See Heather Write

RTW: Best Book of November

2011-11-30T13:35:00.000-05:00

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: What's the best book you read in November?

I'm a cheating cheater. I'm cheating because I'm still actually reading the best book I've read this month, but, hey, it's still November, and though I'm only halfway through Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I bet I will finish it tonight, before the month ends, and I can assure you that it is the best book I've read this month.

(And I read some great books this month.)

My friend Jessica Love sent me a signed copy of Daughter of Smoke and Bone as a surpriseb (because she is awesome). She'd been talking the book up for awhile, and though Jess and I have very similar reading tastes, I hadn't made the move and picked it up yet. My TBR pile is threatening to topple my bookshelves, so I figured I'd get to it when I got to it.

When the book arrived in the mail, I read the first page. And I knew then it was something special.

The writing is fantastic: ethereal, full of voice and punch, and so funny at times. In a genre overrun with first-person voice (not that I'm complaining; I like first-person), Taylor is a master of third-person, dipping in and out of characters' thoughts and actions seamlessly.

This is the kind of book that makes me stop and wonder, "How can I do that?" It's the kind of book that makes me want to be a better writer, a more involved and careful reader, and challenges me to read outside my favorite genres.

In short, it's fantastic. I'm both anxious to find out how it ends and dreading the final page.

What was the best book you read this month?

RTW: Required Reading

2011-11-16T11:31:00.001-05:00

It's my first Road Trip Wednesday! I've been a long-time reader of this tradition on the YA Highway, and on other blogs (particularly my friend Jessica Love's), but I've never participated...but I'm going to start today! I even moved my book-crush posts to make it happen. THAT's how dedicated I am.

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing--or reading--related question and answer it on their own blogs. Readers get to play along.

This week's question: In high school, teens are made to read the classics - Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Bronte, Dickens - but there are a lot of books out there never taught in schools. So if you had the power to change school curriculums, which books would you be sure high school students were required to read?

Ugh. What a great, impossible question! I would love to say something fun, like Harry Potter or Hunger Games or John Green or something fantastic like that. And while I do think all of those things are wonderful and have literary merit, I also think they are books that many teens will come across on their own.

So I have two thoughts. (And, keep in mind, I've changed books about 12 times while writing this post. But I think this is where I'm settling.)

The first is actually a wordless graphic novel. I KNOW, RIGHT. Kids would be all, Woah. Are you serious?

Shaun Tan's The Arrival

I've gushed about The Arrival before, but it's simply stunning, and I think it would provoke some interesting discussion about tolerance, immigration, and fitting in. Also, because it's wordless, I think it would provide students an opportunity to exercise a part of their brains that maybe they don't use as much in higher levels of school, and could also lead to some very cool class assignments.

My other book was harder to choose. I know I'd want to do something from another culture...perhaps a classic, like the Story of Leyla and Majnun, or a more recent book that takes place in another country (like Trent Reedy's Words in the Dust). Honestly, I'd probably want to do a whole unit on foreign literature or books that take place outside the U.S.

Pretty much, if I were a high school English teacher, kids would be in school until they were 30 because there are so many books I'd need to share with them.

What books would you teach, if you could?

Book-Crush Tuesday: Before I Die by Jenny Downham

2011-11-15T12:40:00.000-05:00

(Yes, I know this should be Book-Crush Wednesday. But I want to start doing Road-Trip Wednesday as part of my blog makeover, so I had to push some things around. Don't judge me.)

Every so often, there's a book that punches you in the gut with its emotional writing. It's so true, so raw, so real, that you can't help but love.

Before I Die by Jenny Downham is undoubtedly one of those books.

Before I Die is the story of 17-year-old Tessa, a terminally ill cancer patient who creates a bucket list, knowing she has months, if that, left to live. Topping her list? Sex. Also on her list? Drugs, shoplifting, typical teenaged rebellion. But as Tessa branches out into her world and experiences life, truly experiences it for the first time, her list evolves and becomes deeper: fall in love. Get married. And as time runs out, she adds small things to her list, things that tear your heart apart.

This book killed me. It was beautiful and difficult to read and powerful. There are sex scenes, but they are so well-written and justified, and the various scenes in the book are very different from each other (when you pick up the book, hopefully you'll understand why).

But the ending is the most amazing part. Downham is able to capture the sheer emotion of what happens to Tessa in this truthful, incredible way. You not only feel that you are there, you feel as if you are experiencing it, too. You feel as if this must be what it feels like to go through what Tessa is going through. It's one of the best examples of strong emotional writing I've ever read.

This book has stuck with me, over a month after I read it. It's one of the best books I've read all year. British author Jenny Downham seems to capture the emotions of this moment perfectly. Though I know she's never been through exactly what Tessa went through, I can't imagine how she could have possibly written with such truth and beauty. (Her second novel, You Against Me, is also fantastic.)

Have your tissues handy. But don't skip this one.

Of course, they've made this into a movie with a semi-lame title, Now Is Good. It stars Dakota Fanning (Obvs.) and comes out next year.

Outlining: In color!

2011-11-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months, I've written a bunch of different scenes from all over the timeline of my novel in an attempt to get to know my characters better. I've written from all different POVs, different emotional states, and really let go of the linear way of thinking about drafting a novel.

I grew a ton as a writer, and I know my characters so, so well.

But, at the end of the day, I still have to piece these things together into something that looks like a novel, right?

The thing is, I have a TON of fully formed scenes, ~~ready to go~~ ready to revise. I just need to figure out where they fit together, how they work together in that puzzle we writers call plot.

That's when I pulled out my secret weapon:

Sticky notes.

Yes, sticky notes, my new best friend.

I was explaining my plotting troubles to my VCFA advisor (as I do), and she sent me a few links to some blog posts about plotting novels with sticky notes. I was totally fascinated. The plot of this novel started on multi-colored index cards, all because I was too afraid I was going to forget the key points. I've never really been an outliner, and that really kicked me in the butt during my last WIP. This time around, I wanted a strategy.

The index card thing worked out, then I started writing and sort of abandoned it. But now that I have actual scenes written with no idea where to put them, the sticky notes work wonders. They allow me to move ideas around, shaping the novel as I try out different configurations of plot and character arcs. And by grouping subplots by color (romantic subplot in pink, friendship subplot in yellow, etc.), I can make sure I'm paying adequate attention to each subplot.

It's working out great, so far. I feel organized. I feel inspired. I feel prepared to move on.

Here's what my whiteboard, covered in sticky notes, currently looks like:

I can haz crappy quality photo? (When it's further along, I'll post something, uhm..not from my camera phone.)

As you can see, I'm making some connections. The beginning is more formed than the end (some of the ones hanging off the bottom really go in that big, scary, open space in the middle...I just don't know in what order yet.) You might also notice that sometimes there's a green sticky note that has a pink sticker on it, or something like that. That's because that's one subplot that's partially tied to another. Sticky notes that are stacked on top of one another in a long train go together in a chapter. Eventually, I hope to have about 30 trains of sticky notes in different colors, denoting my well-rounded chapters.

If manual labor isn't your thing, there is a sticky note computer program that lets you do essentially the same thing, but without the hassle of writing or sticking (though isn't the sticking the most fun part?)

You tell me: How do you outline or plot out your novels?

Book-crush Wednesday: Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze

2011-09-14T23:49:00.004-04:00

(Just a warning, as I was writing this post got kind of REAL. Also long. Also I wanted to post it sooner, but I thought it was appropriate to wait until this week. So. Yeah.)

Readers, there are some things I do that I am not proud of.

One of those things is my first encounter with the author of Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze.

In retrospect, it's a DAMN good thing I didn't know when I first met him that the author of this brilliant middle grade novel is also responsible for THIS, otherwise I think I would have fan-girled even more embarrassingly than I did.

I mean, seriously. He wrote the lyrics!! And who doesn't LOVE Killer Tofu??? (Unless you weren't a 90s child. Then you probably think this is weird.)

Earlier in the day, I had seen him speak in a panel with his editor, so I knew all about the book and the difficult topic it tackled — one that I related to so much I was crying in the panel. So when I saw him at the party, I knew I had to say something, and ended up kind of rambling a lot about how I couldn't wait to read it and then pretty much spilling my life story in a crowd of 1,300 people.
Our next encounter went better, I think.

Anyway, the good news is that Alan Silberberg, author of the brilliant Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze, was gracious in both our encounters, and his book is fan-freaking-tastic. He probably survived our meetings because he has a great sense of humor, which served him well in writing Milo, which won SCBWI's Sid Fleischman Award for humor.

And funny it sure is. Milo the character is real and hilariously flawed, and those flaws and that real-ness open him up to the kind of observations that produce fantastic belly laughs. The humor is so real because Milo is so real. It doesn't feel forced. It's the kind of humor writing I wish I could manage, but instead I stick to depressing topics because, well...I'm not so good at humor. Plus there are comics in the book, which are mostly funny (though some of them are so painfully sad and poignant), and Alan's artistic talent at drawing attention to just the right moment was clear. The balance of graphic text to novel text was just right.

Don't let the award or the cartoons fool you. Milo also tackles an incredibly serious subject: mother loss. Liesa Abrams, Milo's editor, said in a panel at SCBWI-LA that a frequent question while the Milo MS was making the rounds at Simon and Schuster was, "Where were you when Milo made you cry?"

For me, that place was the hotel lobby at SCBWI.

And again in LAX. (Twice.)

As someone who lost my mom as a teenager, I can tell you that this book describes perfectly what losing a mother feels like. The book takes place years after Milo's mother's death, but he is still very much coping with what her death means. He's struggling to move on while at the same time struggling not to forgot.

God, do I know what that feels like.

There were so many moments in this book that resonated so strongly for me. Things that I had to put the book aside and have a moment because they were so reminiscent of my own experience of my mother's death. In one scene, for example, Milo goes garage sale hopping with his friends and finds items that he is so certain belong to his mother (but realizes they probably just look like things she once owned.) I experience that every time I go to a thrift store in my area. I know we donated a bunch of her belongings, so I always look at an outfit or a dish or a knick-knack and think, "This must have been hers." And now that I'm a semi-fashionable adult and wear scarves, I get angry every day that we donated her scarf collection — I could have had a daily reminder of her.

But that's what Milo does so well. For me, it was therapy. It showed me it was OK to move on, and that it wasn't forgetting.

My mom died eight years and two days ago. I am an adult, and Milo helped me cope. I can't imagine how wonderful this book must be for children, middle-graders, who are going through something like this.

And even for those who aren't, it's a fantastic, heart-warming, funny book full of belly-laughs and tearful moments.

Fabulous Picture Books!

2011-09-08T13:29:00.002-04:00

My friends Jennie and Jacki and I were discussing picture books at the Decatur Book Festival this weekend, and I mentioned to them that I really love a specific type of humor in my picture books; the kind of post-modern, quirky, bizarre humor that Jon Scieszka and Mo Willems so perfectly write. In my quest to find more books like theirs, I have read a LOT of picture books – some which actually have this kind of humor, and some which are just awesome on their own.

As I was talking, Jennie said, "You should blog about that."

So I am.

Here are four fantastic picture books that I've read since January. It's safe to say that, even though I'm not including any Jon Scieszka or Mo Willems on this list, since they are my inspiration for it, I think pretty much everything they write is awesome. (Especially that Scieszka dude. He's pretty much flawless. Also, his last name rhymes with FRESCA. You're welcome.) These books are more in the metafiction/weird humor categories; I've read some traditional ones I've loved, as well. Feel free to ask if you want to know about those.

Book 1: Nothing by Jon Agee

I love this book! This was the first Agee book I read, and it caused me to go on an Agee streak. Though I loved a few others, as well (particularly the alphabet book Z Goes Home, which almost made it onto this list instead), no other book has captured my heart as much as Nothing.

The concept of this book is so fun and simple. Shop owner Otis has sold the last antique in his shop, and therefore has nothing for sale. But then the richest woman in town comes in, insisting she must have this "nothing." Otis, not wanting to let her down, sells it to her and loads it into her car. Soon, shops all around the town are selling nothing, and the townsfolk throw away all their stuff to make room for more nothing. It's a fantastic satire on mob mentality and consumer culture, but not something that would go over a kid's head. In fact, it's the perfect book to use to bring up that type of discussion, if it's something you're interested in talking to your children about. Otherwise, it's just plain funny.

Book 2: The Book that Eats People by John Perry, Illustrated by Mark Fearing

This picture book is metafiction at its best! It's The Monster at the End of this Book for the 21st century! So, naturally, I love it.

The book is literally about a book that eats people — and that book is the book that readers are holding in their hands. It's a little bit scary, yes, but the concept is so ridiculous and the illustrations so outlandish that I don't think a child could actually be frightened by this book. Especially if they read it with their parent, and the parent got interactive, making the book chomp on their little toes while reading! (I don't know if that makes me a horrible person or an awesome person. Probably both.)

Also, can we talk about that author's last name? Mark FEARING? Yeah. Loves it.

Book 3: Let's Do Nothing! by Tony Fucile

This is a great example of a book where the author/illustrator combo definitely comes in handy. I don't think one person could have written this and then passed it off to another to illustrate, because the text and the illustrations lose themselves in one another.

Let's Do Nothing! is about two kids who try to, well, do nothing for an afternoon. They sort of make it into a contest, but that little dude there on the right (the one with the glasses. Of course.) keeps messing everything up with his big imagination. It's a simple concept, but it stuck with me months after I read it.

Maybe that's because I'm lazy and like to do nothing.

Book 4: The Pencil by Alan Ahlberg, Illustrated by Bruce Ingman

Oh, how I love this tale of "a pencil, a lonely little pencil" and all the things he draws to keep himself company: a boy, a dog, a kitty, a paintbrush, an entire village, and eventually a sadistic eraser who destroys everything! There is something so simple and beautiful about it, and just a little bit sad, too, but also sweet and fun. The illustrations are just gorgeous, but the story is fantastic, too.

I mean, really, I could go on and on (and on and on and on) about all the fantastic picture books in the world. When one really strikes me, I'll post it for a Book-Crush Wednesday. But this is a good starting place if you're new to picture books.

OK, so you might be asking yourself (or me): "Self/Heather, Why would I want to read picture books? I don't have kids. I don't write picture books. This seems like a giant waste of my time!"

On the contrary, dear reader. Picture books can teach you about rhythm and word choice and language and comedic timing and using the space on a page and a whole host of things that books for older readers are harder to study. Writing a picture book, just one picture book, will give you immense appreciation for how hard the craft is, and will show you the power of choosing your words carefully, which is definitely something that can be carried into novel writing. Plus, if you've never written and revised a piece from start to finish...well, there is definitely something gratifying in doing that exercise and starting small.

Decatur Book Festival Highlights!

2011-09-06T23:56:00.000-04:00

Hello readers!

I'm back from the Decatur Book Festival!

OK, I got back yesterday, but we're going to ignore that fact. It was late and I was sleepy. Atlanta is many, many hours from here.

Let's talk highlights!

1.

Do I even need to say more?

That's right. There were copies of LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR. ON. SALE. Weeks before release! There were only a limited number, though, and I managed to snag one. It was one of the highlights of the festival.

Here's how it went down:

Sunday morning was a late-start day, but I got to the festival grounds around noon. I figured I would goof off and shop, eat a corn dog and a popsicle, and participate in general merriment until 1, when I'd sit in in the panel before the panel with Rachel Hawkins, Jackson Pearce, and Victoria Schwab, which was set for 2. It was a pretty great plan, and it worked out great.

Except the 1pm panel cancelled.

It didn't make sense to go spend more time at the main part of the festival, plus it was raining, plus I'm lazy, so I just tweeted for awhile and then looked bored. Eventually I thought I'd take a look at the books on sale, even though I knew I already owned everything I wanted and basically I didn't need more.

I swear, sometimes the books just call to me, readers.

While I was standing over there, someone asked this little girl (who must have been around 12, and I don't think she knew what she was in for) if they had copies of LOLA. The girl said "Oh, yeah, totally!" and opened a box. It was like freaking Pandora's box. Chaos! I managed to snag two copies, one for myself and one for my friend Jess, and was just about to text the friends I was at the festival with to tell them to head over and grab their own copies when they ran out. I had no idea copies were so limited, but I am overjoyed to have gotten one.

I've already finished it, naturally. It was fantastic. But more on that in another post.

2. The authors! Here's a little list for you:

Rachel Hawkins
Jackson Pearce
Victoria Schwab
Beth Revis
Myra McEntire
Elizabeth Eulberg
Terra Elan McVoy
Stephanie Perkins
Lauren Myracle
Libba Bray

And that's just a few! There were a TON of fantastic authors there, I couldn't even list them all! I got face time with some of my favorites (even though the crowds were seriously intense), and the panels were FANTASTIC. Lauren Myracle talked about SHINE (which you know I loved...have you read it yet???) Libba Bray did a BEAUTY QUEENS MadLibs, which was awesome. She also told the story about how she became a writer, which makes me cry. Rachel Hawkins, Jackson Pearce, and Victoria Schwab were HILarious together. And over all the whole thing was just fantastic.

3. These women:

These women are amazing. They made the festival for me, and I loved seeing some of them again and meeting some of them for the first time. You should get to know all of them.

Top: Tameka, from Imperfection is the New Pink; Jacki from Lovely Little Shelf; Crystal from Life, Love, and Literature; and Ashley from That's Life

Bottom: Julie from Book Hooked; Jennie from Life is Short, Read Fast; and Me!

I can say with confidence that I will make the trip to Atlanta as long as I am in close proximity, because the Decatur Book Festival is a seriously amazing time!! If you're within distance, I definitely suggest adding it to your calendar (and even if you're not...these ladies came from all over)!

I'll be posting more specifics about the panels and more pictures in the coming week!

Book-crush Wednesday: Shine by Lauren Myracle

2011-08-31T12:34:00.000-04:00

I don't even know how to begin talking about this book, you guys.

But I need to tell you about it. I need to tell you about it so much that, when I read it (months ago...like in May), I immediately thought, "OMG. I need to start blogging again immediately so that people can know how awesome this book is." (Instead I tweeted about it. Twice. And because she is awesome, Lauren Myracle tweeted me back and made my day.)

And I still don't think my 140-character gush-a-thon did this book justice. It is easily my favorite book I read this year (and I've read some fantastic books this year), and it's working it's way into my all-time top 10 (a hard list to crack).

But I have to tell you about it. Because you need to know.

OK, here we go:

Shine is the story of 16-year-old Cat, who is searching for the truth behind her former best friend Patrick's brutal attack. Myracle throws us right into the midst of a horrific hate crime. It opens with a newspaper clipping describing the crime and giving a strong sense of the characters we will meet in the book. The setting is a small Southern town — tons of tension (much more on that in a bit). The pace is slow in the beginning, but in a good way. Cat is working the mystery out, putting the clues together in a very Veronica Mars way. As the mystery comes together, Cat grows as a character, becoming more sure of herself. The book is emotionally intense and so, so powerful — it's sure to stick with you long after you've put it down.

The last 50 pages of the book are FILLED with suspense — Myracle does such an excellent job developing all the characters that you know what they're each capable of, and by the time the stakes are the highest, you are terrified of what could happen if even the slightest thing goes wrong.

The ending of this book is perfect. It is sad and terrible, but hopeful and beautiful, too. I cried and hugged the book when I was done. I didn't want it to end, but it ended exactly the way it should have. Myracle made bold choices, she wasn't afraid to take risks, and it shows. (She also isn't afraid to talk about sex and drugs, but it's not done to excess. It fits in with the plot, and the way it's layered in, it would be strange if these elements were absent. It's flawless, really.)

But what I admire most about Shine is how fully the characters embody the setting. This book was actually suggested to me by my VCFA advisor last semester (Mary Quattlebaum, who actually reviewed the book for the Washinton Post), who said that it took place in the South and was a great example of a book with a strong sense of setting.

I almost didn't read it. I hate books that take place in the South.

No offense to Southerners (I sort of am one, depending on your definition of Southern), but often what I call "Southern books" are just tiring to read. It's all about people who move slow as molasses and drink sweet tea on their porches and speak in dialect. They just have this quality to them that exhausts me and doesn't interest me in the slightest.

That wasn't the case at all with Shine. The language was absolutely beautiful, but more than that, the setting became so much a part of the characters that it felt natural, not forced. I noticed it and didn't notice it at the same time. My favorite example of this is when Cat brings dinner to her father, who lives in a trailer behind her aunt's house. Dinner is fried chicken, greens, mashed potatoes, a biscuit, and green beans. Her dad is reclining in a La-Z-Boy, and he reaches under the chair to pull out a bottle of Aunt Jemima maple syrup. He doses his entire plate in syrup before resting the plate on his huge belly and digging in.

Obviously, Myracle's description of the scene is written much more beautifully than mine. But I didn't want to grab my copy and look it up for two reasons. First, I wanted to show you that, months later, I still remember the very specific details Myracle uses to set the scene — naming Southern brands, for example. Doesn't that whole act just ooze The South to you?

But mostly I just want you to go out and get the book so you can read the scene (and the rest of the book) for yourself :)

In related news, I'm heading to the Decatur Book Festival this weekend, and Lauren Myracle will be there talking all about Shine! I'm going to try to keep my fan-girl squealing to a minimum, but it will be tough. I'll report back on her panel (and the others!) next week when I get back.

It's all about word choice

2011-08-29T17:29:00.000-04:00

So you know when you're writing a scene and it's just not working? And you can't really figure out why? I'm here to tell you:

It's all about word choice.

This is a lesson I'm learning the hard (but fun!) way through my advisors at VCFA, and it's true about so many things it's not even funny. Word choice is why adverbs are evil. Word choice takes a ho-hum scene and turns it into an OMGSCENEOFAWESOME. The difference between "hug" and "caress," between "walk" and "stagger," between "loud" and "explosive" is quite huge.

But it's not always easy to figure out what the right word or group of words is to set the scene you want to create. Just the other night, for example, I was trying to write a kissing scene. (My favorite!) But not just any kind of kissing scene — a very specific kind. I wanted to write a more romantic kissing scene, the kind where it's clear the two characters are falling in love, where it's not about lust or passion, but about romance and tenderness.

And I was really struggling.

So I took a step back. I watched some videos of kissing scenes. (Totally for research. I swear.) Then I did my favorite kind of brainstorming: I created a wordlist for the scene.

A wordlist can be a great way to set the mood for a scene you're struggling with. Basically, the goal is to create a list of words that remind you of that scene — but they don't all have to be related to that scene or the action taking place in it. For example, on my kissing list, I included words like "hold" "pull" and "lips," but I also included words that simply felt that they belonged in that scene, such as "sheer," "light," "slip," and "warmth." As I was watching the kissing videos, any words that came to mind that reminded me of the scene I was trying to create went on the list, even if they had nothing to do with kissing.

You can do this for any scene. A fight scene might have words like cut, beat, black, hard, and so on. Cut and beat obviously would be involved in fighting, but black? Hard? Those simply feel like they belong in a fight scene, even though the actual words have nothing to do with fighting. (And of course, you can disagree. Your word list will look nothing like mine.)

When you're done with your list, you have a foundation for your scene. You can take your list of words and try to build your scene around it. You don't want to over do it — just a few choice words sprinkled throughout the scene will help set the right tone and mood.

So the next time you're stuck trying to create the right mood for a scene, try a word list, or swap out some of the more dull, drab words in your scene for something with a little more punch. It will make a huge world of difference.

Do you have any tactics for helping you set the mood for a scene? How do you make sure the words you're choosing are right?

On rejection (Or: I'm a real writer now)

2011-08-27T09:17:00.002-04:00

There is something about rejection that makes you feel like a real writer.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's like there's something in that "Thanks, but no thanks" letter that bonds you to all the other thousands of writers out there, struggling to make it, trying to figure out how to get that story published or that article accepted.

(Ok, I can't really talk about articles, because I've had about a bazillion articles published by now. But I don't really care about the articles I've written because they all have boring titles like "HHS announces new ACA initiative" or "Brokers weigh individual mandate." BOR-ING.)

So back in March, when I was ~~being lazy~~ busy and couldn't blog, I submitted a short story to a magazine. I was pretty excited, even though I knew the competition was extremely stiff. I thought my story was pretty freakin' cute, and well-written, and it seemed in line with the other stories in the magazine.

A few days ago, my SASE came back in the mail.

(OK, let me stop here and say the SASE system is torture. First, I spent the six month period they tell you it will take to hear back wondering if my story even GOT there (yes, I realize now I could have bought shipping confirmation/tracking. But who has that kind of money to throw around?) Then, when you do get your SASE back, your rejection letter is addressed in your own handwriting.

It's just kind of depressing, is all.)

Anyway, so the letter came back, and it was fat. And I got really excited, because fat letters are usually good, right?

Well, in this case, they were kind enough to return my story along with my form rejection.

Let me make this clear: I am totally NOT lamenting this rejection or blaming the magazine. I kind of loved the whole experience, actually: sending it out, waiting (OK, maybe that part I didn't like), hearing back. It was my first real professional writing experience (since I started taking this whole writing thing seriously, anyway), and it was amazing.

Now I just have to think of something creative to do with the letter. Stephen King hung his on a tack. A friend of mine suggested keeping a chart with a gold star for every rejection.

Do you have a creative/fun way to keep track of your rejections?

(P.S. Thank you all so much for welcoming me back with such lovely open arms! I was kind of paranoid that everyone would be all "Who?" when I posted or not really care. But you didn't and that's awesome and I think you're pretty swell, too.)

Well, hello there.

2011-08-25T03:17:00.000-04:00

I took an accidental 8-month hiatus.

I really didn't mean to.

I honestly had no idea how much time school and freelancing would take, and then some stuff happened personally and basically I just needed a little break. But then tonight I was doing some character research, and I Googled Rachel Vail's character questions, trying to find the list of questions Rachel Vail asks her characters to answer for herself (based on an awesome workshop I attended during SCBWI-LA 2010) and I found a link to MY blog. Which was weird. So I clicked on it and got sucked into the void of reading it and realized something:

My blog was pretty great, and I loved writing it. Further more, I miss writing it.

So, I'm back. I have no idea if any of you have stuck around, but if you have, you'll get a gold star and an Internet hug from me. Actually, you'll get this, which I think is so funny it makes me gigglesnort Orange-flavored San Pellegrino out of my nose when I see it.

(I suppose that's not really considered a present in the Internet world. But I still think it's awesome.)

Here are some bullet points about what I've been up to in the last 8 months. Because I like bullet points:

I started a new novel!
I stopped working on a project and decided to shelve it for awhile. That was a tough decision, because I love the project, but I don't think the time is right just now.
I survived my first semester at VCFA! I'm now a second semester student and loving it even more.
I read a crapload of books, many of which you'll be hearing about in my Book-Crush Wednesday feature!

I went to SCBWI-LA 2011! It was amazing!

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Ah...it's good to be back :)

Does that character NEED to be there?

2011-01-29T09:00:00.001-05:00

I mentioned before that while I was in Vermont, I had the first 20 pages of my brand-new shiny WIP workshopped. I didn't mention that I also had one of the grad assistants, a published middle-grade author, take a look at it. She offered me some excellent feedback, particularly because I was able to tell her exactly what I was most concerned about in the piece and ask if this or that was working.

There is one character in my new project that I had particular reservations about. The character is sort of an antagonist to my main character, and I was afraid that by her very nature she would offend and alienate an entire group of people, thus making those readers hate me, my book, and any subsequent book I would publish (dream big, readers!). The GA said that was a possibility and offered a few suggestions for how I could fix that. Then, she said something that kind of blew my mind:

"But I wonder...do you even need this character at all?"

I have stacks of notecards on my end table outlining the plot of this book, giving character descriptions, linking emotional through-lines and explaining how the subplots interconnect. So as I sat in this teacher's lounge, the snow pummeling the ground outside the window, my mind flipped through all those cards, and I could not for the life of me think of one actual reason why I truly needed that character. She had some great one-liners, and she provided a nice thwart to my main character in the first few chapters. But in terms of the big picture, I didn't really need her. I had a few plans for her, but ultimately, the book could stand just fine without her.

Sometimes it's hard to see these things in the first draft. Heck, it's hard to see these things in the second, third, or fourth draft. But it's important to ask yourself, with every single character in your book -- "Does this character NEED to be here? Is he/she essential to the plot?" This is one of the things people are referring to when they say "Kill your darlings." Related to this question, but still just as important: "Could this character's role be fulfilled by another character already on the page?"

We've all read books where there are so many minor characters it's hard to keep them straight. When the author gives each character specific, essential roles and individual character traits, it's not really a problem. Our minds can keep track of these characters because the author has done such an excellent job keeping them apart, giving them their own unique role both in the plot and in the world created within the book (Anna and the French Kiss is a recent example of a book that I think does an excellent job of giving even minor characters important roles and individual characterizations.) But when there are too many unnecessary characters, it's easy for the reader to become frustrated -- particularly if they're having to flip back pages to see who is related to whom (which I've had to do before -- lame!)

On the flip side, there is the danger that if you only show the part of the characters that is essential to the plot, or if the characters only pop up when they're absolutely necessary, the characters will become, to borrow an (admittedly adult) term I learned at VCFA, your "plot bitches," there to serve you and only you, to move your plot forward and nothing else. Characters need to have lives of their own, and if they're popping up conveniently only to serve your plot and retreating into the shadows, waiting to strike again when the plot thickens...well, that's no good either.

As always, writing characters that are essential the plot but still have lives outside of it is a delicate balance.

If only this writing thing were easy.

New Stories, Old Stories, And Balancing Life

2011-01-28T13:57:00.000-05:00

I've been home from Vermont for a week now, and have read four novels, four picture books, and one non-fiction chapter book. I wrote a critical essay and worked a little on my creative work, which is a BRAND NEW story, which is kind of exciting and sort of scary.

The thing is, I never planned to try to write two novels at once. I thought I'd be totally finished with my old (I don't want to call it old...can we say original? That's nicer.) WIP by the time I started at VCFA, and the faculty and other students encourage you to start with something fresh so your mind is open to changing things around, slashing characters, etc. But my mind if pretty open to that anyway, so when one of my readers made an excellent case for redeeming a character who didn't make it to the end of the book (and, let's face it, who I was pretty much looking for an excuse to save anyway), I decided to go for it. Which left me with a new book to start for VCFA, and another round of revisions on my original WIP.

Since they're totally different stories, with different voices, I'm making it work. It's just very, very slow going. And I'm trying not to neglect my husband or my tiny dogs in the process, because even husbands and tiny dogs need love.

My key for success to working on two stories at once is to take time in between. Generally speaking, I never work on both stories on the same day, and if I do, there will be a work shift or some other long gap if time in between me opening the documents. During that time, I stop thinking about the story I was previously working on, and start getting into the head of my new character. One story is mostly a present tense POV in a contemporary setting, and the other is a past tense in a future setting, so when I switch to the future setting I think about the jargon and slang they use, examine the maps of the area I created, etc.

Before I pull up the documents, I completely shut anything related to the "wrong" story, and pull up all my images from the "right" one, so that I won't be tempted by anything unrelated to my current writing. Another thing that helps is that my original WIP is much further along, so I have to push myself to get better, more polished writing out. My new WIP is still in the drafting stages, so I can be a little messier -- though since it's for VCFA work, I want it to be cleaner than I would normally produce for a first draft. Basically, I think this is working because the two projects are so very different in terms of plot, characters, setting, and even the stage in the writing process -- if they were at all alike, I would be failing miserably.

Also, on an unrelated note, I think I need to finally cave and spend some time converting that weird, empty third bedroom into an actual office space, because right now there are library books consuming my end table, dinning table, dresser, and the bookshelf in our pseudo-office is about to topple because it's so front-loaded. Which is probably a safety hazard.

What about you? Can you balance multiple stories at once? Or do you, like my usual self, tend to have a one-track mind?

Living with Writers

2011-01-11T22:13:00.000-05:00

First of all, today is 1/11/11! Which means it's the debut of the FABULOUS Across the Universe by Beth Revis! I haven't Book-Crush Wednesday-ed this yet because I've been kind of lazy, but the book is awesome so you should BUY IT.

With that totally important announcement out of the way, I'm going to talk about how awesome it is to live surrounded by writers. Don't get me wrong. I love my husband and my pooches (duh.) and living with them is pretty great.

But being here at VCFA, where I can turn to my roommate and say, "Hey Shayda, what did you think about this phrase in the first chapter of my WIP?" And I can get INSTANT FEEDBACK??? Pretty amazing. It's like having a live-in revision assistant! So if any of my CPs or people in my writing group (you know who you are!) or just general awesome writing bloggers want to move in, we do have two spare bedrooms available.

Tonight at residency, after a day full of lectures and a wonderful afternoon workshop where we broke into our small groups and discussed some work by fellow students (my brand-new shiny WIP is being discussed next week), we got a chance to break into our class years and do a little reading of any work we wanted. I read from the first chapter of my WIP, which I've been working on for about a year now. It was SO FUN to read from it, and I really felt good to be sharing my hard work with fellow students. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and gasped in the appropriate places, and afterwards I got some comments saying that it was "creepy" (that's a good thing) and that people liked it, so I'm really glad I decided to read.

Part of your graduating residency involves an extended reading, so I want to start practicing now. Plus I like to read. A lot.

I'm still having a great time. And I'm still exhausted. But I love this place. Even if it's cold and snowy (maybe because it's cold and snowy? Who knows!)

An Award-Winning Day

2011-01-10T21:44:00.000-05:00

I didn't win any awards today - but I did get up close and personal with a few VCFA faculty members and visiting lecturers who have.

This morning, the YA industry was abuzz with the ALA awards, and of course the fabulous Rita Williams-Garcia won a Newbery Honor for One Crazy Summer, as well as the Coretta Scott King Book Award. Since she's on the faculty here at VCFA, she's on campus today, so when she walked into the cafeteria at lunch time, everyone cheered.

Today, the first semester students had lunch with faculty members in assigned seats, and my assigned seat was right across from Rita Williams-Garcia. She was aglow from her wins, but so, so humble about everything. Mostly we talked about books, life, and writing with the other students and faculty members at the table. Later in the evening, the entire children's MFA program cheered for her when she was introduced at the opening remarks. She blushed and waved her hands, and I realized that this is absolutely the perfect place to be when you receive such wonderful news.Who better to understand and appreciate such success than fellow writers?

At night, we had a funny, charming, and touching guest lecture from Katherine Paterson. You might know her name. She's kind of a big deal. She was also totally approachable, and talked about her career and experiences in a way that even I - an unagented, unpublished writer - could relate to.

So I didn't win any awards today. But being surrounded by such prolific authors who have achieved such astounding success...it's pretty inspiring. And learning from them makes me feel like I have won something, after all.

(I know. I'm totally cheesy.)

I'm here! (Or, Vermont is cold and hilly.)

2011-01-09T21:55:00.001-05:00

So I'm sitting inside my dorm room on VCFA's campus (next to my roommate and one of my CPs, Shayda, yay!). We just got back from ~~dinner~~ our introduction and meet-up with the grad assistants (you can tell they keep us busy - I had to stop this post halfway through and come back!), where we met several other VCFA-ers.

I'll get there eventually. But let me start at the beginning.

I almost didn't make it to campus today.

For the last half week or so, I've been in Connecticut, attending the wedding of my college best friend, Lindsay. (I would include a picture here, but the only ones so far uploaded onto the Interwebs are terrible. Sorry, folks. I'm not as photogenic as my avatar would lead you to believe.) It's been snowing like crazy, and visions of the Greyhound bus I was planning to take from CT to VT crashing and burning into a snow-filled bank filled my head as I slept last night.

That didn't happen. But I did set the alarm clock wrong, and woke up 20 minutes late - which could make the difference for a bus rider.

Fortunately, everything worked out in the end, and I'm here in lovely Montpelier, soaking it all in.

Isn't it GORGEOUS?

Full disclosure: I didn't take this picture. It was kind of gray today. This looks prettier.

I arrived at the Greyhound stop in downtown Montpelier, only a little later than scheduled, then pulled out my phone to call a cab to take me to campus. I'd heard it was a HIKE up the hill, so I thought calling a cab would be easier.

Problem is, I didn't know the cab numbers I had were all for companies in Burlington. Which doesn't help me. When I'm in Montpelier.

I called 411 and they connected me to a cab company in my hometown of Clearwater, FL. (How helpful!!!) So I decided to brave it and walk. I almost headed in the wrong direction, but happened to see a person walking by with luggage and asked if she went to VCFA. She didn't, but she pointed me in the right direction. She too warned me about the hill, but I assured her I would be fine.

I definitely was not fine.

I wish I had pictures of the hill. I wish I'd had the energy to stop and take a picture. It was...intense. And it kept. On. Going. In the snow. Dragging two suitcases and a giant purse behind me. Fortunately the kindnesss of strangers prevailed, and someone pulled over to offer their help. (Bonus! That person was originally from Florida - small world!) Apparently all it takes for me to get in a car with a total stranger is total and severe exhaustion.

So now I'm settled in. I've met Shayda (yay!), and many of the other students - our year and a few other years. We range in age from early twenties to 60 and older. We're talking about our love of reading and writing and it's just wonderful.

There's an energy here already; I can feel it in the air. I can't wait to get started.

P.S. I know it's Sunday, so I should do a link post. But it's VCFA day! So no links this week. Sorry folks, I am woefully behind on my blog-reading.

Excitement.

2010-12-30T14:14:00.000-05:00

I can hardly contain myself. So even though you are very likely going to get a nearly identical post next week, I'm giving you this post now, because I need to get it out of my system or I might just freaking EXPLODE.

In one week, I'm heading up north for a wedding. Three days later, I'll get on a Greyhound bus for a journey to Montpelier, VT and my first semester as an MFA student at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Sorry for the yelling. But, like I said...I really, really can't contain myself. In case you're new to the blog, or have forgotten, I'm starting VCFA's low-residency master's program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. I've been waiting for this day for MONTHS, since I applied wayyy early, back in early May (they have rolling admissions but I barely missed the deadline to apply for summer term.) I'll arrive on campus on January 9 (which just so happens to be my 26th birthday - Best. Present. Ever.), and spend a week and a half there attending lectures with titles like, "Zen and the Art of Getting Through Your First Draft (Without Losing Your Mind!)"; "Airships and Goggles and Brass, Oh My!"; "Writing Kick-Ass Non-Fiction"; and "Cleaning Up the Shitty First Draft." I'll get to talk about children's literature with people who GET IT, and not just blabber to the hubs while he responds, "...?"

There is Wi-Fi available, and while I know I'll be busy, I'll do my best to update as often as I can, because I am so excited about this experience and I want to share it with all of you.

Sadly, there is still a week and a half until I get to start. Until then, I have a ton of reading to do (and I still haven't found appropriate gloves, eek!), and lots more excitement to let trickle out between now and then. So let's see if I can dial it back a few notches...for now, anyway.

Learning From Critiques

2010-12-28T23:48:00.000-05:00

Critiques are a funny thing. You get them, and your first reaction is sometimes, "You are WRONG and have NO IDEA what you are talking about!"

Then you think on it for a day, possibly have a few drinks, and realize that the critique-giver is actually totally right, and why didn't you see it before? (Sometimes, when you're in a really good mood, you realize this right away, and then go and fix your draft immediately. All is well and right with the world, and the writing angels sing your praises.)

I think the best thing about critiques, though - particularly the harsh ones - is the way in which they help you grow as both a writer and a critiquer (not actually a word but I'm going to use it and MAKE IT WORK.) When I got my first round of crits back from one of my novels, pretty much everyone said that they wanted to feel more emotionally connected to the protagonist, and that they would really like to see me push her to give the reader a bit more insight into how she was feeling and show what she was thinking as her world came tumbling down around her. I sent out some rewrites, and from the reactions I've been getting, I think I did a pretty excellent job at nailing that particular problem.

But even better, as I went to start on a new project to bring to my first residency at VCFA (which I'll depart for in TWO WEEKS - OMG!), the emotions came completely natural to me. I didn't find myself having to push my new character to show her feelings, she just did. Now, part of that might be because she's, obviously, a different character. But I think a lot of it has to do with what I learned after my previous manuscript had been critiqued. Hearing the same comment from almost every reader made me realize that it wasn't an issue of character, but of writing weakness, and I worked hard to fix it. There are some heavy emotional scenes in both of my works, and I feel much more confident that I'm nailing them now.

Taking it one step further, knowing about my deficiencies also makes me a better critiquer, because as I read, I'm hyper-aware of these traits in other characters. The things that I struggle with, I'm also better at noticing if other writers are struggling with, as well. I've definitely heard this from other writers, too, so I know I'm not alone! It seems like knowing that you're not the best at something makes you able to look for it in other work, even if you're still working on mastering it in your own (and, I think, particularly if you're actively working toward mastering it.)

Just another reason why quality critiques are SO important. They help you become a better writer not just for this manuscript, but for future books, as well.

What has critiquing - and being critiqued - taught you?

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-25T19:46:00.001-05:00

Happy Holidays, everyone! Now that I'm full of lasagna (our Christmas dinner of choice many, many decades running...I couldn't change it if I wanted to, which is good because I don't!) and all my presents are unwrapped (95% of which were Harry-Potter related...fan girl much?), I wanted to wish you all a great holiday season. Whether your holiday ended several weeks ago, or will end several hours from now, I hope it was full of food, family, friends, and relaxation.

P.S. Sorry I didn't update last week! I had a wicked cold that pretty well knocked me out...you all know I'm a night writer, but one night I went to bed at 8:40. 8:40!!! Yeah. I was exhausted. But I'm almost back to normal now, so regular posts should resume starting tomorrow!

Sunday Funday! (46)

2010-12-19T23:22:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday, everyone! I usually like to open these posts up with a fun little story but...I have no story, because I did nothing today. Just sat around, cleaned the house, went for Thai food with the hubs, then came home and watch a movie. That's it. Now he's sleeping and I'm catching up on blogging, reading, and revising. Ah, Sunday. A day invented for someone as lazy as me. Love.

Here are some links from people who are definitely not lazy, and are, in fact, totally brilliant:

Ever wonder what to do when you get conflicting advice during a critique? Mary Lindsey has some words of wisdom over on Query Tracker's blog.

There's a great post over on YA Highway on the difference between revisions and rewrites, and why it's important to put time between your drafts.

Shannon Messenger gives some awesome tips on how to find a character's voice (and she uses them, so you know they're fab!)

Wondering how to increase traffic to your blog or get more Twitter followers? Here's a post analyzing what time of day blog readers and Twitter users most frequently use and read content.

Kiersten White explains why all authors - even unpublished, unagented ones - should be nice to everyone, in real life and online. Author gossip can be a serious issue, folks (though we should do our best to fight it).

OMG YOU GOT THE CALL!!!! Now what? Literary agent Jennifer Laughran breaks down all the possible scenarios.

Could you possible be telling when you think you're showing? This post from Sisters in Scribe will help you identify if you have any emotional tagging in your novel.

Janice Hardy discusses story and plot, and asks some big questions which will walk you through the process of ensuring that your scenes serve the greater story.

Have a great week, everyone!

Book-Crush Wednesday (14): Anna and the French Kiss

2010-12-15T09:15:00.001-05:00

I cannot even tell you how much I love the book I'm posting about today.

I mean, to say I have a crush on it is actually a HUGE understatement.

I have a crush on the book. I have a crush on the characters. I have a crush on the setting. I probably have a crush on the author, too, even though she's a girl and we're both married to men so that makes it kind of weird. But I promise, the crush is a totally professional, "I bow down to how awesome you are" kind of crush. Or something.

That's right folks. Today we're talking about Anna and the French Kiss. Let's swoon over the cover for a moment, shall we?

Totally perfect and flirty and wonderful. And that boy you can't see? He's Etienne St. Clair, and he's pretty perfect, as far as YA male characters go.

Sometimes, when I can't really express how amazing a book is, I like to write a little list of the awesome-ness. (I did this with Paranormalcy, and thought it came out pretty great.) I honestly think I might have to do that here, because every time I think about Anna and the French Kiss, I just get all fluttery and excited and I kind of can't think because I just want to say "OMG THE BOOK WAS SO GOOD WHY AREN'T YOU READING IT RIGHT NOW??!!"

So, to avoid a totally incoherent blog post, here is my list of reasons YOU should read Anna and the French Kiss. NOW.

1. The characters. All of the characters in this book - from Anna herself to the man who runs the local cinema - are so incredibly well-developed that you will hear their voices in your head. Everyone has their own quirks and charms and neuroses which make them come alive. Main characters have intricate backgrounds (which are both hilarious and heart-breaking) that are shown (not told) slowly over the course of the novel, and secondary characters are completely three-dimensional. There isn't a single character in the book who is a stereotype of a teen; no one is perfect or without their own struggles. The character development is careful and flawless.

2. Paris. Paris! It's wonderful! Stephanie does such a wonderful job inserting Paris into this book without using sweeping landscape descriptions that the city truly becomes a character unto itself in this book. I haven't been to Paris in around 10 years, which means that last time I went I was younger than the characters in the book and, much like Anna at the very beginning, I didn't know how to appreciate it. But I did study abroad in Italy when I was in college, so I could relate to a lot of Anna's experiences. Eating crusty sandwiches (described so well I could practically taste them) and that feeling of losing yourself amid the classic surroundings. There are so many gorgeous scenes set against incredible landscapes, and Paris is truly the perfect setting for what goes down.

3. There's an actual relationship in this book. What Stephanie really manages to nail in this book is the actual growth and development of a real relationship. You see Anna and Etienne meet, get the first-crush jitters, become friends, and...what happens then? Well, I'm obviously not going to tell you :) Heh. But one thing that doesn't happen is the love-at-first sight situation (or, for that matter, the love triangle situation): there is no sweeping glance where they're immediately attached at the hip. There is a real friendship with real ups-and-downs. The tension is amazing, and you really do constantly ask yourself where the relationship is going, what's going to happen next, and then following along with all the swoon-worthy moments (which are sometimes so minor it hurts and is just beautiful) is really amazing.

So, in short, if you're looking for a book that has a gorgeous (yet imperfect) boy with a British accent, small history lessons, excellent film recommendations, thinly veiled jokes about Nicholas Sparks, realistic teen dating scenarios, descriptions of delicious food, a neat-freak (bordering on OCD), an absolutely perfect love story, and all-around lovely writing, Anna and the French Kiss is absolutely the book for you.

Don't believe me? Fine. But do you believe...John Green???

Yeah. I thought so.

On Night-Writing: Confessions of a 2am Writer

2010-12-13T17:48:00.000-05:00

Today, I decided I would switch things up a little by spending some time writing/revising at my local library. I did this for several reasons:

This particular branch of the library doesn't have WiFi. Apparently, they're "fixing it," but they were "fixing it" last time I was there, and the time before that...for several months now. Honestly, I am totally OK with this, because...
The Internet is distracting, You all are out there, with your bright, shiny Twitter objects and sparkly new blog entries and glittery YouTube videos, and when I'm at home I think, "Maybe I'll take a five minute break." And an hour and a half later, I'm Googling "Kitten Mittens" and wondering why I turned my computer on in the first place.
Also, in some kind of evil twist of the universe, my official last day of employment (I was recently laid off) has collided with the cold-weather Apocalypse here in Florida. And I know that your Northerners are laughing because it's "only" 38 degrees here right now, but our heater is broken. So though it's 40 outside, it's also 55 inside. (I'm not even making that up. That's what my thermostat says.) So I wake up every morning and I'm snuggled in the blankets, and my dogs (who have an internal temperature of 101 degrees) are cuddled next to me, and I see no reason to get out of bed, or get dressed, or go anywhere aside from the couch or the bedroom. So I end up staying in my PJs all day. Like a bum. So I needed to get out of the house.

Hence, my trip to the Dunedin Public Library. I had a nice hearty (read: warm) breakfast and chose my favorite comfy chair (with convenient attached swivel-desk), pulled at my revision notes and...

Nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

I'm not even exaggerating when I say that it took me three hours - three hours! - to revise a chapter that was actually pretty simply. I knew where I wanted to go with it and I had all my notes planned. I just needed to get the words out. I finally finished the chapter and packed up, wondering where my time had gone and what went wrong.

Because if it had been 1am, I guarantee I would have had that chapter revision banged out in 40 minutes, flat.

I'm not sure what it is about the nighttime that I find makes it so much easier for me to get the words out. But I will struggle and struggle all day long, then as soon as the sun goes down (which, thankfully, is quite a bit earlier these days) - BAM! My fingers can't stop moving. It drives the hubs crazy because I come to bed at 2, 3, sometimes even 4am (which is hilarious on the nights that he's waking up at 4 - he's just getting up as I'm going to bed. So by hilarious I mean kind of sad.) I would really love the muse to come to me at a normal hour, but she must be off hanging out with some of you folks.

I'm going to try to tempt her, though. Most reputable places aren't open super late, at the kind of places that are...well, let's just say they don't make for very pleasant backdrops for writing your children's book. I'll keep trying to write it out during the day, and we'll see if we can't turn this night-writer into a day-writer.

I'd love to hear from you...When do you write best?

Sunday Funday! (45)

2010-12-12T14:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday, everyone! Yesterday we went out and got our Christmas tree, and now my house smells like Christmas. I cannot WAIT until hubs gets home so we can decorate. I mean I'm actually bouncing in my seat, but for now I'll settle on watching Charlie Brown Christmas and drinking hot cocoa while my dogs cuddle in my lap (OMG my life is so hard right now, right?) Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything, except that I love December.

Which is a terrible segue to say here are some links from around the Internet that I loved this week:

Hey! Children's and YA sales increased 14 percent in October! Woot!

Suzanne from Write it Sideways gives you three ways to tell if your characters are too perfect.

You know by now that I LOVE The Princess Bride (and I found out a few of my readers hadn't seen or read it. And I had a sad.) But as it turns out, you can learn something about publishing from The Princess Bride, too!

Ever wonder what would have happened if your favorite children's book had been written by a sci-fi icon? College Humor created five titles for your curious mind.

Are you worried that your agent could be an idiot? Janet Reid tells you how to figure out if he or she is.

Shayda Bakhshi has two posts on honing your skills. Part 1 discusses how writing challenges and blogs can make you a better writer, and part 2 gives some excellent tips for those looking to perfect their query.

YA Highway has a cute little post on sexy villains - and why you should be scared of them.

Are you an overwriter? Roni Loren from Fiction Groupie gives you some tips to help you avoid overwriting.

Over on KidLit, agent Mary Kole answers the reader question, "Do agents remember the submissions they receive?"

Do you hate your book? According to Rachelle Garderner, that's totally OK.

Alright, now it's time to hang my stockings (we have two for the dogs, too...who are wearing sweaters right now. Dudes, it's cold out. They shiver. Yes, we are so those people.), put out my centerpieces, and tap my foot until 3pm when I can finally hang some adorable things on my Christmas tree...

Have a great week, everyone!

Book-Crush Wednesday (13) (Or, How I Came to Love Harry Potter)

2010-11-17T22:59:00.002-05:00

This entry might be cheating.

Usually, I try to draw attention to books you haven't heard of, or at the very least books by debut authors that you may know about but haven't gotten around to reading yet. But today, the books I'm discussing are neither obscure nor recent debuts. In fact, if you've never heard of these books or their author, you've probably been living under a rock for the past 11 years, and I should get you a glass of water or, more appropriately, a cup of tea.

Today, we're going to talk about my gigantic freaking crush on the Harry Potter books. I thought it was fitting, since 24 hours from now I'll be in line, in my Gryffindor PJ pants and Ravenclaw scarf (80 degree weather? Psh!)

If you've been with me for awhile, you know how much I love these books. I shared my experience at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter with you. I wrote a love letter to Severus Snape. I've talked about how it doesn't matter that Jo Rowling breaks the Big Writing Rules, because she's just so freaking fantastic that she makes her own rules. But what you might not know is the story of how I came to find myself an HP fangirl, so that's the story I'd like to share today.

When I was a kid, I LOVED fantasy books. My favorite series was the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, but I loved pretty much any combination of wizard/dragon/princess/wizard/magic/dragon/knights/wizard. So when, in my eighth grade year, there was quite a bit of buzz going on about this new series about wizards, you would think I would be keen to jump on the bandwagon, right?

Wrong.

See, I was just getting into the phase in my life where I was learning to value what was different. I was making weird fashion choices (sorry...no photos. Heh.) and listening to mix tapes my older brother's girlfriend made me that featured local indie bands. And it was AWESOME. So no WAY was I going to fall victim to what the corporate machine and the rest of society was telling me was awesome (even if, inside my heart, I knew I would love it. I mean, it was about WIZARDS. I LOVE WIZARDS.)

So, fast forward three years. It's 2002, and I've spent much time mocking Harry Potter and how lame everyone who likes it is because they only like it because it's popular and why don't you try reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower? (because obviously no teenager has ever read THAT book before.) My friends were all going to see a movie, and, because I like having friends, and having friends is acceptable no matter HOW anti-establishment you pretend to be, I went with them.

They were seeing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. THERE WAS NO ESCAPING.

So for two and a half hours, I got to ~~endure~~ enjoy a fantastic movie about one of my very favorite subjects: WIZARDS. I was delighted. I was terrified (HELLO, ARAGOG. PLEASE GET OFF MY SCREEN NOW AND OUT OF MY NIGHTMARES.) I was...totally hooked.

At the time, I had two part-time jobs, one of which was at a dance supply store at this super sketchy mall...you know, every town has one, the mall that should have been bulldozed years ago but for some reason it's still around? (Consequently, I moved back to the town I went to high school in after college, and both that mall and another mall have actually been bulldozed since.) We were always really slow, especially on Sundays...so the next day, I went into work, and found the copy of Chamber of Secrets that I knew was in the drawer (a co-worker was reading the series.)

I read it all that day. Then I got 1-4 for Christmas, read them before winter break ended, and tried not to cry when I saw that I'd have to wait a whole YEAR before Order of the Phoenix came out.

Four years later, I was doing this:

And this:

(K, I know you never read this blog. But if you do happen to read this entry...please forgive me for posting this photo. And if you beg me to take it down, I might.)

At various midnight releases. (Do you remember the summer of 2007? That was like The Summer of Harry Potter. IT WAS EPIC.)

So, to make that long story short...I'm glad I gave in. Because Harry Potter is awesomesauce.

Other random HP-related facts about me:
House I think I'd be in: Ravenclaw. That's usually where those Internet quizzes sort me, and also just where I think I'm most suited.

Favorite character(s): So many! I think Luna is my No. 1, though. She's so wonderful. In terms of character development, though, I love Snape. Obviously.

My next dog will be named: Dobby. I wasn't fully into HP when we got Millie, so we named her Millie, regretfully...because you cannot tell me this dog doesn't look like Dobby:

Yes, we put Halloween costumes on our dogs. We are so Those People.

Then we got Evie, and it was the hubs' turn to name a dog (even though we got Millie long before hubs and I were living together...not sure how that math works out), plus since she's dark she doesn't really look as much like Dobby. (My vote was for Luna but hubs won with Evie, a variation on Evey of V for Vendetta.) Anyway, we love these Italian Greyhounds, and we'll get another one at some point. And then we are SO naming it Dobby.

Place in HP world I'd want to live: The Burrow. Because Hogwarts is cool and all, but Mrs. Weasley is the best.

Magical ability I'd like to posses: Apparition. COME ON. Is there another more awesome choice?

Character I hate most: Rita Skeeter. This probably surprises you. There are so many great villains in the series...Voldemort! Umbridge! But Rita bothers me because she is a symbol of everything that is wrong with The Daily Prophet, and therefore of everything that is wrong with journalism in the Harry Potter universe. She disgraces my profession, and I can't stand her!

Finally:

Favorite HP-related awesome thing that is totally unclassifiable: Potter Puppet Pals.

What are your plans for the movie? Are you a Potter fan?

Sunday Funday! (44)

2010-11-14T13:09:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday! It's Sunday Funday on See Heather Write, which means I'll share some of my favorite links from around the Internet. Here are this week's links:

Agent Mary Kole from kidlit.com answers a reader question - just how hard is it to sell a contemporary YA manuscript right now?

Lindsey Leavitt, author of Princess for Hire, talks about how writing is hard and awful - but also awesome - and shares a GloMo. (You'll have to click through to find out what a GloMo is. Trust me, the story is worth it.)

Natalie Whipple says all the things she wants to say to new writers (OMG THEY'RE ALL SO AWESOME.)

Author Cristin Terrill gives away her super-amazing secret for revising a manuscript. Seriously, people. It's awesome. (And colorful! No, really.)

Lynda R. Young shares her five causes (and solutions to) writers' block.

Over on the Dark Angel's Blog, you can see a list of cliched dialogue that you should never include in your MS.

Literary agent Jennifer Laughran fills us in on some of the pros and cons of skipping the agent and working directly with the publisher.

Finally...I'm dorky (yet awesome) because I think this video is MADE OF WIN.

(Thanks to Jessica Love and Anna Parker Brittain for sharing!)

Have a great week, everyone!

Eavesdropping for Action!

2010-11-13T12:40:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned before what an effective tool eavesdropping can be for getting authentic dialogue. That's not to say that you should include, verbatim, every conversation that you hear, but heading down to the mall and just listening to the way teens (or adults, if you don't write YA) talk to each other can really help you write more authentic dialogue. Take the best of the best of what you hear and stick it in your book.

But lately, I've started a new (and much creepier) kind of eavesdropping - observing for emotional action. As I go through my MS, I'm focusing on getting rid of any of the instances of "telling" and making them all "showing" - for a basic example, changing something like "fear rose up in me" to "a chill ran up my spine." Taking the actual emotional word out of the phrase and focusing instead on how the emotion makes the character feel - the character's physical reaction to the emotion - makes some of the bumpier scenes better.

Usually, I get the ideas for emotional reactions by thinking about how I would react in those situations. I close my eyes and imagine a time when I was scared, or happy, or nervous, then think about what my body was doing. Of course, that doesn't always work because 1. I'm not my characters, and we don't react the same way, and 2. Eventually, I run out of reactions, since I tend to do the same things. So I've started looking at the way people react physically as well as their dialogue.

And I'm getting so much great material!

Yesterday, I was in my local Super Target grabbing a coffee, and two women nearby were discussing the recent divorce proceedings one of them had gone through. They were going through the judge's or lawyer's report line by line, reading it out and reacting to (and dishing on) and it said. (Why they chose the cafe in Super Target to do this? No clue.) It was fascinating to watch, because things had obviously gone in the woman's favor - she was jiggling her leg, clasping her hands in front of her smiling mouth, and looked as if she were going to explode out of her chair at any second. I took my time pouring my cream and sugar into my coffee so I could watch their excited reactions and make a mental note of their physical clues, then when I came home I wrote the actions down in my writer's notebook. Now, when I need a character to act happy or excited, I can refer to my list, and maybe, if it fits the character, she'll be modeled after the woman in Starbucks.

So, yeah. I'm a creepy stalker. But hey. It's for art. And it totally works.

Book-Crush Wednesday (12)

2010-11-10T23:56:00.003-05:00

Back in August, I attended SCBWI-LA. And during one of the keynote presentations, I was fortunate enough to witness this:

YEAH. AWESOME.

Later in the conference, I attended a workshop on literary experimentation in children's literature by the very singer featured in that video - the venerable M.T. Anderson. It was like a crash course in AWESOME, mostly because I loved hearing someone speak so intelligently about children's literature.

One of the things Anderson touched on in the lecture was metafiction, or when an element in the story addresses the fact that the story itself is a fictional work. Anderson said that it was hard to pull off metafiction in novel lengths, but that picture books were often great examples of metafictional works. And he discussed a little (I mean really a little - he didn't brag or anything) about how he included metaficitonal elements in some of his books.

So that, combined with the awesome Delaware state song, and I knew I had to try Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware. I'd read other works by Anderson, but never anything in his Pals in Peril series. I knew the books featured humor, but more "smart kid" humor than slapstick or gross-out humor. And I was ready for it.

Jasper Dash was unlike anything I've ever read. The characters were quirky, the story was insanely original, and the narrator was kind of stoic but still somehow funny. And I loved it. I loved how the humor was unapologetically weird, and how the narrator totally broke the wall and encouraged readers to participate in the narrative. I loved the metafiction parts, where the narrator straight up said, "These characters have been in other books before, you should go down to your local bookstore and buy them!" or "The author has never been to Delaware, so all the descriptions of mountains and monsters had to be made up. If you're not happy, here's the address for the governor of Delaware. Let him know!" (Clearly, not direct quotes. It could not be more obvious that mess is not M.T. Anderson prose.) I loved the mystery, the adventure, the smooth way that M.T. Anderson tells a story. At SCBWI, Anderson mentioned that, though he'd never been to Delaware, he did Google Map it, and saw that there was a Dragon Creek (which was obviously infested with dragons) and a town called Sandtown (clearly, in the middle of the desert), so he felt that was as much as he needed.

Also, Jasper Dash has an amazing external, interactive website - the Tourist's Guide to Delaware. On it, you can view a map of Delaware, view a letter from the governor, sing along to the state song, and more.

So, yeah. This book is fun. And (bonus!) it's especially fun for boys. But I think anyone who's interested in seeing some really different things you can do with writing and novels should check this book out (I'm giving Whales on Stilts a try next - can't wait!) I feel especially lucky that Anderson is going to be at VCFA in January giving a guest lecture...wootwoot! I'm so stoked for it I can't even stand it.

Trailer for Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware:

Writing (and Revising) the Hard Scenes

2010-11-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

A lot of bad stuff happens in my WIP.

I mean, that should really go without saying. It is a dystopian/sci-fi. There are very clear villains. And the premise involves killing.

So. Yeah. A lot of bad stuff happens.

But when I started writing the book, I never realized how hard this stuff would be on me. Because it's not just the villains who suffer in my book. The good guys suffer, too. They go through some painful stuff - physically and emotionally. There's one scene that makes me cry every time I read it - and when you put your very first word on the page a year ago, you end up going through a lot of readings. There are other scenes that make my stomach turn because...well, they're kind of gory.

Every time I read some scenes, I consider changing the outcome. Even though I've always planned for things to turn out that way, even though I know they work better if I leave it as is, I can't help but think to myself, "What if I just tried it another way?" And maybe I even let the result play out in my head...but it never works as well.

And that's how I know I'm making the right choices. Because even when it kills me to do mean things to my characters, I know, ultimately (as strange as it is) it's for the best. Kids don't grow up if they're coddled, and the same goes for characters. You have to let them deal with the hard stuff, with the heartache. And it's so rewarding to see how they change because of it. (Did I just compare my characters to children? YUP.)

So don't be afraid to write the hard scenes. Let your characters suffer. You'll be glad you did.

Sunday Funday! (43) (Plus, winners!)

2010-11-07T14:09:00.000-05:00

Well, hello there! It's Sunday, and I got an extra hour of sleep last night. And somehow it's still already 2pm, and I have accomplished literally nothing today. (I'm still in my pajamas. True story.) BUT I have compiled this AMAZING list of links from around the Web, with some great advice/news/general awesome for you to enjoy. I've also chosen WINNERS for my blogversary giveaway!

So I guess I have accomplished something, after all.

I'm not participating in this year's NaNoWriMo, because I'm busy revising my face off. (See my face, over there on the other side of the room?) But there has been quite a kerfuffle (what an excellent word) around the topic this year; Salon writer Laura Miller said NaNo was kind of lame and pointless. LA Times writer Carolyn Kellogg said that Miller, in fact, was the lame one (I might be paraphrasing there), and that NaNo is actually awesome. Maggie Steifvater wrote an anti-NaNo pep-talk.

Should you tell agents who offered representation when they're considering your manuscript? Agency Gatekeeper says the question is pushy and should be a sign to run away. Janet Reid and Jessica Faust say she's ridiculous, that the question is a normal professional one, and that you - the author - don't even have to answer it. What do you think?

Do you sometimes think that, with all the overwhelming positivity out there on the Internet from other writers, that you're the only one struggling or worrying or totally freaking out? Shannon Messenger assures you - you're not.

Are you struggling writing a particular scene? Never fear - Jody Hedlund has five great tips to help you write the perfect scene!

Super-agent Nathan Bransford says "so long, and thanks for all the fish" to publishing, and hello to CNET.

Synopsis blues got you down? Agent Suzie Townsend gives some advice on how to makes them easier.

Writer Jennifer Walkup tells other writers to just be nice to each other already.

Writers, agents, and editors are always talking about voice. They want a book that shows voice, characters with a unique voice...and you might be sitting at home thinking, "Great, but what the heck does that even MEAN??" Author Elana Johnson's post over on the Query Tracker blog gives some insight as to what voice is, and how to use it well.

Need some tips on being a better beta? Here are a few things to look for when beta-reading, courtesy of Write Brained.

Also LOOK HOW AWESOME THIS IS OMG I WANT FRIENDS WHO WILL DO THIS WITH ME. (This is why I want to move to New York. Because stuff this cool doesn't happen in Clearwater. We just stay in our PJs all day.)

(Thanks to YA Highway for sharing!)

And now...

The winners of my blogversary contest!

I went into my spreadsheet in Google docs and used random.org to calculate the winners. I went in order, but my plan was if whoever was drawn didn't want the prize I was on, I would give them the next prize on my list. Fortunately, I went in order and everyone wanted the prize they were drawn for. (Does that even make sense? It does to me, and I think that's all that matters. Maybe.)

OK! For prize number one, the signed copy of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, the winner is...

Shannon O'Donnell!!!

For prize number two, signed copies of Boy Meets Boy and Tangled, the winner is...

Kristi Faith!!!

And for prize three, the swag pack, featuring stickers, bookmarks, and other goodies, the winner is...

Meguita!!!

Congratulations, everyone! I'm emailing you shortly for your address! If I don't hear from you within 48 hours, I'll have to pick a new winner!

Copyright Infringement & Bad Magazine Editors (Or, Things That Piss Me Off)

2010-11-05T16:15:00.000-04:00

I get kind of ranty in this post. And it has nothing to do with novels or books. But it's important to me, and it has to do with writing, so I'm talking about it. But we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming with the next post.

Most of you are probably already aware of the controversy surrounding Cooks [sic] Source magazine and how they steal articles from writers on the Internet. So you have to forgive me, but as a writer AND magazine editor, I'm doubly infuriated by this. And I need to vent.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the run-down: Monica Gaudio, a writer, got word from a friend that her article about apple pie, originally published on the Godecockery website, had appeared in Cooks Source magazine. But Monica never gave Cooks Source permission to print her story. So she emailed the editor, Judith Griggs, and asked what was up. Long story short, Judith swiped the story from the Web, thinking that was totally fine. She said it was "her bad" and asked Monica what she wanted.

Monica requested an apology in print and on the magazine's Facebook page (where the article appeared), and a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism. Judith refused, claimed what she did was fine because the Internet was "public domain," and insinuated that Monica should pay her something for "editing" her article (her edits involved correcting traditional medieval spellings in old recipes.)

So Monica went public with the incident, and posted Judith's rude email on her LiveJournal. And the Internet exploded.

Turns out, Cooks Source took stories from other people, too - people like Martha Stewart, Paula Deen, the New York Times, Cooking Light, and NPR. And if it hadn't been for Monica, who knows how much longer this tiny regional magazine would have gotten away with it?

I know I usually keep it pretty light over on this blog, but I really need to talk about how much this pisses me off. As a writer, my articles are ALL OVER the Internet. Google my name and, after my Twitter account and blog, pretty much everything you get is stuff I wrote for my job or reviews I write freelance. And I got paid for all of it. If I ever had that story reprinted anywhere else (which, by the way, neither my freelance job nor my full-time position would be cool with), you bet I would want to be paid for it. Or at least told about it. (No. I would want to be paid.)

But here's what makes me the angriest of all - if Cooks Source needed free content to keep their magazine going, and that's why they felt they needed to turn to stealing to make it happen, it's EASY to get contributors to send free articles in. That's why people have PR managers. There are entire websites dedicated to connecting editors with PR reps. So if Cooks Source wanted a story about apple pie but couldn't afford to pay for it, they could have gone to a PR news site and submitted a query asking for a contributed article. Instead of stealing one. Chances are their inbox would have been FULL of pitches, all from PR people happy to submit an article to help promote their company. Eventually, they'd build up a store of trusted PR reps, and they wouldn't have to turn to the websites anymore. Which makes it clear that this whole thing is about laziness more than anything, because if you look in the right places, the content will come to you.

They also could have contacted local journalism schools to see if there was anyone looking to build a portfolio by writing some stories. When I was in college, I would have JUMPED at the chance to see my article in a professional magazine (though at this point, Cooks Source is far from professional.) In the email, Judith Griggs said she had several young writers, all happy to work for her for free. If that's the case...where are they? And why didn't she call on them...ever? (Of course that was probably a lie to save her butt.)

I was recently laid off. I've been kind of keeping that in because I didn't want to get too depressing, but this is my last month at my job. My boss fought to keep me, but in the end...the parent company did what it had to do. Being in journalism is hard right now, and everyone is working to keep their costs down. So when I see irresponsible people doing irresponsible things, it makes all of us look bad. It makes her look ungrateful for having a job when so many people in the field can't find - or keep - work. And it makes me angry that someone who apparently has three decades of journalism experience doesn't know something I learned my sophomore year in college.

I guess the good thing about all of this is that pretty much every publishing professional will know that woman's name (oh, man, I feel sorry for any other magazine editor with the name Judith Griggs), and likely her face (her picture was up on her Facebook profile for awhile), so after the inevitable downfall of Cooks Source as advertisers pull out and lawsuits roll in, Griggs isn't likely to find another job in this field. And I'm sure she'll think twice next time she wants to refuse giving a much-warranted apology to someone.

On a happier note...
It's the last day to enter my giveaway! Click here for signed books, swag, and more!

Waiting on Wednesday

2010-11-03T11:06:00.001-04:00

I know. I know.

I usually reserve Wednesdays for book crushes. I feel like I'm totally cheating.*

BUT I really want to talk about Bumped by Megan McCafferty, because, well...just read the synopsis:

“When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents are forced to pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and had never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Until now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they are searching for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Harmony has spent her whole life in religious Goodside, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to bring Melody back to Goodside and convince her that “pregging” for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls’ lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common.”

Yeah. The awesome. It will be brought. Especially because Publishers Marketplace describes the book as "sharply funny and provocative," and Megan herself describes it as a cross between The Handmaid's Tale and Heathers (that's me!! And also a fan-freaking-TASTIC movie.).

As you all know, I'm a big fan of Megan McCafferty's first series, the Jessica Darling books. And if Bumped is even half as good (and I suspect it will be even better...I mean, it's dystopia! And the cover has pink on it!) we're all in for a treat.

Bumped will be released ~~way too late for my lack of patience~~ on April 26. I'm definitely counting down the days...

*Full disclosure: By blogging about this, I'm entering for a chance to win an ARC. And I am so freaking PUMPED for this book I couldn't turn this chance down. I mean it doesn't come out until APRIL. That's like 6 months away!! Way, way too long. So that's really the reason why you don't get a Book-Crush post today. Because I'm greedy and want an ARC. Also, hopefully Megan is reading this RIGHT NOW and can feel my enthusiasm, but I didn't link it on her Facebook because I know she Google-blogs herself. Because she's awesome. So, i just want to say, "Hi Megan! You rock my face off."

It's NaNoWriMo! Some Tips to Get You Through

2010-11-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

It's National Novel Writing Month! Hooray! Although I won't be participating this year (I'm dedicated to finishing up my revisions on last year's NaNo...SEE? It takes more than a month, people!), I did win last year, with hours to spare. I posted a pretty nice set of tips/lessons/"what I learned" after winning, but since the blog was pretty new at the time...no one really read them. Plus they were ill-timed at the end of NaNo so...that's not really helpful.

So I thought instead of leaving that post buried in the back of my archives, I would re-post it today, where my followers can actually enjoy it and get some inspiration. I've also added some cheeky comments (as I do), and those are in blue. But only because when I put them in pink they're too hard to read.

Heather's List o'Awesome NaNo Lessons, v. 2.0 (originally posted here, on 11/30/2009)

1. Old habits die hard. I'm a big procrastinator. I like to say I work well under pressure, but really I just think that I'm lazy, then all of a sudden my deadlines come up and I'm like OH CRAP. Case in point: I am really excited about my novel, and got off to a great, super ambitious start with the word count. But once real life started to interfere, I feel behind. I caught up a little in the middle of the month, but then I ~~feel~~ fell* behind again. Finally, with less than 48 hours to spare, I decided I couldn't let my six adoring fans down and put fingers to keyboard and cranked out the last 10,000 words. (Which is why I was starving tonight - I wanted to finish up right away, so I came home without dinner. Like a misbehaving kid.) If you think I'm making this up for the purposes of good blogging, here's graphical proof, in both line and bar chart form, because I know everyone learns differently:

*apparently, I didn't think editing was too important at the time. Maybe that's why I only had six readers...

I AM SUCH A GEEK. I can't believe I posted not ONE but TWO charts about my NaNo performance. But the even geekier part is I still think these are REALLY SUPER COOL.

2. Write as much as you can when you're excited, so that when you're not as excited, or when you're tired, or when you'd rather have a martini kthanks, it won't matter. See the charts above for a visual example if it didn't sink in the first time. (Which are still dorky/awesome.)

3. Knowing where you're going is half the battle. Since the idea for my novel came so close to the start of November, I didn't get to outline much before it started. I really only had time for the basic world building elements, character ideas, and first few chapters...maybe the first 10,000 words? I wrote the first 10,000 words in about 3 days, then took another 10 to write the next 10,000. Say, I wonder if another look at those charts would help demonstrate things... I cannot even stress to you how much an outline would have helped. My current round of revisions involve changing the plot around quite a bit and a lot of new scenes, so I did some heavy outlining, timelines, etc. And WOW. I'm flying through it. I also know my characters better and can hear their voices immediately. But still. Preparedness would have helped. I already have index cards stacked up for my next novel with notes all over them (dorkdorkdork).

4. Having a support system is extremely important. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the women in my book club who did NaNo along with me, and everyone from my local group, especially those who came out to the write-ins I attended. Also everyone who reads this blog, because you people are awesome. Still so true!!! And those book club ladies are now my writing group. And I still want to thank them. Because they are epically awesome. As you know.

5. Sacrifices have to happen. I typically read somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 books a month, give or take. Last month, I read four, and two of them were books on tape so I feel like they shouldn't count, plus one of them I had already started when November kicked off. But I knew that, throughout the month, writing was more important than reading. (Even though reading is extremely important for a writer, too, and don't you forget it.) The good news is, I don't really sacrifice reading anymore. I've managed to get back up to my usual quota, even with a heavy revision schedule. Now I just sacrifice sleep and exercise and normal human companionship instead.

6. When in doubt, write. Even if it's terrible and you ~~know~~ think you won't use it, even if it's the worst piece of crap ever, even if it's an ADVERB (!!) just write it anyway. You can always use a strikethrough font to note that you want to get rid of it, or just delete it in revisions. But you also might come up with the best scene/idea ever. (Unless it's an adverb, which is never, ever a good idea. Ever.) Man, I was hard on adverbs! Sometimes they're kind of OK. But only in small doses. Like, really, really small ones. But it is true that writing is the best way to get through writer's block. I totally stand by that. Current Heather is patting Past Heather on the back right now.

7. A working title is just that...working. I always knew I would part with my title, but tonight I decided for sure. It's got to go. I even posted a new working title on NaNo, but since I'm sure it won't stick for long, I'm not going to share it here. Once I have something I feel confident about, I'll post it. And then I'll post it again once I have to change it for my agent/publisher's fancy. This line item makes me laugh. I even broke up with my title in a very dramatic, public, and hilarious way. Then, a month later when no one was looking, I ran back to it. I heart my title.

8. It's not over til the fat lady sings. Which in publishing is when I see my book for sale. (And even then, it's still not over. That's what I've learned in the last year. That fat lady never, ever sings. Stupid hag.) That means, even though I won the NaNo battle, I still have to fight the novel war. I need to finish the book, then revise, revise again, revise a third time, cry myself to sleep every night, let some other people read it to get some opinions, wonder why my manuscript is bleeding (oh, wait, that's just red ink because the draft is so awful), fix all the mistakes, revisereviserevise, add some more steps I'm sure I haven't thought about yet, then send it off to all my favorite agents and watch as the rejections come pouring in. But it only takes one yes (well, a series of yeses, but let's not get picky) to get published. Actually, I think we will get picky, because it takes about 1,000 yeses to get published. That's another thing I've learned. Oh well. I'll still fight the good fight!

Hope all you NaNoers have a great month!

Sunday Funday! (42)

2010-10-31T09:00:00.014-04:00

Hey! It's Sunday! And I'm not skipping Sunday Funday!

It's also Halloween! I don't know if I'm actually dressing up tonight. Last night, the hubs and I went to a rowdy party, dressed as Mario and Luigi (I was Mario, because I'm shorter and fatter. I'm not being self-deprecating, that really is true.) Tonight, he's heading down to see our little nieces and go trick-or-treating with them, and I'm staying home to watch scary movies with my girlfriends and pass out candy to the massive amounts of children in our neighborhood - so they can spend the next month dropping the wrappers on our lawn while they wait for the buss. Ah, the circle of life.

But enough about me. Let's talk links! Here are some great links from 'round the Interwebz this week:

Kidlit.com founder and literary agent Mary Kole asks whether you should get an MFA over on her awesome-sauce blog.

Meanwhile, agent Kristen over on Pub Rants discusses the top 10 things she usually finds wrong with a kidslit SF/F query letter.

Stina Lindenblatt has an awesome Q and A with agent Joanna Volpe. Her questions are really different from the usual, "What are you seeing in the slush pile?" type stuff.

Wondering where to find crit partners and readers? Beth Revis, author of the fab-u-lous ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, gives some excellent pointers about where to look - and what to do once you have them.

Shannon Messenger discusses the difference between competition and drive - and explains why kidlit writers are awesome.

Power agent/author Mandy Hubbard shows how one of her clients' query letters evolved to book pitch and finally to back cover copy.

And finally...LOOK AT HOW AWESOME THIS VIDEO IS OMG WOW. (I kind of want to do this in my house. Though I think my dogs would knock the books over before I got any set up. Or they'd just bark at them.)

Ah...it's good to be back. Have a great week everyone!

And Happy Halloween!

Blogversay Giveaway! Signed books! Swag!

2010-10-28T15:00:00.005-04:00

Alright, it's time for the blogversary giveaway! And it's my biggest giveaway yet! I have THREE prize packs to hand out! *Puts on announcer voice*

The first pack isn't technically a pack - just a book. But the book is so awesome that if I were to actually package it with other books, the post office would explode from too much awesome. And obviously we don't want that. So Prize #1 is a signed copy of Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! (Signed by Jon Scieszka only)

Pack number two is perfect for the YA lovers...especially ones who heart them some romance. "Heart" being the operative word, since both books feature hearts on the cover! Pack #2 includes signed hardcovers of Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan and Tangled by Carolyn Mackler!

And finally, for all you swag lovers out there, I've got just the thing for you! The swag pack, featuring the following items:

Bookmarks!

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
Prophecy of the Sisters/Guardian of the Gate by Michelle Zink
Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr (signed!)
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have by Allen Zadoff (signed!)
Sea by Heidi R. Kling
Perfect Fifths/Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty (signed!)
Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu
The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes

An Eat, Prey, Love sticker for Carrie Ryan's books!
A cute little notebook!
Harry Potter Silly Bandz!
And more fun surprises!

*Takes announcer voice off*

OK, so there you have it. The deets on this one are simple - everyone is eligible. You don't have to be a follower. There's no tweeting for extra points (though if you want to spread the word for good karma, I'll think you're pretty much awesome.) I'm just trying to find a way to say thanks to my readers for being so awesome and supportive this past year.

I hope this gets the job done.

Don't make me come to each of your houses individually. Cause I totally will. Eventually.

Giveaway ends Friday, ~~September 5~~. November 5. (Because a year would be a ridiculous amount of time for a giveaway. And thanks to Twitter user @Sparima for catching my goof!)

Fill out the form to enter! (Click here to open the form in a separate window/tab.)

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Today's my Blogversary!

2010-10-28T09:00:00.004-04:00

I'm doing a giveaway later, but I have a lot of things to say, and I know it totally sucks to wade through a long post about feelings and whatever when all you want is PRIZES, so I'm going to post the giveaway in a little bit. (Like around 3pm. Stay tuned for that.)

For this post, I'm going to get all sentimental.

A year ago today, I started this little blog. I picked kind of a lame name, made a pink and black header, and hurled myself into cyber space with a post about how you shouldn't read my blog. And for awhile, no one did. It was just me, myself, and my Aunt Wendy. Then my sister tagged along. I figured it was because I was the only one writing about writing, because who would POSSIBLY want to read about THAT? I wrote about my NaNo project, and put up responses to oneword.com prompts, and posted ridiculous pictures of my dogs and myself.

And then, somewhere along the road, I found a whole community of other writers. I have to give some credit to Shannon Messenger for this one, because she was one of my first regular commenters who was not related to me, and I know when I clicked on her blog I realized there definitely were other writers out there in the world. A whole freaking lot of them.

And somehow, in the past year, I've gained almost 300 followers. (I'm sure if my posts hadn't been so anorexic in the past month, I'd have more. But I've got more on that in about two point five paragraphs, so hold on to your breeches, kids.) I can't believe that almost 300 strangers care about what I have to say. You listen to my crazy stories. Your comments make my day. You send me emails asking for advice! You are my confidants, my crit partners, my shoulders to cry on, and my pals to celebrate with. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for reading.

In case you were wondering (aren't you? I totally am.), here are the top 5 posts ever posted on See Heather Write:

The best thing to happen to my writing career. EVER. (Which at the time was getting into the Eckerd College Writer's Conference, and by now is getting into VCFA. Hopefully by my next blogoversary, it will be "landing a major book deal." Anyway, I think this post is mostly popular because of the awesome gifs found within.)
What Makes a Character Kick Butt? (In which I talk about my favorite female main characters at the time, who would totally still make the list, but would have to scoot over for several more additions. Hm, I might need to do a version 2.0 on this one...)
Happy Kissing Day! (This one was from a blogfest.)
Should Writers Talk About Their Rejections? (A recent post, featuring guest agent Weronika Janczuk)
On Boy Middle-Grade (My notes from an SCBWI workshop)

To the very few of you who I've been fortunate enough to meet - it was awesome. I hope to see you again some day. To those of you I haven't met yet, I hope to see you some day! Really, this blog has meant the world to me, and having a place to talk about writing, and other writers to share it with, and other blogs to read...I've learned so, so much from it all.

OK, so now I feel like I have to give a little apology for my lameness this past month. And not a half-ass one, like my last one. Because to be honest, me gushing about how awesome you all are, then you glancing over at my archives and seeing I've posted less than 10 times this month is pretty pathetic and comes off as disingenuous. OK, so the first thing is that I've had some MONSTER revisions to tackle. They're great revisions, and I'm so super pumped about them, because I finally feel like my book is worthy to be read by someone other than me or my dogs (see what I did there?). But it's pretty much requiring a complete rewrite. Very few words are making it through. I'm slogging away, putting as much time away as I can (and making great progress!), which is actually less time than I usually have because of point two, which is some job-related personal stuff. I don't want to get all depressing/personal on you, but let's just say that job hunting is a really gigantic time suck when you have a mortgage and need to take that crap seriously.

Stupid adulthood.

Anyway, so that's that. But I have resolved to make a New-Blog-Year resolution. Because this post and this past year has made me realize just how important you all are to me. I mean, I'm pretty sure one of you once recognized me by my earrings ALONE, which pretty much made my day. (They were the earrings from this vlog, and someone recognized me at SCBWI-LA when I was wearing them. I KID YOU NOT.) I will read your posts (I miss that, so much!) I will post here (no more skipping Sunday Funday! And I need some other posts, too! Because once a week makes for a sad, skinny blog.)

And I will post contests. Like the one I'm posting later today. Stay tuned! (It's a good one.)

And thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my blog-writing, WIP-slaving heart.

Book-Crush Wednesday (11)

2010-10-27T11:00:00.001-04:00

Today's book-crush is on another book series. And it's actually a pretty well-known series, but unfortunately it was mostly made commercially famous after a really terrible movie adaptation of the first book hit theaters. (I know, I've really narrowed it down, right?) But, since you are all awesome and savvy readers, I have a feeling many of you will be familiar with the titles. (They are bestsellers, after all.) And if not...then you should be.

His Dark Materials is a trilogy by Philip Pullman which completely rocked my world when I read it. I had taken a break from fantasy (with the notable exception of Harry Potter, which is a constant in my life), though the genre was my absolute favorite during my childhood. (Particularly the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede. OMG LOVE. Forever and always. Cimorene is my homegirl. But I digress. As usual.)

So I picked up the book, not really thinking it was anything special (though it was GIGANTIC because we have the version which is all three books bound together in one epic volume of awesome), and it changed my life. I remember reading the first book (in America, it's called The Golden Compass - in Pullman's native England, the book is Northern Lights) thinking, "Hm, this is a nice story, lalala, oh, these daemon things sound pretty cool, your soul is outside your body as an animal, huh? That's different." And Lyra was feisty and fun and I LOVED her. The Golden Compass ends on this absolutely just...UGH...moment. Yeah.

And then book two started (The Subtle Knife). And I actually remember when I read it, I had to flip to the front cover of the volume, because I wasn't sure I was reading the same book. Pullman totally pulls you into a different world, and then BAM! you realize that things are not at all what the seem, and everything is just...yeah. Awesome. I don't want to spoil it but it's really just amazing. (If you've seen the movie version, and especially if you've seen the movie version and haven't read the book, then that awful prologue/crappy explanation that Serafina does in the beginning doesn't even begin to describe the epicness of what's happening.

In the third book, The Amber Spyglass, there are some huge decisions made by the characters - who are really still children. The ending is so bittersweet, and really just perfect, and so many sad and wonderful things happen in this book. Plus, LYRA AND WILL OMG. I die, people. I die. (Vaguest description ever? Yes. But I'm not a Spoilery McSpoiler over here, folks. Go read the books yourself.)

OK, I will say that the books are not for everyone. It's pretty commonly known that the trilogy has a heavy anti-religious angle, particularly against Catholicism. But honestly, they're still great books, well-written, and with such wonderful characters, that if this would normally be a problem for you, I encourage you to try to put your beliefs aside and give the books a chance.

So, what will you find in the pages of His Dark Materials? These things:

A talking polar bear
A kick-ass heroine
One of the creepiest and most perfect villains ever
A visit to the underworld
Young love - the kind that is ever-lasting and epic
Secrets
Witches
Magical instruments
Multiple worlds
Heartbreaking decisions
Lots and lots of animals

Hope you give it a chance! (And if you've already read them, I'd love to know what you thought!)

Finding Writers' Groups

2010-10-19T23:26:00.001-04:00

Every once in awhile, I'll get an email from a reader...and this pretty much makes my life worth living. (No, really. I'm not exaggerating. Other things make my life worth living, too...like chocolate and my dogs and my husband and good books. But strangers emailing me because they think I can actually help? Yeah. That's up there.) Recently, I've had a few people ask (in both emails and the comments) if I could give them some advice about where to find a good writers' group.

I'm sure they think I'm some kind of expert because my group is awesome, and I brag on them all the time. But the truth is, I stumbled upon my group pretty accidentally. I'm part of an online book club, and several of us participated in NaNo last year. We all created our own separate little forum, then those of us who were year-round writers decided to form a group together. We have a weekly online chat, and exchange emails via Google groups. I've met most of them in real life, and my goal is to meet all of them (I'm definitely on my way!)

OK. So now I know what you're thinking. "WTF, Heather. You're saying the only way I can have an awesome writers' group is if I happen to magically stumble upon one?" Well...yes. And no. The truth is, to find a great group, you have to be willing to put yourself out there a little. For example, I have a friend who lives in Birmingham who's a writer. I knew someone through Twitter who lives in Birmingham, and I knew my friend was looking to meet writers in her area. Both women were awesome, so I introduced them in a tweet. They met up, and eventually brought some friends along with them - and now they're part of a writing group together. So really, it's mostly about keeping your eyes and ears open and looking for the opportunities.

Here are more tips if you really want to find a good group.

Go where the writers are. Chances are, if you're reading this post, you already know some writers. You at least know me, and you can check the people who post in my comments, or the other blogs I follow, then the blogs they follow, and on and on, to find a huge community of writers. You can also find others on Twitter - especially in organized chats such as #scribechat, #kidlitchat, or #YAlitchat. You should also check to see if your local library, SCBWI chapter, or other writers group has monthly or quarterly meetings you can attend. Hang out with other writers and you're bound to eventually meet someone you mesh with. You can also set up meetings on sites like MeetUp.com, or even try to arrange something with your local library, if you're looking to start something up in real life.
Get involved in writing forums. Places like Absolute Write, the NaNoWriMo forums, Critique Circle, Writers' Groups, etc. are great for finding groups. It's really best if you go in just looking to meet like-minded people and start chatting, and eventually you will find that you click with a few people - then you can send them a message asking if they're looking for a group. The absolute worst thing they can say is no. Which leads me to my next point...
Don't be afraid to ask. Again, the worst thing someone can say is no, and even then they'll likely be really nice about it. The best thing they can say is yes. Even if you know a writer has another group or crit partner, many writers welcome the chance to get out of their solitary bubble of writing and seek out a new group of peers to talk to. My best advice is to seek out people that you know are in the same stage of the process as you - if you see someone else has just started up their blog, or is complaining about revision pains the same way you are, they might be a good match for you. You can email or message people directly, or be bold and put out a call on Twitter or your blog - something as simple as "I want to start a writing support group! Anyone interested?" will get people interested. But if you put out a big call like that, remember that if you get a lot of interest or people who don't match exactly what you're looking for, you should be prepared to take everyone who responded, anyway. Also, be sure to ask your writing friends if they know anyone looking for a group or crit partner - if you have five friends (online or off!) who are writers, one of them may know someone looking to form a group.

OK, so those tips don't seem particularly riveting. I know. But every crit partner or beta reader I've had, I got mostly through luck or having interests in common, or because they sent me an email or I emailed them and just asked.

What about you? Do any of you have great tips for finding groups/crit partners?

Book-Crush Wednesday (10)

2010-10-13T23:58:00.000-04:00

Only six words need to be used to explain why this book-crush Wednesday is truly a book-CRUSH Wednesday:

MarcusFlutieMarcusFlutieMarcusFlutie

If you don't know who I'm talking about, then you need to drop whatever book you're reading and hie thee to your local bookstore to pick up a copy of Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty. While you're there, you should go ahead and grab Second Helpings (because you'll definitely want them), Charmed Thirds (which will definitely leave you charmed), Fourth Comings (er...OK, I can't think of a good pun for this one...uhm, it will have you coming back for more?) and Perfect Fifths (SO FREAKING PERFECT U GUISE.) Because you'll want to read them right away.

I'll admit that this series was one of my first forays into YA in my own post-adolescent years. And it's a damn good thing it's so awesome, otherwise I may never have picked up another YA book, and I might be a very different writer today.

The main character in this series is Jessica Darling. But she's not really darling, she's more...sarcastic. And witty. And wonderful. I'm pretty sure we'd be BFFs, except probably not if we met in high school because even then I wouldn't have been cool enough for her. Jessica did a lot of things I never would have had the guts to do, such as THE CUP INCIDENT which I won't talk about much here for spoilers, but it's safe to say if I were in her situation, the next four novels would have gone a lot differently.

What's even better than Jessica, though, is the supporting cast. All of her high school friends, enemies, and frenemies are so well developed, each with their own little quirks and flaws and issues. Some characters just captured my heart, and others made me laugh because they were just so out there - but in a good, real way.

But although these books are so much about Jessica and her growing pains, they're really about the growing pains between Jessica and Marcus. Throughout the books, you really see the ups and downs and ins and outs of their relationship. Marcus reminds me SO MUCH of the hubs that I'm pretty sure Megan McCafferty was channeling him at one point to write him into the book. There are words that Marcus says (or doesn't say) that could have come right out of my husband's mouth.

And then...there's book five. OK, so the writing in the first four books is great. But the writing in Perfect Fifths KNOCKED ME OUT. The narrative structure is totally different, and it's perfect and amazing, and I love the alternate chapters because as a writer I know things like that are SO hard to do, and I think McCafferty did them just beautifully. The book is nearly flawless and the absolutely perfect ending to their story.

OK, so hopefully I have you convinced. It's really hard talking about five books in one post. But, just know they are amazing, funny, insightful, smart, and just good, and everyone - everyone - should read them.

Query Advice from Holly Root - Auburn Writers Conference Recap Vol. 1

2010-10-11T11:47:00.002-04:00

I spent last weekend in Alabama, and I have to admit I am absolutely smitten. Friday and Saturday, I was at the Auburn Writers Conference (which was FAB - more on that in approximately one paragraph), and Sunday I spent in Birmingham catching up with friends and brainstorming all the ways I can convince my husband that a move to 'Bama is absolutely necessary. (The good news is, I've converted him to Harry Potter and Hunger Games, so I'm well-versed in the art of convincing.)

But anyway. The conference. Auburn Writers Conference (AWC) was in its first year, and it was just wonderful! It was only a day and a half long, but the organizers really did a great job packing as much information as possible into such a short period of time. The focus of this year's AWC was The Child on the Page, so there were sessions on picture books and teen voice, but there were also sessions on memoir, the publishing industry, and, of course, querying.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

Literary agent Holly Root was in attendance at AWC, and she was just wonderful. I'll admit, I think there is a lot of unnecessary agent-worship on the part of unagented writers. But if there was ever an agent who will make a writer realize that agents are just normal people and not some crazy, unapproachable, scary beings, Holly is absolutely that agent. I attended her "Polish Your Pitch" session, during which she dispensed a TON of information about perfecting your query and making it shiny. So instead of further rambling (though you all know how much I love to ramble), I present to you:

Query Dos and Don'ts from Holly Root
Notes I took based on things she said are in italics. Everything else is copied from this awesome worksheet she passed out. I didn't include all of them, just a smattering - so if Holly is ever at a workshop in your area teaching a session on pitching or querying, GO! Then you can get the rest. Which you totally should, because it was useful and amazing.

Do:

Query widely. Email is great for this. Your "dream agent" might be someone you've never heard of because they don't tweet or blog.
Make it easy for agents to see your book as marketable. Don't hide the good stuff. This might mean revealing what you see as a big twist, but it might actually be the thing that hooks the agent. Another thing that she mentioned was that you can't write a book thinking just about money/marketability, but you can't query a book thinking just about art. So write the book to be the best book it can be, and don't worry about marketability. Then when you're done, try to think about the things that will make the book marketable. Look at it from every angle. There is something in there that makes the book uniquely yours. Lead with that.
Think in terms of back cover copy. Present the conflict quickly, hook the reader on the world you've created. This is not the place or time to tell me in detail about how normal the character's life was before the conflict...how perfect the marriage seemed...a complete genealogy of the character's family. Quick and dirty. Holly suggested reading the cover copy of books before you start them, then again after you've finished. You'll notice that sometimes the cover copy will leave out events, or rearrange things into a more marketable order, and that's OK to do in your query, too. It's not that you want to be dishonest, but you do want to paint your book in the best possible light - just because you wear mascara doesn't mean you don't have eyelashes.
Remember that a pass isn't always reflective of your work or a query. Holly has to pass on a lot of great books, and all of her reasons start with "I," such as I already have something in this genre on my list. She gets 200-300 queries a week, but about half of those are just weird letters or queries for things that have no home in trade publishing. Your odds aren't as bad as you think, so what you really need to overcome is timing. Her default setting is, unfortunately, no - it's your job to get her to yes.

Don't:

Send more than requested because "the story really picks up about page 85." If the story picks up on page 85, then page 85 should be your page 1. Try cutting out pages 1-84 and see if you can rework the story to fit with where the plot picks up.
Ask a ludicrous question in the first line of your query instead of properly identifying your hook, i.e. What would you do if your job was to kill babies? Also "Imagine if..." and "What if..." Holly was so funny here. She gave an excellent example of how opening with a question can stack the odds against you, because immediately the agent might start answering in their own way and it will never be the way you want them to answer. She said she's much more interested if you get HER to ask the question than if you state it for her. So instead of saying, "What would you do if you woke up one day and the sky was at your feet?" Say, "Jacob Smith wakes up on his first day of school to find that his feet are in the clouds - literally." Or something like that. (I totally made that example up just now off the top of my head so if it sucks, blame me and not Holly, who is awesome and probably had a way better example which I forgot to write down.)
Edit out your voice. The voice introduces the agent to your story and gives them a taste for what they'll get in the pages. Don't edit it out!
Think that a "no" on this project means never for me with any of your work ever again. No means no to this query right now. Holly told a great story about a client who took four queries to get to sign with her - but in the end, she signed on with Holly.

Holly gave some more advice, and also did a fabulous Q and A, and I'm sure I'll touch on both in another entry where I gush more about AWC. But my fingers are tired from typing up this awesomeness of awesome information, so I'm sure your eyes are tired, too. Plus your brain. So we'll leave that for next time.

Book-Crush Wednesday (9)

2010-10-06T23:22:00.000-04:00

I'm headed to the Auburn Writers' Conference tomorrow! The conference is Friday and Saturday, and I'll be attending sessions on pitching to agents, voice, and much more awesome stuffs about kidlit! I'm really excited, and honestly this couldn't have come at a better time because I've had a really terrible week and I could use a little vacation. Hopefully I'll have some time to blog from Auburn, but if I don't I promise it's not because I don't like you!

I have to start this book-crush post by saying I'm not really huge on graphic novels. Though my husband eats them up like a ~~fat kid~~ I nom birthday cake, I haven't found many that I love. But when M.T. Anderson talked about how wonderful Shaun Tan's The Arrival was at SCBWI-LA, naturally I had to check it out, because M.T. Anderson is amazing.

The Arrival is a gorgeously illustrated wordless graphic novel about a man who migrates to a foreign place, hoping to start a new life for his family. Since the man can't communicate in his new land, we, the reader, can't communicate either, and so we are left to decipher meaning through facial expression, symbols, and gestures. The graphite drawings are done in a photo-realist style, in sepia tone, so you feel as if you are actually looking at historical artifacts.

Tan's talent for capturing true human emotion with a pencil is just astounding. Even though there were no words, I laughed over and over, I cried, and I felt moved by The Arrival. The story really highlights both the kindness and cruelty that humans are capable of, and I loved that one book could highlight both sides of human nature so well.

But probably my favorite thing about the book was the world-building. Tan says he drew a lot from immigrant experiences of his family members, and from pictures from Ellis Island - this is absolutely clear in the book. But all the sci-fi elements that make the setting feel so other-worldly are incredible. And again, even though Tan doesn't use a single word, I feel relatively confident that I could describe the basic structure of the society to you. Not necessarily the government operation, but definitely their transportation system, food acquisition, and customs and traditions. And the creatures included in the book were INCREDIBLE. The little guy featured on the cover was just one of many, many animals seen throughout the book. They all stole my heart and made me wish I could live in this world so I could have a little pet...whatever...of my own. (But I guess Evie and Millie will suffice for now. They are pretty cute.)

Even if you aren't a graphic novel person, I think this is a great introduction to the genre. It makes a beautiful statement without even using words, and tells this gorgeous story that will make you wonder why we even need words at all.

Lessons From A Writer's Group: Your Story Really Is Your Own

2010-10-04T23:33:00.001-04:00

As some of you may know, since I refer to it from time to time, I'm part of a writer's group. Mostly, we're just there for moral support, but we also act as critique partners to each other, and friends, and people to vent and stress to, and people to gab to about books and TV (Veronica Mars and Buffy being two of our favorites...though I'm going to lose followers when I say I'm not into Buffy. GASP! I'm trying though. Really. But those 1990's special effects are soooo cheesy.)

But one of the best things that the groups is around for is brainstorming. We have weekly chats where we all get together and talk about our writing problems (or other random things), but we're also all on an email list so we can stay in touch with each other throughout the day. So, often, I'll get an email that says something like this:

Subject: Help!
OK, so you guys know that I have Jane and Josh, and they've been hooking up for like three weeks now, even though Jane is dating Jim. Well, Jane doesn't know that Jim has that big secret which will totally make her go back to him even though she likes Josh more. Problem is, I don't know how to get her to figure it out!!! Jim and Josh are best friends, but I don't want her to just overhear it because that's lame so...thoughts?

And then different people in the group will chime in with suggestions. (Obviously that scenario is SUPER basic, but hey...I'm under pressure here.) There are maybe five or six of us who are extremely active, then another few who are very active, then another few who are in the group but aren't super active. So in one email thread, the writer who's posing the original problem will get a lot of suggestions.

So what I'm learning is this: One person might suggest that Jane reads about Jim's secret in his diary. Another might suggest that Jane is really jealous, so she goes through Josh's texts and sees something from Jim that leads her on the right path. Another person might take that suggestion and say, "OMG!! What if Jim and Josh are actually secretly seeing each other?? And the text she sees are love letters??" and another person might suggest that Jim catch Josh and Jane making out and just blurt out the secret because he's so pissed, etc.

The amount of brainstorming that can happen in one of our chat sessions or email chains can sometimes be overwhelming, but if it's shown me anything it's this: if any of the writers in my group had been given that problem, been told to go into a corner, and write out how the story played out on their own, a totally different novel would have emerged. Of course, overlap would be possible. But everyone has such unique ideas and different directions to take one nugget of story that, in the end, no two story lines end up being the same.

Often, writers are absolutely paranoid about the idea that their story is too similar to something else out there - and I'm definitely no exception to this. (Though I'm glad that happened to me, because in the end what I came up with is SO much better.) But I think it's important to remember that while you might have the same basic elements as someone else, in the end, your story really is your own.

Oh, hai.

2010-10-02T01:00:00.003-04:00

So I haven't updated my blog in a week.

A WEEK.

And I missed all of banned book week, which I had a lot of post ideas for.

Reasons for my slacker-ness:

I've developed wrist/hand pain that made typing nearly unbearable. Probably because I type all day at work, then come home and type all night. Or something. *coughs* But I got it under control and it's getting much better.
Revision-related stuffs.
CP reading.
Mostly I'm just a slacker.

Please forgive me. I know you will because most of you are also writers and you understand how these things go.

And I will be back next week FULL FORCE with lots of AWESOME for you!

But for now, I have this video, stolen from failbook.com, which is SO ADORBS and a great little exercise in the power of communication. (You might want to expand to full screen if you have a hard time reading the text - it's a little hard to read this small but it doesn't fit in my blog panel otherwise.)

Creating Compelling Characters - The Ones You Love to Hate

2010-09-24T11:50:00.001-04:00

For The Great Blogging Experiment, I thought I would focus my post on a character study - characters you love to hate, hate to love, but still can't get enough of. (That sort of rhymes! But not on purpose.) These characters are mean, but funny. They're jerks but they still make you swoon. This kind of dichotomy of character is one of the best ways to get something compelling, to show the deeper layers of a character and prove that there's a lot more to them than what the other characters in the book (or TV show, cause I have one of those) initially see.

1. Logan Echolls. Here's a little story about my relationship with Logan Echolls, from the absolutely brilliant show Veronica Mars. My friend Shana Silver (who hosts Veronica Mars discussions on her blog) encouraged me to watch the show, and she kept talking about how great Logan was, how he was so swoon-worthy (not to mention that Veronica Mars has killer writing and plot development). So when I saw that Veronica Mars was available to stream instantly on Netflix, I watched. I waited. I waited to like Logan. Episode after episode went by, and though I immediately saw the sheer genius in the writing, I thought Logan sucked. He was a JERK. He had few redeeming qualities and I couldn't figure out what was so great about him. Then something very specific happens in one episode, which I can't mention because I'm not the kind of girl who posts spoilers on her blog. (But it's this thing. And then this happens. Yeah.) Then I sent Shana a tweet along the lines of OMG AWESOME YOU WERE RIGHT I BOW TO YOU. (Paraphrasing there.) Anyway, Logan is an ass most of the time. Even after he softens up, he's STILL an ass. But he's so complicated and twisty and has this dark past and he gets drunk and says the world's most romantic speeches and you just can't help but love him. Even when he's being a jerk.

2. Parker Fadley: Parker is the main character in Courtney Summers' debut CRACKED UP TO BE. I think Summers is really good at writing the kind of character I'm talking about here - the mean girl that you still like. Parker is a jerk to everyone around her. She pushes everyone away, she alienates herself, she does things that she knows will hurt other people. And yet...she cracked me up. I loved Parker almost immediately because she was so funny. Yeah, she used her humor to make fun of other people, and of course that's mean...but it was true, too. And it was great. And I could see that she was tortured, too, which obviously important to the overall mystery in the book.

3. Samantha Kingston: Sam is another mean girl that I loved. In BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver, we really got to see her be mean from day 1. She and her friends rule the school with their superior attitude, and although Sam occasionally seems to feel bad about it, she shakes it off pretty quickly. But after she dies and her days start repeating, Sam starts to change. She gets angry, then she gets nicer, then she grows up. She turns into this whole other person, someone who I could actually like. So even though I don't think I could like the Samantha at the beginning of the book, I think I would probably get along with the one at the end - maybe we'd even be friends.

4. Severus Snape. I can't talk about him without posting spoilers, so if you haven't finished the series, skip past this paragraph and get thee to a bookstore or library. I don't think there can possibly be a more perfect "love to hate" character in children's literature. I mostly just love Snape. But there is no question that he's a creepster. He's a jerk to the kids. Repeatedly. He openly displays favoritism to people in his house. He's mysterious and sneaky and he starts out as a bad guy. He betrays the Potters! He betrays Lily, the love of his life! But as soon as he realizes what he's done, he dedicates his life to fixing it. He worked so great as a character because we were all constantly questioning his motives - which side was he on? Who was he working for? I was a firm believer in Snape's innocence the whole time. But I had many friends who believed otherwise, especially after the whole killing Dumbledore thing. He sparked discussion and debate and loyalty. He was mean on the outside but in his heart, he was soft and did it all for love. He is a compelling character if ever one existed.

So, in all of these mean-girl (and boy) characters, what are the common threads that make them compelling? Growth. Humor. Mystery. Weakness. A complicated past. That's what it takes to create compelling characters.

Who are your favorite love-to-hate characters, and what is it about them that makes them so compelling?

Book-Crush Wednesday (8)

2010-09-22T22:59:00.001-04:00

So I waited until the nighttime to write this week's book-crush post. And I am SO glad I did.

You know why? Because I'm an aunt! My brother's wife had a baby today, and so another tiny adorable human has entered the world with 10 fingers, 10 toes, and a cute little fuzzy cap on his head. (Well, maybe the cap wasn't on his head when he was born, but it was in the picture my brother sent me so that's how I'm remembering him now.)

I won't get to meet my little nephew probably for a while. They live on the other coast, and newborns don't really like to fly. So to make sure he knows how much his Aunt Heather loves him, I bought him some BOOKS that I'm sending in the mail (and I can totally talk about them here because my brother doesn't read this blog.)

The first book I bought is Mo Willems' Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! And as wonderful as that book is, I've already talked about it in a book-crush post (in fact, it was my very first one)! So we're going to skip it today (even though it's still awesome and you should still read it.)

Instead, I'm going to talk about the major crush I have on the other book I purchased for my little nephew. It's a book I've had a crush on for so long that my original copy (which has the price marked on the front cover - 89 cents!) is missing the back cover and has tape on the pages. And some coffee stains. (All of this can be viewed closer to the bottom of the post, along with the new copy so you can see what it should actually look like.) And also I'm pretty sure that this is the second copy of the book I owned, because I think the first copy ended up missing both front and back cover at some point.

That book is The Monster at the End of This Book, and to Childhood Heather, there could never, ever be a better book. Ever.

In the story, Grover reads the title page of the book and discovers that there will be a monster at the end of it. Oh noes! Grover is scared of monsters. He does everything he can to prevent you from getting to the end of the book - he ties the pages together with ropes, he bricks them up, he nails them together - but in the end, you make it, and who is the monster? --SPOILER ALERT!!!-- Why, it was just lovable, furry old Grover all along! And boy is he embarrassed...

I don't know what it was about this story that spoke to me so much, but I couldn't get enough of it as a kid. I begged my dad to read it to me every night, and he happily obliged. It's one of my best memories of him. He didn't do a Grover voice, but he did act like he couldn't pull up the pages, to which I would huff, roll my eyes, and help him. Of course, if he simply flipped the pages, I don't think I would have loved the book nearly as much, and I would have lost interest quickly. But I didn't lose interest. I loved it so much it was the first book I could read on my own. And by read I mean "recite from memory at the age of 3."

I think in the end that's what's so wonderful about this story. It begs to be read aloud, to be shared, to be enjoyed together. I don't think it's the book itself that I remember so fondly, but the memories surrounding it. Memories that I know my brother will love sharing with his child (though I can't imagine him doing a Grover voice, either.)

I learned from M.T. Anderson at SCBWI-LA (in one of the best lectures on literature I have ever attended) that the story is a strong example of metafiction in children's literature. (Incidentally, the pigeon books also use metafiction.) Metafiction is any element in a story that addresses the fictional work. Picture books do this a lot because young children like to interact with their books. In Monster at the End of This Book, Grover actually tries to impede the forward momentum of the narrative by interrupting the turning of the page, but that in itself becomes the narrative:

Look closely on the left and you can see how the pages are stacking up behind Grover as he goes! He leaves debris everywhere.

Anderson also brought up this exciting dichotomy present in this book - we fear the monster along with Grover, because we trust Grover and he fears the monster. Yet we desire it, we're curious, so we keep turning pages, even though our trusted friend tells us, begs with us to STOP. But in the end --SPOILER ALERT!! -- it works out. This book is way more complex than my little 3-year-old self ever knew. (Dude, all of this is from M.T. Anderson. HE'S A GENIUS, I KNOW. And this is just what I remember, as I didn't take notes because I was too busy basking in all of his awesome, so I'm sure I'm mucking it all up.)

Anyway, if you haven't read The Monster at the End of This Book, you should. But more importantly, if you haven't read The Monster at the End of This Book to someone you love - complete with "I can't pull this heavy page back" motions - you're truly missing out.

Fun Non-writing Sites Every Writer Should Know

2010-09-21T23:59:00.003-04:00

As writers, we use many resources to help us in our quest to create perfect prose - support groups, forums, editing software, etc. Today, I'd like to highlight some of my favorite sites to use for character development, plot research, and the like that I think every writer should know. (OMG most boring intro ever! But I'm too tired to be creative and I don't want to skip this entry until I have time to write something better. So, yeah. Lame intro it is.)

Polyvore. Polyvore is great for people who like to create character boards or people who like to play with fashion or character clothes/setting (read: girls.) The site allows you to make your own style boards by pulling fashion elements, background designs, faces, etc. from around the Internet, and even uploading your own if you can't find what you're looking for. They have a great selection of stuff and the site is extremely user-friendly. I actually made a style board for my next project, but I left it on my other computer and I can't access that right now. Plus its kind of boring. So instead I'll show you two examples straight from the Polyvore site:

See how these images bring to mind two very different ladies? To use the style creator I'm talking about here, click on "Create a Look." To browse other style boards, click on "Explore."

Playlist. I personally can't listen to music while I'm actually writing, but I do think it's fun to create playlists that match the mood and theme of my novel. And that's where Playlist comes in. Although there are many other music sites, I think Playlist has a pretty good selection (because I can sometimes have obscure taste, and Playlist seems to usually have what I want...usually), and I like that it's all online - no download required, and it integrates easily with blogs and other social networks. Of course, when I find something I love or when it moves from my "experimental playlist" to my "official playlist," I take a cue from Maggie Steifvater and pay the 99 cents to download the song. Support the artists! But until then, Playlist works well for introducing me to new songs and artists, and helping me rearrange my list from anywhere.

Picnik. Ever wanted to experiment with a book cover, graphic element in your novel, character face, or other image, but don't have the fancy photo editing software required? Look no further than Picnik, an online image editing site that's easy and free. It has a TON of features and makes complicated tasks like resizing, messing with the saturation, etc. super simple. I even used Picnik to make a super ~~awesome~~ lame banner for my 2009 NaNo project, which I'm still editing and trying to make awesome.

OK, so those are my non-writing sites you should know! What are your favorites? And come back on Thursday (because tomorrow is Book-Crush Wednesday!) for the writing sites everyone should know!

Sunday Funday! (41) AND The Winners!!

2010-09-19T23:34:00.000-04:00

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I'm going to announce the winners of my signed Sisters Red and Audrey, Wait! giveaways! But before I do that, I'll give you the Sunday Funday links! And before I do that, we'll talk a little about book banning.

I know I've been getting really good at posting these things in the morning instead of super late at night, and tonight's post is totally ruining that. But I got off to a late start today, and then when I finally did turn my computer on, my Google reader was just absolutely INUNDATED with posts in reaction to this article discussing how the rape scenes in Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak are pornographic. Other books attacked in the op-ed piece include Slaughter-House Five and Twenty Boy Summer.

Oddly, the writer does say that we (as a society) should be holding up Christian ideals, so I assume he finds the Bible to be acceptable reading material, but last time I read the Bible there were scenes depicting war, orgies, drinking, prostitution, etc. Is his argument that those scenes are meant to teach, to prove a point? Aren't the ones in Speak also meant to help, to prove a point, to show things how they really are? The article goes on to say that middle school children shouldn't be taught about homosexuality, condom use, or oral sex (I'm sorry, but if this guy doesn't think that some middle schoolers are experimenting with sex, with or without that education, he's an idiot. People I knew were experimenting with sex when I was in middle school, and that was 12 years ago. And my have times changed since then.)

I'm not going to go on and on about how Speak isn't pornographic, because many others have said it better than I ever could, or say that Speak has helped many, many, many teens work through their own sexual assault. Instead, I'd like to point you to the excellent responses on the topic. (Thanks to Reclusive Bibliophile for the link list, and to Kate Hart for directing me there.)

The point of all these posts is this: "Reading a book cannot hurt you." Duh. And with slightly less press, but also in Missouri, another extremely popular and excellent YA book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, was recently banned. This interesting post, from non-book blogger The RRoy Report, discusses the issue, and how, uhm, duh, kids are doing things like masturbating (gasp!) and using swear words (egads!) anyway, whether or not they've read Alexie's National Book Award winner.

OK, now here are the rest of the Sunday Funday links! (The one about Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was always going to be included, but I bumped it up because it seemed relevant.)

Beth Revis, the author of the can't-wait-to-read book Across the Universe, talks hooking readers with your first chapter over on the dystopian author blog League of Extraordinary Writers.

If you're at all like me or even a little bit cool, you love the If You Give a _____ a _____ stories (or you have children who do, and your children are awesome.) Jennifer Daiker wondered what would happen If You Give a Writer an Idea.

Agent Mary Kole lets you know that not only does your day job not really matter to her, but you will probably have to keep your day job after you sign with an agent.

Ever wonder what an editorial letter from a major publisher looks like? Mandy Hubbard shares tidbits from her Prada and Prejudice letter (which, at full length, was 11 pages long! Yikes!)

Let the Words Flow has a great post about writing good...well, BAD...villains.

Wondering how to find the time to write? The answer is simple - either do it or don't.

Good news from Kiersten White! Writing never gets easier, even when you're published and have an agent! (Wait, that doesn't actually sound like such good news after all...)

Dear Internet: Don't date a writer.

Finally, the hilarious Amna has created a Burn Book for literary characters. WIN.

Alright, and finally....the winners of my giveaway!!! After all the extra entries were tallied, etc., there were 202 entries for the books! Woot! Awesome. I used Google docs to keep track of everything (assisted by Google forms for data capture), and I promise everyone got their extra entries counted. Then I headed over to random.org to choose the winning numbers. And those numbers were...

7 and 107

Which means nothing. BUT according to my form, it means that...

JESSICA HARWOOD won a signed copy of Audrey, Wait!

and ERICA won a signed copy of Sisters Red!

Congratulations ladies! I'll be emailing you for your addresses shortly!

If you didn't win, don't be sad! I've got a stock pile of goodies, including signed books and SWAG, to give away for my one-year blogversary, which will be coming up at the end of October! So get excited!

Giveaway ends tomorrow!

2010-09-16T15:38:00.000-04:00

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow is the last day to enter to win a signed copy of either Sisters Red, signed by Jackson Pearce, or Audrey, Wait! signed by Robin Benway!

Fill out the form to enter! *

And I'll see you tomorrow with a less lazy post!

*Please remember I'm trying to let my humor show through on the options. I hope you new followers don't think I'm weird.

Book-Crush Wednesday (7)

2010-09-15T09:00:00.001-04:00

Today's book crush is on a book that pretty much everyone in the country is crushing on. So many people, in fact, that in its VERY FIRST WEEK, this book, by a DEBUT AUTHOR, made it to number SEVEN on the NYT Bestsellers list for children's chapter books. (The fact that this is my seventh book-crush Wednesday? Mostly a coincidence. OR IS IT??)

That's right, readers, today we're talking PARANORMALCY, and all its awesomeness. I thought instead of me rambling for paragraphs on end like I normally do, I'd list the

Seven Reasons Why I Loved Paranormalcy

1. PINK.As I mentioned in my discussion of How to Say Goodbye in Robot, I'm not above loving a book based on its color. And Paranormalcy is just FULL of pink. There's pink on the cover, pink in main character Evie's wardrobe, pink sparkles on a bleeping TASER. I mean, come on. How much more bad-ass can you get? Yeah, not even a little bit more. That's what I thought.

2.The WTF Factor. Seriously. This book will keep you guessing. I mentioned the other day how being a writer has basically ruined my ability to enjoy reading, and part of the reason is because I can often spot the plot twists and turns - I know to look for them, so I can guess when they're coming. But as I was reading Paranormalcy, I kept formulating different theories. "OMG. That person is the bad guy." "No, wait. THAT person is the bad guy." "Uhm, DUH!! That person is SOOOO the bad guy!!" And for a book to keep me guessing the whole way through? Yeah. Bleeping awesome.

3. Witty dialogue. Earlier this year, I read Hex Hall, and my blog (and brain) had an explosion over the awesome voice that Rachel Hawkins gave Sophie. Evie is similarly awesome, and I can see why Kiersten and Rachel have said that Sophie and Evie would be OMGTOTALBFFs - except they would never talk like that, and would probably be making fun of me right now for saying something that lame in the first place. (Ugh, I would be SUCH a loser in the paranormal world.) Seriously, though. For awhile now I've been wanting to go out and get a notebook to write down memorable passages for inspiration...well, I didn't make it to the store until after I was three-quarters of the way through Paranormalcy, but then I had to go back through and find all my favorite moments. Because I knew my notebook wouldn't be complete without them.

4. Swoonage. Kiersten manages to make things like hand holding, kisses on the forehead, and television watching totally swoon-worthy. I had no idea how, but it's done, and it's awesome. I got that fluttery, first-crush feeling all over again, which I first felt when I was majorly crushing on David Smith in middle school. (He totally broke my heart, by the way. But that's a different angsty blog post altogether.) Plus, there's a character who is literally a DIFFERENT HOT GUY every time he's on the page, so no matter what kind of hottie floats your boat, Kiersten's got you covered.

5. It's totally fresh. I'll be the first person to admit that I'm not into your average paranormal adventures. Actually, that statement isn't really true - paranormal adventures I LOVE - paranormal romances on the other hand? I'm getting tired of them. Just about the last thing I want to read is yet another story about a totally average girl who falls in love with a handsome-but-dangerous immortal who is, for some reason, attending high school for the 1,000th time, and the mayhem that ensues as a result of their forbidden love. But Paranormalcy is different. It's not a paranormal romance, but there is romance in it. It's not a satire of the genre, but it's funny as all bleep. It's not a mystery, a thriller, a suspense novel, or a Stephen-King style horror - but it has elements of all of those genres. Basically, it's awesome and unique and will change the way you think about paranormal books.

6. Evie. Have I mentioned my dogs before? Yes? Once or twice? Well one of my dogs is named Evie. When I met Kiersten, of course I mentioned this to her, and she kindly informed me that her Evie's name is pronounced differently than mine (mine is Eve-ee, hers is Ev-ee). But still. Anyway, that's not really the point. (I just wanted to mention my dog again. Because look how cute she is!) The point is that Evie? Kiersten's Evie? She is WOW. She's a girl and not ashamed to be one. She loves shopping and pink (though I think we covered that) and cares about her appearance and worries about normal girl things like making friends. But she's also tough when she needs to be, stands up for herself, kicks some paranormal butt, and is so loyal. And then she's vulnerable and asks for help when she needs to and is so HURT and complicated. And she's so bleeping funny. I think she's a great female main character, strong but not too strong, approachable and someone people can relate to but still totally messed up and twisty on the inside.

7. Kiersten. You guys. Kiersten White is awesome. And not just because she's written a totally amazing book, but she just is awesome. We met at SCBWI - she was staying on the same hall as my roommate and I, along with her roommate Stephanie Perkins (who, I'm sure, will be getting her own book-crush post in the future with her lovely Anna and the French Kiss). We ran into Kiersten everywhere - in the elevator, in workshops, getting coffee, at the cocktail party. I mean, she was pretty much stalking us. But she was a totally adorable and gracious stalker, and every time she had a friendly smile and witty remark for us. She was totally approachable and humble. Also, her blog is great. I really couldn't be happier for her, and if anyone was going to be successful with their debut book this month, I'm so, so glad it's Kiersten. (But I'm also glad that more than one person can be successful this month.)

So, in short...Paranormalcy is awesome. It's pink (or some of it is, anyway.) You should buy it. You should read it. You should talk about how awesome it is to everyone you know.

Best Word Games for Writers

2010-09-13T09:00:00.002-04:00

I love word games. They're a great way to increase your mental clarity, and sometimes I'll stumble across a word I'm not familiar with, look it up, and realize it's exactly the word I've been looking for - and it will end up in my story. So today I thought it would be fun to do a post about my favorite (FREE!) word games, all available to play on the Internet without downloading anything.

As if we needed more distractions.

Oh well. It's sort of related to writing....right?

Text Twist: One of my all-time favorite word games is Text Twist, and now there's Text Twist 2. We used to play it in my copywriting class, but I was playing it before that, too. In high school, my friends and I would gather around the computer in the drama department's green room and all play together. Later, after college, when things were slow at my first job, my co-workers and I would play on the giant computers we had at the photo studio - the ones that we were supposed to use for showing our customers their pictures. So Text Twist and I have a long and fun history together. The concept is simple - it's basically a word jumble, but you can only advance to the next round if you find the seven-letter word. In the timed version, you have two minutes to get as many words as possible. It's fun and addictive and a good way to kill some time while you're working through that plot hole.

What Word: What Word is another favorite of mine. In this game, you get between one and four words that you have to find in a jumble of letters. You find the What Word by rearranging the jumble to form actual words, saving letters in the What Word until you have them all. But there's definitely a strategy - if one of the what words is, say, PHONE, and you put the ONE together without the PH first, then the ONE will register as a word and disappear, and you'll have to start all over again. Likewise, if you're saving the H and then happen to stick a T above it and an E below...well, there goes your H.

Word Descrambler: Writer's Digest has a few fun games on their site, including this one, Word Descrambler. It takes a little while to play because you have to play for 15 rounds, but since you can only mess up twice before it boots you off, I never make it the whole 15 rounds.

Word Bubbles: This last game I found one day when I was poking around on Hyperbole and a Half, which is ~~quite possibly~~ most definitely the most hilarious blog in existence. She called Word Bubbles "the most addicting game ever," and while I don't think it's quite as addicting as some of the other ones I mentioned, I do think it's challenging and fun. The site that hosts it also has a ton of other fun mind games to keep you from dying of boredom if you, like me, happen to have a boring day job. In Word Bubbles, you get three letters - say sta - and you have to come up with as many words as you can that begin with those three letters. BUT you can only give a certain number of words with the same number of letters before it won't let you guess anymore. So once you get, say, four 5-letter words, you can't guess any more. There are only three rounds that last about 30 seconds each, so it's good for a quick pick-me-up when things are a little slugish in your brain.

Now, you tell me - aside from crossword puzzles, because I know where to find plenty of those - what are some of your favorite word games (or just general games)?

Sunday Funday! (40)

2010-09-12T09:12:00.000-04:00

Happy Sunday, everyone! Before we get started today, I want to talk to you about an awesome writers' conference. I know, I know, I do that a lot. What can I say? I honestly worry that people are missing out on incredible opportunities in their own backyard simply because they don't know about them. So if just ONE person is helped from this, then, awesome.

So this conference is called the Auburn Writers Conference, and it's only about a month away! It's in Auburn, Alabama, which according to my friends who live there is an absolutely a-dorable town. And I'll be there!! And so will Rachel Hawkins, Holly Root, Irene Latham, Julianna Baggot, Judy Troy, and more awesome people. You should go! And say hi to me! But also learn a lot. It's only $150 for both days, and if you're a student it's only $25! WOW! That's pretty much the cheapest conference EVER. And the workshop sessions are amazing. Plus did I mention that I'll be there? Because I will. And I like to meet you people, because I think you are awesome.

OK, on with the links!

This insightful article from my future alma mater's literary art's journal, VCFA's Hunger Mountain, talks about why children's books with multicultural characters aren't just for multicultural children.

Mary Kole, literary agent with Andrea Brown, discusses her full manuscript evaluation process on her awesome blog kidlit.com.

Nathan Bransford talks about how to make your dialogue sing (is there a pun there? If there is, it wasn't intended. Maybe.)

What's more important to an agent - a writer or a Twitter feed? Bookends Literary looks at the question - and explains why her answer probably won't change your opinion of agents who tweet anyway.

Judson Merrill, a writer trying to find a home for his stories, responds to some of the more confusing phrases in the form rejections he receives. (Via DGLM)

OK, so I have a job, and a life, and a family...how in the heck do I have time to write?? Kate Messner, who has written nine books in the past three years, answers that age-old question.

Natalie Whipple wants to know...are you being a writer, or are you just throwing icing on a cardboard cake?

Adorable bookish jewelry over on Jennie's blog, Life is Short, Read Fast.

Rachelle Gardener takes you behind the scenes at an acquisitions meeting...and it is hilarious and terrifying.

OK, folks, I think that's all for today. Hope you all have a great week!

How Writing Has Ruined My Ability to Enjoy Anything, Ever.

2010-09-09T16:03:00.004-04:00

So last week, I was watching The Princess Bride with the hubs.

This is one of my most favorite movies ever. I mean, come on:

Fencing!

Cary Elwes!

Torture!*

Cary Elwes!

Revenge!

Cary Elwes!

True love!

Cary Elwes!

Miracles!

Etc.

OK, so I probably watch this movie once a year, at an absolute minimum, but probably more like 5-6 times. It's my happy movie that I play when I've had a bad day. My sister and I used to walk around our block reciting lines from the movie. And yet somehow I'd never noticed it before but...

Princess Buttercup is totally a wuss.

(OK, there are plot spoilers coming up, but if you haven't seen this movie then you FAIL AT LIFE so I'm going to pretty much disown you anyway.)**

OK, so they're in the fireswamp. And Westley gets attacked by an R.O.U.S. And instead of DOING ANYTHING like grabbing a a rock or whacking the thing with a tree branch, home girl literally stands by and watches as the love of her life gets eaten half to death. Lamesauce.

Then later, she tells the Evil Prince Humperdinck that she won't marry him, and he's like, "It's cool, sugarpie. I'll send out some ships to look for your BF." The fact that A: She believes that Westley would actually leave in the first place and B: She believes for even a second that Humperdinck would do as he says makes her a TOTAL idiot.

Look, I get it. Buttercup is supposed to be a classic damsel in distress. After all, it is a fairytale. And I'm used to ass-kickers like Katniss and Katsa and Hermione who don't stand idly by and watch their boyfriends get attacked by giant rodents. But Buttercup was so flat and annoying that I had to wonder...WHAT does hotty-mctotty Westley see in her anyway? I mean, one minute she's like ordering him around the farm, and the next they're OMGTOTALLYMAKINGOUT?? No way. Westley's way too awesome for that crap.

So I ranted and raved throughout the whole movie, driving my husband crazy about my complaints on the weak characterization and how Buttercup was the only character who wasn't remotely funny. Until finally hubs told me to shut up and enjoy the movie.

And then I realized that we'd had this conversation before.

The fact of the matter is, as writers, we're always looking at our characters, analyzing them, trying to figure out how to make them better. I know one of the main things I need to focus on in an upcoming round of revisions is characterization of two of my characters, because they're falling shy of where I'd like them to be.

But since we're always looking for how to make our own work better, and then we CP read and try to seek out the flaws, we start to lose a sense of how to just read and watch for fun. I've noticed that my critical reading skills have improved greatly, but my ability to escape into the world of a book has drastically decreased. I'm always questioning, always asking WHY? Why would a character act that way? Why would the plot go there?

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, I'm a more active, conscious reader. But on the other, I can't just zone out with a book. And I miss that.

What about you? How has being a writer changed the way you read or watch TV/movies?

*Yeah, I skipped a few. But that would be a lot of pictures. For the record, it's: "Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles!" And Cary Elwes.

**OK, that was a joke. Except it really wasn't. No really though, this movie is more than 20 years old and one of the most classic and quotable films of my generation, so I think a few spoilers are allowed.

Decatur Book Festival and a GIVEAWAY!!!

2010-09-07T23:56:00.004-04:00

I know you all are only here because you saw the word GIVEAWAY in the title, and you really don't give a crap about the rest of this post. So if you want to be a lame person and skip all the AWESOME that is inside of this post, then you can scroll down to the bottom, because that's where I talk FREE SIGNED STUFF. But if you stick around for the rest of the post, that would be cool and awesome and you'll certainly be glad you did.

So I spent this Labor Day weekend in the charming town of Decatur, GA, which is sort of part of Atlanta, but sort of not. It was the 2010 Decatur Book Festival and HOLY CRAP YOU GUISE. It was awesome. There was enough fat kid food (fried candy bars, funnel cakes, gyros, sausages, corn dogs, and italian ice) to feed a large army, and more famous authors than you can shake a stick at. (But why would you want to shake a stick at famous authors? They are famous and write awesome books.)

Here are some of the people I met this weekend. (I have more pictures on my camera, but my battery is dead and I can't find my charger and plus my uploader cord thing is way on the other side of the house. So most of these pictures are stolen or from my phone, which isn't the greatest quality. But I digress.)

Here's me (in the green) with friends Crystal, Natalie, Anna, Leah, and Julie, and author-friends Rachel Hawkins and Nancy Werlin! I'm so excited I finally got to meet Rachel, after exchanging witty banter with her on Twitter for months. Have you read Hex Hall? It is awesome. Srsly. READ IT. Nancy Werlin was also wonderful. She and Rachel were in a panel together about Real Issues in an Unreal World. They talked about how teens like books with paranormal elements because they allow them the chance to escape and see themselves in these characters, even when their own lives are totally crazy.

I also got to sit in on a panel with David Levithan and Terra Elan McVoy (I KNOW! Cue hyperventilation). I loved this panel because it was much more a dialogue between the two authors than a moderated Q and A (though they did accept some questions from the audience at the end). Both Terra and David were just ADORBS, and they read from their books. When David read the "smiley face" in his IM scene in Will Grayson, Will Grayson, I wanted to die a little because it was so effing cute.

They talked about writing realistic romance scenes, and how both of them pulled from their real life but then added something extra. For example, David mentioned how the scene in Love is the Higher Law where two characters go on a date a few days after 9/11, but aren't sure if it's OK to be on a date or what the attacks have changed, is based on something that happened to him. Terra said that when she's actually kissing someone it might just be about OMGOMGOMG I'M GETTING KISSED!!! But that's not fun to read, so you have to go back and really think about what the kissing feels like. Both of them said that the truth in romance comes from writing not just the parts where the romance succeeds, but from writing the parts where it fails a little, too. (Which can be funny, but also sad.)

I also got to meet Carrie Ryan and Alyxandra Harvey, but sadly I have no pictures because we were wayyyyy in the back and I'm still shy/awkward about asking for pictures as I fangirl. (Probably because my camera is huge and embarrassing.) But the session was fun, and I learned that Alyx doesn't outline when she writes, and Carrie thinks that this can be an effective way to work, because if you as the writer don't know what's coming up, you might keep your reader guessing, too.

Up next we have the awesome Noni Carter, who is only 19, and started her book, Good Fortune, when she was 2. OK, really she was 13. Seriously. She's currently a freshman at Harvard. She makes me want to cry because I am so unaccomplished. Next to her is Christina Diaz-Gonzalez, author of The Red Umbrella, a YA historical fiction about Operation Pedro Pan which I gobbled up in the 24 hours following the festival. I met Christina at SCBWI and she was sweet as pie, and it seems that she hasn't soured in the last month or so. Both of these debut authors are women to watch for.

That's Anna, Natalie, Crystal, and me (this time in blue! And I'm not super short, I was just apparently the only one who did the Sorority Squat) with Robin Benway, Jackson Pearce, and Michelle Zink)

I have to admit, though, that my absolute favorite panel was the one with Michelle Zink, Robin Benway, and Jackson Pearce. It was called "Sibling Rivalry of the Best and Worst Kind" and these ladies had me rolling. All of their books have been on my radar - and I've already read Audrey, Wait! and loved it - but nothing like meeting the authors in person and seeing how fantastic they are will get you to want to take the rest of your life off from work and just readreadread. Robin Benway did tell me I should quit my day job. (No, really, I swear she did.) Anyway, here is the advice that these ladies had to offer:

From Jackson Pearce: Do whatever you want to do. You can be a writer and people will pay you for it. You might have to eat Ramen for awhile, but you can make it happen.

From Michelle Zink: Finish something. Writers are consummate starters, but actually finishing a project - from first draft through to revision - is better than any quick-start writing exercise there is. Don't let that new idea pull you in. Finish something.

From Robin Benway: Live. The experiences you will have by just being out in the world will make you a better writer.

OK, and now the part that you all actually care about! The giveaway! YAY!!!

Alright, so I'm a bad blogger. I teased last Friday and also at one point on Twitter that I would have a signed copy of Clockwork Angel to give away. And I totally thought that I would. I bought the book in advance, got all excited to have such an awesome prize to give out, only to find out that Cassandra Clare would only be able to sign books if you purchase her most recent title at the festival. The decision, handed down to her on high, is explained logically on her LiveJournal, so I'm not mad or bitter or anything, just sad that I didn't know in advance. Because I didn't plan to spend an extra $20, so sadly I didn't have it in the budget to make that prize happen.

BUT!!!! I have other awesome prizes to give away, so no one should be sad.

What's up for grabs, you ask??

A signed hardcover of SISTERS RED by Jackson Pearce*
or
A signed hardcover of AUDREY, WAIT! by Robin Benway

Dang. Those are some awesome prizes!!! I have more but I'm saving it for my blogversary, which is coming up in October! (Yeah. I'm a prize-hoarder. I'm weird like that.)

There will be two winners. You can choose if you want to enter to win one or both, so if you already have one or the other you can totally still enter. And you don't have to be a blog follower to enter, but you will get extra entries for being one, as outlined on my ridiculous entry form. And I'll like you more. Plus my blog is awesome.

Click here to fill out the entry-thingie! Contest closes on Friday, September 17. If you want to tweet about it, feel free (but not obligated), to use this convenient Twitter-sized tweet:

Win signed hardcovers of Sisters Red and Audrey, Wait! in an awesome contest from @HeatherTrese! http://bit.ly/akke1G

Winner will be announced on either Saturday the 18th or maybe in the 19th's Sunday Funday edition - for extra fun! (OK I think it's past my bedtime here.)

*(OK, I should tell you that there is a small, tiny amount of tearing on the first 10 pages of this book. It's just like a little slit, about an inch, at the bottom. It's not my fault, it was totally like that when I bought it, but of course I didn't notice it until I got to Atlanta, which of course was too late to ship it back. So I got it signed anyway. But honestly, it's still a signed copy of an awesome book. For free. So it's not that bad.)

Sunday Funday! (39)

2010-09-05T09:00:00.001-04:00

I'm still in Decatur, at the book festival, but thanks to the magic of blogger scheduled posts, I can bring you Sunday Funday as regularly scheduled! Here are some awesome links from around the blogging world this week.

Here's a wonderful post about writing for children and YA from Cynthia Leitich Smith.

Yay! Amna and her cousin exchanged texts during Mockingjay, too! (My sister and I did this too, but I have to admit they weren't quite as funny/entertaining as these. Sorry Holly.)

YA Highway has an AMAZING post about what The Princess Bride (an amazing movie, and also a good book) can teach you about querying.

Do you post book reviews online? Literary agent Rachelle Gardener offers her advice/opinion on writers who review books.

So you know how much I love when writers rewrite the lyrics to pop songs and make them relevant to my life? A LOT. Here's Jen Hayley with I GOTTA FEELING: The Writer Remix!

Ever wondered how to write a novel? Never fear! Tahereh breaks it down for you in 100 easy (and hilarious!) steps.

Jessica Love explores the boy question in YA lit from a new angle - what's up with the high ratio of dorky boy narrators?

New blog alert! That Cover Girl will discuss covers of YA books - the good, the bad, and the ugly. I knew there were similar blogs out there for adult/general interest books, so something like this is awesome and right up my alley!

OK, I think that's all! Have a great week and tune in tomorrow for my DBF recap - with prizes!

I (heart) Book Festivals

2010-09-03T17:00:00.002-04:00

This weekend, I'll be heading to Atlanta to meet up with my dear friends Julie, Crystal, Anna, and Leah for the Decatur Book Festival! I could not be more thrilled about this! I've been looking forward to it ever since MARCH, when I emailed them all (they live mostly closer to Atlanta than I do) and asked if they wanted to go with me. And they did! But even if they'd said no I still would have gone...because here are just some of the AMAZING authors I'm going to meet over the next two days:

David Levithan
Cassandra Clare
Rachel Hawkins
Carrie Ryan
Jackson Pearce
Nancy Werlin
Robin Benway
Christina Gonzalez (who I've already met, but she's SUPER nice and I'm looking forward to seeing her again!)
Kirsten Miller
Michelle Zink
Terra Elan McVoy

and more!! Woot!

So I will be reporting back on Monday. With information. And pictures. And PRIZES. Of the SIGNED BOOK VARIETY. Like maybe THIS BOOK RIGHT HERE:

Get excited!

(And if you want to hear all about it now, I'm sure I'll be tweeting about it as often as possible!)

Should Writers Talk About Their Rejections?

2010-09-02T15:12:00.000-04:00

Most writers I know have blogs, Twitters, or some other kind of public forum onto which they can vent all of their feelings and thoughts about the publishing world. (This is probably because most of the writers I know, I've met online. But I digress.) They'll talk about frustrations with their own WIPs, characters from pop culture that annoy them, weird people they meet in real life, email woes, and more. It's nice to have a support system there to tell us that we're not crazy, and to remind us that we're not going through this alone.

But when it comes time to query your novel, how public should you be about the process - particularly your rejection ratio?

I have seen many writers discussing their rejection stats very publicly. To me, that always seemed counterproductive. I've heard repeatedly that pretty much the first thing an agent will do when they think they might be interested in representing you is Google your name. What if they do, and they find a blog or Twitter feed full of rejection stats? Even if the mention seems harmless - maybe something as simple as a running total in your sidebar - it could be potentially damaging, and color the opinion of the agent who was about to fall in love with your work.

I think sometimes we forget that the querying process is about professional communication. During the discussion about the queries hashtag and its various benefits and drawbacks, I read on another blog a commenter who said, in no other industry would it be acceptable to pull actual quotes from business cover letters (which are personal communications) and post them in a public forum, regardless of intent. I thought that was an excellent point, and I think it can be applied in this case, as well. If you were applying for a job in a traditional - but highly competitive - field, would you want to attach your name to the number of people who had turned you down? Absolutely not! You would want the HR managers at AwesomeCompany to think that every company you were interviewing with was champing at the bit to offer you the position. And I think the same rule should apply here - keep quiet about your rejections, and let the writing speak for itself.

I'm not alone in my opinion on the matter. I've heard agents say that's not a smart idea (both in real life and on Twitter), but when I turned to the Internet to try to find some evidence/quotes for a reader, I came up short. Being a journalist by trade, I didn't think that was right. So I contacted Weronika Janczuk, literary agent with D4EO Literary, and asked if she would mind sharing her opinion on the subject. Because she is seriously awesome (I mean, really, really awesome), she graciously agreed. I think she worded it perfectly, so here's verbatim what she had to say:

I think this is one of those odd reverse-psychology things.

If I saw, for example, that someone had a 75% request rate based on the query and the sample pages, I would totally want to read that submission and, if I loved it, try to get in the race for the writer.

If I saw that the request rate was 5%, I would immediately go into reading the submission with a 'this will probably be terrible' mentality, and it will be harder for the writer to amuse me.

Of course, there are always those stories about writers getting 100 rejections before they find the agent and go on to be bestsellers, so a simple statistic wouldn't keep me from falling in love with a story if I did, in fact, love it.

My suggestion is for writers to not share the details. I'm not an agent who's going to go through a potential client's blog entirely, but I will skim a few posts and the one thing that could really turn me off is a really snarky/negative attitude. Anything else is okay (for me), but that means nothing when other agents may feel turned off by the sharing of such details.

I totally think it's okay for writers to share after they sign with an agent, and I think it's totally okay for writers to be like 'Been querying for three weeks, one partial request, hoping,' but a really detailed breakdown can be kind of unnerving and off-putting.

I think Weronika's last paragraph brings up a great point - I love those post-signing stories, where we hear all about how many queries it took. Things like that keep me going, and I know they keep my writer-friends going as well. And once you've signed, there's absolutely nothing damaging about admitting that it took you 50 rejections to get there - in fact, it might just help encourage a fellow writer who is close to calling it quits.

But until you actually sign on with an agent, it's probably best to keep your rejection talk to a minimum. If you need to let off some steam, email your crit partners, or get a group of writing friends together for coffee and trash the agents who rejected you in the privacy of your own home. If you don't have anyone to vent to, there are a ton of great communities out there that you can dive into to find some people (just remember that everything you say on forums can probably be attached to your name, too, so keep it professional. Mostly I'm suggesting that you find friends/support groups here and then take it to a private chat or email if you want to complain about anything. Also I've only used about half of these so I can't speak to the level of awesome/not awesome):

Absolute Write
NaNoWriMo Forums
YAlitchat
SCBWI (especially your local chapters/crit groups!)
Writer's Digest forums

If all of those fail (though I honestly can't imagine that they would), just join in the conversation on blogger or Twitter! I've made great writing friends that way, and come my time to query, I know they'll be there to listen to me if I need them. But of course, I'll keep it all out of public view. (When I manage to snag an agent, though, I promise to let all you lovely readers know.)

Special thanks to Weronika Janczuk for answering my email so quickly!

Book-Crush Wednesday (6)

2010-09-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

Every Wednesday (well, except last Wednesday, because last Wednesday I was busy reading Mockingjay), I highlight a book I recently read and LOVED and want to gush about to all of you.

Today's book crush is on Matched by Ally Condie, which I had the pleasure of reading thanks to a little ARC tour thrown together by my friend Shana Silver.

OK, let's start off by talking about the cover.

Yeah, I made it extra big, because it is pretty much one of the most striking covers I've seen recently. And it fits the story perfectly. That green dress is significant, and the way the girl - presumably main character Cassia - is trapped inside that bubble, but obviously pushing to break free? Yeah. Awesome.

The absolute best thing about this book is the world-building. I love the dystopian genre - it's one of my favorite ideas to explore in literature - but it's also one of the most challenging to pull off effectively. And although the initial idea of the story - that people in a society have a huge ceremony where their life partner is selected for them by the government - might seem improbable, I never for a second doubted that it was real for Cassia. Everything in the society is totally regimented, and there are so many details - from what the people can eat to what they're allowed to read and listen to. I'm sure it most have been a ton of work for Condie to decide on all of these elements, but it was totally worth it.

And the character development! Cassia transforms in this really incredible way throughout the book. She starts out as this totally trusting person, blindly following her government and believing that what they're doing is right, and by the end we've seen her trust break down so slowly that Cassia herself hardly even realizes it. But it's happened. And it's amazing.

But, in the end, Matched is a love story. And a damn good one. To me (and to a few other people I've talked to who've read the book), there is no contest who the correct choice for Cassia is, but I can see how some people might be swayed the other way. There are a few things that happen in particular between Cassia and her love that made me just SWOON. Like literally SWOON. But I can't talk about them because they are SPOILERY, so you will just have to read the book for yourself when it comes out in November and SWOON for yourself.

Matched is a pretty quiet story overall, but it ends on a cliffhanger which promises a pretty action-packed sequel. And even if the sequel matches the tone of the first, I'll be there to SWOON and read along.

Famous People Get Rejected, Too!

2010-08-31T11:32:00.006-04:00

I'm inching closer to querying (but it's still off in the distance, not even close enough for me to grab...yet.), which of course makes me think about rejection.

Rejection.

What an ugly word.

We writers like to soothe ourselves by saying the usual things:

"My manuscript isn't for everyone."
"Just because this agent rejected it doesn't mean that one will!"
"I didn't really want to work with that agent anyway!" *sticks tongue out*
"Everyone gets rejected! Even the really, really, really famous authors!"

Fortunately for our sanity, that last statement is actually true! For awhile now, I've been collecting information about the rejection stats of some famous writers. Read them and feel slightly better about yourself. For today, anyway.

The original title of Catch-22 was Catch-18, but Simon and Schuster planned to publish it during the same season that Doubleday was bringing out Mila 18 by Leon Uris. Doubleday complained, and Joseph Heller changed the title. Why did he choose 22? Because Simon and Schuster was the 22nd publisher to read the manuscript. Catch-22 has sold more than 10 million copies, and the title phrase is now a part of the English language.
Stephen King received many, many rejections in his lifetime, including dozens for his first novel, Carrie (as you know if you've read On Writing, which you should). He used to keep them piled on a nail in his bedroom. King was told, about Carrie, "We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell." (HA! Can you imagine someone saying this today. Yeah. Right.)
John Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, was rejected by 30 agents and 15 publishers.
Judy Blume says she received nothing but rejections for two years straight before finally becoming a published author.
Dr. Seuss's first book was rejected 24 times.
Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received more than 30 rejections.
The first Chicken Soup for the Soul title received 33 "nos" before it finally got a yes.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by 14 publishers. Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, only took it on at the request of the CEO’s eight-year old daughter, who begged her father to print the book.
So many publishers rejected The Tale of Peter Rabbit that Beatrix Potter published it herself.
Thirty-eight publishers rejected Gone With the Wind before it finally sold, went on to win the Pulitzer, and was adapted into an Academy Award winning movie.
The classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig was rejected 121 times. It went on to sell 4 million copies.

So the next time you get a rejection (or are prematurely and irrationally worried about one, like me) just remember - you're not the only one.

Published or soon-to-be published authors that happen to stumble over here, feel free to add your stats, if you want to discuss them, in the comments, and I can add them to the post! Or if you happen to know the stat of a famous author I left out.

Sunday Funday (38)

2010-08-29T09:00:00.003-04:00

Happy Sunday! Every Sunday, I feature some helpful links from around the blogging world/Internet. We have a lot of links this week, so I could ramble a bit like I usually do, but I think it would be better to just get down to it! Here are some of the best links I found this week. (Feel free to add your own in the comments!)

So you all might know my friend Jessica Love. She describes herself as tall, blond, and pretty sarcastic. All of which are totally accurate. She is also awesome. Here is a picture of Jessica and I at SCBWI-LA.

If you met me there, chances are good that you met her, too, because we were doing the "stick together like clueless noobs" routine. Well Jessica started a writing blog, which is awesome because now in addition to stalking her on Twitter, sending her 12 emails a day, and reading her fabulous YA review blog, I can now also read her writing blog. And you should too.

Amna from Girl in Between is working on a collaborative project about WHY WE WRITE. She is awesome and has entertained me on multiple occasions. So you should help her out.

Wondering how to start a novel? Maggie Stiefvater shares her 7 Super Sekrit Steps. (OK, they're not really secret, but I thought that sounded fun.)

Kate Hart, in a follow-up to her awesome agent story, talks about some of the things you should ask an agent.

Writer Ian Hocking discloses why, after years of working with his agent and sending multiple novels out on sub, he's decided to retire from writing. (Not really an inspiring post, but certainly enlightening.)

Literary agent Mary Kole, who runs the awesome blog KidLit, talks about mature/sarcastic/snarky voice in YA - and when not to use it.

Speaking of KidLit...ever wonder about Slush Pile fatigue? Do agents just pull out some queries because the other queries around them suck so much that the queries they pulled are better by comparison? Find out here.

Your minor characters are just as important as your major characters, but sometimes - especially in the first draft - they fall flat. Wondering how to make your minor characters shine? Check out these 5 steps to creating dazzling minor characters, from WordPlay.

Working on your final polish and seeing a lot of the same words? How about taking a look at this list of synonyms for commonly used words and seeing if you can replace a few of those repeats.

There are two great posts on writer envy this week. One, from author Steph Bowe, (in a truly beautiful post) talks about how she doesn't really understand the envy. Another, a guest post over at Pimp My Novel, discusses how writer-envy is normal, and how even though we help each other we can all only go through the gate one at a time. Hm...

Having some plot troubles? Janice Hardy helps you figure them out by asking a few simple questions.

It might seem like, in the grand scheme of your huge novel, one sentence doesn't make a difference. But YA Highway sees it otherwise. (And it seems like these sentence strengthening posts are going to be a series, so, yay!)

And finally...an epic contest from Emilia Plater! She's giving away critiques from agents, signed books, candy, and more! Check it out here. Or don't. Because I really want to win this one. So I think no one else should enter and that will just make me the winner. Done and done.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Can you believe how early in the day I posted this week? Get this - I actually scheduled this post in advance! It's a Sunday Funday miracle!

Is the #Queries Tag Really Good?

2010-08-27T00:00:00.001-04:00

OK, so I've had this post in my "drafts" for a month and a half now, but when I saw Nathan Bransford post a similar question on his blog the other day, I decided it was time to let my thoughts on the topic out. Of course, since he beat me to it it looks like I'm copying him. Or maybe it's more timely now? Whatever.

Imagine this: You've started querying agents, and, like the diligent social networking guru you are, you start paying attention to the agents you're querying on Twitter like a hawk (which you were probably doing before you queried, but now that you've queried you really upped your game), and then you notice something that makes you stop in your tracks.

DreamAgent007: Next up: Great query! It's a mermaid-unicorn retelling of Hamlet! Just what I'm looking for. #queries

You get excited. You know that's YOUR query. How many other mermaid-unicorn Hamlet retellings can there be out there, and the timing is just about right. Your palms get sweaty. This could be it. Your BIG BREAK. Until you read the agent's next tweet:

DreamAgent007: Ugh. Remember that Hamlet mermaid-unicorn query I was excited about? The pages sucked. Pass. #queries

Can you imagine finding out your dream agent rejected you...over Twitter?

OK, I'll admit that example was WAY more specific than #queries (usually) gets. But I think the question is worth asking (and this is a different question than Nathan Bransford asked, which was really about 100% snarky websites, so I'm cool with it): is it fair to post any specific information about a query when the author doesn't know it could happen?

Writers are sensitive people. We are delicate flowers who often go a little bit crazy. We maybe think that word counts over 250,000 are justifiable, or that our not-so-original idea is actually WAY original.

OK, yes. The publishing industry is tough. And we need to get thicker skins. It's true. I'm not denying it. But is the best way to make that happen for us to be blind-sided on Twitter? (Particularly when some of the people doing #queries are interns who don't say where they intern, so there's not even a way to avoid showing up on that feed at all costs?) Yeah, it's true that no one else will know that the tweet was about you. But YOU will know.

Furthermore, writers are encouraged not to post anything about their rejection stats on their blogs or Twitter accounts. It's tacky, we're told (and I 100% agree. I'm sure I'll be ranting about this later.) And yet it's totally OK for someone in the industry to say, "I'm rejecting this query!" and give a little tidbit of what the book is about? It's totally possible - even likely - that no one else is paying attention, and that the tweet won't affect anything. But it's also possible - though much less likely - that someone else will see that and think, "OK, have to remember that DreamAgent007 hated that Hamlet mermaid thing. Don't even bother with the pages even if I like the query." Is that terribly likely? No. Is it possible? Yes. And that's what troubles me.

And here's the worst thing of all: the people who actually need to see the things that are being posted in the #queries tag probably aren't following the tag. Because if they were, they wouldn't have made those mistakes in the first place. If they were following the hashtag, they would how to properly format a query, or that addressing a letter to "Dear Agent" isn't OK, or that they probably should have had a few beta readers look over their work to make sure it was halfway decent before they started querying. So even though the idea behind #queries is good, and the people doing it really honestly do want to help (and I know they do, trust me - every person I've ever seen tweet a #queries tweet has the best intentions, I cannot stress that enough), I don't think they're reaching the people who would benefit most from the specific information they're giving out.

So, how can we improve the #queries tag? Let's not talk about personal queries anymore. I don't care if it's as simple as a word count or as complicated as a story premise. (Though it's really the story premise ones that kill me - many writers I know guard their premises with their lives.) Instead, let's open a dialogue. Invite writers to ask questions, like in #askagent, but only about queries. (QueryChat is great for this, but it's only been every other Wednesday night or so so far, so if you can't make that time period you're sort of out of luck.) Or instead amass a list of tips that will help writers, but don't attribute them to a specific query.

Yes, it's true that a bad example helps the point stick. But good advice sticks, too. Here are some tweets from the #queries hashtag that I think serve the purpose well, give a great piece of advice, but don't point out a specific query or writer.

@LauraKreitzer FYI: Don't resubmit a query letter or manuscript within a WEEK. That's insane. Give it at least 6 months with major editing. #queries
(Was this probably in response to something that really happened? Yes. But I feel OK about it because it isn't presented that way.)

@WeronikaJanczuk I've been reading #queries for a while and two partial requests so far! That's a lot for one day.

@CA_Marshall @jenduffey @authorjdbrown Format it as plain text, most query reading programs strip formatting. #queries (This was in response to a question about how to format the materials when asked to C&P everything into the body of the email. Great, helpful advice and a perfect example of what I think #queries should be about.)

OK, but here's what I want. I really do want to know what you think. I will admit I follow the #queries hashtag (and recently #queryslam), and do like reading what people have to say, and even seeing what gets rejected and what makes it through. So I'm totally a hypocrite. And I respect the agents and interns who work on the queries because man...that's a lot of work. BUT the thought that I could be querying and see something that makes it obvious that the query they're talking about is mine, then see PASS, and know that all of Twitter is thinking, "Yeah. That stupid writer should have known better and her book sounds LAME." kills me inside, and makes me wonder if it's really the right thing to do, since I didn't sign up to have hundreds, possibly thousands of writers on Twitter reading about my business. And that's what I think about.

Thoughts, readers?

Teenagers are More Successful Than Me

2010-08-26T16:40:00.002-04:00

Let's talk about motivated teenagers.

When I was in high school, I thought I was a motivated teen.

I was president of the National Honor Society, vice president of the drama club, captain of the academic team, secretary of Youth in Government, and had a GPA higher than 4.0.

Apparently, being motivated = being a total dork.

I also watched a lot of TV, goofed off on the Internet (which was BRAND-NEW and SHINY and also slow because it was dial-up...ah, the bad old days...), played hours upon hours of Harvest Moon and Zelda on my N64, and cruised around Clearwater in Dave Mink's '88 Ford Whatever. (My memory isn't that good. This was like 10 years ago.)

Sometimes, when I look back at all those hours wasted goofing off, napping, doing nothing, I think, "You know, I could have gotten a head start on this whole novel-writing thing and been awesome and successful by now!" Then I remember the crap my 19-year-old self wrote and I want to smack myself upside the head with a blunt instrument, because no one, not even my blog readers, should be subjected to that (unless it's for entertainment, and snarky comments are included.)

I think it's better that I waited until I was an (im)mature adult before I started taking my writing seriously. Fortunately for the universe, book publishing, and current teenagers, not all teenagers suck as bad as I did. In fact, some of them are actually talented.

Last week, I read The DUFF by Kody Keplinger. The book has a frank discussion of sex, one that I think teens will relate really well to and appreciate (and will probably make adults across the country call for the book to be thrown out of homes and libraries alike). And the voice is dead-on and honest. I think this is one thing that teen authors have that adults authors don't. When I attended SCBWI-LA, many of the workshop sessions suggested interviewing teenagers to get a good hold on voice or emotions. Teen authors can totally bypass that step because, well, they are teens. They have that voice and emotion, and their friends talk to them constantly about their own feelings (or don't, and hey, that's a relevant character trait, too.) They don't have to visit high school because they're in high school. In fact, many of the authors below admit that events in their high schools inspired the works that eventually got them published.

Here are some examples of some of those talented writers who just happened to have been in high school when they published their first books:

The aforementioned Kody Keplinger, who wrote The DUFF when she was a senior in high school.

Steph Bowe, who landed super agent Ginger Clark at the age of 15.

Though he's older than me, Christopher Paolini penned the first book in the Inheritance Cycle - Eragon - when he was just 15. (I will note that he might be a bad example, because the book was first published by his parent's company. However, when Carl Hiaasen's stepson found the book and loved it, Hiaasen brought the book to Knopf and Eragon saw its second print run before Paolini's 19th birthday. So, still a success story, just not by the traditional formula.)

Hannah Moskowitz, who has a fantastic blog and published Break when she was 18 or so. What's more, she's got three more books coming out: Invincible Summer (April 2011), The Animals Were Gone (Spring 2012), and the MG Zombie Tag (Fall 2011).

And I have to include S.E. Hinton. Even though she's not a teen anymore, her classic The Outsiders is taught in schools, and well-known by even people who don't read a lot. And she was 17 when she started writing it.

OK, but here's the thing - even though these writers are younger in age (except for Hinton, obvs), I don't think any of them are short on talent. I'm sure some of them don't appreciate having their age pointed out at every turn (in fact, I know one in particular is looking forward to leaving her teens behind so she can just be an author-author instead of a teen-author), but I don't think the fact that these individuals were published when they were teen-aged means that they wouldn't have been published had they been middle-aged. Many of them probably didn't even mention their age in their query letters, which was probably smart - let the writing speak for itself.

I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for these young go-getters. Justine Larbelastier posited that anything younger than 30 was still very young to be a published author. So I guess I still have four years and four months to prove that I'm not a total slacker.

As for authors who are teen-aged? Well, I guess they're just getting a head start.

Happy Mockingjay Day!

2010-08-24T10:38:00.000-04:00

Woohoo! It's here! It's here!

It's a day that's been on my calendar for so long that I marked it in pencil, knowing that the publishing world is often fickle (read: hoping they would move the date up), and all it says is "3rd HG release!" because the title wasn't even announced yet! And now it's here and I'm super pumped!!!

I have a pre-ordered copy coming my way, courtesy of one Ms. Frankie Diane Mallis, but I have no idea if it will get here today or tomorrow or next week sometime. I'm giving it until I get home from work, since I can't really read until then anyway, then I'm caving and buying a copy. I figure I can donate the extra copy to orphaned children or my teacher-friend's classroom or the library or host a giveaway or something. I'll find a place for it. Because I think the world could use a little more Mockingjay.

HEY! Speaking of MORE MOCKINGJAY! Have you seen this video of Suzanne Collins reading from the first chapter?

OMG THAT LAST SENTENCE GIVES ME CHILLS. CHILLS, PEOPLE.

Happy reading everyone! (And if you're not reading Mockingjay I assume it's because your eyes have been ripped out of your head by mutations. You should really get that fixed so you can read the series. Like, yesterday. You can thank me when you're done.)

Suggested Activities for the Waiting Period

2010-08-23T23:12:00.000-04:00

Many of us have been there. You've finished your latest round of revisions (for me, it's round five...maybe six? Possibly seven? Who can keep track anymore.) and have fired off emails to some readers to get that all-important feedback. Is your WIP awesome? Does it suck? Does it make any sense AT ALL? Will you have to rewrite that make-out scene YET AGAIN? (Are you intentionally failing miserably at writing it in the first place because you love writing make-out scenes so much? Hm...)

Of course, your readers have lives (stupid them) and they won't be able to get back to you overnight. I mean, sure, it should be quick and painless to provide feedback on a 60,000 word document, but not everyone has perfected the art of speed reading. So while you sit on tenderhooks waiting for the feedback so you can dive back into revisions, here are some activities you can participate in that might be more enjoyable then waiting for those crit comments (I also believe these activities will work well when you're waiting to hear back about MS requests from agents.)

Deep-sea fishing. OK, so you don't know anything about fishing. And you get a little bit seasick. But there's no email in the ocean, so it will prevent you from obsessively checking your email while you wait for those all-important comments. Also, you might just catch dinner! And then you can cook it! Deboning fish is hard and messy, cooking it can be time consuming if you want it to be, and eating it is yummy. Sounds like a great, time-wasting way to spend an evening!
Ostrich riding. Apparently, this is a real activity. One which you must train for vigorously, then fly to Africa to compete in. Sounds like the perfect time-killer to me!
Wallow in self-doubt and loathing. This seems to be the perfect activity of choice for writers (and, indeed, any artist) waiting to get feedback or news of any kind. Sister activities include binge drinking, not bathing, not eating (see also: binge eating), and collapsing in on oneself like a dying star.
Start a Twitter account dedicated to Bieber. Because there aren't enough of them already, and because paying him his due homage will obviously take up all of your time.
Bungee jumping and/or sky-diving. While neither of these activities will last longer than an afternoon, they're both moderately dangerous and may even result in injury that could lay you up for a few weeks - just enough time to get the feedback you've been waiting for. Will you take the risk?

OK, chances are good that you might not be interested in those activities. So you might opt to just do some CP reading of your own, read a book (For example, it's really convenient if you time the sending of your WIP with the most highly anticipated book release since Deathly Hallows....yeah, I didn't get into Twilight until after Breaking Dawn came out, and I'm kind of glad because I would have been disappointed by that conclusion.), or watch Veronica Mars. But really, are any of those as exciting/awesome as riding an ostrich?

I think not.

Alright, I admit this post was kind of silly/pointless. But no one's really reading it anyway, and my mind is so NOT on the blog today. We're all too consumed with MOCKINGJAY FEVER that we can hardly stand it. THE ANTICIPATION, PEOPLE. IT KILLS.

Sunday Funday (37)

2010-08-22T13:42:00.003-04:00

Happy Sunday!! It's been a busy week at the Trese household. I've been revising a TON (hence the lack of updates - oops!) and doing some CP reading. I also got to go back to WWoHP this week with my friend Crystal, and it was just as amazing as the first time! (Sidenote: I am an annual pass holder, so all of you blogging friends who are making the trip down to Orlando sometime in the next year should totally give me a buzz.)

But enough about me. Let's talk about the other great things that have been going on in the blogging world!

Amna from Girl in Between had a whole post dedicated to awesome, awful, and awfully awesome rejections.

HEY! MOCKINGJAY is only TWO DAYS AWAY!!!! Forever Young Adult celebrated by suggesting some great HG merch (and an HG drinking game). Amna, on the other hand, traded hilarious texts with her cousin, a first-time HG reader, and then posted them on her blog for all the world to enjoy.

Wondering how to write a novel? Nathan Bransford explains.

OK, so you've written the novel...now you need to edit it. (Knew you were forgetting something, huh?) Kiersten White's got you covered!

So, your novel is written, it's edited...time to move on to beta readers! Got YA? discusses how to be a better beta, while a group of bloggers led by Sarah Enni participated in a Battle of the Betas where they betaed online so you can see their process.

Pretty soon, you'll be ready to query! Kate Hart posted her agent story and it's amazing and inspirational - keep working and yours could be just as awesome.

And if all of this sounds way too intimidating, you might want to start here, with some tips for getting the ball rolling.

Have you decided to give up? Still facing rejection? As it turns out, there are some perks to being unpublished, according to Query Tracker blog.

And finally...have you seen this video? Grammar School with Snooki. OMG IT'S AWESOME AND MAKES ME LOVE JOHN GREEN EVEN MORE. Watch it. Love it. (Actually, watch pretty much all of the VlogBrothers videos, because they are all awesome.

Have a great week everyone!

Book-Crush Wednesday (5)

2010-08-18T16:10:00.000-04:00

So two and a half weeks ago I was sitting in a ballroom filled with other writers, having just consumed some semi-gross gnocchi (and gnocchi should never be semi-gross, it should always be delicious) and weird chicken substance, awaiting the start of the SCBWI Golden Kite luncheon presentation. To be totally honest, I was assuming the presentation portion was going to be kind of lame. I'd been to these luncheon things before. Often. I have to go to them all the time for my day job, and it's always some dude yapping about something I don't care about and blahblahblah. I figured this would be much the same. I was in it for the food.

Which just goes to show that I'm really, really stupid.

The Golden Kite luncheon was awesome. Some of the best inspirational speeches I heard during SCBWI-LA took place during that lunch, including one by Allen Zadoff, author of Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have (which won the Sid Fleischman award for humor). He talked about some of the issues he faced in high school, and how he wanted to capture that experience in his novel. He talked about how he didn't write Food, Girls to be funny, he wrote it to be truthful, but sometimes the truth is funny - and sometimes it's sad. He talked a little about his road to publication. He encouraged us to keep at it.

Basically, he was awesome, and I wanted his book.

It was a good thing I snatched it up right away, because after his speech, every single copy sold out. (But don't worry, you can get it at IndieBound and major bookstores.) I had him sign it and he was very nice, so I was looking forward to reading the book.

Naturally, it didn't disappoint. Sometimes when I read "fat kid" stories, they kind of bug me. They tend to follow a pattern - fat kid hates him/herself, decides to make a change, then either ends up changing and feels great or accepts him/herself for who he/she is. And although there is definitely some of the "acceptance" theme here, it's done in a very cool way. Andy, the main character, doesn't really hate himself. Maybe he hates himself a little, but no more than the average teenager. He doesn't like the way he looks, but his food is his comfort and he has so much going on that he needs that in his life to cradle him. The point is, while Andy might dislike himself, he needs food more. And we see him take comfort in food in this way that I can SO identify with, because I am definitely a comfort eater (says the girl who ate Swedish Fish for dinner last night.)

Andy has a sense of humor about himself and the rest of the school that is just killer. The narrative voice in this book is awesome - it really was like being inside a teenage boy's head, which was pretty disturbing but also awesome (fortunately Andy is smart and sometimes sweet so it wasn't a bad head to be stuck in). But the funny lines were also mixed in with some heartbreak - stuff happens to him and you're just like, "REALLY? Did you really just do that to Andy? Jerk!"

And the other characters, as seen through Andy's eyes, are fully developed and have stories of their own. The football coach is kind of a riot. April, the girl Andy has a crush on and spends the novel trying to impress...well, I won't say anything about April because I don't want to spoil it, but I will say that some of the things you find out about April make for an intriguing commentary about the people we choose to be. I also adored the character development in Andy's family - they all interact with each other (and food) in such a crazy way that it's kind of fascinating.

If you're looking for a fun yet poignant novel with lively characters and a wonderful male voice, definitely check out Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have by Allen Zadoff!

In Which I Shamlessly Promote an Awesome Conference

2010-08-17T10:40:00.002-04:00

I sometimes get emails from readers, and this totally makes my day. Often, one of the questions in those emails is, "I'd like to attend a writer's conference, but I don't know how to find out about one. Where can I learn about awesome writers' conferences?"

Well today, you can learn about one right here on my blog.

If you've been following me for awhile, you might remember back in January when I attended the Eckerd College Writer's Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. I had a bunch of posts about what I learned, including:

And all of those lectures (plus the others I attended, including some on agents and publishing) were awesome. But absolutely the most valuable thing I got out of the conference was the afternoon workshop session.

See, this is how ECWC works. It's a week-long conference focused on craft. In the morning, there are lectures. In the afternoon, you head into breakout sessions divided by genre. (Then in the evening there are readings and signings with wine and cheese. Srsly. AWESOME.) There are about 10 people in each group, and it's basically a critique group where you get and give feedback on your WIP. I learned so much that my head wanted to EXPLODE. I credit ECWC with being the first time that I got feedback that sent my story in a whole new direction. The revisions I did based on my ECWC crits were the first time I looked at my WIP and said, "Uhm, wow. This is almost good."

The experience was invaluable, the people were awesome. They have workshops in poetry, novel, short story, memoir, the middle of your novel (meaning you bring the middle part of your book, not the beginning), and!!!! For the first time EVER they're starting a YA/MG workshop!!! (Last year I just twiddled my thumbs with the Big Kids, but they were still nice to me.)

This will be epic, people. EPIC.

And I have to miss it, because it coincides with the last three days of my very first MFA residency. LAME. (OK, not that lame, because I am WAY pumped about VCFA. But I am a total dork and wish I could do both. My ideal life would be like some sort of writing conference nomad.)

BUT! Here's the good news, dear readers. YOU don't have to miss it! YOU should go. Oh yes, you should. Applications are available NOW! You can come to sunny St. Pete, FL in JANUARY, and it will be warm and you can visit the beach on the day off! (Because the conference is a week long, they give you a day off. They're nice like that. And the college is about, oh, 5 minutes from the beach? One of the optional activities is even a boat ride. A BOAT RIDE. WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS.) The price seems high at first, BUT they offer generous scholarships, and last year they said many of the people there were on scholarship, so don't let the cost stop you. Plus it's a week long so the cost is justified. So just apply. Go. Trust me. If you're looking for a great conference focused on craft (not schmoozing with industry professionals), this is a great one for you.

Plus, if you are awesome and nice, I will probably come and visit you in St. Pete, because it's only like 20 minutes from my house.

OK, that's all. I'll stop now. And I promise that I am in no way affiliated with ECWC and am not getting paid for this post. I'm just a happy alum who wishes she could go back and SO wants someone to blog all about the YA workshop so she can live vicariously through you.

EDITED: To add that the dates of the conference are Jan. 15 - 23, 2011. I was so excited I forgot to include dates. Oops.

Tapping Into My Crazy

2010-08-16T15:23:00.000-04:00

I'm a little bit crazy.

It's OK. I'm a writer. I'm allowed to be.

Every writer has those ~~slightly~~ seriously crazy habits that they will never admit to having - unless, of course, they have a blog, in which case they'll tell everyone on the Internet about their secret weirdness.

Which leads me to today's post.

You see, readers, I have a tendency to talk to myself. I guess that's not so weird. But you know what IS weird? Having fake interviews with yourself where you talk to a non-existent "reporter" about the inspiration behind your book, and what you're planning for your characters in the next installment.

Not only is this totally INSANE because I'm literally TALKING to NO ONE (like this conversation isn't taking place in my head. I'm actually saying the words. Aloud. To NO ONE. CRAZYTOWN.), but it also might be crazy because:

I haven't sold a book yet. (I mean I don't even have a representative to sell it on my behalf.)
Probably because I haven't even finished revising my book. (But oh BOY am I close, readers. Like it's palatable.)
So not only are journalists absolutely NOT lining up around the block to scoop my story, but they certainly don't care about what's going to happen in the next installment.
Because there isn't a next installment.
And if there WAS a next installment, I wouldn't be telling all my secrets to a journalist.
Because I don't like spoilers.
Also because I AM a journalist, and I know better than that.
Watch out for journalists. We are smarter than we look.

And yet. I still bring the crazy, by living out my future dreams and interviewing myself. Usually these interviews take place in the car when there's a song on that I don't like. But today it took place in the kitchen, where I have decided all the MAGIC happens because my fake interview totally helped me put the final pieces into place for the greater plot-arc of my potential series!!

So you see!! There's a reason writers are crazy! It helps us think. And plan. And figure things out. So that when (not if - when! - you must believe, dear readers) my book sells, and when my Awesome Agent scores me a totally Sweet Deal with an Excellent Editor, and all my dreams come true, and my book becomes a series, I won't be staring at my Mac going, "CRAP! But that's a clue I needed to leave in the FIRST book! STOP THE PRESSES! REDACT! RECALL! ETC.!" Instead, I will say, "It's cool. I've got this covered. I went all crazytown in my kitchen for a reason."

So, basically, readers, what I'm saying is this: It's OK to be crazy sometimes. Writing is hard. It's exhausting. Sometimes you're living on little more than coffee/tea and chocolate, which is pretty much a diet of caffeine and sugar, and possibly no sleep, so if you didn't embrace the crazy you'd be in trouble. So go a little crazy, have your great ideas, then come online and write blog posts that make little to no sense whatsoever.

Tell me readers! Have you ever embraced your crazy and ultimately had it work out for the best?

Sunday Funday! (36)

2010-08-15T23:16:00.001-04:00

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful week! Here are some great links from around the blogging universe:

Jade, a YA writer from Australia, knows that sometimes it sucks to be an unpublished writer, thinking you'll never, ever, ever, EVER make it. Here, she talks about how to make that feeling suck less.

Over on The Urban Muse, learn 5 mistakes that weaken your writing. Although the blog is geared toward freelance writers, there's always good info on there for fiction writers (and it's a great source of information if you're considering getting into freelance writing!)

The lessons from SCBWI-LA keep rolling in! This one, posted over at Children's Publishing blog, is basically all about the aggregate lessons they learned from the conference, and how it all boiled down to one thing - how to sell your novel.

It's Dystopian August over at Presenting Lenore! Head over for reviews, giveaways, autho interviews, discussions with dystopian readers, and more about my favorite genre, all from the lovely and talented Lenore!

Rachelle Gardener has a great post about all the questions you want to ask an agent before you sign with them. (You mean you don't just immediately say OMGOMGOMGYESYESTHANKYOUPLEASEYES!!!! ? No. No you don't.)

Mockingjay is almost here! (And apparently in some stores it's here already. Say what?) To celebrate, my friend Julie hosted a week of Hunger Games-related posts, including a haiku day, featuring bad poetry from yours truly!

Dear Emilia Plater, You are so cute that you kill me a little inside. Especially when you make adorable videos where you rewrite the lyrics to pop songs and make them about publishing. Love, Heather

An interesting article from The Huffington Post about what motivates the book buyer.

The YA 5 explains how everything they need to know about life they learned from YA books.

Have a great week!

I Respond to the Google Searches that Missed the Mark

2010-08-13T09:00:00.003-04:00

Like most dedicated bloggers, I have analytics set up for my blog. I like to see who’s stalking me (apparently, people actually are finding my blog by searching for “Heather Trese,” and I can’t decide if that’s totally awesome or a little creepy. Probably both.), how long you folks hang around on the site, which of my posts you think is most interesting (the long-standing winners are still, after months and months of awesome content, my kissing day blogfest entry and my post on female characters who kick butt.), and, most hilarious of all, which search terms you use to find my blog.

That last one always cracks me up. Sure, there are the normal ones – See Heather Write, writing advice, adverbs are evil (yes, really a search term used to find my blog!), SCBWI. There are the ones that are weird, but still make sense – teenagers vocabulary, how to write a murder scene, crippling fear of rejection, Jessica is funnier than Heather (You see that Jess? You’re funnier than me. YOU WIN AT LIFE.)

And then there are the ones that are just…weird. They make no sense at all, and I have no idea why those people would have ended up on my site from those searches. But I’d like to address those people now, since apparently they are in need of help and are, I suppose, ending up on my blog in search of it. Here goes.

Inappropriate Google Search Terms that May Bring You to Heather’s Blog (According to Google Analytics):

I’m in love with Severus Snape

It’s OK. So am I.

(There is another one I want to post SO BAD but it’s a spoiler for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I just can’t bring myself to do it, because sadly there are people in the world who haven’t experienced the awesome. So I’m blaming you for keeping my blog readers from reading this cheesy and awesome line that apparently led someone to my blog.)

I’m a bad writer/So I’m a bad writer/I feel like a bad writer?/I want to write a journal but I’m not a good writer

So this search appears in my analytics…a lot. Are you trying to tell me something, Google? I think I’m getting a complex. (On a side note, if you really do think you’re a bad writer, but you want to start a journal or even a novel, my advice is: start it. You can only get better. The more you write, the better you’ll get. Write until you have little keyboard-shaped calluses on your fingers, then keep on writing. Eventually you’ll be mediocre, then good, then awesome, then you’ll be the next J.K. Rowling and maybe you can get together with the guy in my next search term. Just don’t unleash that wrath on the world. Please.)

Erotic Harry Potter

I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here, or when the word “erotic” ever appeared on my blog aside from these two times, but I would really like you to drag your mouse to the upper left corner of your screen and back out of here. Now please. Weirdo.

Sexy language used by teenagers

OK, seriously? What kind of site does Google think I’m running here? You can follow Mr. Erotic Harry Potter right out the door. Kthxbai.

Writing a story about Heather

Oh, you’re writing a story about me, hm? And I see you were on the blog for…10 minutes? So you think you can get all of your background research done in 10 minutes, do you? Well, I don’t think 10 minutes on my blog will tell you that I have a silver Honda named Hannah, and I named it Hannah because I like alliteration. And it won’t tell you how many freckles I have, or the way it sounds when my laugh fills a whole room, or what my tears taste like. I’m a person!! TASTE MY TEARS!

What are some of the weirdest search terms that have led people to your blog?

Book-Crush Wednesday (4)

2010-08-11T16:43:00.002-04:00

Woohoo! It's Wednesday! Time to talk books!

Before we get started, have you been over to WriteOnCon? Amazing things are happening over there. Crits, sessions, chats, and lots of learning. Major props to the organizers - I'm getting a LOT out of the conference! And it's FREE! Yay! So if you haven't been there...go. NOW.

OK, where were we? Oh yeah. Book-crush Wednesday. Today's crush is on a fabulous book called How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford. I read this book earlier this year and my mind was blown. BLOWN, people.

First of all, let's talk about the cover. It's PINK. Pink is pretty much the best cover ever. If I didn't think it would drive readers away, I would have an all-pink blog background with pink text, a pink header, and pink active links. Also, the chapter headers are PINK. I would like to hire Natalie Standiford's design team to work on my book, please. (Because pink is obviously the best choice when you are trying to attract people to a dystopian book. Clearly.)

But what really made me love this book was the voice. The main character, Bea, can definitely be unsympathetic at times, but she's also quirky and made me laugh. And the cast of characters that surrounds her absolutely jumps off the page with life. All of them have their own stories, their own characteristics, even if not all of them get the chance to play out on the pages of the book. Particularly the radio show participants - Don Berman, Myrna, Larry - are so wonderful that I can see myself scanning the AM stations at midnight, hoping for a Night Lights of my own to whisk me away on a carpet ride one lonely night.

I also loved that Bea and Jonah, the male main character, could have a true, no underlying chance at love, real best friendship. As someone who had a male best friend in high school, it was totally refreshing to see that on the page. I feel like so often in YA books it's easy to let the best friends of opposite genders become love interests (and it's natural, too), but for Bea and Jonah it didn't even seem to be a possibility.

How to Say Goodbye in Robot is not a light read. In fact, I would even say it's heartbreaking, gut-wrenching at times. And yet the writing is so excellent that Natalie Standiford can pack an emotional punch while she's describes the hottest guy in school or a batty old lady. And the ending? One of the most amazing and tragic and hopeful things I've read in a long time.

This book is wonderful because it's not about boys, or crushes, or school, or any of that. It's just about the power of friendship, and how a beautiful friendship can simultaneously repair and destroy two very damaged people. I know last week I talked about The Sky is Everywhere, and many of you said you loved that book. I think fans of Jandy Nelson will probably enjoy How to Say Goodbye in Robot, as well.

On Boy Middle Grade (More from SCBWI!)

2010-08-09T23:56:00.001-04:00

Alright, now that I'm sort of rested(ish) and caught up from my trip to LA (read: my suitcase is still laying all over the floor with my clothes in it, but my laptop is out of its case), I thought I would share some more notes from the SCBWI-LA conference!

So many editors and agents were talking about how boy middle grade is The Thing. It's what everyone wants. And since I happen to have an idea for a boy middle grade project, I thought I would attend a session on boy middle grade fiction with Courtney Bongiolatti, associate editor, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

What did I learn? Basically, middle grade boys like genre fiction, so it's good to be very specific about genre with boys. Middle grade boys are often much more reluctant readers, whereas girls will pick up anything. You need to know your genre in order to write for it and be successful.

What are the main genres for MG boy fiction?

Action: No paranormal, no magic, just a regular kid who is in a crazy situation. Examples: Alex Rider books by Anthony Horowitz; H.I.V.E. series by Mark Walden

Adventure: These books are different from action, though the genres are similar. Usually adventure is more based in reality. The main character is often not the cool kid with a lot of friends like they are in action - they’re still trying to figure themselves out while getting into a lot of trouble. Typically with action the kids are choosing to do what they're doing, but with adventure they were forced into that situation. Examples: Holes by Louis Sachar, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

Fantasy: Harry Potter changed the industry so much, particularly the MG fantasy genre. Often with fantasy there’s a great goal at stake other than your own life or your own happiness. Fantasy is also appealing to boys because they like the idea that one day it could be them fighting gods or becoming a wizard. A lot of readers of fantasy need that. But it still needs to be obvious why your character is doing that - what's the motivation? Harry found a home in his new world, even though it was difficult. Often fantasy readers are more shy, already more of a reader than say an action reader. You try not to generalize, but you still need to sit down and think about who the reader is. Examples: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson

Mystery: This genre leaves room for a nerdy protagonist. a lot of times with MG, they don’t want someone nerdy for a protagonist, but in mystery it works. Often these kids who are already reading John Grisham’s adult novels, even at this age. The books take a lot of the aspects of an adult formulaic mystery novel and apply them to an MG book, which makes it comfortable for people who are familiar with reading up. Examples: Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham, Encyclopedia Brown

Humorous Mystery: Takes the mystery and adds something most MG boys love - humor. Examples: Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs, Brixton Brothers by Mac Barnett (I have to add that Courtney said this one works because it's a humorous update to the Hardy Boys, where the kids are accidentally solving mysteries. So parents give their children these outdated Hardy Boys books, then the kids find the Brixton Brothers on their own which totally make fun of the books their parents loved.)

Sports: These books can range from the simple to the complex, but always revolve around a sports story. They work well for a simple reason - 12-year-old boys love sports. Examples: Return of the Home Run Kid by Matt Christopher, Heat by Mike Lupica

School stories: For MG kids, the classroom is their life. It’s their home. They are with those same students and friends all the time, so that’s who they hang out with. School stories are mostly set in the classroom; the characters are hardly ever seen at home. Examples: Frindle by Andrew Clements, The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

Historical fiction: One of the toughest sells in MG. You will often have girls who read it even if it has boy protagonist just because they like that genre. Example: Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

Combinations: Use of graphics and text combined are growing much more popular with the male MG audience. Examples: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Relatable: There are a ton of books that deal with kids that are bullied, and that’s who your audience is in these books - kids who are being bullied. But you need to be truthful, particulary with the ending. Don't throw in a popular kid to widen your readership. the same thing with . that book is aimed at them, you’re not going to help yourself by throwing in a popular kid to widen your readership. Examples: Loser by Jerry Spinelli, The Misfits by James Howe, So Hard to Say by Alex Sanchez, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos

Out of the box: MG is a good place to experiment. It's a more difficult sell, but if the writing is good you can get an agent behind you. Examples: Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going, Staying Fat for Sarah Bynes by Chris Crutcher, I Am a Genius of Unspealable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb

Other things to keep in mind when you're writing MG for boys:

MG books should be aspirational
They should have series potential. Editors often like MG series because it's so hard to find successful books for boys that they want to buy a series. Courtney's boss will almost always ask her, whenever she pitches an MG book, "Great, can it be a series?"
Experience. MG boys will throw a book aside the second you get a word wrong or if a character is wearing the wrong thing. So you have to know everything - not just dialogue and what they're thinking, but the whole experience of being an MG boy. If you have sons or nephews or cousins, watch them.
Honesty. MG boys don't want an after-school special. They want you to stay on-camera for the gross-out things. Don't write a book that caters to their parents, with light bulling and a lesson at the end. They want to see a book about what really goes on at their school.
Voice voice voice voice voice! You can work on it by READING, especially aloud, just to make sure it sounds like an MG boy.

Hope that helps! Are any of you working on an MG book?

Sunday Funday! (35)

2010-08-08T22:58:00.002-04:00

Happy Sunday everyone! Today was just about the laziest day of my life. And why might that be, you ask? Two words:

Veronica Mars. In some twist of evil/awesome, Netflix decided it would be an EXCELLENT idea to put this show, which I had heard a ton of great things about, on their Watch Instantly queue, so I could get it direct to my TV through my Wii. So what was going to became a controlled watching of the show a few episodes at a time via the old red envelope model has suddenly turned into the "Heather stays in her lamb-print PJ bottoms until 2pm" model. I'm almost done with season 2, but I'm not deleting these from my Watch Instantly queue because they are SO GOOD. People. Seriously. If you have never watched Veronica Mars, do it. Now. I was skeptical at first, and it definitely took me a few episodes to warm up to it, but I am obsessed. And my friend Shana is having a watch-along with discussion on her blog. Shana attributes everything she learned about writing mysteries to studying Veronica Mars, and I can definitely see what she's talking about.

Anyway, so now that I'm done talking about how totally lazy I am and admitting my love of the lamb-print PJ pants I've had since the ninth grade (yes, really, but I love those things to death), here are some great blog posts from around the Internet that you should check out while I watch more Veronica Mars!

Agents and editors always say they want a book that's "high concept." But what the heck does high concept mean? Agent Elana Roth explains in this post from Adventures in Children's Publishing.

YA author Michelle Hodkin gives some excellent tips on how to get noticed at a writer's conference! (Note: tips may or may not be served with a healthy side of sarcasm.)

If you're looking for legitimate tips on attending conferences, check out this post by Kiersten White. Who is extremely awesome, by the way, so if you do happen to meet her in real life, please do say hello and don't let her super awesome author status stop you (so, in short, listen to her first piece of advice, which may or may not be a reference to me and my friend. I have no idea what you're talking about. Let's just watch some Veronica Mars and we can forget this ever happened, hm?)

Literary agent Jennifer Laughran has an excellent post on why you shouldn't be too mad that the Justin Biebers, Popes, and Hillary Duffs of the world are publishing children's books so easily while you wait and wait and wait for your Big Break.

The lovely Amna had an excellent guest post on YA Highway about how your taste in books doesn't make you better than anyone else. Since I've dealt with this phenomenon often, I have to say...well done, lady.

Natalie Whipple writes about why you shouldn't really care about trends (even though you obsess over them) because there's nothing you can do about them anyway.

Jodi Meadows reminds us not to give up, in a guest post on Corrine Jackson's blog.

Write on Con starts on Tuesday! Are you ready? Are you signed up? Head on over here if the answer is no! It's free and it's online!

I was also going to link to a bunch of great SCBWI-LA posts, but I think YA Highway did a wonderful job of picking out the best in last week's Field Trip Friday. So just go there if you want to see a list of some great SCBWI posts.

OK, have a great week everyone!

Book-Crush Wednesday (3)

2010-08-04T17:55:00.000-04:00

It's Wednesday! So I debated about whether to continue with SCBWI posts or if I should keep up the book-crush posts and postpone my next set of notes for tomorrow. But since I just sent a rambling cra-cra email to the author of the book on today's book-crush Wednesday, I figured I had to go through and continue telling everyone how AWESOME the book is (though I guarantee you have heard it from about everyone else under the sun.)

My current book crush is on The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. And let me tell you, blog readers...I am crushing on this book hard. Like so hard that I'm hyperventilating thinking about how awesome it is, and I might have taken it with me to SCBWI on the off chance that the author would be there and I could run up to her and scream "OMG I LOVE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE SIGN THIS AND BTW BE MY BEST FRIEND." She wasn't there (which is probably good because I would have seriously embarrassed myself), although it turns out bringing books like that was not that crazy of an idea because a lot of awesome debut authors were there, just in attendance like regular people (THEY'RE LIKE ME! See, I've gone super crazy. That's what this book does to me. I bet Jandy Nelson gets Google alerts with her name in them and is reading this post right now and backing away slowly from her computer thinking I'm a psycho.)

Anyway, this book took the blog review world by storm, and there were several weeks where I saw the cover art all over the place. But I have to admit that it didn't really grab me. (The UK cover, pictured below, is far superior in my opinion and is WAY cooler inside.) The big heart, floating in the sky...it seemed kind of chic-lit-y, and I just wasn't into it. But then the reviews were so positive, and my friend Jessica spoke highly of it, then Tahereh over at Grab a Pen wrote this review/letter to Jandy, and since Tahereh is one of my most favorite bloggers ever, I finally gave in.

And, uhm, WOW. WOW.WOW.WOW.

Listen, people. This book will change your life. The writing is like painfully amazing. It makes you laugh and cry, sometimes in the same sentence. I would be smiling because the word play was wonderful, or there was a great exchange or sweet scene, and suddenly there was HEARTBREAK and TRAGEDY and I wanted to cry. The main character, Lennie, writes poetry and leaves the poems all over town. The way the poetry is used to move the plot forward and give a little back story is really smart - Jandy Nelson has an MFA in poetry, as well as an MFA in writing for children and YA from VCFA (OMG THAT'S WHERE I'M GOING! We'll be bffs, I know it.)

The teen voice in The Sky is Everywhere is very true, and I think that's why the book is so funny. I think Lennie was just a funny girl, particularly before her sister died. But her sister's death overshadows her humor and then she has to struggle with questions like - is it OK for me to be happy even though I'm supposed to be grieving? What kind of normal person wants to kiss boys at a funeral? Am I moving on too quickly? (Things are about to get real, so let's put on our emotional caps.) My mom died when I was 18, and I can tell you first-hand that the grief Lennie experiences is so real. It was like Jandy Nelson was inside my head, reading the mind of my teenage self. Lennie thought things that I thought, and even though my relationship with my mom was complicated, and in some ways Lennie deals with things I couldn't relate to, in other ways I felt like the pain Lennie was experiencing was totally real. I could feel it in my bones, in my head, and in my heart. This book is just real, and it stays with you.

So. I know a lot of you have read this. But some of you probably haven't. Some of you are probably rolling your eyes, thinking, "Ugh. Another review of The Sky is Everywhere. How good can that book be?" AWESOME.* That's how good.

*I know I throw that word around a lot on this blog. I mean if you did a wordle of my blog, I'm pretty sure awesome would be the biggest word. But if ever a book or post or topic was deserving of that word, that phrase meaning "full of awe," it would be The Sky is Everywhere.
**If you still don't believe me, go here and read chapters 1 and 2. FOR FREE. Then go here and buy the book and support your indie book store and your favorite new debut author.

Carolyn Mackler’s Four Keys to Creating Characters (SCBWI Post!)

2010-08-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

Well, I am officially back from SCBWI! It was awesome. Being surrounded by all the inspiration and learning so much was incredible. And children's book authors and illustrators are some of the funniest people I've ever met. I'll post some photos and a general conference review (including overall conference tips) in another post, but I thought I would continue posting notes from the conference sessions I attended since I have enough to make days and days worth of posts.

One of my favorite sessions was Carolyn Mackler's breakout session on creating characters that come to life. Not only is Carolyn Mackler totally adorable and down-to-earth, but she gave some great advice on how to create distinct voices for each of your characters (this came in particular handy when she was writing her novel Tangled, which has four distinct characters, and which I will be giving away a SIGNED copy of on the blog at some point in the next month. I have epic, epic contests in store, people.)

So, here without further ado, are Carolyn Mackler's four keys to creating characters:

Think about the character's quirks. Every person on the planet has a quirk. Fun Heather fact! (Which is also potentially gross) I chew my cuticles when I get anxious or nervous. Not my nails, my cuticles. Little mannerisms like that are inherent in all of us - and since your characters are people too, they need to have quirks as well. Who is your character? What do they do? If you think you're running low on material, head somewhere and people watch - this can be a great way to find some new quirks to give to a character. Alternatively, think about some people you know now, or people you knew when you were in high school. What were their quirks? Did they collect bobble-heads? Nod whenever someone else was speaking? Those are the kinds of things you can incorporate.
Nail their specific language. When I was in high school, I had an excellent biology teacher. Seriously. The best (and only halfway decent) science teacher I'd ever had in my life. Unfortunately, she ended up being the butt of a lot of jokes in the hallway because she said, "Mmkay?" at the end of almost every sentence - and this was right when South Park first skyrocketed to popularity, with an annoying guidance counselor character who had the same unfortunate habit. It's sad that her speech issue overshadowed her incredible knowledge (at least at first until us smart-ass teenagers wised up), but my point here is that people have language ticks - and so should your character. Does your character talk in questions or statements? Do they swear or not? Do they say "I mean" or "like"? (Because some teens say those things, but not all of them do. And some adults, like ME, are perpetually stuck in our teen years and also say those things.) To really test your language, read your book aloud so you can see the rise and fall of the dialogue and how often you're repeating words.
Research. For Tangled, Carolyn Mackler had to write her first male POV ever. She felt pretty daunted by the task, so as she was giving talks she would say, "By the way, I'm looking for some male teens to talk to for some research for my new book." And at one of her presentations, a guy who was the spitting image of one of her characters came up to her and offered to chat. She set up a series of phone interviews and they chatted for hours. Carolyn asked how he viewed his body, what music he liked, what he did when he worked out, what he thought of his friends - everything she could think of to get into his head and create a unique and truthful character. Another one of her characters is an actress and goes on an audition, so she was able to get permission to sit in on an audition process, and afterward she interviewed a teen actress. All of her research - because fiction books do require research - added to the authenticity of the voice in her novel.
Ask questions about your character. Get to know them and get inside their head. I talked about this a little yesterday when I discussed Rachel Vail's voice workshop. But think about things like, what is the first thing they do in the morning? What does the inside of their closet look like? What do they keep hidden in their underwear drawer? Who would the character contact if something good happened, and what would that good thing be? What do they do when they’re anxious? What are they proud of? What are they ashamed of? How do they feel about their family? What is their family status? Carolyn likes to go for walks to get her character questions answered. I prefer drives. You find whatever works for you, as long as you make it happen.

And remember, when you're thinking about character, that it's not just your main characters that need to have depth and quirks and language - it's all characters.

Revising with Gennifer Choldenko

2010-08-02T15:34:00.000-04:00

Since I’m painstakingly rewriting my WIP, I thought Gennifer Choldenko’s workshop on rewriting and self-editing would be an excellent choice for my morning break-out session. She talked about Do’s and Don’ts, tips for revising, and gave us a list of questions that we should be asking ourselves as we rewrite our manuscript. At the end she took questions, and I took notes and posted my favorites/ones I thought would be most helpful.

(OMG these intros are painfully boring. I’m so mentally tired I can’t be as humorous as usual. But hopefully the post is helpful and awesome. It was a great session! Also this post is super long, but it's mostly lists.)

Do’s and Don’ts

Do get time away from your manuscript. One option for this, if you don’t feel like taking time completely off (you overachiever you) once you finish a draft, start researching your next novel
Don’t be lazy
Do remember that good work takes time
Don’t be defensive
Do know that every writer needs an editor - so get someone else to read your book
Do be patient with the process
Don’t be a good girl. Make mistakes and be ready to do things that might not make the everyone happy, but are right for your characters.
Do have the goal to make your book better, not check off every item of your critique letter. If you’re not sure you agree with the crit comment, don’t take it.
Do follow your instincts - you can’t write without them. Aside from crit groups, you might also want to send out your finished novel to 3-5 readers (brand-new readers, and maybe they’re readers, not writers) who you really trust. Get their critiques back and see where there’s overlap.
Do revise as creatively as you can
Do have courage
Do believe in yourself

7 Ways to Build a Strong Protagonist

Protagonist needs to be active. It’s difficult to create a good protagonist who is on the sidelines or overshadowed by a sidekick character.
Protagonist needs to be warm and likable - or if not likable, we need to have compassion for him/her because of his/her circumstances. Or at the very least, we need to understand why the protagonist behaves the way he/she does.
Protagonist needs some complexity to his/her personality. In other words, protagonist needs to be interesting. (Have depth.)
Protagonist needs to want something.
Protagonist needs to reveal things to us about ourselves.
Protagonist needs to take things farther than we would.
Protagonist needs to be flawed.

33 Questions to Ask Yourself

What is the single biggest problem this manuscript has? You have to think in terms of the biggest thing you can to improve because you only have so much time. Think BIG.
What am I avoiding? Often you write around the most emotional thing. You’re writing toward it and your writing slows.
What will my reader wish was there?
Is there an off scene interchange that needs to be on scene?
Where does my mind wander when I am reading?
What is my least favorite chapter? How can I get rid of it or develop it to the point it isn’t my least favorite chapter anymore?
Are my best crit sources in agreement about any one point?
What is the climax of the main plot? Ideally this happens around both plot and character. If your book is about Hurricane Katrina, obviously the hurricane would be the climax. But if your character can interact with the hurricane somehow, that’s ideal.
What is the inciting incident? This is the thing that sets the plot up. In HP 1, it’s Harry’s birthday. In A Wrinkle in Time, it’s the father’s disappearance (even though it happens before the book starts, that’s OK.)
Is my protagonist the same person at the end of the manuscript as he was at the beginning? The protagonist doesn’t have to do a 180 - it can be a small change.
Do character traits of my protagonist drive the plot to at least some degree?
Are any of my characters stereotypes?
Do my subplots add to the book?
Where do my subplots climax? One way to deal with the middle of your novel not being as tense as you like is to have your subplot climax in the middle. However, make sure that your subplot adds to the book instead of taking away from it.
Do I have too many characters?
Have I done a search for each character’s name and checked to make certain dialogue from one character doesn’t sound like dialogue from another character?
Have I missed an opportunity for humor?
Can research better this book in any way?
Is there a way to strengthen the domino effect of my plot? This will help up the tension in your book. Not everything in the book will be a pure domino, but usually there will be one main domino for the plot.
Is there a consistent style in my book? Have I violated that style in any spot? Often the troublesome chapter in a book is in a different style or a different voice than the rest of the book - it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the book. Usually the style will come out of your writing once you start, you can’t force style onto a book. But it’s important to recognize it once it shows up.
Where does the text need grounding?
Are there soliloquies? Can I get rid of them?
Have I used setting to convey feeling? You don’t want to just say, “I am sad.” if the character is sad. Using setting can be a great way to convey mood, particularly in first-person narratives. If the narrator is feeling desperate, they won’t head to the fair, they’ll head to the moonlit dock by the foggy bay.
Have I left room for the reader?
Will applying the rule: show don’t tell strengthen any part of this manuscript?
Have I read the entire novel out loud?
Have I searched for my pet phrases?
Do I care deeply about my protagonist?
What is fresh and original about this novel
Are there plot holes? Can I fix them?
Are there clear motivations for each characters behavior?
Is the world I’ve created completely believable?
What is this book trying to say?

Q: I can make people laugh when I talk, but I’m having a tough time putting humor in my writing. Do you have any tips?

A: I think I’m not funny in person [Heather note: not true] but I am on the page, so I need to get everyone out of my office. So maybe you should try the opposite. Look and take notes on when you’re making people laugh in real life and see what it is that people are laughing about. Maybe it’s the conversation that’s stimulating it. There are also some things that are just inherently humorous. So I just look through and try to see those chances for natural humor.

Q: I find over and over again I hear the same thing about wanting to start the action quickly, but I tend to like to start a story slow. Do you have advice for the beginning?

A: I would look at the big changes first. The tendency is to do 400 revisions of chapter one and then, “Wow! Does that shine!” But you really need to look at it on a macro level. So avoid that chapter one revision and try to look at the whole thing. But in the end it depends on what you like better, so try it both ways - try the fast revisions and then see which you like better.

Q: Do you feel like as a debut novelists editors are looking for something that’s ready to go or were they willing to work with you?

A: I will say that my first novel had the fewest amount of revision notes. A lot of authors don’t revise well. They can’t handle the emotional part of it. And I think some editors, depending on the working relationship, don’t want to deal with writing a long revision letter. But if they find something that could be great, they’ll put the time into it. It’s the most important skill for a working author to be able to revise.

Q: Can you talk a little more about show vs. tell?

A: Show don’t tell just gives the reader room to experience your story. If you’re narrating your life, you don’t say, “This is a sad moment.” You just experience the moment. So if you describe experiencing that moment, we can experience that moment. But if you say the feeling, you’re keeping us out. So think about how you’re narrating your day. That’s the key. You want the reader to feel as if they were there, inside them, not outside them being told.

How to Nail Voice (According to Rachel Vail)

2010-08-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

Today, I attended a workshop session with Rachel Vail. The session was all about voice, and how to create a different voice for each of your characters. The house was PACKED and with good reason - with more than 30 books for children under her belt, she knows how to create unique voices that match each of her character's identities. Better still, she has a background in acting, so even before she was writing she was mastering voice.

Rachel actually uses her acting past to help her when she writes. When she needs to get into the head of one of her characters, she'll think about the way they walk or sit, and she'll walk or sit that way - for example, one of her characters was a ballerina, and in researching Rachel learned that ballerinas don't cross their legs when they sit down (something to do with messing up their turn-outs or otherwise general awesomeness. I watched "Center Stage" as I was packing for the conference so I know how important it is to keep all that in tact.) And they sit up very, very straight. That same character also talked very slowly and deliberately because she used to have a speech impediment. So when she was getting ready to write, she would sit up straight, uncross her legs, and drop her fast-talking ways. And she noticed an immediate change in the voice in her head. Her character came much more naturally, and the voice on the page sounded more accurate.

If you're having trouble getting into your character's head or keeping it fresh, Rachel has a list of questions she suggests you answer. She calls it her "Form to Form a Character." When she first started listing these, I sort of sighed a bit. Haven't we all seen lists like these before? But after a few lines I got it - the difference here is you shouldn't answer as you, answer as your character. Fill out the form as the character sees themselves. A 12-year-old girl who has watched her friends develop before her wouldn't describe herself as "thin," but she would say she was "flat-chested." Think about those intimate details, and more importantly remember how you thought about yourself when you were that age, because that can be a great clue to getting inside a child's head. (You can also eavesdrop! I love doing this, especially at the mall, where girls will talk endlessly about how they feel about their looks. Just try not to get too close and be sure to look inconspicuous enough that you don't look like a creepy stalker.)

Here are some of the questions from the form:

My name is
My name came from
My nickname is
My name means
My age is
I look...
I can’t stand...
I love my mother but...
My friends...
I wish...
If I could change one thing about myself...
My favorite food is...
I love to wear...
When I grow up...
The worst thing I ever did was...
The best part of school is...
I wish I were more...

At the end of the day, remember that the character won't come out in the first draft - of course it won't. That was the first thing that came out of your brain, so it's bound to be cliche and boring. As you go through and revise, pay attention to giving each of your characters as distinct a voice as each person has in real life (because your characters are like real kids), and eventually you will nail it.

Do's and Don'ts from Jon Scieszka

2010-07-30T23:52:00.000-04:00

Alright, the first day of SCBWI-LA is over (sort of) and it was awesome! Let me just go on record as saying that children's books authors are some of the funniest and most awesome people on the planet. Srsly.

I learned a TON today, and I will be sharing a lot of it with YOU. Because I think you are awesome and many of you can't be here. I know a lot of you had questions about the nerdy boy comment I made below, and I promise to explain that all eventually in a whole post dedicated to MG boys. But today I'm going to give you some publishing DOs and DON'Ts from Jon Scieszka!

In case you're not familiar with the awesomeness of Jon Scieszka, here are some books he wrote that you should read right away, because they pretty much defined my childhood:

He also wrote some other fabulous books, but these are probably the two most well-known. (And here's a tip to the most fabulous of you out there! I bought a copy of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs to have signed and then giveaway here on the blog! So watch out for that when I get home :) And if you're not currently following me, you might want to clicky-click that little follow button, because you'll get extra points for being a current follower once the contest gets underway!)

Anyway, Jon was hilarious and had a lot to say about publishing. He offered the following do's and don'ts that he wished he knew when he started out:

Congratulate yourself for actually doing something. Because there are so many people (his dentist, his neighbor) who tell him they have so many ideas for children's books but never actually get to writing them.
Read every book you possibly can in your genre. Just go to the library and wander around in your section. If you're a picture book writer, he suggests the New York Library's list of 100 Best Picture Books (which, consequently, VCFA also sent me).
Read the worst books out there, because they're kind of educational. He thinks the best ones to look for are the celebrity books.
Read children's trade publications: School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and kidlit blogs such as Educating Alice and 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
If you write picture books, cut it in half. It's called a picture book for a reason - leave room for the pictures.

DON'T

Once you start writing, don't let the stuff you read in the trade publications drive you crazy. It will make you wonder, "Should I be writing about pirates?" or "Who got translated into Korean this week?"
Don’t beleive everything you hear.

Then he shared photos from his favorite picture books, which totally brought back memories from my childhood. Books like The Stupids and George and Martha were ones I just loved growing up!

He closed by talking a little about the creative process. He told the story about how he was inspired to write a book where trucks had the personalities of elementary school students. (This book would eventually be the Truck Town series) After meeting the kids, he gave all the trucks personalities based on the children he met. He described the personalities to the illustrators, who drew the trucks without having met the kids. But then he showed pictures of the kids next to the trucks they were matched to and the resemblance was uncanny. So, basically, illustrators are awesome.

In closing, Jon Scieszka had this to say: "Don’t listen to everything to everything you hear, including me. If you write write write, the spirit can move you and you might write the best vampire princess fart rhyming book ever.”

Posting Live from SCBWI-LA!

2010-07-30T18:10:00.000-04:00

Woot! I'm posting live from SCBWI-LA! I only have a few minutes, but I hope to post a full update tonight! (Though I'm learning so much that I will have material for at least a week's worth of posts! Get excited, people.) So far, I've learned the following things:

Jon Scieszka is hilarious.
M.T. Anderson has a fabulous singing voice (I will be providing proof of this later.)
MG boys don't like nerds, unless they are nerds, and then they like them just fine.
Editors do read things in the slush pile, despite what their "official policy" says (well, their summer interns read it anyway).
Don't be shy about saying something to the author who is staying TWO DOORS DOWN from your hotel room, because chances are she's actually really nice.
SCBWI is awesome.

So, just my quick update :) Hopefully I'll have time to post something more detailed tonight! Until then, get the latest from my tweets: @HeatherTrese