I used to leave similar "traps" for the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, although mine usually just... involved food and a note asking them to leave me their name.

The Easter Bunny was named Chester and the Tooth Fairy was Belinda.

IKR. Man the new covers are pretty bad. I mean, I know from being kind of ingrained in the YA world that they try to appeal to what the teen readers are picking up these days, and covers like this one tend to do well. Bleh. But it's so incongruit with the content and with the older covers I was used to seeing.

And now I'm completely monopolizing the comments section, but this blog post gave voice to so many of the feelings I have about sexual assault in real life, let alone in fiction. Food for thought. (LOTS of cursing and such on that blog though, just FYI).

Er, yeah, and I forgot to get into how attempted or completed rape scenes are often handled in a violent or villainous way, which ignores the fact that most rapes are not violent at all. The woman doesn't always walk away with obvious bruises and a bloodied lip, because the majority of rapes are committed by people we know. All those emotions from before? Add confusion and denial that someone you care about could hurt you that way. Rapists aren't always strangers or obviously wicked antagonists.

Hoo boy, yeah. I have MANY THOUGHTS. I wrote a post about this topic last year during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The thing with sexual assault is that there IS no single, catch-all experience or response. However, it is something that will profoundly affect a person for the rest of their lives. That effect may take many different forms, but it will always be there.

I think a lot of people (writers and non-writers alike) have a skewed perception of how being assaulted affects a person's psyche. Some seem to think it's like, I don't know, having a person punch you in the face. It hurts and it's scary, but it's primarily physical and you can get over it and move on, and if you don't, you're being some kind of overdramatic wuss. They don't factor in that rape is far, far more like home invasion combined with physical assault. Your most personal, private home has been violated. Combine that a hundredfold with our culture and our often messed-up ideas about sexuality, and you get some serious psychological and emotional responses that go far deeper than the physical harm (if such physical harm exists, which it often doesn't).

I honestly don't think or expect that every time rape is introduced to a plot, it's made into a huge issue and takes up a big chunk of the story to talk about the Evils of Sex Assault. I just think writers need to be very mindful of how they're using it and consider how it's truly going to affect their character, and if it's necessary to build the character into what they want.

I did read Gathering Blue, which I enjoyed, but not as much as The Giver. Never read The Messenger, though.

Yeeessss. I feel like I've been really lucky with TICK-TOCK. The first draft was... a mess. But it was supposed to be. It was a NaNoWriMo project that I started on a lark, so of course it had some serious LOL-worthy nonsense in it. But then I really thought about what I wanted the story to be, and I rewrote the thing. The rewritten version bears only the slightest resemblance to the original. And that's when I started getting external feedback.

Everyone had great insight. I largely agreed with most of the responses I got back. Even when I became agented and got ~*real agent revision notes*~, the core of my story remained untouched, which made me very glad. Most of my revisions entailed increasing tension, showing-not-telling, and replacing info-dumps with action scenes. Since its inception, I believe I've only received two suggested changes where I was like, "No, no way, that is not what I'm trying to do here." So I said no. And it was fine.

I absolutely agree that getting that external reader input gives you new insight about how someone who isn't you is reacting to your work, and it's so helpful. I absolutely feel like my MS has become stronger with each revision. I regret nothing.

Sounds pretty similar to what I went through. I realized I felt like I was ready when I read agent/editor/pro advice and kept nodding and going, "Yep, I've done that... done that... done that, too..." When there was almost no more advice for me to take because I'd already done it all, AND I'd edited and polished, AND I knew my query was ready because I'd gotten an "accidental" request... I knew it was time to start querying.

I am also throwing my hat in for #3.

LIKE x A MILLION

(The book cuteness, obviously.) I'm the same way about books. If I lend you a book, I trust you a WHOLE LOT.