Surviving Writing a Book

Edits Are Like Shiny Objects...

2012-01-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

...I get easily distracted by them.

First off, I'm alive!

Second, I finished my latest round of revisions for Knights of Avalon. It only took me over a year. I actually finished about a month ago, but then the holidays happened, and free time was not happening.

Now that I'm done and the mss. is out with my beta readers, I desperately need to busy myself with something else. Because when you're waiting for your beta readers to get back to you, it's like this:

Yes, I need to chill and just enjoy the puppehs. While I wait, I'm also going to try and update this blog and maybe do a giveaway. Is there any book in particular you'd like me to give away? I take requests! I love to get things for people. I live around the DC area, so if you know of an author headed my way, I can get books signed and hold a contest.

Update:

The always awesome James of Book Chic Club has put together a list of Mid-Atlantic book signings and events. Check the list out. If you see something on there that you want, let me know and I will do my best to get it and have a contest. I want to get you all books! Let me get you books!

Also, the Internet Famous Intern (IFI) has drawn a picture (several, in fact) of Justine, my MC from Knights of Avalon. That's my girl! In stick-figure form. I love it.

PAYA Giveaway, Week 4: The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

2011-10-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

Update: I've never had a contest with no entries before, but I really, really wanted to read this book myself. And it's signed, "Rock You Like a Hurricane!" I guess I'll keep it. Can I do that? I'm totally doing it!

Last, but not least, I'll be giving away a signed paperback copy of Josh Berk's The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin. At PAYA, Josh half-jokingly offered to sign it, "Rock You Like a Hurricane." I totally took him up on that, so think of the prize as an extra-special Hurricane Irene commemorative edition of the book.

Summary:

Will Halpin has ditched his former “deaf school” and is now trying to merge into the auditory-able mainstream at Carbon High in eastern Pennsylvania. As the new, overweight kid who has to sit off to the side during classes so he can try to read the lips of both his teachers and his classmates, Will—no slouch when it comes to reading human reactions—quickly downsizes his social expectations and retreats back into the soundless cocoon of his own skull. Luckily for readers, it’s darkly hilarious in there.

What teens wouldn’t want to have Will’s skills as he, notebook in hand, monitors the school bus mirror and pieces together what all the cool kids are talking about? Most, Will discovers, as he deftly dissects personalities and devilishly deconstructs high school culture, are slavishly focused on being invited to an exclusive party being thrown by popular jock Pat. But when Pat dies during a field trip to a defunct coal mine, under suspicious circumstances, the story morphs into an engaging mystery as Will reluctantly accepts the unsettlingly friendly overtures of a quirky classmate bent on enlisting him as a partner in some amateur sleuthing.

How to Enter:

1. Respond to this post and you'll automatically be entered into the contest. The winner will be chosen at random.

2. For extra credit (and one extra contest entry), please answer the following question: If money, time, and materials weren't an issue, what would be your ultimate Halloween costume?

3. If you're my little brother, you can't enter.

4. You must follow my blog. You're also more than welcome to follow me on Twitter (@LiteraryMouse), but you're not required to. But it would make me happy.

5. Deadline to enter is Monday, October 31, at 11:59pm EST. At midnight, I turn into a pumpkin and no more entries will be accepted.

6. The contest is open to everybody, US and International.

If you have any questions about contest rules, please leave them in the comments!

PAYA Giveaway, Week 3: A Touch Mortal - Winner Announced

2011-10-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

Update: And the winner is...Maidenveil! Woohoo! You go, girl!
I'll be in touch via e-mail, or quite possibly messenger dog (it's like a messenger owl).

Check back Monday for my last giveaway, Josh Berk's The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin.

--
Next up, a signed copy of Leah Clifford's A Touch Mortal. Not only is this book a great read, it teaches us a valuable lesson: Don't date fallen angels. Seriously, you want something cute with wings? Get a cockatiel.

Book Summary:

Eden didn't expect Az.

Not his saunter down the beach toward her. Not his unbelievable pick up line. Not the instant, undeniable connection. And not his wings.

Yeah.

So long happily-ever-after.

Now trapped between life and death, cursed to spread chaos with her every touch, Eden could be the key in the eternal struggle between heaven and hell. All because she gave her heart to one of the Fallen, an angel cast out of heaven.

She may lose everything she ever had. She may be betrayed by those she loves most. But Eden will not be a pawn in anyone else's game. Her heart is her own.

And that's only the beginning of the end.

How to Enter:

1. Respond to this post and you'll automatically be entered into the contest. The winner will be chosen at random.

2. For extra credit (and one extra contest entry), please answer the following question: If you were dating a Fallen Angel, where would you go for your first date? I understand Skeeball is very popular with the winged set.

3. If you're my little brother, you can't enter.

4. You must follow my blog. You're also more than welcome to follow me on Twitter (@LiteraryMouse), but you're not required to. But it would make me happy.

5. Deadline to enter is Thursday, October 20, at 9pm EST.

6. The contest is open to everybody, US and International.

If you have any questions about contest rules, please leave them in the comments!

A Brief Intermission, and Contest Alert

2011-10-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting my next giveaway tomorrow, but to tide you over, I wanted to share some cool contests and links:

Have you ever wanted to visit Japan? How about getting a free round-trip ticket to go there? To bring back tourists after March's deadly earthquake and tsunami, Japan will pay for your airfare if you're willing to blog about your adventure. You'll have to provide your own funds for food, hotel, and anime though.
Are you a fan of Jimi Hendrix? Sirenz co-author Natalie Zaman is giving away a rubbing she took of Jimi Hendrix's grave. I have to say, of all the prizes ever given away in a contest, this is definitely one of the coolest and most unique.
Over at Scribing Shadows, it's Sandy's second blogoversary. There's still time to enter and get the chance to win books and other goodies!
Best dog costume of the year? Quite possibly.

Feel free to leave any contest links you might know of in the comments.

PAYA Giveaway, Week 2: Sirenz - Winner Announced

2011-09-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Update: And the winner is...Seleste deLaney! Congratulations! I'll be in touch via e-mail.

Thanks again to everyone who entered. Stay tuned, in the next couple of days I'll be giving away a signed copy of Leah Clifford's A Touch Mortal.

--
I was in the car this morning when the Bananarama song Venus came on. You know, that song from the 80's:

Goddess on the mountain top
Burning like a silver flame
The summit of beauty and love
And Venus was her name

She's got it
Yeah, baby, she's got it
I'm your Venus, I'm your fire
At your desire

1) Yes, I'm old. Shut up 2) Yes, I grooved around in the car to this 3) I always thought that last line was "Trojan fire."

The song, besides being a catchy '80s tune, got me thinking about Sirenz, my next PAYA giveaway. And not only do you get a signed copy of this tasteful tiffany blue-hued work of fiction, but there will be swag, oh yes, for authors Charlotte Bennardo and Natalie Zaman have some of the best swag around.

Book Summary:

Bickering frenemies Meg and Shar are doing some serious damage at a midnight sample sale when the fashionistas find themselves arguing over a pair of shoes-with fatal consequences. One innocent bystander later, the girls are suddenly at the mercy of Hades, Lord of the Underworld himself. To make them atone for what they've done, Hades forces the teens to become special-assignment Sirens, luring to the Underworld an individual whose unholy contract is up.

Finding that delicate balance between their fashion addiction and their new part-time job in the eternal hellfire biz turns out to be harder than Meg and Shar expected, especially when an entire pantheon of Greek deities decides to get involved. Then there's the matter of the fine print in their own contracts...

How to Enter:

1. Respond to this post and you'll automatically be entered into the contest. The winner will be chosen at random.

2. For extra credit (and one extra contest entry), please answer the following question: Who's your favorite Greek God or Goddess?

3. If you're my little brother, you can't enter.

4. You must follow my blog. You're also more than welcome to follow me on Twitter (@LiteraryMouse), but you're not required to. But it would make me happy.

5. Deadline to enter is Thursday, October 6, at 9pm EST.

6. The contest is open to everybody, US and International.

If you have any questions about contest rules, please leave them in the comments!

PAYA Giveaway, Week 1: Witch Eyes - Winner Announced

2011-09-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Update: And the winner, as selected by my dog Hope, is...Erinberry! Congratulations! I'll be in touch via e-mail.

Thanks to everyone who entered. Stay tuned, because tomorrow I'll be posting another PAYA-related giveaway.

And as for what I'd name my not-at-all-haunted, I-swear-there's-nothing-strange town, here are some of my ideas:

-Last Chance

-Bleak Pines

-Solitude

I'd suggest Silent Hill but that was already taken.

--

I've been waiting for Scott Tracey's Witch Eyes to come out for a long time. How long? I first heard about the book ten months ago. I went to Good Reads, saw lots of great reviews, and knew I had to run out to the store to get it. Except no one had ever heard of Witch Eyes. People looked at me like I was crazy. I was all, "No, I saw reviews for it, it must be out." Lesson learned. Just because a book has reviews on Good Reads doesn't mean it's out.

But now you get a chance to win a signed copy. Besides being a fun read, Witch Eyes is a natural hellhound repellant and an excellent source of Vitamin C. In addition, did you know that Scott Tracey's tweets are insured for $10,000 and that he does car commercials in Japan while speaking Norwegian? Bet you didn't.

Book Summary:

Braden’s witch eyes give him an enormous power. A mere look causes a kaleidoscopic explosion of emotions, memories, darkness, and magic. But this rare gift is also his biggest curse.

Compelled to learn about his shadowed past and the family he never knew, Braden is drawn to the city of Belle Dam, where he is soon caught between two feuding witch dynasties. Sworn rivals Catherine Lansing and Jason Thorpe will use anything—lies, manipulation, illusion, and even murder—to seize control of Braden’s powers. To stop an ancient evil from destroying the town, Braden must master his gift.

How to Enter:

1. Respond to this post and you'll automatically be entered into the contest. The winner will be chosen at random.

2. For extra credit (and one extra contest entry), please answer the following question: Witch Eyes takes place in the ominously-named town of Belle Dam. If you were writing a novel, what ominous name would you pick for your town? If you need any help, here's a helpful post Scott wrote on naming your fake town.

3. If you're my little brother, you can't enter.

4. You must follow my blog. You're also more than welcome to follow me on Twitter (@LiteraryMouse), but you're not required to. But it would make me happy.

5. Deadline to enter is Tuesday, September 27, at 9pm EST.

6. The contest is open to everybody, US and International.

If you have any questions about contest rules, please leave them in the comments!

PAYA 2011: The Turtle Is Mine

2011-09-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

Alternative Titles for this Post: "Red Shoe...Nom Nom Nom" and "Just Say No to Delaware."

To recap: PAYA scheduled for August 27. Historic hurricane, being a big fan of YA and really wanting a signed copy of Sirenz, schedules itself to hit the same day. As a result, PAYA was moved up an hour so we could all skedaddle early and the Writing Workshop was cancelled.

I was sad about the workshop being cancelled.

Then again, any need to have my first pages critiqued was far outweighed by my desire not to get clobbered by a giant storm.

Once at PAYA, Aine and I descended upon the table where books were being sold, having been warned that supplies were already running low. Aine got the last two copies of Scott Tracey's Witch Eyes and gave one to me, because she's awesome.

First I was thrilled, then I felt guilty, because I'll be giving it away in a contest.

But I hope you all will be happy, because I'll be giving it away in a contest.

For myself, I got Dianne Salerni's We Hear the Dead and Ellen Jensen Abbott's Watersmeet. And check out how Ellen signed my book:

While Ellen signed, I chatted with her and the lovely Alissa Grosso, author of the YA Contemporary Popular. Ever since I read the plot summary, I haven't been able to get Popular out of my head, so you might want to check it out.

For my PAYA giveaway, I got the aforementioned Witch Eyes, Sirenz by dynamic duo Charlotte Bennardo and Natalie Zaman, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk, and Leah Clifford's A Touch Mortal.

I spent a lot of time at Charlotte and Natalie's table, stealing their swag. They had some interesting things like a calling card from Hades and these cute Nekocat charms. What kept me coming back though were the little red shoes made out of chocolate. Mmmmm, swag.

Charlotte was also kind enough to speak to me about how Sirenz got published. Instead of querying agents first, Charlotte and Natalie went directly to the publishers. And though their publisher plucked them out of the slush pile, she highly recommended attending SCBWI's conferences to network with editors, pitch, and learn more about the craft. It should also be noted that they got rejected, a lot, before finally being picked up, so perserverance is key.

After the book signings, there was the raffle. I love raffles, and I'm really lucky, so I've won quite a few in the past. Mostly by buying mass quantities of raffle tickets. I generally find that if there are 100 raffle tickets stuffed in a box, and 99 of them belong to me, that I win. See, me=lucky. I approach publishing the same way, I make my own luck.

So there amidst all the wonderful books being raffled were two turtle necklaces. One had a silver turtle charm and a vivid blue metal chain. The other had a black chain and a pendant that contained a drawing of two turtles. They were somehow related to a book...but I don't remember which book because I was too busy figuring out how many raffle tickets I needed to buy.

You see, I wanted those turtle necklaces. I needed those turtle necklaces. My life was going to be incomplete unless I got those turtle necklaces. My precious turtle necklaces. It was like this, except with turtles instead of cake. So in the end, after crossing my fingers, and rubbing my lucky rabbit's foot (still attached to the rabbit...cruelty free!), and buying 20 raffle tickets, I did indeed win them. Woohoo, my lucky streak continues!

With signed books, and turtles, in tow, it was time to head home. Our usual route would take us through the fine state of Delaware. Delaware, which is kind of close to the ocean, and which was currently getting pounded by a hurricane. We didn't want to go to Delaware that day. After checking the weather reports and Doppler radar, we told the GPS to take us another route, away from Delaware and further inland. The *$@%#$ GPS, apparently in collusion with the hurricane, kept trying to take us to Delaware anyways and actually managed to lure us to the state for about two minutes before we turned around. Luckily, Aine has a great sense of direction and figured out the GPS' sneaky, hurricane-lovin' ways.

After beating the GPS into submission, we got home without incident. It was rainy, sometimes very rainy, but there was hardly any wind. If we had been living under a rock, not paying attention to the news, we'd have thought it was just a regular rainy day.

Next Up: My Crazy-Girl-Braved-a-Hurricane-for-Books Contest begins with a giveaway of Witch Eyes.

PAYA 2011: Rock You Like a Hurricane

2011-09-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I went there, what ya gonna do about it?

When PAYA's organizer, Skyanne, first asked me if I was coming to this year's festival, I think I told her, "I'll be there, barring a natural disaster." You know, natural disasters, like earthquakes and hurricanes. That happen in places like California and Florida. Not Pennsylvania. Because when was the last time you heard the word "natural disaster" and "Pennsylvania" together in a sentence? In PA, a natural disaster is a herd of deer eating your prized petunias.

So, there was this:

I do not remember Skyanne inviting some chick named Irene to PAYA, but there she was, in all her soggy, stormy glory, wanting a copy of Witch Eyes before it was out in stores.

So my best bud Aine and I were like this:

To go or not to go? Stay at home or risk a hurricane? Heck yeah, we braved the wrath of Mother Nature for books. Is your signing in the crater of an active volcano? In the middle of a blizzard on K2? We're there.

False bravado aside, I don't mess with storms. I've been through 4-5 hurricanes in my life (all Category 2 or less) and I know how dangerous they can be. Aine and I didn't make a final decision on whether or not to go until the morning of the festival. We checked the weather forecasts, carefully reviewed our travel routes, and came up with a couple of back-up plans in case the storm picked up strength faster than predicted. Thanks to Aine's iPad, we were able to transform her car into a mobile weather center. While she drove, I followed the track of the hurricane on the Doppler radar and via a variety of weather sites. We always had a good sense of where the storm was and what it was up to.

It's about a 3-hour trip to West Chester, PA, where PAYA was being held. With many thanks to the Weather Gods, we got there pretty much on time, and with hardly a single drop of rain. Of course we knew the trip back would be the tough part.

PS-I'd like to note that this year, I woke up before Aine. Woohoo! Carlton dance!

Next: The PAYA Saga continues with Part 2: The Turtle Is Mine.

It’s Back….PAYA 2011

2011-08-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

No, not the fruit.

Bring YA to PA, dedicated to spreading the YA love and supporting Pennsylvania’s libraries, is back with its second annual festival, August 27 in West Chester, PA.

You should go.

No, really. I went last year and had a blast. This year, seventeen amazing authors (with possibly more to be announced), including Leah Clifford, Jeri Smith-Ready, and A.S. King, will be signing books, chatting with readers, and just generally being awesome.

On top of that, there’ll be a bake sale, a raffle, and a writer’s workshop.

You should go to the writer’s workshop.

I’ll be at the writer's workshop.

I don't want to be the only one there. Then I'd be lonely.

Wait, wait! Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you off.

But really, if you have a WIP, you should go. It's $40 if you sign up before August 10, $50 afterwards, and you get to have your opening pages critiqued by either Jeri Smith-Ready, Keri Mikulski, Dianne Salerni, Ellen Jensen Abbott, Charlotte Bennardo, or Sarah Darer Littman.

I went last year and it was so incredibly helpful. You can read about my misadventures here, here, and here. The plan is to actually bring back the opening pages for the manuscript I brought last year, Knights of Avalon, and have the new and improved pages critiqued again.

If you can't make it, (but really, you should go), I'll get some books signed at PAYA and will be giving them away on the blog. So if there's a particular book you're interested in, let me know. I love to giveaway stuff and I definitely take requests.

My Happy Place

2011-07-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

I have a few, and thought I'd slowly share them one by one. These are all places I've been lucky enough to have actually visited. When I get stressed, I picture myself sitting in one of these spots and suddenly, the world is a lot better place.

Happy Place #1

Quick! Somebody get Vincent Van Gogh!

I didn't have to go far to find this happy place. It's about 20 minutes from my house. A bit out of the way, to find the Sunflower Field, just drive down to the end of one road, turn left, then turn right at the grocery store. Stay on the road until you see the old schoolhouse on your left. About a 1/4 mile after that, there's a dirt and gravel parking lot of sorts. You can't see the sunflowers from the road, but you'll know you've found the place when you're suddenly surrounded by professional photographers.

The sunflowers are at their peak July 15-July 20, but in my mind, they're always in bloom. Plus, when I meditate, it's not nearly as hot and there are a lot less bugs!

So tell me about your Happy Place.

Contest Alert

2011-07-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

Yet another great contest from YAtopia, this time it's the chance to pitch your YA or Adult UF/Paranormal mss to Vickie Motter of Andrea Hurst & Associates Literary Management. Here's the thing though: The contest is limited to 50 entries, has only been going on for 1 day, and is already filling up quick, so if you want to enter, do it now! Hurry! Time is of the essence. Pretend the world is ending if you must.

I'll definitely be entering. According to the rules, your manuscript must be completed. Well, mine is completed and quite polished, but is going through yet another round of edits (you lose count of what round you're on after a while). I'm so close to being done though, hopefully this will push me to hunker down and finally finish up. I'll let everyone know how it goes. And until then...if you have a YA or UF mss, enter the contest!

And Now for a Confession

2011-06-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

People of the Internets, I have a confession to make.

First off, that swarm of bees in New York City?

My bad. A word of advice to anyone trying to genetically engineer a swarm of super-intelligent attack bees to take over the world: CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND YOU. When I walked into my underground lair the next day, all I was left with was a note, in teeny tiny print, telling me the hive had decided to check out a show on Broadway and then hit the Magnolia Bakery afterward for some Red Velvet cupcakes. So now I have to start from scratch and get another grant from DARPA.

Second, as you most likely are aware, there have been several articles of late criticizing YA for being too dark, or not serious enough, or for having cooties. Articles like this, and this. Here's my confession, and it's a big one...These articles were written by me. Yes, I freely admit it! I even went so far as to hire several extras from Glee to go out into public and claim they wrote the pieces to throw people off the trail.

Just like the great Coosawhatchie hoax of May '11*, I never thought the deception would go so far, and I'm deeply sorry for upsetting Twitter. I thought it was obvious that these articles were nothing but a scam. I mean, you all should've known something was up when I said I walked into a bookstore and couldn't find any lighthearted YA! And I can't believe that whole thing about only needing to write 2-3 drafts for a YA book didn't tip somebody off. Finally, the aliases I chose to write under were a clever anagram. If you take each of the authors' names and rearrange the letters, you get, "Sparkle Vampires Rulz, Slutty Werewolves Drulz. Edward xoxo." I really hope someone caught that. I thought that was especially clever of me.

You may be asking yourself, Coosawhaaaa? You may also be asking yourself, why would I perpetrate such a hoax? And here, my dear readers, I must admit to being wholly selfish, for I wanted to keep the awesome to myself. You heard me! YA may be awesome, but it's also a limited resource, and just like Strawberry Pocky and bubble wrap, there's only so much of it to go around. Imagine a world (it'd be a dystopian world) where you walk into a bookstore, and they're all out of Maggie Stiefvater's Forever. Or you try to download Veronica Roth's Divergent onto your Kindle and the...um..Internet tubes are all clogged because... er, everybody wanted to download it... at once. Anyways, like Gandalf before the Balrog, I was determined not to let this pass! So I tried to scare people away from YA. Hey, it worked on Scooby Doo.

To sum up, I'm really, really sorry. On a scale from 1-10, with 1 being 'Oops, I'm sorry I accidentally stole your Belgian chocolate' and 10 being, 'I'm so sorry I took you to the re-make of The Wicker Man,' I'd be a 12. In the future, I promise to limit my hoaxes to South Carolina Sasquatch and urban legends involving the Washington DC Metro.

*Because it can't be said enough: To my knowledge, there are no Bigfoots in South Carolina and if there are, the locals do not call them 'Coosawhatchie.'

Contest Alert

2011-05-31T11:51:00.001-07:00

Looking for a critique? Looking for an agent? Looking for a critique from an agent? Then do I have the contest for you.

Author Shelley Watters is hosting a Made of Awesome first page contest on her blog, judged by the completely bad-ass Judith Engracia of Liza Dawson Associates. I don't usually use that term, but Judith has a Siberian Husky named Grendel, does martial arts, and graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University with a B.A. in English and History. Oh yeah, and she did it on a full presidential scholarship. I mean, it's not every day you read a literary agent's bio and ask yourself, "If my MC Justine and this literary agent got in a fight, who would win?" Let's see, both Justine and Judith have martial arts training, but Justine does happen to wield Excalibur. Judith probably doesn't have a magic sword. Then again, Justine doesn't have a Siberian Husky named Grendel, who quite possibly has magical powers, and who may or may not transform into a fierce fighting companion the way Battlecat did in He-Man. So let's call it a draw.

Anyways, the point is: Awesome contest, ends today, May 31, so enter now. First-place winner will win a 10-page critique and the way these contests usually work, Judith may ask to look at the runner-ups' work as well. So, you know, enter! Now!

Still Alive!: An Update

2011-05-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Just wanted to give a quick update on what I've been up to. For the past six months (no, I cannot believe I've been at it THAT long), I've been revising my beloved manuscript, Knights of Avalon, whenever I've had a spare minute. The thing is, between work and cat rescue, there haven't been that many spare minutes.

I have two big goals this time around:

1. Build more of an emotional connection between the reader and the characters, especially my main character Justine.
2. Strengthen character relationships.

That's a little edit, right? I can do that easy. No problem!

It's all about the emotion, people. Not having an emotional connection is like having a car without an engine. But, well, hrm, how do I put this gently... I'm no good at the emotional stuff! Apparently I suck at it more than a factory full of Dyson vacuum cleaners.

I am getting better though, bit by painful bit. Every revision has a little more emotion. And now I've been studying it, putting it under the microscope and figuring out the mechanics of building a connection with the reader, because some people do it naturally, and then there's me.

I hope to be done in a few weeks. When I am done, I'll do two things: 1) Post about what I've learned 2) Have another contest, because it's been way too long! BTW-If there's any particular book you'd like to see go up for grabs, let me know. If I don't have it, maybe I can get it. I definitely take requests when at all possible.

Contest Alert

2011-03-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

This just in:

For those of you hunting for an agent, the elusive, usually closed-to-submissions, Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency is judging a pitch contest over at YAtopia. Do you have a finished manuscript? Is it YA/Kid Lit? Can you deliver a fantastic pitch in two sentences? If you can, then head on over. But hurry, the contest is limited to the first 150 entries (and you better believe I'm entering).

Breathless Reads: Top Ten

2011-03-03T18:17:00.001-08:00

Since my best friend Aine already did a great job covering our trip down to Raleigh for the Breathless Reads book signing, I thought I'd do something a little different and try a top ten list.

We came, we got books signed, we had fun, and here's ten things I learned along the way:

1. You can never find a Cracker Barrel when you need one.

On the way down to Raleigh, we decided to stop at a Cracker Barrel to eat. The sign said there was one up ahead, it promised us a Cracker Barrel. I'm quite sure we didn't imagine it. It took us significantly longer to drive down (7 hrs) than to drive back up (4.5 hrs). You know why? Because we were looking for that frakkin' Cracker Barrel.

It's like they have cloaking devices. Maybe only certain mortals have the ability to see them. A blessing to some, a curse to others, only a chosen few possess the Seventh Sense, otherwise known as the Cracker Barrel Sight.

2. I don't need an iPad, but I do need a better camera.

On the way down, Aine kindly let me play with her iPad. There were two problems with the iPad: I couldn't type fast on it, so I don't think it'd work for writing, and it was addictive as hell. A potentially dangerous combination. As for my camera, I don't really have one right now, so I've been using my cell phone, with mixed results...

I swear, these authors are much less blurry in person.

3. Beth Revis is all about the explosions.

Looking over my notes, I can't tell you how many times the words 'Beth Revis' and 'blow stuff up' appear in close proximity. Also, Beth, who was a school teacher, killed off a bunch of former students in her book. So don't mess with her!

4. Kirsten Miller has the best how-I-got-published story I think I've ever heard.

It goes like this: Kirsten was living in Manhattan at the time. While on her lunch break at work, waiting in line in the cafeteria, a co-worker asked her what her plans were for the weekend. A little embarrassed, she mentioned that she was writing a book. The co-worker said he "knew someone in publishing" and asked to take a look. So she gave him the manuscript, expecting that he'd put it away and never give it a second glance. Except the next day, he got slammed with a terrible case of the flu, so bad that he couldn't get out of bed, and the only reading material within reach was Kirsten's manuscript. Stuck in bed, he read it and liked it enough to pass it on to his friend, who helped Kirsten get published.

The moral of the story: If you're having trouble getting published, maybe you should move to New York City and hang out in random cafeterias.

5. Ally Condie is working on a book for her son's birthday.

According to her young son's very exacting specifications, it has to have animals, but no cats. Cats are forbidden.

6. There were a whole lot of 'jigsaw' writers on the panel.

When I say 'jigsaw', I mean writers who write out of order and piece the scenes together. I think Beth Revis was the only writer who didn't do that. Her style was more linear, one sentence after another, with little to no idea what would come next. I totally understand that, because I've tried the jigsaw method before and it did not work for me.

Brenna Yovanoff, on the other hand, doesn't just write out of order, even her sentences aren't fully formed at first. It's only later that everything is smoothed out and made cohesive. I also thought Brenna had a good piece of advice, in that she talked about the importance of actually finishing stuff. She said that she'd written many fragments of books, but actually finishing one was an entirely different experience.

7. Everybody on the panel has some exciting projects they're working on.

Beth Revis is writing A Million Suns, the sequel to Across the Universe.

Brenna Yovanoff's next book will be called The Space Between.

Kirsten Miller is working on All You Desire, a sequel to The Eternal Ones.

Ally Condie has Crossed, the follow-up to Matched, coming out later this year.

And Andrea Cremer, who has the impressive ability to juggle multiple projects at once, is working on a Steampunk series, a prequel to Nightshade set in the highlands of Scotland in the 1400s, and probably a project or two that I wasn't able to write down. Because that girl's prolific, that she is.

8. The spaceship in Across the Universe is inspired by the Planet Express ship in Futurama.

Also, Beth Revis is a browncoat. I hereby award her 10,000 extra awesome points just for that.

9. Andrea Cremer was obsessed with the name Majesta when she was ten years old.

Andrea says she can't write until the name is right (I'm like that!). While Beth Revis just picks names that she likes. Brenna Yovanoff is a spontaneous namer too.

10. On the subject of names, Kirsten Miller once met a taxi driver named Bedelletrix.

Kirsten immediately decided that she would have a character with that name in one of her books, and that Bedelletrix would be a) a villain b) wear Lee press-on nails c) raise Chinchillas.

Bonus Fun Fact!

Quail Ridge Books, where the book signing was held and which is a surprisingly large indie bookstore in Raleigh that I'd love to visit again, has one of the best bathrooms I've ever seen. If you visit, you really must stop and see the bathroom. You must!

The Swamps of Revision

2011-02-24T21:48:00.000-08:00

I have climbed the Mountains of Adversity, wandered the Desert of Rejection, and hacked my way through the Jungle of Self-Doubt. I finally had to stop at the 7-Eleven of Dashed Hopes and get myself a Slurpee (the Slurpee of Everlasting Optimism!) because all this wandering around is exhausting.

So, where am I? I'm currently in the Swamps of Revision. I haven't run into any Rodents of Unusual Size yet but if I see one, I'll let you know. In a later post I'll talk about how those revisions are going, but I really came here to mention that I'll be attending the Breathless Reads book signing in Raleigh tomorrow.

I didn't think I'd be able to make it, but thanks to my best bud Aine and my boss, who's very big on me having a life and getting time off, I'll be there!

For those who don't know about the Breathless Reads tour, there'll be five YA authors at the signing:

-Kirsten Miller - The Eternal Ones
-Brenna Yovanoff - The Replacement
-Andrea Cremer - Nightshade
-Ally Condie - Matched
-Beth Revis - Across the Universe

What an amazing lineup! Kinda wish you were going, don't you? Or if nothing else, maybe you wish someone would get you a book signed? Maybe some nice YA writer who has a beagle and blogs on occasion?...

First person to respond to this post gets their pick. Tell me which book you want and who you want it made out to. And if you respond too late, no worries, there'll be more contests.

Update: Congrats, Harmony! I'll be putting your signed copy of Across the Universe in the mail in the next few days.

Never fear, I also got a copy of Andrea Cremer's Nightshade for a future giveaway!

Sisters Red Giveaway: Winner Announced!

2011-01-14T16:06:00.000-08:00

I had this grand plan for Lucy the Beagle to help me pick the contest winner. Fanciful ideas of how we'd do it flitted through my head. Perhaps I'd use a bunch of books as dominoes, get Lucy to somehow knock them over, and set off a chain reaction that would reveal the name of the winner. Maybe I'd write down everybody's name on pieces of paper, wrap them around dog treats, and see which one Lucy picked. But in the end, there was one glaring flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan:

Lucy was napping, and she didn't feel like getting up.

I called out to her, "Lucy! Lucy! Come here, girl! I'll give you a treat, you want a treat, don't you?" She must've known I was up to something, because she cracked open one eye, stared at me like I was ridiculous, and returned to her snore-filled slumber.

I tried again, a little more desperate. "Luuuucy! Lucy! Come here! Come! Now!" But the beagle took no pity on me. So I threw everybody's name into a hat and picked a winner. And the winner is....

Pam Vickers!

Congratulations! You win the signed copy of Sisters Red, a $20 gift card to either Borders or Barnes & Noble (your choice), and this because it's cute and wolf-like:

Just don't go after it with an axe, please! It's not a Fenris.

Sisters Red Giveaway

2010-12-28T18:18:00.000-08:00

I promised a Sisters Red giveaway, many eons ago, to mark the end of NaNoWriMo. Let's ignore the fact that it's almost January and get this contest started.

The Prize: A hardback copy of Sisters Red, signed by the very funny and very gracious Jackson Pearce. In addition, because I was late with this contest, I will throw in a mystery prize to sweeten the pot. I promise the 'mystery prize' will not be my dog Hope (aka Li'l Sofaeater).

Book Summary:

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris—the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She’s determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts fiercely alongside her. Now Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves and finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax—but loving him means betraying her sister and has the potential to destroy all they’ve worked for.

How to Enter:

1. I'm going to change it up and do a random drawing this time. All you need to do is respond to this post and you'll automatically be entered into the contest. The winner will be chosen by my beagle, Lucy. How, I'm not quite sure, but I'm already working on some sort of Rube Goldberg type contraption.

2. For extra credit (and one extra contest entry), please answer the following question: You are skipping towards Grandma's house, carrying a basket full of gifts and supplies. Out of nowhere, you are attacked by a Big Bad Wolf. Using just your cloak and/or the items in your basket, how do you fight back?

3. If you're my little brother, you can't enter.

4. You must follow my blog. You could also follow me on Twitter (@LiteraryMouse), but you don't have to if you don't want to.

5. The deadline is Monday, January 10, at 9pm EST.

If you have any questions about contest rules, please leave them in the comments!

Update: The contest is closed! I'll announce the winner either tomorrow or Friday. Thanks to everyone who entered.

NaNoWriSlow: The Aftermath

2010-12-07T18:25:00.000-08:00

November has passed. The increasingly sad-looking pumpkin that was sitting on my porch has been put out of its misery, the temperature's dropped about 20 degrees and suddenly, everybody's talking about this jolly fat guy in a red suit who'll be making a visit on the 25th.

How'd my NaNoWriSlow experiment go? Well, it went slowly, as you might have guessed. I got a grand total of... 18 pages done! Nowhere near my goal, but the words I did get in were polished and prettified and I managed to work out a major plot issue, so I'm pretty happy with the results.

I promised a giveaway. Having rooted around my prize lair, I've decided to give away a signed copy of Jackson Pearce's Sisters Red. Stay tuned for contest rules and regs!

NaNoWriSlow: Update

2010-11-24T11:08:00.000-08:00

I can't believe November is almost over. What happened? I vaguely remember taking down Halloween decorations, getting ready for Faeriecon, then...BAM! All the sudden it's the day before Thanksgiving. What's up with that, space-time continuum? I think I lost an entire week somewhere in there.

How is everybody's NaNo projects coming along? Feel free to give updates in the comments. I'd love to hear how you all are doing. As for me... I've gotten 13 pages done! That's actually not bad, because as you might've guessed by the title of this post, and the turtle pic below, I write slow. But I don't go back to work until Tuesday, so I have an extra long weekend to get more writing done.

As I've mentioned, I'm working on a sequel to my Knights of Avalon mss, about the Knights of the Round Table reincarnated as New Jersey teens. Here's a description of Knights of Avalon from my query:

Sixteen-year-old Justine Kwiatkowski doesn’t believe in magic, she doesn’t believe in reincarnation, and she never planned on having to fill King Arthur’s shoes. All she knows is that last night, the best friend she’s ever had, Gwen Martinez, went missing outside the town of Avalon and she’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.

But if she wants to rescue Gwen, she’ll have to believe in a world she thought only existed in legend, because her best friend happens to be the reincarnation of Guinevere, and fifteen hundred years after the fall of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table have returned, reborn as New Jersey teens.

Problem is, Mordred and Morgan le Fay are back too, having kidnapped Gwen, and unlike most of the knights, they remember who they once were.

With Mordred murdering the knights before they can regain their memories, Justine has to figure out how to track down the few remaining survivors – a star football player, a brilliant artist teetering on the brink of madness, a high school dropout working odd jobs to support his family - and convince them to bury centuries-old grudges and work together. If she can do that, she just might save her friend, and maybe, the world.

In Knights of Avalon, my MC Justine is up against Mordred, even though she has no idea who Mordred is until the end of the book. Or to use a visual metaphor, it's like this:

Two opponents, equally matched, trying to outmaneuver the other. Awww, aren't they adorable? Thinking they're so tough and bad-ass.

In my sequel, it's Justine vs. Morgan le Fay, which goes down something like this:

Morgan le Fay is the orange cat, if you couldn't guess. The idea is that Justine is way out of her league on this one, and has to do everything in her power just to stay alive. We'll see how it works out.

NaNoWriSlow

2010-11-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name's Melissa and I write slow. And that's OK!

Also, I never focus on word count, because I've learned from experience that just doesn't work for me. It's all right if you're different!

So, NaNoWriMo? More like NaNoChanceInHell. But I do want to participate, and I love setting unrealistic and unattainable goals for myself (it's like a hobby), so I'm going to give it a go, playing by my own set of rules.

My goal: Finish the rough draft of the sequel to Knights of Avalon by 11:59pm on November 30.

I'm already about 35% done and I have a definite idea of where the story's going, so it should be less daunting than writing a novel from the ground up.

The Rules

1. It's OK if I don't finish. Even in trying this, I'll have made more progress than I otherwise would have.

2. I won't sacrifice quality for quantity. Channel the spirit of the turtle, slow and steady is the way to go.

3. I don't have to write every night. With my job and other responsibilities, it's just not possible.

4. Most importantly, I will have fun!

The Prizes

Because everything's better with prizes. Here's the deal: I'll post updates throughout the month on how I'm doing. I doubt it'll happen, but if by some miracle I meet my goal, I'll have a huge book giveaway. Even if I don't finish, I'll still do a contest, with me giving away more stuff the further along I get in the story.

I guess I better get started, because I've got a lot of writing ahead of me. Onwards! (Slowly)

Query Update: Neurotic Writer Is Neurotic

2010-10-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not particularly thrilled with the name, but my blog is called 'Surviving Writing a Book' for a reason. There are days, many days, when I feel I haven't so much embarked on a quest to get published as I've embarked on a slow descent into madness.

Just so you know where I stand with things: I have a YA Urban Fantasy called Knights of Avalon, about the Knights of the Round Table being reincarnated as New Jersey teens. I love my story. Yeah, yeah, I know all writers love their stories, but I fully, 100%, believe in this story, in a way that I didn't know was possible until I wrote it.

Problem is, I've been querying for over a year now and have piled up enough rejections to create a very pleasant bonfire with which to roast marshmallows over. I know my query isn't the problem. I've gotten too many partial and full requests for that to be the issue. No, it's something with the manuscript itself.

Some of the agents who have rejected me, very kind and awesome agents, have told me that they just didn't fall in love with the manuscript. I get that a lot and really, that's not a bad response to get, but at some point, when you hear that over and over, you wish there was a more fixable problem. Something like, "There's a giant plot hole...right over there." Yeah, I could fix that. But how do I make someone love something? Maybe have an agent read the manuscript over a candlelight dinner? With a violin concerto softly playing in the background?

I have my suspicions...maybe my main character is too unsympathetic, maybe my words somehow lack emotional impact, maybe I just don't write well enough... but I'll keep working at it, always trying to make my story better, because while I believe 100% in Knights of Avalon, I also believe 100% that there's still room for improvement.

I'm kind of running out of agents to pester though, and at this point, I have the feeling I'm not going to find one. Not right now, at least. It's frustrating, and I would prefer to have one, because my beagle can negotiate a contract better than I can. But I'll go it alone if I have to, and I think I'm going to start querying publishers (reputable ones) who accept unagented submissions. And you better believe I saw Sourcebooks' call for YA manuscripts and sent mine in weeks ago. Wish me luck, because so far my luck's been pretty lousy, and I'll let you all know how it goes!

Zombies vs. Unicorns: Winners Announced

2010-10-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everybody who entered. Considering myself to be somewhat of an expert on the subject of Zombies vs. Unicorns, I thought I had heard just about every conceivable argument on the matter. I was wrong. Not only did you guys make some really thoughtful and creative points, but oftentimes you had me laughing hysterically while you made them. Well done!

After much consideration, rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, the winners are:

First Place: Dr. Beatrice Alfalfa-Scrimstone...er, I mean, Stephanie!

Runner-up: Reena Jacobs, who had me at "Unicorn Jello"

Congratulations to you both!

Thanks again to everybody who entered. I had a blast doing this and hope to have many more contests in the future.

Zombies vs. Unicorns: The Contest!

2010-10-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, a contest. My first official contest. Why am I so nervous? I don't know, there's no reason to be.

But yes, I am having a contest. There have been many great debates in our time: Tastes Great vs. Less Filling, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Do Dolphins Secretly Rule the World or Do Mice?, and now... Zombies vs. Unicorns. Here's your chance to weigh in, have some fun, and in the process, perhaps win a prize.

Contest Details:

The Prize: A copy of the highly coveted, much sought after Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology signed by Holly Black, Justine Larbalestier, Diana Peterfreund, Kathleen Duey, Scott Westerfeld and Carrie Ryan.

How to Enter:

1. You must choose a side. There will be no Switzerland. I will have no Team Zombiecorn or Unicorn Ninja or Sparkle Zombie on this blog. It is forbidden.

2. Explain to me, as creatively and convincingly as possible in the comments section below, why zombies or unicorns are better. I'd also love to see some arguments in favor of the practical value unicorns or zombies might have.

3. You can enter three times. Any entries above and beyond that will be thoroughly ignored.

4. If you're my little brother, you can't enter.

5. You must follow my blog. You could also follow me on Twitter (@LiteraryMouse), but you don't have to if you don't want to.

6. The deadline is Wednesday, October 20, at 9pm EST...or whenever America's Next Top Model ends.

Entries will be judged on creativity, passion, and humor. I reserve the right to add more cool prizes if there's a ton of responses.

Update: Because of the awesome entries, I'm going to add a prize for the runner-up: A copy of Rampant signed by Diana Peterfreund. Keep those answers coming!

Update2: Thanks again to everyone who entered! I will announce winners Saturday evening, when I'm not in a sleep-deprived, work-induced haze.

Zombies vs. Unicorns at the Baltimore Book Fest

2010-10-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

The day before the National Book Festival, Aine and I headed to Baltimore's book festival to check out the epic Zombie vs. Unicorns panel and to hear author/illustrator Ted Naifeh speak.

The two festivals couldn't have been more different. The National Book Fest was all about the speakers and signings. You couldn't even buy books there. The Baltimore Book Festival had some fun panels, but there was also great food and shopping (I got a new journal, are you shocked? You shouldn't be).

The highlight of the day though was Zombie vs. Unicorns. It's the most crazy fun I've had in ages, and that says a lot, because I'm lucky enough to have crazy fun on a regular basis. On Team Unicorn we had the magical, the glittery, the fabulous Holly Black, Diana Peterfreund, and Kathleen Duey. Facing off against those do-goodin' Unicorn lovers were the fiercesome threesome, the supporters of brain-munchin' individuals everywhere, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, and Carrie Ryan.

With Team Unicorn tossing packets of glitter and lollipops into the crowd, the two sides prepared to battle. Let's get it on!

Scott Westerfeld kicked it off with a comparison of zombie vs. unicorn literature. He quoted from the zombie classic, World War Z, and then noted all the other great zombie books out there. He then cited some sappy, gods awful self-published work as his example of great unicorn literature. Now I cry foul, because how can he cherry-pick such a bad example when Diana Peterfreund is sitting right across from him? Not to mention he completely ignored Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn.

But Team Unicorn hit back with Diana noting the complete lack of zombies in classical art, while unicorns have been appearing in art for centuries. She cited a work of Raphael's (the artist, not the Ninja turtle), as well as countless medieval tapestries and the work of 80's artist Lisa Frank.

Team Zombie then argued that what was so great about zombies was preparing for the coming zombie apocalypse. Let's face it, they said, zombies are at the top of the food chain. While Justine Larbalestier described unicorns as "just horses with deformities on their foreheads," and horses are easily frightened creatures. Team Zombie also noted that unicorns are sexist, since they're usually depicted as hanging out with female virgins.

But Team Unicorn turned their argument around. What's the end game of a zombie apocalypse? Total annihilation of the human race, and that's not good. People run from zombies, but people would run up to unicorns to pet them.

The two teams then discussed the practical value of zombies and unicorns. Unicorns can heal and are symbols of hope. Let's face it, zombies aren't. Plus, unicorns spend a lot of time with their heads in ladies' laps, which is positive and cheerful. Zombies would never put their heads in ladies' laps, unless the ladies had cut off the zombies' heads first.

Someone, I think an audience member, then pointed out that zombies could be used as slave labor. The two teams got into a discussion of the ethics of using zombies as slaves, with the suggestion that perhaps zombies could be unionized. What about unicorns, then? Should they be unionized too? Holly Black responded that unicorns didn't have a union, but they did have a business, called 'Unicorp.'

There was then a discussion of what a unicorn apocalypse would look like, and how much cooler it would be than a zombie apocalypse. Unicorns would descend from the sky, charging towards you, with rainbows and glitter everywhere. People would run up to pet the unicorns, only to be speared by their pointy horns. It'd be terrifying, yet very confusing at the same time.

Justine Larbalestier pointed out that a unicorn apocalypse wouldn't be very fun though, because anyone can kill a slow-moving zombie, that's part of the appeal of a zombie apocalypse, while only virgins and SWAT team members would be safe from fast-moving, clever unicorns. And do we really want to live in a world filled with just virgins and SWAT team members? Plus, a unicorn apocalypse would suck because after you killed a unicorn you'd feel bad.

Holly Black then opened the floor to the audience, so that they could make their case for Team Zombie or Team Unicorn:

* For Team Zombie: There were zombies in Thriller, and Thriller is awesome

* For Team Unicorn: Zombies don't read, while the unicorn in Peter Beagle's book quotes Nietzsche

* A librarian made an interesting point for Team Zombie: If your parents find a unicorn book in your room, they won't be bothered by it. But if they find a zombie book, they'll get worried. So read about zombies, because they'll freak your parents out.

* Ted Naifeh also joined in to make, not so much an argument, but a good point about unicorns. That in terms of girls' interests, that they're part of a continuum that starts with bunnies, moves to unicorns, then goes to sparkly vampires, and finally ends up with real, actual boys.

Ted also made one of the best arguments for Team Unicorn, which is, if you're a zombie, you've already lost. You're dead, so even if you wipe out the whole human race, you can never really 'win.' It's a lose-lose situation.

I think Holly Black's closing statement in favor of unicorns was the best though, and was so convincing that I went from being a fence-sitter to being firmly and proudly on Team Unicorn. According to Holly, if you look in a mirror and see a zombie looking back at you, then that sucks, because you're dead, you've either killed your family or are going to try to eat them, and you're decomposing and gross. But if you look in the mirror and see a unicorn looking back at you, then you're happy, because that unicorn will probably pull you through that mirror and take you to a magical world. A magical world where you're the lost member of a royal family and can understand small woodland creatures. You probably also have a special power that no one else has.

In other words, unicorns are symbols of happiness and hope, and in this world, we definitely need more of that. Team Unicorn for the win!

Down With the Capitol! (Er, Wrong Capitol)

2010-10-04T18:57:00.000-07:00

I admit, it's been a frenzy of book festivals this year. A veritable Book Festivalpalooza. Last week, I continued the streak with visits to both the Baltimore Book Festival and the National Book Festival in DC.

The day before, in Baltimore, the heat had been absolutely brutal, but I woke up to promises from numerous weatherpeople that Saturday would be about 15 degrees cooler and infinitely more bearable. The weatherpeople LIED. I propose they be punished by being dumped into an arena and having to fight to the death on live TV. Just a thought.

With the cruel sun beating down on us, Aine and I made our way to the National Book Festival, where Suzanne Collins would be speaking. I was so excited. When it comes to books, I'm hard to please, and it's a rare book that makes me fall in love the way Hunger Games did (I was deeply disappointed in Mockingjay though...don't get me started).

To a packed house (or rather, tent), Suzanne Collins started by talking about her background. She used to be a writer for such shows as Clarissa Explains It All, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, and Clifford's Puppy Days. Awww, Clifford, isn't that sweet?

Uh-huh. Keep that in mind as she segued into a discussion of her first book series, the Underland Chornicles, about a boy who falls into an underground world beneath New York City filled with giant cockroaches, rats, and other creatures. The way she structured it, the focal point of each of the series' five books centered around an aspect of war: For example, Book 1 was about an attempt to rescue a POW, Book 2 was about assassination, Book 4 was about genocide.

Assassination. Genocide. Clifford's Puppy Days. As Suzanne herself put it, she comes off as this cheerful, crunchy granola type but there's some dark, dark stuff in her head. Where'd it all come from? Well, it starts with her being a military brat. Her father was an officer in the Air Force, a specialist in international relations with a PhD who taught at West Point. And her father made sure his kids knew their history too.

The first movie Suzanne ever saw in a drive-in was Patton, she got to go to Waterloo, the site of Napoleon's defeat, for her 12th birthday. Her father would read the Roman classics out loud to her as a child.

Sometimes war hit closer to home though. When she was about six, her father was sent off to Vietnam. When Suzanne asked where he was going, she was told he'd be in the jungle. Well, everything she knew about the jungle at that point came from George of the Jungle, so she wasn't worried for her father, until the day she caught some war footage on the news and realized how much danger he was in. When her father returned, he was haunted by what he had seen and forever interested in the ethics and justness of war. He was also strongly opposed to the Iraq War.

As you can see, she poured many of her childhood experiences into the Hunger Games, but Suzanne was also strongly influenced by the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. For those who don't know the story, after a bloody war between Crete and Athens, Athens was defeated and required every year to deliver seven of its finest young men and women to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur. Suzanne noted that throughout Greek and Roman myth (and I'm sure in myths around the world), that the death of one's children is worse than your own death, because children are, quite literally, the future.

By the way, before I continue, I should note that this entire discussion was being held right next to this:

Just sayin'. So, besides Greek myth, Suzanne was strongly influenced by gladiator/toga movies. She's loved them since she was a little girl, when her family would have marathons of Spartacus and Ben-Hur on Easter. Having watched so many, she soon figured out that there were three key ingredients to a good gladiator movie: 1. A ruthless government 2. A fight to the death 3. The fight must be a form of popular entertainment. The Hunger Games certainly had all three.

Ultimately though, Suzanne got the idea for the Hunger Games when she was channel-surfing one day, and kept switching between images of Reality TV and the Iraq War. From there, the idea of Katniss just sprung into her head. She noted, having lived in Manhattan during 9/11 and seeing the effect the attacks had on her son, that children notice more than parents think when it comes to war. Her hope is that by starting a dialogue, and making children think about the impact of war early on, that there'll be greater support for non-violent solutions.

She then opened up the floor for a Q&A session. Having at that point only read about half of Mockingjay, I have to thank her for enforcing a strict no-spoilers policy. Here's some highlights:

* She used her experience on TV sets for many of the prep scenes leading up to Katniss and Peeta's television appearances.

* She was surprised by how many people were on Team Finnick.

* Asked to pick between Peeta or Gale, she demurred and said that when she was writing them, that she wanted both guys to be equally worthy.

* She loves to watch Glee, classic movies, the news, Masterpiece Theater, and Make It or Break It.

* Her favorite books include Percy Jackson, A Wrinkle in Time, and Boris, by Jaap ter Haar, the story of a boy trying to survive the siege of Leningrad.

* She refused to say where the various districts were, though she did mention that Panem included the US AND Canada...so which district is responsible for hockey sticks and maple syrup? All she would say is that District 12 was in 'Appalachia' and that the Capitol was somewhere in the Rockies. Also, when she reads, she makes a point of using a 'futuristic Appalachian' accent for Katniss so that no one can accuse her of having an accent that's off.

* 13 districts = 13 colonies

After her talk, the plan was to get my copy of Mockingjay signed/stamped, but when I reached the line, it already had about 500 people in it, and everyone was roasting in the mid-day sun. Instead, I went off to grab a delicious and cool mango smoothie and then found Amy Brecount White (I swear I'm not stalking you, Amy!) at the National Botanical Garden, doing tussie-mussie demonstrations. Tussie-mussies are basically Victorian flower bouquets that hold special meanings. Here's a picture of the one I made, along with my copy of Mockingjay.

The PAYA Chronicles: Chocolate for the Greater Good

2010-09-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

I had survived the Listen and Critique Workshop. I felt like I could run to the end of a certain doomed oceanliner and scream, "I'm the King of the World!" Like I could do a tapdance routine atop the nearest book-covered table. Now, if you remember from several weeks back, the very lovely authors who had critiqued my opening pages had pointed out a whole slew of weaknesses. Also, I had launched a unilateral air strike on a fellow writer with my pen. Accidentally!

So why was I so happy? Because there's nothing worse than knowing there's a problem with your manuscript but not knowing how to fix it. All right, killer clowns that peer into your window late at night, those are probably worse. Natural disasters are also bad. But not being able to fix your manuscript? It's maddening.

Giddy and excited, I made my way back into the main hallway with my friend Aine. There were books that needed buying, you see, but before I could do that, there was an important matter that I had to attend to. More to the point, there was chocolate, in brownie, cookie, and muffin form, that urgently needed my attention.

PAYA was having a bake sale to benefit Pennsylvania libraries. OK, besides my desperate need at that point to eat, how brilliant an idea is that? You mean, by eating this here chocolate muffin, sitting on the table all sad and lonely, I get to help spread the joy of books to Pennsylvania teens? I can promote books by eating chocolate? Sign me up! And while you're at it, toss another muffin into my mouth, thanks.

After I had blown a decent amount of cash on ~~baked goods~~ helping Pennsylvania libraries, I went to get some books for myself. Children's Book World had brought a number of authors' books to sell at PAYA, and I ended up getting Shannon Delany's 13 to Life, Jon Skovron's Struts and Frets, and Amy Brecount White's Forget-Her-Nots. Which seriously, I should have bought a long time ago. There were plenty of other ones I wanted, but my cash resources were becoming fast depleted at this point.

With books in hand, I went to get them signed. I also wanted to talk to the authors, and by 'talk to the authors', I mean I hovered around them nervously, listening to them talk to other people, while I worked up the courage to tell them how awesome they were. Though I don't think I said more than four words to Dianne Salerni, author of We Hear the Dead, I had fun listening to her discuss with Aine the thought process behind the book's amazing cover (no, really, check it out).

I also had a real, live, wonderful discussion with Ellen Jensen Abbott, author of Watersmeet, who was incredibly encouraging. Finally, I also met Josh Berk's Dad. He admits to being slightly biased, but he thinks his son is brilliant and that everyone should go read his book. So go read it! Josh Berk's Dad said so!

Before Aine and I prepared to head for home, we waited for the results of the raffle PAYA was holding. There were all sorts of prize packs that included t-shirts, signed ARCs, and yes, swag, glorious swag, with all the money going to benefit Pennsylvania libraries. I really wanted the swag prize pack and I won it! I now have a 13 to Life mouse pad, tons of buttons, a journal (and I love me some journals), signed bookmarks, and more. Yay for swag! Especially when I'll be giving some of it away, along with signed books, in my very first contest. Which will be happening sometime soon-ish.

Quoth the Mockingjay, "Nevermore"

2010-09-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Once upon a Monday dreary, while I worked on revisions, eyes so bleary,
Over many a quaint and curious chapter I had gone over many times before,
While I nodded to SJ Tucker, feet a'tapping, suddenly there came a rapping,
As of some one gently tapping, tapping at my bedroom door.
"Goddamn cats," I muttered, "tapping at my bedroom door —
Wanting food, and nothing more."

Then into my bedroom bursting, my temper within me burning,
Soon I heard again a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Knock it off cats!," said I, before noticing something at my window sill;
"What the hell?", said I, "I've never seen anything like this before" —
Let me get these hungry cats away from it before this creature becomes nevermore
Before this creature becomes nevermore

Lifted I the window sill, when, with many a flash and flitter,
In my bedroom stepped a Mockingjay; with feathers black and white with which to soar
"You can't be real," I said to he; "You don't exist, you can't be"
"It's a poem, just go with it" said the Mockingjay; "Now listen to what I have to say, or you'll be spoiled to the ending of Mockingjay forevermore"
"Or you'll be spoiled to the ending of Mockingjay forevermore"

Much I stared in horror at this imaginary fowl to hear news so scary,
For I had managed to stay unspoilered, unspoilered since August Twenty-Four;
"But the National Book Festival is coming," the Mockingjay reminded me
"With Suzanne Collins signing and reading, Surely there you will run into spoilers, spoilers galore"
"So no excuses, no more blogs or Twitter, you must read Mockingjay by September Twenty-Fifth or be spoiled forever, forevermore"

But before the Mockingjay could say another word,
My fat orange cat sprang through the air and tackled it to the floor
Madly thrashing, with feathers flashing, the Mockingjay bolted for the window
And with a shout of "Team Katniss" it spread its wings to fly, disappearing into the night as I told myself, "Wait a minute, it's Jabberjays that are supposed to speak"
But the Mockingjay told me not to over-analyze as it faded from sight and I reached for the book I had gotten at the store, so that I could start reading, my hungry cats still ignored

--

My apologies for the long absence, after the awesomeness that was PAYA, I got overwhelmed with work and revisions. OK, the revisions were pretty fun. Work? Not so much. I'll have the final installment of my report from PAYA in the next couple of days, but for now, I've got to get started on Mockingjay, or else!

Update: Thanks to work, and my bothersome need to eat and have a roof over my head, I was only able to get half way through the book before I heard Suzanne Collins speak. Luckily for me, Suzanne very kindly but very firmly announced a 'no spoilers' policy at the beginning of the Q&A session, and when one girl wanted to ask a question about the end of Mockingjay, Suzanne told the girl to talk to her after the session was over. So, spoilers averted, and I finished the book early this morning.

The PAYA Chronicles: And Then It Hit Me

2010-08-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

So, PAYA's Listen and Critique Workshop. NOT.SCARY.AT.ALL. Actually, it was great. After listening to the authors speak, we were broken out into two groups, each with three authors and three/four writers. I'm going to say it again because it can't be said enough: What an incredible opportunity. I feel like I won the writer lottery, because from everything I've heard, you don't usually get this much attention from one author, much less three, and they were awesome.

In my group, the authors were Amy Brecount White, Shannon Delany, and Jon Skovron. I know this is going to sound silly, but woohoo! That's pretty much how I felt. And along with myself and Aine, I was joined by fellow writers Lillie and Ilene, who are very talented.

Lillie and Ilene went first and let me just say...when I get nervous, I play with my pen. At some point, while playing with my pen, I accidentally launched it into the air and hit Ilene. The pen then fell to the ground, and thoroughly mortified, I quickly reached down to get it. And slammed my head on the edge of the table we were all sitting at. Because I have many talents, but apparently hand-eye coordination is not one of them. Now I was beyond mortified, because I had just embarrassed myself in front of Amy Brecount White, Shannon Delany, and Jon Skovron, who are like rock stars as far as I'm concerned, but what can you do, and at least the pen didn't go flying through the air and poke anyone in the eye. That'd be REALLY embarrassing.

Finally, it was my turn. I handed out copies of my lovingly prepared three pages for critique and Amy Brecount White kindly agreed to read for me. Yes, I'm painfully shy, but with her reading, I could take notes and pay attention to people's reactions, so thank you, Amy!

Here's the three pages that Amy read, from my manuscript Knights of Avalon, about the Knights of the Round Table being reincarnated as New Jersey teens, and Mordred is hunting them down and killing them:

Last night, the most extraordinary person I had ever met vanished. She was my best friend Gwen, about the only friend I really had. The call came at three in the morning, one of those calls that I knew would change everything. It was Gwen’s Mom, Mrs. Martinez, asking if I had heard from her daughter that night. It was never the type of call you wanted to get, not when there was a murderer out there, targeting the brightest and most brilliant teens in New Jersey.

I had known Mrs. Martinez for over ten years. The lady was unshakeable. She never raised her voice, never lost her cool. Not even that time Gwen and I had come home covered from head to toe in mud when we were little. She had just stared at us in horror, burst into laughter, and grabbed the garden hose.

Now she was a wreck. According to her, no one had heard from Gwen since 11pm, when she had called her boyfriend after their date and told him her car had broken down in Stone Harbor, right off its main street. Except when the family drove there to pick her up, no one could find Gwen, or the car.

No, I hadn’t heard from her, I said. Not since earlier that day. Mrs. Martinez, ever polite, apologized for waking me up, promised to call back the moment the family had any news, and like that, I was left to fear for my friend in the darkness.

Something had happened to Gwen. Sure, she was sixteen, and us sixteen-year-olds had a habit of staying out late and doing bone-headed things, but Gwen wasn’t like that. We had our adventures, we got into our share of trouble, but Gwen would never scare her parents. Maybe her cell phone had run out of power, maybe it was the other possibility, the possibility I didn’t even want to think about, but she was thoughtful, she was kind, she wouldn’t forget to check in. If she hadn’t called, it was because she couldn’t.

My best friend was the most beautiful person I had ever met, and I wasn’t talking about her looks. I mean, she was pretty enough, slim, with long black hair, dazzling honey-colored brown eyes, and a sublime grace. That’s not what made her beautiful. She had an inner light, a compassion that shone through.

I, on the other hand, was about as huggable as a porcupine. I was a big girl, and I was OK with that. My family was Polish, my last name was Kwiatkowski, but I must have had a great-great-grandmother in my family tree who was a Viking warrior. There wasn’t much else to explain how I had gotten to be 6 foot and built like a linebacker. Well, there was my father, who was 6’2” and built like a linebacker, but I didn’t want to dwell on the thought that I might take after him.

I wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. I was OK with that too. I kind of didn’t care. I had, in fact, given up on caring a long time ago. But Gwen put up with me, which meant maybe I wasn’t as awful as I thought.

When I was five years old, I had found her playing by herself by the creek one day. Gwen always played alone, none of the other kids in the neighborhood seemed to know what to do with her. Not like they knew what to do with me either. Gwen had been trying to catch frogs in a pool that had formed off a sandbar. She was playing in my creek. In my favorite spot. Catching my frogs. I told her that if she wanted to hang out in my spot, that she’d have to prove herself by crossing the creek on a rickety old moss-covered log. Gwen was up for that. She danced across without a moment’s hesitation. Then she dared me to do the same. I wasn’t afraid. But I wasn’t as graceful as she was, and I wasn’t as light. I slipped off into the water, twisting my ankle. Gwen braved the creek to fish me out. Our friendship was instant.

Now, my best friend was missing. My first impulse was to go out and look for her. It was three in the morning and she was two hours away, but part of me wanted to try anyways. What if she had had an accident? What if she had gotten her car going, only to have it break down again in the middle of nowhere? There was a murderer on the loose, searching for his next victim. I couldn’t bear to think of her out there, scared and alone.

I had woken up my mother to talk to her about it. She said I’d have to wait until morning. I didn’t know how she expected me to just go back to bed. I stared across the room, at the Bruce Lee posters on the walls, thinking about Gwen. My room was up on the second floor of our family’s Cape Cod, painted in a tropical blue with a neon purple chair in the corner. Gwen sometimes joked that I must have been color blind, but I just liked it that way. Who said colors needed to coordinate?

I kept my cell phone by my side, hoping Gwen’s parents would call back soon. Better yet, maybe it’d be Gwen on the other end of the line. I know it was stupid, but I tried her number and was taken directly to her voicemail. It felt strange to hear her voice, so breezy and cheerful. I sent a text message next. I really didn’t know what I was expecting. I might’ve tried her boyfriend, talk to him about what had happened, but I had never met him, I didn’t even know his last name, much less his phone number.

Wow, would you look at all that telling and not showing. Way to take a great concept and suck the life right out of it with a bunch of exposition up front. I can see it now. I couldn't see it before. A lot of times when I revise, I have an Ah-ha! moment (as opposed to a "Muhahahaha!" moment), where there's a shift in understanding. That's what I was hoping for with this workshop and that's what I got. As Amy read my manuscript, I could feel the energy just die on the page whenever we got to the exposition, and there's a lot of exposition. So I think I finally get what I've been doing wrong with my opening.

Here's some of the specific feedback I got:

Add dialogue, the action is too far removed
There's no paranormal here
No sense that Justine is heroic
Play up the murder mystery

OK, now here's my revised opening. Hopefully it's better. Because my main character, Justine, is a skeptic, I couldn't really figure out how to bring the paranormal into the opening pages, but I could definitely play up the murder mystery.

“Hi, Justine. I’m sorry to be calling so late.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded scared, exhausted. “Gwen’s not with you, is she?”

I fought to get my bearings in the darkness, the cell phone clutched in my hand. I was in my bedroom, the Bruce Lee posters on the walls told me that much. I peered at the alarm clock, the numbers flashed 3:11 back at me. This wasn’t good. This was one of those calls you never wanted to get, certainly not at 3am on a school night. Not when there was a murderer out there, targeting the brightest and most brilliant teens in New Jersey.

“No,” I said, trying to get my brain to work right. “Why would she be?”

“You haven’t heard from her at all?” There was desperation in Mrs. Martinez’s voice, a desperation I had never heard before.

“No, what happened?” I asked, throwing the blankets back and sitting up straight, my heart starting to race. “I mean, we talked earlier this evening. But that was it.”

I was wide awake now. It was three in the morning and the mother of my best friend was calling to find out where her daughter was. Only I had no idea.

Mrs. Martinez took a deep breath, trying to steady her voice. “According to Gwen’s boyfriend…” That last word dripped with something bordering on contempt. “According to him, Gwen headed home from their date around 11pm. He’s saying her car broke down in Stone Harbor, right on its main street, that she called him to pick her up. But Gwen’s not there, and neither’s her car.”

“What?” None of this was making sense. “Did he pick her up or not?” I turned on the light, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. I’d get her myself if I had to. I didn’t care that I was over two hours away.

“He said when he got there, Gwen was gone,” Mrs. Martinez repeated, struggling not to lose her composure. “We went there ourselves, we can’t find her either. It’s like she vanished.”

That’s not what I wanted to hear, because Gwen Martinez wasn’t just my best friend, she was the most extraordinary person I had ever met. A straight ‘A’ student who planned on becoming a heart surgeon and working for Doctors Without Borders one day, she had an inner light, a compassion that shone through. There had always been something different about her, something special. Just like the other victims.

They had vanished too. But it was more than that, they hadn’t just disappeared, it was like the Earth had opened up and swallowed them whole. Then they turned up dead, slashed to death with what investigators guessed was a very long knife. No witnesses, no hint of anything suspicious before they went missing. How could a killer do that? And the lack of evidence meant no suspect.

Twelve kids found dead: A fencing champion destined for the Olympics, a martial arts prodigy, an organizer for Habitat for Humanity. One poor boy had won the Hero of the Year award for rescuing a child from drowning only a month before he was killed. They were like Gwen, they were amazing.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Mrs. Martinez continued, realizing that perhaps she had said too much. “Gwen probably got her car towed to a gas station, and maybe her cell phone ran out of power. I’ll call you back the moment we hear from her.”

“And if she does call me, I’ll let you know right away,” I promised as I walked to my dresser and grabbed some clothes. It might’ve been three in the morning, but I was already coming up with a plan to help search for Gwen. Because something had happened to her. Sure, Gwen and I had had our adventures, we had gotten into our share of trouble, but Gwen would never scare her parents. Maybe her cell phone had run out of power, maybe it was the other possibility, the possibility I didn’t even want to think about, but she was thoughtful, she was kind, she wouldn’t forget to check in. If she hadn’t called, it was because she couldn’t.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Martinez said, ever polite, even in a situation like this. Somehow, I didn’t know why, but what I said had given her some comfort. “I’m so sorry for waking you up. Try to get some rest and we’ll be in touch.” Then she hung up, leaving me to fear for my friend, alone somewhere out there in the darkness.

Like I said, hopefully this is better!

The PAYA Chronicles: The Alligator Duck Stalks at Midnight

2010-08-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know if PAYA will be held in the same location next year, but if it is, all I have to say is this: If you follow the directions and find yourself driving around an industrial park, convinced there's no way you're in the right place, you're in the right place.

PAYA, like many a gem, was hidden away amongst a collection of paint stores, construction firms, and automotive supply centers. Thankfully, there was a sign...

No, not like that. But there was one colorful sign that told us we had made it to our destination.

PAYA was being held at West Chester's Center for Performing and Fine Arts, which meant as we waited for the Listening and Critique Workshop to begin, and as I tried not to freak out, we were able to enjoy the art on display. There were a couple of pieces that stood out to me, but strangely enough, the one I remember most was a drawing that said, "A is for Alligator Duck." Apparently alligator ducks have big, fearsome teeth, so if you run into one in your neighborhood, best to run the other way.

The workshop started right on time with six incredible authors: Amy Brecount White (Forget-Her-Nots), Jon Skovron (Struts and Frets), Josh Berk (The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin), Stephanie Kuehnert (Ballads of Suburbia), Jeri Smith-Ready (Shade), and Shannon Delany (13 to Life). The gathering was intimate, which is my way of saying there were about seven people in attendance, including Aine, who was allowed to tag along, since she had woken up at 5am to get my late-waking butt there on time.

Six talented authors, seven attendees. I don't think I'll ever have such an incredible opportunity again. It started with each author speaking on an aspect of the writing process:

Jon Skovron spoke about rough drafts and how they don't have to be perfect. Give yourself permission to have a rough draft that sucks. It's more important to get started writing than to never write at all for fear that what you're putting on the page isn't perfect.
Jeri Smith-Ready discussed the revision process. For her, the process includes three steps: 1) The Re-write, where the writer steps back and assesses the entire book, tries to re-imagine it and to really take a look at the work as a whole. 2) Revision, where gaps in the story start to be smoothed out. 3) Polish, where the writer gets into the nitty-gritty and focuses on things like overuse of words and sentence structure.
Josh Berk talked about working with an editor and how much his novel, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, was changed and improved in the process. Honestly, this scared the heck out of me, as I'm very open to revisions, but Josh's editor asked him to change tense (I can do that, I've already changed POV at an agent's suggestion), asked him to change the starting point of the story (I could do that too), and asked him to get rid of one character and to include a new one (eeeek!!!). OK, it's that last one that scares me. I get very, very attached to my characters. But I guess I'd deal with it, if and when it came to that.
Amy Brecount White gave six tips on originality: 1) Think like a freelancer, always be on the lookout for a great story idea, don't wait for that idea to be handed to you. 2) Write for an audience you care about. 3) Write the novel that only you can write. 4) Figure out what you love and what you want to share with the world. 5) Pay attention to your life - What do you know that is unique to you? 6) Listen to the universe. Sometimes the universe will give you little hints as to what direction to take (or sometimes it'll hit you over the head with a 2x4).
Stephanie Kuehnert talked about character development. The way she does it, each of her characters has a notecard with their name and birthdate, then she includes details like nervous habits, physical description, etc. She also writes a scene for each character, from their point of view, on the defining moment of their lives. By doing this, she's basically trying to answer the question: Why is the character the way they are?
Finally, Shannon Delany wrapped up by telling us one important truth about being an author: Writing a book is a group effort. To be a good writer, you have to be a good team player. Embrace your support system, from your agent, to your editor, to the marketing team and cover artist on down.

Not bad advice, huh? Next up, the Critique, and how I almost gave myself a concussion in the process (because I'm smooth like that).

The Road to PAYA

2010-08-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

It started at 6:38am. That's when I was woken up by the insistent buzzing of my cell phone. I peered blearily at the caller ID, it was Aine...who had come to pick me up at 6:30am.

I had overslept. I never oversleep when I'm this excited about an event. Usually I'm up half an hour before the alarm goes off. Not this time.

I screamed, I actually screamed. Not quite the Darth Vader, "Nooooooo!" More like an "AHHHHHH!" of sheer panic. Luckily, I had packed and laid out my clothes the night before. After scrambling about like a mad woman, I had the dogs walked and was out the door in a little under a half an hour. Aine pointed out, probably quite rightly, that maybe next time I should spend more time getting to bed early and less time tweeting and blogging till 2 in the morning. Just an idea.

We got on the road, and it was a beautiful drive up to West Chester, PA. We crossed over picturesque stone bridges that spanned rushing creeks, drove through lush forest, and finally passed some lovely parks. At one point, I suggested that maybe we pull over and frolic in one particularly inviting green meadow, but Aine said there would be no frolicking (no frolicking!), as we had to get to my Listen and Critique Workshop on time.

Oh yeah, the Listen and Critique Workshop. As we entered West Chester, I started to panic all over again. Would I make a fool of myself? (most definitely) Would I get the feedback I needed? (heck yeah) And most importantly, how had we ended up in this industrial park and where was PAYA?

One of many parks in West Chester. I could frolic here! Frolic!

It's a Mango, It's a Pineapple, No, It's Paya!

2010-08-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

Papaya?

No, PAYA! AKA, Bringing YA to PA, a coalition of authors, bloggers, librarians and readers dedicated to promoting YA literature in Pennsylvania. PAYA is having their first annual event...oh, TOMORROW, and my BFF Aine and I are going. There'll be over eighteen YA authors there, signing books, along with a used book sale, a listen and critique workshop, and a bake sale.

How excited am I? Probably a little too excited. It's like Christmas in August as far as I'm concerned. I even packed and prepped ahead of time. I never do that. Here's what I'm bringing to the Festival:

My backpack, with stylish Mockingjay pin attached (Team Katniss!)
Ten copies of the first three pages of my manuscript, Knights of Avalon, for the listen and critique workshop
Five pens, in case four of the pens run out of ink
Two notebooks, one is small and pink and covered in smiling kitty cats. I usually bring a larger, more practical notebook as well, but I just discovered they're all filled up, so I'll bring my leather-bound journal instead, aka "The Noodle Book," because I noodle around with ideas on its pages
Cash, for books and baked goodies

Though my latest manuscript, Knights of Avalon, is finished, revised, and currently running amuck in Query-land, I decided to do the workshop because I've never done one before and it promised to be an incredible learning opportunity.

Plus, I'm still having issues with the beginning of my book. I like to think that I'm getting a lot better at 'diagnosing' weaknesses in my work and fixing them, but in this case, my instincts are horribly off. What I think works doesn't work and vice versa. I've revised and revised and sometimes only made the problems worse, not better, so maybe I need to step back and get some perspective. Maybe if I can see what works for other writers, I'll be able to apply those lessons learned to my own story. That's the idea, anyways.

I know the draw of the listen and critique workshop is that there'll be several YA authors there to give feedback, but the reality just hit me, and oh my gods, THERE'LL BE PUBLISHED YA AUTHORS THERE TO GIVE ME FEEDBACK. La-la-la-la, I can't hear you! Not curling into a ball and freaking out.

Somehow I had convinced myself it'd just be me and some fellow writers. I think I could handle that. We'd be like The League of Not Yet Extraordinary Aspiring Authors, there'd be some comraderie and it wouldn't be at all scary. But now...there are going to be real, live, actual authors there. Yikes!

Green Men, King Arthur, People Singing to My Camera!

2010-08-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

Somewhere, long lost to the mists of time, I promised to regale you all with my adventures at RenCon 2010. So let's go back, back to April 2010, when you could buy pop for a nickel and children always listened to their parents, and I shall tell you a tale of myth and legend and retail therapy.

This was the first ever RenCon, and as such, I didn't really know what to expect. I was thinking 'Indoor RenFaire,' and it was definitely some of that, but along the way, the convention got some Steampunk in their Renaissance and some Renaissance in their Steampunk. Not that that was necessarily bad. I can't hide it anymore, this Steampunk thing is growing on me. Which means by the time I've fully embraced it, it'll be out of style.

But besides the Steampunk and inordinate quantity of fairies, there was this scholarly vibe to the con which I really liked. There were panels on Renaissance food and dress, on the Green Man, and yes, on King Arthur. Because how can you have something called RenCon and not mention King Arthur?

I think as most of my readers know, my YA Urban Fantasy, Knights of Avalon, is about the Knights of the Round Table being reincarnated as New Jersey teens, so I especially wanted to attend those King Arthur panels.

Unfortunately, I missed the one on the Holy Grail, due to my bothersome need to have a job, and to keep a roof over my head and to eat, but I was able to attend the Arthurian Love Triangle panel led by Caitlin Matthews. Yes, THAT Caitlin Matthews, legendary author, artist, and scholar. OK, she's a legend to me, and she's insanely cool, and she sang to my camera, but more on that later.

I've heard her speak before and not only does she know her stuff, but she's a riot to listen to. She actually spent a lot of time discussing Welsh love triangles (for example, the story of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Blodeuwedd, and Gronw Pebr), before tying them into the Arthurian ones and discussing the concept of the Flower Bride as it pertained to Queen Guinevere. What's a Flower Bride? It's basically an archetype, a woman who represents the strength and life of the land, who is intimately tied to the kingdom itself, and who men constantly fight over, because to have her as a wife is a symbol of right of rulership.

Which is why poor Guinevere is always getting kidnapped, because she's a symbol of legitimate authority.

Towards the end, Caitlin Matthews somehow got onto the subject of how Lancelot became known as Lancelot du Lac (Lancelot of the Lake). As the story goes, his father was a powerful king caught in the midst of a bloody war. As his castle was being stormed, Lancelot's mother took her infant son and fled. During all the confusion, she set her son down for a moment and Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, stole him away. Only Caitlin Matthews acted it all out to hilarious effect. She ran around in a panic, pretending to be Lancelot's mother, then did her best impression of Viviane, sneaking up to the baby and grabbing him when Mom wasn't looking. I guess you had to be there, but it was pretty awesome.

After the panel was over, I went up to Caitlin to ask her a couple of questions and to take her picture...and my camera died. Caitlin was unfazed. She told me she had a trick to getting electronic devices to power up: She sang to them. In her lovely, rich voice, she bade my camera to turn on, and you know what, it did.

Before I left the convention, I did some shopping. Not much, due to the aforementioned need to eat and have someplace to sleep, but I did get myself two pendants: One of Brigid, Celtic Goddess of Fire and Inspiration, and one of the Lady of the Lake.

If I Had a Pen Name

2010-08-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

Hanging out with my Dad a couple of weeks ago, he asked me out of the blue what my pen name was going to be. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Um, pen name? I was thinking of using, you know, my actual name.

Dad: But you could have a pen name. Don't you want a pen name?

Me: Nah, I think I'm good. I know my name's not the most exciting or catchy, but it works for me.

Dad: Or you could write under your beagle's name, since anytime anyone asks for a picture of you, you just give them a picture of your beagle. Then you could write stuff like, "Marley & Me," but from the viewpoint of the dog (this is admittedly true, if you ask for a photo of me for a blog interview, for example, you're going to get a lovely, photogenic picture of Lucy the beagle).

Me: So my pen name could be Lucy T. Beagle then? There is a famous author called Peter Beagle, I guess it could work.

Dad: What's the T. stand for?

Me: The, as in Lucy The Beagle.

While I do want to use my real name, I admit I've been toying with the idea a little, and I think I'd like to add a middle name at some point. You see, I don't have a middle name in real life, so part of the fun would be in choosing one. I have a couple of ideas, but all I know is that it has to start with the letter 'A'.

Why that letter? Because at my work, everyone is required to have a middle initial, it's just how the computer system works, and by committee, it was pretty much decided that my middle initial would be 'A', because that'd be cool. No really, the CFO declared that having my initials be 'MAB' would be 'cool'. It was either that or 'MOB', but he said he didn't want to be mean.

Shortly afterwards, on some paperwork completely unrelated to my job, I saw that my middle initial was listed as 'A'. I figure it's a sign from the universe, so I'll go with it.

Here There Be Fairies

2010-06-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

Last month I made my semi-annual trek to the Spoutwood Fairy Festival near Glen Rock, PA. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the highlights of the year, filled with food, music, shopping, and yes, plenty of fairies.

It's a dog-friendly event and this year, I feared against my better judgment, I decided to bring along my hound mix Hope, aka li'l dingo, aka the evil sofa-eater. As much as I wish I could've brought the beagle, Lucy is terrified of crowds and the Rottweiler...well, that just wasn't going to work out either.

Much to my shock, Hope was the star of the show. Well, except for that unfortunate ATM incident (if you saw a girl in a silver car at the ATM, with a strange brindle hound mix hanging half-way out the window, the girl hanging onto the dog's collar for dear life...yes, that was me). But otherwise she was fabulous. People were petting her, hugging her, kindly feeding her pepperoni and other treats. I've never seen Hope look so happy, not even after she ate my couch. For the record, I have no idea what type of dog she is. She is a mystery, wrapped inside a furniture-eating enigma.

While it's not a book-centric event by any means, it's a lot of fun and a great place to get creative and to find your inspiration. And there was at least one booth there dedicated to books. Browsing through them, I've pretty much decided that I'm going to have to read Incarceron at some point. It just might take me a while as I still haven't made a dent in my considerably large TBR pile.

Look! An Interview!

2010-05-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

Soooo....I've been so busy lately that I totally forgot to post about my first ever interview on my very own blog. Clearly I must work on this self-promotion stuff if I am ever to become a successful author. Me=Fail.

Did I mention it was my first interview? Ever? How cool is that?! And many thanks to Dorothy Dreyer for the interview and for her excellent site. The one thing I learned, having never done one of these before, is that interviews take time. At least it did for me. Maybe I'll get better at it with more experience, but I have a new found appreciation for all those authors out there kind enough to answer a few questions for the bloggerly masses (*cough* Amy Brecount White *cough*).

Coming soon to a blog, possibly this blog, soon: Pics from several cons and festivals I've been to, as well as a recap of the first annual Gaithersburg Book Festival, where I totally made a fool out of myself in front of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

It's Time to Update the Blogroll

2010-04-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

Actually, it was probably time to update the blogroll months ago. So, who should I include? I'm taking suggestions from my lovely readers, and yes, feel free to suggest your own blog in the comments.

In addition, if any of you ever have anything you'd like me to promote on the blog or on Twitter, drop me a note in the comments and I'll do my best!

Quick update on the agent search: After an initial flurry of partial requests (and one full) for Knights of Avalon, I've had nothing but a string of rejections, I think I'm up to eleven or twelve in a row now. Ouch! I've revamped my query, gone back and made sure the manuscript is extra, extra polished (it's so polished you can now use it as a mirror, it's true!), and I'll keep at it. I think I've got a good story, now I just need some luck.

I said I need some LUCK...

...there, that's better.

Interview with Forget-Her-Nots Author Amy Brecount White!

2010-04-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of meeting Amy at the fabulous launch party for her YA novel Forget-Her-Nots. It took me a couple of days to work up the courage, but I asked her for an interview (my very first author interview) and she kindly agreed.

Besides the interview, which is below, I highly recommend everyone read Amy's thoughts on writing the novel that only you can write. It's one of the best takes on inspiration and originality that I've seen. Now, on to the questions!... OK, first the blurb, then the questions!

About Forget-Her-Nots:

When someone leaves three mystery flowers outside her dorm door,Laurel thinks that maybe the Avondale School isn’t so awful after all — until her own body starts to freak out. In the middle of her English presentation on the Victorian Language of Flowers, strange words pop into her head, and her body seems to tingle and hum. Impulsively, Laurel gives the love bouquet she made to demonstrate the language to her spinster English teacher. When that teacher unexpectedly and immediately finds romance, Laurel suspects that something — something magical — is up. With her new friend, Kate, she sets out to discover the origins and breadth of her powers by experimenting on herself and others. But she can’t seem to find any living experts in the field of flower powers to guide her. And her bouquets don’t always do her bidding, especially when it comes to her own crush, Justin. Rumors about Laurel and her flowers fly across campus, and she’s soon besieged by requests from girls — both friends and enemies — who want their lives magically transformed — just in time for prom.

--

1. I've read about the inspiration for your novel, which has a truly unique premise, but I was curious about your inspiration for Forget-Her-Nots' main character, Laurel. Was she based on anyone you know? How did you come up with her?

I think all main characters have a lot of their author in them. (It's funny, because a friend from high school whom I haven't seen in years just told me she recognized much of me in Laurel, too! LOL.) Most importantly, I wanted Laurel to be someone most people could relate to. She's still trying to figure out where she fits in to everything and how to handle the tough things life has handed her. She's a strong person, but in her own way. I also coach my daughter's soccer team and played some myself, so the team aspect of Laurel's life was important to me, too.

2. The novel takes place at Avondale, a boarding school in Charlottesville, Virginia. I actually tried searching for this school online, wondering if perhaps it was real. Have you ever attended a boarding school? Is there a real Avondale out there?

I attended a public high school in Dayton, Ohio. There's a boarding/day school in Charlottesville, but I've actually never been there other than to drive through the campus once. (I did live in Charlottesville for four years, though.) Avondale is entirely fictional. I wanted a place that I could imbue with a rich history and amazing gardens. I didn't realize there were quite so many boarding school books out there!

3. You've mentioned that it took about 8 years to write your novel and get it published, and that, as with many books, it was a long and winding road. Can you tell me a little more about that journey? We can probably guess the high point of the journey, but what about the low point? The bumps along the way?

The low point was some difficulties I had with an agent. (Not my current wonderful agent, Steven Chudney.) I think I said somewhere that agent X "promised me the moon and left me in a ditch." I don't name names, but just be careful if an agent asks you to do revisions before signing. Be sure to get very good recommendations, although that's tough if it's someone new. I ended up wasting a lot of time and energy. The road was also bumpy in part for me, because I was writing something really original that was hard to pigeon-hole. FHN isn't a fantasy; it's not paranormal, and it's intergenerational. Lots of people loved the idea, but they wanted me to take it places I didn't want to go.

4. If you were going to create a tussie-mussie (a bouquet of flowers chosen for their meaning) for an aspiring author, what flowers would you use?

Oh, fun!! Snowdrops for hope, because you need lots of that to survive rejection. Rosemary to remember so that the events of your life will be vivid and memorable and inspire you. Red camellia for unpretending writing excellence. Mountain laurel for ambition, because you REALLY need to want to do this, and sage because I esteem and admire your efforts!

5. From what I've read, you've done a lot of traveling and a lot of gardening. After reading Forget-Her-Nots, where would someone go to learn more about flowers and enjoy them in person? Do you have any hidden gems to recommend, both locally (DC area) or nationally?

Any conservatory or public garden is a fabulous place to start, especially if the plants are labelled. Their gift shops might even have a language of flowers book in them. Locally, I love the U.S. Botanic Garden and conservatory on the mall. The gardens near the Smithsonian "castle" are always fabulous, too. I used to take my kids to Meadowlark Gardens near Wolf Trap a lot. Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD, is wonderful, too. River Farm Gardens in Alexandria has some amazing heirloom plants and a fabulous view of the river. This is my favorite place to picnic.

Nationally, I love the gardens around Duke University in N.C. and also those of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Longwood Gardens and Winterthur in Pennsylvania are amazing to visit.

6. Finally, do you have any upcoming appearances, panels, workshops or projects you'd like to announce?

Sure! I'll be at Aladdin's Lamp in Arlington on 4/11 for a reading and signing and other fun stuff. I'll be at Fountain Books in Richmond on 4/17. I'll be signing and selling at the Friends of the National Arboretum Plant sale on 4/24. I'll do a May Day reading and celebration at Hooray for Books! in Alexandria on May 1st.

I've applied to some festivals, so watch my website for updates.

Thanks so much for having me, Melissa!!

You're most welcome and thanks for stopping by!

VA Book Part 3: The YA Panels, and the Agent I Did Not Stalk

2010-03-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

Fun Fact: Until the Virginia Festival of the Book, I had never met an agent. And by 'meet an agent' I mean, never been in the same room as one. I suppose I could've been in the Greenie aisle of the local PetSmart with Colleen Lindsay or at the Baltimore Aquarium's shark tank with Janet Reid and not known it, but this was my first, genuine sighting of a literary agent in the wild.

I walked into the room for the 12pm "Getting Published - Picture Books to Young Adult" panel and spotted Andrea Brown supa-agent Laura Rennert kindly explaining to someone how they could query her via e-mail: Be sure to put 'query' in the subject header and include the first ten pages of the manuscript in the body of the e-mail. In other words, exactly what the web site tells writers to do. She was very patient and I watched a couple of other people approach her as she made her way to the front of the room.

Though I didn't talk to her, because let's face it, she was being bugged enough as it was, I could tell that she was smart, scary smart. If contract negotiation was a martial art, she'd be a ninja master. Whenever the panel touched upon the issue of agenting or deal-making, she'd get this gleam in her eye and you could tell she was in the zone. She probably doesn't walk out of editor meetings so much as vanish in a veil of smoke.

I know there wasn't much to my agent sighting, but yes, it totally made my day in a, "Oh my gods, agents DO exist! They're not just figments of my imagination" sort of way. Besides Laura, who was there to talk about her new picturebook Buying, Training, and Caring for Your Dinosaur, authors Deborah Heiligman, Bonnie Doerr, Emily Ecton, and Ruth Spiro were also on the panel.

Though the panel was supposed to cover everything up to YA, a good deal of the discussion focused on picturebooks and just how different they were from other types of juvenile fiction. Because there's a visual component to the book, you really don't need descriptive words, yet every word you do use should set a mood and tone.

I also knew that picturebook authors didn't get to choose their artists, but I didn't know that they oftentimes don't even see the final product until their book is about to hit the shelves. That was quite the shock!

Besides the subject of picturebooks, there was an interesting discussion on the role of literary agents and whether or not you needed one. I think two of the authors on the panel were unagented, but everyone pretty much agreed that you should get one if you can, but make sure that the agent is reputable and a good fit. In particular, Deborah Heiligman mentioned that her award-winning non-fiction YA on the marriage of Charles Darwin, Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith, would never have happened without her agent's support. Not only can agents negotiate better deals, but they can offer long-term career guidance and act as a sounding board, letting you know when to push ahead with a project and when a project needs more work.

My second YA panel of the day was "Hot Young Adult and Teen Fiction" with David Macinnis Gill (Soul Enchilada), Jennifer Hubbard (The Secret Year), Paula Chase Hyman (Flipping the Script), and the wonderful Amy Brecount White (Forget-Her-Nots). See the picture above! Each author read an excerpt from their books and though contemporary YA isn't my thing, I was surprised by how much I liked the work of the two contemporary writers on the panel, Jennifer Hubbard and Paula Chase Hyman. Of course, Amy Brecount White and David Macinnis Gill were amazing too. Amy's excerpt from Forget-Her-Nots had me on the verge of sniffling and crying, which is a little bit embarrassing, and David's sneak peek of his upcoming sci-fi YA set on Mars had me laughing out loud (it's not a comedy by any stretch, but the scene involved the main character high up on a platform, miles above the Martian landscape, fighting with an artificial intelligence that was calling him chicken for being scared of heights).

What followed next was a really good discussion of inspiration, 'edginess' in YA, future YA classics, and what responsibility do YA authors in particular have to their underaged readers.

Up Next: My interview with the author of Forget-Her-Nots, Amy Brecount White!

VA Book Part 2: Revealed! The Secret to Getting Your Book on Oprah

2010-03-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

I stepped into the Omni Hotel, where much of the VA Festival of the Book was being held, sometime around 9am. I had been to a number of conventions before, Faeriecon, Otakon, and the like, so the first question that leapt into my mind was: Where are the cosplayers?

Lesson #1 of Book Festivals: There is no cosplay. Good thing I left my Katniss Everdeen costume at home.

My first panel of the day was at 10am, Book Promotion for the 21st Century, and I have to say, I'm really glad I went, even though the panel had a heavy non-fiction tilt. The panelists were Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Carleen Brice, author of Orange Mint and Honey and creator of the blog White Readers Meet Black Authors, publicist Kelly Powers, and the author of I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears, Jag Bhalla. And yes, one of these authors got themselves featured in Oprah's magazine. Dun, dun, dun!

Before I go on, I'd just like to state that besides all the great information I got about publicity, I learned from Jag Bhalla, whose book is about amusing idioms found around the world, that the Germans have a saying, "Living like a maggot in bacon." How can I work this into my everyday conversation?

Listening to the panelists, four common themes jumped out at me:

You're going to have to do a lot of legwork yourself. Pub house publicists are going to do their best to help you, but they're insanely busy people. They might have dozens of other books they have to promote at the same time as yours. Unless you're already a big name with a track record of success, they're probably only going to be able to devote a limited amount of time to you and your book. The industry standard for how long a publicist will work on your book is also about 120 days, which leads to the next point...
You should be working on publicity months, even years, before your book ever comes out and for months after it's published. Publicity requires long-term thinking and network-building well in advance of the actual pub date.
Be creative, use every angle you can to promote your book. Don't unintentionally limit your options. For example, as I mentioned, Jag Bhalla's book is about idioms around the world. Because a lot of those idioms are food-based, he approached food and cooking magazines and pitched stories to them. He also went to NPR and volunteered to write an entire episode of the quiz show "Wait wait..don't tell me" based around his book.
Tailor your pitches. Don't just send a book to the Washington Post, for example, and hope it'll get reviewed. Give the person on the other end a reason to care, a reason to be intrigued. In some ways, it's a lot like writing query letters, you don't write a generic query letter and send it to every agent in the universe (OK, you SHOULDN'T do that, if you are, please don't). You research the agents' individual tastes, find out if they represent your genre, and adjust your query letter accordingly. When trying to publicize your book, make your pitch specific to that person or organization.

Other things I learned:

* Don't have a platform? Then build one. It took author Rebecca Skloot about ten years for her book to get published (it truly is an epic saga, involving one editor getting temporary amnesia and one of her publishers going out of business, amongst other mishaps) and during that time, she worked on her platform by doing freelance writing for magazines, hosting panels at book conferences, and networking in the scientific community.

* This is also how Rebecca got her current agent. She would host these conference panels and would usually be invited out to lunch beforehand to do some panel prep. Well, panel prep lasted about 5 minutes, at which point the editor or agent would ask her what projects she was working on. She'd tell them about her book and then they'd ask her who her agent was. She'd smile innocently and say, "Oh, I don't have one yet!"

* Web sites are essential. Other social media sites like Twitter can be helpful, but first and foremost, you need a good web site. Also, keep your blogroll updated (peers at own blogroll...yeah, I need to work on that one).

* Consider hiring your own publicist. What do publicists do? They help strategize and coordinate and can draw upon their own network of contacts to promote your book.

* Get booksellers and libraries on your side. Build these networks long before your book ever comes out. Bribery in the form of donuts and baked goods is surprisingly effective.

* Whatever you do, it's important to be comfortable doing it. I think this is especially important for us shy writers out there (people = scary, SCARY). Remember why you wanted to write in the first place, focus more on telling your amazing story and less on selling the book. You'll actually sell more books that way.

* Do book reviews, become part of the writing community and part of the conversation. Send out ARCs to book bloggers. The panelists also mentioned goodreads.com and booktour.com.

* Amazon pre-sale numbers can be very important. If you can get 1,000 or more pre-orders on Amazon, that can really help build buzz for your book.

* Don't just take, give! Build relationships. Maybe if an independent bookstore promotes your book, you'll come and do free signings and point people towards their store.

* Sales representatives can really help to push your book, but most people don't even know they exist (I didn't know about them!). Sales reps are employed by publishing houses, work by region, and are responsible for selling the publisher's books to retailers. If you can get them on your side, they can convince retailers to purchase more of your books.

* Keep your expectations in check. One media exposure does not necessarily equal sales. For example, Carleen Brice got a full feature in Essence magazine, but it didn't send her sales skyrocketing. Rather, you need to keep building on the publicity you receive, and as always, repetition, repetition, repetition is the key. Maybe the first time someone reads about your book in a magazine, they won't buy it. But the second, third or fourth time they hear about it, they might decide to check it out.

* Your resources, and that includes time, is finite. Choose wisely where you spend it.

* Publishers follow success rather than create it.

All right, so that author who got her book featured in Oprah's magazine? If you said Rebecca Skloot and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, you guessed right! How'd she snag Oprah's much sought after seal of approval? Well, it took a lot of work, planning, and a well-tailored pitch.

When she was building her platform and working as a freelancer, Rebecca did some writing for O Magazine and got to know the editors there. Months before its release date, she was able to pitch the book to the editors and suggest they do a feature. Given the subject matter, the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black farmer who died from cervical cancer, and whose cells ended up revolutionizing the field of medicine, she knew it'd be a perfect fit for the magazine. The editors agreed.

Next up: My report on the festival's YA panels, how I got within five feet of the legendary literary agent Laura Rennert and totally did not tackle her, and an interview with YA author Amy Brecount White! Also, I'll be updating my blogroll.

The Virginia Festival of Awesome, Part 1 - Charlottesville

2010-03-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I went with the ever lovely and wonderful Aine to my very first Virginia Festival of the Book, aka the Festival of Awesome. No, this was not an easy journey. For several hours we crossed time-worn mountains and fast-rushing rivers to reach our destination, lured by the promise of authors, books, and fun. Along the way, we braved the overfriendly denizens of a Chick-Fil-A and ignored the siren call of Dinosaurland, determined to get to the festival, and Aine to the Kim Harrison signing, on time.

Now, I can't say I've never been to Charlottesville before, where the Festival is held every year. But I was about 9 years old the last time my family stopped in town on the way to Monticello, so it's been a while. I never realized what a beautiful town it was, and when I come back next year (oh, I'll definitely be back), it'll be for the town as much as for the books.

It's one of those big little towns that feels so small, but it just keeps going and going. You're surrounded by history and colonial architecture, Revolutionary War troops used to travel down the city's main street, but you're also surrounded by cool restaurants, art galleries and countless book stores.

Charlottesville is a college town, the home to the U of VA campus, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised by all the book stores and cool cafes, but the place has a culture and a vibe that I've never experienced in any other college town. In other words, you can see why Virginia holds its Festival of the Book here every year!

Below are some photos I took along the town's main street, right next to the Omni Hotel where much of the festival takes place.

The town's car-free Main Street. I counted three bookstores, one movie theater, one gelato shop that I must try next time, and more restaurants than you can shake a stick at. Also, there was a place there that sold ladybug slippers. I want!!!

At first I thought this said, "Saloon Drunkya." Ah well.

Flowers. Um, pretty flowers. I bet Amy Brecount White would know what they are.

Couch made of glass and tile that sits in front of an Artists' Collective.

The view from the back of the hotel. BTW-I have about 15 flower pics and 5 pics of the actual festival. Hey, it's spring-time, after three blizzards and months of freezing temperatures, I'm psyched to finally be seeing green and growing things again.

Next up: How I Learned How to Get My Book on Oprah. Sorta. Kinda.

Finding Inspiration

2010-03-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

People sometimes ask me where I get the inspiration for my stories, because of all the issues I might have with my writing, coming up with story ideas is not one of them. Truth is, I get my inspiration from every and anywhere... the graffiti on a wall, Ghost Hunters, Anime, a trip to Hawaii... but most importantly, I get my inspiration from art and history and I sometimes worry that not enough writers are paying attention to those last two.

I can't stress this enough to writers: I know you're told to read widely, to know the books in your genre, but there's a whole marvelous world out there that you should be exploring too. Visit a museum, tour some old ruins, read up on the French Revolution. Maybe you'll get an idea for your next book. If nothing else, you'll have expanded your understanding and broadened your mind, because ultimately, history is about people and how they react in certain circumstances, art is about human emotion given form. Gain a better understanding of both and you'll become a better writer.

I recently visited the Terra Cotta Warrior Exhibit at the National Geographic Museum in DC (all sold out, I'm afraid). Not only was it an amazing experience, getting to see statues detailed down to the soles of their shoes, with unique faces and hair-dos, but I got inspiration for a story I've been struggling with for over a year. The tentative title of the book is the Walls of Shangri-La, about a boy who lives in a walled paradise that no one has left for a thousand years. When one day a girl in a hot air balloon flies over the city, the boy becomes determined to find out what's outside the walls, even if it means imprisonment and the destruction of his family.

I already have one villain for the story, but with the way I have things planned out, I needed a second villain, bigger and badder than the first and I had no idea what to do. I was stuck, until I went to this exhibit. Now I think I'm going to base the villain on the First Emperor of China. Here are some things I learned at the show that I'm probably going to incorporate into the character and the book:

The Emperor was extremely paranoid (is it paranoia if they're really out to get you though?). He built hundreds of palaces and slept in a different one every night. Once, when he was traveling and it was clear people had expected his arrival, he had his entire retinue of servants executed to make sure whoever had leaked the information would never do so again.
There were numerous assassination attempts against the Emperor. In the most famous and nearly successful attempt, the assassin gained an audience with the Emperor after bringing him the head of an enemy general and a map of enemy lands. The assassin lunged at the Emperor with a dagger that was hidden in the rolled up map.
The Emperor was a tyrant, but an extremely efficient and capable tyrant. Roads were improved, weights, money and writing was standardized, and weapons were mass-manufactured, which gave the Emperor a technical advantage over his enemies. Every weapon had a stamp on it saying where the weapon had been made and by who to ensure quality control. Parts could also be inter-changed, allowing weapons to be quickly fixed.
The Emperor did not always kill rival rulers. Rather, he would bring them to the capital and keep them as prisoners in palaces designed to resemble their own palaces back home.

There are plenty of more details that I want to put into the book, like the decorated tiles I saw and Chinese symbology. As creative as I might be, everytime I learn about the past, I find something amazing that I could have never dreamed up on my own.

Why Finding An Agent Should Be More Like A Disney Movie

2010-02-18T17:40:00.000-08:00

I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Disney, give me a Miyazaki fairy tale any day, but as I continue to search for an agent, I've found myself thinking: This would be a lot more fun if finding an agent was like a Disney movie. Think of the possibilities:

1. The Happy Ending. Every Disney movie has a happy ending. Beauty saves the Beast, Simba defeats Scar, Prince Charming rescues Snow White and she goes off to college to study medicine (I'm pretty sure that last part happened), so if finding an agent was more like a Disney movie, then we'd all find the perfect agent at the end.

2. Singing, talking animals. Who couldn't use their very own singing, talking furry friend to help them in their search for an agent? No, not THOSE furry friends that sit themselves in front of the computer screen when you're in the middle of a scene or chew on your submissions.

I'm talking about the type of furry friend you'll only find in a Disney movie: Mice who will sweep your floors and do your dishes while you work on your query, birds who'll tell you your manuscript is wonderful when you get rejected. But make sure your little furry friends don't get any bright ideas and carry your manuscript over to an agent's house and leave it on their pillow, because that stuff doesn't fly with agents.

3. The songs! Searching for an agent has its high and lows, so if you're going to have the happy ending and the talking animals, you might as well get your own soundtrack. Potential song ideas include, "A Whole New (Literary) World," "I'll Make A Writer Out of You," and "One Day My Agent Will Come."

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to try to teach my beagle how to sing and dance while I send out more queries.

The Edits Are Done, Long Live the Edits

2010-01-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

Edits. They're like the circle of life. You get one set done, only to start anew on another round, the manuscript hopefully a little better, a little more polished, than its previous incarnation.

The good news: I finished my Knights of Avalon re-write last night. The bad news: Well, there's not really any bad news, because I finished my Knights of Avalon re-write last night! And it only took 4 1/2 months! Admittedly, I went over my self-imposed deadline, and I now have to hide from the rabid ferrets, but I ended up making more changes than I thought I would. Those changes included:

Switching from 3rd person to 1st person POV, which meant having to adjust the voice throughout.
Darkening the tone, heightening the emotions. I have a real problem with going for the funny and sarcastic when dealing with tragedy. It's a defense mechanism and something I do in real life, but by going for the joke instead of the raw emotion, I was undermining the power of some of my scenes. To quote my father, I tend to "pull my emotional punches."
Totally overhauled the first three chapters of the book.
Totally overhauled the last six chapters.
Improved the pacing so that more happens in the first half of the story.

We're talking some major edits here. And now that I've finished those edits...I'm going to do some more! Most of it is clean-up work, correcting typos, adding a couple of extra sentences of description here and there, but I still have one serious problem I haven't fixed: My first three chapters just aren't working. They're by far the weakest part of the story.

This is, to put it mildly, problematic. Because we aren't timelords, and we tend to travel through time in a linear fashion, we read books from start to finish. Oddly enough, so do agents, meaning that they're seeing the worst of my work, not the best of it. To put it another way, it's like telling someone that the delicious-looking chocolate sundae with the cherry on top only starts tasting good once you've had about three or four bites.

You can see the offending chapters below. For the most part, I think the pacing and the action are fine. It's how Justine, the main character, comes off that's the issue. She's not supposed to be the most likeable person, she doesn't care much about other people's feelings, she's argumentative and headstrong, but that's how I want her to be. I think that's how she needs to be to survive everything she's going to face. I adore her, but I have to find a way to show the readers why I think she's so great and most importantly, why they should care about her.

Sure, I can do that, no problem. Uh-huh.

NaNoEdMo

2009-11-28T12:16:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you've all heard of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but with all the work I've been doing with my latest manuscript, Knights of Avalon, I wasn't able to join in. That's probably for the best, because I'm more of a turtle than a hare: I write a few paragraphs a day, every day, without fail. Even when I have an entire day devoted to writing, I'm happy if I can write more than a single page in a sitting.

Though I haven't been trying to write a whole novel in a month, I was hoping to have my edits done by the end of November. Well, like many NaNoWriMo participants, I won't be meeting my self-imposed deadline, but I'm not going to sweat it. I edited a huge chunk of my book in November, I'm almost done, and most importantly, I feel that the edits I made were good ones. In the end, that's what matters.

So I am now declaring December to be NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month. Oh yes, the latest round of edits shall be completed by the end of December! And if I fail in my mission, I shall wrap myself in bacon and throw myself into a pit of ravenous ferrets. I'm serious, I'm getting this done, because those ferrets don't mess around when they're hungry.

And you never know, maybe NaNoEdMo will catch on with other writers, because if you write a novel in a month, you're going to need AT LEAST a month to edit. Or if you're me, you'll need about four months, on average. Let's face it, I'm like those Comcast turtles.

And Now for Something Completely Different

2009-10-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

Still working on putting 'Knights of Avalon' into first person. I wish I could do the re-write faster, but there's a lot more to it than just switching pronouns. I also have to make sure I'm writing in the main character's voice. That's the fun, if time-consuming, part, because I love my main character and the way she thinks.

So while I re-write, I thought I'd discuss some other topics, like what I'm going to wear for Halloween. This is vitally important! Did I mention that I have to go to a Halloween party and I have no idea what to wear? OK, after much deliberation, I've pretty much settled on a costume, but I thought I'd share all the other ideas I had.

Being short on cash and sewing skills, I was forced to improvise. As I mentioned on my Twitter feed, I do have a lovely Renfest outfit, but I wore it last year with a pair of fairy wings and I didn't want to repeat the costume.

Here were my other ideas:

1. A doll from Dollhouse. I could be Lima, the doll no one ever sees on the show. I'd dress up in a pair of pajamas and wander around with a blank look on my face, saying things like, "Did I fall asleep?" and "I always try to be my best."

2. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Come on, she's awesome! I already have a black robe and some white lace and I always wear my hair in a pony tail, all I'd need is a judge's gavel.

3. Slacker Ninja, the mysterious assassin who's too lazy to leave the house. All I'd need is a bathrobe, slippers, and some nunchucks.

4. Pandora. I love me some Greek mythology and I collect boxes. The only reason why I didn't end up going with this idea is that I'd have to buy or make a Greek tunic. That said, if I was going to do it, I'd walk around with my box, making a big show of resisting the temptation to look inside. Then I'd ask other people to take a look and if someone did open the box, maybe I'd have a Jonas Brothers CD or Hello Kitty in there, basically something to represent all the evils of the world. :-)

5. Katniss Everdeen. What, you're saying you don't know who she is? Then you've been missing out! I almost went with this idea too. I have some brown pants and thanks to my Ren garb, I do have a flowy green shirt. All I'd need is a bow and arrow, paint some blood on my face, and maybe have someone with a video camera following my every move. If people asked me who I was, I'd make them sit down and read The Hunger Games.

6. Crazy cat lady. I have lots of toy cats. I figured I'd stick one on my head, a couple on my shoulders, etc. Voila! Instant cat lady! Except Halloween is all about being something you're not.

6. Rabbit tamer. This is what I've decided on. So I have a Monty Python Rabbit of Caerbannog, complete with giant fangs. I have lots of kitty carriers because I do animal rescue. I have a brown trench coat and an Indiana Jones-style hat. I bought myself an Indy-style whip. OK, it's going to be a little like Lara Croft, but I'm going to run around, warning people not to let the rabbit out of its cage and once it does get out, I'm going to make a big show of it going for my neck and me having to fight it off with my whip. Sure, it's silly, but that's the fun of it. I might also bring my stuffed Cthulhu for the occasion.

How's My Writing? Call 1-800-Do I-Suck?

2009-08-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

I kid. I kid. I know my writing doesn't suck, it's pretty good, I just want it to be better.

Here's the first two chapters re-done in first person (prologue has been removed and chapter two is in a separate post below). I wasn't very sure about it at first, but I think I just might like the POV change.

--

A call at two in the morning was never a good thing. “Justine, sweetie, wake up.” And now I was getting one. It was dark. Not early morning, crack of dawn dark. More like middle of the night, what-is-my-mother-doing-there-standing-over-me-in-her-pajamas dark. I couldn’t see her face, but the clock told me it was 2:13am. This wasn’t going to be good.

“What is it?” I wriggled out from under the covers, trying to get my bearings. My mother clutched a phone in one hand. No, this wasn’t going to be good at all.

“It’s Mrs. Martinez. She wants to know if you’ve heard at all from Gwen tonight.”

“What? Why would…” It took me a moment to get it. Something had happened to my best friend. I was suddenly wide awake and reaching for the phone. “Mrs. Martinez? Hi, it’s Justine. What’s going on?”

I had known Mrs. Martinez for over ten years. The lady was unshakeable. She never raised her voice, never lost her cool. Not even that time Gwen and I had come home covered from head to toe in mud when we were little. She had just stared at us in horror, burst into laughter, and grabbed the garden hose. Now her voice wasn’t much more than a hoarse whisper. I had never heard her like this. “I’m sorry to wake you up,” she said, as polite as ever, even as her voice trembled. “No one’s heard from Gwen since 11 o’clock. She went out with her boyfriend then on the way home, her car broke down. We can’t find her, or the car. We were hoping…”

“I haven’t heard from her. Not since around 7pm,” I said, trying to break the news to Mrs. Martinez as gently as possible, even as I tried to process the news that Gwen was missing. “But I’ll help you find her. Where was she last seen?” I rolled out of bed and headed to the dresser. My mother was glaring at me. I ignored it. Something had happened to my best friend. I had to go out and try to find her.

Mrs. Martinez hesitated. “I know you want to help, Justine. You’re as afraid as we are. I understand, but it’s 2 in the morning and there’s just not that much you can do right now.” Bullshit. There was plenty I could do. But my mother was standing there, arms folded across her chest, staring me down.

Mrs. Martinez’s voice cracked for a moment before she pulled it together. “Keep Gwen in your prayers and we’ll let you know when we get some news, and call us if you do hear from her.”

“I’ll do that,” I promised. “Can you at least tell me where her car broke down?” I was already formulating a plan in my mind.

“Justine, I know you too well to tell you that. If we hear from her we’ll let you know. Could I talk to your mother?”

I handed the phone back to my Mom, listening in while I turned on the lights and rummaged through my drawers for some clothes. My room was up on the second floor of our family’s Cape Cod, painted in a tropical blue with Bruce Lee posters on the walls and a neon purple chair in the corner. Gwen sometimes joked that I must have been color blind, but I just liked it that way. Who said colors needed to coordinate?

“It could be something as simple as her cell phone running out of power,” I heard my Mom say, practical and level-headed. Then again, it wasn’t her daughter that had gone missing. If it was, my Mom would be kicking down doors and interrogating suspects to get her kid back. For a moment, I wondered if perhaps my mother was right, maybe Gwen would be giving her parents a call anytime. But no, I knew better. Sure, Gwen and I had had our adventures, but Gwen didn’t stay out late without checking in. Gwen didn’t forget to call. My best friend was in trouble.

“Hang in there, Gabriela,” I heard my Mom say. “She’ll probably be calling any minute.” No, Gwen would never scare her parents like this, she would’ve found a way to contact them. If she hadn’t called, it was because she couldn’t.

My mother hung up the phone and arched an eyebrow at me. I was standing there, my clothes piled in my arms. “You’re not going out,” she said, and I knew she meant it. My Mom wasn’t exactly a big lady, she was skinny, about 5’5”, with curly brown hair and a narrow face, I wondered sometimes if we were related, but somehow she always loomed larger in my imagination.

“I’m supposed to go back to sleep? Gwen would never stay out till two in the morning, especially on a school night, and she’d never not check in. She could be hurt, or kidnapped…” I didn’t know if I’d win this battle, but for Gwen’s sake, I had to try. She was out there, in trouble. The more people she had searching for her, the better.

“Or she could be someplace without cell phone service, getting her car fixed,” my Mom said. I usually wasn’t annoyed by her logic. “I know this isn’t like Gwen,” my Mom softened her tone a little, “but you can’t launch a one-woman search operation for her. Which is what I know you’re planning to do. Try to get some sleep and we’ll see what the situation is in the morning. We’ll help however we can, but Gwen’s two hours away and you running around South Jersey in the middle of the night isn’t going to do anyone any good.” It could do Gwen some good.

“You promise you’ll wait?” my Mom asked.

“She’s in trouble, I know it.”

“You don’t know that, Justine.”

I looked my Mom up and down. Maybe we were related after all, she was as stubborn as I was. I leaned against the dresser, pissed off. I wasn’t eighteen yet. Hell, I wasn’t even seventeen. I couldn’t do as I pleased, and there was the chance my Mom might’ve been right. If I disobeyed her on something this big, I’d be grounded for weeks, and then I’d never be able to help Gwen. Not to mention, she’d be watching to see if I snuck out. “OK, we wait until the morning then we’ll see.”

“I know it’ll be hard, but try to get some rest.” My Mom touched my cheek. I was fighting off tears. Tears of frustration that I hadn’t won this round. “You can keep the phone by you if you like.”

“OK,” I said, swallowing hard. “But in the morning, I’m going down to Avalon.”

Thankfully, my Mom didn’t disagree with me. Or we might have had an epic battle then and there. “Hopefully Gwen’ll call her parents and you won’t need to.”

The moment my Mom stepped out of the room, I dialed Gwen’s cell. It went directly to voice mail. I tried sending a text message next. No reply. I really don’t know what I was expecting. I would’ve tried her boyfriend next, talk to him about what had happened, where Gwen had last been heard from, but I had never met him, I didn’t even know his last name, much less his phone number.

I turned off the light and stared out the window at the moonless night, wondering where Gwen was right now. Deep down, I knew it was bad. Gwen wasn’t going to be returning my call tonight. That didn’t stop me from keeping my phone by my side. First thing in the morning, if Gwen hadn’t turned up safe and sound, I promised myself I’d drive down to Avalon and tear the place apart looking for her.

Knights of Avalon - 1st Person POV - Chapter 2

2009-08-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

Morning. I blinked my bleary eyes, watching the sun filter in through the windows. Gwen had never called. She had never turned up. It was as if she had vanished off the face of the Earth.

I sat cross-legged on my family’s blue couch in a sleep-deprived haze, my long brown hair tucked into a messy bun to keep it out of my face. I was clutching a steaming hot mug of coffee in my hands like it was a life preserver. On any other day, in any other situation, my mother would have made some comment about the coffee. I had started drinking the stuff early, when I was just thirteen. My Mom had warned me that it would stunt my growth. Of course, once I hit my growth spurt, she switched to shooting me disapproving looks. This morning though, we had other things to worry about.

I held the coffee up to my face, breathing in the steam. Then I gulped it down. I needed to be alert and if it was going to take a heart-stopping dose of caffeine to keep me awake, then so be it. I watched my mother pace back and forth as she talked to Mrs. Martinez on the phone. She was a blur to me. My whole world right now was a blur. I didn’t have my contacts in and I was as good as blind without them.

I might not have been able to see much of my mother’s expression, but I could hear what she was saying and I knew it wasn’t good. My Mom had done a full 180 from last night. She had given up on trying to convince Mrs. Martinez that Gwen would be checking in any minute and was now trying to comfort her. “It’ll be OK,” she kept telling Gwen’s Mom in a whisper. Mrs. Martinez must’ve been crying. I told myself crying wouldn’t help. I needed to do something. “We’re here for you. Anything you need,” my Mom said. “I think Justine would be more than OK with coming down to help. She can be there this afternoon if you like.” Now I was wide awake, and reflecting on how awesome my Mom could be.

My Mom hung up and walked over, sinking into the chair across from me. Despite her insistence last night that there wasn’t much to worry about, the dark circles under her eyes told a different story. “I assume there’s no way I can convince you to go to school?”

No way in hell. I had never skipped school, but I had never had a friend go missing. I shook my head, ready for the question. “I haven’t missed a single day this semester, and how could I concentrate on my schoolwork anyways?”

As it turned out, my Mom didn’t need a whole lot of convincing. “I figured as much,” she said with complete understanding. “Here’s the deal,” she said, leaning forward. “Gwen’s parents have checked the hospitals, talked to all her friends, and filed a report with the police. There’s been no word from her since last night. The police have recommended that her parents blanket the area with fliers in the hope that someone’s either seen her or knows something about her disappearance. I know you’re worried sick, and so am I, but so far there’s no evidence of foul play. The police just think it’s best to be aggressive in the search for her. If you want to help with handing out fliers, you can take today and tomorrow off from school. With the three-day weekend coming up, that’ll give you five whole days to help look for Gwen. Hopefully you won’t even need all that time. How’s that sound?”

There was always a deal with my Mom, but she was fair. Still, I could see what she was doing, channeling all of my fear and anger into something she thought would keep me safe. For some reason, my Mom seemed to think I’d try something risky. It’s almost as if after sixteen years on this planet, my Mom knew me. “That sounds good,” I said, managing a weak smile. She had given me five full days to search for Gwen, I’d work with that.

“I’ll write you a note, but you need to be back in school by Tuesday,” my Mom continued. “Mrs. Martinez said you’re welcome to stay in their guest bedroom if you like. Or you could stay with your father…”

I screwed up my face, as if my coffee had suddenly turned into acid.

“Or you could stay with the Martinezes,” my Mom said. She came over and gave me a kiss on the head. I hugged her back. Moms really did have a way of making things a little bit better. “It’ll be OK,” she promised me. “When you go down there, you’ll call right away if there’s any news about Gwen?”

“Sure,” I said. “Do they have any better idea of what happened last night? I mean, where was Gwen last seen, things like that?” I was trying to play it off like it was an innocent question, my brown eyes all wide and sad.

My Mom loomed over me, her lips pursed into a thin line. “You’re not the police, you are not to act like the police. You stay out of their way and do whatever you can to help Mr. and Mrs. Martinez out.”

“I know,” I said, glancing away.

“I mean it,” she said. “We’re worried sick about Gwen, we do not need to be worried about you as well.”

“I understand,” I said, letting out a little sigh. Of course, the best way to help Mr. and Mrs. Martinez was to find Gwen. I just couldn’t be stupid about how I did it. The whole plan was to make things better, not worse, but first, I needed to find out where my best friend had disappeared. “Would it really hurt though if I visited where Gwen was last seen? If I didn’t cause any trouble? Just poked around?”

Sometimes, much to my sleep-deprived surprise, the direct approach worked. My Mom gave in, a little too easily I thought. “Well, you’re going to find out anyways, but on one condition: You get some rest before you head out on the road. You got, what, three or four hours of sleep last night, max?”

Probably more like two and a half. It had been a hard night. I had fought off sleep for as long as I could, and when it finally came, I kept on jerking awake, thinking I had heard the phone ringing. Given how my eyelids were fluttering closed, even with the dose of caffeine, my mother’s demand wasn’t a bad one. “OK, one way or the other, I’ll make myself take a nap before I go,” I told her.

Her condition met, my Mom finally seemed satisfied. She perched on the edge of the chair’s armrest as she spoke. “Do you know where Stone Harbor is?”

I nodded. Gwen had taken me there before. It was just south of Avalon.

“According to Gwen’s boyfriend, she called and said her car broke down on 96th Street. Don’t make me regret telling you that. You hear me, Justine?”

“All I’m going to do is take a look. I need to see for myself,” I said. Four hours ago, everything had changed. My best friend, one of the only friends I had in the entire world, had gone missing. I had to find out what happened.

I jumped into the shower, the warm water only succeeding in making me more sleepy, not less, and got dressed. I wasn’t a big fan of the educational institution known as ‘high school,’ so I wasn’t too broken up about missing a day or two. I enjoyed the learning, especially history class, it was the other kids that I despised. I had forever been branded ‘the fat girl’ by my peers. The fact that I kicked ass in cross country and had a black belt in jujutsu didn’t seem to count for much in my basketball and football-obsessed school.

Well, fuck those kids. I wasn’t fat. I was just big, and I was OK with that. My family was Polish, my last name was Kwiatkowski, but I must have had a great-great-grandmother in my family tree who was a Viking warrior. There wasn’t much else to explain how I had gotten to be 6 foot and built like a linebacker. Well, there was my father, who was 6’2” and built like a linebacker, but I didn’t want to dwell on the thought that I might take after him. When I had been younger, I had been tormented mercilessly by the other kids, except for Gwen, who always stood up for me, but the cross-country helped with the weight and the jujutsu took care of the bullying. I now knew from personal experience that you couldn’t shove an entire kid into a locker, but you could bash their heads into one if they were picking a fight with you. Or if you saw them trying to bully another student. I went from being “the fat girl” to “the mean fat girl,” with most of the kids in my school now keeping their distance, and I liked that arrangement just fine.

I came back downstairs to find my mother had spread out a huge breakfast on our white kitchen table. My Mom was far from an expert chef, mac n’ cheese with orange powder was a fairly regular staple of our diet, but the breakfast looked good. “Eat, sleep, then get on the road,” my Mom said, concern clearly etched upon her face. I could tell she was still in shock about everything that had happened, then again, so was I.

I sat down and piled eggs, bacon, and several wedges of cantaloupe onto my plate. Part of me just wanted to get going, but my Mom was right, I needed to take care of myself before I could help look for Gwen.

“Mornin’,” my little sister Rachel said with a yawn as she shuffled into the kitchen wearing fluffy purple bunny slippers. Poor kid. She was so cheerful and innocent. She hadn’t heard about Gwen yet and I didn’t know how to tell her.

Three years younger than me, Rachel was like a trimmer, cuter version of myself. With big brown doe-like eyes, she was also far more adorable than I had ever been. Rachel took one look at the breakfast spread laid out before her then one look at the tired and worn expressions both me and my mother shared and knew something was up. “What’s wrong?”

“Gwen didn’t come home last night,” my Mom told her as gently as she could. “No one knows where she is. Hopefully all this worry is for nothing and she’ll turn up soon safe and sound.” I was so thankful my Mom was there to explain it.

Rachel took a moment to let the news sink in, perhaps wondering if it was all a dream and she had never really woken up. “Gwen? Missing? She wouldn’t run away…”

I offered a solemn nod of my head. Rachel was a smart kid, she picked up quick. “Yeah, which is why we’re all worried. But like Mom said, hopefully she’ll turn up OK. I’m going down for a few days to help hand out fliers.”

Rachel pulled out a chair and stared at the piles of food, having lost any appetite. “She’s missing?” she repeated to herself. “How worried are you?” she turned and asked me.

Shit. I think I visibly winced at the question. How worried was I? Part of me couldn’t believe this was happening, the other part of me wanted to scream and hunt down whoever did this to Gwen. “Really worried,” I said, trying to sound as if I wasn’t scared out of my mind.

“But it’s too early to be leaping to conclusions,” my Mom said, leaning in to give Rachel a hug. “I’m sure Gwen will turn up.” My little sister made a big show of trying to avoid the hug, complete with a roll of the eyes for good measure. Ah, to be thirteen years old again. It wasn’t that long ago.

Rachel glanced over. “Gwen has to know you’ll be looking for her. I bet that makes her feel better.” I didn’t know what to say to that. I just shrugged my shoulders and looked down at my breakfast. Maybe Gwen was counting on me, if she was, then I couldn’t let her down.

“Think you might run into Dad while you’re down there?” my sister asked after a pause, realizing that if I was headed down to Avalon that I’d be close to our father’s place.

“Wasn’t planning to,” I said. “With everything going on, it’s not really a good time.” I could have said a lot more, but I did have it in me to be diplomatic when I needed to. I didn’t want to upset my sister, especially not today.

“Well, if you do, tell him I say ‘hi,’” Rachel said, ever the optimist. My little sister didn’t hold grudges quite the same way I did. At the moment though, that was the farthest thing from my mind. I had to figure out what had happened to my friend.

Knights of Avalon: Prologue

2009-08-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

I'm leaning heavily towards dropping the prologue. I like it, and lots of people have told me they like it too, but in relation to the rest of the manuscript, it's fast becoming superfluous.

--

He had told her not to run from them. Now Gwen was running for her life. She kicked off her heels and raced down the street. There’d be people there, even at this time of night.

As she ran past shuttered shops, she screamed for help, her voice echoing off the empty buildings. There wasn’t anyone here. It was only 11 o’clock. Why wasn’t anyone here?

She stopped in front of a diner, an unplugged neon sign advertising it was open 24 hours. Gwen tugged at the doors, pounded on the windows. The diner was dark, plates full of food left sitting on the counter in front of empty chairs.

Gwen tossed a glance behind her. They were coming. They had never hurt her before, but now she wasn’t so sure. They could see her. They were hunting her.

She fumbled for her cell phone. “Come on, come on.” No signal. “Come on!” It had to be them. This always happened when they were near.

So get away. Gwen ducked into an alley and hit send the moment her phone came to life. She scaled a low brick wall as the phone rang. If he wasn’t there, she’d try Justine.

She counted the rings. One, two, three. On the third, he picked up.

“Tejaun!” Even Gwen was surprised by how desperate she sounded. “I’m in Stone Harbor, off 96th Street. The shadows, they’re hunting me!”

She never got to hear his response. The phone died again. The shadows floated through the air, trailing after her.

Then before her, salvation, and stylish salvation at that. A man getting into a green Porsche. Gwen waved her arms, calling for help.

Her knight in shining armor, the man ran to her aid, meeting her half way. He was tall and handsome, with green eyes, a dark beard, and as it turned out, a British accent. Tejaun would have been jealous.

“Please! Help! Someone just tried to mug me!” Gwen lied. It was more believable than the truth. Ordinary people couldn’t see the shadows. She looked over her shoulder, they had stopped their approach. That was the good news. The bad was that they were taking on a solid form. She had never seen that before. They stood in a semi-circle at a distance, silently watching. Gwen fought off a wave of panic.

Her rescuer glanced at the shadows and smiled. “We’re so happy to have you back, Lady Guinevere.”

Before the shock could even register, the man grabbed hold of her and dragged her back to the car. Gwen jabbed the man in the solar plexus with her elbow and twisted her body to make him lose his grip.

The man chuckled with amusement, not even flinching. “You’ve gotten bold after all these years, m’lady.”

Gwen felt tears run down her cheeks as she continued to struggle. It wasn’t any use but she had to try. The parking lot was empty. Even if Tejaun had gotten her message, he couldn’t get here in time. Her hand slid down to her phone again, this time trying to dial 911 if she could get a signal. Maybe the police wouldn’t be able to see the shadows, but they’d certainly be able to see her kidnapper.

Her would-be rescuer spun her around to face him and snatched the phone out of her hands. “Come now, m’lady,” he said, throwing Gwen’s last hope for escape against the pavement, the cell phone shattering into pieces.

He shoved her into the car, binding her hands behind her. “Don’t be afraid. I have no doubt some knight will come to your rescue very soon. In fact, we’re counting on it.”

Knights of Avalon: Chapter 1

2009-08-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

A call at two in the morning was never a good thing. “Justine, sweetie, wake up.”

Justine felt her Mom’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her from her dreams. She opened her bleary eyes to find her Mom standing there in her pajamas, the room bathed in shadows, the alarm clock showing it was 2:13am. One look at her mother’s face and Justine was sitting up in bed. “What is it?” she asked, glancing down to the phone her Mom clutched tightly in one hand.

“It’s Mrs. Martinez. She wants to know if you’ve heard at all from Gwen tonight,” her Mom whispered, covering the receiver as she explained the situation to Justine.

“What? Why would…” It took Justine a moment to get it. Something had happened to her best friend. She suddenly found herself wide awake and reaching for the phone. “Mrs. Martinez? Hi, it’s Justine. What’s going on?”

In all the time Justine had known Mrs. Martinez, and she had known her for over ten years, she had never heard her raise her voice, never seen her upset. Gwen’s Mom was unflappable. Now she barely recognized her on the phone. “I’m sorry to wake you up,” Mrs. Martinez said, as polite as ever, even as her voice trembled. “No one’s heard from Gwen since around 11pm. She went out with her boyfriend, Tejaun, then on the way home, her car broke down. We can’t find her, or the car. We were hoping…”

“I haven’t heard from her. Not since around 7pm,” Justine broke the news to Mrs. Martinez. “But I’ll help you find her. Where was she last seen?” Justine rolled out of bed and headed to the dresser, ignoring her mother’s withering glare.

Mrs. Martinez hesitated. “I know you want to help, Justine. You’re as afraid as we are. I understand, but it’s 2 in the morning and there’s just not that much you can do right now.” Her voice faltered as she struggled to hold it together. “Keep Gwen in your prayers and we’ll let you know the moment we get some news. Just let us know if you do happen to hear from her.”

“I’ll do that,” Justine promised. “Can you at least tell me where her car broke down?”

“Justine, I know you too well to tell you that,” Mrs. Martinez said as gently as she could. “We’ll keep you updated. Could I talk to your mother?”

Justine handed the phone back over to her Mom. She listened in while she turned on the lights and rummaged through her drawers for some clothes. Her room was up on the second floor of her family’s Cape Cod, painted in a tropical blue with Bruce Lee posters covering the walls. Gwen sometimes joked that Justine must have been color blind, but Justine just liked it that way.

“It could be something as simple as her cell phone running out of power,” she heard her Mom say, practical and level-headed. Then again, it wasn’t her daughter that had gone missing. If it was, her Mom would be kicking down doors and interrogating suspects to get her kid back. Justine tried to tell herself that her Mom was right, that it was a misunderstanding, that Gwen would be giving her parents a call anytime, but she knew better. Gwen didn’t stay out late without checking in, Gwen didn’t forget to call. Her best friend was in trouble.

“Hang in there, Gabriela,” her Mom said. “She’ll probably be calling any minute.” No, Gwen would never scare her parents like this, she would’ve found a way to contact them. If she hadn’t called, it was because she couldn’t.

Her Mom hung up the phone and arched an eyebrow as Justine bumped the dresser drawer closed with her hip, her clothes piled in her arms. “You’re not going out,” her Mom said in no uncertain terms. Justine’s Mom wasn’t exactly a big lady, sort of the opposite of Justine. Her Mom was skinny, about 5’5”, with curly brown hair and a narrow face, but somehow she always loomed larger in Justine’s imagination.

“I’m supposed to go back to sleep?” Justine asked. “Gwen would never stay out till two in the morning, especially on a school night, and she’d never not check in. She could be hurt, or kidnapped…” She couldn’t really fight with her Mom, Justine knew she wouldn’t win, but she had to try.

“Or she could be someplace without cell phone service, getting her car fixed,” her Mom said. “I know this isn’t like Gwen,” her Mom conceded, softening her tone a little, “but you can’t launch a one-woman search operation for her. Which is what I know you’re planning to do. Try to get some sleep and we’ll see what the situation is in the morning. We’ll help however we can, but Gwen’s two hours away and you running around South Jersey in the middle of the night isn’t going to do anyone any good. You promise you’ll wait?”

Justine slumped against the dresser. If she disobeyed her Mom on something this big, she’d be grounded for weeks, and then she’d never be able to help her friend. “OK, we wait until the morning then we’ll see.”

“I know it’ll be hard, but try to get some rest,” her Mom said, touching her cheek. “You can keep the phone by you if you like.”

The moment her Mom stepped out of the room, Justine dialed Gwen’s cell. It went directly to voice mail. She tried sending a text message next. No reply. Maybe try the boyfriend, but Justine had never met him, she didn’t even know his last name, much less his phone number.

She stared out the window at the moonless night, wondering what could have happened. Deep down, she knew it was bad. Gwen wasn’t going to be returning her call. That didn’t stop her from keeping the phone by her side. At the first crack of dawn, if her best friend hadn’t turned up safe and sound, Justine would drive down to Avalon, where Gwen now lived, and tear the place apart looking for her.

Knights of Avalon: Chapter 2

2009-08-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

The next morning, Justine sat cross-legged on her family’s blue couch in a sleep-deprived haze, her long brown hair tucked into a messy bun to keep it out of her face. In her hands she clutched a steaming hot mug of coffee like it was a life preserver. On any other day, in any other situation, her mother would have made some comment about the coffee. When Justine had started drinking the stuff a few years ago, her Mom had warned her that it would stunt her growth. Of course, once Justine hit her growth spurt, her mother switched to merely giving her disapproving looks. This morning though, Justine and her Mom had other things to worry about.

Justine listened in to her mother’s conversation with Mrs. Martinez as the morning sun filtered in through the windows. She couldn’t hear what Gwen’s Mom was saying, but she knew it wasn’t good. Still no word from Gwen, still no sign of what had happened to her. It was as if she had vanished off the face of the Earth.

Her Mom’s tone of voice had changed too. She had given up on trying to convince Mrs. Martinez that Gwen would be checking in any minute now. “It’ll be OK,” she kept telling Gwen’s Mom in a gentle whisper. Justine knew Mrs. Martinez must’ve been crying. “We’re here for you. Anything you need. I think Justine would be more than OK with coming down to help. She can be there this afternoon if you like.” Justine glanced up, taking a moment to reflect on how awesome her Mom could be.

Her Mom hung up and walked over, sinking into the chair across from Justine. Despite her insistence last night that there wasn’t much to worry about, the dark circles under her eyes told a different story. “I assume there’s no way I can convince you to go to school?”

Justine shook her head, ready for the question. “I haven’t missed a single day this semester, and how could I concentrate on my schoolwork anyways?” There was no way Justine was going to let her Mom talk her into going to school, not when her best friend was out there in trouble.

As it turned out, her Mom didn’t need a whole lot of convincing. “I figured as much,” she said with complete understanding. “Here’s the deal,” she said, leaning forward. “Gwen’s parents have checked the hospitals, talked to all her friends, and filed a report with the police. There’s been no word from her since last night. The police have recommended that her parents blanket the area with fliers in the hope that someone’s either seen her or knows something about her disappearance. I know you’re worried sick, and so am I, but so far there’s no evidence of foul play. The police just think it’s best to be aggressive in the search for her. If you want to help with handing out fliers, you can take today and tomorrow off from school. With the three-day weekend coming up, that’ll give you five whole days to help look for Gwen. Hopefully you won’t even need all that time. How’s that sound?”

Justine knew she wouldn’t get a better deal from her Mom, but she could see what she was doing, she was channeling all of Justine’s fear and anger into a safe activity. For some inconceivable reason, Justine’s Mom seemed to be afraid Justine would do something risky. It’s almost as if after sixteen years on this planet, her Mom could predict exactly what Justine would do. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, truly grateful. “That sounds good.”

“I’ll write you a note, but you need to be back in school by Tuesday,” her Mom continued. “Mrs. Martinez said you’re welcome to stay in their guest bedroom if you like. Or you could stay with your father…”

Justine made a face, as if her coffee had suddenly turned into acid.

“Or you could stay with the Martinezes.” Her Mom stood up and gave Justine a kiss on the head. Justine was too tired and too worried about her friend to squirm away. “You let me know if there’s any news about Gwen, OK?”

“I will,” Justine said. “Do they have any better idea of what happened last night? I mean, where was Gwen last seen, things like that?”

Her Mom pursed her lips into a thin line and leveled her gaze at Justine. “You’re not the police, you are not to act like the police. You stay out of their way and do whatever you can to help Mr. and Mrs. Martinez out.”

Justine looked up at her mother with big, innocent brown eyes.

“I mean it,” her Mom said. “We’re worried sick about Gwen, we do not need to be worried about you as well.”

“I know,” Justine said with a little sigh. The whole plan was to make things better, not worse, to find her friend and not muck up anything else in the process. “Would it really hurt though if I visited where Gwen was last seen? If I didn’t cause any trouble? Just poked around?”

To her surprise, her Mom gave in. “Well, you’re going to find out anyways, but on one condition: You get some rest before you head out on the road. You got, what, three or four hours of sleep last night, max?”

As far as conditions went, that wasn’t a bad one. Justine wanted to head out on the road right away, but she couldn’t help her friend if she fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident. “OK, one way or the other, I’ll make myself take a nap before I go,” Justine promised.

Her mother finally seemed satisfied. “Do you know where Stone Harbor is? It’s just south of Avalon. According to her boyfriend, Gwen called and said her car broke down on 96th Street. Use that knowledge for good, not for evil. You hear me, young lady?”

“I’m just going to take a look. I need to see for myself,” Justine said. Four hours ago, everything had changed and her best friend, one of the only friends she had in the entire world, had gone missing. She had to find out what happened.

Justine jumped into the shower and got dressed. She wasn’t exactly a big fan of the educational institution known as ‘high school,’ so she wasn’t too broken up about missing a day or two. She liked the learning just fine, especially history class, it was the other kids that she hated. She had forever been branded ‘the fat girl’ by her peers. The fact that she excelled in cross country and had a black belt in jujutsu didn’t seem to count for much in her basketball and football-obsessed school.

Justine’s family was Polish, her last name was Kwiatkowski, but she must have had a great-great-grandmother in her family tree who was a Viking warrior. There wasn’t much else to explain how Justine had gotten to be 6 foot and built like a linebacker. Well, there was her father, who was 6’2” and built like a linebacker, but Justine didn’t like to dwell on the thought that she might take after him. When she had been younger, she had been tormented mercilessly by the other kids for being fat, but the cross-country helped with the weight and the jujutsu took care of the bullying. With the exception of her ex-boyfriend Steve, nowadays most of the kids in her school steered clear. She liked that arrangement just fine.

Justine came back downstairs to find her mother had laid out a huge breakfast for her on their white kitchen table. Her mother was far from an expert chef, mac n’ cheese with orange powder was a fairly regular staple of their diet, but the breakfast looked like a feast. “Eat, sleep, then get on the road,” her Mom said, concern clearly etched upon her face. Justine could tell she was still in shock about everything that had happened, then again, so was she.

Justine sat down and piled eggs, bacon, and several wedges of cantaloupe onto her plate. Part of her just wanted to get going, but her Mom was right, she needed to take care of herself before she could help look for Gwen.

“Mornin’,” her little sister Rachel said with a yawn as she shuffled into the kitchen wearing fluffy purple bunny slippers. Three years younger than Justine, Rachel was like a trimmer, cuter version of herself. With big brown doe-like eyes, she was also far more adorable than Justine had ever been. Rachel took one look at the breakfast spread laid out before her then one look at the tired and worn expressions both Justine and her Mom shared and knew something was up. “What’s wrong?”

“Gwen didn’t come home last night,” her Mom told her sister as gently as she could. “No one knows where she is. Hopefully all this worry is for nothing and she’ll turn up soon safe and sound.” Justine was thankful her Mom was there to explain it. She didn’t know what she’d say.

Rachel took a moment to let the news sink in, perhaps wondering if it was all a dream and she had never really woken up. “Gwen? Missing? She wouldn’t run away…”

Justine offered a solemn nod of her head. “Yeah, which is why we’re all worried. But like Mom said, hopefully she’ll turn up OK. I’m going down for a few days to help hand out fliers.”

Rachel pulled out a chair and stared at the piles of food, having lost any appetite. “She’s missing?” she repeated to herself. “How worried are you?” she turned and asked Justine.

Justine winced at the question. “Really worried,” she said after searching a while for an answer.

“But it’s too early to be leaping to conclusions,” her Mom said, leaning in to give Rachel a hug. “I’m sure Gwen will turn up.”

Her little sister made a big show of trying to avoid the hug, complete with a roll of the eyes for good measure. Justine remembered being thirteen, it wasn’t that long ago.

Rachel glanced over. “Gwen has to know you’ll be looking for her. I bet that makes her feel better.” Justine didn’t know quite what to say, but she was pretty sure at that moment that she had the best little sister ever. She shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her breakfast. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Think you might run into Dad while you’re down there?” Rachel asked after a pause, realizing that if Justine was headed down to Avalon that she’d be close to their father’s place.

“Wasn’t planning to,” Justine said. “With everything going on, it’s not really a good time.” Not that she’d want to anyways.

“Well, if you do, tell him I say ‘hi,’” Rachel said, ever the optimist. Her little sister didn’t hold grudges quite the same way Justine did. At the moment though, that was the farthest thing from Justine’s mind. She had to figure out what had happened to her friend.

Knights of Avalon: Chapter 3

2009-08-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

She didn’t think it was possible, but somehow, with the curtains drawn and the phone by her side, Justine was able to stretch out on her bed and squeeze in a few hours of sleep. Not that it helped much. In her dreams she saw Gwen running for her life down a dark corridor. Justine jerked wide awake and glanced over at the clock. It was almost noon. Time to get going.

She threw some clothes into the gym bag she usually took to jujutsu practice and fixed some sandwiches for the road. She left her schoolbooks on her nightstand. It wasn’t even worth it to try. She loaded up her trusty cherry red 1999 Ford Escort and prepared to go. That car was Justine’s baby, her pride and joy. She had seen it parked on the side of the road by the Baskin Robbins one day, lonely and neglected, a hand-written sign in black marker advertising it for $995. No one wanted it, but Justine saw its potential, saw what it could be. She had spent the months leading up to her sixteenth birthday working every conceivable crappy job to save for that car and the repairs it would need. Sure, it had a little rust, a couple of dents here and there, and it reeked of weed, but Justine could fix those things and all it took was a couple of air fresheners to get rid of the smell. Justine knew there were plenty of better cars in Jersey, but the Ford Escort was hers, fully and 100%, and that’s all that mattered.

Before she pulled out of the driveway, Justine took a deep breath and dialed Gwen’s number once more. She knew it was stupid to try, but she couldn’t help herself. The phone went directly to voicemail. It was eerie to hear Gwen, so breezy and cheerful. Justine hung up and closed her eyes, then started the car.

The May weather was gorgeous, the sky a perfect blue. Pink azaleas were in full bloom all along her street. Everything was in place for a spectacular Memorial Day weekend.

It was all an illusion. The world was going wrong. There was war in Central Asia, drought across half the world, monster hurricanes dismantling the Gulf Coast when it wasn’t hurricane season yet. Justine wasn’t even going to get into the rumors of magic. The world was screwed up enough without bringing something that ridiculous into the mix.

Even on her peaceful little street, insulated from the suffering and war, things weren’t right. The Azaleas should’ve bloomed weeks ago, the lilac bush in front of her family’s little Cape Cod had flowered a month early. It was as if the natural world itself was breaking down. Gwen going missing was only the latest proof that something was seriously wrong.

Justine turned down the street, past Gwen’s old house. They had known each other since kindergarten, when Gwen’s family had moved into the little white ranch house on the corner.

Five years old, Justine had found Gwen playing by herself by the creek one day, trying to catch frogs in Justine’s favorite spot. Gwen always played alone, none of the other kids in the neighborhood seemed to know what to do with her. Justine glared at the intruder and told her that if she wanted to hang out in her spot, that she’d have to prove herself by crossing the creek on a rickety old log. Gwen was up for that. She danced across without a moment of hesitation. Then she dared Justine to do the same. Justine fell off into the water, twisting her ankle. Their friendship was instant.

Justine still couldn’t believe her friend had gone missing. Gwen was the most beautiful person Justine had ever met. She was pretty enough, slim, with long black hair, dazzling honey-colored brown eyes, and a sublime grace. That’s not what made her beautiful. She had an inner light, a kindness that shone through. And she put up with Justine, which said a lot.

They spent all of elementary school together, inseparable. Then in the seventh grade, disaster struck, at least it seemed that way to a young Justine. Gwen moved out of the neighborhood and her parents enrolled her in an exclusive private school.

Their friendship held strong, even when last year, Gwen’s mother received a promotion and the family moved once more, two hours south to the seaside town of Avalon. The distance wasn’t an issue. Justine and Gwen e-mailed back and forth, spoke on the phone every other day, and Gwen made a point of cheering Justine on at her cross country meets and jujutsu matches. And now she was gone, and Justine was going to find her.

As she turned onto the parkway, she pondered the unspoken fear that everyone shared. Twelve teens had been murdered in the last eighteen months. In every case, the victim had vanished without a trace, only to be found days later, dumped in a river or in the woods. It’s why Justine had to help now, school be damned.

She hugged the coast as she drove to Stone Harbor. Justine had been there before. She had been up and down the entire south Jersey shore with Gwen since her friend moved there, shopping, exploring, and just generally getting into trouble, which the two of them did exceedingly well. She pulled onto 96th Street, slowing down as she scanned the area, viewing the place in a way she never had before. A darkened alleyway, a homeless person begging for change, everything took on a sinister cast.

One day before the official start of Memorial Day weekend and tourists were already getting an early start. She passed by restaurants, souvenir shops, and little boutiques. The world was falling apart, but people came here to forget their troubles, if only for a little while. With one eye still on the road, Justine turned to her left, to catch a glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean stretching to the horizon. She found a moment of peace there, just watching the waves crash against the shore, rolling down her window to catch the cool ocean breeze.

She finally found a spot to park and walked down the street. Here she was, Gwen’s last known location. Justine didn’t know what she expected, but this wasn’t it. She walked past a fudge shop, then a store that sold seashells and postcards. A sno-cone stand came next. The sun was shining, people walked by in shorts or even just in their bathing suits, smiling and carefree. Had something bad happened to Gwen here? If it had, Justine never would have guessed it.

She scoured the area, asking shop owners and locals if they had seen Gwen last night with no luck, her frustration growing. Of course her mother had let her come down here. Her mother knew her too well, knew she would need a way to satisfy her curiosity. She probably figured there wasn’t much harm in letting Justine wander a sleepy little beach town in the middle of the day.

Justine wasn’t beat yet. She turned her attention to a 24-hour diner just down the street. It would’ve been open when Gwen’s car broke down, maybe someone there had seen something. After all, Gwen’s blue BMW had a way of standing out. It occurred to Justine as she pushed open the diner’s door, a couple of bells helpfully jingling to announce her entrance, that Gwen’s car was almost brand new. It’s possible that it had broken down after only six months on the road, but it still struck Justine as odd.

She was rehearsing in her head the questions she would ask when she glanced up. Change of plans. She walked up to the diner’s counter and nonchalantly ordered a Coke and asked for a menu, pretending to take her time deciding what she wanted. Should she get the BLT or the Turkey Club? It all looked so good. The police were here. They weren’t in uniform, but who else would walk into a beachside diner wearing a suit and tie? The woman of the pair was only a little more casually dressed in dark slacks and a black jacket. Hell, it was the end of May and 85 degrees outside. They had to be cops.

In her shorts and tank top, Justine fit right in with all the other tourists. She stared at the menu as she eavesdropped on the conversation. “I’m Detective Barbara, this is my colleague Angela Faust.” The middle-aged man with the narrow face and graying blonde hair flashed his badge and took out a photo. “We’d like to get the names and phone numbers of your nightshift staff, anyone who would’ve been working yesterday evening between 10:30-11:30pm. We’re investigating the disappearance of this young woman. She went missing last night after her car broke down not far from here.” Justine took a peek at the photo. It was Gwen, dressed in a white doctor’s coat from the time she volunteered at the local clinic. The photo was recent, from last month. They must have gotten it from Gwen’s parents.

Recognition lit up the manager’s eyes. “You’re not the first person to ask about her. Her boyfriend, I think it was her boyfriend, was in here earlier. I haven’t seen her. I would’ve remembered a pretty girl like that. Then again, I work the afternoon shift. I’ll give you a list of all the employees who were working that night. And if you like, you can talk to Frank over there. He’s a regular. Chances are he was here around that time.”

It seemed you couldn’t have a respectable 24-hour diner without a regular like Frank to grace your establishment. The guy was in his sixties or seventies, with a gray beard, wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a loud Hawaiian shirt. He looked as if he had packed for Honolulu and somehow ended up in Jersey.

Frank walked over, shaking both the detectives’ hands and slapping Det. Barbara on the back, much to his dismay. Frank held the photo in his hands, looking it over. “Never seen her. I was here last night though. Didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I hope she turns up. Seems such a pity.”

“Can you tell me what time you came to the diner last night?” Det. Barbara asked. Though he was so far doing all the talking, Justine had a feeling it was the woman who was really in charge. Justine couldn’t take her eyes off of her. By the gray in her hair, Justine guessed she was about the same age as the other detective. She was strikingly tall, though not quite as tall as Justine, with mahogany skin and countless long braids captured into a pony tail in the back. She moved with an air of authority and every once in a while Justine noticed Det. Barbara sneaking a glance over to her, as if seeking her approval.

Frank shrugged his shoulders. “I stopped by around 10:30pm, the way I usually do.”

“And when did you leave?"

Frank opened his mouth to answer and suddenly frowned. “I don’t really remember, but I don’t think I stayed too long. I was having some coffee and pie, then I guess I headed home.”

“You don’t remember leaving the diner last night?” Det. Barbara pressed further.

Frank considered it some more. “Not really, but I got home, so I must’ve left at some point. It’s such a part of my daily routine, I don’t give much thought to it anymore, you know?”

“Did you use a credit card to pay for your meal?”

Frank cocked his head to one side, not really understanding what the detective was getting at. Justine took a sip of her Coke and wondered as well. “I must have. That’s what I always use to pay. Why do you ask?”

Det. Barbara turned to the manager. “Can you go into your system and pull up his payment from last night? I want to see what time he paid for his meal.”

“Know what you’re getting?” the lady behind the counter asked, hands on her hips, surly and world-weary the way any good waitress should be.

“I’ll take the BLT and fries,” Justine said, tearing her gaze away from the cops for a moment. “And can you make that to go?” She watched out of the corner of her eye as the manager checked the computer with a scowl. “That’s odd. I can’t find his check. Between 10:40pm and 11:32pm, I’m not seeing any activity at all. It can be quiet that time of night, but it’s usually not that quiet. Maybe it’s a computer glitch.”

“So according to that computer, there was absolutely no business in your restaurant during that time period. Even though you supposedly had customers here at the time,” Det. Barbara concluded.

“Which is why it has to be a glitch,” the manager responded.

Det. Faust looked all around. Justine quickly buried her face in the dessert menu. “You don’t have security cameras here, do you?” she wondered.

The manager shook his head. “We don’t need them. Even during the height of the busy season, we don’t have much crime, just some trouble with drunks, things like that.”

There was something odd about Det. Faust, but Justine couldn’t put her finger on it. At least not at first. It was her jewelry. Cops didn’t wear jewelry like she did on the job. Carefully, so as not to be noticed, Justine studied the heavy gold pendant that hung around her neck. The large red stone at its center almost glowed. On her fingers were several ornate rings, some with strange markings on them. Justine wondered why the detective didn’t leave the chunky jewelry at home, what with all the running around and beating up on bad guys she must’ve been doing on a regular basis.

If Det. Faust was disappointed at the way the interview was going, she didn’t show it. Justine couldn’t read her at all. “Thank you for your help,” Det. Barbara said as the manager handed over a list of employees for them to contact. Justine looked towards the kitchen as the detectives started to walk out. The cook was carefully arranging the bacon on her sandwich as if it was a work of art and not Justine’s next meal. “Come on,” she muttered under her breath, slipping off her stool and pulling out her wallet to pay for the food. Slowly, ever so slowly, the cook handed off his masterpiece to the grizzled waitress, who tossed it into a box, shoved it into a bag, and plunked it in front of Justine. She grabbed the sandwich and ran. “Thanks,” Justine called out. “You can keep the change!”

Justine stepped out onto the street, back into the sunshine. The detectives were nowhere to be found. “Shit,” she said, searching the crowd of beach-goers. She walked up and down the sidewalk until she caught sight of the two detectives standing in a parking lot behind the shops. She lingered in front of the sno-cone stand, watching them from a distance.

The two detectives seemed to have friends. They must’ve been cops, it wasn’t law enforcement social hour, but Justine had never seen police work like this. How was anything they were doing related to finding Gwen? There was the dark-haired geek with what appeared to be a Geiger counter pacing back and forth across the pavement, then an older woman in a hippie skirt who walked the perimeter of the lot, putting her hands on every tree she passed. People walked by, hardly paying the cops any notice.

Justine continued to observe from a distance, confused and angry. Why weren’t they looking for witnesses? She told herself to calm down. Whoever these people were, Justine had a feeling they knew what they were doing. There must have been some method to their madness, though it was pretty mad. Justine studied the area, suddenly realizing she wasn’t the only one watching the cops.

In a shadow-filled alleyway, a figure crouched down behind a trash can, observing every move the detectives made. Justine wondered if she had finally found a witness to her friend’s disappearance. Walking at a brisk pace, she circled around the shops, stepping into the alleyway from the other side without a sound. It occurred to Justine a little too late that what she was doing was potentially dangerous. Even black belts weren’t immune to bullets and she didn’t know who, or what, she was confronting.

The figure whirled around, almost sensing her presence. It was a dark-haired girl about her age, perhaps Asian judging by her features, but she moved like a feral animal. Her hair was a tangled mess, her clothing falling to pieces. The way she crouched, Justine couldn’t get a full sense of her size, but she knew she wasn’t big. The girl tensed her muscles, as if preparing to make a break for it. “Wait! I have food!” Justine blurted out, holding up the bag that contained her BLT. It was the first idea that had popped into her head. Hopefully it would work.

The girl stayed where she was, tilting her head to one side. “Let me see,” she said in a raspy voice.

Justine pulled the BLT out of the bag and opened the box. The girl’s eyes widened as she fixated on the food. She was painfully thin, Justine imagined she didn’t get a good meal very often. The girl motioned with her head for Justine to set the box down. Justine did so, slowly backing away. “I’m looking for my friend. Her name’s Gwen. Her car broke down not far from here and no one’s seen her since.”

The girl pounced the moment Justine was far enough away, swiping the box and retreating back to the relative safety of the trash can. She lifted the lid and breathed in deeply, savoring the food instead of devouring it. She picked up a French fry and took a bite. “No ketchup?” she asked, finally remembering that Justine was there, her voice taking on a more normal tone.

“Sorry,” Justine said, trying to get a better view of her in the weak light. The girl had a habit of letting her hair hide her face. “About my friend…”

“The queen?”

“Excuse me?” Justine said, figuring she must have misheard the girl.

“You’re searching for the queen,” the girl stated as she munched away on the French fries.

“I’m looking for my friend,” Justine said once more, trying to hide the irritation in her voice. “Her name’s Gwen Martinez. She’s my age, medium height, about 5’7”, with black hair and brown eyes. Her car…”

The feral girl cut her off, speaking almost matter-of-factly. “You’re looking for the queen. I know they took her. They’re trying to make me care. Problem is, I don’t.” She turned her attention back to the BLT, muttering to herself, “A little too much mayo…”

Justine had the sinking feeling she was talking to a crazy person, but perhaps a crazy person who had seen something. “Who are they? Who took Gwen? Did you see something?”

The girl shook her head. “Wasn’t here when it happened, but I know who they are, I know their methods. It’s not your battle. You think you have a belt that says you can fight?” Justine blinked. What the hell? “Forget the queen, forget this war. Or you’ll die, and I won’t care.”

As Justine tried to make sense of what the girl was saying, she grabbed the box of food and took off. Justine ran down the alleyway after her, turning the corner and coming to a dead end. The girl was gone.

Status Report

2009-08-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

Hello lovely people! (and you really are lovely, I can't tell you all how many times I've been bummed out over the last few months and someone's kind comment on the blog or on Twitter has cheered me up) I've been querying for three months now and here are my stats:

20 agents queried
4 partials requested
1 full requested
All rejected :(

Now I know this is a subjective business, but with five rejections, that tells me something isn't working quite right with the book. I've been complimented on how strong my writing is, the agents like the premise and once I tweaked some pacing issues, they've been very positive on that too.

What no one has said one good thing about is the main character herself and one agent told me that she couldn't connect with Justine (my MC). I love my MC, I think she's 32 flavors and then some, but that awesome person living in my head isn't translating to the page, so I've got to find a way to fix that.

Based on feedback, I also suspect that the latter half of my book is stronger than the beginning part. I think this is the case because the further along an agent has read, the more complimentary they've been, and one of my beta readers (OK, my Mom..who btw, HATES Knights of Avalon) told me that the first fifteen pages after the prologue were much weaker than the rest of the book. Weaker beginning + inability to connect with MC = Rejection.

The thing is, this isn't an easy problem to fix. It's not like bad punctuation or a plot hole, it's something that's almost intangible. One of those things that you either have or you don't.

But I have a plan. The plan does not involve ferrets. No, it involves the following: Over the next day or so, I'm going to post the first few chapters of the manuscript up on the blog. If you'd like, please give me your thoughts, good and bad, on the writing and specifically, on the main character. Do you connect with her? If not, why?

Next, it's been suggested to me that I switch the novel over to first person, that this might allow readers to identify more with the MC. I think I'll test this out on a few chapters and once I've done that (it'll probably take me a few days, at least), post those chapters up on the blog too to get everyone's feedback. Again, thanks for all your help. You guys have helped keep me sane, or if nothing else, from going any crazier than I already am. :)

Fun With Neologisms

2009-07-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

I was cruising around the web today and found a fellow writer who got a partial request, on the same day I did, from the very same agent. Now, it seems to me there should be some word for this, so I coined the term 'querysib.' As in we're query siblings.

Now I want to come up with more terms but I'm drawing a blank, so feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section. I'm looking for words for the following phenomena. Have at it!

When you look your manuscript over a dozen times, are certain you've fixed every typo and spelling error, send it to an agent, and immediately afterwards find a mistake.
When you query an agent and then follow them on Twitter, in the vain hope that the agent will mention your manuscript or query on the Twitter feed. The word I'm looking for is something other than 'stalking.' Not that I've ever done this.
When Agent #1 has your partial or a full, you receive feedback from Agent #2, realize to your horror the mistakes you've made, make revisions, and then re-submit to Agent #1, even though you know you're really not supposed to.
The paradox where when things are slow in your personal life, things are slow with your writing. But when your life is crazy and hectic, that's when agents start responding and making requests for sample pages.

Mock Query: The Nanerpuss Code

2009-07-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

**Warning** Fake Query Ahead. Keep out of reach of agents, LOLcats, and small children. Do not attempt at home. No cyborgs with Austrian accents were harmed in the making of this query.

Dear Colleen… I feel like I can call you Colleen since I met you once at an IHOP five months ago. You might remember me, I waved to you and bounced up and down and ran to my car to show you my 300,000 word religious-themed memoir. But when I came back, you were hiding in the bathroom and you wouldn’t come out no matter how much I tried to entice you with my clever and witty reading of my manuscript. Then the security guards came and rudely dragged me away, so unfortunately I didn’t get to chapter five of my memoir, which is when it got really good.

Anyways, I’ve written a new book now and I know you’re closed to submissions, but this query actually comes from the future, when you’ll be open to submissions again. For you see, in the year 2012, on August 29 at approximately 2:14am, the Skynet Global Digital Defense Network gains sentience and launches a war of extinction against the human race. I know, what a bummer. Can you imagine what that does to the publishing industry?

Now I’m sending this query from the future, at the behest of the leader of the human resistance, Jessica Faust, to ask you to please agent my manuscript, The Nanerpuss Code. I know what you’re thinking: What does The Nanerpuss Code have to do with the salvation of the human race? Everything, my dear Ms. Lindsay, everything.

For at Book Expo America 2011, on a sunny, pleasant day, the architect of Skynet shall wander by and in a freak accident, be crushed to death by a pile of Nanerpuss Code galleys, preventing the completion of Skynet and saving not only the human race, but the publishing world as we know it. No, really, it's a good thing, trust me.

So, to sum up: Represent The Nanerpuss Code, save the world. The fate of the future lies in your hands!

Up to No Good

2009-07-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hello! Good afternoon! I'm still hanging in there! Here's the latest: I did get a very kind rejection from the agent I mentioned in the earlier posts, but it was the most complimentary rejection I've ever received, so maybe I'm making some progress. I do have other people looking at the manuscript that I'm very excited about, so we'll see, hopefully I can one day find that agent who loves my work and is a good match.

In the mean time, I think I'm going to busy myself by writing another mock query letter. And I'll probably start work soon on the sequel to Knights of Avalon. The book's main character, Justine, is very pushy and has been bugging me to get started. Yeah, my characters have minds of their own, and they talk to me.

Waiting

2009-06-16T18:29:00.000-07:00

Except for the constant stream of rejection, I think the waiting has to be the hardest part of being a writer. Maybe that and the sacrificing time with friends and family to write. And the lack of sleep. And crying when you kill off one of your favorite characters. And being frustrated when a story just isn't working out right...

Anyways, I'm still waiting. I have to say, so far, I'm completely surprised by who has shown an interest in the manuscript and who hasn't. The agents I thought were likely to request it haven't and the agents who I thought were longshots asked to see more. We'll see if that trend continues. Until then, another Hawaii photo. So pretty. So so peaceful.

More Zen!

2009-05-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

One more photo from Hawaii. I'm trying to be zen because I've sent my queries out and while I've received a few rejections already, one agent I've always wanted to work with is currently reading the full manuscript. Seriously, I couldn't believe he was interested. It was one of those what-the-hell-I-have-no-chance-but-let's-give-it-a-shot queries. And I got a request for a full. I know the chances are slim of it going any farther than that, but yes, I'm trying not to freak out. Hence the photos of Hawaii. Hawaii is very calming.

Your Moment of Zen #2

2009-05-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Busy week.

Here's another photo of Hawaii, this from the inside of Kilauea Iki Crater, which last erupted in 1959.

Your Moment of Zen

2009-05-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of querying now and as always, it's a stressful time for me. So here's a little something to take my mind off it and that I hope you'll enjoy too. I present to you, a shot of Hualalai taken from Waikoloa on the Big Island, from when I last visited in '07.

Revised Query Letter

2009-05-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

OK, here is the revised query based on your suggestions. Thank you very much! By the way, my process with queries is that I usually solicit feedback from a couple of different places (in this case I posted it on VerlaKay.com as well), then I take the feedback and just think on it for a little while. Walk the dog, go food shopping, something like that. Then usually while I'm in Aisle Seven, staring at cans of tuna fish, I'll have an A-ha! moment and realize how I can fix the query. Finally, I cut and paste the feedback into my query document and as I go along making changes, I check off what I've fixed. I don't always make every change that is suggested, but in this case, I pretty much did.

And if that process seems relatively straightforward, understand that there was much gnashing of teeth and yelling at the computer along the way.

So, here it is:

Sixteen-year-old Justine Kwiatkowski never planned on becoming a modern day King Arthur, she’s always preferred a good brawl to a sword fight and she’s got finals to worry about at the end of the month. But when her best friend Gwen is kidnapped outside the town of Avalon, she’ll do whatever it takes to get her back, even if it means questioning suspects, believing in magic, and pulling a sword out of a stone, even if it means risking her life by picking a fight with Morgan le Fay.

Because her best friend happens to be the reincarnation of Guinevere, and fifteen hundred years after the fall of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table have returned, reborn as New Jersey teens. Now Morgan le Fay, with a little assist from Mordred, is killing the knights before they can remember who they were, kidnapping Gwen to draw out the last few survivors.

Not that Justine believes any of this is real. Reincarnation? Magic? She’s not a knight, she just wants her friend back. Making the connection between Gwen’s kidnapping and the murders of bright and promising area teens, she investigates the teens’ deaths, discovering the secret of who they once were and racing to track down the rest before they become the next victims.

She’s helped along the way by Gwen’s boyfriend, a loner from the wrong side of the tracks searching for redemption. Justine doesn’t know if she can trust him, especially when he claims to be Lancelot du Lac, but after she’s attacked by the Green Knight and pulls Excalibur from a stone, she’s starting to think he might be on to something.

To save her best friend, Justine will have to bring together Lancelot and the other knights and defeat Mordred. For Justine, that’s not a problem, and she just might save the world in the process.

Knights of Avalon, a YA Urban Fantasy, is complete at 65,000 words. While intended to be a three-part series, the first book is stand alone. If interested, the manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your consideration!

The Query Letter Returns

2009-05-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

When last we left my query letter for Knights of Avalon, it looked like this. Not bad. Decent. But I felt it could use a little more personality. A little more pizazz. So I ~~covered it in hearts and sparkles~~ left the query alone for a couple of weeks, thought about the tone and feeling I wanted to convey, and did some revisions.

Here's my latest draft, what do you all think?

Sixteen-year-old Justine Kwiatkowski never planned on becoming a latter day King Arthur, she’s always preferred a good brawl to a sword fight, but when her best friend Gwen is kidnapped in the town of Avalon, she’s determined to do whatever it takes to get her back. Canvas neighborhoods. Question suspects. Believe in magic. Pull a sword out of a stone. Maybe even pick a fight with Morgan le Fay.

Because her best friend happens to be the reincarnation of Guinevere, and fifteen hundred years after the fall of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table have returned, reborn as New Jersey teens.

There’s Gwen’s boyfriend, the loner from the wrong side of the tracks who blames himself for bloodshed that happened over a thousand years before he was born, the self-professed drama nerd whose only fighting experience is in West Side Story but finds herself able to take down a champion black belt with ease, the troubled artist who obsessively paints images of the Holy Grail, and the star football tackle who only wants two things in life, a giant battle axe and to keep his brothers and sisters safe.
Problem is: Someone’s killing the knights before they can remember who they once were. If Justine can’t help them discover their pasts and join together, there’ll be no future, not for Gwen, not for them, not for anyone.

Knights of Avalon, a YA Urban Fantasy, is complete at 65,000 words. If interested, the manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your consideration!

Why I Need an Agent

2009-05-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

I get asked on occasion if I'd like to work with an agent. This is sort of like being asked if I'd like to work with a pretty, sparkly unicorn. Sure, I'd love to work with a pretty, sparkly unicorn, especially one that was good at contract negotiations, but I don't know if I can find a pretty, sparkly unicorn.

I've also had it pointed out to me that writers don't need agents to get published. This is true. That said, I need an agent. And here's a little hypothetical scenario to show you why:

Publishing House: O hai there! We love your story about a beagle who's secretly a ninja, fighting to save the world, and we'd like to offer you a two-book deal.

Me: Oh wow oh wow oh wow! Where do I sign?

Publishing House: Here, you can use this bottle of red ink. Just sign on the dotted line.

Me: Wait a minute. That's not ink, that's blood! And Paragraph 18(b), right under the part about electronic rights, says I'm selling my soul! And there's nothing in here about payment.

Publishing House: We're glad that you asked about payment. In return for us giving you a two-book deal, we are prepared to give you this here Slurpee, cold and refreshing, along with this piece of string and a brand new paper clip.

Me: Paper clip. Oooh, shiny. (bats at the paper clip, taking a sip of the Slurpee) Deal!

The Truth About Agents, Revealed!

2009-05-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already, I highly recommend you read Jessica Faust's recent post titled, "Agents Aren't the Enemy."

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're probably saying to yourself, "Wow, that Jessica Faust person sure is reasonable and fair-minded, patient and kind. She probably rescues kittens out of trees and travels to foreign countries to help orphans in her free time."

Don't be fooled my fellow writers! I link to her post to show you just how devious these agents can be. Let the truth set you free! We have nothing to lose but our royalty checks! Don't let these agents, with their free advice, and taking time out of their busy schedules to answer questions they've already been asked over a hundred times, lure you into a false sense of security. Because I'm here to tell you right now: Agents feast on the tears of rejected writers. That and massive doses of caffeine.

They do.

We now take you to the agents' evil lair under the IHOP in Queens.

"What do we have here? The writer claims this
revolutionary literary fiction about a frustrated
writer who travels to Alaska to find himself, only
to get bitten by a vampire and become an undead
nature documentary filmmaker, will be the next
Twilight. And you know what, it surely would be!
Especially with all the basic spelling and grammar
errors, those really give the manuscript an authentic feel.
Hah! Who needs to earn a living? Let us crush this
writer's precious dreams underfoot."

"Ah, the distilled tears of a frustrated writer, mixed
with some pomegranate juice. I feel my power growing
already. Nom nom nom."

"So, now that we're done fostering mediocrity and
stifling the creativity of unappreciated literary
geniuses, who do you think is going to win America's
Next Top Model?"

When Writing Gets Hard

2009-05-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

I've heard a lot of writers say the middle of the book is the hardest to write. For me, it's the end. Not so much coming up with an ending, more that I tend to have these mood swings when I write, going from 'My book is great!' to 'My book sucks' in a matter of minutes. The closer I get to finishing the book, the stronger the mood swings get, until I'm pretty much staring at my computer, convinced I've made a terrible mistake and thinking I should just trash the manuscript and start from scratch. Of course, I know better than to do that, but that's how I end up feeling.

Now here I am, a day or two out from finishing Knights of Avalon and feeling like a complete failure, which I know isn't true. My way of coping with this? Chocolate. Mass quantities of chocolate, and perhaps a Coke Slurpee later tonight.

I bought myself a pound and a half bar of Belgian milk chocolate a couple of days ago just because I knew this would happen. Seriously, the bar's huge, as big as one of my cats (though not as heavy). It's sort of my "In case of literary emergency, break glass and eat chocolate" bar. And you know what, I'm eating it, right now! It should get me through these last few chapters, then maybe I'll post a preview for you guys.

Update:

In case you all didn't believe me.

When My Book Grows Up...

2009-05-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

It wants to be Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix. OK, I have to admit, I haven't read this book yet, having been busy with a job, and writing, and rescuing calico kitties, and did I mention my beagle had another seizure but she's doing better now, but I have a very specific psychic gift, I can ~~read Amazon reviews~~ review books just by their cover, and I can tell you, truly, honestly, this book is amazing. Not to mention, everybody who's read it seems to agree.

I don't really know the author, but back in the days when I was lurking on AbsoluteWrite and VerlaKay (nowadays I go by LiteraryMouse there), I remember her getting turned down by almost every YA agent out there (I think she was turned down over twenty times alone for Silver Phoenix), even though you could just tell there was something special about her book. I even almost asked her if I could read her manuscript, it sounded so good. And now I don't have to ask her for the manuscript, because I can go to the book store and get myself a copy. So congratulations, happy belated book release day and best of luck!

Now here are some links. And yes, this is part of a contest (because blog contests are my crack), but I'd post these even without the contest.

Cindy Pon's Blog

Cindy Pon's Web Site

The Awesome Cool Book Trailer for Silver Phoenix which I've now watched about 100 times

Note: Author reserves the right to revise this post once she's had more than a few hours of sleep.

The Knights of Avalon Evil Overlord List

2009-04-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

1. If the reincarnation of Lancelot du Lac demands that I give him a sword, I will say 'no.'
a) Even if he challenges me to one-on-one combat.
b) Even if he says I have no honor.
c) Even if he calls me a coward.

(See #40 of the Evil Overlord List: "I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve" and #44: "I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance")

Interestingly enough, though not evil, Percival seems to be following Evil Overlord Rule #4: "Shooting is not too good for my enemies."

Update:

Now that I've had some time to think on it, Morgan le Fay is the one who seems to be really paying attention to the Evil Overlord List. For example:

1. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
2. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
3. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
4. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
5. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
6. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

It's #Querypalooza!

2009-04-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

In honor of ~~#Queryfail~~, ~~#QueryDay~~, #Querypalooza, I was seriously tempted to write up some appallingly atrocious queries and send them to agents for a good giggle. Then I realized that I'd really like to be working with these people one day, and that perhaps it might not be a good idea to find creative ways to annoy them, so instead, I shall post my appallingly atrocious queries on my blog!

**Warning**
Fake Query Ahead. Keep out of reach of agents, LOLcats, and small children. Do not attempt at home. No literary classics were harmed in the making of this query. OK, maybe one, but Jane Austen's ghost must be used to it by now.

Dear Nathan,

I'm your biggest fan. But not like that Kathy Bates chick from Misery. No, if you ever crashed on an isolated country road in the middle of winter and broke your leg, I totally would not kidnap you and force you to read my submissions. I'd be a much more considerate client than that.

As your biggest fan (but not like Kathy Bates!), I am submitting to you my Historical Romantic Thriller Epic Pride and Prejudice and Ninjas. It's about Pride and Prejudice, and ninjas. As it combines two subjects extremely popular in the market at this time, Jane Austen, and ninjas, I feel assured that it will be a Number One New York Times Bestseller within a week of you taking me on as your client. In addition, if you take me on as a client, my book will be so amazingly awesome that all the other agents will be jealous of you and Michael Chabon AND Cormac McCarthy will want you to be their agent. It's true.
As mentioned before, my book is about Pride and Prejudice, and ninjas. As sisters Elizabeth and Jane Bennet prepare with eager anticipation for their wedding day, Jane is kidnapped by strange, shadowy figures dressed most scandalously in black pyjamas. Darcy and Elizabeth, with the help of Sherlock Holmes, must investigate her disappearance, but to their surprise, find Bingley strangely reticent to aid them in their search.

The black pyjamaed-figures then return, attempting to assassinate Mr. Bingley with poisoned shuriken, but Elizabeth Bennet's flying fists of fury save the day and Bingley's most shocking secret is finally revealed: He is indeed a businessman, but he doesn't exactly get his 4,000 pounds of yearly income from selling tea and crumpets. As a member of a shadowy organization devoted to world domination run by Napoleon himself, Bingley partners with the Dutch to smuggle black market weapons to the Nagasaki yakuza. When a giant squid sinks one of the smuggling ships, the partnership goes sour and the Ninja are sent to eliminate Bingley once and for all.

It's as this point that Darcy reveals himself to be a member of the League of Extraordinarily Hot Gentlemen, an even secreter, more super organization devoted to battling Napoleon's evil designs. Darcy's assignment all along has been to watch Mr. Bingley and infiltrate the organization. Putting aside their differences to rescue Jane, Bingley and Darcy, along with Elizabeth, storm the ninjas' secret lair in the heart of Cheapside, only to find that the ninjas have put Jane on a ship bound for Japan.

It's Adventure on the High Seas as Darcy borrows a navy vessel from Admiral Horatio Nelson and takes off in hot pursuit. But just as he and Bingley and Elizabeth draw near, they're attacked by a pirate ship captained by none other than the villainous Mr. Wickham, who has already been bankrupted by Lydia despite his officer's commission in the North.

Having recently participated in your Agent for a Day contest, I feel that I am now well-qualified to declare that my novel is the best ever and will be more popular than Twilight, Harry Potter, and Jesus combined. I'll be waiting by the phone for your offer of representation.

Sincerely,

Your Biggest Fan (but not like Kathy Bates!)

PS-I've interspersed my query with photos of bacon and kittens, because bacon makes everything better and kittens make my query memorable.

LOLcat can haz agent?

2009-04-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

In honor of the impending Queryfail 2: Bigger, Better, Angstier, I've put together a LOLcat query letter. I think if cats could type, this is what they'd say. That and 'feed me.'

Save Guinevere, Save the World

2009-04-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

So I was working on the first draft of my query letter, which I'll post below, and I realized that it sure sounds like Heroes - Season 1's "Save the cheerleader, save the world," which caused me to giggle for a good couple of minutes.

Anyways, I decided not to submit the query to Nathan Bransford's Agent for a Day contest, as I'm still working on it and it looks like he already received plenty of submissions, but I will continue to post the query as it evolves.

Here's my first attempt at it, pulling together all the 'ingredients' I listed in the post below.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Camelot fell, torn apart by adultery, bloodshed, and the treachery of Mordred. Now the Knights of the Round Table have returned, reincarnated as New Jersey teens, and if they don’t discover their pasts and join together, there’ll be no future, not for them, not for anyone.

Someone is kidnapping and murdering the best and the brightest teens from across New Jersey: Star athletes, honor students, local heroes. When Justine Kwiatkowski’s best friend Gwen goes missing in the town of Avalon, she fears the worst, that her friend and partner in crime, a straight ‘A’ student who dreams of being a cardiac surgeon one day, has become the latest victim.

Luckily for Gwen and unfortunately for the killer, Justine’s determined to rescue her before it’s too late. Stubborn, pushy, and fearless, Justine finds herself surrounded by would-be allies in her quest to find her friend. There’s Gwen’s boyfriend, the loner from the wrong side of the tracks who blames himself for bloodshed that happened over a thousand years before he was born, the self-professed drama nerd whose only fighting experience is in West Side Story but finds herself able to take down a champion blackbelt with ease, the troubled artist who obsessively paints images of a golden cup, and the star football tackle who only wants two things in life, a giant battle axe and to protect his family from his abusive father.

If Justine can find a way to bring these kids together and settle some very old scores, she’ll not just rescue Gwen, she just might save the world.

Knights of Avalon, a YA Urban Fantasy, is complete at _______ (still writing it, so I don't know yet!). If interested, the partial or full manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your consideration!

I'll let the query sit for a while and then come back to look at it with fresh eyes. I think there's definitely more to be done to let the main character's personality shine through and some tightening of language I can do as well.

Starting a Query from Scratch

2009-04-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

Lookee! Over there! It's yet another blog contest, this time to "Be an Agent for a Day," and as everyone probably knows by now, blog contests are my crack. Oh yes they are.

There are two components to this contest. The one that interests me the most is the part where people send in queries to be judged by Nathan Bransford's readers, as if they were actual agents. I know not all queries will be selected, but what the heck, let's give it a shot, so I'm going to send in a query for my unfinished YA Urban Fantasy, "Knights of Avalon."

Except here's the catch: I'm going to have to write the query first. From the ground up. My Surviving Matewan query I posted a while back? I had worked on and revised that for months before anyone ever got to see it. But I think it'll be an interesting exercise to show you my thought process as I put a new query together.

Before I start writing a query, the first question I ask myself is: What should I put in it? I love to bake and to me, this is like putting together a list of ingredients. And yes, it's very easy to forget ingredients, because as writers we're so close to our own work that we sometimes assume readers know something that they don't.

For Knights of Avalon , here's the basic premise: Knights of the Round Table reincarnated as New Jersey teens. To find out who is killing them one by one and save the future, they'll have to join together and discover their pasts.

Here are my basic ingredients for the query. I'll update this list if I think of anything else:

Story inspired by the legends of King Arthur and Camelot
The title (you think it's obvious but people apparently have forgotten)
Wordcount
Genre
No credentials will be included, because I really don't have any. Except that I love to write, my beagle thinks I'm brilliant and that I make the best pralines ever! But I don't think any of that's relevant here, so I'll leave it out. But seriously, my pralines are really yummy
Set in Avalon, New Jersey
In the plot summary, mention that Guinevere/Gwen has been kidnapped and it's this event that spurs her best friend Arthur/Justine to action and ultimately draws the knights together
Mention the murder of New Jersey teens, all of them brilliant and heroic in some way
Should I include quick one sentence descriptions of some of the individual knights? Will have to think on it. For example, for Dinadan, "a self-professed drama nerd whose only fighting experience is in West Side Story but finds herself able to take down a champion blackbelt with ease."

I'm clearly brainstorming here, but this is how I start a query. Just start tossing out ideas. I'll start a rough rough draft tomorrow and post it.

#Underfail: Rise of the Agents

2009-04-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been wasting your time with silly things like writing or, you know, spending time with your families and engaging in human interaction, you may not be aware that there is yet another controversy in the Writing/Publishing blogosphere. First, there was the great #Queryfail debate of March '09, now there is the even better and angstier #Agentfail debate of April '09. I don't know what we're doing for May, but I hope it involves Nerf weapons.

For those of you who have been out of the loop, here's a quick run down of what's been going on.

For over a thousand years, a great war has raged between two rival races:

The Agents, and...

The Writers.

Though the origins of this conflict are lost to the sands of time, for the past several decades, Agents and Writers had maintained an uneasy peace, until the great scourge that is known in the Dark Tongue as Twitter sowed discord throughout the land.

"OMG, here's another writer who didn't follow
the submission guidelines, didn't use spellcheck,
and swears their 250,000 word WWII historical
about a Ninja Assassin with a Heart of Gold will
sell more than Harry Potter!"

"We have been humiliated! Unprofessional!
Stop spending so much time on Twitter and
read our queries! And reply! None of this
'no response means no' crap! It's hard enough
being a writer as it is!"

"You guys are so harsh. Agents have feelings too!
You have no idea how busy we are representing
existing clients, drinking blood, fighting werewolves
while wearing tight leather outfits, and watching reality
TV shows."

Will this war between Writers and Agents ever end? Can they find a way to work together towards the same goal? Will Nathan Bransford ever get those Sacramento Kings tickets ? Will Colleen Lindsay ever get over her fear of Nanerpuss? Can this writer stop procrastinating and get back to work on her latest manuscript? Stay tuned.

Note to Self

2009-03-31T00:26:00.000-07:00

When you have a scene where you're describing your character's disturbing nightmares, write the scene during the day, not at 3am. Now I'm never going to get to sleep, and yes, all my lights are on.

You Know Your Character's a Speed Demon When...

2009-03-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

I know for a lot of writers, characters oftentimes take on lives of their own, developing quirks and going in different directions than the writer intended. For example, in Surviving Matewan, I noticed that whenever my main character, Molly Anne, picked out something she liked, it was red. Red was her favorite color. Red? By far not my favorite.

Well, it's official, in my most recent WIP, Knights of Avalon, a YA Urban Fantasy about Knights of the Roundtable reincarnated as New Jersey teens, "Arthur" is a speed demon.

How do I know? Here are the signs:

* Whenever characters drive separately from Point A to Point B, "Arthur" will always get there first.

* When "Arthur" is questioned by the police, she (yeah, Arthur's a girl in this) notes the only other run-in she's ever had with a police officer was when she was pulled over for speeding.

* Other characters are afraid to drive with her and always volunteer to drive instead.

* She worries about speed traps.

* When trying to convince another character that her car, an old beater held together by duct tape and love, is safe, she notes she's had several minor accidents already and both she and the car came out of them just fine. This does not allay the other character's concerns.

I'm just worried the girl's going to get her license revoked by the end of the book.

It's Not a Hobby!

2009-03-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Someone I know recently referred to my writing as a hobby, as in, "Well, at least you've had a lot of fun lately working on your hobby."

You know the music that plays whenever the Bride in Kill Bill flips out?

Yeah, that's me, without the mad ninja skillz.

It may be a mental illness, it certainly is an obsession, it is not a hobby.

Friday Pet Blogging

2009-03-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

Since I promised you foster kitties...

Meet Precious.

Meet Patches.

Meet Leo. He's a bit of a ladies' man.

No, really. The girls really seem to adore him.

And last, but certainly not least...

Lucille!!!!

Things I Learn from Reality Shows

2009-03-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

Watching Make Me a Supermodel last night, I had a realization. As the show likes to remind us, there are a lot of really good-looking people out there, but only a select few can be supermodels. They have to stand out from all the others through hard work, a good attitude, charisma, and a bit of luck. In other words, there are a lot of CJs in the modeling world, but you're going to have to be a Sandhurst to get noticed.

Same thing with writing. There are plenty of good writers out there, but you have to do more to stand out. Study hard, constantly work on your writing, stay positive, and with luck, hopefully get published one day.

Thoughts on Word Counts

2009-03-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

First of all, did you see the winners of the Query Haiku Contest over at Colleen Lindsay's blog, did ya, did ya? Honorable mention, bay-bee! Yeah!!!!

Second, and wholly unrelated to writing, but my mother got the foster kitties that are living in my bathroom all these toy mice and pirate-themed cat toys. Arrrrr! I'll try to post photos of the kitties some time, they're quite adorable...and adoptable. If you live in the Washington DC metropolitan area and want a kitty, let me know!

But to the point, I've been lurking around lots of fellow writer's blogs lately and noticed that they like to put up the word counts of their WIPs, and this includes very successful published writers.

And I realized something...I don't do that. In fact, I have a feeling I shouldn't do that, because I'd become obsessed with how many words I've written instead of how far I am in the story and whether or not it's any good.

For better or for worse, I did this with Surviving Matewan. I just focused on trying to write a good story and didn't check the word count until I was done. Of course, I ended up with an 81,000 word manuscript, which is too long for YA/Middle Grade. Even more impressive, when I made another round of revisions aimed at reducing the word count, I ended up with 89,000 words. Check out my mad editing skillz! But still, my attitude is story first, word count second.

That works for me, it probably won't work for others. Once I have the story, I can shape it and tweak it until it's an acceptable length. Plus, I still have a bad habit of telling and not showing, so there's a lot of fat in that 89,000 (now down to 87,500) word manuscript that can be cut.

With Knights of Avalon, I've revised my strategy slightly. I still don't know what my word count is, but I've learned more about what's considered acceptable in different genres and have a word count target in mind (75,000). I also have a better feel now for when I'm going long and what my word count probably will be based on how many pages I've written. We'll see how that works. Right now, my main concern is with pacing and bringing together all these characters who are scattered about at the beginning of the story.

#Queryfail

2009-03-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

Ohaithere! Where have I been for the last week? Oh, ya know, writing, and writing...did I mention writing? A little obsessively. Sometime soon, I'll tell you the wicked crazy dreams I've been having from the viewpoint of one of my own characters. You know why this blog is called Surviving Writing a Book? Besides the fact that's it a play on the title of my first novel, Surviving Matewan? It's because when I get into writing, when I really get into writing, it starts to get a little crazy.

But that's a mental detour for another day. At this moment, I want to weigh in on a controversy, because I cannot ignore the siren song of controversy, it is like the siren song of Coke Slurpees and eventually I must succumb. On Thursday, March the Fifth, a group of agents liveblogged via Twitter the queries they were reading, lavishing special attention on the egregiously bad ones, and sometimes describing what the query sender did wrong. Much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments ensued, as some in the writing world suggested that those involved in #Queryfail day were great big meanies.

First of all, it is very upsetting to see two of my favorite agents, who shall go nameless, fighting. I didn't know agents could do that. It's like finding out Mrs. Claus took out a restraining order on Santa. And yes, I know I'm being naive. OK, I'm still naive. Heh!

Second, yeah, sometimes #queryfail went from informative and funny to mean and sometimes that made me uncomfortable. But as far as I'm concerned, criticism happens and as you develop as a writer and show your work to others, whether it be via blog, query or actual published book, you're going to be able to control the criticism you receive less and less. Get used to it now. If agents were posting entire queries and ruthlessly snarking on them, maybe I'd feel differently, but that's not what they were doing.

Now, on to the content of #queryfail, because this is really why I don't feel badly for most of those who were snarked upon. A perusal of the #queryfails reveal several patterns:

1. Queries where the sender hadn't written a book at all. These include people who had a great idea and wanted help writing it, wanted to secure an agent before they had ever committed a word to paper, or were asking agents questions about payment and money.
2. Queries where the sender made unreasonable/unrealistic demands. For example, talking about going on Oprah or suggesting that they receive million dollar advances.
3. Queries that failed to follow basic guidelines and rules of grammar and civility, such as addressing the query, "To Whom It May Concern" and sending it out to 30 agents all at once, or queries that clearly weren't spellchecked, or where agents were sent genres they clearly don't represent.
4. Queries that skimped on the plot and talked about, instead of showed, how great the book was.

What really gets me is that the more egregious and atrociously written the query, the more it tended to suffer from more than one of the problems listed above. The person who's written the 250,000 word Middle Grade Erotic Vampire Thriller who's certain their book will be bigger than Harry Potter and Twighlight combined also doesn't believe in using commas or sending agents personalized e-mails because that'd crimp their creative genius.

All the query senders with problems #1-3 (I'm not talking about #4, because that's a common mistake that anybody can make), they don't respect the craft, because there' s just no excuse to be making those sorts of mistakes. It's not an issue of lack of talent or newbie rawness, we're talking about having a modicum of basic common sense and cursory research here.

Most of the folks sending those types of sloppy queries, they're looking to make a quick buck and they think writing's an easy way to do it, and you know why they think writing's an easy way to do it? Because they probably haven't written much, if anything, because if they did, they'd realize it's really hard and there's no quick money involved.

So no, I don't mind terribly if the agents snark on them, because they're wasting the agents' time, keeping them from getting to the queries of those people who've done their homework, and clearly don't take writing seriously, so why should anybody take them seriously?

You Know You're Done Writing for the Night When...

2009-02-28T00:15:00.000-08:00

You keep misspelling a character's name, and that character's name is only four letters long.

G'night all!

Apparently I Need to Eat

2009-02-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

I know! Who knew? So I'm working on my new manuscript, Knights of Avalon, and I'm really getting into the story and then as the day goes by, I start feeling bad, like really bad, like lay down in bed under the covers bad. But I'm not sick, so I'm sitting there, trying to figure out why I feel so weak and dizzy when I suddenly realize I haven't had anything to eat or drink, except for a few Milano cookies (half off! Nom nom nom), for the last 18 hours or so.

Now, I like to eat. I'm extremely fond of eating and drinking. I do it on a regular basis and Bear Grylls tells me it's extremely important to do, especially when wandering in the Patagonia or the wilds of Alaska. But on rare occasion, I get so wrapped up in what I'm doing that I kinda forget, until the room gets all spinny on me and I'm like, "Oh yeah, body needs sustenance." So I drank some water, ate some food, got myself a Coke Slurpee and much better! Yay for food and water!

Here's a status report on where I am with my writing:

Surviving Matewan: Am holding off on further queries at this time. Various people are reading the revised manuscript, I'm gathering up feedback and will make further revisions based on their recommendations. Goals so far include: Getting the word count down, coming up with a stronger opening line, and more showy and less telly.

Knights of Avalon: I am having way too much fun with this book for this to be healthy (see above). We'll see if it's any good, but the writing process is going a lot faster this time around, and I have to think all the experience I gained from the first book has something to do with it. Hopefully an increase in speed does not equal a decrease in quality, but I'm not forcing it, and I think that's what's important.

My Haiku Brings All the Readers to the Blog

2009-02-19T15:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but for some reason, I've had the following lyrics running through my head all day long:

(sung to "Milkshake")

My haiku brings all the readers to the blog
And they're like
It's better than yours
Damn right it's better than yours,
I can write you another one
But I'd have to charge

All. Day. Long.

It probably has something to do with the fact that I finally finished my haiku for the Query Haiku contest. Now, I will warn you up front, I have written haikus before and almost always mangle the syllable count. I can check and re-check and still get it wrong, so hopefully this one's all right.

Oh, and I did it for my YA Urban Fantasy, tentatively titled Knights of Avalon, because I kinda think it's really cool. Here it is:

Knights of Roundtable
Reborn as New Jersey teens
Learn past, save future

Update:

Special Friday Bonus Haiku!

Milano Cookies
Half-off at supermarket
Nom nom nom nom nom

Damn Turkey

2009-02-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

Apologies for being so absent from the blog...had a very long week which in all honesty kind of sucked, which says a lot when I look back and consider all the good stuff that's happened in the last seven days.

The least suckful (bear with me, I'm making up new words as I go along) news is that my partial got rejected by a wonderful literary agent who I really wanted to work with. I am sad. Once again. But wait, perhaps it will work out for the best!

While I try to work out the kinks in Surviving Matewan, I'm going to focus more attention on my YA Urban Fantasy. It's still going to take me a while to complete, but I can already see that while I love to write both fantasy and historical fiction, I'm trending more towards the fantasy side of things. So if I'm lucky enough and skilled enough to eventually get an agent, it probably makes more sense for the first work an agent sees to be in the fantasy genre. Plus, I honestly think my YA Urban Fantasy is better written than Surviving Matewan, or at the least, has better pacing and plotting. We shall see though, first I've got to finish writing the darn thing.

In other news...blog contests are still my crack and lo! and behold!, Colleen Lindsay over at The Swivet is having a Query Haiku contest. You may recall the last time she held a contest, it was to write a query in 140 characters or less and I likened it to writing... a query haiku! This clearly means that I am psychic! I shall now go play the lottery and when I get back, start work post haste on my contest entry.

Happiness Is...

2009-02-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

An evening of writing and chocolate. Mmmmm, chocolate.

Having sent the partial off to the agent, I've been keeping myself busy by working on my next story, a YA Urban Fantasy. It's in the very early stages, only a few pages written, so I'll discuss the plot at greater length when I'm a little further along in the story.

But just as I did with Surviving Matewan, my writing process is going something like this:

[Type type type] This is so much fun! This is great, I love this! [type type type]

Five minutes later

[Type type type] This is terrible! It's not coming together! What was I thinking, trying to write a story like this! This story sucks! I suck! [type type type]

Five minutes later

[Type type type] This is so much fun! This is great, I love this! [type type type]

Rinse, repeat.

Chapters Are Up!

2009-02-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

The first three chapters are now up on the blog. Please feel free to post your comments below.

I could be wrong, but I think the manuscript has three problems:

Too high word count. It's a YA/Middle Grade/Somewhere in the middle and it's 89,000 words. That's just too high for the genre, I need to get the word count down. Of course, when the manuscript was at 81,000 words and I did a lot of editing, while working on developing the characters more, I somehow ended up at 89,000 words. Behold my mad editing skillz. This time, I really will try to get the count down.
The fact that it isn't squarely YA or MG is a bit of a problem, it's in some juvenile fiction no man's land. But for now, I'm not going to worry so much about this. I'll work on telling the story, that's the most important.
Finally, I think there's just too much exposition, especially in those first few chapters. Right now, I'm considering taking out the first chapter entirely, starting with the second and making major edits to the next few chapters.

But it's very difficult to know what to cut and what not to cut, so please give me your feedback, thanks!

Update: OK, I made some edits and sent the partial off to the agent.

The major change I made was that Chapter 7, which I hadn't posted up on the blog, was taken out entirely.

The chapter was straight exposition on the pros and cons of being a miner (The Good: Miners back then set their own hours and were basically their own bosses. The Bad: The 100+ horrible ways a miner could die underground..and look Ma, no safety regulations!) and while fascinating, it slowed the story down and impeded the flow of the narrative. Instead, I'll take the information contained in that chapter and spread it out throughout the story.

I also cut a few paragraphs of exposition from Chapter 6, such as the discussion of how the coal camp women helped one another, that's made abundantly clear throughout the book, the reader doesn't need to be hit over the head with that information.

My word count? It's now around 87,500. Progress!

Chapter One - One Fine Morning

2009-02-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

“Molly Anne McCoy!”

That was my name. It had a nice ring to it, I thought, as I rolled over on my side and wriggled under the covers. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of soot and coal that was ingrained into my blanket.

My two-year-old sister, sleeping next to me in the narrow bed, kneed me in the back. I inched a little to the right to give her some room, coming dangerously close to falling out onto the floor.

As I balanced on the edge of the bed, the entire house rattled and shook. Being no more than thirty feet away from the railroad tracks, our house did that a lot. I drifted easily back to sleep, the comforting rumble of the locomotive like a lullaby to my ears.

I smiled to myself. In my dreams, I hopped on board and rode the train down the Tug Valley. A cartoon sun, smiling above, cast its gentle rays down on me as trees and flowers happily swayed to and fro, singing my name.

“Molly Anne McCoy!”

Yeah, like that. Except not as angry.

I don’t know what we’d do without the trains. We ordered our lives around them. They’d rumble by, one after the other, loaded with coal from the mine. I liked to watch them go by as I made breakfast in the morning…

Morning.

“Molly Anne!”

Morning. It was morning. I jerked wide awake. “I’m comin’!” I hollered to my Dad.

My brothers, snug and comfy in their bed, started to stir, “Did Molly fall out of bed again?” my little brother Bobby murmured, cracking open one bleary eye. Frankie groaned, “Molly’s late. The usual.”

Ignoring the March chill, I tossed on some clothes and ran out into the kitchen. My father was sitting at the table, reading his copy of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the way he did every morning without fail. He was dressed in a freshly cleaned shirt and overalls, his face pale with a bushy brown mustache. By the time he returned from work, he’d be totally transformed, grimy and black from head to toe.

“’Bout time,” he muttered, never looking up from his paper, “Said to give you five minutes. That was fifteen minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, lighting the stove. My father couldn’t make breakfast anymore than I could mine a seam of coal. It was up to me to fix the meal, put together my father’s lunch, get my siblings out of bed and my brothers ready for school, all as the first light of dawn was brightening the sky. Then there’d be the rest of my chores to get to.

My father grumbled unintelligibly as he read, only pausing long enough to thrust out his empty cup so I could pour him some coffee. I didn’t dare say a word. It wasn’t worth the risk to talk to him before he had had his mandatory dose of caffeine.

For an entire two months now his mood had been foul, with only a few breaks of good cheer appearing, and disappearing, as quickly as a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

“Coal’s not going to mine itself,” my father noted as he waited impatiently for breakfast. I swore there was a direct relationship between how hungry my father was and how slowly the food cooked, it’s almost as if my stove was conspiring against me.

There were a whole host of reasons for my father’s perpetual bad mood. There was the downturn in work over the winter. Ever since the Great War had ended and peace had broken out, coal just wasn’t in demand like it used to be.

The Stone Mountain Coal Co., where my father worked, had no choice but to cut the miners’ hours. If my father wasn’t working, he wasn’t making money. To make it worse, and there was always something to make it worse, things like beans and flour, the basics we relied on for our meals, cost more than ever before.

Then there was the reappearance that winter of the dreaded influenza, a disease our family had particular reason to fear. Several local coal companies responded by raising the price of a visit from the company doctor. It was a slap in the face to the miners. An act of bad faith they vowed not to forget.

Prices were going up, wages were going down, and my father couldn’t even drown his sorrows in a pint of beer. Prohibition had officially gone into effect on January 29, 1920, outlawing the sale of alcohol, much to my father’s dismay. He blamed the little old ladies and their temperance leagues. This was their doing, he said, conveniently ignoring the fact that my mother had quietly championed the cause as well.

Though Prohibition had come early to West Virginia, starting in 1914, that had never stopped my father from getting a drink before, national Prohibition certainly wasn’t going to stop him now. It just made it harder, and things were hard enough already.

I was putting some eggs on my father’s plate when he broke the silence with a string of curses, enough to make me cringe, and it took a lot of cursing to make me cringe.

Looks like he had found something else to add to his list of problems.

“Twenty-seven percent!” he exclaimed.

Did I even want to know?

Chapter Two - Me, Myself, and I

2009-02-03T10:31:00.000-08:00

Let me take a step back and explain how I got to that chilly morning in March.

My life is divided into two parts: Before my mother died and after. It’s like a wall, thick and impenetrable, dissecting the two halves of my life. On one side is my childhood, fast a fading memory. On the other side, all the responsibilities of adulthood. Those responsibilities came a little too soon, but I wasn’t given a choice.

I was born on December 6, 1907, early on a cold, snow-filled morning in a coal mining camp just south of Fairmont, West Virginia. Born in a company camp, delivered by a coal company doctor, in a company home that looked just like every other miner’s home in town.

I was my parent’s first child, my birth barely noted by the outside world, no grand announcements, just a pair of happy and relieved parents. They didn’t have long to enjoy my arrival, for December 6, 1907, has not gone down in history as the day Molly Anne McCoy was born. Rather, it is the date of the worst mining disaster in American history.

Around 10am, in the town of Monongah, several miles away from where my family lived, an explosion ripped through two of the Fairmont Coal Company’s connected mines, burning alive or suffocating some 500 men and boys hundreds of feet beneath the ground. The explosion was felt for miles: People were thrown to the ground, pavement cracked, streetcars were knocked off their rails.

Monongah was a model mining town. It was a place where you wanted to work, where my father had wanted to work. A friend convinced my father to join him instead. Otherwise, hours after I was born, I might’ve lost a parent.

My father was among the volunteers who rushed to the scene to help with the rescue, full and willing to risk his own life for the chance to save another’s. Miners looked out for one another. That’s just what they did.

But there wasn’t anything for him to do. Not anything for anybody to do. Those boys and men down in those mines were all cinder and ash. Some died mercifully quick, right where they stood. One man died as he ate an early lunch, what once must have been a sandwich raised to his lips. Others were found in ugly, contorted positions, fighting for a breath of precious air that never came. With no one to save, my father helped dig out the bodies.

My mother told me it was the only time he ever thought about finding a new line of work. My father was good at what he did though, and for someone without a lot of schooling, the pay was good too. Mostly though, it was force of habit. He had been mining for years now, change was hard.

This was the life I was born into. Danger and death. Brotherhood and courage.

As the years passed, and my father took us from town to town in search of better wages, I was joined by two brothers and a sister, Frankie, the Bane of My Existence, Bobby, the Boy Wonder, and the youngest, little Gracie Ellen, thumb sucker extraordinaire.

Being the oldest came with its own set of privileges and responsibilities. The good: I got to boss my younger siblings around, and the bad: I had to keep them out of trouble, about as easy a task as herding extremely clever, accident-prone cats. Of all the responsibilities I had though, my most important one was going to school.

My mother was a single-minded lady. She had a plan for each and every one of us, and that plan included going to school and having a better life than what she and my father had. When she was laid up by frequent bouts of illness, the coal dust hanging heavy in the air seeming to do her no favors, she refused to let me quit school to help out more around the house. It wasn’t part of her plan.

She’d watch us while we played and while we did our homework, her lips pursed, observing us, seeing where our talents lied. She had the highest hopes for Bobby, I think. Maybe even college, if by some miracle we could get the money for it. The boy was smart, the smartest kid I had ever met. A walking dictionary, he knew the meaning of words I had never heard of, and he actually liked school, though I had no idea why. He had already skipped one grade. He probably would’ve skipped more, if we hadn’t moved around so much.

I think my mother’s plan for Frankie was for him to live to see his eighteenth birthday. If Frankie succeeded in that, he’d end up being an Arctic explorer or a professional alligator wrestler, although my mother probably preferred him to take up a more respectable trade.

She didn’t quite know what to do with me. Cook, seamstress and gardener were all out. I strongly suspected she kept me in school in the hope I’d discover some hidden talent. Maybe juggling.

I think my mother even had a plan for her and Dad. He certainly wasn’t going to come up with one himself. He focused on what was in front of him, not on what would or could be.

There were two things my mother was religious about: Religion and money. She scrimped and saved, taking on all sorts of side jobs to make a few extra pennies. Sometimes, out on the porch in the evening, I’d overhear my mother talking to my father about opening up a store one day. That was her dream.

My mother didn’t have a plan for Gracie. Gracie had been too young when my mother died for her to decide on anything.

October 22, 1918. That’s the day everything changed. That fall, just as the Germans were close to defeat and the Great War was nearing an end, just as we thought the deaths would stop, our people started dying at home.

They called it the Spanish Flu. I called it my greatest fear, for it took my mother from me forever. Forty million people around the world shared her fate. The flu claimed its victims quickly. People often died in less than a day, coughing up blood, turning blue.

In the coal camps of West Virginia, schools and churches closed. People became prisoners in their own homes, afraid to step outside. A horse-drawn hearse passed by our house every night, traveling in the dark so the living wouldn’t see how many had died that day. While the rich ordered expensive tonics we made due with prayers and old folk remedies. When the doctors were afraid to visit the sick, a few brave miners’ wives took up the burden.

October 22, as golden leaves covered the ground, the hearse stopped at our door. A few days before, my mother had complained of a headache. She said she was tired. Looking back, it must have been bad, she never complained.

My father knew what it was. He sent us to a neighbor’s house and refused to leave my mother’s side. Did everything in his power to save her. But almost every family in the coal camp had lost a loved one, we couldn’t escape. The hearse came.

Then my father, one of those people who you wondered if they ever got sick at all, fell ill. I had never been so afraid. I couldn’t console my brothers. I didn’t know what to do with Gracie. Without our father, we’d be split apart and sent to a children’s home. He was all we had left.

Somehow my father survived, through sheer stubbornness I suspect. He wasn’t going to have his children be orphans in less than a week.

When it was certain my father would live, the questions started. With our mother gone, what would become of us children? A man couldn’t raise them alone. Couldn’t keep house. That was woman’s work.

I remember lingering in the hallway, listening in while the miners’ wives gently tried to coax an answer out of my shell shocked father. What would he do?

“We’ll find a way,” my father muttered tersely, but the women weren’t having it.

I think my father was afraid to ask, afraid I’d say ‘no,’ afraid to ask me to end my childhood. Maybe afraid I wasn’t up to the job. So I volunteered.

It wasn’t as preposterous as it first appeared. Happened all the time. Almost eleven years old, the eldest daughter, my mother had taught me almost everything I needed to know to run a household. I could work a stove, knew how not to burn myself on the iron. I already cared for my brothers and sister. What I couldn’t do was be their mother. But I could keep them safe, keep them fed. I could make sure they weren’t sent away from my father and in doing so, help them keep the one parent they still had. They’d just have to make do with me, the sorriest of imitations.

I dropped out of school. I never liked it anyway. My mother wouldn’t have approved, but more than anything, she would’ve wanted the family to stay together. I know that.

There was an unspoken understanding between my father and me: I might have had to drop out, but we were both determined to see to it that my brothers and sister made it through.

After an unhappy Christmas, we were on the move again. There were too many memories in that old company house we called a home, we had to keep going. We headed south. Word was there were good jobs to be had, in a town called Matewan.