Books and the Courage to Keep Writing

Hi there! If you happen to be Mr. Michael Bourret, agent extraordinaire, please click over here to read all about how your incredible client, Brodi Ashton, gave the unflappable Gina (and me, too!) full-on permission to 'stalk' you. I promise, Gina and her manuscript are worth your while.


(Sunday) I've just spent the morning at the zoo with my children. It was so hot, my head is left with a fuzzy, thick feeling. The sinus cold my baby just gave me probably isn't helping. 

The house is cluttered, the children aren't wearing pants, and there are crumbs ground into the carpet. I just vaccuumed yesterday. (Didn't I?)

I am exhausted. (Who isn't?)

I need to write. There are other things I need to be doing. But I need to write.

Needs: 1. Air Conditioning 2. Coffee 3. Other people who revere words strung into stories.


I'm going to the bookstore.

I don't believe that paper books are better than digital. I don't care about the smell of their pages or the feel of their weight or the crack of their spine. 

Except when I do.

People live in these books. The people who wrote them and the characters they wrote. People who abandoned the housework and fought oppression and kept their eyes open despite exhaustion and poured their entire beings into their work and did magic and saved the world, and maybe saved themselves as well.

Which is author and which is story? 

(Does it matter?)

When I look down the rows the evidence lines up, spine strong against spine, an army of authors telling me that I shouldn't give up. 

"Look at us," the books say. 

"Just look. We had day jobs and housework and exhaustion and heartache and we did it. We still found a way to pour our hearts and souls into words, to breathe life into characters and stories that never existed before, and to defy the odds to get them printed on this paper."

I sit with that for a moment, considering them, countering that they were better writers and more determined people. And then they whisper, "What makes you think you have the right to stop trying?"

And then I turn to my keyboard and start to write.

Forever by Maggie Stiefvater - Elana Johnson's ARC Contest! (Author Crush)

What makes a great story? I mean, what really sticks with you, grabs onto your heart and never lets you go?

The answer is "a lot of things," of course, but for me, a few of them are: stunning prose, gut-wrenching obstacles to be overcome, incredible characters, and a timeless love story.

Oh. And a beautiful cover doesn't hurt.


I've been in love with Maggie Stiefvater Maggie Stiefvater's "Wolves of Mercy Falls" series since I accidentally downloaded the first one, Shiver onto my Kindle. (True story.)

The third and final book came out last week and It. Is. INCREDIBLE.

What? You want some sample lines? Nooooo problem.

"Overhead, the stars were wheeling and infinite, a complicated mobile made by giants." 

I know, I know. Now, how about this:

"There is no better taste than this: someone else's laughter in your mouth." (*sigh* *swoon*)

It's these kinds of things that make me fall in love with an author and leave me star-struck by her. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Maggie Stiefvater is a prose goddess in the pantheon of YA authors, and I bow to her.

You know what might be approaching how incredible this series is? The fact that Elana Johnson (another author crush and prose goddess, yes, you'll hear more about her from me later, DON'T WORRY) is giving away a SIGNED ARC of the last book, Forever today on her blog!!!!

If I win it, I won't send it to any of you, but I will let you borrow my Kindle copy. So, that's something.