Can words help you sleep?

I missed a few days weeks of sharing some of my favorite quotes with you.  April's not over yet and I am awake in the middle of the night with things on my mind, so what better way to ease myself back into a deep slumber than to read some soothing, romantic words?  In case you are having a night of insomnia too, I'll post this now, at 3 AM.

I feel in love with this author and her writing when I read THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE a few years ago.

“When he plays
all the flowers swap colors
and years and decades and centuries
of rain pour back into the sky”

― Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere


What better way to try to fall asleep than to read a children's picture book?

"I love you to the moon--and back." by Sam McBratney, Guess How Much I Love You


If not, do you have any advice for me?  What do you do on nights when you're stressed or have too much on your mind and wake up in the middle of the night unable to fall back to sleep?

This Thing We Do

So this month, in the midst of editing most of TTM and rewriting parts of it, Christy and I decided to start blogging again.



Um, yeah, sounds like we could use some inspirational writing quotes! Do you? Here you go! (all quotes taken from Goodreads)

“Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.” -E.B. White

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” -Madeleine L'Engle

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” -Sylvia Plath

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” -Robert Frost

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” -W. Somerset Maugham

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard.” -Neil Gaiman

And THIS just because it will make you feel good.

Have a happy weekend!

My First Love

No, not that kind of first love. Although that does make for an interesting and at-the-time-cry-my-eyes-out-tragic kind of story. . .but no, not that. I (erica) might be a 37-year-old mother of two, but I still love Contemporary YA, particularly those that include less awkward first romances than mine was. Hey, you guys are writers, you know what I'm talking about, right?



So, today, I bring you some quotes by one of my favorites. . .Sarah Dessen. And if you haven't read anything by her - what are you waiting for? I suggest starting with The Truth About Forever. Or Just Listen. Or maybe Along for the Ride. Or. . .never mind, just go read her! (all quotes taken from Goodreads) And in the comments, let me know if you save quotes. It's super easy on my Kindle, I just don't think of it as I go!

“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.” (Someone Like You)

“It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count.”  (The Truth About Forever)

“You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.” (Keeping the Moon)

"...the bottom line is, what defines you isn't how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it's one more, you're all good." (Along for the Ride)

“It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school.”  (Just Listen)  (and I HAD to include that one because as teachers, christy and I know it's true!)

The Book I Read in One Day

GUYS!! Who among you has walken down the dark, dark road that is the Gone series by Michael Grant? I (erica) discovered it when the first book, appropriately entitled Gone, went to paperback and was on display at the store we used to call Borders.

Then I read the next one. And the next-next one. And. . .well, it's a six book series. Yesterday I read all 432 pages of the last book, Light. Yes, yesterday as in all in one day. I even manged to feed my family a couple of times in the meantime.

 

If you haven't read the series, I'll warn you now, it's dark (I'll refer you to the second sentence of this pseudo-review). I mean, the TITLES are even dark - Gone, Hunger, Lies, Plague, and Fear are the first five. From the first book in the series to the last, many kids die. Including babies and toddlers. Even including main characters. Many of them are killed by the same kids they used to sit next to in school. Almost everyone becomes some kind of a criminal. There's torture and alcoholism and sex, all in a world where no one over the age of 15 exists.

 

So, anyway, christy and I are doing quotes this month. Here are a few from the series - let me know in the comments if you've read any of them and especially if you've finished Light!

(all quotes taken from Goodreads)

 

“You can't be trapped by other people, you can only be trapped by your own fear. Defy and win.” (Hunger)

 

“Superpowers, don't always make you a superhero." - Duck  (Hunger)

 

“Ninth graders with machine guns: its hard to make that a happy story.”  (Gone)

 

“Dekka laughed... "Sam: you're still the leader. You're always going to be the leader. It's not something you choose: it's something you are.”  (Plague)

 

“Sam’s probably out there somewhere being his usual heroic self,” Caine said. “I can’t let that boy save the world all alone. I’d never live it down.”  (Light)

 

“It's a good thing to read a lot. It's a good thing to write a lot. The best thing to do is to live a lot. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Make a fool of yourself. Watch other people make fools of themselves. Believe something stupid and then realize you've been tricked. Feel embarrassed. Be brave and bold. Then be cowardly and pathetic. Give a damn about the world outside yourself. Have some very dark nights. It's all good. You'll use all of it.”  (Michael Grant)



According to Dr. Suess....

We are elementary school teachers.  Therefore, we celebrate Dr. Suess and his stories.  Recently, it was his birthday.  In my classroom, we made oobleck, wrote crazy rhymes, drew imaginative illustrations, and of course read, read, read!

April 3, 2013...More quotes for you!

“I am weird, you are weird. Everyone in this world is weird. One day two people come together in mutual weirdness and fall in love.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.... Virtually every page is a cliffhanger--you've got to force them to turn it."~”
― Dr. Seuss

“You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Cause when a guy does something stupid once, well that’s because he’s a guy. But if he does the same stupid thing twice, that’s usually to impress some girl.”
― Dr. Seuss

“It is better to know how to learn than to know.”
― Dr. Seuss

“You can find magic
wherever you look.
Sit back and relax,
all you need is a book.”
― Dr. Seuss

“If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Sometimes you will never know the value of something,until it becomes a memory.”
― Dr. Seuss

April 2...Quote 2

Love.  It's what keeps me turning pages.  If I could just focus on the love I want to share in my writing, I might be able to get my characters' story written.  Here's a writer who knew how to really, really write about love. 



“So in the middle of all the noise, I point to the sky. I hope he understands what I mean, because I mean so many things: My heart will always fly his name. I won't go gentle. I'll find a way to soar like the angels in the stories and I will find him. And I know he understands as he looks straight at me, deep into my eyes. His lips move silently, and I know what he says: the words of a poem that only two people in the world know. Tears well up but I blink them away. Because if there is one moment in my life that I want to see clearly, this is it.”
― Ally Condie, Matched


Here's hoping for melted snow, warm sun, happy birds and lots and lots of puddles to splash in.

april 1st brings you...a quote

While we are not technically participating in the A-Z challenge this month, we are semi-committing to posting a quote from books we love when we get a chance, daily even, if possible. 

Here is today's quote.  I felt it was appropriate for a writing blog. 

Happy April, friends.

“As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.”

― Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver