Home late last night after a sublime Leonard Cohen show (that I wish I was still at!), I'm mucho groggy today but am interrupting my Internet break to point folks in the direction of my guest blog entry on "Reconnecting with Your Lost Love of Writing" over at Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing. If you've lost that loving feeling lately, this post might be for you. Signed copies of Yesterday and My Beating Teenage Heart are up for grabs too!

 

Some very cool reviews of Yesterday have been appearing on the Internet and out in the world recently. I wish I could link to the wonderful Quill & Quire write-up, but it's not online yet. Here's an outtake to whet your appetite: "A satisfying, original blend of time-travel thriller, science fiction and romance, this white-knuckle read is more Jason Bourne than Katniss Everdeen."

 

I'm very happy to say that Yesterday review appears on the same page with a lovely one for Monica Kulling's new book Lumpito and the Painter from Spain. Aimed at readers five and up, Lumpito is based on true events—Pablo Picasso's love for the one of a kind daschund that comes into his life. Quill and Quire say, "Young readers will delight," but this older reader is very much looking forward to reading it too! Sounds like a great Christmas gift, n'est-ce pas?

 

I'm also extremely excited to report that School Library Journal has given Yesterday a starred review. Yaaaaaay! You can read the entire review on the School Library Journal website. The National Post has also been very kind to Yesterday and said, "Yesterday is a compelling novel that will take up permanent residence in your mind and haunt you, continually leaving you suspended in its spell until the very last page. Martin’s ability to manipulate the laws of time and space to create a fantastical fictional world is exceptional." Check out the full review here.

 

Finally, if you're in the U.K. and looking to pick up a copy of Yesterday as an e-book you can now download it from Amazon.co.uk. My guest blog entry about Yesterday will be going up at Kindle Post (uk) on December 11th and my other YA books will soon be available in-ebook format on Amazon.co.uk too. They're being released via Curtis Brown's digital self-publishing programme, which you can read the details of on the Curtis Brown website. One of the things I loved about this is that it gave me a chance to design alternate covers for my books. Here's the U.K. e-book cover. I'll try to post the others soon too.
 

From now until late December/early Janaury I'll be keeping a low profile on the Internet while I concentrate on the Yesterday sequel and other projects. That means minimal Facebook, Twitter and blogging time, but I'll still be checking email. You can also find me guest blogging at Adventures in YA & Childrens Publishing on December 5th. There'll be a Yesterday/My Beating Teenage Heart giveaway there too so don't forget to toss your name in the hat if you're curious about the books!

As for the Yesterday sequel, I don't want to give too much away but I can say it's called Tomorrow and is from Garren's point of view. The future's reach is long and Freya and Garren are not safe in the Vancouver of 1986. No one is.

Speaking of not being safe, I watched Flight earlier today and it had one of the best airplane crash scenes I've ever witnessed in a movie (right up there alongside United 93 and The Grey). If you're thinking about watching Flight, definitely go...unless maybe you're intending to fly anytime soon.

Fairly early on in the movie there's a scene in a hospital stairwell that let me know Flight was going to offer more a whole lot more than I expected in terms of character development. As persuasive as the trailer is, the film itself is much more compelling. Denzel Washington could, of course, convince a person of anything and between his brilliant performance and a script that never overplays emotions this is one of the strongest dramas I've seen this year.

I also watched Skyfall recently (I was never a huge Connery fan and was entirely won over by Daniel Craig back during Casino Royale so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this latest Bond offering too) and have been tensely following Olivia , Peter and Walter's ongoing battle in 2036 in Fringe. Peter Bishop, damnit, what have you done? In case I haven't mentioned it before, in my opinion Fringe is the best thing on TV right now and I'm simultaneously savouring every minute of its fifth and final season and mourning its imminent end. If you haven't checked out the show yet but like your sci-fi offbeat, super smart and with strong, likeable characters, I highly recommend starting at the very beginning. Fringe isn't the kind of thing you can just dip into and hope to understand but damn it's worth the time you'll dedicate to it.

My mom's moving house shortly and my brother was home from L.A. for a couple of days to help her pack things up. I spent a good chunk of Friday and Saturday pitching in with the effort so now have two sets of clothes covered in a fine layer of dust. But what a trip down memory lane!

While I'd either gotten rid of or taken most of my things in previous years, some stuff I didn't expect was still lying around, including notes I'd taken about my first trip to London, England —a vacation my best friend and I paid for with our summer jobs when we were seventeen, a letter one of my cousins had written me when I was thirteen informing me he'd beaten my Pac-Man score (must have been a lie!), and a letter from my aunt which included the comment that I was developing a very impressive super ball collection. Yes, I actually had a super ball collection when I was a kid! See the below photo.

As well as the things you can see in the picture, I rescued a copy of The Detroit Free Press from February 9, 1986 and issue of Time Magazine dated December 23, 1985 that I'd boxed eons ago. Actually, I'd kept a good few newspapers from that period but I just didn't have room to take all of them home with me so tossed most of them in recycle yesterday. It was interesting that I'd saved so many in the first place—I guess I thought someday I'd need a time capsule to consult (perhaps sensing that in the future I'd write a book set in the 80s??). Seeing as I'm about to resume work on the Yesterday sequel I'm extremely eager to have a read of that old copy of Time and the Detroit newspaper.

And can I just say, my old View-Master is every bit as cool as I remembered! I can't imagine what younger generations would make of the thing but I absolutely adored my View-Master and looking through the slide reels of Star Trek (both animated and from the original TV show), Charlotte's Web, Charlie Browns, Land of the Lost, Scooby Doo and Planet of the Apes (the TV show) brought my enthusiasm back in waves.

You'll also notice my extensive Smurf collection from when I was eleven and twelve. Considering how many decades they've been packed away, the Smurfs remain in admirable condition. I was gleeful to discover some of the Babar books from my earlier years too. I am no less fond of Babar now than I was then and my heart leapt to see them. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dust myself off and go play with my stuff!

The day after the big storm and it seems the rain hasn't stopped them from continuing industrious work on the parking garage beneath my building. They started fixing the expansion joints early in October and the construction is scheduled to be completed near to Christmas. I'm on day two of a headache but it seems churlish to complain about drilling noise when the power is on, the streets outside aren't flooded and here in Southern Ontario we're not having to deal with anything remotely like the damage some states have seen.

The images from New York City are particularly sobering— and what a job ahead to clean up and put all the pieces back together again. The scope of this is to difficult to fathom.

Earlier today I read a New Yorker article, "Watching Sandy, Ignoring Climate Change" which discusses the harsh realities bearing in on us, whether we're ready to deal with them or not. Between the memory of summer drought barely behind us, the destruction Hurricane Sandy's wrought as well as the results of a new Munich Re study, it's difficult to understand how nations that like to consider themselves enlightened (I'm looking at you Canada) continue to be in denial re. global warming and their part in it. "Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America. The study shows a nearly quintupled number of weather-related loss events in North America for the past three decades, compared with an increase factor of 4 in Asia, 2.5 in Africa, 2 in Europe and 1.5 in South America."

We're not like Middle-earth elves, we have no Undying Lands to retreat to once we've junked up this planet. Yet we're still not giving the global warming issue the focus it should demand. What does it take, I wonder?

We need sea change and we need it now. Or better yet, yesterday.

Speaking of which, if you'd like to talk to me about my latest book (or anything else), I'll be spending next week (November 5 - 9) at Random Buzzers. If you want to read more about the book, two fantastic recent reviews are available at Midnight Bloom Reads and the School Library Journal blog. My local paper also did a nice write-up on Yesterday and me.

More importantly, I hope everyone's safe and remains that way and that you all impart to businesses and politicians at all levels how important protecting the environment is to you. Because unless we can strike up a deal with those Middle-earth elves, this planet is all we've got.

Frodo and Sam watch the elves leave Middle-earth for the Undying lands.

When I started writing YA, contemporary books were king. I fell in love with and was inspired by honest, emotionally complex novels like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Life is Funny, Breathing Underwater, Borrowed Light, and Every Time a Rainbow Dies. Although I love to write various types of books and intend to continue to stretch myself, I will always, always have a soft spot the size of Asia for contemporary books.

If you happened to read my last blog entry you know how much I enjoyed the movie adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It made me think of all the other contemporary books I'd be thrilled to see adapted for the silver screen. I'm very happy to note that Before I Die, a wonderful YA book that broke my heart, has also been made into a film, renamed as Now is Good. But that still leaves plenty of excellent YA material to adapt and here's my top ten wish list:

*  Stolen: There's such an odd beauty about this story of a girl abducted at an airport and whisked away to the Australian outback and the right director (Jane Campion?) could turn it into an equally magical film.

*  Boy Toy: My favourite Barry Lyga book deals with the difficult subject matter of a seventeen-year-old boy molested by a teacher five years earlier. As far as I'm concerned there's not a single false note in what could also be a fantastic film by someone who knows how to handle nuanced dramas. Someone like Peter Berg (writer-director of Friday Night Lights) perhaps!

*  Some Girls Are: I don't know how Courtney Summers manages to make mean girl Regina such a sympathetic character, but this is both a fascinating and chilling story of the cruel power dynamics that play out in high school. Sadly, that's a topic that's only grow more relevant in the last few years. Since I've started watching the first season of American Horror Story I've been thinking that Taissa Farmiga (Violet) would be riveting as the steely mean girl turned target character of Regina.

*  Let's Get Lost: Sarra Manning really knows how to write chemistry and, although this isn't strictly a romance, with the right young actors cast as Isabel and Smith the sparks would FLY.

*  Broken Soup: There's a mystery at the centre of this drama that makes this story of a brother's death even more compelling. Lone Scherfig's An Education convinces me she'd be the ideal director for this.

*  48 Shades of Brown: I jotted down this list before finding out this way already made into a movie back in 2006 (which I'll obviously have to check out!). But here's what I was going to write about it: Lighter material than most of the other books I've named here, Nick Earl's novel is the charming, funny and realistic tale of a teenage boy who moves in with his young aunt while his parents are in Geneva for work and promptly develops a crush on her roommate. Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) or Greg Mottola (Adventureland) are both equally perfect for this jaunty material.

*  Tyrell: I can't imagine anyone, of any age, not being captivated by Coe Booth's story of an inner city teenager in a homeless shelter trying to hold things together for his younger brother while fielding numerous other issues (including relationships with girls) in his own life. Gritty without being overwhelming bleak, Tyrell isn't the type to feel sorry for himself so we don't either. But you root for him all the way in what, in my opinion, is already a very cinematic story.

*  Recovery Road: Like alot of folks, I first fell in love with Blake Nelson's work with Girl. But I just might even like this book about the love and friendship between two recovering young drug addicts even better. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (writers & director of Half Nelson, It's Kind of a Funny Story and Sugar), you two need to read this!

*  Teach Me: There's zero melodrama in this story of a romantic relationship between a female teenager and her male teacher. Instead it's admirably forthright with not a cliche in sight and I think Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) could be the one to accomplish the same with the film.

*  Gentlemen: This YA has one of the most arresting covers I've seen in recent years and the story inside is just as arresting. Mike's friend Tommy is missing and meanwhile their hate English teacher is acting very strange indeed. Coincidence? I was on edge for the entire story and think Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank) would be ideal for this edgy material that feels liable to erupt at any second.

I'm writing this after more than two weeks away from the blog because I've just finished assembling everything I need for the writing grant I'm applying for. Hurrah! Loads of writers apply for this particular work in progress grant so I have no idea what the odds of success are but I've read my novel sample pages as many times as I can stand and the application due date is mid-October so it's time to let it go. Because I won't know whether I'll receive the grant money for several months I won't be returning to work on this particular novel until I hear how my application fared in the middle of winter. I won't lie—it's tough to walk away when the characters and their very dramatic situation are on my mind but this is what it's like being a writer, your head gets very crowded with fictional people and their concerns and you can't tend to them all at the same time!

In the meantime I'm moving on to rewrites for my agent (on a middle grade novel), returning to another YA project and generally enjoying fall. Yesterday Paddy and I had a delightful day in Niagara-on-the-Lake, stocking up on things like gourmet coffee from Victoria Teas (for him—I prefer my caffeine via Coca-Cola), Greaves jam and British snacks from the Scottish Loft. But mainly it was just a lovely day to stroll around town and look at the changing colours of the season.

On Saturday I caught The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the film adaptation of one of my all-time favourite young adult books. I was both excited and a little worried about how the change in medium might alter the material, but I needn't have been because Perks is one of the best movies about young people that I've seen in the last decade. The soundtrack alone would be enough reason to see it. I mean, here's a movie featuring the songs Come On Eileen (Dexy's Midnight Runners), Asleep (The Smiths) AND Dear God (XTC): my inner sixteen-year-old self was in heaven. At the same time, music is just a small part of what makes this movie great. Logan Lerman is luminous as Charlie, really just perfect. Perks wears its heart on its sleeve without being the slightest bit cheesy and Stephen Chbosky (screenwriter, director, author) makes the feat look effortless. So, yeah, the movie is infinite and if you enjoy intelligently rendered, sensitive characters, you'll love Perks. And if you still haven't read the book yet, what are you waiting for?

Recently I also had the chance to visit the Toronto Zoo again (my first visit in many years). For me the highlight was being able to get up and close and personal with polar bear cub, Hudson, whose first birthday is tomorrow. Having spotted a blue glass bottle on the ledge of the viewing area that someone seemed to have left behind, Hudson wandered over to take a look. Seeing him approach, I neared the glass myself and we had a cool moment, just the two of us while Paddy and the friends I'd come with hung back. Aren't they sweet? And Isn't he gorgeous?

Not to mention, playful!

And now it's time for me to nip out and do a bunch of errands, while the sun is shining.