it.

Two examples of what I mean. I walked into a Barnes and Noble the other day, not intending to buy anything. I was there on my lunch break and I love to look through the books. Not just to see how I am doing, but to see what else is new and exciting. But I got hooked by two books. The first book that hooked me had three things going for it. #1 it was by a total stud of an author, Neil Gaiman. If you haven’t read one of his books, you should. If you’ve seen the movie, Stardust, you have a very small glimpse into his unique and twisted imagination. I am awed every time I read one of his books.

The second reason I picked up the book was that it was on an end cap display. Not much the rest of us can do to match that, but I’m being totally honest. I would not have gone looking for this book because I had forgotten it was out. But the display caught my eye. The third reason I bought the book was that it had the coolest concept in the world. Imagine The Jungle Book with Mowgli being raised by ghosts instead of wolves, and in a graveyard instead of a jungle.

So I picked it up. I was on my way out the door when I bought the second book. No end cap (at least that I saw.) An author I didn’t know. A story that didn’t pique my interest right away. Why did I buy it? Because the Community Relations Manager—who I know well—suggested it. She told me it was great, and went and got it for me. I ended up buying both books. The Graveyard Book and The Hunger Games. Both were great reads. Both were well worth the dollars I am watching carefully. Buy sold me even in a tough economy. Both stood out enough that I not only bought them, but I am recommending them on this blog.

My second example is that I am trying to get Shadow Mountain to allow me to publish another fantasy novel between books two and three of the Farworld series. My Farworld books will still come out every September. But this would be an extra book that has nothing to do with Farworld. It would help me achieve my goal of writing full time a little sooner. But how do I get a publisher to agree to another book in this uncertain economy? Hopefully you’ve picked up enough from this post to guess. Buy making it stand out.

This book has to be different from what’s already out there. It has to appeal so strongly to my target audience that they will fork over money that might be watching closely. I know it should be fantasy. I know it should target the same MG/YA audience. But in this case, I don’t want it to be like all the other books out there. I don’t want dragons, or fairies, or magic. At least not in the traditional sense. I want it to be a story that makes the publisher go, “Wow! That’s a cool idea.”

Because here’s the thing. Being a great employee doesn’t guarantee you a job, but it helps a lot. Essential services are the last to get cut. And books that have a really cool concept, solid writing, and a plot that stands out from the crowd are the ones that will get sold.

You can spend the next twelve months bemoaning the slowdown, wishing you had turned in your book a year ago, and feeling sorry for yourself. Or you can decide that this just means you will have to work that much harder. When times get tough, winners don’t give up, they step up.
So what books have been good enough that you’ve offered up some hard earned cash lately? And how are you making sure you will have a job or sell a book yourself?

Writing, Plot, or Character?

I’m still in the process of putting together a post detailing the events of my recent book tour. Here’s a link to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune. And here’s a fun picture of the Elementary school I graduated from.

But in the meantime, I thought I’d talk a little about what, in my opinion, makes a novel bad, good, or great. What I want to discuss are three of the key elements of any novel: plot, character, and writing. (Quality of writing, not, you know, writing itself—as opposed to say ballads, campfire stories, interactive hula dancing, etc.)

For some reason, lately I’ve been rereading several books. I’m reading A Wrinkle in Time to my kids, I’m rereading the Thomas Covenant trilogy, and I’m rereading Asimov’s Foundation series. Interestingly enough, the only story I’m enjoying as much as I remembered is Foundation.

Why? Well first of all, Wrinkle in Time is much slower reading than I remembered. The writing is beautiful, the characters are a little one dimensional, but the pacing is so slow, my kids’ eyes glaze over. We just finished the part where one of the women (Mrs. Who?) turns into the flying horse and flies to the top of the mountain to show the children the shadow of evil. Literally, the story reads like, “They flew higher and higher, until they were past the clouds. And higher still. But the top of the mountain still seemed far away. Meg marveled at how high they were and how thin the air was. Still the horse’s wings strained against the thin air.” Right, I get it. They are flying high. Get back to the story!

So why do I remember enjoying the book so much? Was it because of how unique it was at the time? Did that make me overlook the flaws that put my boys to sleep? Or is life just faster now? Are our expectations different because of computers, video games, etc? I don’t think it can be the pace of life because other books are still as interesting. Maybe it’s that in memory I overlook the flaws because the overall story was so good. Or maybe I just hadn’t read a lot of fantasy back then, so everything seemed more magical?

The last time I read the Thomas Covenant series was back in high school. I remembered it was darker than most fantasy. What I didn’t remember was what an incredibly annoying protagonist Thomas Covenant was. I’ve reread the first two books, and I want to grab him by the hair, and shout, “People don’t hate you because you are a leper. They hate you because you are a big selfish crybaby! Get over yourself and think about someone else for once. Come on man, you’ve spent two entire books offending people and refusing to even try to help. Man up!”

Again, why did I like the series so much back in the day? I had read Terry Brooks by then; and of course Lord of the Rings. So fantasy series weren’t brand new. But it was still pretty unique. There are parts of the story that are powerful, the writing is strong, and the world-building is amazing. But, at least to this point, I’ve had to force myself to finish each book, and it’s been a slog.

How about Foundation? I’ve heard people say how stark Asimov’s writing is. I honestly didn’t remember that. But as I go back and read his work, they are absolutely right. I don’t think there is any mention of smells, sounds, or other senses. The characters have no personality at all to speak of—except that nearly anyone of any importance smokes cigars. The pace is extremely quick. No character stays around for long. It shouldn’t be a good book. But it is. The story is just so compelling, to me at least, that I have to read more.

So what makes a good book? First of all, I have to say that greatness in any of the three above mentioned categories can override weaknesses in the other two. Asimov’s plot is so strong that the reader can forgive the fact that his writing is stark and his characters are merely placeholders. In the same way though, one major weak point can pull down the other two. Stephen R. Donaldson is a poet of a writer. His descriptions and world-building are incredible. And the overall story is powerful. But the main character is so annoying, he nearly ruins the whole thing.

Obviously, we’d love a book with great writing, memorable characters, and an incredible plot. When all the pieces are clicking, we have a book that can achieve lasting greatness. But which of the three is the most important—whether for the good or the bad?

Let’s start with quality of writing. In my experience, books that are extremely popular, with a lot of readers tend to have only adequate writing. Books that are popular with the critics tend to have incredible writing. Why? Because really beautiful prose can actually overpower a story. The average reader wants to see the hero hurl a bolt of fiery blue steel at the rushing horde of gnolls or the heroine find her true love. She doesn’t want flowery prose and vivid descriptions to get in the way of the action. Of course there is a time for flowery prose, but if the focus turns from the story to the writing, the author has intruded on the reader.

Don’t get me wrong. I love great writing. In fact, one of the best compliments I received on my tour was from a librarian who said I should thank my English teachers. She said that she reads so many children’s books that have a great story but lousy writing. But she loved my writing and my story. (Yes, I misted up a little.) J

A great plot beats great writing in my book. Imagine this crusty old miner sitting around a campfire and telling you about the time he and Bessie were trapped for three days in a collapsed gold mine with a dozen hungry rattlers. He may not use the most beautiful language. He may jump back and forth a little and overuse the word fearsome. But you are still on the edge of your seat. A Wrinkle in Time may not have had the fastest paced writing. But it was a cool story. I mean she invented IT before Stephen King did. A Camazotz is just dang spooky.

But, personally, I have to put character at the top of the list. The biggest complaint I have about many of the books I don’t like, is that I just don’t care enough about the characters. Put Julie T. Protagonist in the middle of a raging fire, with bad guys everywhere, and the love of her life in the clutches of I. M. Antagonist, and I’m just going to yawn if I don’t care about the characters. Ideally I should love your protagonist. I should definitely empathize with her. But if I don’t even care about her, your story is destined to fail.

I think characters are what made the Harry Potter series so incredibly successful. JK Rowling has a way of making you care about even the most minor character. Think about Colin Creevey. He is a thrown in. A minor walk-on character. But anyone who has read the series remembers the cute little kid with the camera. I also think that’s a huge part of the success of Twilight. People loved Edward and Bella. Of course this is also why many people were less happy with some of the later books. But the very fact that they cared enough to get that upset, shows the emotional investment the author built up in her readers.
Next week, I’ll take a stab at what makes strong characters. But for now, I’ll open the question to you. What is most important to you when reading a book? Writing, plot, or character?

The End of the Tour

Well, the first “Find Your Magic” tour is officially over. It’s been exciting, frustrating, enlightening, eventful, and generally a lot of fun. Although the original plan was to go through the end of this week, some scheduling snafus ended things a little early. But what a way to wrap things up. I had a chance to finish the tour at my own elementary school, Pleasant Hill Elementary, in Pleasant Hill, California. I had a wonderful two days with Joel Harris, of Clayton books, and his wonderful family. And had a ball going from school to school with Vinitha.

I’ll write much more this weekend, when I can go into more detail about Bountiful, Clayton, and everything I learned and experienced on the tour. And I look forward to things returning to normal so I can blog several times a week again. But in the mean time, here are some pictures I’d like to share with you. They were drawn by the students of Vae View Elementary. Thanks gang, I love them!