"Old" People Writing for Teens V

Sage · Jul 16, 2017

So Pride was yesterday in San Diego. I did Pride stuff in Ohio, but, idk, in San Diego I just feel so lost about where to go to experience culture, beyond what I grew up with.

Anyway, my coworker told me that another coworker was doing Pride stuff that day while we worked, so when she came in to work with me today, I said, "How was Pride?!" and it turned out she had skipped the festivities because her boyfriend's parents had come in to town and she had done stuff with them instead. So I teased her that she had skipped Pride for "straight reasons." :wag:

Then she asked if I had done anything, which I hadn't because I wouldn't know where to go or who to go with, but when I said "no," she said, "For straight reasons?" and I had to envision my night.

Last night I queried my LGBTQ+ YA fantasy to a queer agent while watching an episode of a show where two guys professed their feelings for each other under the influence of alien technology.

Not for straight reasons, then :greenie

KSavoie · Jul 17, 2017

Sage -- So I moved from LA to Chicago and back to LA, so yes I'm close again! Also, what is this show about guys professing feelings for each other under influence of technology you speak of!? I need it. >_> (You can DM or rep me so no one else might get a spoiler-y type thing.) ALSO! Congrats on the raise!!!

Sage · Jul 17, 2017

The show is BBC's Class, a spin-off of Doctor Who set in high school. I find it's lacking the charm of Doctor Who, but still more enjoyable than Torchwood was (though nobody here is Jack Harkness, sigh). The male/male relationship is established in the first episode, so it's not too spoilery.

Sage · Jul 17, 2017

So I realized today that I'm responding to recent critiques in chorus the way I respond when I get a novel critique that I don't know how to handle, even if I agree with it wholeheartedly. When I try to think about it, my brain just puts up a big white space. I'm so frustrated because I'm never going to have a perfect recording, and even the things I know are not being passed for breathing in the wrong spot and having a recording where I just held a note too long or not long enough or stuttered over a line, and that's before we get into whether my notes are too dark and how to get over that. And that's what I'm blocked about. When I stress, I go into Opera Sage Mode, and my tone goes back. It's not even falling completely into chest voice all the time, just isn't going forward the way they want to (Is this difficult to understand? Because it's difficult for me to really get, and I have the examples). So the director gave me a cheat to avoid it (after calling me out in the chorus), but apparently the cheat--to form my mouth like I'm saying "church--which I practiced(!), has failed me because it forms my mouth a certain way that makes my chin tense, which apparently is the real source of the problem. So the section leader (who is really trying to help me out, so you know it's a big problem because she's actually moving across the risers to help me get over it) tapped my chin to lift it up, and that was perfect! But...I just can't practice it on my own. I don't know why except for the mental block. It's like I'm so scared to practice it wrong now that I know-ish what I need to do.

Chorus is my main source of stress these days. We have to pass all 6 songs by August 9th, and I've passed none of them. In my old chorus, I'd be passed on all of them by now. My old chorus didn't go to International though.

borogove · Jul 17, 2017

Has anyone managed to catch the Northern Lights the past few nights? They've been predicted to appear remarkably far south, thanks to some geomagnetic storms. I conked out earlier than intended Sunday night so failed in my plan to drive an hour or so north of Chicago to escape the light pollution. Womp womp. I was treated to the show as a child growing up in Scotland, but enough time has passed that it seems like a dream now.

MaeZe · Jul 17, 2017

borogove said:
Has anyone managed to catch the Northern Lights the past few nights? They've been predicted to appear remarkably far south, thanks to some geomagnetic storms. I conked out earlier than intended Sunday night so failed in my plan to drive an hour or so north of Chicago to escape the light pollution. Womp womp. I was treated to the show as a child growing up in Scotland, but enough time has passed that it seems like a dream now.

Been watching the Spaceweather sites as I am a regular addict. I've seen the Aurora a half dozen times from my Seattle suburbian window. But in this case, the news reporters are their typically uneducated selves about such matters. It peaked during the NW daytime, but a storm of this size in deep darkness would still have only been visible north of Seattle. Even the Churchill aurora-cam only caught less than an hour of the display being as nights are short at that latitude this time of year.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/notifications-timeline

You have to get to K8 to see the aurora as far south as Seattle. It was only a K6, maybe briefly a 7 over the last two nights. In the city lights of Chicago you probably wouldn't have seen anything.

Of course if one was in the southern hemisphere: http://www.spaceweather.com/

WEEKEND AURORA OUTBURST: A CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Sunday, July 16th, sparking more than 18 hours of almost non-stop geomagnetic storms. With storm levels reaching category G2, auroras spilled over the Canadian border into northern-tier US states such as Washington, Wyoming and Minnesota. The display was even better in the southern hemisphere, especially New Zealand, where "the first wave of auroras hit the beach right after the CME arrived," says Taichi Nakamura who sends this picture from Dunedin, NZ:

borogove · Jul 18, 2017

Aha. I don't feel quite so disappointed, then. I'm quite envious of those in Spokane and northern Minnesota and Michigan who've been posting their photos of the aurora, but at least some people got to enjoy it.

darrtwish · Jul 18, 2017

The only time I've been far enough north to see the northern lights, it rained for nearly a week. Here, you're lucky if you can make out Orion or the Big Dipper.

borogove · Jul 19, 2017

Has anyone else fallen victim to Photobucket's shady-as-hell image ransom? I had a nasty shock a few days ago when I discovered that they've decided to charge $400/year for third-party image hosting. No warning, no nothing — they just started blocking users' images across the internet. So if your favorite websites/blogs/forums have started looking janky over the past couple of weeks, this is why.

I'm not sure how long I would've been ignorant of the change if I hadn't randomly checked up on my blog this weekend. (I ran a book blog for a handful of years, and even though I haven't updated it in a couple of years, it gets enough traffic that I like to keep the shelves dusted, change the lightbulbs, etc.) I use Photobucket to host the vast majority of my images, which, over the course of five years, amounts to hundreds. I was luckier than some in that I was actually able to download my images from Photobucket — some people have been locked out of their accounts until they fork out for the hosting fee — and have since uploaded them all to Imgur. Now I'm slowly going through the blog post by post, updating every single image path — god knows how long it'll take me to finish. On the plus side, it has actually made me think about blogging again, since I'm already investing dozens of hours of work into it these days.

ManInBlack · Jul 19, 2017

I've seen other people complain about that. Thankfully over the past six or seven years I've more or less been using Facebook to supplant Photobucket.

Sage · Jul 21, 2017

I read about the Photobucket thing here on AW, actually. Had no clue about it. I do have pics there, but don't use my blog, so I don't care.

I've been considering titles for Summer's Cruel Warmth, Winter's Gentle Chill. I notice on the PitchWars boards (and I remember a similar thought on WriteOnCon's boards) that the only people who would post in my crit threads, even with the shorter title, were people who I had already critted for (or in this case, one AWer recognized me too). While I think it's an interesting, unique title that would have me check out what's beyond it, it doesn't seem to inspire that thought in other people. So some alternate titles I've thought of.

Sunny With a Chance of Frost
Sunny Today, Frost Tonight
The Forecast
Climate Change
Turnover
Weather or Not (my fave from my AW query thread)
Sunny/Frost (go with what you know! Although it should really be Ray/Jack)
Nature/Nurture (I could write slash titles all day)
The Crocus
The Fire to the Frost
Sunbeams and Snowflakes
Thunderstorms and Snowflakes
Jack Frost and Me
Jack Frost, Mother Nature, and Other People I've Adored (Don't fight the title trend!)

Entertaining other ideas or opinions on these, yet again. This time some folks have read it! I love a good play on words. I was going for lyrical with SCWWGC, but Ray is playful too.

darrtwish · Jul 23, 2017

Sage, I love Turnover and Weather or Not. Turnover might not work though -- without context it makes me think of pastries.

Beanie5 · Jul 23, 2017

not sure if i am on the same page none of the titles got me ,

Rain hail or shine?
No Sun Today,
lost in the frost

white fright
the cost of frost?

shooting blind here

A frosty day to ......

sun so hot i froze to death

the snowman
All kinds of weather
revenge of the weatherman

the weatherman

weather whatever
whatever the weather
summer frost
frostbite
hot frost
Spring Thaw
Frostal Warming
Frost's Hot
anyway there different luck

edutton · Jul 23, 2017

Sage said:
I've been considering titles for Summer's Cruel Warmth, Winter's Gentle Chill. I notice on the PitchWars boards (and I remember a similar thought on WriteOnCon's boards) that the only people who would post in my crit threads, even with the shorter title, were people who I had already critted for (or in this case, one AWer recognized me too). While I think it's an interesting, unique title that would have me check out what's beyond it, it doesn't seem to inspire that thought in other people. So some alternate titles I've thought of.

Sunny With a Chance of Frost
Sunny Today, Frost Tonight
The Forecast
Climate Change
Turnover
Weather or Not (my fave from my AW query thread)
Sunny/Frost (go with what you know! Although it should really be Ray/Jack)
Nature/Nurture (I could write slash titles all day)
The Crocus
The Fire to the Frost
Sunbeams and Snowflakes
Thunderstorms and Snowflakes
Jack Frost and Me
Jack Frost, Mother Nature, and Other People I've Adored (Don't fight the title trend!)

Entertaining other ideas or opinions on these, yet again. This time some folks have read it! I love a good play on words. I was going for lyrical with SCWWGC, but Ray is playful too.

I'm still a fan of Summer's Frost...

MaeZe · Jul 23, 2017

I like 'Fire to Frost'.

And depending on the story, 'Set Fire to the Frost'.

Sage · Jul 23, 2017

Thanks, guys. I might start a poll thread over in the Sandbox, including the query (maybe even the synopsis) so people who don't know the story at least have an idea of what it is. I have a poll on the PitchWars board, but I think I've gotten the responses I'll get there (4 votes for WoN, 1 for SCWWGC, and 1 for SwaCoF). People do like the punny Weather or Not--as do I!--but I'm just not sure it fits. There's not really an "or not" involved and it might be just a little far on the punny side. I'm taking in people's thoughts and suggestions and trying to weigh them with the feeling of the book too.

In other PW news, if you went by their new crit boards alone, you'd believe that New Adult authors are the most entitled bunch. There aren't many posting on there, but of those on there, only a couple posted crits of others as they asked for critiques on their stuff. So the first few days, there was only one NA query (oddly, no excerpts for this author, but excerpts for other NA authors), and I felt bad for it and critted even though she hadn't critted anyone else. Well, it was full of grammar and syntax problems. I suggested that if the novel was the same way, the author should look over it before sending to mentors. Well, she got all in a tiff because she had posted that without looking over it, and of course the novel was well-edited! So it's not the mentors she thinks should clean up her novel, it's the critters who should clean up her pitch because she can't be bothered.

And then someone else posted in the NA query forum. Doesn't crit anyone else. The next day he has the audacity to complain that nobody's critting in the NA sections! Like, really? You can't suss out the reason behind this? Other people should give their time, but not you? That's when I checked out the other NA posters and found that only 2 of them had bothered critting anyone at all.

Anyway, it makes you appreciate the AW 50-post rule.

travelgal · Jul 24, 2017

Crikey, talk about entitled! You took time outta your day, they bite you for not doing the work for them.

How about 'Winterburn or 'Frostburn' for your title? Or, if there are Chopin themes in your novel 'Winterland'?

PW is pitch war? I didn't know there were pitch war forums on Twitter.

Sage · Jul 24, 2017

Ooh, thanks, travelgal. That gave me an idea.

I do want Sunny Ray represented in some way, so I was thinking Sunkissed & Frostburnt.

(Or ...& Frostbitten, but I like the rhythm of the first. Maybe ...& Frostnipped, which is a thing)

MaeZe · Jul 24, 2017

Sage said:
Ooh, thanks, travelgal. That gave me an idea.

I do want Sunny Ray represented in some way, so I was thinking Sunkissed & Frostburnt.

(Or ...& Frostbitten, but I like the rhythm of the first. Maybe ...& Frostnipped, which is a thing)

I think bitten is more of an antonym to kissed than burnt is.

I'm a vote for Sunkissed & Frostbitten.

Sage · Jul 24, 2017

MaeZe said:
I think bitten is more of an antonym to kissed than burnt is.

I'm a vote for Sunkissed & Frostbitten.

OMG, you're right. Seeing it written out, those words look so beautiful together (the shared vowels around the double letters). I was thinking syllables, but visually that's such a beautiful title. I'm kinda in love with it.

And now to kill my high over how beautiful it is, I'm realizing sunkissed is actually sun-kissed. I'm not sure I can have that deviation right there in the subject of my query e-mails and it's not as pretty with the hyphen.

CoffeeBeans · Jul 24, 2017

I love them together, and I would totally overlook the missing hyphen. It's a title... someone will probably want to tweak it someday. It's short and catchy, and looks good on the page/screen.

9.5 scenes left to go (give or take) in the current MS. Why won't it end? The last two or three of the nine are going to be monsters, so I'm looking at mid 80s on a contemp. Uuuugh :e2BIC:

Sage · Jul 24, 2017

I just want to send out some queries to have it there in the subject! (I'm waiting on responses, atm)

MaeZe · Jul 24, 2017

Sage said:
....
And now to kill my high over how beautiful it is, I'm realizing sunkissed is actually sun-kissed. I'm not sure I can have that deviation right there in the subject of my query e-mails and it's not as pretty with the hyphen.

Can you use four words and no hyphens?

Sun Kissed & Frost Bitten

Might work as a play on the words that way.

Beanie5 · Jul 24, 2017

Got my vote

if you have issues with sun kissed

you could try frost kissed and sun bitten

Sage · Jul 24, 2017

MaeZe said:
Can you use four words and no hyphens?

Sun Kissed & Frost Bitten

Might work as a play on the words that way.

It's a good idea for fixing the hyphen problem, but I don't like it as much as the two words.

Beanie5 said:
if you have issues with sun kissed

you could try frost kissed and sun bitten

This is not really the problem. I love sunkissed/sun-kissed/sun kissed. And it's even used in the book (with the hyphen :e2smack:

), Jack describing Ray.

"Old" People Writing for Teens V

Sage

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KSavoie

Sage

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Sage

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borogove

MaeZe

borogove

darrtwish

borogove

ManInBlack

Sage

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darrtwish

Beanie5

Live a poem...Or die a fool. \/

edutton

Ni. Peng. Neee-Wom.

MaeZe

Sage

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travelgal

Sage

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MaeZe

Sage

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CoffeeBeans

Sage

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MaeZe

Beanie5

Live a poem...Or die a fool. \/

Sage

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