Harry Potter and Blog Tour Link #7

Last night was an epic reading night for me and my kids. We finished reading the last Harry Potter book. Now, I've read them quite a lot--I started reading them before Goblet of Fire was released, before I even had kids--and I've explained to them how I had to wait years in between the last books to see what happened. I started reading them to my kids at bedtime almost a year ago. When we were packing up all of our things to move from Ohio back to Tennessee, I kept out the book we were on so that we could keep reading and know where the book was during the move.

And now we're done. It was so much fun to share with my kids something that I had so much fun with, and to see the things they thought and enjoyed.

(Next, they want me to read them one of my books, which was totally their idea, and kind of weird for me...my son ran over to the bookshelf yesterday and grabbed it off of there.)

Is there a book/series that you've loved reading over and over, or sharing with others?

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Today's Rising blog tour link is over at the fantabulous Tara Tyler's blog.

C is for C.S. Lewis and Cassiopeia

Dear C.S. Lewis,

My mom read chapters of The Chronicles of Narnia to me and my little sister every night before bed when I was growing up. I loved fantasy from the very beginning, and you brought me to this magical world over and over again. By the time I was nine or ten, I was reading them myself—over and over again.

I know that these books influenced me. I know that they still do influence me. As many books as I've read over the years, your Narnia books will always be the ones that built a framework for my abundant love of fantastical tales.

Thank you for that.

Sincerely,
A Fan





Dear Cass,

I think out of the six sisters that were in my 2009 NaNo Novel, you got the short-end-of-the-name stick. Yes, you all had names from Greek mythology, but you probably had it the roughest as a little girl. Aside from the nasty nickname kids came up with, you also had to learn to spell Cassiopeia. I couldn't even write that out correctly for a while! I kept swapping E for I or mixing up vowels at the end.

I'm giving you a mention here today because you were the sister that I felt I knew the least when I wrote this novel.  (Which was still more than most characters when I start a book--it was crazy how fully-formed all of you guys were when you dropped into my head that October.)  But when I went back after NaNoWriMo to read everything I'd written, I was very surprised to find that there were several little things about you that were consistent throughout the book and that helped make you unique—things that I hadn't even realized I'd written. People might think that I'm crazy for not knowing exactly what I wrote, but perhaps those who have written a novel in a month will understand that sometimes when all of those words are coming out, you really don't remember.

And I have to tell you, it was an awesome experience to see everyone true to character and personality, but it was especially awesome with you, since you were the one I was most worried about.


Thanks for being you (and sorry about the awful childhood nickname),
The Rambling Writer



*Two questions for today:

1. Is there a particular author who has influenced you a great deal?

2. Is there anything you've ever written—no matter how small—that helped build your story/characters, and you didn't realize it was there until you were rereading it?