Flower Mantids

I took two flower mantids away from Daxton's kitten tonight, the second about five minutes after the first. I don't know how or why they came in the house, but they've been hunting bugs outside our front door every night for at least a week. I didn't see any damage when I looked them over (not an easy task).

The first time I notice one (about a week ago), I thought a praying mantid was eating a butterfly and wondered what kind of butterfly it was. I'd never seen a butterfly with such beautiful pink and green markings. So, I broke off a bit of grass and moved the mantid with it to get a better look. It flew onto my pants, and I realized why I'd never seen a butterfly with those markings. Ben very cooly informed me there were two of them and went back to reading MOCKINGJAY.

Now I'm wondering why I've never seen a flower mantid. I'm not even sure they're native to our area, but that's what they are. After I showed the strange looking mantid to the kiddos, Daxton ran to look it up in his favorite book, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION: ANIMAL.

It's a rare day that goes by without his opening this book. He found flower mantids listed above common praying mantids on page 555, and after reading descriptions for both, we had a name for our mantids. If I manage to get a picture of their wings spread, I'll post it. They have ruby red eyes, a golden crown up around their antennae, and their spikes and mandibles are bronze. I've never seen such metallic looking mantids. And then they have fairy princess wings. I couldn't let the cat eat them.

I searched the internet for almost an hour, looking for a picture or video of mantids that looked like ours, but so far I haven't found one. This video shows a different type of flower mantid, if you're interested.

Have you ever seen a flower mantid?

Maria V. Snyder

There's been a lot of buzz lately about MOCKINGJAY, and rightly so, but I'd like to recommend another dystopian that I enjoyed more. Last month, I won a copy of INSIDE OUT on Kelly Bryson's blog. She interviewed the author, Maria V. Snyder, and Ms. Snyder offered to give one of the people who commented on her blog a copy. I didn't have to agree to review it, and I hadn't read any of her other books, but I loved the story.

Packed with action and intrigue, INSIDE OUT kept me turning pages and hoping the characters weren't a chapter away from meeting Chomper (a messy end). Trella accidently incites rebellion and hope in both likely and unlikely places by searching for Gateway (a way out of the society they're trapped in). She's good at keeping her head down and staying out of trouble, but when her best friend turns himself in to save her from suspicion, Trella knows she won't be able to save him or find Gateway (which is what he wants her to do) by staying out of trouble. 


I'd love to know what you thought of INSIDE OUT, if you've read it. If not, let me know when you have. ;)


If you're interested, Maria V. Snyder is giving away another one of her books, SPY GLASS, as part of the Squeaky Books Birthday Bash. The interview before the giveaway is a lot of fun too. This is only one of many giveaways, and I have a button in my sidebar that will take you over there, or you can click on the link in my last sentence.


Have a great week!   

Fourth Draft Finished!

And it's about time. My fourth draft took a lot longer (3 1/2 months) than my third draft (3 weeks), but I made a lot of changes (although the read aloud I intended to finish with turned into a silent speed-read). STAR SWANS AND SARKI went from somewhere around 96,000 words to 89,490 words.

This is the first draft that I've finished with fewer words than I started it with. I'm shedding information that I needed to know to write the story, but has become obvious or otherwise unnecessary. And I'm finding that as I take out the clutter, my story becomes more and more like the original version - the one I fell in love with and tried to capture with my first (messy) draft. I'm not sure why I'm taking such a roundabout way to get there . . . actually, I do. I had to get to know my characters and their backgrounds. Have you ever experienced something similar?

Happy Dancing

Anyone who wants to happy dance with me over finishing a picture book manuscript that I'm excited about can start dancing . . .

. . . NOW!                                  

This picture book has actually had a title (which I think I'll keep to myself just a bit longer) for about five years, and I've written two or three other stories with different characters and story lines, stories that made me say, "Meh." I'm excited to revise this one into something I can query or submit. So I'm giving myself a September 21st deadline to complete Shelley's dare. After all, that's technically the end of summer, right?

Because I have this other manuscript (still under 90,000 words) that I'm working on until Wednesday.

What are you excited about right now?

Writing Update

I'm still not done with my fourth draft of Star Swans and Sarki, but I like where it's going. My actual deadline for finishing is the end of the month, but I'm supposed to be squeezing a picture book into this month too. The Story Queen dared me to write a picture book this summer, and I not only accepted the dare, I told her I'd submit or query it as well. Unfortunately, the two picture books I've started this summer haven't cooperated. It looks like I'm starting over from scratch.

Fortunately, my revision is going well. My manuscript is more than 5,000 words lighter (under 90k) than it was last week, and I've added thousands of new words: shiny conversations and scuffles (which means I've probably cut closer to 10k). At the moment, I'm working my way backwards through the story and trying to catch missing punctuation and inconsistencies. At least, that was my plan. I've found that revising backwards is also helping me catch superfluous words, sentences, and even paragraphs that flow well when I'm reading it frontwards. Once I'm done with my backwards revision, I'm going to read the whole thing out loud and fix whatever problems I have left. It should be perfect in a week or so, right?

;)

Yes, I'm laughing at myself over my perfection issues, but that's a subject for another post. The reality: I'll send my fourth draft out to a few more readers, and then I'll revise again. Meanwhile, I have another novel I started earlier this summer that I'm excited to get back to (once I've written that perfect picture book) and another friend's manuscript to critique.

I've critiqued three since May. Critiquing other writers' work has helped me see problems that need to be fixed in my own, and reading critiques on my own work has helped even more. I don't always take their advice. Even when I do, it doesn't always work. For instance, I cut a character that one of my critters didn't like, chopped her right out of the story, but then I wrote her back in today. Her part is smaller, but it's necessary. On the other hand, I also revised a scene where the same critter felt my characters didn't react to a betrayal. I made them react and wow--I love what it did for my character development. She saw something important that I missed. Of course, changing that part meant I had to revise other parts as well, but it was worth the work. In both instances, my story is better for the changes I made because of her comments. I (heart) my critique partners.

And I (heart) my blogging friends. Thanks for reading my rambley-scrambley writing update. Have you ever revised backwards or tried something different to catch mistakes?

More Contest Love

WriteOnCon was great, wasn't it? That writing update I promised you isn't happening until the end of the week. Hopefully I'll be where I want to be by then.

But check out this contest. Shannon Whitney Messenger, one of the organizers of WriteOnCon, is giving away five amazing ARCs of books I've been dying to read (especially the first and the last). Here's Shannon's description:

PEGASUS by Robin McKinley (Available in November, 2010)

Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pegasi, Princess Sylviianel is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own pegasus, on her twelfth birthday. The two species coexist peacefully, despite the language barriers separating them. Humans and pegasi both rely on specially trained Speaker magicians as the only means of real communication.

But it's different for Sylvi and Ebon. They can understand each other. They quickly grow close—so close that their bond becomes a threat to the status quo—and possibly to the future safety of their two nations.

New York Times bestselling author Robin McKinley weaves an unforgettable tale of unbreakable friendship, mythical creatures and courtly drama destined to become a classic.

~~*~~

MATCHED* by Ally Condie (Available September, 2010)
*Note: The ARC I have does not have the now famous cover, but otherwise it's exactly the same.

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

~~*~~

VIRALS by Kathy Reichs (Available November 2010)

Tory Brennan, niece of acclaimed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (of the Bones novels and hit TV show), is the leader of a ragtag band of teenage "sci-philes" who live on a secluded island off the coast of South Carolina. When the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing on a nearby island, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.

As the friends discover their heightened senses and animal-quick reflexes, they must combine their scientific curiosity with their newfound physical gifts to solve a cold-case murder that has suddenly become very hot—if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer's scent.

Fortunately, they are now more than friends— they're a pack. They are Virals.

~~*~~

THE SEARCH FOR WONDLA by Tony DiTerlizzi (Available September 2010)


When a marauder destroys the underground sanctuary that Eva Nine was raised in by the robot Muthr, the twelve-year-year-old girl is forced to flee aboveground. Eva Nine is searching for anyone else like her, for she knows that other humans exist, because of an item she treasures—a scrap of cardboard on which is depicted a young girl, an adult, and a robot, with the strange word, "WondLa." Tony DiTerlizzi honors traditional children's literature in this totally original space age adventure: one that is as complex as an alien planet, but as simple as a child's wish for a place to belong.



Breathtaking two-color illustrations throughout reveal another dimension of Tony DiTerlizzi's vision, and, for those readers with a webcam, the book also features Augmented Reality in several places, revealing additional information about Eva Nine's world.

~~*~~

THE KNEEBONE BOY By: Ellen Potter (Available September 2010)


Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who's away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar seaside village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal...

In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.

*          *          *

They all look amazing, don't they? Make sure you tell her I sent you.

And F.Y.I. - Stephanie Perkins is giving away her last copy of ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS. I'm not entering, but you can tell her I sent you anyway. ;o)

A Contest and a Conference

Carolina Valdez Miller extended her fabulous contest through August 15th, but you don't want to go over there. She's only giving away seven, SEVEN ARCs. ;o)



Also, if you're a writer and you haven't heard of Write On Con, you should check it out. It's free, and you don't even have to leave your home to interact with other writers, agents, editors, and illustrators. I'm registered as Myrna Foster in the WriteOnCon forums, if you want to add me as a friend. I'll be hanging out over there this week, but next week, prepare yourselves for a long overdue writing update (and no, that doesn't mean I have a contract or an agent to tell you about). I haven't had anything exciting to share since May.