iSo sometimes you read a book, and you just want to gush to someone about it. You’ve been there, right? Tweeting your delight isn’t enough. Goodreads isn’t enough. Insta just isn’t. Today’s one of those days where I think I’d like to be a reviewer at Kirkus just so I could proclaim the fabuliciousness of this book. (Yes, I made that word up, but fabulous just wasn’t up to this job.)

Gail Nall’s BREAKING THE ICE is a middle grade book, so not my usual reading choice. Apart from Harry Potter, I usually only read middle grade with my daughter. But any book with a skater on the cover I have to at least look at. It’s a compulsion. And this one? I couldn’t stop looking. Page after page. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. Nall captures the skating world so well, I could smell the hockey player spit on the floor mats. Club relationships, the many shades of skater moms, it was all there.

Every skater has his or her personal struggles with the sport – either with jumps, or spinning, or artistry – and Kaitlin’s battle with artistry was so real and perfectly incorporated into her overall character growth. Any skater will love this book, but Kaitlin is also questioning so many things that all kids deal with: What does it really mean to be a friend? What do you do when other people are mean to you? What if you’re trying your best at something and it still isn’t enough? I especially loved Kaitlin’s mixed feelings toward cute-but-bad boy Braedon: can she be friends with someone whose fun has a tendency to go too far?

Highly recommended. Starred review. (Okay, I’ll stop pretending I’m from Kirkus now. But seriously, go read this. I’m going back to writing. That is, after I re-read my favorite scene. Page 140 – I’m going to re-read this one every time I think I’ve made one of my own scenes as embarrassing as possible!)

I went to the library today to quickly pick up "just one thing." If my one thing is on the hold shelf, I can - usually - grab it and escape. Today, though, I had to go into the stacks and, for me, those have a beyond gravitational force. At least my library "impulse buys" don't drain my pocketbook!

The book that pulled me in today was a children's book on writing with the standard chapter about how ideas are everywhere. It went on, however, to suggest that when you want to write a story you think of a setting first. The character versus plot debate is never-ending, but starting with setting? I had itchy Twitter fingers over that one. I'd never started a story with a setting - had I? Had I?

Well... Maddy and Gabe's story in The Boy Next Door started with the seed of a girl who would have to risk her passion for the ice for love. Sure, a girl is a character (although girl as setting could get interesting - and possibly R rated - fast) but the ice...is a setting. My fantasy project for VCFA is a story about an elf alone...in a world where elves are supposed to be only legends. And while "world as character" could be another wacky story seed...yeah.

It's true that I didn't think just of the setting, but the setting was important to my story seeds. Character versus plot versus setting - another candidate for the debate. Of course, no matter how you like to start, great stories need to grow until they're strong in all of these areas. Swoon Reads editor Holly West wrote a great post about this on the Swoon Reads blog: Ask an Editor: Story Seeds. Check it out, and add some more fuel to your writing energy today.