TBR Tuesday: Reboot by Amy Tintera

It's Tuesday - time to talk about a book in our To Be Read stack.


Reboot by Amy Tintera actually hit stores today and I'm so excited to delve in!

Amy lives nearby and has been to several local author events. She's SUCH a sweetheart and this book looks amazing.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

Check out the trailer too!

Whoseywhatsit Thursday: Whatcha Bloggin' About?

I've had blog content on the brain lately.

I used to mostly follow blogs through the reader on my Blogger dashboard, but since I took over the pre-k at my work, I haven't had as much time to scroll through. So now, I mostly read via clicking through on twitter or facebook, or blogs I subscribe to via email.

And recently, I've gotten a couple of emailed blogs that have me scratching my head. Like, constant posts about appearances. Now, I'm the first one to want to show up at author or writer events. Seriously. But, I live in Florida. So as much as I love you, I don't care if you're going to an event in Washington state. Sorry. And I kind of don't think that should be a blog post, you know? Add it to an events tab and tweet it or something.

I'm not talking about a recap with pics and tidbits from an event--I love those. I'm talking about "I'm going to TLA, and will be here, here, and here. Come see me!" I mean, that's great, but you've set up for people from all over the world to get your blog content SENT TO THEIR EMAIL INBOXES. I don't know about you, but I already have to spend thirty minutes to an hour deleting junk email everyday. I don't need to get an extra email about your schedule at an event I'm nowhere near.

Anyway, it got me thinking. What kind of blog content are you looking for, Oasis Seekers? What do you blog about? What blog posts of yours have gotten the most attention? What would you like to see more of here?

Writer's Wednesday: Have you been a good CP lately?

Photo credit

As I think back on how I got started in writing, and what made me better, I've got to think that critiquing others' work was huge.  It wasn't because I knew so much and had so much to offer other starting writers.  Not at all.  It was that by examining the work of others, I was able to find flaws that I might would have overlooked in my own work.

Things like the dreaded passive voice, annoying dialog tags, overusing a character's name in dialog, and a deluge of adjectives.  When we are writing, these things can all sound really good in our own heads.  For example, when we say:

"I know, Beth, but this is serious."

"I hear you, James."

We often think we're adding extra emphasis or gravity to our words.  But when we read it in others' work, we realize that all it does is add words that characters would probably never say in real life.

So here's my Writer's Wednesday advice for those of you who aren't regularly critiquing another's work: give it a try!  Join the First Pages group on YALitChat (it's free).  Ask a writer friend if they need another set of eyes.  Or even just pick up the book you're reading and pretend you've been hired to edit it.  What would you change?  What bothers you?

Now... how can you change that for the better in your own writing?