Rejection? Motivation.

Query rejection emails can arrive in my inbox on any day, but lately they’ve been appearing more frequently on Mondays. That’s not to say I don’t get rejections on other days—when you’re deep in the query trenches, rejections come all the time, sometimes even on weekends—but Mondays are particularly evil. Or so I thought.

This Monday I didn’t get a rejection. I refreshed my email several times, thinking there had been some kind of mistake or technical error, but no email appeared. I was buoyed by hope. What if, this one Monday, an agent was considering my query, stowing it in a maybe pile instead of outright rejecting it? I clung to that hope. (Because without hope, I’d have given up on this whole querying thing long ago.)

Tuesday morning, when I would usually be prepping a new query to a new agent, I was still stuck on thinking this week was different. Why send out a new query when something good, really good (like cupcakes when you’re having an otherwise bad day), might be in the works? So instead of checking my agent list and starting on the next query, I did other things, thinking a request for more pages could show up in my inbox at any time.

Of course, my logic was flawed.

A rejection arrived Tuesday afternoon. It wasn’t a Monday, but it was close enough. (And I should have known better.) It contained the typical response, things like Thank you for querying me, but and This isn’t a good match for me and This business is subjective. I’ve seen all these before, but every time it still hurts, just a little bit. I guess you can’t be desensitized to query rejections no matter how many you get. (Or at least I can’t.)

So, suddenly, I was on the internet, checking the submission requirements for the next agent on my list. Turns out, rejections may be negative, but my drive to keep querying feeds off those rejections. Some days, I need someone to dismiss my manuscript to motivate me to keep going, to keep searching for that one right agent for me and my manuscript. That agent is out there. I have to believe that. It just takes persistence to find him or her.

If nothing else, I’m persistent.

I’ve been at this awhile now and even if things don’t work out with this manuscript, I’m prepping another one. A Twitter writer friend told me that’s what separates those who get published and those who don’t. So many writers who get published had been at this a long time, with multiple manuscripts, polishing their writing and their pitches. Then, one day, they queried the right person at the right time, signed with that agent, and found a publisher. If that’s true, then I’m on the right track. And maybe this next agent on my query list will be the one.

Oliver, McGinnis, & Warga

About five years ago, I was living in downtown Cincinnati and often walked across the river (via bridge, of course) to the Barnes & Noble at Newport on the Levee. I love that bookstore, mostly because it has two levels full of books and a café that overlooks the river and downtown. I often bought a book just to have an excuse to sit in that café and read. Back then, I was reading mostly literary fiction. But the YA section of books was close to the café and one day, a beautiful book cover caught my eye.

I put back the literary fiction I’d found downstairs and bought Lauren Oliver’s BEFORE I FALL instead. I fell into a YA world…and my reading and writing haven’t been the same since. Even five years and hundreds of books later, BEFORE I FALL is still at the top of my favorite list of books, YA or otherwise. It’s the book that made me realize I’m a YA writer, that I want to write and publish a book that gives others all the feels I had for BEFORE I FALL.

So when I heard that Joseph-Beth was hosting a discussion and signing event with Lauren Oliver on March 16, I told my best book friend that we had to go. As a big bonus, the event included authors Mindy McGinnis (who’d signed my copies of NOT A DROP TO DRINK and IN A HANDFUL OF DUST at Books by the Banks last October) and Jasmine Warga (who I’d just heard about through a Book Riot post about YA and physics).

In an uncomfortable wooden chair, my tote of to-be-signed books resting on the floor between my legs, I sat at Joseph-Beth last night and listened to Oliver, McGinnis, and Warga discuss their books, their writing, their author lives. And I couldn’t help but be a little jealous. Because I’m not just an average reader. The ways they interacted with each other, laughing and talking about other writers, their own themes, their ideas—all of those are things I either understand (what with my own writing life, working a full-time job, querying, getting 1K words written each and every day) or want to understand (going on tour, using social media to connect with fans, fans).

Not that I’m writing here to dwell on all that. The more important part came after, when I briefly chatted with each of the authors.

JASMINE WARGA

As she signed my copy of MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES, I asked Warga not about the darker elements of her story (which I guess draws the majority of reader questions), but about the physics. Was she, like me, a science nerd? The answer was no, with a laugh. Just out of college, she worked for a teaching program where she had to relearn everything she knew about basic math and science to teach her students. The physics elements of MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES came from that experience.

MINDY McGINNIS

Because McGinnis had signed my copies of her books months ago and because I’d talked to her about them then, we discussed her newer projects instead. Her next book, A MADNESS SO DISCREET, a gothic thriller in an insane asylum, comes out in October. In 2016 she’ll have a dark contemporary thriller (the name of which she didn’t share, though I was too focused on what she said of the story itself to care). I asked how her agent and editor felt about works so different from her other two books. She said they loved them, that they give her free reign when writing…and tell her to scale it back if necessary. I can’t wait to read both.

LAUREN OLIVER

I had three books for Oliver to sign: PANIC, VANISHING GIRLS, and BEFORE I FALL. I started with how much I love BEFORE I FALL. (If you haven’t read it, then you definitely need to give it a go!) Then, I moved on to the fact that I’d finished VANISHING GIRLS the day before. We couldn’t really talk about that one much, not without possibly giving away the huge twist of a climax to nearby readers who weren’t to that part yet. So I asked instead if that nameless climax had been her plan all along or if she’d realized it somewhere along the way. She said she’d been trying to write this book for years, ever since BEFORE I FALL was published, but hadn’t come up with this climax until the most recent draft attempts. I wanted to say that I have one of those books, lurking and churning in the back of my brain, but there wasn’t time and so many other fans awaited their turn with her.

As my best book friend and I left Joseph-Beth last night, I kept thinking about BEFORE I FALL, about the things Oliver, McGinnis, and Warga said. That book I have lurking and churning? It kept coming back to me on my drive home, urging me to find the missing key to writing it, maybe a huge twist of a climax. Because if the current book I’m querying doesn’t find me an agent, maybe that’ll be the book that will. And then maybe someday I’ll have the opportunity to sit on a panel of authors, telling readers and hopeful writers about my stories, just like Oliver, McGinnis, and Warga.

Book Riot Love

I tend to hunker down with my books and writing like it’s winter and everyone else is hibernating. If I have a few extra minutes somewhere, somehow, instead of playing on the internet, I sneak out my latest hardcover book and read a chapter or two. Even when it comes to Twitter, where I love the writing community and author tweets, sometimes I’d rather work on my latest manuscript.

So months ago when my best book friend began talking about this thing called Book Riot, I kind of ignored her. Or, I listened, but not with the intention of checking it out for myself. Finally, in late January, she convinced me to give the thing I try.

Now, I’m addicted. Obsessed. Giddy.

If you don’t know what Book Riot is but if you love books, go here now. Seriously, now. This blog post will still be here in an hour or two when you’ve finally pulled yourself away from Book Riot’s awesomeness. (I even got distracted just opening the site to hyperlink it to this post.)

What’s so great about Book Riot? In general, they talk about books, nerdy book stuff, publishing and writing. In other words, it’s the perfect website for me. But more specifically, what is it about Book Riot that sucked me in like a beautiful black hole? These things:

What Rioters Are Reading posts get me more than almost anything else. The site’s contributors tell you not only what they’re reading, but why they picked it and what they think of it. It’s a dream (nightmare?) for a girl (or boy) with a perpetually growing reading wish list.

Book Fetish posts show pictures of all kinds of book related t-shirts, mugs, posters, jewelry, etc. Not that I’m running out to buy all of it, but I still love looking at it longingly. Or giggling about it. Or scoffing. (Because no way would I ever buy that, otherwise I’d be proclaiming to the world that I’m a book nerd.)

Random posts that catch your attention and lead to random articles you love. Like the one called Give Me Some Money So I Can Open My Dream Bookstore, which is totally a dream for me and my best book friend. Or the one called Read This, Then That: MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES and Other YA Books That Love Physics, which led me to not only the book in the title (a great book, one whose author, Jasmine Warga, will be at Joseph-Beth here in Cincinnati on Monday evening for a signing), but to several other books. Or this one called Genre Kryptonite: Unreliable Narrators, which is about one of my genre kryptonites and is full of books I haven’t read. (Let’s not get me started on all the YA novels with unreliable narrators that I love.)

The Book Riot Podcast may be the best thing to happen to my ninety minute per day commute for work. Rebecca Schinsky and Jeff O’Neal are like my new book best friends…whom I’ve never met. (Plus, you know, they have no idea who I am.) I’ve learned so much about new books, book tech, and the publishing industry. And that’s not to mention all the books I’ve added to my to-read list. Some of them I’ve already devoured – Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, Dare Me by Megan Abbott, The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri—and there’s a whole lot more I have to stop myself from buying when I walk into a bookstore.

The Quarterly Box speaks for itself. Or, if you’re not familiar with Book Riot, maybe not. BUT, I just got my first box yesterday and it’s awesome, perfect in all its book nerdiness. Click here if you want to know more details. But for now, here’s a picture of my first box. (You know you want one, too.)

Last Minute Contest

I’ve said I’m done with contests, that I’m going to stick to just querying (where I tend to have more success). But I’ve also read so many success stories about writers who found their agents through contests. So many of these writers say that they weren’t sure their manuscript was ready, or that they weren’t really in a contest mode, but they entered at the last minute and—VIOLA!—they get into the contest and sign with an agent. It’s like winning the lottery, maybe a bit more likely, but it has to happen to someone, right?

So last weekend I entered Brenda Drake’s Pitch Madness contest at the (sort of) last minute. I plucked a pitch from earlier contests, modified it a bit, and submitted it with my manuscript’s first 250 words. I was so distracted at the time that I don’t even remember a confirmation page for my entry.

With so much going on in my non-writing life, I didn’t have time to follow the contest feed on Twitter. That was probably a good thing, as I’ve found that all these feeds do is make me nervous and tense. Those reading contest entries do their best to give advice, but also to make teases as vague as possible so as to give the most writers hope that their entries will be picked. Because I wasn’t watching the feed, the week or so before the announcement of the contest winners passed quickly.

Rumor has it that there were 900+ entrants into the contest (or some such incredibly high number). With only 60 spots available, that meant not a whole lot of writers got in. My hopes weren’t high (because, as previously stated, I do better querying than contesting), but I still had to check the winners when they were posted.

I didn’t get in.

I’m not surprised for several reasons. First, my manuscript is much easier to pitch in three or so paragraphs than in 35 words. Also, my first 250 words don’t have a hook at the end; my hook comes at the end of the first chapter, with stuff building up to it that starts in the first 250 words. And like I said, I wasn’t part of the party on Twitter. As much as they say you don’t have to be super active on the internet to get into these contests, I’ve learned that it helps your chances if you are.

But no worries about this loss. I’m doing what I always do when I don’t get into contests like this: I’m taking down the list of agents and sending them queries. Like I said, I have more success when I do that than when I enter contests. So we’ll see what happens.

Ten Years

I’ve lived in Cincinnati for years, but it wasn’t until last January that I discovered all the young adult writers in this city. Now, about a year later, I’m still not sure I’m one of their group (what with not having an agent or published book), but they treat me like I am and I love to support them. That’s why, in the last three days, I’ve been to two book launches.

First, Melissa Landers’ launch of INVADED, the sequel to her YA sci-fi ALIENATED, was Saturday afternoon at the Barnes & Noble in West Chester.

I’d bought ALIENATED before I met her, when I’d found a signed copy at a different Barnes& Noble, and loved it. I’d talked to her a couple of times about her INVADED launch, about the story itself and the writing of it, but Saturday I still enjoyed listening to her discuss other aspects of it. She also read a passage, explained the origins of the alien language in the series, and teased us with a description of her next book, which will release next year.

As much as I was there to support Melissa Landers, I was also there to chat with the other Cincinnati YA authors. I wanted to learn more about their newest books and glean what information I could about writer life on the other side (the agented/published side). I also had a couple of query questions, which they enthusiastically answered. I may not be agented yet, but they’re determined to help me get there.

At some point, one of the authors mentioned that they’d be attending another launch (for another Cincinnati YA author that I hadn’t met) on Tuesday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Rookwood, my favorite independent bookstore. I promised I’d be there.

Yesterday evening, Joseph-Beth and Kristen Simmons launched her YA dystopian novel THE GLASS ARROW.

Of all that Kristen Simmons discussed—how grateful she is for the support of her friends and family, her other books, her inspiration, how so many people will let you do just about anything for writing research—what I latched onto most was that it took her ten years to find an agent and publish her first book. Ten years. And now, including THE GLASS ARROW, she’s written and published four books.

After she talked and read from her book, once I’d waited in line to get her autograph, I asked her about those ten years. We only had a few minutes (a small line of people behind me), but she expressed her empathy and gave me a few pieces of querying advice. But the biggest thing, the best part? She wrote this inside my copy of her book:

I won’t give up. I’ve said it many times before and I mean it as much as ever. (Never give up, never surrender! as they say in Galaxy Quest.) I’ll keep going to book launches and signings. I’ll keep talking with authors and listening to the advice they give me. And I’ll query and query and query, for as long as it takes, even if it’s ten years.

a FAIREST evening

Once upon a time, at an enchanted bookstore named Joseph-Beth in the enchanted city of Cincinnati…

Okay, actually, I’ll stop there. I’m not great at writing fairy tales; Marissa Meyer, on the other hand, is amazing at futuristic fairy tale retellings. For a long time, I didn’t know this. When the first book in her Lunar Chronicles series was released in January 2012, I saw it out there on bookstore shelves, but never picked it up. The cover had a foot in a gorgeous red shoe, but the leg looked cyborg:

 And cyborgs aren’t my thing. Or so I thought. 

I didn’t pick up the book until almost two years later. I’d entered Brenda Drake’s Pitch Wars contest and one of my mentors suggested reading The Lunar Chronicles because the books (sort of) fit the genre of the manuscript I’d submitted. The mentor said she loved CINDER and thought I would, too. And since she was a Pitch Wars mentor (and you always listen to your Pitch Wars mentors because they’ve just been where you are and know how to get where you want to be, that is agented), I stopped by my nearest bookstore and bought a copy of CINDER.

Of course, it was still a couple of months before I read it (because I always have a stack of books to read that’s as tall as me, if not taller). But when I finally did, I loved it. I went out before I’d finished the first to buy the second (SCARLET) and the third (CRESS).

Knowing that my best book friend loves fairy tales, I recommended she read them, too.  She was as enthusiastic about them as I was, as well as just as disappointed to learn that we’d have to wait until early 2015 for the release of WINTER, the fourth book in the series. Then, in the fall of last year, she told me that she’d read WINTER wasn’t going to be released until late 2015. In its place in early 2015, there’d be a companion book called FAIREST. I wasn’t thrilled about the WINTER wait, but I’m all for authors taking all the time they need to finish a book the way they want to, even if that means delaying a book’s release.

Around the beginning of December, Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati announced that Marissa Meyer would be coming to their store for a FAIREST book discussion and signing on Saturday, January 31. Of course I had to go. Because my best book friend and I learned from Joseph-Beth’s Deborah Harkness signing that the earlier you reserve your copy of the book, the closer you are to the beginning of the signing line, we both called to order our copies within a few days.

What we didn’t know then was that Joseph-Beth was putting together gift bags for the first few people who reserved their FAIREST copy. We discovered this when we arrived last Saturday evening and picked up our books. Though my best book friend’s gift bag had different books, her other swag matched mine: 

Free books and a book signing?! We were ecstatic.

We weren’t the only ones. Even though few others got the gift bags, there were hundreds of people there that night, many of them in gowns and costumes, most of them teenagers (and their parents). By the time Marissa Meyer began speaking at seven, my view from almost the back of the store was this:

And her view of us (taken by a Joseph-Beth employee) was this:

But it didn’t matter that there were hundreds of people there. My favorite thing about these signings is listening to the authors talk about their writing, and Marissa Meyer didn’t disappoint. She was very animated, her voice bright.

Turns out, she decided to set The Lunar Chronicles in New Beijing because the earliest version of Cinderella came from China. Even better, she had been to China. But before she’d decided to set the Lunar Chronicles in China, before she’d even decided to write The Lunar Chronicles, she started with a futuristic version of Puss in Boots, which she had entered into a writing contest years ago. Later, when she began writing the series, she said, she was going to have a fifth book in the Lunar Chronicles series that incorporated her Puss in Boots story. Poor Puss in Boots eventually got cut.

After talking about the series, reading from WINTER, and answering questions, Marissa Meyer began signing books. Because my best book friend and I had called early (and because I have a Joseph-Beth card), we were very close to the front of the line. Even so, as we climbed the stairs to where Marissa Meyer was stationed on the second floor, I still had time to dream that someday, maybe, if I’m very lucky, I’ll have a published book and a book signing. Someday, maybe, I’ll have even a tenth the number of people waiting in line for my autograph. But in the meantime, I was more than happy to exchange a quick hello with Marissa Meyer and go home with these: 

H2O (the novel, not a chem lesson)

I love sci-fi apocalypse stories. Not the post-apocalypse, dystopia ones, but the ones that take place as the world’s falling apart. Like, for example, Stephen King’s THE STAND. Or Rick Yancey’s THE 5TH WAVE, a YA novel about an alien invasion where most of the human population dies. When the sequel to THE 5TH WAVE was released, I rushed to the bookstore to buy it.

Not that this post is about THE 5TH WAVE or its sequel; it’s about the book I discovered because of it. As the girl behind the counter was scanning THE INFINITE SEA, we started talking about apocalypse stories. Her recent favorite, she said, was H2O by Virginia Bergin. She made the premise sound intriguing, so I promptly took out my phone and added the book to my ever-growing Amazon wish list. The cover further got my attention:

Months later, my husband bought H2O for me for my birthday…along with several other books. I started with the other books. Big mistake. Because I ended up loving H2O the most and here’s why:

THE PREMISE

Seven years before the novel begins, an asteroid was headed toward Earth all Armageddon style. Some people got together and shot the asteroid out of the sky…sort of. What they didn’t count on, or didn’t think to even consider, was that the asteroid was already caught in Earth’s gravitational pull and the remnants after the explosion continued to fall toward Earth. Theoretically, those pieces of asteroid shouldn’t have been a problem, but they contained a bunch of extremophile bacteria that, when combined with the water in Earth’s atmosphere, turned deadly for humans. Basically, killer rain. Which in turn got into the water table, poisoning every bit of fresh water on the planet. Most of the human population died in the first rainfall or by drinking tap water shortly thereafter. Ruby, the novel’s narrator, survived.

THE HUMOR

Most apocalyptic stories are dark. Very dark. And that’s not to say H2O isn’t. But I love Ruby’s humor. First off, she’s British. Second, she brutally honest about her own flaws. And third, well, there’s this part about a Carpenters song (playing on a car stereo while Ruby and her stepdad are trapped inside watching people outside die all around them) that had me laughing out loud on my lunch break. (Luckily, the lab was empty.)

THE SCIENCE

Bergin nails the science. I’m always (consciously and otherwise) on the lookout for errors in science in such books and I couldn’t find any here. Bergin’s very specific about the properties of the extremophile. She also details what water’s contaminated, what’s not, and what that means for Ruby and the story’s other characters. Further, the whole time I read, I kept wondering about the future. Was there a way to beat this bug? (Ruby quickly discovers boiling the thing doesn’t kill it.) And if so, would that be something a character would figure out?

THE END

Don’t worry. I’m not going to ruin the end for you. But I loved it…and that’s saying a lot because I’m pretty picky when it comes to endings. For starters, I hate epilogues. (See Harry Potter for a great example of why epilogues suck…because who didn’t know all that stuff anyway?) For another thing, I don’t want sappy endings where everything’s all perfect. Life’s not perfect. But the ending of H2O is.

While I don’t know the name of the girl who mentioned H2O to me that day at the bookstore, I’m happy to pass on her recommendation. If you like dark YA sci-fi with some humor, you should check out Virginia Bergin’s H2O. You’re welcome.

Motivation

Here’s a bit of a confession.

For months, I wrote a blog post every week, if not more. I worked on manuscripts and queried, entered contests and spent every spare minute on Twitter making connections with other writers. And then, late last fall, I stopped.

If you read my blog frequently, I’m sure you noticed. Some of you even asked me about it. I recently said in a post that I was busy writing and querying with not much going on. This was true. Also, a lie. (Because, yes, things can be both.)

I was querying, getting rejections and requests, and didn’t want to talk about it and jinx anything.

But I’d stopped writing. I’d like to say it was because I’d gotten to a point in my work in progress where I knew what I wanted to happen farther in the plot, but I couldn’t figure out how to get from where I was to that point. I was missing a step somewhere. That’s true enough, but nothing like that had really stopped me before in my WIPs. Before, I always pushed forward, no matter the resistance, knowing I could revise the thing later if necessary. (It was always necessary.)

What really stopped my writing was much bigger than plot problem. I found out in October that I’m pregnant. And within a week or two, I was so exhausted and sick that I could barely get through my normal workday. When I got home in the evenings, I fell asleep. I woke up to eat dinner and get sick, then it was back to sleep until morning. Writing (and blogging, Twittering, etc.) wasn’t even a question, plot issues or no.

Though I’m feeling more energetic now, within these last couple of weeks, I’ve been worried about my writing. Because writing is like exercise. In order to stay fit, you have to exercise on a certain schedule, every day, every week. Once you stop, it’s hard to get back into the routine, to get back to where you were. And though I’ve been thinking about my plot issues, I’m not sure I’ve solved them.

All of this worries me because, despite querying, I’m always working on a WIP, a backup plan for if querying doesn’t get me an agent. Without that backup writing, I start to panic, flail around, and worry. And, to continue being honest, I stopped querying around the holidays. Life’s too crazy for me and for agents around Thanksgiving and Christmas. But now that’s all over and I’m wondering…when do I start querying again? Writing? Where’s my motivation?  Gone with my first trimester exhaustion?

Then yesterday I received an email from a Twitter writer friend whose debut novel comes out soon. And while I’m happy for her, I’m also incredibly jealous. I want an agent, a debut novel. I want it BAD.

Just like that, my motivation's back. Everything that's made me work so hard the last year and a half has shoved aside what remains of my exhaustion, my worries. I'm going to solve that plot problem in my WIP and query my manuscript. Someday, I'm going to have a published novel.

Writing Resolutions

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Never have. I’ve never understood why the first day of an arbitrary new year is the one where goals should start. What really makes January first such a special day?

If I decide to set a goal, I do it on the day I realize how badly I need it, whether at end of March or on a midsummer’s night. Almost a year and a half ago, about the beginning of August, I realized that for years I’d pushed aside the biggest dream I’d ever had, the one of becoming a published writer, and on that day I took the first step to making my dream come true.

Of course, it hasn’t happened yet. But I’m still fighting for it. Every day.

And part of fighting for my dream is helping others to achieve the same thing. I’ve made a lot of writer friends over the last year and a half, one which is one of my critique partners. I’m taking a break from reading his latest manuscript to write this blog post because it’s got me thinking.

This manuscript is the third he’s sent me. And the thing is, all the while I’m reading it, I’m hoping that this is the one for him, the manuscript that makes his dreams come true. I’m hoping this is the manuscript that gets him an agent, a publishing deal, a published book.

That’s not to say I didn’t love his first two manuscripts. I did. He did. But no matter how many agents asked to read those other two manuscripts, none of them loved his stories like we did. So, like me, he’s written another story, given himself another shot. Because he has to. It doesn’t matter if it’s January first or not. When you have a dream like ours, you work all year. Or for years. Whatever it takes.

I’ve been there on the days he’s read agents’ emails asking for fulls, and when he’s gotten their rejection emails, just as he’s been there for all of mine. Through it all, we keep encouraging each other, knowing that the next agents we query just might be the ones that love our stories. It’ll happen, we tell each other. IT WILL.

So maybe what I’m saying here, the whole point of this post, isn’t to talk about resolutions. Maybe it’s to say that on December thirty-first, January first, or any other arbitrary day, what’s better than a resolution is a renewal of hope, to know that right around the corner could be the manuscript, the agent, the day my critique partner or I take that next step toward achieving our dreams. And that’s why we keep going.

What This Writer Dreams

My friends and family, along with anyone who’ll listen on Facebook and Twitter, know that I dream of finding an agent and becoming a published author. I dream of walking into a bookstore one day and seeing my book on a young adult shelf, a gorgeous hardcover, a small stack just waiting for readers.

That’s when I’m awake. Then there are the nights where I dream of getting an email from an agent that’s had my full manuscript for a few weeks. It’s not a rejection email (though I’ve gotten some of those), but one that says something like Can we chat? I’ve read enough success stories to know that how it starts, how the dream begins to really come true.

Dreams like that are rare, small reminders that there’s always hope.

Then there are the days where I’m stuck on something in my current work in progress. I reach a point in the plot where I know what I want to happen two steps from now, but I’m not sure how to get from here to there. Or I’m caught on a character’s decision, knowing that whichever way the character decides to go, it’ll shape the rest of the story. Or sometimes, it’s even just one word that trips me up.

And then my mind goes to work. I often figure out what I need sometime during the day, most often while driving to or from my day job. But sometimes that’s not enough and my subconscious takes over.

Based on what most people say about their dreams, I think mine are unusual. Unlike most people, I don’t dream about people, places, or things I know; my dreams are often vivid enough that I remember them in the morning, but I can’t ever peg any setting or person as something or someone I’ve encountered while awake.

For example, if my dream takes place in a library, it’s not the one in downtown Cincinnati, the one from my university, or even the local branch that I went to when I was in elementary school. It’s something more along the lines of the British Museum Reading Room plus my favorite local bookstore, Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Rookwood, but with the feel of the high school library from Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

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Furthering the example, the people in my dream’s library are never characters from my WIP or people I know/knew. Usually they’re partly my characters, partly from whatever novel I’m reading, and partly from who-knows-where. And of course they’re not doing normal library things, either; they’re playing hopscotch, cooking an elaborate meal, or roasting marshmallows over a bonfire.

All this is to say that my dreams are pretty imaginative. Sometimes they help me out with my WIP writing problem, and sometimes they don’t…at least not directly. But I write down what I remember, tweak the details, and put what I can into other stories. Do other writers have dreams like mine, where nothing and no one is familiar from their waking lives, where they can use pieces in their writing? I don’t know, but I hope so. And I hope that someday something I’ve dreamt while asleep helps me achieve my waking dream of being a published author.

Gone Rogue

In the last week or so, a few friends have asked what’s up with my blog. You haven’t written anything in a while, they’ve said. It’s like they think I’ve gone rogue or dropped out of the writing thing, given up on my dream of someday finding an agent and publishing a book.

No worries, friends. I haven’t given up. Not by a long shot.

In actuality, I’m not trying to be stealthy or give off the impression that I’ve tossed in the towel. Things are just super quiet on the writing front these days. I’m not entering any contests right now and my critique partners are in about the same place I am. I’m querying and writing, querying and writing, querying and writing.

While I could write a post about querying, give you an update on my query stats (like how, on the flip side, some agents do), I’m better at talking about those things after the fact. And I don’t want to jinx anything. I send out queries and cross my fingers and toes, dimming the lights and looking away from the computer like I can pretend I’m not putting myself and my manuscript out there. When my email pings with responses, they’re sometimes days, sometimes weeks later, at which point I like to think I’ve dulled my sensitive side to whatever the response might be. That’s not always the case.

Still, when I read the emails, I scan for important words. Is the email addressed to me or to Dear Author? Does the first sentence contain the word but? As in, thank you for submitting to me, but I’m not interested? Or does the word love appear? As in, I’d love to read more? Within the first second I usually know what kind of response I’ve gotten. And as I file that email in the appropriate folder, I also file away the knowledge the email contains.

And then I go back to writing.

It’s funny how writing works. Some manuscripts, like THE BUTTERFLY GHOST, are so easy to write that you can’t wait to get home at the end of the work day and dedicate your next couple of hours to 1-2K words. And then there are others, like my current work in progress, that take a little more effort, a little more thought. I’m a pantser, meaning I don’t outline heavily before I start writing. For THE BUTTERFLY GHOST, that worked to my advantage. For my WIP, not so much. But I’m pushing through. I might not get my writing goal every day, but I do what I can.

With the WIP words so hard to find, the creative part of my brain is pretty much exhausted by the time I’m through there. That means I’m not up for a blog post, which contributes to my blog silence. But don’t worry. Like I said, I haven’t given up and I’m not going to. My blog posts may be less frequent, but when I’ve got something to say, I’ll post it here. 

Revenge Querying

An author friend once told me that when she was querying her YA manuscript, for every rejection she received, she sent out two more queries. She called this revenge querying. And it must have worked (or something must have worked) because you could walk into almost any bookstore today and pick up her book.

The theory behind her revenge querying is sound. Rejections hurt, even when you’ve been querying for so long that you’ve lost count of how many you’ve gotten; but if you remind yourself that it’s just another no (and that, really, all you need is ONE YES), you get back out there and try again. And again. And again and again.

So I’m taking my author friend’s revenge querying to a new level.

Last week, I entered Michelle Hauck’s Nightmare on Query Street contest. I didn’t get in, but it didn’t upset me like it used to (way back a year ago or so). For one thing, I think I have contest fatigue. There are only so many you can enter before you realize you have great contest luck (like one of my critique partners) or you’re better off querying (me). There’s also the realization that getting into a contest doesn’t mean you’ll get an agent. Contests are just a way to stand out from the rest of an agent’s slush pile, which in the end might mean nothing.

Still, the NoQS contest wasn’t a complete wash. Because (back to the whole revenge querying thing) I do have a little resentment, a little rejection anger, and I’m putting it to good use. I’m going to take the list of Nightmare on Query Street agents and I’m going to query them. All of them. Well, okay, not the ones that don’t fit my category and genre, but as many as I can. For the rest, I’ll look into the other agents in their agencies and find the ones that fit my manuscript. I’ll query them.

It may take me some time to get through all those NoQS agents, especially since I’m going to also apply revenge querying to Brenda Drake’s Pitch Wars agents. (Yeah, I didn’t get into that contest either, but I was so close according to one of my mentors. See this.) I think I’ll feel just a little bit of satisfaction when I have success (partial or full requests) with any agents that participated in those contests.

My author friend said revenge querying works and I believe her. It hasn’t gotten me an agent yet, but I’m hopeful. Always hopeful.

All the Authors & Autographs

As a reader AND a writer, I have a special interest in talking to authors. I don’t just want to fangirl and tell them how much I loved their books; I want to say why. I want to tell them what specifically made it great. This scene, that line, this plot point, that character. These are things I think I pay more attention to than the average reader. Because of that, I want a conversation, an exchange of ideas, all in the hopes that I will become a better writer because of it.

This past weekend at Books by the Banks and yesterday at the Fort Thomas Branch of the Campbell County Library, I met eleven authors for the first time. I chatted so much with them, and four others that I had met before, that my friends ditched me at least three times. And I got fifteen books autographed. Yes. Fifteen. (I’ll list the authors and titles at the bottom of this post.)

From Books by the Banks:

 From the library:

 As much as I love the autographs (and believe me, I DO), it’s also about the conversations. Every author was not just willing, but also happy to talk to me. They wanted to hear my experiences, I wanted to hear theirs. An exchange of information, new friends made. I complimented their writing choices (the very end of CONVERSION, the who-dun-it in MY LAST KISS, the humor in THE VIGILANTE POETS OF SELWYN ACADEMY, the death of that one character in NOT A DROP TO DRINK, the intricate plot of MAID OF SECRETS). They told me about their agents and publishers, information I tucked away for the right day. 

Because someday, I want to be one of those authors. I don’t just want an agent and a published book. I want to sit behind a table, my book propped up in front of me, and talk to readers (teens or otherwise). I want to pay it forward, help new writers the way all these authors have helped me.

And I want to say thank you, a million thanks, hoping that they understand just how much I mean it.

Autographed books from Books by the Banks:

GIRL ON A WIRE by Gwenda Bond

THE VIGILANTE POETS OF SELWYN ACADEMY by Kate Hattemer

CONVERSION by Katherine Howe

HIDER SEEKER SECRET KEEPER by Elizabeth Kiem

OPEN ROAD SUMMER by Emery Lord

WILD by Alex Mallory

NOT A DROP TO DRINK and IN A HANDFUL OF DUST by Mindy McGinnis

MAID OF SECRETS and MAID OF DECEPTION by Jennifer McGowan

THE LAST KISS by Bethany Neal

Autographed books from the library:

PRETTY GIRL 13 by Liz Coley

CAIN’S BLOOD and PROJECT CAIN by Geoffrey Girard

RIVAL by Sara Bennett Wealer

Books by the Banks

This Saturday at the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati is Books by the Banks, a free book festival.

Though I’ve lived in Cincinnati since 2006, this will be the first time I’m attending. I blame this on three things. 

First, for most of my time in Cincinnati, I was too focused on other things besides writing (like settling in, starting my science career, making friends, finding and dating and marrying my husband). Not that I haven’t always been an avid reader, because my mounds of books prove otherwise. 

Second, I didn't know the festival existed until a couple of years ago. And I even lived downtown for three years. Crazy, right?

Third, I never had anyone to go with. Not that this should have stopped me, but I was intimidated by the enormity of the festival. I’m an introvert. I’m a book nerd, not a social butterfly.

Things have changed. It’s been about fourteen months since I decided to seriously pursue a writing career and something like this book festival is a great networking opportunity. Plus, I know about a half dozen of the YA authors who are going to be there. 

And then there’s ALL THE BOOKS. Need I say more?

Fight Club

There’s this movie called Fight Club. I saw it once, back in college maybe, and I don’t remember much about it aside from the poster

and the fact that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton star in it (which, yeah, I think I know just because of the poster). What’s the plot? What is Fight Club? Honestly, I have no idea. But I do know that you aren’t supposed to talk about Fight Club. (Aunt V and Uncle J would be proud of me for at least knowing that.) Why can’t you talk about it? Again, no idea.

Recently, an author friend invited me to join a group of writers that reminds me a little of Fight Club. First off, the group is specifically labeled secret. Second, its membership is limited and by invite only. I accepted the author friend’s invite, not sure what to expect.

What I found was overwhelming. I scrolled through the list of members, noticing over and over again that I have books by many of these authors. One of my favorite authors ever is one of the group’s moderators. Right there, I was sure I didn’t belong in the group. I almost sent a message to my author friend to ask if she’d made a mistake.

But the more time I spent reading posts, the more I realized I’m as much a part of this group as the well-known authors. Alongside all the authors, there are other writers like me who are deep in the query trenches. We query trench writers can ask advice from the others, knowing that they’ve been there before and have the answers we need. I love it.

I don’t comment on most posts because published authors are asking the questions. I have so little experience, but I’m learning what it’s like to be on the other side, the agented side, the side where they’ve published books (plural!) and know how the whole industry works. Part of me is jealous, wondering if I’ll always be stuck on this side, where the trenches are. But most of me is so grateful my author friend invited me along so I can read, learn, and get to know so many authors and what author life is like.

I wish I could say more, but like I said, I’m pretty sure this group is a Fight Club for writers. And you’re not supposed to talk about Fight Club.

Writing Vacation

Whenever people ask me what I’m doing in the evening and I answer that I’ll be working, they often give me funny looks. And they should (unless they know me really well). Because I make flavors, literally, and that means I spend my work days mixing hundreds of chemicals together to make the stuff that goes in your coffee creamer, your yogurt, your favorite cookie or cake, the seasoning on your chips or breaded chicken. It’s not the kind of work I could ever take home. But that’s my day job.

At night (and on weekends), I work on writing. Sometimes I’m writing something new, sometimes editing/revising, and sometimes crafting query letters to send to literary agents. I call it work because I want people to know how serious I am about it. I spend just as much time per week on my writing as I spend making flavors, some weeks more. I may not get paid for it, but I have to put that much effort into it in the hopes that someday I’ll sign with an agent and a publisher and get my writing out there for others to read.

I’m so dedicated to my writing that even though my husband and I just spent this week on vacation (Philadelphia and Boston, if you’re curious), I was determined to still write.  I didn’t take my laptop, but I tucked a mini notebook in my carry-on. I can write the old fashioned way just as easily as type on a computer.

Turns out, I didn’t write a word (unless text messages, tweets, and Facebook statuses count). Turns out, when I go on vacation, I don’t mean just from my day job. I had every intention to write, I swear, but at the end of the day, after traipsing around Philadelphia or Boston for hours, I just wanted to lie down on my hotel bed and sleep. I love sleep.

Now, vacation’s over. I’ve washed vacation away (literally, because planes). My laptop’s half-dead from being unplugged all week, but I’m dragging the cord to my workspace in my library so I can get some words in. My goal is the same as every other writing day, one thousand words, excluding this blog post. I may not be going back to my day job until Monday, but I’m right back at the writing.

From a Dusty Shelf

If you’re not a writer, then you might not know that when we writers give up on a manuscript, when it’s dead and going nowhere, we say we’re shelving it. We shove it to the back of the tallest shelf, where it’s hidden from view, where we don’t have to look at it every time we sit down to write. It gathers dust. It sits there and it waits. Sometimes forever.

Last winter, I shelved the first YA manuscript I’d written. I’d queried it, contested it, and nothing came of it. Well, not nothing. My writing was good, agents said, but the concept wasn’t there. The stakes weren’t there. I had some requests, but never an offer of representation. So I shelved it and moved on.

But I loved that story. I’d based it on a semester of college I’d spent in Paris. I lived in a Parisian dorm, took classes at a Parisian college, and traveled on long weekends to Ireland, England, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and all over France. I discovered my love of art and lost my passport. The only thing that I didn’t have was a guy, a romance. So I took that semester of college and gave it to a teenage main character, adding that love interest that I’d wished I’d had.

Even after I shelved the story, I continued to think about, mostly because those five months abroad were a few of the most influential of my life. I still wanted that story to be told. But maybe it’d been enough to tell it to myself.

I moved on, wrote two more manuscripts. I recently shelved the first of those. The other I entered into Pitch Wars last month. I didn’t get a mentor and told myself I was taking a break before querying. I’m still on that break.

But, funny enough, a comment in one of my Pitch Wars rejection emails kept bothering me. Write something new, the mentor suggested. I think this was general advice, something the mentor told every writer who didn’t get picked to be a mentee. And the truth was, I’d be toying with a new idea for a few weeks. I just couldn’t get it to work just right.

Then I remembered that shelf where I’d shoved my Parisian story. Last week, I pulled that manuscript out of the dust, blew it clean, and began anew. I’m keeping the names of the characters, most of their personalities, and many of the settings. But I’m adding huge stakes and a massive change for the main character. She’s not me anymore, not even close, and I love her.

It’s been six days and I’m already 7,000 words in. I’m sticking with the goal I set for my last MS: 1K a day until I type The End, hopefully around 70,000 words. The best part is that I’m pulling words and phrases from my old manuscript, pasting them into my new document, and saving some writing that I’d thought was shelved for good.

Horseshoes & Hand Grenades

Rumors ran all over the #PitchWars Twitter feed yesterday that Brenda Drake would be announcing the contest’s winners at midnight EST. This was bad for me for two reasons.

1. I’m one of those people that need sleep. Seven hours will do, but I prefer eight (or ten…but that rarely happens). Since I had to get up for work at six the next morning, staying up to midnight would be a bad idea.

2. I really wanted to stay up for the announcement because I was pretty sure I had a good shot of being on that list. Then again, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be on it, no matter how close I was sure I’d be. (Self-doubt, etc.)

Either way—my name there or not there—I didn’t see myself falling asleep soon after reading the announcement. So I went to bed around eleven.

And then woke up less than four hours later. I fretted in the darkness, wondering if the winners were posted, if I was one of them. Because there were three reasons I thought my name might be there.

1. Less than twenty-four hours after I submitted my materials to the contest, one of the mentors emailed me, asking for my first fifty pages. OMG.

2. About a week later, that same mentor emailed me again, this time looking for a synopsis. Which meant my first fifty had been good enough that the mentor was curious about the rest of the story.

3. On Sunday, two days before the mentors had to turn in their final picks, that same mentor emailed me a third time, wanting to know my query history for THE BUTTERFLY GHOST (which was nonexistent). I figured the mentor was looking for some way to differentiate between top picks, which meant I was still in it.

So about 2:45 this morning, I couldn’t wait any longer. I grabbed my phone and opened the internet. Brenda Drake’s blog was already there waiting for me. All I had to do was refresh the page.

My name wasn’t there.

I wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t mean I felt any less disappointed and bitter. I’d wanted this so bad. I’d believed in THE BUTTERFLY GHOST and I’d been so sure this mentor did, too.

Turns out, the mentor just believed in a couple of other manuscripts more. I received a personalized rejection email from the mentor later that morning. The mentor explained that I was in the top five, that this was a book the mentor would love to buy and read, that the concept and writing were great. And in the end, the mentor encouraged me to keep going.

And I will.

I’ve often heard the saying that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but I’m not sure that’s true here. Sure, I didn’t get a Pitch Wars mentor, but I did get the best feedback I’ve had yet on one of my manuscripts. In the mentor’s initial email asking for my first fifty pages, the mentor said my query was stellar. I’m taking as a sign that I might stand out of some agent’s query slush pile.

That said, I’m taking a bit of break, starting today. At the end of that break, I’ll read through my manuscript one more time, making a few more changes based on feedback I’ve gotten from critique partners, fellow Pitch Wars mentee hopefuls, and Write On Con attendees. Then, I’ll be querying, hoping to find some agent that loves my manuscript just a smidge more than all the other great ones out there.

Callin' All Ye Doonians! (and all ye destined fer Doon!)

DESTINED FOR DOON releases this Tuesday!

That’s right. Two days from now I’ll finally have a hardcover copy of Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon’s second novel. Never mind that as a member of the book’s street team I’ve already read it, that the ARC is tucked safely in my cabinet of amazing YA books.

I’m picking up my copy on Tuesday, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, where Carey and Lorie will be celebrating the launch. I’ll get my copy of DOON signed by Lorie (because it was already signed by Carey when I bought it). I’ll also have them sign my ARC and my new, oh-so-gorgeous hardcover copy of DESTINED FOR DOON.

If you live in Cincinnati, come join us! If you don’t, stop by your local bookstore and grab a copy. And if you’re worried that you haven’t read the first one, well, buy that, too! They’re both amazing (five of five stars on Goodreads for me!) and well worth the read. After all, who doesn’t like hidden Scottish kingdoms, two girls who have been best friends for years, and two super hot princes? And there’s also magic, a witch, and all kinds of references to musicals (since, ya know, DOON’s based on the musical Brigadoon…though don’t judge the books by that because they’re waaaaay better!).

If you need any more convincing, below are links to my other DOON and DESTINED FOR DOON posts. Happy reading!

the post that started it all

how the authors asked me to be on D4D’s street team

more on how the authors asked me to be on D4D’s street team

Brigadoon and meeting Carey Corp

the second time I read DOON and why I still loved it

why I loved D4D! (and how I read it so fast)