Five Best Books of 2011

This year, I thought I'd challenge myself to slim down my "I loved this book so much" list to just five titles. These are the books that absolutely rocked me this year.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Because: This book is beautifully written, incredibly atmospheric, filled with visceral landscapes and expertly-developed mood. Stiefvater makes the island of Thisby into a character that wraps itself around you like a cloak that you never want to take off. If you're going to try out a YA in 2012, try this one.

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I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Genre: YA (I suppose, though only because it has some teenaged characters)
Because: This is an amazing book. So amazing that I don't even want to tell you what it's about: this is a story that's better appreciated without any foreknowledge. I fell in hard and fast love with this lovely, affecting, magical piece of fiction. If there was one book I could make everyone I know read, this would be it.

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Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
Genre: Historical Mystery/Ghost Story
Because: This is one of the best ghost stories I've ever read: vivid, historically fascinating, well developed, and fantastically creepy. I had the pleasure of reading this book (with many lights on) first, then listening to the audiobook read by Jeremy Northam... and WOW is that the BEST audiobook I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying. I've listened to it three times: if that isn't a glowing endorsement, I don't know what is. Don't forget to keep your light on.

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Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Genre: Dystopian/Urban Fantasy
Because: This book about a zombie with heart is at once funny, philosophical, moving and suspenseful.   This book managed to take two things I'm not wild about (zombies and futuristic, end-of-the-world stories) and make me a little bit wild about them. I just loaned this to one of my fantastic creative writing-class seniors, and now several of them are reading it. It's spreading (just like the zombie plague)!

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Just My Type by Simon Garfield
Genre: Nonfiction
Because: This is the one book I loved this year that I haven't blogged about: it's a book all about FONTS! Now wait. Because you start shaking your head, hear me out a sec. This book is fantastically fascinating. It gives us what amounts to a character study of some of history's most important and game-changing fonts: where they came from, how they developed, and what quirky cast of artists and cultural heroes made them unique and significant. This book is a veritable treasure-trove of well-written tales to keep any word nerd entertained for days.

Best Music of 2011

Discovering great new music's a special experience: that moment when a song sinks into your bones, speaking to you and for you, and you realize that something good has just walked into your world. I listen to a lot of music through my iPod when I'm out running or writing. So, for me, truly good music enriches the soundtrack by which I perform my most important, most Kate-like activities. These are the albums that most profoundly enriched my life's soundtrack this year.

This holiday season I'm feeling incredibly thankful for these artists, and for Australia, the country that (in one way or another) brought these tunes into my orbit. Listen and enjoy!

Best Music of 2011

City and Colour - Little Hell

This soulful acoustic genius pairs beautiful lyrics with haunting melodies that will stay with you for days. Man do I love this guy. "The Grand Optimist" blew me totally away.

Cold War Kids - Mine Is Yours

Many a scene of my novel took shape to the tune of this band's sharp, unique sound. "Out of the Wilderness" has won a special place in my heart.

 Gotye - Making Mirrors

This soundtrack has upbeat songs that made me smile - and poignant ones that made me feel understood - at all the right moments.

 Radiohead - King of Limbs

Dear Radiohead,

I don't know that I could write without you. I know that my second book wouldn't be what it is without you. My love for you is endless.

Love Always,
Kate

Lisa Mitchell - Wonder

A truly spectacular lady singer/songwriter with a killer voice and one of the most unique albums I've ever heard. So many of my best and most profound Brisbane memories this year happened with this CD as a backdrop.

 Seeker Lover Keeper

What happens when you take three shockingly amazing solo artists and put them together in a room? This album happens. "Bridges Burned" was my personal anthem this year. Many an afternoon in the car was spent with me belting out those lyrics to the world through my windshield.

The Middle East - I Want That You Are Always Happy

Another group that came with me on many a sunset jog. So beautiful, so quiet, so haunting - "Blood" makes my skin tingle every time.

Brisbane to Tas: the Epic Journey

I've been a terrible blogger. That's because I've been off adventuring in Tasmania and High Country Victoria for the past few weeks. We decided it would be fun and intrepid of us to drive from Brisbane down to Melbourne and take a ferry to Tasmania, camping all the way. And it was. It was a great opportunity to see the Australian landscape, but it involved an obscene amount of time in the car, which I wiled away by pointing Paul's iPhone at things (including one of the coolest wilderness events I've ever seen close up).

If this doesn't make you want to road trip with me, well... I just don't know about you.

Novel #2: Done!

We crazy creatives all have our rituals for when we reach a pivotal moment. In Stephen King's Misery, the writer's thing was Dom Perignon and a Cuban cigar. For me, it was champagne and brownies.

The pivotal moment being: I finally finished Novel #2! Which means I can stop calling it that and start calling it by its actual name: Torn.

I started Torn early in 2010. It's seen me through some rocky times, and has been a constant source of solace. It is my first book in which I tackled multiple viewpoints, which was challenging, but very fun. Of course, it's not really done. I've got a LOT of editing to do before I can do anything with it. But, 86,500 words later, I'm still in love with my characters and I still believe in what I've written. It's stuffed full of shape shifting, blood spilling, good looking people brooding, and a whole lot of public nudity.

And that, in my opinion, is worth some very decadent baked goods.

Mom and I used to make 'midnight brownies', an oh-so-bad-for-you mother/daughter bonding ritual that marked many a teenaged night. And, since I was celebrating, here, I decided to go for Peanut Butter Brownies.

And they were worth every thigh-jiggling bite.

Novel #2

2010 was the year of many things for me. One of those things was Novel #2 (which, technically, I started at the very end of 2009). I'm feeling a little frustrated with myself because #2 (also called Torn) is taking sooo muuuuch loooonger to finish than I thought it would. But that's not to say I'm not excited about it. I'm really excited about it. I love my characters and my setting a lot, and I'll be excited when I can share it with whoever I can convince to read it over for me.

It's just that I'm feeling a little embarrassed. After finishing Novel #1, I thought I'd learned so much about plot and character arcs and streamlining. That I learned what I'd need to do to make sure I didn't end up with a lumpy, patchwork first draft when I gave this whole novel-writing thing another go. But I can see, without even having finished it, how much work I'm going to have to do to get Novel #2 where I want it to be. But I'm beginning to think that maybe this is my process: write madly, stop and pace and plan, write madly, then copy/paste/partially rewrite my merry way to a story I'm truly proud of. Maybe I'm not the kind of writer who ends up with a first draft that doesn't need to be half shredded. Maybe that's okay.

After more than a (very tumultuous) year, I've got about 20,000 words left to go. So, for the purposes of inspiration, I thought I'd Wordle the 50 most-used words in my manuscript.

Here's to finishing my draft by June!