Advice to Writers: Michael Michalko

Creativity is Paradoxical

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

-MICHAEL MICHALKO

Creativity is the most important part of the novel. Some like to have their novels so close to realism while others just like being creative and making things up. I am one of those writers where I simply like to make things up. Writing a strong character is something that will make your novel different than others. It's important to make the characters unique so that the book can stand out from all the others on the book shelf. You need to think like your character.

Sherlock Holmes

I want to see this movie! So much action, so much adventure. I wanted to see Rachel McAdams in it.

Here's the trailer.

Started Writing Again

I started writing something. It's actually really short it's about 25,000 words. Maybe one day I can make it into a novel length. It's a young adult contemporary. I've been reading lots of books in young adult mostly because I am a young adult. I wanted to write something different. I'm currently reading some paranormal romance books after being disappointed from the Twilight series, so maybe I'll find something I like.

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult

One moment June Nealon was happily looking forward to years full of laughter and adventure with her family, and the next, she was staring into a future that was as empty as her heart. Now her life is a waiting game. Waiting for time to heal her wounds, waiting for justice. In short, waiting for a miracle to happen. For Shay Bourne, life holds no more surprises. The world has given him nothing, and he has nothing to offer the world. In a heartbeat, though, something happens that changes everything for him. Now, he has one last chance for salvation, and it lies with June's eleven-year-old daughter, Claire. But between Shay and Claire stretches an ocean of bitter regrets, past crimes, and the rage of a mother who has lost her child. Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love? Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish?

The story is written in five point of views. One of the main points of view was June, who was a single mother and married to the town's most respected police officer, and thinks her life was filled with bliss after her husband takes in her little girl and treats her as his own daughter. She was pregnant with her second child when she came home to find her husband and daughter pregnant. Shay was a repair man who would come over to the house and he is the one who is accused of the murder. Maggie is a lawyer who has always been insecure about her body image, but is one of the most successful lawyers a person could ever meet. June's daughter Claire has a heart condition, and is close to dying, while dealing with all of that June wants Shay to pay for killing her husband and daughter, but June doesn't know the whole truth about the whole incidence.


I was so happy to pick up another one of Jodi's books. Another court case. I like the attorney in this book, Maggie always felt insecure because of her body image. It made me happy when someone decided they wanted to date her. There was a lot of curiosity because of why Shane was put into jail, and when you read it, the plot twist of the truth is going to stun you! I don't want to reveal what happens in the book for those who It really upsets me that it takes her two years to have every book published but if a person really paid attention, the writing is simply beautiful.

The Blind Side

The blind side is about a boy who grew up on the slums, and is taken in by a wealthy family. I thought the movie was touching and beautiful. It shows no matter where you come from you will find a home somewhere. I've liked a lot of Sandra Bullocks movies most in particular Miss Congeniality, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Practical Magic so i just had to see this new movie with her. She looked good as a blond, but I'm so used to seeing her as a brunette. This was a truly beautiful movie I recommend seeing.

2009 World Champion

And the 2009 World Champion is . . . Bridget Sloan!

It makes me happy another Team USA win. But there was a fault, the WOGA 3 peat star Rebecca Bross was in the running to be the World Champion, her beam routine was near perfect and her score bumped her to the top. But then a small titanic moment happened on her last tumbling pass fell down with her score being deducted by final point and was awarded the silver medal. I had a hard time finding the actual video during the All-Around but this is the video from the event finals.

Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Uglies
Tally Youngblood is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait for the operation that turns everyone from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to party. But new friend Shay would rather hoverboard to "the Smoke" and be free. Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The "Special Circumstances" authority Dr Cable offers Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.







I read this series when it was first published, way before the Hunger Games came out, and I found the Hunger Games to be a much interesting story. This is a dystopian book series, but I did not like the writing one bit. The idea for the story is interesting, I'm just not crazy about Westerfields writing. Westerfield's writing was too bland and kept me wanting to put the book down not even eager to get to the next chapter. I didn't feel a connection to the book nor to the characters. It's not that bad of a book.

Advice to Writers: Donald Hall

T.S. Eliot's Advice to a Young Writer

Then it was four o'clock, or nearly; it was time for Eliot to conclude our interview, and take tea with his colleagues. He stood up, slowly enough to give me time to stand upright before he did, granting me the face of knowing when to leave. When this tall, pale, dark-suited figure struggled successfully to its feet, and I had leapt to mine, we lingered a moment in the doorway, while I sputtered ponderous thanks, and he nodded smiling to acknowledge them. Then Eliot appeared to search for the right phrase with which to send me off. He looked at me in the eyes, and set off into a slow, meandering sentence. "Let me see, said T. S. Eliot, "forty years ago I went from Harvard to Oxford. Now you are going from Harvard to Oxford. What advice can I give you?" He paused delicately, shrewdly, while I waited with greed for the words which I would repeat for the rest of my life, the advice from elder to younger, setting me on the road of emulation. When he had ticked off the comedian's exact milli­seconds of pause, he said, "Have you any long underwear?"

-DONALD HALL


This is mostly saying "Don't settle for anything less." If you are querying an agent, don't settle for just any agent. I do have some writer friends who just wanted to have an agent, but their agent wasn't really good. So now they are having to find a new agent. This goes to the point of querying agents who you don't want to work with, and don't just settle. If you are a young writer, keep writing.

Advice to Writers: John Updike

You Are Full of Your Material

You are full of your material—your family, your friends, your region of the country, your generation—when it is fresh and seems urgently worth communicating to readers. No amount of learned skills can substitute for the feeling of having a lot to say, of bringing news. Memories, impressions, and emotions from your first 20 years on earth are most writers’ main material; little that comes afterward is quite so rich and resonant. By the age of 40, you have probably mined the purest veins of this precious lode; after that, continued creativity is a matter of sifting the leavings.

-JOHN UPDIKE

This is every true. Many authors are full of material, it's just a matter of writing it. I find myself filled with so many storylines I don't even know which one to begin with. I even find myself writing 3 projects at once. Sometimes the things that happen to us in our lives do make a good story. It's just a matter of writing it into something people can relate to.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.






The story plot is simple. Brian and Kate, two loving parents of a son and daughter, discover that their two year old daughter has leukemia. Since no one in the family was a match for her they have a baby made with the same DNA so that that way Anna could donate to her sister everything she needed. When it comes to Anna having to donate to her sister a kidney, that's when Anna sues for medical emancipation from her parents. 

This book was assigned for summer reading. I was skeptical to read it at first, but I read it, and I absolutely love the book. It's so heart wrenching, the plot is just so addicting I could not put it down. Reading this book it made me realize I take my sister for granted, and that a person does not really value their family until it's too late. I highly recommend this book.

Advice to Writers: Virginia Woolf

Write What You Wish to Write

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its color, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery.

-VIRGINIA WOOLF

I really like this. Write what you want to write. Many greats in the literary world did that. Stephen King is the prime example of that. He didn't care what people thoughts were of his writing, he wrote what he wanted to write and now he is one of the most literary legends in literature. One of my problems with my books is that I'm taking what's already out there and putting in some unique twists to the themes, so the thought of the rejections is mind blowing.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Guys you know what a big freak of Harry Potter I am. I go psychotic whenever I see the trailers for Harry Potter. I just saw the movie, and it totally lived up to my expectations. They kept the movie as close to the book as possible. I loved the movie! See the trailer!