Welcome Back to YA Cafe, where book lovers can gather and chat about teen literature. I’m your barista, along with Ghenet from All About Them Words.

Each Friday we pick from a menu of topics and share our thoughts on our respective blogs. We’ve also got plans brewing for interviews, events and even some exciting giveaways, so stay tuned! Join the discussion by responding in the comments, on your own blogs or on twitter using the hash tag #YAcafe.

Today’s Special: New-And-Improved Book Club and October Topic!

Ghenet and I spent lots of time this summer brainstorming new ideas for YA Cafe and one of them is a different twist on the Book Club idea.  We love the idea of having regular discussion about actual YA books (that is the point of YA Cafe after all) but the logistics of getting everyone to read the same book was challenging and sort of felt like school (which is SO not the point of YA Cafe).  So we came up with an alternative.  Instead of “assigning” a specific book each month, we’ll have a monthly theme and you get to choose the book to read that fits that theme.

We’ll announce the theme on the first Friday each month, then you’ll have three whole weeks to choose a book and read it.  On the last Friday of the month we’ll post about the books we read and you can join the discussion either by commenting here or by posting on your own blogs and linking in the comments.

So, without further ado, here’s the theme for October.  Drum roll, please…

October Theme: FEAR!

That’s right, in honor of Halloween and all things creepy, we want you to pick a SCARY book to read for YA Cafe.  But we’re not just talking about things that go bump in the night… there are lots of different ways that fear comes into play in YA.  Here are a few topics come to mind:

• When You’re Dealing with Creepy Creatures:  OK, this one’s pretty obvious, but horror and some paranormal books can definitely fit the theme.  Zombies, vampires, or a good old-fashioned ghost can definitely send chills down the spine.  These books can inspire fear simply because the creatures in them are so… other-worldly.

• When There’s Suspense:  This happens to be my favorite type of scary book.  I love books that keep me perched on the edge of my chair, barely breathing.  Whether these books have a fantasy element or if they are based in a realistic setting, the suspense factor is what keeps me hooked.

• When the World Falls Apart:  This type of book is more subtle because the scary force in the story isn’t a specific character or group of characters.  Rather, in this type of book it’s the world that is scary and the thing that keeps my heart racing is that I want to know if the protagonist will find a way to survive.  A lot of dystopian novels tend to fall in this category.

• When the Character’s Life is Shattered:  Problem novels fit the bill nicely here.  After all, you don’t need the whole world to be on the brink of destruction for a book to be terrifying.  Sometimes it’s enough just for the main character’s world to be shattered.  For me, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak is million times more scary than ahorror story because the situation in that book feels so real.

If you know which book(s) you plan to read or need recommendations, let us know in the comments!

The topic is pretty flexible, so go ahead and choose a book, then think about how the book you picked is scary to you.  Then on October 28, we’ll have our book club.  Get excited!  For more on why FEAR is important in YA, check out Ghenet’s post!

This week I’m feeling a little bit mischievous.  Maybe it’s the adrenaline rush of starting a new challenge.  Maybe it’s meeting all these motivated writers and seeing them set their goals and dive in.  Or maybe it’s just that my inner-gabi (AKA iggi) happens to be in this mood right now:

Whatever the cause, these last two (only two?) days since the start of ROW80 have been uber-productive in gabi-land.  Here are some of the things I’ve checked off my TO DO list in the last few days:

•  1500-word article for the Stories for Children, where I have a monthly column.
(Technically, I did this over the weekend, but since it was on my week’s To Do list already, I’m counting it.)
•  1200-word detailed outline for the new-and-improved DIY MFA free workbook.
•  Total of 5 blog posts between this blog and DIY MFA (counting this post and two Sunday night posts).
•  350-word draft of the DIY MFA newsletter (with template and content).

This brings me to a total of 3050 words of miscellaneous content and 5 out of 7 weekly blog posts.  I also prepped and taught my class, attended my writer’s group and am going to an author reading tonight.  The only piece of my writing life that’s not exactly booming right now is the reading.  But honestly, with all this other stuff going on, if I slack on my reading it’s not so bad right?

All in all, ROW80 is off to a good start.  Woot!

Also, Goals Update! I’m borrowing a nifty idea from my good friend Ghenet of All About Them Words.  Instead of doing two check-in posts, it looks like she’s doing her main check-in on Sunday and using Wednesdays as a day to talk about the progress she’s making on her current project with a short ROW80 update at the end.  Such a great idea!  Honestly, I was worried that if I did check-ins twice a week, I wouldn’t have much to show in terms of progress.  And who wants to read a blog where the blogger is all “me me me,” only talking about themselves and their work?   No offense but… *SNORE*

So, yeah, I’m stealing Ghenet’s idea because it sounds WAY more interesting and fun than my original plan.  On Wednesdays, I’ll post about something random that’s on my mind and do a mini-check-in.  Then on Sundays I’ll go into more details about my actual ROW80 progress.  Sound good?  Awesome.

Now you tell me: How’s your week going?
To see how other ROW80 writers are doing, check out this link.

To Those about to Rock (the ROW80) I salute you.
To everyone else, I suggest you stay out of our way.

I am so excited to be participating in ROW80 this fall!  I’m new to this challenge but I have a writing friend who did it in the spring and said it was awesome so I just had to try.  Now I can’t wait to get started.  This weekend, I did a little browsing and looked at some other writers’ goals to get ideas for how I wanted to structure my own.  I decided on approaching my goals in terms of a weekly schedule.  This way, it still gives me some flexibility day-to-day (which is key considering my sometimes unpredictable schedule), but will be structured enough to keep me accountable.

In addition, I decided I would focus my writing on DIY MFA content, since this is the big project on my plate right now.  I’m going to try to sneak in a little editing for my latest fiction WIP, but really the main part of my goals will focus on cranking out and editing new content for DIY-MFA-related products and features.

Finally, I had another reason for focusing on DIY MFA.  This project is focused on platform-building and putting together an entrepreneurial business based on my author brand.  I thought that not only would ROW80 help boost my productivity, but the check-in posts would give me a concrete written record of how I’m building this business as I go along, which could come in handy down the road.

So without further ado, here are my goals.  Each week, I will…

1. Revise one chapter of my fiction WIP.  I have six chapters in need of revision, so this will take me through the first six weeks of the challenge, which works out nicely because then I can put the WIP on the back-burner and ramp up DIY MFA work.
2. Write and publish the 4 weekly DIY MFA blog posts.  In addition, I will try to write one or two post drafts so I can stay ahead of schedule on the editorial calendar.
3. Write and publish a minimum of 3 posts here at iggi&gabi.  This will include the two ROW80 check-in posts and the Friday YA Cafe posts.  If additional topics of interest come up, I might add a 4th weekly post.
4. Write one DIY MFA newsletter every week.  This will start in late October or early November (coinciding approximately with my finishing the WIP chapter revisions.)
5. Write 5000 words of DIY MFA flagship content.  This flagship content will include any copy that needs to get written for DIY MFA products, courses or features.  I will schedule this writing so that I do approximately 1250 words per day, four days per week.

These tasks are the absolute minimum I must do each week in order to stay on schedule with all my projects.  On one hand, these goals make me nervous because they are a bit steep, but on the other hand none of this is stuff I wouldn’t be doing anyway so it’s win-win.  If I must drop one of my goals, it will be the revisions on the fiction WIP, which can always head to the back-burner for a little bit longer while I get DIY MFA set up.

What about you?  Are you doing ROW80 or do you have any particular goals for this fall?  If so, what are they?

Welcome Back to YA Cafe, where book lovers can gather and chat about teen literature. I’m your barista, along with Ghenet from All About Them Words.

Each Friday we pick from a menu of topics and share our thoughts on our respective blogs. We’ve also got plans brewing for interviews, events and even some exciting giveaways, so stay tuned! Join the discussion by responding in the comments, on your own blogs or on twitter using the hash tag #YAcafe.

This Week’s Special: Banned Books Week

As many of you may know, this week is Banned Books Week, and all week long there have been events–online and off–celebrating banned books and our First Amendment right to read what we want.  But why address this topic on a YA Cafe day?  Well, one quick look at the banned books lists and you’ll notice that somewhere around half of the banned books fall under the umbrella of teen literature.  Now, when you consider that teen literature is only one small slice of the literary pie (a fast-growing slice, to be sure, but still just one small part of the whole) the number of banned books from this category seems grossly disproportionate.

So this week, Ghenet and I thought we’d look over the most recent Banned Books List from the ALA and tell you which books on that list we’d read.  (To find this year’s full Banned Books List, go to this link and scroll to the bottom of the page.  There are PDF downloads for lists from the past seven years).  According to the ALA, the top ten most banned books in 2010 were: (books with * are ones I have read)

1) And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
2) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie *
3) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley *
4) Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
5) The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins *
6) Lush, by Natasha Friend
7) What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
8 ) Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
9) Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
10) Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

But for me, the banned book from the full 2010-2011 List that had the most impact was Vegan Virgin Valentine by Carolyn Mackler, which was challenged at the Quitman, Tex. Junior High library (2011) by a parent who described one scene as “on the verge of pornography.” (Source: Jan. 2011, p. 8.)

First off, let’s just chuckle at the irony that a book with the word “virgin” in the title gets challenged for being too “pornographic.”  I mean, did said parent actually read the book?  Because there isn’t an actual sex scene in it, and trust me, when it comes to make-out scenes this book might have some steamy ones, but nothing even nearing “pornography.”

Secondly, I can see why over-protective parents might feel threatened by this book, and it’s not because of sex.  This book is about a girl who does everything her parents want her to do.  Then one day, she says “enough” and starts thinking for herself.  Frankly, I think the message about independence is far more scary to parents than the alleged scene that’s “on the verge of pornography.”  It’s not so much that the main character has a steamy make-out session with her boyfriend, but that she’s doing it behind her parents’ backs and with a boy they wouldn’t approve of.  I’d be willing to be that this is what freaked out that outraged parent, not the so-called pornographic scene.  I mean, teens having minds of their own… such a scary concept, right?

Forgive me, but isn’t the whole point of kids reading books like Vegan Virgin Valentine for them to figure out their own opinions about important life topics?  What’s the point of teens having their own brains and free will and all that good stuff, if they never get to use it?  And honestly, the kids reading these banned books are not the ones I worry about.  After all, they’re reading.  The ones I worry about are the kids who don’t read anything at all. *Steps down from soapbox.*

Soapbox is free; anyone else want to hop up? And while you’re at it, tell me: how many books from this year’s banned list have you read? Did any one book really hit home for you? Which book was it?

To read about Ghenet’s pick from the Banned Books List, check out her YA Cafe post.  Also, don’t forget to tweet about YA books that you love on Twitter, using the #YAcafe and #YAsaves hash tags.