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the purple patch

~ Write. Read. Revise. Rinse. Repeat.

the purple patch

Tag Archives: YA fantasy

Mission: not so impossible

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by Amy Bai in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

epic fantasy, full rewrite, living with a writer is a bitch, revising, writing, YA fantasy

In other words, dear reader, I pulled it off.

Yes, this is me today. Really.

My rewrite is clocking in at an amazing 96K right now (that’s amazing mostly because I started at 101K and was convinced, halfway through, that I was going to wind up adding another 6 or 7K to the tally).

I’ve written 53,000 words in the last 28 days, or so Word tells me (hah: take that, failed NaNo attempt), I’ve become so much the definition of antisocial that my long-suffering husband is probably wondering if I’ve developed a very specific form of agoraphobia, and yesterday midway through the final 11-hour writing marathon, Her Dogginess flung herself down on the floor beside my desk and made this astonishing rrrroOOOOOWWwwar! noise that conveyed her boredom and her feelings on whose fault said boredom was fairly effectively.

Being a writer can be a bitch. Living with one, I suspect, is almost always a bit of a bitch.

Anyway. I have no idea what to do with myself this morning.

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book lurve time!

30 Wednesday Sep 2009

Posted by Amy Bai in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

book reviews, Graceling, Guy Gavriel Kay, historical fantasy, Kristin Cashore, The Lions of Al-Rassan, YA fantasy

…Because I lurves my books.

And last week I read two extraordinary ones: a hot new YA Fantasy and an older historical fantasy, both amazing in their own ways. The YA was Graceling by Kristin Cashore, and it was one hell of a debut.

Graceling CoverGraceling is set in a wholly fictional world where certain people are born with Graces, gifts that allow them to excel at one particular thing from birth. Cashore’s prickly, ass-kicking protagonist Katsa was born with the Grace of killing, a talent that isolates her completely from her peers and makes her the most feared weapon in the court. But a man with a hidden Grace of his own changes her life when he challenges her to question both her Grace and the purpose to which it has been put, setting them both on a path that will lead them to uncover a conspiracy that threatens five kingdoms. (Yes, I know that was a long sentence: give me a break. It’s been a day.)

What I loved best about this book, aside from the really fantabulous premise, was Katsa’s voice: the story is 100% YA all the way, but there’s this wonderful subtle change in Katsa throughout. She begins as a very solitary, prickly, and somewhat charmingly socially inept young woman, and by the end of the book she is much more confident, more at ease with people and with the Grace she was born with. That doesn’t sound like a huge thing on the surface, but it was, because the voice changed so gradually, keeping pace with the plot the whole way, and putting my writer-hat on for a moment, I will say that’s a freaking hard thing to pull off. Cashore did it with style, sensitivity, and subtlety. Props, I say: props. Pick it up, if you haven’t already. You won’t be sorry!

Book the second was another of the amazing Guy Gavriel Kay’s masterpieces – The Lions of Al-Rassan this time, a historical fantasy based loosely on medieval Spain, and so wonderfully chock-full of detail I’m sure I could read it another ten times (and yes, I do in fact plan to) and discover something new each time.

rassanI’m not even going to try to summarize this plot, because there’s just so much going on, and this post is already pretty long. Suffice to say it’s (again, very loosely) about the fight for a Christian or a Muslim medieval Spain, and the storyline is just as sweepingly epic as that (admittedly poor) description suggests. The subject is definitely worthy of epic, and yet Kay tells this story through the eyes of a handful characters, and he does it without losing any of the important pieces– and also without skimping on characterization. Moreover, he does it with such depth and sensitivity that he makes this huge-scope-plot utterly, poignantly human and heartbreaking.

Which is why I love this guy, really. His other books show a similar skill. I’d be jealous, but that would be a little like envying Angelina Jolie for being prettier than I am: I know when I’m a couple thousand miles out of my league.

Anyway. If you’re looking for solid worldbuilding, a complex, tense plot and characters so real they break your heart (not to mention a beautiful tearjerker of an ending), pick this up. And keep an eye out for the movie, which I am kind of freaking out about here. 🙂

So there’s my take. I’d love to hear opinions –have you read these? What did you think?

birthday present lurve

20 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by Amy Bai in Uncategorized

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

Barnes & Noble, Borders, dark fantasy, epic fantasy, gift certificates, reading recommendations, urban fantasy, YA fantasy

Sure, it’s been 11 days since my actual birthday, but then again it’s been 15 days since I blogged. Bad girl. No cookie. Nonetheless here I am, trying to get back into a routine both in the WIP and here, and I need opinions, dear readers,: opinions.

Because I got a $20 gift certificate to Borders, and a $100 –yowza!– gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. O yeah. I am one lucky chickie. Bring on the books!

books

(yes, I may very well camp out there for a day or two.)

No, this will not necessarily benefit my WIP, at least not right away. It will probably take time away from it. I’m trying to think of a new daily schedule to remedy this, but I’m not there yet. Nevertheless, I haven’t read a new book in a while, and now I get to read LOTS.

So I know I’m getting Graceling. But I want to read more YA Fantasy and UF, and that’s all I got so far. I also want to read more good, recent epic fantasy, and more dark urban fantasy, because I’m writing these things (and because I love them, of course).I love to read (and write) heavily character-driven stuff, but I want a plot to be fleshed out and logical too. I am picky.

Any suggestions? Favorite books in these genres? Help a girl out, people.

YAy, it’s Friday!

10 Friday Jul 2009

Posted by Amy Bai in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

20th century Europe, A College of Magics, book reviews, Caroline Stevermer, Jane Austen, magic, YA fantasy

–Subtle, huh? 🙂

Since I discovered I kind of enjoy reviewing books, and since I’m on this YA kick of late, I thought I’d do another review. I haven’t yet had a chance to get to the bookstore, where I plan to pick up Graceling, so I’m falling back on one of the only YA books I owned before Cindy Pon wrote the amazing Silver Phoenix: Caroline Stevermer‘s A College of Magics, published by TOR in 1994 and by Starscape (TOR teen imprint) in 2002.

college of magics

I read this book for the first time just before I traipsed off to college myself, so the timing was pretty much perfect. It’s set in alternate-history early 1900s, where a few details have been changed — like a couple extra countries in eastern Europe, and the existence of magic and the schools that teach it.

Faris Nallaneen, sullen tomboy of questionable noble heritage and heir to the duchy of Galazon, is sent by her underhanded uncle to attend Greenlaw College –according to him, so she can learn social graces; according to her, so he can get her out of the way for four years while he rules Galazon. Without getting far into the plot of this, she gets thrown out after a spectacular fight with her archenemy Menary Paganell, is sent to Paris to learn of her real heritage, and is then packed off to Galazon and surrounding duchies to, well, save the world.

There are a hundred things I love about this book, but I’ll spare you the full list and just say that outside of some rather drastic tweaks to the metaphysical and political structure of early 20th century Europe, it’s great history merged flawlessly with a fantastic premise.  Stevermer’s characters are beautifully drawn, and her gift for witty, razor-sharp dialogue is a showstopper all by itself. This book manages to have car chases, swordfights, political intrigue, assassins and magical duels alongside schoolgirl pranks, deportment classes, and romance. If you like Jane Austen, you should definitely grab this one.

Purple patch: 1) A period of excellent performance, where nearly everything seems to go right, work properly, and contrasting with a more general lower level of performance; 2) An ornate or elaborate section of a written work, a patch of purple prose. definition by Wordnik

my serious face

About Amy

Amy Bai writes epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and pretty much whatever else catches her eye. She has recently completed her third novel, and is hard at work on several new projects, because she’s a little bit crazy like that. She lives in Maine and is thus resigned to only three months of warmth, and spends her time working, writing, exploring the local bars and shops, playing with her dog, and pestering her fabulously patient husband. You can read more about Amy here.

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1 the one-pass revision adventure

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