Beyond Pitch Wars

Two things about Pitch Wars are making me go, “Uh oh.”

The First Thing: My attention is wandering from FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE.

I’ve been querying this novel since September. The last blog where I posted my stats on that query? They haven’t changed much. I’ve sent out a few more, but it’s a holiday week and I’ve received no further responses. Plus, this whole Pitch Wars thing? I’ve decided I’m entering WORLD’S EDGE and since I made that decision, I’ve thrown myself into prepping the query, first five pages, the rest of the pages (just in case), and a synopsis (just in case). I should still be putting effort into FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE…but there’s this shiny, unspoiled-by-rejections WORLD’S EDGE query over here. I’m losing enthusiasm for FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE. Uh oh.

The Second Thing: I’m in love with this shiny, unspoiled-by-rejections WORLD’S EDGE query.

I mentioned last post that one of the reason I’m grateful for Twitter is that it’s helped me find more writer friends. These writer friends have been working with me this week to make my WORLD’S EDGE query better. Not just better. Great. I’m beginning to think this query might take WORLD’S EDGE places. I’m not saying it’ll get me a Pitch Wars mentor. The odds of that—though incalculable—are pretty darn tiny. I have to beat out every other person that submits to the mentor. Whether that’s a lot of people isn’t the problem. It’s whether my MS is what the mentor want more than any of the others. I’m thinking I won’t get a mentor, but that’s okay.

It’s okay because I’m looking beyond Pitch Wars. That’s the great thing about this contest—the thing that makes it better than Baker’s Dozen. A pitch is what you send to an agent to get their attention. It’s also what you’re send to the Pitch Wars mentors. Therefore, by working through my materials for this contest, I’m making huge leaps in turning my pitch into the best pitch it can be. And it’s becoming a damn good pitch.

So why is this bad? I’ve already told you. Weren’t you reading it right? In case you weren’t, here it is again. My damn good pitch is BAD because I’M IN LOVE WITH MY WORLD’S EDGE QUERY. My hopes for the project have jumped exponentially in the last few days. Pretty soon I’m going to be all cocky and feel unstoppable. This is so very bad. Just because I think my query’s good, that doesn’t mean it IS good. What happens, with my hopes so high, when it gets rejected not just by the Pitch Wars mentors but also by agents and more agents and all the agents? Yeah. Uh oh.

Don’t worry, though. I’m not going to let this stop me. I’m going to enter Pitch Wars and take my chances with those incalculable odds—because you never know. And when I don’t make it to the next round of Pitch Wars, I’m going to wait a month or two or three and then I’m going to start querying agents. I’m going to query hard and query good and I’m going to do the best I can to get a book published. Because publishing a book is my dream. Just one, dear universe. That’s all I’m asking. (Not that I’ll refuse if you say you want to publish more.)

So, after more family holiday time, I’m going to dive back into my Pitch Wars pitch. I’m going to make it shiny. I’m going to make it great. And on Monday I’m going to submit my pitch and see what happens.

Thankful for Twitter

I’m (hopefully) going to keep this short because there’s this big holiday tomorrow and I have a Pitch Wars submission to tweak (and tweak and tweak so more). And before anyone gets all grumpy at me, I’m also thankful for the usual things. I have a great house with a garage and heat and a roof. I have awesome family and friends. I married in May and have the best husband I could have hoped for. I work for a fabulous company that pays me to eat and drink and play with chemicals all day. But the newest thing I’m thankful for? Twitter. This isn’t me telling any of you not already on Twitter to sign up now. It’s just that Twitter has changed my writer/reader life in more ways than I thought possible. Here are my reasons why, quick and dirty and bullet point style:

·         PUBLISHED AUTHORS. I read what published authors are tweeting. I’m learning what it’s like to be an author with the traveling, publishing, writing amidst all the other life stuff. I can tell authors how amazing I think their books are and they tweet me back. Also, authors like to talk about their WIPs and when they’ll be on the market, getting me all excited for books I otherwise wouldn’t know existed.

·         AGENTS. Agents like to tell aspiring authors what they want and don’t want so I can decide if they might be the right one for me and my MS. They say what works in a query and what doesn’t, which helps me improve my queries. They talk to other agents, who I add to my list of agents to query next. Their tweets promoting writers they’ve newly signed give me hope that someday I’ll be that writer and they’ll be promoting me just as hard.

·         EDITORS. It’s so informative to know what bugs editors. Get rid of this word. Don’t use this phrase. Stop with all the adjectives and adverbs. It helps me write better so that, someday, when my MS lands in their hands, it’s better than it would have been. I also like to think it means my MS is more likely to catch an agent.

·         CONTESTS. I didn’t know of this contest world until I joined Twitter. I had no idea that writers are often putting their work out there in a fun, competitive environment for agents to grab. Yes, I was disappointed when I didn’t get into Baker’s Dozen—but there are always more contests, more way to improve my pitch and my MS, more ways to meet other writers. Like Pitch Wars.

·         OTHER WRITERS. Holy %$*&! I knew there were other writers out there, but I had no idea how open the community is. I’m trading my stuff with them and it’s making my writing better because of it. We cheer each other on and share our disappointments. We understand what it’s like and are determined to help each other get published.

·         PITCH WARS MENTORS. Speaking of other writers helping other (other?) writers, there are these people who have just landed an agent/published their first book(s) and who are beyond determined to help the rest of us get there. They want to read what we’ve got and help us make it better. They share links to helpful websites and give us honest advice. I ask questions and they answer.

There are probably more reasons I like Twitter, but this short week has been a busy one and I’m wearing down fast. Plus, as previously mentioned (many, many times…sorry), I’ve a submission to tweak. Have a wonderful holiday, all. See you on Twitter.

The Incalculable Odds of Pitch Wars

I’d like to say this blog post is in honor of Catching Fire’s release—given that Suzanne Collins, Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, etc. are amazing—but anyone who read my 11.67% Chance post during the Baker’s Dozen contest knows I’m obsessed with odds. I’m a writer…but I’m also a scientist. I spend my days playing with the chemistry of flavors. I worked for three years processing umbilical cord blood for the stem cells and, before that, I took many genetics, biology, and chemistry courses in college. I like to know the odds. I like to know what I’m up against. I like to analyze everything. And now I’m analyzing Pitch Wars.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Pitch Wars contest, you can check out Brenda Drake’s blog here:

http://www.brenda-drake.com/2013/11/pitch-wars-mentor-wishlist-bloghop-submission-guidelines/

If you don’t want to click the link, contestants in Pitch Wars submit a query and the first five pages of their MS to four mentors.  The great thing about these mentors? Many of them are writers who only recently signed with agents. They understand EXACTLY what it’s like to be in the query trenches. Each mentor has a different wish list for the types of submissions they want. After the Pitch Wars submission deadline, the mentors pick ONE of the submissions. They then help that writer polish their query and their entire MS, after which agents get a chance to look at the submissions. (Mentors also pick two alternates and review their query and first five pages, though these writers don’t get to be part of the agent excitement.)

So, given this, what are my odds of getting a Pitch Wars mentor? THERE’S NO WAY TO KNOW.

Every mentor surely receives a different number of submissions—and who knows how many that is? Without knowing that, there’s no way to calculate the odds for each mentor, let alone for all four mentors. This is both good and bad. Good: I can’t fret over an 11.67% chance like I did for Baker’s Dozen. Bad: I’m pretty sure my odds are way worse than they were for Baker’s Dozen. There was a limit (300) to the Baker’s Dozen submissions. There’s no known limit in Pitch Wars, only the number of people who hear of the contest who are looking for an agent. I keep picturing the disaster that will be mentors’ inboxes come 23:59 December 2.

To further complicate the odds, each mentor has a wish list, but there’s no way to know which genre will really catch their interest. And here lies a major issue for me. I was so sure I wanted to enter my YA light science fiction novel WORLD’S EDGE for Pitch Wars because I’ve been querying my YA contemporary European romance FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE like crazy. But…what if there are a couple of agents whose wish lists make me think FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE is the way to go? Do I have a better chance of getting a mentor with WORLD’S EDGE or with FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE?  I have no idea. I HAVE NO IDEA. And I have a week to figure it out.

I’m also being realistic. Given that my odds here are probably cringe-worthy, I’m not getting my hopes up. I’m choosing to view this whole Pitch Wars thing as a learning experience. Perfect the query. Perfect the first pages. Even if I don’t get a mentor, I’ll have strengthened my submission for agents. That’s a good thing. Still, I want one of these mentors to pick me. I REALLY want one of these mentors to love one of my novels. Which one? Well, I’d better stop writing to all of you and get to figuring that out.

And for those of you also entering Pitch Wars (who love The Hunger Games)? May the odds be ever in your favor.

Yesterday

I’m going to try to explain this, but I might not have the words for it. (Ironic, isn’t that?)

If you had told me yesterday morning at 7:30 that I would have a great day, I’d have bitten you with every bit of sarcasm I have, which is A LOT—just ask anyone who knows me. Around 7:30, The Authoress tweeted that she’d emailed the winners to Baker’s Dozen. I didn’t get an email, but most of you know this. Many of you read yesterday’s blog post. I was unhappy at best. Even around late morning, it still was not a good day. I was furiously typing my blog post, subjecting all of you to one of my darker moments. I’d say I’m sorry for that, but I can’t. I think it’s those dark thoughts that led to everything else. So here, in the best way I can write it, is what happened yesterday.

After that damn tweet, I kept refreshing my email. My inbox remained empty. An hour later—after so much hope that Gmail was having some kind of technical issue—I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t Baker’s Dozen winner.

I posted a status on (my personal) Facebook and one on Twitter, both of which said—straight up, no emotion necessary—that I didn’t get an email and I was out of the contest. My friends and family were sympathetic, which was both good and bad. Good because it was great they cared; bad because they couldn’t really understand. My followers on Twitter though, they understood. Several sent me messages, some of them saying they also didn’t get into the contest. I liked knowing there were others out there, others who had hoped so much for something that didn’t happen.

Even with condolences from friends, family, and followers, I wasn’t feeling better. I was still distraught. I was still sure that my writing was never going to be good enough to be published. If you’ve read yesterday’s post, you know all about this. These feelings are what led me to write the post. I published it before lunch and put links to it on Facebook and Twitter.

Not long after, things started to happen. People I didn’t know began responding to my blog post. (You can go there and read them, which I highly recommend if you’re a writer like us.) I don’t know how they found me—surely, somehow, through the magic of Twitter—but I loved their messages. Most told me not to give up. Most shared their own failures and how those failures led to success. One even made me laugh with her clever way of sucking me into her story. She wrote about her own Baker’s Dozen story—how her contest entry was a success except for the fact that no agent signed her. Wow. The way these writers expressed what they’d been through and what I needed to do was perfect. It reached me.

It was in the middle of reading these replies to my blog that, perusing Twitter, I came across a few tweets about #PitchWars. When I first saw the hashtag two days before, I assumed it was a one day contest and there was no way I could enter, not with Baker’s Dozen undecided. But the hashtag was still around. What was #PitchWars? I went to Brenda Drake’s blog and checked it out. It’s another contest, one that has a December 2 deadline. The writers who replied to my blog told me not to give up and #PitchWars was a way to prove I hadn’t. I was hopeful again. Hope is so important.

Sometime near the end of my flavor workday, I received an email from another writer. She’d come across my tweet, read the blog, and checked out my website. She wrote a story similar to FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, she told me. She wanted to know if I’d like to be a critique partner. YES! Absolutely. Of course. MORE HOPE.

The icing on the day’s cake was my husband, who literally bought me cake for last night’s dessert. If there’s one random thing you should know about me, it’s that I LOVE CAKE. I’m considering making those three words bigger just to emphasize how true they are. I LOVE CAKE. (My bridesmaids, an uncle, my parents, and I made my wedding cupcakes—all 300 of them—a few days before the wedding because I knew it’d help me relax.) Cake, to me, can make almost anything better. My husband knew this, knew I didn’t get into Baker’s Dozen, and bought me cake. CAKE=HAPPINESS.

Day complete. Thank you to everyone who sent me messages of consolation, encouragement, and hope. You are all amazing.

Yesterday is over, but there are ripples. I have new Twitter writer followers and more people are reading my blog. I’m diving into #PitchWars and already the results are great. Even if I don’t win this contest, I’ve learned more and I think that’s key. There’s so much I need to learn. If I learn enough, if I have enough grit to keep going despite the odds, maybe I can achieve my dream.

Continue holding me to this, won’t you? Whenever I falter, if ever I declare I’m quitting, make me keep going.

Plan A's Dark Thoughts

A few days ago, I posted that I don’t like to blog. Well, today—and only for today—I’m taking those words back. I want to blog today. In fact, I NEED to blog. Because being rejected from a writing contest might not be the end of your writing world, but it sure feels like it.

The contest I’m talking about is the same one I’ve been blogging about intermittently for weeks. Baker’s Dozen 2013. The winners for the YA/MG portion were emailed today and I didn’t get an email. I’m out. I wrote my last blog post about the possible outcomes for the contest: Plan A meant I’d carry on the way I’ve been carrying on for months; Plan B meant I’d move on to the next round of the contest and agents would be looking at my entry. I hoped a little too much for Plan B, I think, but obviously, it’s Plan A. And Plan A, quite frankly, sucks.

Here’s the thing about Plan A. It means The Authoress and Jodi Meadows didn’t like my entry. In reality this means that these two people saw at least thirty-five other entries that they liked better—subjectively better. It means that just these two people rejected my entry. Still, it feels like the entire writer/agent world has rejected WORLD’S EDGE before I’ve even sent out queries. I was always in the top percent or two academically in high school and college, but this rejection feels like it means I’m nowhere near the top in my writing. I can’t even see the top of writing from here. And this means I’ll never be published. Never.

If you think I’m bragging about my GPA, I’m not. It seemed like high school and college were all about memorization and regurgitation, two things I guess I was good at. I got good grades in every subject, not any particular one. That means I was good at everything but NOT GREAT AT ANYTHING. This is important. This is why I struggled so much deciding where to go to college and what to do when I graduated. Creative writing, you see, wasn’t really emphasized in high school or college. In fact, I remember writing a Christmas story for a high school class and the teacher HATED it. She wrote in scrawled red across half a page about all the reasons she didn’t like it.

I’ve always been passionate about writing, but never had any real feedback about whether I’m any good at it. Even in my creative writing seminar my senior year of college, it was hard to tell what the other students thought of my writing. Not that I blame them: I’ve read it since and am not impressed. So it’s pretty easy to see why I chose to go the science route when it came to jobs post-college. It’s how I ended up here, making flavors. (And yes, I’m typing this post between flavors because I really need to get this out of my system.) The thing about flavors? I like making them. I like this job. I could be fine doing this job forever.

But there’s a huge difference between fine and happy. Flavors are fine. Writing is happy. Writing makes me so happy that I wish I were amazing at it so that I could get published and make a career out of it. It’s why I keep doing this painful query thing. It’s why I entered the contest. And it’s why it hurts that I got rejected from the contest—a sure sign that my writing just isn’t good enough. It may be good, but it’s not GREAT. In order to be published, I need GREAT.

Of course I’ll keep trying. IT WAS JUST ONE CONTEST, just two people, just one rejection. But it’s dark and rainy today with clouds crowding the river and the skyscrapers of downtown Cincinnati. It’s atmospheric weather, the kind that makes you like being depressed and pessimistic. It’s a dark and twisty day. It’s a day that makes me want to give up. It’s a day that makes me think this is my writing future: I’ll try and try and try to get published and IT’LL NEVER HAPPEN. This makes me think I’m masochistic or something, but by definition that means I’ll not stop trying. I WILL KEEP ON. But not today.

The Possibilities

With the results of Baker’s Dozen 2013 contest on Friday, there are two possible outcomes for me. Either I don’t get an email from the Authoress or I do get an email from the Authoress. I don’t get one—I’m out. I do get one—and the possibilities are amazing. I may be a writer and I may be creative, but I’m also analytical. I’ve thought about the outcome. I’ve thought about what I’ll do.

Plan A

With only an 11.67% chance that I’ll be picked for the next round of the contest, my head tells me to prepare to be disappointed. I probably won’t make it. I will have written one wrong word that will have knocked me out. I will have written an MS that The Authoress and Jodi Meadows don’t think will interest agents. I will have—such a small error—typed the wrong genre. (After all, I forgot to put YA before science fiction.) The reasons I’ll be rejected are various, but the plan when this happens is singular. I WILL KEEP ON. I will do what I’ve been doing. I’ll keep querying FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE until all hope for that dies out. I’ll keep an eye out for contests and other opportunities for WORLD’S EDGE. I’ve already written a query and sent it to Michelle Hauck to have her and other writers critique it. And when the WORLD’S EDGE query is ready, I’ll start the query process over again. This is what will happen. But that doesn’t keep my heart from hoping.

Plan B

There’s an 11.67% chance that I’ll be picked for the next round of the contest. My heart tells me it’s possible I’ll make it through and agents will soon be perusing my logline and WORLD’S EDGE’s first 250 words. If I get an email from the Authoress on Friday, the plan is to whip out the MS and read through it. After all, I spent a good long while with those first 250 words as I prepared to enter the contest. I deleted a baker’s dozen or two of words. I added a few others. It’s been a few months since I’ve read WORLD’S EDGE and I’ve learned so much since then. So, if I get an email from the Authoress, I’ll feverishly, obsessively revise. Revise. Revise. Because there’s a chance that—if I get to the next round—an agent will ask for more pages. After that, the possibilities for WORLD’S EDGE…well, I’d rather not now imagine them.

I’m planning on A, but you never know. It could be B. I’ll know one way or the other in thirty-six or so hours. I’ve waited this long. I can wait a little more…and keep imagining the possibilities.

The Pain in Every Blog Post

I’m going to be honest here. I don’t like blogging. When I first started, I hated it. I’d do anything NOT to blog and I still have that tendency. If I’m in the middle of a good book, I go for that. (Sidebar: I finished Nova Ren Suma’s 17 & Gone over the weekend and it’s so beautifully dark and amazing.) If my husband wants to watch Chuck (renewed TV spy show obsession), we’ll go through two or three episodes before I’ll pick up my laptop. If we don’t have dessert, I’ll make something complicated. JUST DON’T MAKE ME BLOG.

What is it about blogging that I dislike so much? For starters, I don’t write non-fiction. If I’m writing about something I’ve experienced, I fictionalize it. Always. I’m better at fiction than fact, plus it’s weird for me to share (not terribly) personal details with anyone who comes across the blog.

But that’s not the only cause of my blog aversion. Blogging, it turns out, reminds me of all the papers I had to write in college—and I hated writing papers in college. First, those papers were non-fiction. If they were fiction, they were stories, not papers. Most of my college writing was papers. I was in the honors college, so I wrote MANY papers. In our freshman composition course, our professors taught us their preferred paper writing method, the one they wanted us to use ALL THROUGH COLLEGE. They called it the Three Point Five Paragraph Paper. (Maybe those words wouldn’t really be cause for capitals, but our professors made them sound like they started with capital letters.)

A Three Point Five Paragraph Paper means that, no matter what you’re writing about, your paper should finish with five paragraphs:

1st paragraph: introduction in which you say what you’re paper’s proving and what three things you’re going to say to prove it

2nd paragraph: first point to support what your paper’s proving

3rd paragraph: second point to support what your paper’s proving

4th paragraph: third point to support what your paper’s proving

5th paragraph: restate what your paper has proved and the three points you used to prove it

To be fair to my college professors, they wanted us to develop this paper writing style so that, eventually, we weren’t writing just five paragraphs. Still, they wanted the content to serve the original intention. You’ve got a point, so prove your point with at least three sub points. Convince all of us.

Blogging reminds me of these dreaded Three Point Five Paragraph papers because every time I write a blog post, I feel like I’m writing one of those. Check out some of my earlier posts—or even some of the more recent ones. They read just like one of those college papers: I want to talk about this aspect of writing and here are the three ways in which I talk about this aspect of writing and now I’ve talked about this aspect of writing. See it? Maybe not. Maybe you didn’t have to write hundreds of these papers in college. Maybe you didn’t sacrifice your freshman Friday nights so you could turn in one of these papers every freshman Saturday morning.

Right. So. I know what you’re thinking. Believe me, I’ve though it many times. Why, if I don’t like it, do I keep doing it? I often refer to that Writer’s Digest class I took back in August. (Or was it September?) One of the things the literary agents emphasized was that aspiring writers need to get their names out there. Great ways to do this? Social media. Blogging. So now I blog. I trudge through each blog post like it’s one of those college papers I hated writing. Over time, it’s gotten better. It helps when I have something I passionately want to write—like the Baker’s Dozen 2013 contest and sperm whale vomit—and think you’ll like to read—like the Baker’s Dozen 2013 contest…though maybe not the sperm whale vomit. So I’m going to keep blogging, keep getting my name out there, and maybe someday it’ll be worth all these post-college Three Point Five Paragraph posts.

Query Weary

I’ve been sending queries for eleven weeks now. Those first few weeks were so amazing—I had such hope. Then there were the middle weeks where I knew I wanted to be published and I was pretty hopeful. Now—this last week or two—I’m still doing it, but it’s getting harder. I do it because I have to, because I want to make my dream come true. The hope is waning, though. It takes more effort to sit at my computer and start the agent search.

 

Part of my problem may be that the more queries I send, the fewer agents there are left. For those of you who aren’t on your own query quest (or who are already published, etc.), there are rules to sending queries:

Rule 1: You can’t query more than one agent in each agency. If the agent you query thinks your work is right for someone else in the agency, they pass it on to that agent.

Rule 2: If you’ve been rejected by an agent, you’ve been rejected by their whole agency for that particular MS.

Rule 3: (This one’s a DUH.) You only query the agents who are interested in what you’ve written. For me, that’s contemporary YA. So I only query the agents interested in contemporary YA. If they just say YA, that counts.

Rule 4: You can send your query to the same agency/agent again…but not for a long while. Like, a year or more.

I’m feeling the weight of these rules more and more lately. Why? Not every agency is interested in YA. I came across at least three today that made no mention of YA, one of which wasn’t even interested in adult fiction. Have I queried all the agents interested in YA yet? Probably not, but I have to dig and dig to discover new ones. I started off with the list of agents I sent my last query, which was a few years ago and (obviously) wasn’t successful. Once I’d gone through that (short) list, I started using Writer’s Market’s online tool to find them. Then came Twitter. You follow this agent? Then maybe you should follow this other agent! THANKS, TWITTER. Even Twitter’s running out of ideas now. I’m thinking next week I should try Query Tracker to see what that gets me. I’ve also considered ransacking my YA library and seeing if the acknowledgements include agents I haven’t already queried.

Still, with queries stats like these

·   1 full request (a few weeks ago with no word since)

·   1 partial request (a couple of months ago with no word since)

·   19 rejections

·   65 sent queries (including those already rejected, those with requests, and the 11 others that I sent over eight weeks ago that are surely no-reply rejections)

you can see why the publishing future of FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE is looking bleak. There will come a point when I’ll have to say, “FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, you’ve had you try. It’s time to give over this quest to WORLD’S EDGE.” Am I there now? Maybe not just yet. But soon.

The Read Write War

Whenever I have free time—which, let’s be honest, isn’t as often as I’d like—I always war with myself about what I want to do. There are only two options: read or write. (Okay, actually, the third would be watch TV/catch up on the shows on my DVR, but I’m going to say this falls under read since it’s someone else telling me a story. That'd put me back at two options.)

First, what’s free time for me? Not work time, or the time I spend with family, friends, or my husband. Definitely not the 90-ish minutes I spend in traffic every work day. Free time is those moments when my husband turns on a video game, or when I’m the only one home, or when…well, that may be it. It doesn’t happen often. When it does, it’s awesome. I have to choose very carefully what I do with it.

Whenever we took career assessment tests in school, whenever we had to do any kind of introduction for ourselves, whenever asked my hobbies, my first two answers were always read and write. Always. I think this confused a lot of people. I think people were looking for something like basketball or shopping or traveling or hanging out with friends. I liked those things too, just nowhere near how much I liked reading and writing. And you know what? Reading and writing are still my favorite things to do. The problem is, when I have time, which do I choose?

I live for words. Writing words is a release that’s so hard to describe, a release that surely others must get from whatever they love to do. I love to tell a story—mostly just for myself, but there’s the dream that they’ll be for someone else, too. When I’m on a writing roll, I get annoyed with the rest of the world. I like to stay in my writing bubble and get all the words down before they run off. I think, if you’ve read any of my other blog posts (except maybe the sperm whale vomit one), that you understand the role writing plays in my life. But….

I’ll be honest. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without all the books I’ve read. Other writers are probably like, “Well, duh.” But I think some people might not understand this. As much as I love to write words, I revel in the words and worlds other writers have written for me, for everyone. When a book is really good, I can read it anywhere. I WILL READ IT ANYWHERE. I read on the metro in Paris. I read in the middle of gym class. I read during parties. (Yes, I’m that girl.) I read at work when others are talking, tasting, flavoring around me. When my closest friends come over—the ones who enjoy reading as much as I do—I pull them into my library and show them the newest, best books I’ve read. I’ve recently introduced one friend to YA because I love it so much. I also read adult fiction, but more than half of what I read is YA. (Tangent: That statement is just asking for a blog post. Why YA? I’ll analyze it someday, I promise.) It’s from these YA books and so many others that I’ve learned how to craft a story. It’s in these YA books that I relax.

So how do I choose whether to read or write? If I’m in the middle of a good scene, one where the words won’t leave me alone, I choose writing. Sometimes I spend a whole day thinking about what I’m going to write next, perfecting the words, until my head feels like it’ll explode if I don’t get the words on paper or computer. Other days, I’m in the middle of a really, really, really good book—right now that’d be 17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma—and can’t wait until I get to read more.

I devour books. Words devour me.

In the end it doesn’t matter which I pick. There are no real battles here, no war. I spend enough time with both reading and writing. And now I’m finished writing, you’re finished reading, and I’m going to go read while, perhaps, you go write.

One Wrong Word

I was all prepared with what I wanted to blog today. I’d mapped it all out in my head this morning while I drove to work (which, btw, took 55 minutes because, you know, IT SNOWED HALF AN INCH and the people here in Cincinnati are terrified of White Death no matter how much it is).

I was also all prepared to let this Baker’s Dozen 2013 contest go until the first round results on November 22. I figured y’all were tired of hearing about it and—without knowing how I did—I didn’t have much else to say.

Wrong on both accounts. I blame the Authoress, though not harshly. The title of her blog today is Common Problems with Beginnings. Now, as someone who entered the beginning 250 words of my MS, I couldn’t not read what the Authoress had to say. (Not to mention the fact that I would have read it anyway.) If you want to read what she blogged, go here: http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/2013/11/common-problems-with-beginnings.html

For those of you who don’t want to click there, the gist of her blog is that, while reading through the slush of Baker’s Dozen 2013 entries, she and Jodi Meadows have rejected many for the same reasons.

The reasons? Well, for that The Authoress suggests you read what Jodi Meadows wrote about it. For that, go here:

http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2013/11/12/common-problems-with-beginnings/

And what Jodi Meadows is saying?

There are bad way to begin books. Or, not necessarily bad ways, but ways that you should be careful when using. She divides these into five categories:

1. Starting in the wrong place

2. Car crashes

3. Instacreep

4. No grounding

5. Unsympathetic characters

I’m not going to describe each here when Jodi Meadows has done that for you if you click the above link. The problem, though, is that for the rest of my afternoon I kept thinking about this. I even opened my MS from my email to reread my first 250 words and see if they fit in one of these categories.

So…do they?

I DON’T KNOW. I can’t tell. I really can’t tell. I’m not a good judge, I think. I’m too close to it, too attached to my words. I think it’s in the right place, it’s not a car crash or the like, there’s not creepiness per se, I’ve grounded it as best I could in the first 250 before further grounding in the subsequent words, and Hazel seems like a nice (if crazy) girl. I THINK.

I’m not going to know for sure until November 22…and even then there’s no way to tell for sure if my rejection is because of one of those five things. If I even get a rejection. See what happens? SEE? I second guess everything, then third, fourth, fifth guess it. I’m afraid that one mistake, one wrong word, will be my downfall.

Nevertheless, I hold out hope that my entry is one of the good ones. The Authoress tweeted one night—while reading through said slush—that she and Jodi Meadows both loved an entry. The chances of that being my entry? 1/300. Still, someone has to be that 1.

Published Author vs. Lottery Winner

One of my coworkers at the (top secret) flavor company often says that she needs to win the lottery. I agreed with her…the first time. And then I realized that isn’t my greatest wish. So now I’m going to tell you this and once I write it (and you read it), believe me. THIS IS TRUE. I’M NOT KIDDING. So don't laugh like I am. Ready? Take note, because here it is: I WOULD RATHER BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR THAN A LOTTERY WINNER.

Okay, yes, if I were to win the lottery it’s not as if I’d turn that down. Money would be nice. Very nice. And depending on just how much it was, I’d probably use it to self-publish one (or more) of my novels. But here’s the thing: I would rather get them published the not-self way. I would rather skip the money for the dream of walking into bookstores and seeing my work on the shelves, published, hardback, beautiful.

I’ve had this dream for a long, long time.

When I was in fourth grade, my friends and I read a lot of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books. Most of my friends stopped there, but not me. I wrote mini Fear Street stories. I’ve lost them all by now, which is probably a good thing. I’m not sure my fourth grade writing would be readable.

Then, in fifth grade, my teacher loved rainforest things. She decorated our room with exotic plants and flowers. We had tropical birds, frogs, and lizards. So I wrote a little book called The Enchanted Rainforest, which you can see if you go to my website (www.tracygoeke.com). I still have it, mostly because it’s actually bound between two pieces of relatively sturdy cardboard. My best friend at the time drew the illustrations for the story and we loved it. Of course, I was in fifth grade, so the writing has its issues—not the least of which is a temporal anomaly.

I must have continued writing in middle school, but I don’t have any stories left from that time. I do, however, have the novel I wrote in high school. More than anything else, it was a distraction when I was bored in class. But it was also starting to shape a dream of what I wanted to be when I grew up. It’s partly because of that novel—and because of my high school English teachers—that when I started looking at colleges, I was pretty sure I wanted to declare an English/Creative Writing major.

Things don’t always work out the way we plan. This I know. (As does my coworker who has yet to win the lottery.) The school picked me, I think, not the other way around. Not sure how, but it did. When I was there visiting, I remember the professors making an English major sound TERRIFICALLY BORING. So I went with plan B, which was the sciences. When I started at Valparaiso University, I declared a Biology/Chemistry major. We all make mistakes.

Not that my writer self let me make that mistake for long. By the end of freshman year, I’d decided to double major. Luckily, most of the general education courses overlapped, so I could feasibly fit in both a science and English degree in four years. And I did. I even wrote a novel senior year. Because necessary. Because dream.

I’ll admit I got sidetracked after college. I needed to make money, so I got a job in the sciences. I worked first as a lab tech for a stem cell company, a hell I’ll not describe here (you’re welcome). It took three years for me to move on from that hell, which brings us to my present place at the (top secret) flavor company. Best part of this flavor gig? I work normal hours, get weekends, vacations, holidays. I have spare time. So I started writing again. I picked up where I left off, though with a few more years of reading tucked under my belt. First stop? FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, a fictional version of my semester abroad in Paris during college. Second stop? WORLD’S EDGE, putting all those things I learned in all those science classes into fiction (superstring theory and genetics, primarily). Next stop? Well, dream. Wish. Whatever you want to call it. I’m dedicated. I’ll make this happen. Because I’D RATHER BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR THAN BE A LOTTERY WINNER. Got that? Okay, good.

Michael WHO?!

Who the &*%$ is Michael Vaughn?! That comedian guy in movies? No, that’s Vince. No. And you know who else he isn’t? That hot French actor in Alias. Because that’s Michael VARTAN. So who’s Micheal Vaughn? Oh, yeah, he’s the CHARACTER played by Michael Vartan. I’d like to blame this on autocorrect, but poor Word has no idea when it comes to hot guys. I’d like to blame it on the fact that it took me 110 minutes to make the 23 mile trip from work to home yesterday (when Cincinnati traffic is bad, it’s BAD). But really, the only person I’m blaming is myself. Mostly. Because I also blame all of you who read that blog entry. Surely at least one of you must have known, so why weren’t you like, “So, um, Tracy…WTF? Vaughn is NOT a French name.” You just giggled and thought, “THIS IS HILARIOUS, but I’m not going to tell her,” didn’t you? Or you thought, “Wow, what the &$^# was she thinking,” and you’ll probably never read my blog again. Or maybe, just maybe, one of you saw the error and decided to tell me about it. Nope. Not one comment on yesterday’s blog. Come on, readers, help me out sometimes, please? I work fulltime as a flavor lab tech, I have a husband who needs supervision (as he puts it), I’m writing a novel (not for NaNoWriMo, though), and I’m trying to get a novel or two published (which takes up way more time than I thought). So if you see an error, can you do me a HUGE favor and let me know? This one wasn’t as big as I thought when I woke up this morning, freaked, and thought I MUST FIX THIS NOW BEFORE THE WORLD EXPLODES. (That was before I figured out that Vaughn was the character’s name and not some random name I pulled out of…well, you know where.) But I’m sure I’ll make others. Please. Thanks. Thanks for reading.

Writer + Flavor Lab Tech ≠ Spy

I love spy stories.

I think it all started with Alias. Remember that? The one with Jennifer Garner and Michael Vaughn (who’s both really hot and French, which just makes him hotter)? Sydney Bristow’s life, while dangerous, was EXCITING. I was in college while Sydney was out saving the world. I went to college in the middle-of-nowhere Indiana.  I was doing impossible chemistry problems and struggling to write my next paper on a classic book I didn’t really like. With all of this tedious schoolwork, Alias, like any good story, was an escape for me. Plus, again, hot guy. What girl doesn’t like a story that includes a hot guy?

Speaking of hot guys, my newest spy obsession is the Gallagher Girls books by Ally Carter. I LOVE THEM. The day after I started the first book, I stopped at a bookstore to buy the rest. Between her writing style, her plots, and the characters (four best friends and one hot guy), no wonder her books are so popular. I started the fifth book today, the one in which Cammie goes after the Circle but somehow loses her memory, her best friend, and her not-so-much boyfriend. Nothing is better than a mysterious boy to drive the main girl—and all us readers—crazy. I feel like I need to take the time to analyze these books and figure out exactly why they work and what makes them so DAMN GOOD. It can’t be just the hot boy and spy stuff, right?

The Gallagher Girls books make me wonder what it would be like to be an actual spy. I want to BE a Gallagher girl. Or a spy. Or—since I’m dreaming anyway—both! The closest I can get? Well, that would be working for a flavor company. I’m just a lab tech, so I don’t know much, but you’d think I know everything. When I started at my company, I had to sign forms that I wouldn’t tell anyone anything about the flavors I make. I can’t tell anyone what market products have my company’s flavors in them. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s okay to tell you the name of my company. After all, when you see the words made with natural and artificial flavors on a package, you don’t see my company’s name. It all feels so very top secret. Plus, I get to wear a really cool lab coat, along with some tinted safety glasses. EXCITING, right? Well, sure.

Still, it’s not the same as being a spy or Gallagher girl. So I keep reading instead. And when I’m not reading, when I’m not watching some spy show on TV (my current favorite is Blacklist), I’m writing. If I can’t live in the worlds I want, then I came create those worlds and, someday, share them with others.

Not that either of the novels I’m throwing out there (FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE and WORLD’S EDGE, in case you’re wondering) have anything to do with spies. FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE is—hot boy obsession driven—about a girl and a boy…with some Paris, Rome, and Dublin thrown in for fun. And WORLD’S EDGE? It’s about parallel worlds, genetics, and (you guessed it) a hot boy. Actually, there are at least two hot boys. Because one is never enough. That’s why Cammie has Josh and Zach, right?

Speaking of…if you don’t mind…I’m going to get Ally Carter’s Out of Sight, Out of Time. Because addicted.

11.67% chance

Did anyone ever tell you, when you were younger, that anything is possible or that you could be whatever you wanted to be? I still hear these clichés sometimes. They bother me.

After all, there are plenty of things that aren’t possible. You can’t defy gravity, despite what the Wicked song would have us believe. You can’t go faster than the speed of light (as theories go). You can’t go back in time and change events. I could never be a rocket scientist. I just don’t have the IQ for that. I couldn’t be tall. My genetics have stuck me at 5’2” (or, more accurately, 5’1.5”). I also can’t fly, no matter how great the birds make it look.

This all makes me want to pull a John Mayer and run through my high school’s halls yelling that you can’t be whatever you want and anything isn’t possible. Don't get me wrong. I get why they tell us these things. But still...

...is it possible that I just can’t be an author? Is it possible that no matter how much I want to be a published writer, it isn’t going to happen for me? I feel like it’s all about the right words—exactly the right words—at the right time for the right agent. That’s a lot of variables. I feel like you need an immense amount of luck for that. I’m not that lucky.

I’ve always been good at everything—I got all A’s in my aforementioned school—but I’ve never been GREAT at anything. I’d like to think that my writing is good. Not these blog entries, because I’m a fiction writer at heart, but the novels that I can’t stop writing. Is it good enough? Is it greater than good, greater than the average? And can I, in about 300 words, make it sound so great that I get a literary agent’s attention?

After posting my entry for the Authoress’s  Baker’s Dozen 2013, I can’t stop thinking about my luck. My odds. With 300 YA/MG entries and only 35 advancing, that gives me an 11.67% chance of making it past the initial round. My logline and 250 first words have to be better than the writing of 265 other people. That makes me cringe. I WANT TO BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR! but what if my words aren’t great enough?

These are dark thoughts, I know. I try to be positive about this whole process. It helps that Tahereh Mafi tweeted today about her hundreds of rejections…except that HUNDREDS just seems like such a burden. How can I hold up against hundreds of rejections? How many novels will I have to write before the right one? Is there a right one? Is it possible that someday I will be what I really want to be?

Artworks' Whispers

One of my favorite things about finally buying bookshelves for my library? Knowing where there was spare wall space. That, in turn, meant we could hang stuff on the walls. And by stuff, I mean this Musée du Louvre poster (see below...the one on the right). I bought it when I lived in Paris back in 2004. Though the poster isn’t in FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, the Louvre is. I spent a lot of time in the Louvre, as does Renee in FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE.

For me, my favorite time to go to the Louvre was Monday nights. Not all of the galleries were open, but the ones they closed weren’t my favorites anyway. It was winter in Paris and by the time I descended the winding staircase into the museum, it was already dusk outside. Sometimes, later in the year, there would be florescent streaks of orange or pink in the sky. I loved looking at them through the glass of the museum’s pyramid.

Monday nights were quiet. There were few tourists around and the lights always seemed lower, as though hushing already silent works of art. From the espace d’accueil—I don’t even know the English word for that spot where you enter the museum , pay, get maps, etc.—I would ride one of the escalators to my favorite wing. With my carte Louvre jeunes (a season pass for people under…26 maybe), I’d linger by my favorite sculptures before seeking out my favorite paintings. Many of them are on that Louvre poster.

When the museum was quiet, you could almost hear the artworks’ whispers. There were nights when I was the only one in a gallery. I’d sit—if there were benches—and stare around the room. Sometimes I brought a journal and wrote whatever came to mind. I had a lot to say and no one to listen. (I’d lost my passport in Dublin, after all, and couldn’t leave the country like my classmates.) Except, I’d swear, the artwork listened. That’s why, when I started writing FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, I couldn’t leave out the artwork. I didn’t remember just how much I’d loved the Louvre until I dug out my journal and started reading. I don’t know the names of my favorites, though I wish I did. I’d like to go back, someday.

The thing about going back to the Louvre (or to anywhere you’ve loved so much), is that it won’t be the same. Will it be open Monday nights in the winter? If so, would I be there in the winter? The closer it got to summer, the more the tourists invaded the museum. I’d like to go there without them. I’d like to see if the artwork still speaks. I hope it does. I hope, if you go, it speaks to you. That’s part of why I wrote FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE. It’s part of why I hope, someday, FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE will be published so that you, too, can read what it’s like to be in the Louvre on a winter night, just in case you can’t make it there yourself. In the meantime, there’s this poster.

My Library's Calling

I’d like to blog today—really, I would—but last weekend my husband and I bought new bookshelves for our library (aka the formal dining room). I bought two when I moved into my first apartment in downtown Cincinnati, but that was five years ago and I’ve long since run out of space for all my books. I could have a worse habit, I suppose. So me and my husband, we put the new shelves together last weekend, but I still have books stacked everywhere on the floor. I like order…so, you know, I’m going to go there instead of stay here. Check back later? Maybe tomorrow? Thanks for reading….