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frameofmind6I'm trying to think of the name of this book I read when I was in middle school, and I can't for the life of me remember what it is. I remember what the cover looked like (It was a picture of a teenage girl in a pink sweater with a fearful expression on her face, trying to stay ahead of a wave of snow that threatens to pile on top of her as she attempts to outrun an avalanche down a mountain), and I vaguely remember what it was about (a girl who gets caught in an avalanche -- hence the picture on the cover), and I remember a couple of random details (the girl had to take some kind of fish or caster oil pills for some reason, I think. And I think there was something about her staying with relatives out in the mountains when she really didn't want to), and I can even remember what part of my middle school library it was shelved in, but the title eludes me. I think it was something dramatic, like Avalanche, or Terror on Mount something-or-other, or Escape from the Mountain, but none of the titles I've tried so far have come up with anything useful. I think it's a relatively cheesy, obscure book (probably written in the late eighties or early nineties, given the style of the cover, from what I remember), but I remember being very enamored of it for some reason. I'm pretty sure I read it twice -- which was not all that unusual for me in my pre-Harry Potter days, because I generally chose to reread known quantities rather than go to the trouble of trying to get interested in a new book. But this one was a little unique because it wasn't even part of a series, so the fact that I ventured out to read it at all was unusual to start with. Anyway, does any of this happen to ring any bells with anyone? A long shot, I know, but no harm in asking, eh? ;)
Actually, one of the earliest stories I ever wrote was based partly on this book. It was incredibly stupid -- something about a girl going hiking in the middle of Lutsen ski resort (a big-for-the-midwest but tiny-compared-to-actual-mountains ski place up on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. We went up there a lot when I was a kid) and getting caught in a snow storm and spraining her ankle -- but I have fond memories of it, as it was probably the least stupid thing I wrote before I discovered fanfiction a few years later, which was when I actually started writing often enough to begin developing some style and expertise about it. I might add that the bar had not been set particularly high -- the runner up would be an 18-page novel-wannabe about a girl who finds a magic book that dumps her in a prison camp in WWII, followed by a very brief, highly derivative (it's full of blatant Star Wars references), and positively surreal little jaunt about an alien flying to school in a spaceship. Yeah. Let's just say I was no S.E. Hinton...
Just out of curiosity, I dug up that old short story, and noticed it was a lot shorter than I'd remembered -- something like twelve paragraphs in all. I ran a quick word count on it, and it tops out at about 773 words -- which is about 300 words less than I wrote this morning alone to meet my assigned daily word count on my novel. LOL. Well, it's always satisfying to see progress... (*grin*)
Actually, one of the earliest stories I ever wrote was based partly on this book. It was incredibly stupid -- something about a girl going hiking in the middle of Lutsen ski resort (a big-for-the-midwest but tiny-compared-to-actual-mountains ski place up on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. We went up there a lot when I was a kid) and getting caught in a snow storm and spraining her ankle -- but I have fond memories of it, as it was probably the least stupid thing I wrote before I discovered fanfiction a few years later, which was when I actually started writing often enough to begin developing some style and expertise about it. I might add that the bar had not been set particularly high -- the runner up would be an 18-page novel-wannabe about a girl who finds a magic book that dumps her in a prison camp in WWII, followed by a very brief, highly derivative (it's full of blatant Star Wars references), and positively surreal little jaunt about an alien flying to school in a spaceship. Yeah. Let's just say I was no S.E. Hinton...
Just out of curiosity, I dug up that old short story, and noticed it was a lot shorter than I'd remembered -- something like twelve paragraphs in all. I ran a quick word count on it, and it tops out at about 773 words -- which is about 300 words less than I wrote this morning alone to meet my assigned daily word count on my novel. LOL. Well, it's always satisfying to see progress... (*grin*)