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5 reasons to read Black Spring by Alison Croggon:
1. It's inspired by Wuthering Heights, so you get all the family drama and brooding northern English landscapes of a classic.
2. It is steeped in magic - set in an England where wizards rule and witches are killed as babies.
3. There is murder and mystery.
Well, today's the last day of November and my last day as Inside a Dog's Resident Author. And though the responsibility may have daunted me at first, the whole experience has turned out to be a great one. Just goes to show you the value of saying 'Yes'!
This review has been written by Marnie. Marnie is a year nine student currently studying at Sacre Coeur College. She has enjoyed writing fiction stories since she was in primary school, and reads basically anything worth reading. She also loves playing sport, eating brownies (normal ones of course), and her favourite movie is, as of Wednesday November 21st, The Perks of Being a Wallflower...
During her time as Inside a Dog’s Resident Author, Paula Weston revealed both the cover for her new book Haze as well as the design process behind her first book, Shadows. Never one to pass up a good idea, I thought I'd take the chance to do the same myself by offering you a look at the cover for Vanguard Prime: Wild Card, never before seen by the public! I also thought it would be a good opportunity to show you guys how much work goes into getting a book cover just right.
This review has been written by Nisma, this month's teen contributor to You're The Voice.
When I left the cinema on Wednesday night, my arms were flapping.
Do you know that feeling when you’re trying to describe something in one perfect word, and you’re trying to find that word – it may or may not be on the tip of your tongue – and you kind of make this circular motion with your hands, like you’re trying to drag this word out of your mouth and your hands are the clogs of some kind word-spewing machine?
My hands were doing this so fast, trying to describe The Perks of Being A Wallflower to my friend, and I’m telling you here and now, your hands are not the clogs of a word-spewing machine. That, or this movie was just so breathtaking a single word can’t describe it.
One of the questions that writers are asked more than any other is "Where do you get your ideas from?". In fact, it's such a popular question that I have a series of posts on my website called The Ideas Shoppe dedicated to answering it. Because with a question so broad, there's a lot of ways to answer it. But there's one answer that covers all the others and it's a simple one. Ideas come from boredom.
So this is my very last post as The Voice, and I’m going to miss it a lot. Especially getting to capitalise The Voice. It made me feel Very Important. And as this is my Last Post, I wanted to make it Extra Special, but truthfully, I have no idea what to write about.
I realised a lot of my posts have been based on writing – because it’s NaNoWriMo people! So I’m in writing mode. As it is, my word count stands at 33,287 and I’m still going fairly strong. Okay, I’m almost 10k behind the number everyone’s supposed to be at, but I started late. I’m still ploughing ahead, okay? I WILL PERSIST. I WILL PERSERVERE. I WILL SUCCEED.
Echhem.
The thing is, so far, all I’ve spoken about is writing, so I thought I should talk about something bookish. So I’m going to tell you about the book I’m reading so far: The House of Special Purpose, by John Boyne.
Who else falls in love with particular quotes from books? Are you an underliner, a highlighter, or a dog-earer?
TriSARAHtops has started a great discussion in the Forums about favourite quotes from books.
I personally cannot bring myself to mark any book, so I keep my own notebook. Here is a recent page:
It is a quote from Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys. I love her deft and quirky characterisation...
I love writing dialogue. When I’m putting together a first draft, I’ll often focus on the dialogue in a scene first and add the narration and description afterward. My aim is to always make my characters punchy but realistic in the way they speak. It can be tricky, though. If dialogue is something you struggle with, here are some pointers you may find useful.
