It was my first day of my first real job. I’d just spent four grueling years earning a degree and I was ready’n’raring to do some honest engineering work. And what does my manager do? Hands me a book to read and a link to an online test. Not only that – it was a fuzzy personality profile-y thing.

Ooomph.

The book was NOW, DISCOVER YOUR STRENGTHS and the test was The Strengthsfinder. I sulked in my clean cube (weren’t those the days), but finally opened the sucker. By approximately page 10, I was hooked. The authors, Marcus Buckingham and Dr. Donald O. Clifton, devised a personality profiling system based on over 2 million interviews from the Gallup Organization (a well-respected polling group). The credentials alone sucked me in…but I stayed for the brilliance.

This is no standard Myers-Briggs. No, sir. The profile has 34 discrete personality traits (or talents, as they call them). They gave the talents names such as Arranger, Ideation, Relator, Self-Assurance, etc. Essentially, each person approaches the world with a handful of these talents in the foreground and with others far on the backburner. In fact, the book states, the top five talents by themselves largely dictate how you interact with your environment.

As I am with most personality profile mumbo-jumbos, I don’t want to be pigeon-holed into a group of letters or talents or other such things. Personalities are mind-bogglingly complex. It’s impossible to boil us down into something so stagnant. Except, the book argues, these talents are like a piano…there may only be a certain number of keys, but the order, length, and power of how the musician plays the notes is what makes music in a near-infinite combination. They acknowledge that their test is a grainy LP of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, but it’s better than no recording at all.

I took The Strengthsfinder online test – not only because it was a job requirement, but because they’d spiked my interest. Of course, since you’re dying for a look-sy into my head, here are my top five talents; plus, my brief interpretation of them.

·         Strategic: My world is defined in a series of “what if” scenarios which I use to analyze outcomes until I come up with my plan – my strategy. And, as the author’s say, “Armed with your strategy, you strike forward.”

·         Focus: Basically, I set goals and it takes a bazooka blast to stop me – and even then it has to be a direct hit to the head or crotch. Any distraction, no matter how sexy, is a waste of my time. And *do not* waste my time.

·         Achiever: For me, every morning starts at zero and every night I tally up my achievements for the day…whether they be at work, in writing, or fun activities. This is my internal desire to DO STUFF. A facet of my personality that gets no greater satisfaction than checking off a To-Do item...until I cross it out too.

·         Input: I collect information. I store facts and file them away for a rainy day. Most the time, I’m not sure when I’ll need to access it, but I know that someday, I will.

·         Connectedness: Friends, welcome to my hippie side. I believe things happen for a reason. I’m sure of it, because in my soul I know that we are all connected…the book then moves on to say things like “you are sensitive to the invisible hand.”

Want to know something? This assessment is spot on.

And check out the complexity of my character through these top five concepts: Boiled down, I’m an unwavering, strategic hippie/trivia-buff with a to-do list. Think about if I shared with you the top 10, 28, or the full 34…but no one wants to see that deep into my soul.

So why am I blogging such personal stuff derived from a book I read…ummm…a while ago? Well, I’ve been working on some character development and it hit me – I should give each of my critical characters a Strengths Profile. Bam! In five-words, I created a unique decision-making process in each of them.

My hero will have Responsibility (a physiological ownership of things he commits to, while forcing him to take on more than he should) and my villain, Woo (there are no strangers, just friends he hasn’t met yet). A sidekick will display strong Competition (if she can’t win, there’s no point to playing). And that’s just one-of-five for each of them, adding in the others only makes a character deeper and more complex.

NOW, DISCOVER YOUR STRENGTHS provides me a full piano for my character sonata. Maybe the book will spark something in your character development too. At least it can give some insight on why your boss is crazy.

Okay, this blog is finished.

Check that one off my list. And then cross it out too. 

*Ahhhh* Now, that feels GREAT. 

Guys. There are so many great books coming out this fall and winter. It's crazy.

I've already fan-girled about Laini Taylor's DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE and Marie Lu's LEGEND. These next books won't be released for a while yet (November-January), but each one of them should be on your radar. Here they are, with a little teensy teaser as to why. (I'll be posting reviews as we get closer to publication dates.)

SHATTER ME by Tahereh Mafi -- This one is all about style and steaminess. Truly innovative in it's prose, with a romance that is completely dee-lishous. I devoured this.

EVERNEATH by Brodi Ashton -- This is such a gorgeous, dark interpretation of the myth of Persephone. Beautifully written and brimming with atmosphere... It's so hard to keep these short. I really would love to go on.

INCARNATE by Jodi Meadows -- This is the story of Anna, whose soul, alone, has not been reincarnated in a land of dragons, sylph and laser pistols. Musical, utterly charming and truly original. 

As mentioned above, full reviews to come. One final book--and this one is purchasable now--for you writers out there. Orson Scott Card's CHARACTER & VIEWPOINT. I recommend this to every writer I know. You'll find tips on how to make characters sympathetic & unsympathetic. Invaluable for a library on writing craft. I own two, because I live in fear of losing one and being stranded without.

In case you haven't noticed, I love a good romance.  And Jennifer Echols writes a good romance.  She is quickly building a solid list of YA contemporary romances that are steamy, addictive and layered. 


Here's the description for FORGET YOU from Jennifer's website:

WHY CAN'T YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU FORGET...AND WHAT YOU REMEMBER?
 
There's a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four-year old girlfriend. Like Zoey's fear that the whole town will find out about her mom's nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. With her life about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she's the perfect daughter, the perfect student, and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon. 


But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there's one thing she can't remember at all--the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug--of all people--suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life--a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug. 


Zoey is a complex character.  She makes some poor choices, acting out in response to a family tragedy, and then must find her way back, as she pieces together the events leading up to her car accident.

As love interests go, Doug is right up there on my favorites ever list.  He's headstrong, brave and achingly romantic, while at the same time possessing layers and weaknesses that make him both vulnerable and flawed.  Sigh. 

The mystery surrounding the accident is not so much a secret -as in what happened, it's more of a question of how it happened, with plenty of twists along the way.  There was one in particular that I wasn't expecting that made me sit up in my chair and do a little freak out, happy dance. Trust me you do not want to see the freak out, happy dance, but I do consider this a good thing so long as no one's watching.  

I loved the way the romantic tension builds along with the mystery arc, creating a story that propels you forward and keeps you turning the page until the end.  Be warned that there is plenty of sex and drinking in this book, so it might not be appropriate for all readers. But if you enjoy a good contemporary romance, try Jennifer Echols.

You know you're getting old when a book set in a decade you remember is classified as historical. But OUT OF SHADOWS by Jason Wallace feels so timely and so immediate, that you forget it’s historical.

It's the story of Robert Jacklin, a young English boy whose father gets a job in the embassy of the newly-formed Zimbabwe. The country has just been through a civil war, blacks against whites, tribe against tribe. Robert Mugabe has taken power, and holds it tightly, insisting on equality while upholding polarity.

The book is set primarily in an elite boys’ boarding school, one that used to be all white, but has suddenly become integrated. Jacklin finds himself ostracized because he is English and allies himself with the only black boy in his year. But he quickly learns the language and culture of the other boys around him, putting on the persona like a cloak that hides his true self. But cannot hide him from the repercussions his choices will unleash.

I wanted to read this book for three reasons. The first was that it was set in Zimbabwe, a country in which I spent six months in the 90s. The second is that I absolutely love to read books set in boarding schools. (Sometimes I remind myself of Miles Halter in John Green’s LOOKING FOR ALASKA, because the idea of boarding school is so enticing, and yet so frightening.) And the third is that it was blurbed by Markus Zusak. (Yes, sometimes I do buy for blurbs.)

This book lived up to and fulfilled all of my reasons. Wallace’s descriptions of Zimbabwe are spare and evocative, and I could picture all of it from the heat on the dusty vlei to the odor of the bottle shop to the way the words sounded in the mouths of the characters.

And his boarding school didn't disappoint. Like a cross between the violence of THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE and the awkward integration of LOOKING FOR ALASKA with echoes of A SEPARATE PEACE.

But best of all, the book gives a very human slant to such a distant history. The distance is not necessarily in time, but in place. Not many readers know anything at all about what has happened in Zimbabwe, or what is happening now. And this book provides an excellent illustration.

A couple of weeks ago my sister, who is three years older than me, asked me why my stories didn't include sisters in them. I was surprised. I hadn't really thought about it.

"One is about an only child. In the other story, the sister is dead. And in your latest, she has stepsisters," she said. "You write about mom and dad, but you don't write about a sister. Why is that?"

"I don't know," I said.

But in typical big sister fashion, she wouldn't let it go. "It's because you don't want to go there," she said.

And, again in her typical big sister way, she was right. She knows me sometimes better than I know myself. After all, she's been through it all. The whole sister thing is intense, and complicated, and wonderful. But it's also a very hard relationship to describe. Perhaps one day soon I'll "want to go there," but until then I'm recommending a sister story that definitely fits the bill.


IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma is eerie and thought provoking story that deeply explores the relationship between sisters. It left me with a vague, haunted feeling that was hard to shake. The cover is a great visual for the prose inside -mesmerizing, terrible, and beautiful-all at the same time.

From Nova's website:

Chloe’s older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can’t be captured or caged. After a night with Ruby’s friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers a dead body floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away—away from home, away from Ruby.

But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns home at last, she finds a precarious and deadly balance waiting for her. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

Imaginary Girls is a masterfully distorted vision of family with twists that beg for their secrets to be kept.