Legendary

Yesterday I got to meet one of my idols—fantasy author Tamora Pierce. She was appearing on a panel at the wonderful store Books of Wonder along with six other talented authors (including Rae Carson whose The Girl of Fire and Thorns is excellent and perfect for Tamora fans). I cannot begin to explain how honored I was to finally meet Tamora. I might have gotten a bit fangirl on her—but I’ve been waiting since I was ten to meet her! Alanna: The First Adventure introduced me to fantasy when it was part of the sixth grade curriculum. When my peers read the first for weeks in class I rushed to the library and read the entire series at home. I was hooked. And ever since then my writing has been informed by Tamora’s works. Her novels are still the closest comparative titles to my work in progress. So, to say the least, she—and her books—are pretty important to me. Meeting her in person did not disappoint, either, as is so often the case when you meet an idol. She spoke so wisely on the genre and on writing. And despite the fact that the line to get books signed by her was ridiculously long and meant she had to stay long past when the event was due to end, she kindly signed each and every book fans brought and had a brief conversation. It was wonderful. And the way she signed my copy of Mastiff, her latest book? “Be legendary.” I’m working on it, Tamora, I’m working on it!

Super-Writer

Today’s RTW Question from YA Highway: What are your writing and publishing superpowers? And what’s your kryptonite?

What a great question—and I love seeing how writers have so many different strengths and weaknesses. Something I struggle with might be someone elses strongpoint…and something that is a piece of cake for me might be what a well-respected published author really has trouble with. A conversation like this is a great way to put everything in perspective.

My superpowers:

World-Building: I love creating worlds. I played pretend in my backyard or with barbies in the basement until I was way too old, because it was a way for me to create landscapes and rules and wonderfully rich worlds. When I started writing instead of playing dress up my desire to create worlds was a driving factor. And I know the world of my WIPs so well—I have street maps of the capital city of Coracus and can tell you the best way to travel through the crooked streets from the herbalist’s to the main square; I have demographic maps of the kingdom of Harren; I have physical maps of the entire continent; I have family trees that go back ten generations for the royal family, the Cymberlys. All these documents help inform the world when I’m writing so that it becomes rich, lush, and real. Having consistent rules for your world is one of the most important factors in making that world seem real and these documents help me make sure everything is aligned.

Plotting: I can come up with a plausible basic plot so quickly and it’s easy for me to outline the major events of my novel. The sub-plots and sub-sub-plots that add layers to my stories, not so much…

Reading and Critiquing: I sure hope I’m good at this, because it’s my job working in the editorial department! Reading multiple manuscripts a week I’ve learned to quickly tell what the strengths of the work is, what needs improvement, and offer feedback on the best way to make it the best book it can be.

Industry Awareness: Again, working in the publishing industry helps me keep on top of trends and frequently networking with the best agents and editors out there. This comes in handy during both the writing process, but even more so, querying and beyond.

My Kryptonite:

Characters: The characters I write are so vivid in my head—they’re alive, strong, flawed—but I’ve yet to learn how to make that come out on paper. This is my biggest weakness since most YA novels nowadays are character-driven, and if the agent/editor/reader doesn’t relate to the character they’re likely not to read, or like, the novel.

Romance: This relates to the first point; if I can’t make my characters come alive, it’s really difficult to build a relationship full of longing, steamy scenes, and heartbreak. Again, 99% of YA has to have a compelling romance, so this is a really important point I’m working on.

Sub-plots: Like I said before, the bare bones plot comes to me easily, but when it comes to adding depth to the novel I really have to push it. Each major revision I’ve done to my WIP The Rose of Coracus has included adding another layer to the plot for more depth and richness.

Spelling and grammar: You would think that someone who was a Creative Writing major and works in the editorial department at a publishing house could spell. And would know proper grammar. But that’s what spell check and copyeditors are for! I couldn’t do without them!

What are your writing superpowers? What’s your downfall?

To-Do Lists

Today’s Question from YA Highway: In honor of NaNoWriMo: What kind of writing coach do you need? When you have to coach friends, what kind of coach are you?

The kind of coach I need and the kind of coach I am are the same thing and boils down to one word: deadlines. I often write to-do lists and if something is on the list and has to get done by a certain date IT WILL GET DONE. That’s just how I work. So, if my “writing coach” tells me to write 1,000 words by Tuesday, I’ll write it on my to-do list and get it done by the deadline. Maybe even earlier! And now, as I’m writing this post I’m realizing that I should write everything down on a to-do list. It always feels great to cross it off: “complete!”

Good luck with everyone doing NaNoWriMo. I did it for about half the month last year, with some success (talk about having a deadline!), and I’m sure I’ll try it again in the future. 

The Game of Writing

Who knew there was a way to combine two things I love (writing and board games)? This is pretty awesome. I want to play! 

Gotta Write!

Today’s RTW Question from YA Highway: What’s your numero-uno reason for writing?

Sometimes simplicity is best: I have a story to tell. My world and characters have been floating around in my mind for a decade, and I want to share them!

Why do you write?

Traveling, Traveling

Today’s question from YA Highway: What has your writing road trip looked like so far? Excitement? Traffic Jams and detours? Where are you going next?

Ever since I fell in love with reading in the third grade, I’ve been writing stories as well. So in that sense, my writing journey starts at age eight or so. More realistically, it starts in eighth grade, at the age of fourteen. That’s when I started writing the novel I’m still working on, now called The Rose of Coracus. The journey was easy and fruitful the summer between middle school and high school. I traveled through lush rainforest with brilliant flowers. There were rainbows and magical creatures. It was a spectacular and invigorating journey. It continued through high school where there were the occasional trees and flowers as I worked with writing buddies, but nothing as successful as that first summer. In college, I took a detour into a desert; there were the occasional cacti, but not the lush palm trees I wanted. My first three years of college I was writing the wrong thing, although not by choice. Luckily, senior year returned me to where I belong. The rain forest bloomed again and was full of animal life: monkeys screeching, brightly colored birds flapping among the canopies. It was a great place to be, and I continued there for the first post-college year, writing and revising as much as I could. Last summer I hit a detour: querying two agents unsuccessfully. I realized that I needed to return to my writing jungle, but the rest of the summer was a barren road, waiting on critique partners’ feedback. As we move into fall and winter, I suspect that I’ll continue on this empty road as my job, moving, and the holidays cut into my writing time. But in the spring…I can’t wait for it! I’ll be writing until the jungle is as lush with flora and fauna as can be!

So there’s my writer’s journey; it’s been a long one, but full of wonderful scenery! I can’t wait to see where the next turn in the road takes me!

Writers Writing about Writing

I won’t lie—this week has been way too busy for me to come up with something thrilling to post today. Luckily, there are a lot of brilliant peoples—authors, to be exact—who have lots to say on the subject of writing that is definitely worth sharing. Here are two of my favorites that I’ve wandered across lately:

Maggie Stiefvater on Using Novels as Textbooks

Justine Larbalestier on Using Scrivener

Happy weekend!

Over and Over Again

Today’s RTW Question from YA Highway: What themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work?

This is such a good question and I wish I had more time to answer it…but I’m determined to post something earlier than 6pm! Some recurring elements I find in my work are:

·        Non-conventional endings: My WIP The Rose of Coracus does not have the ‘the boy and girl are together happily ever after’ ending. Because it’s not right for the pair. Perhaps it’s the bit of feminist in me, but I don’t think books—even romance-driven YA—need to have that conventional conclusion. If it’s not right for my characters, it’s not going to happen in my manuscript.

·        Patience: This relates to the first point. I was surprised to see that many of my characters have to exhibit non-teenage-like patience. They have to wait for what is right for them, work towards it even if it takes a long time. In this regard, I feel like my characters have a lot to teach readers—and me!

·        Female-Centered: Many of my manuscripts have scenes where women need to work together to stand up against patriarchy (an evil king, the Princess’s father, in Dueling Princesses for example) or highlight female-centered networks of support. (My goodness, I am a feminist!)

·         On a more superficial level, I doubt I will ever write a fantasy book that doesn’t include gorgeous dresses, quasi-medieval setting, a ball, and royalty!

Do you have any themes or such that reoccur in your writing? Share!

Also, last chance to help me out and let me know what you’d like to see here!

Legacy

The end of August marks an important kind of transition for many: going back to school. This year is the second where I’m not returning to Hamilton College—those years fly by!

Over the summer I was able to chat with a few Hamilton students interested in pursuing a career in publishing who are returning for their senior year on The Hill. Like me, they’re Creative Writing majors. And what they had to tell me about their upcoming senior projects warmed my heart:

In the Creative Writing program at Hamilton there is a heavy emphasis on literary short stories. It’s not the type of writing I do and I struggled with it. Then came my senior project, where I was able to pick my genre. Without any hesitation I chose to write a young adult novel. It was my project and the professor or classmates couldn’t complain. Luckily, they didn’t. They actually embraced the project almost as much as I did and provided fantastic feedback. I read the first couple of chapters during a reading the last week of school and since graduation I have been unceasingly rewriting and revising The Rose of Coracus.

The girls I met with this summer were sophomores during my senior year and, interested in what the senior project entailed, attended the senior reading. Like me, they’re more interested in young adult than literary adult and were thrilled to see me breaking the mold because it gave them hope that they could also write what they wanted instead of what is preferred by a prestigious liberal arts college. Apparently, according to these rising seniors, I set the trend. I was a rebel and didn’t even know it!

It’s always nice when you find out your actions positively affected someone. I’m thrilled that those girls (and maybe even others!) will write what they want to learn about and grow in because they saw me do it first. That may be a quieter legacy than a track record or published journal article, but it’s my handprint on Hamilton and I couldn’t be happier.

So Much Time...So Little To Do

Today’s RTW Question from YA Highway: What time do you prefer to do your writing? Early Worm? Night Owl ? Any five seconds you can grab?

Last summer pre-job I had a fantastic writing schedule that worked marvelously for me. Every morning I would sleep in a bit (waking up around 8:30-9:30), check all the job boards while eating breakfast, and then write for a good couple hours before doing household chores, my volunteer work at the library, or getting together with friends. I’m my most productive in the morning and I was able to bang out a solid revision in a few months. It was great.

Now, (although I’m most certainly not complaining about having my job!) it’s harder to find time to write. I obviously can’t write during weekday mornings. And I don’t want to wake up early to start writing every weekend when those are the only days I can sleep in and be a bit lazy. I’ve tried setting a weeknight writing schedule but, inevitably, networking happy hours and plans with friends and (oops!) naptime/bedtime gets in the way. So, right now, I write whenever I can get a chunk of time—last weekend I was actually really productive (but I’m going on vacation next week so that kind of cancels it out!).

Since I expect to be working and writing for years to come, I’m going to have to learn how to balance both…someday (hopefully soon!) I’ll figure it out!

Five Senses

Today’s RTW question from YA Highway: The Five Senses. How you use them in your writing, how you are inspired by them, pictorial essays, that character with smelly socks, books that have used them well, the ones that are currently missing from your work, etc.

This is a great reminder for writers to actually use all five senses in their writing—in my manuscript I use each sense to some extent: sight (the bustling marketplace, dancing), smells (spices, fish fresh from the ocean), sound (merchants yelling, tambourines jingling), taste (hearty ale, sugary marzipan), feel (the difference between chaffing wool and smooth silk). But whether I include enough of those details and incorporate them well enough isn’t so obvious—I’ll keep the five senses in mind during revision!

Books that use the five senses extra well:

You by Charles Benoit: if you don’t have a visceral reaction from the vivid descriptions of the accident, something is wrong with you!

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins: Descriptions using so many different senses really bring Paris alive.

Love and Leftovers (ARC) by Sarah Tregay: Some really unique food imagery and taste in this adorable novel in prose.

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling: Don’t those Hogwarts dinners make you salivate?

Chime by Frannie Billingsley: The delicate imagery used to describe the Welsh setting of this novel is beautiful.

I’m having trouble thinking of other examples—both in my own writing and YA books that use the senses well—so please share your thoughts!

A Necessary Step

This week has been about what (nearly) every author experiences and what (nearly) every author hates*: rejections. It’s part of the process and not at all fun. But hey, even famous authors and celebrities are rejected at some point in their career. I put myself out there; I talked about my writing with people in the industry who matter. That’s moving in the right direction. As of now I think I’m going to take a step back and revise more before sending out additional query letters. *Chug chug chug up the big mountain*

*Unless you’re Kathryn Stockett (The Help) who was so aware that rejection letters were part of the publication process that she was jubilant when she received her first couple (not so much after 40 or so…). 

Inspirational Images

Today’s RTW question from YA Highway: Share some images that inspire your WIP(s).

So here are some pictures that inspired my WIP, The Rose of Coracus, almost 10 years ago when I started writing it! (For more about what inspired this manuscript, read here.)

The heroine*:

An energetic dancer from a disliked ethnic group with a talent for sewing.

The love interest*:

A handsome prince who wants to learn more about his people…so he explores the city in disguise. 

The nasty noble girl*:

No more needs to be said about her.

The setting*:

 A huge castle on the hill above the sprawling and Tudor-esque city.

I’m really really excited about this manuscript…which is good, because I’m starting to query agents! *Eep*

* Photos, top to bottom: Esmeralda from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Prince Henry and Marguerite from Ever After, Salzburg Castle and the streets of Rouen, France. 

Best Places to Write

For this upcoming long weekend I’m heading up to my aunt’s house which is on an island on a lake. You can only reach it by boat. The house is really old. It’s surrounded by old forest and blueberry bushes and the sunlight seems to dance been the shadows. Shared between the other ‘camps’ on the island there’s a historic boat house, a Wishing Bridge, an outdoor chapel, and a dock where the Mail Boat visits once a day. It is, very simply, one of my favorite places on Earth. It’s quiet and comfortable but also exciting.

I’m gushing all about this place not to brag, but because it’s always been one of my favorite places to read a good book. Do I lie in the hammock, dangle my feet in the water on the dock, or catch some last rays on Sunset Deck? I’ve realized now that I have a tiny Mac that can travel more easily than my clunky old Dell laptop that this is also the perfect place to write. I’m not sure if I will take my computer with me on the zippy fifteen minute boat ride from marina to island this trip (I really plan on doing nothing!), but it’s made me ponder what a good place to write is…

Before I moved to NYC I loved the window seat in the sunroom at home in CT and there’s nothing like a sturdy desk that you can always return to. Sometimes I write in bed…but that more often than not turns into nap time. I’ve never tried writing in a coffee shop, but there’s a café in my neighborhood that ‘all the serious writers go to.’ All in all, I’m on the lookout for a good place here in New York for me to write—somewhere in my apartment or somewhere in the wider world. What are your favorite writing places? How did you discover them?

Happy long weekend! I hope it’s full of fun and relaxation. 

Editing

This is what I’m doing today.

Plot by Scene

Already Wednesday again—this week has flown by! Today’s RTW question from YA Highway is: Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you like to make a detailed plan before you start a project? Or do you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants and make it up as you go along?

My answer isn’t simply picking A or B. I fall somewhere smack dab in the middle. I know how the book is going to end when I start writing, but I don’t always know how my characters will get there. When I write I think in scenes: a dance, a snippet of conversation, a walk through the marketplace. Then I figure out how these scenes can interact with one another in a cohesive plot. My plot outlines can barely be called that; they really just include a listing of scenes (normally three) that I want to include in each chapter. Something like this:

Chapter Eight

J thinks of S

J’s daily activities- intro F

J has lunch with E- intro

Nothing special at all, right? But it tells me what I need to do for the chapter. So far this not quite plotting not quite figuring-it-out-as-I-go has been working well for me, but I can imagine that extra plotting before I dive in could be really helpful, too. Perhaps I’d have less revising to do that way…always something to consider!

Plan of Action

Writing and editing all my WIPs is going so well right now! Maybe it’s those extra hours during summer Fridays that are making all the difference. J Here’s what’s going on now and what will happen in the near future:

My best friend just gave me wonderful notes for my WIP The Rose of Coracus. I’m going to do another thorough rewrite this month, focusing on making Shayna a more dimensional character and her relationship with Johnathan more romantic yet realistic. And editing and adding and changing a million other little things. Heather’s notes were fantastic and gave me the direction I needed, so June is rewrite month.  It’s a tough goal, but goals are good (see this great post). One week down, three to go! And then I will be finished and submit query letters to agents by July 5^th. It’s the plan and I’m sticking to it!

My next WIP, Dueling Princesses, will be put on the burner until July, but after that I will be writing lots and lots. I’ve found two critique partners to work with, who will hopefully read the manuscript in small batches and help form the story as I go along. I’m looking forward to working on that!

So there you have it; my summer writing plans. I’m excited!

In the Name of Research

Today’s Road Trip Wednesday question from YA Highway: What is the strangest/weirdest thing you've ever researched?

I hate to take the easy way out, but it’s that kind of week. I covered this topic several months ago. Attending a Medieval Festival was definitely the weirdest thing I’ve done in the name of research! Since then, there are some new things that I need to put on the to-be-researched list: dancing (I might attend a contra dance), horses, and historical dress making techniques. These aren’t quite run of the mill interests, but I know I will definitely have a lot of fun learning more about them!

Inspirational Short List

Today’s Road Trip Wednesday question from YA Highway: Who in your life has most inspired your writing?

Inspired me to write: Various teachers throughout the years, whom I have already mentioned in a previous blog post.

Inspired what I write: All the good, moving books out there, but Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books have had the largest influence on my WIPs. Books by Megan Whalen Turner, Suzanne Collins and Kristin Cashore also are important.

Inspired me to believe I could be a writer: My mom, my auntie, my best friend Heather, my Hamilton College creative writing critique group, my boyfriend.

Thanks, everyone!

Rewards

Today is YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday! The question is: How do you reward yourself when you meet your writing goals? Answer for big goals (i.e. I will buy a Lear jet when I get published) and/or small goals (I eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's in one sitting when I finish each chapter).

This is a great question!

Small goals (like finishing a chapter): When I was working on The Rose of Coracus in college, I had two built-in rewards for working hard and doing a good job. First, the praise and constructive criticism of my classmates. Two, a good grade. Now when I’m writing on my own I’m missing those rewards. I’ve tried to solve the first by searching for a critique partner but I have nothing that equals the second type of reward. Perhaps that’s what I need to get writing more! I really look forward to reading how others reward themselves!

Big goals (like getting published): Assuming I get a modest two-book deal, I would reward myself by putting 1/3 immediately in savings, using 1/3 to pay back my student loans, and then the last third would be spent on an odd combination of frivolous and practical: a clothing shopping spree, a gym membership, an extravagant vacation (I’m leaning towards Australia, New Zealand and some South Pacific islands…), a new pair of glasses I might actually wear, a SCBWI membership. Even if I got a bigger book deal, the majority would go into savings: looking into my not-so-distant future, I have a lot of big things coming my way in the next five or ten years (A wedding! A house! A baby! Two baby?)…. Although, obviously, getting a book published and seeing it in stores and knowing others are reading (and hopefully loving!) it would be more than enough reward for all the hard work and revisions that went into that manuscript.   

Whether finishing a chapter or an entire novel, getting an agent or getting published, rewarding yourself for hard work is important! I kind of forgot about that in the day-to-day in terms of word counts and plot outlines, so this reminder is nice. I look forward to seeing how other writers handle this!