I want the girls in my stories to be strong, tough women that can take care of themselves. I am not saying they have to start out that way–heck that would be kind of boring, and I’m not really sure where the plot would go after that. But, I am saying that I want to see them learn to be a kickass version of themselves.

YA has taken a lot of flack lately for talking down to girls and teaching them to devalue themselves based on a boy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, because those are two books I really like, and when I read through them, I just didn’t see it. But, as I read what people have to say and start to really examine the stories, I can see why people think that. It’s definitely a matter of opinion, though, because you could also look at Hush, Hush or Twilight and see girls fighting for love against ALL odds. That’s pretty cool if you ask me, and it makes me happy to think in this time where more than half of marriages still end in divorce, the teenage audience wants to believe in unfaltering love.

That kinda rocks.

The thing is this… we can’t tell kids what to read, and we can’t tell them what to be into. The reason they love these girls is because they see them as versions of themselves. The meek girl sitting quietly in the back of the classroom finally gets her day to shine, and what is a reader if not the girl with her nose in a book?

So, I feel like when I tell a story I want to combine those things, I want the reader to identify with my characters so–you know she doesn’t feel like she’s reading about some hottie cheerleader that she already hates, but in the end I want to see my main character take charge of the situation and save her friends, her true love, her dog–whatever. I just want to see her be a badass, because it gives me hope.

And hope is what reading is all about.

This weekend my husband and I took our daughter to the Casa Manana children’s theater. We have season tickets that my mother-in-law gets us every year. All in all they are awesome. I was wowed by their production of Treasure Island, I cried when Charlotte climbed up to her web for that last time, when Shere Khan stepped out onto that orange stage I laughed out loud, and my daughter still talks about that other snowman from the Frosty show.

But, this time–they did not impress.

Their production of Alamo, the Musical was completely inappropriate. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking, “Jamie, how can they tell the story of the Alamo without a little death and canon shooting?”

I’m not upset about that, I am upset about Santa Anna holding an old man at knife point in front of my four year old–it was unnecessary to the story, and not at all in line with their audience.

You see, when that happened I started looking around the Casa Manana theater and gauging the ages of the audience. Adults aside, (because seriously, we’re just there for our kids) the average age of the theater goers was four or five. So, here we are watching a play with a great set and some of the best singing I’ve heard from that theater in the last four years, and they bombed it because they didn’t know WHO they were putting on the play for.

Which, got me to thinking…

When I sit in writer’s workshop on Wednesday nights, I hear a lot of really great stories… but I don’t get who they are for. You hear all the time in the writing business that you should just write a good story and not worry about things like trends or things like that, but I do think you need to worry about WHO your story is for. YA writers think a lot about this when they are monitoring their bad words, romantic scenes, etc., but I wonder if it’s more…

How do we really know that the stories we’re telling are geared toward the people we’re writing them for?

And so, the winner of N.L. Belardes Lords Part one is….

(I always feel like I should insert a drumroll here or something)

Or maybe do that thing like they do on American Idol and really draw out the conclusion with suspenseful music and heartbroken contestant looks.

Oh wait, that won’t work… this is a blog. Maybe I should just get on with it then?

Congratulations to Chantal Kirkland! I hope you enjoy your book!

Stay tuned next week for another autographed book giveaway guys!

When I was younger, I was one of those kids who would make up a game for everyone to play, and then change the rules right in the middle of it just because I didn’t think it was working the way I wanted it to.

That really pissed off a lot of people, I’m not going to lie. My brother HATED this. He would throw a giant fit, usually break something of mine and refuse to play with me. I never really understood, because I was just trying to make the game more interesting.

How did he not get that?

Okay, so maybe I it was more like I was just trying to make it easier for me to win.

Whatever.

Either way, I’ve been thinking about rules. I watched this video recently:

(BTW, she’s having a contest on her blog here.)

She said a lot of interesting things, but the thing that stood out the most to me was the fact that she likes to take traditional stories, characters, fairy tales, etc. and redo them to be her own. I LOVE this. There’s a reason certain things are considered tried and true, but there’s also a reason they can get stale fast–so doing your own spin is a great way to take care of that.

So, what I want to know today is…

What have made your own?

I dunno, I mean–grammar’s cool and all, but what’s really the point, ya know? Is it, like, really, seriously an important thing that we know the rulez or whatevs?

Yes, why yes it is.

So, here’s the thing. I spend a lot of time gaming, and I think my punctuation, grammar, writing style is definitely hurt a little by that… but I also think it helps.

I think it’s one of those cases knowing the rules well enough to break them.

So, in honor of national grammar day… what grammar rule do you love to break?

I freakin’ love to shop. It’s ridiculous. I’m not really a fashion show/montage kind of girl or anything, but I could spend like seventy-nine bazillion hours looking at pretty things, putting them in my cart, and even occasionally buying them.

When I’m a New York Times best selling author with multiple book/movie deals and unlimited funds I have big plans to spend large portions of that in boutiques and family-owned businesses–just putting that out there in the universe.

The thing is, I have a four year old–and while she’s awesome, she’s not totally on board with my shopping lust. So, what’s a girl to do when she NEEDS to scour the aisles of stores for beautiful wares, but her child just wants to lay on the ground making dust angels?

She internet window shops!

That’s right… I open up a really killer site like Anthrolpolgie or Etsy and I fill my cart with everything I would ever even consider buying.

Heck, if it comes in multiple colors, I pick one of each. I even think of little gifts I want to buy for other people and stick them in there too…

Then, when I realize that I’ve spent at five or six hundred dollars in fake money… I CLOSE THE BROWSER.

What?

Yeah, straight up, I don’t even think about it… I just click that whole browser closed… and don’t ever think about that stuff again. Um, but a word to the wise: Sometimes sites enable cookies and keep all that stuff in your cart for you, so if you go back to that online store for real, you might want to check your cart first.

Man, I love autographed books. I sometimes accidentally leave mine open on the coffee table to impress my guests. I understand if you need to do the same.

Today I’m giving away Nick Belardes’ Lords Part One.

In order to be entered in the drawing, all you have to do is comment below!

• If you want an extra entry, well– just tweet about the giveaway!

• If you facebook the giveaway, then you can have an extra entry, as well.

(To make sure you get an entry for each cool thing you do, please leave them in a separate comment below.)

This giveaway ends on Wednesday at 11:59pmCST, and please don’t comment anonymously–I won’t be able to contact you if you’re the winner!

Okay, first off–Holy Crap February was short. How am I sitting here writing my monthly wrap up post?

So, let’s start with the writing. I’m still hard at work on my gamer girl book, but it’s not finished. So, writing is well, but nothing exciting to announce or anything.

Daughter is loving the new preschool. Super happy about that, and we are loving the new house. Although, I should seriously get that one room unpacked… argh.

Bloggy stuff is going really well. The storysaurus has his own store, and people are commenting on my posts!

You. Guys. Are. Actually. Commenting.

This is kind of crazy for me that people care enough about what I have to say on my little ‘ol blog to comment back. The thing is, it makes blogging like a million times more fun…

That’s the thing about blogging–a lot of times you feel like you’re just kind of talking to no one, and then you’ll be at dinner with friends and someone will say, “Oh, you know… like on your blog?”

Then I sit there in silence for a few stunned seconds thinking, “Are they talking about my blog? they can’t be.” I smile and play it off like it’s no surprise to me that they read whatever random crap I’m talking about that day, but in reality I’m all surprised and crap.

When more people are reading your blog and commenting, it makes you feel like you have to say important, interesting, entertaining things… which brings me to my next point.

I didn’t make my goal for February.

What? Leave me alone! I know that February only has 28 days and that my blogging goal was to write a post every week day, and I didn’t do it because I suck. There was this one day that I thought about things to post all day, and realized they were all super boring so
I yelled at my husband for not being interesting enough for me to write about on my blog and then I took a nap. (Yeah, I’m not sure why he’s still married to me, either.) But the thing is, I didn’t come up with anything awesome that day–and I didn’t blog.

Growl. That’s two months I didn’t make my goal, but I am really growing my blog into something fun, and I am having a good time doing it. So, at the risk of ruining myself by not making my goal three times in a row…

I will blog every weekday in March.

Ugh, I am cringing just thinking about not making that goal. Dammit. This time I’mma going to DO it!

The first drafts of my guys are super model-quins who love unconditionally and overlook all the faults of those leading ladies.

But, um that’s kind of boring.

And, you know… unrealistic.

I’m not saying that your characters can’t fit into stereotypes. Hell, a certain amount of that is expected when you read a story because it helps the reader fill in the blanks. What I am saying is that you have to give them faults in order to make it real. Even Clark Kent wore eyeglasses so we wouldn’t immediately* see him as the perfection that is superman.

So, the question here is–how do we write characters that have these faults but are still believable as the types we want them to be? Sure prescription glasses are something, but I mean other more interesting faults that people can relate to. One that comes to mind is clumsy Bella in Twilight. To me, this really stuck out, so I guess what I am wanting to see is characters that have flaws that blend into the story and make it better. Ugh… that kind of sounds hard just thinking about it.

So, now that I’ve decided the answer isn’t just some really kickin’ eyeglass frames, I have a lot of thinking to do about characters and their flaws. Which means I am going to turn it over you, dear readers…

So, what flaws do you like to see in your books?

*Why can I never spell immediately right the first time? I feel like I should write it 100x on a sheet of notebook paper just to learn it.

One confession in particular really stuck out for me:

I realized that if I dinged someone’s car in the parking lot , I would not leave a note. If someone dinged my car and left a note, I would not accept any money. I’d be like pfff! You seen my clunker? Repair a scratch? Ha! I think that you should expect a perfect car when it’s new, and after that, dings and dents come with the territory. If I wouldn’t pay for a dent-repair on MY car, I’m not going to offer to pay for yours either.

At first I was all like, “Sheesh, that’s not very nice.”

Then I remembered something– when I was in high school I did this.

A group of friends and I were on our way to Six Flags, and we pulled into the bank parking lot to get some money from the ATM. We were being typical teenagers, and when I pulled out of the space–I backed right into the door of someone’s car. I should have left a note.

I should have called my mom. Isn’t that why she GAVE me a cell phone in the first place?

But I didn’t… I didn’t do any of this. Instead,  I listened to the cute boy sitting in the back seat of my Bronco. When he said, “DRIVE!” I did.Plus, I really wanted to go to Six Flags, because I knew when I got scared on the big roller coasters he would hold my hand…

I drove off.

The entire door of that car was all crushed in, and I just drove off and left it. We’re not talking a little baby ding here–we’re talking those people probably had to go get a new door for their car.

And it was my fault. Just writing this blog post I feel bad about it. I feel like I am going to get caught, too. I feel like the police have been looking for the girl who smashed in that door on that old beat up car for the last 15 years and now they are going to come to my house and take me away.

Now, that’s the kind of emotion I am scared to write about.

Those feelings, the way that made me feel that day to be such an asshole of a person. Now, when I think back–I can kind of rationalize it. You see, teenagers are impulsive and they do things without thinking… this was obviously one of those moments for me.

But let’s be clear here… I knew leaving was wrong, and I did it anyway because I didn’t want to face the consequences. The thing is–I didn’t have to, either.

Well, that’s not entirely true–I’ve spent the last fifteen years knowing I wrecked someone’s car and feeling like a jackass about it.