Book Review: The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes

Thirteen year old Anvil, who prefers to be called Anne for obvious reasons, is beyond ready to leave St. Lupin's Institute for Perpetually Wicked and Hideously Unattractive Children. The trouble is there are only two places to go: to an academy to train to be an adventurer or to the Pit to work until she has enough money to buy her way out of it. No academy will accept her because she has no proof of her origin. The Pit sounds dismal, but she's willing to do anything to get away from St. Lupin's.

While planning her escape, a series of unpredictable things happen that lead her to her first quest. It has the unfortunate side effect of attaching a metal gauntlet to her arm, permanently, so it would seem, as well as placing her and her best friend, Penelope, in mortal danger. 

Anne, Penelope, and their reluctant new friend Hiro, set off on an impossible quest that involves sweet-talking dragons into offering their assistance, a well-dressed talking hyena, ancient technology, riddles, and fireballs. There are lots of those. 

There are so many things to love about this story that I don't know where to begin. The humor is spot on. I can't wait until my son is old enough to read this because I know he's going to love it. I laughed out loud multiple times. But it's more than just a funny book. It tackles big questions like finding your true self, finding your place in the world, honor, friendship, betrayal, and mercy. 

In addition to all of those wonderful things, the main character of this adventure is also a female of color. It's not often that girls get to lead adventures, and in this book, there are more female characters than male. The role of fighter even falls to Penelope instead of Hiro. It was a delightful surprise. 

White brings a fresh perspective to epic fantasy by poking fun at all of the tropes we know. The world-building is so subtle it feels natural, and while it's hinted at that this is a post-apocalyptic Earth, he never reveals that fact outright. The world is familiar and strange at the same time. The characters are likable and believable. I highly recommend giving it a read.

Dusting off the old novel

I sat down yesterday and created a schedule for the week. It has all of my household chores on it. Thursdays and weekends have time to devote to writing. Thursday is reserved for edits. This book has been laying about since 2015. It's time I did something about it.

I went down to my local UPS store this morning and printed out a hard copy. I've tried editing digitally, but it just isn't as fulfilling. I need those red pen marks to give me tangible evidence that I'm doing something. The rough draft is over 300 pages. I wasn't expecting that. In Scrivener, it seems so much shorter than that. Looking at all of these pages (sorry, trees!), it really feels like a book. Now, it's time to kill all those darlings and make it better.

My books always stagnate once they reach revision. I love writing. I love getting the story down. I'm not fond of making it presentable for eyes other than my own. I acknowledge it's a vital part of the writing process, I'm just an expert at procrastinating.

But I love this book. I believe other readers will love this book. I got great feedback from my beta readers. That means, this book is worth the effort. It's time to dig out my red pen and get to work.

Writing Goals

With the New Year now upon us, I've seen countless posts about writing goals for 2017. I usually have a handful, overly ambitious goals that I never reach because I expect too much from myself.

This year, I kept things real. I made a simple goal: write every day. I didn't even set a word count. I just need to write something (though grocery lists and the like do not count!).

I bought myself a shiny new notebook. My hope is to fill it with a new poem for every day of 2017. Five days in and I haven't fallen off of the wagon yet.

I also started a new monthly fiction challenge with some friends of mine. We've pledged four flash fiction stories for every month. I've written two of those so far for January, so I'm off to a strong start there too.

My biggest challenge this year is going to be submissions. I need to dust off all of these works in progress and actually submit them to places. That means I'm in for a ton of editing. For some reason, the edits are more daunting to me than the new work. I'm considering hiring an editor as a belated Christmas present to myself. It might be just the push I need to whip that book into shape and toss it onto the query-go-round.

Reading back over this post, it seems I may have some pretty ambitious goals for myself this year after all. I know I can do this though. And so can all of you. Let's all knock our personal goals out of the park this year.