Mayday, Mayday!

Well, y'all, it's May. And it's been a while since I've posted project goals or updates.

Of course, if you've been following this blog, you'll know why the 2nd half of February, and then March and April went out the window, so I won't go into that again.

Last week I finally decided to start getting back into it. I started rereading The Wolf and the Sheath, to get my head back to where it was before the omelet hit the fan. (Yes, I'm stealing that phrase from Some Like it Hot.) I had written a decent amount of new material in early February and some of it I hadn't even reread yet, so some of this reread is to re-immerse myself in the world of the story, and some of it honestly is to say "what the heck did I write three months ago?"

I also looked into some submission possibilities and submitted one of my stories to a literary magazine, so we'll see if that goes anywhere. I got back two rejections during my downtime, which was really rough - not because when I sent them out I said, "this is it! This is a perfect fit for this story," but because I already had so much bad news coming at me it would have been nice to have a win.

So for May... I guess for May I go back to getting my head in the game. I may not write quite as much as the schedule I planned at the beginning of the year. At six months pregnant, I'm not sleeping well (not that I slept well when I wasn't pregnant) and we still have a boatload of stuff to do to get ready for our little girl. My evenings are full and my bedtime is creeping earlier. I need to remember to take the time to meditate, especially the next few weeks as work stress is peaking. Plus now that it's getting hotter, we usually wait 'til after dark to take Athena for a walk. So the 2-2.5 hours I used to be able to get in most writing evenings are shrinking - in the past week and a half or so that I've been trying to get back into it, I think two hours has been my best, and a couple nights it's been closer to 1.

But with a baby on the way, I know that in a few months I will look back on this time and say, "Oh, wow, I had so much time I had back then!"

The Dog Days of February

Well, guys, I somehow missed making my beginning of the month project update for February - by the time I realized this, I figured I might as well wait for March!

My goals for January were to "get my head back in the game" after Christmas, and to do better about sticking to my new schedule. I was very good about sticking to only writing "business" on Mondays - writing-related social media, researching places to submit, etc. Wednesdays and Fridays, without the distraction of "ooh, I wonder if anyone has clicked on my last post," I was able to get a good chunk of things done. Jason and I had a few occasions where we went out and did things on Wednesday or Friday nights and I was very good about making up the time I missed some other evening.

I also submitted two different stories over the past month and a half. That actually doesn't sound like much, but I've been more judicious about making sure the places I'm submitting to are good fits, looking for places that offer payment without also having to shell out a lot of money to enter a contest, etc.

I wrote a lot of new material for The Wolf and the Sheath in the first couple weeks of February - some of this was to go complete or transition between recent material that I wrote in November, and some of it was completely new. The main document now stands at over 60,000 words, and that's not including probably 10,000 words from the secondary document that I (mostly) wrote in November that still need to be copy/pasted in, and maybe 2,000-5,000 more little snippets in various other places.

But that was all before mid-February. The last thing I worked on that was writing related was to submit a story on Feb. 18. That was the night that we realized that Baldur was more than just "under the weather," and I have not had either the time or the emotional energy to work on anything since then. (For more on what's been going on with my boy, see my previous post: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/2/24/baldurs-saga ).

As of the typing of this, we are still waiting on his biopsy results and I am just physically and emotionally exhausted.

But with that said, I have probably been more productive this February than last February. I don't remember getting a lot done early last February (for some reason last year, it took me a long time to get back into the swing of things after Christmas). Then, again in mid-February, we adopted Athena. The first month or so that we had her, she needed near-constant supervision and also had some separation anxiety, meaning that Jason and I pretty much alternated nights of who had a trembling doggy on their lap. (She has improved so much you guys, I can't even tell you.)

As of the 18th, my plans for March were to stay the course. I was starting to think I might actually be able to have a complete rough draft of Wolf and Sheath before Jason and I have our first (human) baby in August. But, depending on what happens with Baldur, I may dial back writing time in order to spend more time with him. There's a lot that is very much up in the air right now.

How is it that the shortest month always has so much crammed into it?

New Year, New Goals

It's that time of year again - time to look back on the goals I set last year, and re-examine what I can do in the coming year.

First we'll take a look at what goals I set myself last year and how well I accomplished them. Below is my actual list from last year's blog (linked here if you're interested https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2017/12/30/2017-summary-2018-aims ):

1. Prep and submit my latest short story, "The Cause of the Disturbance." This will actually require some research as it is a decidedly different genre and style than my three other published stories, and may need to be submitted to different places than I have been submitting to.

2. Make measurable progress on The Wolf and the Sheath. Don't ask me what "measurable" means right now - this may end up being the amount of new material written, amount of editing/rewriting, etc.

3. Attend my writing critique group semi-regularly.

4. Manage my time better in the evenings.

So, how did I do?

1. I have submitted "The Cause of the Disturbance" to several contests and publications. No luck to date, though one of my "rejections" noted that I made it to the final round of considerations in their contest.

2. For The Wolf and the Sheath I have:

• Finalized all place and character names.

• Neatened up and edited some scenes.

• Started work on a map and costume research (both really for myself - I doubt that either a map or costume illustrations will make it into the final version).

• Written 31 pages of new material in November. Not all of this will go straight into the book as is. Some of it is to replace really clunky introductory scenes, some of it still needs to be fleshed out, and some of it is for a character and pronunciation guide, as opposed to actually being part of the story.

3. Ha. Oops. I think I went three times this year - and one of those times was to a guest speaker, not a critique meeting.

4. This one is kind of up in the air as to whether it was successful.

In February, Jason and I adopted a new dog and she took a lot of hands-on time those first couple months that ate into writing time. But Jason and I also realized that since he works from home on Wednesday and Friday that it makes more sense for me to use those nights for writing (I had been using Tuesday and Thursday) - he can start dinner on those nights so that it can be ready when I get home or slightly thereafter so that I can start writing earlier. I also discovered recently that I am not giving writing the same priority that we currently give to other things - scheduled gaming time, groceries, or even preparing my lunch for the next day. This needs to change. If I'm ever going to "do something" with my writing (and by do something, I mean something other than publish a couple stories every 2 years), I need to stop treating it as a hobby.

So my goals for the coming year are:

1. Better commit to my writing time on my writing evenings.

My new schedule will be:

• Monday - writing business. Submissions, looking into paid writing opportunities, articles and research not related to my current project, etc. Also some writing social media (currently I post my "writerly quote of the week" on Mondays).

• Wednesday and Friday - work on current project (whatever novel or story I'm working on) and just that - no writing social media, no articles, just pure writing, editing, or research for that project.

• Sometime over the weekend - write and post my weekly blog.

If we do something on a Friday (or on one of my other writing nights, but Friday is the most frequent offender), I need to make sure that I set aside time on some other evening to make up for the time lost. If I'm not done making lunch, putting laundry away, etc. by the time I'm supposed to start writing, it doesn't get done. (I've been trying to eat healthier, which means not buying lunch or just throwing a frozen lunch in a bag, but we'll see.)

2. Finish the story line of Wolf and Sheath.

I say this with hesitation. I usually get to a point after working on something for a few months where I just don't want to do it anymore. But in November I made big progress with adding new scenes that needed to be done - filling in backstory, exposition, transitions, etc. I still have a lot of transitions that need to be written, in addition to a climactic battle, but I think I could get at least the bones of those laid out in the next year, even if I don't work on W and S the full year. That won't mean the book will be publishing-ready at the end of the year. I mean, it potentially could be, but I don't want to back myself into that corner just yet.

3. Prepare some nearly-finished short stories for submission.

These stories (working titles) are "Olivia's Luck," "Certain," and possibly "The New Inventory." (I say "possibly" on the 3rd because it's something I wrote a few years ago and it's not as good as the others.) I will also work on submitting "24 December 1944," but that won't be 'til summer - it's a Christmas piece and no one will be looking for those now.

4. My 4th goal is a little more vague, a little more dependent on luck and whether the right things present themselves at the right time - receive payment for my work.

This could be winning a paid competition, successful submission to a paid publication, or finding something like a little side free-lance job. I need to look into these possibilities more, but like I said above, I need to stop treating my writing as a hobby.

OK, well this post is a lot longer than I thought it would be when I sat down to write it - if you're still with me, I appreciate it!

You Go, Wri Mo!

November draws to a close and so it is time for me to reveal the results of my personal NaNoWriMo challenge (read more here: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/10/30/lets-go-wri-mo ).

On Wednesday evening, I sat down to write my daily scene, struggling to find a snippet that still needed to be written that would be long enough for me to consider it complete (I was thinking 500-1000 words, but I have some good solid scenes I wrote that were only in the 400's). But on opening the separate document that I had been writing these scenes in, I discovered that at 24 days of writing (I missed 2 days, and one day I wrote a scene for another novel in progress, Brinyor) the document stood at a hulking 31 pages.

Looking at this, and looking back at my much-crossed out "scenes to write" list, I said, "Hmm... Maybe rather than struggling to find more scenes to pound out just for the sake of being able to say I wrote up through the 30th, I should instead stop while I have good material that I need and change gears."

So what's next?

I am in the process of rereading and making minor edits to the new scenes that I have written. For the month of December (which is a month that I'm always pressed for time), I will work on editing and planning for Wolf and Sheath, as well as working on short story submissions.

For W and S, I have some new scenes in addition to the ones from this month that need to be inserted into the main document. I need to look at those in conjunction with these new ones and see what needs to be put where. Does that mean that my 86 page novel will now be 117 pages? Well, no. Some of the new scenes that I have written were to replace really clunky telling-not-showing exposition that I wrote lo these many years ago. But some of it is also completely new material. We'll see what the updated word and page count are in a few weeks.

Better Late Than Never

If you follow my Facebook page, you might have seen a post I made a few days ago about how I had finally written down a story that I've had in my head since high school.

It's not very long - in fact I was surprised to find that it's just over 1,000 words, even with a few fleshed-out details that weren't part of the original idea.  I think that I had thought it would be long because I see it so cinematically - it's so richly visual in my head - that I thought it would take forever to describe everything.  But the written version doesn't have that much description, as it turns out.  

I decided to write quick, clipped sentences when possible; a telegram figures prominently in the story, and I wanted to give the story that feel of a short, urgent document that just has the most vital information you need to know.  I think that I actually did really well at achieving that while not sacrificing the emotion.  

You won't be seeing the story on here any time soon.  It's a holiday piece and I want to see if I can get it accepted for publication this Thanksgiving/Christmas.  As I've mentioned on here a few times before, most publications won't accepted a story that has already been published elsewhere, and many of them consider sharing a story on your website to be publication.

But I do have a favor to ask of you all: if you know of somewhere that accepts short holiday stories - magazines, websites, radio shows, whatever - please let me know.

The Teenager's Bucket List

Last weekend I cleaned out a box that had various papers from college and late high school.  In addition to some VERY angsty poetry, I found a list entitled "Things to do before I get to old and/or too busy."  (The "too busy" part makes me think that I knew more then about my penchant for trying to do too much than I realized...)

Looking over this list, I was pleased to find that there were a decent amount of things on the list that I have done.  I don't recall exactly when this list was made, but the inclusion of "go swing dancing" at the end, in different pen, would likely put the majority of the list as having been written around the time I graduated from high school, or no later than early in my freshman year of college.  Prior to college I was unaware of swing dancing and got into it within a month of two of starting freshman year.

For kicks and giggles, here is the list in it's entirety (exactly as I originally worded it), with notes of what I've accomplished from it:

• Read a romance novel.  /I have read a few.  I was not impressed.
• Enter one of my really good love poems in a contest or publication. /Done better than that - I have published four stories, which are of way better quality than the above-mentioned angsty love poems.
• Make a Romeo and Juliet collage like Caitlin did. /I don't remember this collage or person at all : (  But I have done a whole bunch of other cool art projects, so we'll say this evens out.
• Walk around downtown or Little 5 and take pictures. /I've taken pictures of cooler, safer places ; )
• Attend or host a murder mystery dinner, preferably set in the 20's. /Not set in the 20's, sadly, but I performed in a murder mystery dinner show.
• Go all out for a costume party - complete with historically-accurate hair and costume (corset if the character calls for it).  ie, Marguerite, Ankhesunamun, etc*. /Maybe not truly historically accurate but I have now done this a boatload of times - often with corsets.  I'm also not sure why this was on the list, as I did a pretty accurate Egyptian costume in 9th grade and, as mentioned above, I'm fairly sure this list post-dates that party.
• Watch a classic horror movie. /I'm not sure what I meant by "classic" but I've now seen several that could qualify.
• Watch a movie you wanted to see as a kid but didn't - ie, Princess Bride.  /Done.
• Watch something Mommy wouldn't approve of - like South Park.  /Ha!  Done.
• Watch (live) all of the Broadway musicals I can - ie, Scarlet Pimpernel, Phantom of the Opera.  /Phantom twice, Rent, Lion King.  I'm sure there are more I'm not thinking of right now.
• Go to a nightclub, a karaoke bar, a drive in theatre, and a cafe where they do poetry readings.  /Nightclub: I'm not sure what I meant by a "nightclub."  I think I was picturing something out of I Love Lucy, though I did go to a discoteque at least once in Russia, so I'm counting that.  Karaoke bar: not specifically a karaoke bar, but I've done karaoke several times, so I'm counting it.  Drive in theatre: Not yet, sadly.  Cafe where they do poetry readings: Stirlings.  Amazing how much of this list was checked off at Sewanee : )
• Sit under a tree on a cool fall or spring day and read or just wonder.  /Probably.  I lived in Sewanee for 6 1/2 years.
• Go on a picnic and take your sketchbook and/or camera.  /Not precisely, I don't think.
• Eat a banana split.  /No.
• Eat an ice cream sundae with everything - nuts, chocolate, whipped cream, and cherry.  /Again, I don't think so.  
• Share a milkshake with your boyfriend** with 2 straws.  /Again, no.  Why I thought there was an age limit on these ice cream-related things is beyond me.  I mentioned this one specifically to Jason and he jokingly said, "Too late!  You're too old and you don't have a boyfriend."  Thanks, dear.
• Try out an outrageous hairdo or outfit you wouldn't normally wear out.  /I was a theatre major, so, yeah.
• Write someone a love letter or poem - anonymously, if you're afraid to do it otherwise - and send it to them.  /Yeah.  Those didn't work out so well...
• Go swing dancing.  /Been there, done that, got the shoes.

*Marguerite from The Scarlet Pimpernel.  Ankhesunamun was Tutankhamun's wife and I was kind of obsessed with her in high school.  
**I did not have a boyfriend at the time of writing this, and would not for several years.

(Also, it is an absolute travesty how good my handwriting was then and how bad it is now.)

The timing of finding this list is kind of odd.  If my assessment of when I wrote it is correct, it was the summer I was 18, and I found it in the summer, precisely 18 years later.  It's interesting to see what experiences I thought would be important or formative then, which of them I accomplished, and what I still feel is important of formative now.  (The fact that I had three "bad for you" food accomplishments listed says a lot about how I will never be thin! ; D )

In all seriousness, though, I think it's very telling to look back at these, see what I wanted to do at 18, and see how much of it was part of my college experience, without actually being something you learn in school.

Overdue Update

Why is February so short?  And how does it somehow work out that the shortest month has so much crammed into it?

I realized recently that I haven't done my monthly project updates in a while.  (Convenient, 'cause I haven't gotten much work done, ha!)

The last couple months I've been focusing on The Wolf and the Sheath.  Between Christmas and just getting back into the swing of things after that, I really didn't get anything done until late January and early February.  This doesn't mean I've written new material.  I've been doing some organizational things.

I started writing Wolf and Sheath in November of 2009.  My writing has improved a lot since then, so there are things that I need to edit, fix, and rework.  In addition, what I have "on paper" is maybe about 2/3 (maybe even less) of the finished story.  A lot of what I have done recently is start making lists and charts of what I still need to write and what I need to research, and looking for visual research and inspiration.  I have an idea in mind of what characters look like, what their clothes are, what their animals look like.  But I've also heard in workshops that it can be helpful to have pictures, for your reference when describing things.  We'll see if it helps.

So really what I've been working on recently is "pre-writing," I guess.  I haven't even gotten much of that done in the past couple weeks either, in large part due to our recently aquiring a new fur baby who is taking a lot of effort to get settled into our regular routine.

But I do like the idea of giving y'all these updates every now and then.  Here's hoping I'll have a more substantial update at the end of March.

2017 Summary, 2018 Aims

As I went to look back on the year and plan for this post, I found my post from January 1 to see what I had written, what goals I had set for myself:

"In 2017 I will strive to be more productive.
I will aim to be more positive.
But I will also try to be better about giving myself some slack when I'm feeling overwhelmed."

And that's it.  Kind of vague, and hard to measure.  

I don't know that I was more productive in 2017.  I did get one short story written, publishing-ready, accepted for publication, and published within the year, so that's something.  I also was planning a wedding for a good portion of the year, and that takes a lot of time, so I feel I kind of get a pass on that.  I revamped my website, launching the new layout in March, and with very few exceptions, have met my goal of a post each week.  So I guess I have been productive.  It's hard to measure "more" productive, though, as I spent the majority of my free time in 2016 looking for a new job.

I have definitely made an effort to be more positive in 2017.  It helped that early in the year I got a new job with a very supportive supervisor, in a completely different environment.  I also made an attempt to find the positive in things rather than focus on the negative (and, yes, I know you can't always do this, but I did it when I could).  In an effort to help with this, I started a "good things jar" - each week you write something  positive that happened to you and put it in the jar.  Tomorrow, I will go back through and read all of them.  But this helped me with the way I think about things - even if you've had a bad week, you can usually find something good, even if it's just "I had really yummy macaroni and cheese on Wednesday" or "the dog snuggled with me tonight."

I think I was also better this year about recognizing when I needed a break - "I should be [insert activity here] but I really need to just chill and give my mind a rest."

So, now that I've decided that I reasonably met my goals for 2017, what for 2018?  (I don't make resolutions.  The word "resolution" has developed a connotation as being an unreasonable expectation that people give up on in a week.  I make goals.)

My writing goals* for 2018 will include:
1. Prep and submit my latest short story, "The Cause of the Disturbance."  This will actually require some research as it is a decidedly different genre and style than my three other published stories, and may need to be submitted to different places than I have been submitting to.
2. Make measurable progress on The Wolf and the Sheath.  Don't ask me what "measurable" means right now - this may end up being the amount of new material written, amount of editing/rewriting, etc.
3. Attend my writing critique group semi-regularly.  
4. Manage my time better in the evenings. 

At risk of boxing myself back in and giving myself grief about not meeting goals or schedules, #4 is probably the one that will be my biggest challenge this year, as I let it go a bit (especially toward the end of the year) this year. What I need to do is something like this:
-Monday: Use the time before Jason gets home for exercising and keeping up to date on the news.  Make my writerly quote of the week post.  Use the time after dinner for housekeeping and other non-writing business.
-Tuesday: Use the time before Jason gets home for exercising and keeping up to date on the news, see if I can squeeze in a walk for Baldur before dinner.  Use the time after dinner for only writing; I can give myself more time if I plan to buy my lunch the next day rather than taking time to prep it in the evening.
-Wednesday: Jason often works from home; use the time between when I get home and we make dinner to catch up on small tasks.  Check ads and coupons for groceries.
-Thursday: Same as Tuesday.
-Friday: Prepare to go to the grocery store, free evening.  Blogging to be done sometime between now and Sunday.
-Saturday: Be better about spending my time on productive things, including writing.  One potential day for writing critique group.
-Sunday: Same as Saturday, but the days can alternate depending on if Jason and I have plans.

*I have a couple other goals that are not writing related, and if I do post about them it will be on my personal Facebook page, not here.

Meet me back here in a year to see how I did.

No Mo Wri Mo

NaNoWriMo* begins on Wednesday.  I will not be committing to the challenge this year, or to an alternate challenge, as I have sometimes done.

*For any of you who are unfamiliar with the term, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.  It's an annual challenge that encourages anyone who wants to to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  It's actually not as hard as it sounds.

In 2009, 2010, and 2011, I committed to the challenge - and I have 3 partial novels that I still have not finished.  The last thing I need to do is to begin a FOURTH novel that will take me 8 years to finish.

There were a few years that I selected alternate challenges; one was that I would write something - anything - each day for 30 days.  Some of these were writing prompts.  Some of them just came to me.  One of these stories, "Scarlet," has been published.  There was another year that I chose to spend each week of November workshopping a different short story.  The result of that challenge is another soon-to-be published story, "Ashes."

Last year, because I had a lot on my plate, and was also dealing with what my doctor calls "situational anxiety," I decided  not to set any goals or commit to any challenges, to give myself a much needed mental break.

This year, I'm going for something in between.  I have a lot I'm currently trying to sort out and deal with (not the same level of stress as last year, just post wedding logistics that are taking a while and must be done), so I do not want to set a goal for that reason.  I will, however, work on a project.  

This NaNoWriMo, I am picking back up on my first NaNoWriMo project - the Wolf and the Sheath.  Wolf and Sheath currently stands at 81 pages/just under 50,000 words (the document has been through several computer upgrades and it seems each new version of Word calculates the word count of this piece slightly differently).  I have been working on rereading, starting on on some pre-planning, making to-do lists, etc. for this piece off and on over the last couple months.  This November, I am going to sit down and start making some meaningful edits, write new content, and generally start cleaning up and improving a document that is good, but can also be a lot better.  (I have honed my craft a lot in the past 8 years.)

Don't expect to see updated posts on word counts, like I did in November of 2015.  Since this will be a combination of researching, editing, rearranging, and writing, there may not necessarily be tangible milestones to post about.  But I will pots an update late in November or early in December as to what progress I've made on the piece, and will continue to post about W&S as I workshop it for the next few months.

How NOT to Blog About Banned Books Week

Once again, Banned Books Week is here, and once again I have exactly 0 plans for blogging.  In 2015, I made a blog for every day of banned books week.  Last year, I had way too much on my plate, and this year... well, I got married a week and half ago, and that's an excuse I'm gonna milk for at least another month ; )

Seriously, though, Banned Books week really crept up on me this year.  It's the first year since I've had this blog that I haven't also worked in a library.  If you work in a library or school, you're working on BBW in, like, July, so there's no way it's gonna surprise you.

So, in interest of doing SOMETHING, I'm going to fall back on what I did last year, which is repost my daily blogs from BBW 2015.  Yeah, kind of a cop out, but at least this year it's a different website, so it actually kind of serves a little bit more of a purpose to get the information and opinions back out there on the web.

So, without further ado, I give you...

Banned Books Week - Day 1

So today is the opening day of Banned Books Week, and I think I'll open with a little background.

For those of you who may not know, Banned Books Week is a national observation headed by the American Library Association in which libraries celebrate banned and challenged books. "What's a banned book?" you might ask. "What's the difference between a banned and challenged book? Who's banning these books, anyway?" Good questions.

A book is considered "challenged" when someone files a complaint that they hope will result in making the book available to fewer people. This can range anywhere from asking a library or school to move the book to a different section so that children under a certain age can't access it, to completely removing it from a library's collection. When someone succeeds in removing a book from a school or library, or prevents it from being sold in a certain area, that book is considered banned.

"Oh, no, that's awful!" you might say. "Who is doing this?" The answer is - you. Or me. Or anybody. Any time anyone attempts to prevent someone from accessing a book, that's part of what is going on. Now, there's a difference between, say, giving your 7-year-old a book with explicit sex and violence and trying to prevent ANYONE from reading said explicit book. The latter is what we're really talking about here. (And the former is a topic for a different blog post.)*

So to kick off Banned Books Week, I offer up a list of books I have read that can be found on the various banned and challenged lists on the ALA website. If you are up for sharing, please type the titles you've read in the comments. No comments along the lines of "You read that book? You have no soul!" You might look at my list and say, "Ugh, your reading choice is terrible," as long as you agree that I have a right to my terrible reading choice. This week is not about whether or not a book is well-written, offensive, or both, and neither is this post. This is meant to show how much these "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" books people are actually reading. (And yes, you can count it even if your English teacher made you read it.)

Banned and challenged books I have read (In no particular order):

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

Beloved by Toni Morrison

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Twilight Series (all 4) by Stephenie Meyer

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Harry Potter Series (all 7) by J. K. Rowling

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene

The Giver by Lois Lowry

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) (Well... I still haven't finished the 3rd one. All that spanking gets really old after a while...)

Carrie by Stephen King

The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

1984 by George Orwell

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

The Lord of the Rings (all 3 ) by J. R. R. Tolkien

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

The Bible (no I haven't read the whole thing)

And probably more - I'm sure there are regional lists, books that caused a stir at your high school, or books and authors that were removed quietly enough from a library or school here or there that no one noticed.

For more information, lists, statistics and all kinds of fun things, you can check out the ALA's banned books pages: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/

One of the things you can find on the ALA website is a graph of who is challenging books by group - parents make up the largest percentage by far.

Come back each day this week - I'm challenging myself to blog about a book or series from this list all week long.