For today’s post…I’m directing you elsewhere. Jill Wheeler did an awesome round up of success stories. My getting-an-agent story is included. But mainly, I know that reading stories of writers getting agents and book deals was my favorite way, not only to procrastinate, but to motivate. So head over to her blog and check out all the anecdotes.
Here’s the link: http://jillwheeler.blogspot.com/2009/01/procrastination-station.html
Oops. I know I said today I’d talk about books to recommend to different types of people, but, well, it’s New Year’s Eve. And, um, I’ve got to make my New Year’s Resolutions. Because how would I remember them if I didn’t publish them on my blog?? I know! It’d be impossible! So here we go, my mandatory New Year’s Writing Resolutions post:
1. Get a book deal!
2. Write and revise another novel and have it ready to submit by August/September
3. Spend less time surfing the internet
4. Make more writing friends and keep getting to know the ones I’ve made
5. Write every single day no matter how little
6. Blog 4-5 days a week at least
7. Improve with each book–in writing and in revising
8. Have fun and enjoy writing daily
9. Attend a comic con!
10. Umm…did I mention get a book deal? Not in the last 8 bullet points? Oh! Well, then, Get a book deal!!
*Note: Although it’s true that I have limited control over whether or not I do, actually, get a book deal–I mean, it’s already out on submission!–I do have control over several things that lead to a book deal: 1. Revising to correct any problems 2. Keep asking my agent to submit if need be (fingers crossed it will sell in the first round) 3. Never giving up (keep writing, keep submitting, keep working)
Status: What am I going to do for New Year’s?? I always feel like it’s such a bust! Oh well, I’ll figure something out. Yesterday, I got some great feedback on the WIP, so I’m looking over those edits.
Here’s fun thing to play with: The Typealyzer. You enter your blog’s url into the blinking box and out comes your blog’s personality.
My blog is characterized by “The Artists.” It says:
The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.
They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.
Do y’all think that’s my blog’s personality? I’m not so sure. But yanno, one more step along the way to self-understanding, right?
Status: Con Law. The rumors are true. It’s not fun.
Who didn’t play MASH as a kid? If you say you didn’t, I know you’re lying. Unless you’re a boy and, then, I guess you’re off the hook. I used to be obsessed with that game. Didn’t get to play it that often though…being an only child and not liking to play it myself. Always seemed like a fun game to play with an older neighbor/friend, etc.
Anyway, I miss MASH. Again, who doesn’t? If I had a penny for all the times I married Jonathan Taylor Thomas and lived in a mansion…well, I actually probably wouldn’t be that rich because I also had to marry the smelly guy that sat next to me in class and live in a trash can. Why did we always put trash can as a choice of places to live???
I’ve gotta admit, though, that I haven’t really stopped playing MASH. Embarrassing? Sure. But, now I play it with big-kid stuff. (I mean, I AM all of 22 years old.)
With writing there is a lot of waiting around, so what more productive way to spend your time then playing Publishing Career MASH? (Please don’t start listing.)
Here’s how you play:
Take out a sheet of paper. As the heading write P, D, R, N, S. Got it? PDRNS, catchy, eh?
P stands for publisher. Write four imprints vertically underneath.
D stands for deal. Write nice, good, significant, major underneath.
R stands for reviews. Write rave, ok, worst book ever, not reviewed underneath.
N stands for number of books in your deal. Is it a one book deal, two book, three book, or four book deal?
Finally, S stands for sales. Write 1 book, 2,000, 100,000, NYT bestseller.
Good. Now give yourself ten seconds to draw tallies. Don’t pay attention to how many you are drawing. Ok….GO. Count them up.
Next step: Take your number, start with the first imprint and start counting down the columns and then over to the next row. Each time you start at the top of the row. When you count do your number, cross off what you landed on. For instance, if you land on “good deal,” you cross that out. Then, you begin counting again starting with “significant deal.” Once you’ve crossed out everything but one from a column, you circle the remaining entity.
By the end you’ll have crossed out everything but one selection from each column. That is your publishing career. It’s science.
Let me know what your future reveals!
Status: I’mma wet my pants. The Office and Twilight in one night. What did I do to deserve it??? I DID go to the library today. (Never fear, I bought books earlier! But, a girls gotta eat.) I selected Mr. Norell and Jonathan Strange as a book on tape to listen to on my way back home for Thanksgiving. Very excited! Been meaning to read this one forever. Nate and I also go Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis to read together. And he chose Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely to read on his plane ride to NYC tomorrow. I’ve been begging him to read this one forever. And can I just tell you how excited I am for her graphic novel coming out from Bowen Press (slash Tokyopop I believe)!???
T minus 26 hours til I see Twilight the movie!!!
Yes, Nate and I have been holding a countdown. We can’t help it. We are very excited. Don’t hate.
No, I must admit that I have high hopes this movie. But it could go one of two ways: Harry Potter or Eragon.
Personally, I find the Harry Potter movies fantastic–and that’s coming from a HUGE fan of the books.
The Eragon movie—umm, not so much.
I truly felt that the problem with the Eragon movie was that they rushed production in order to ride the relatively rapid wave popularity for the first book and to increase sales of the 2nd two books.
So the question is: has Twilight been so ingrained in the minds of the fanbase and the minds of Americans so as to produce a movie that reflects what the fans want?
I actually think so.
I think that there will be some departures from the book, but, from what I’ve seen, they actually might be fore the better. (More action, etc.)
I want baaaadly for this movie to do well enough for them to produce the next three! That’s huge for me.
Ok, other random thoughts:
Bella. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the choice of Kristen Stewart as Twilight’s heroine. I don’t want to give away too much about the later books for those who haven’t read them, but I do think they chose her because she has a wide range of looks. And let’s face it, Bella isn’t supposed to be traditionally really pretty. She’s also supposed to be a tomboy. I’m going to give her a fair shot.
Robert Pattinson. Ummm, can we say Cedric Diggory? But why is he so weird in real life?
What about the choice for Alice? I’ve heard people bothered by her, but I can’t say I really mind. At least not looks-wise.
Tickets? Did y’all have a hard time buying them? I bought mine a couple days ago and almost everywhere was sold out. Craziness!
Alright, tell me what you think. Are you excited? Or couldn’t care less? I’ll bee seing it at 11:40 tomorrow tonight and will report back!!
Status: Buckling down doing law school work right now. Will be doing that for about a month, but luckily I got a ton done over the past few months, so I have plenty of spits in the fire! Come winter break I’ll be hard at work again developing some other ideas I have percolating. Meanwhile, the blog will be in full swing and I’ll be waiting on news the next couple weeks.
So this has been a super fun week in publishing. No denying that. Posts from Nathan Bransford and Moonrat, while informative, have left me wanting to tear my hair out a bit. Their silver lining? Publishing isn’t going to wither away completely. Great. Their advice? Buy new books.
Sure, you might feel that, as an individual, you don’t have much to offer. To which my response is not “See a therapist” but “Buy a book!”
I promise you can skip the chinese takeout this weekend and go out and purchase one book. Because as much fun as nibbling at your nailbeds whilst mulling over the future of your publishing career might be, proactivity is almost always more satisfying. (I’m very grassrootsy today)
Give book stores your vote of confidence today (or any time in the next two weeks). Go buy a book and slow down returns to the publisher.
First, click the poll and tell me how many books you plan to buy. Second, feel free to add the poll above to your blog and to ask people to buy books. If you have a book out that you’d wouldn’t mind people checking out provide a link to amazon in the comments section. If you have decided to ask others to buy books, link to your blog in the comments section.
I will add any links I get to my sidebar.
Today, I bought the first House of Night book, Marked, for a friend, and Nate bought Chosen, the third book in the series for himself.
Get out there and buy those books!
Hey! Just wanted to share a link to an awesome interview with Chuck Adams, editor of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants (in addition to a whole heap of other great books). He lists my agent, Daniel Lazar, as one of two “go-to” agents.
Mr. Adams says, “There are two agents in particular, right now, who I send people to when I’m asked for help in finding an agent. I think of them first and I go to them first: Doug Stewart at Sterling Lord and Daniel Lazar at Writers House…I’ve bought a couple of things from Daniel, who has consistently amazed me with the stuff he sends. It’s off the wall sometimes, but I just love it. “
Go Dan!
I’ve linked to the page on which Dan is mentioned, but you can skip back to the beginning via the page select buttons on the bottom. Continue reading here.
And thanks to Poets & Writers for putting out the interview.
I had a young person leave a question in the comments section on my post about the House of Night series. I think it’s a great one to consider for young readers forming opinions about how and what to read. But I also think it’s a great question for authors of young adult fiction to keep in mind.
Nicole said:
“Although Twilight is my fav book of all times!!! I’m getting sick of obsessing over it… but im not ready to give up my love for vampires so I think im going to read this series [House of Night]. I have a question though does the book talk alot about gods and godesses and make fun of other religions (when I say other i mostly mean Christanity)? Because im a strong Christian and I don’t want to be reading a book that makes fun of my beliefs…”
Nicole, that’s a great question. As a strong Christian myself, I can see where someone might feel that House of Night makes fun of religion. However, I believe what PC and Kristin Cast are looking down on is intolerance. As Christians, we know that it’s wrong to judge others or to think ourselves holier or better than the people around us. We know that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and that to cast someone out and deem them evil would be hypocritcal to our faith. And yet, it’s undeniable that people in all different religions have at times misconstrued their faith in order to assert power over another group of people.
Also, remember that this is fiction. And in The House of Night world, a mysterious vampire goddess truly does exist. Now, do we know that to be false in our world? Yes. But when we dive into a novel, we suspend our disbelief.
Since, another goddess who, in fact, is good exists in House of Night, it is wrong in the book, for another sect of people to satanize the vampires’ goddess.
So while the group that is satirized in the series is Christian, it is their intolerance, not their belief system that is “made fun of.”
It’s great that you are protective of your beliefs. I think we all are and developing the skill of being a critical reader, I think, will take you a long way. When you read a book, fiction or non, it’s always valuable to think: What is the exact message the author is trying to send? Do I agree or disagree?
I think you’re trying to do just that.
(**The House of Night series is written by P.C. and Kristin Cast and includes the books Marked, Betrayed, Chosen, and the newly released, Untamed.**)
Status: Gluing my butt to chair in hopes of writing lots starting…now!
Hook ‘em Horns!!
Just wanted to share some news that Saundra Mitchell–who just happens to be the supercool debutante author for next Monday–sent me about a week ago.
This should perk up anyone’s ears who was disappointed by the demise of Minx. And while it doesn’t solve the manga v. American style comics conundrum, it’s certainly still a positive step.
Anyway, down to business:
Cartoon Network and Del Ray will be partnering to launch their new Manga Publishing Partnership! In December, we’ll see the debut of Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins. So get excited for that. I know I’ll be checking it out. The books in this series will be aimed at boys ages 6-11 and is adapted from the animated show.
I actually haven’t been that aware of the popularity of manga with boys, but I’m glad to hear it.
A lot of people wonder what mainstream publishers put out graphic novels. Well, the easy answer is–a lot, but I wanted to give a quick (but not comprehensive) rundown of a few that I know and love. If you have any to add, let me know.
Aaaaand…for your edification I’ll add a few books I think you (yeah, I mean you) should check out:
Scholastic Graphix (Bone)
Random House Pantheon (Persepolis)
Simon Pulse (100 Girls)
Hyperion (W.I.T.C.H)
Del Ray (soon to be publishing the first Outlander book in graphic novel form!)
Simon & Schuster Atheneum (To Dance)
Puffin Graphics (Dracula)
HarperCollins (Coraline)
Alright. So y’all get to reading those and I’ll get back to writing SCOUT.
K, Break.
Status: Well, I’ve become a chunker. No, I’m not tipping the scales at four hundo or anything, I’ve just realized that I am much more productive when I write big hunks of the script and then link together. Fine, it’s not a recent discovery. I’ve known for awhile, but have always felt guilty about it. I mean, there is something incredibly satisfying about going in order and saying I am on page #337. But too bad. Because I am doing so much better writing then linking. Right now, my script looks a little bit like separate sausages, but pretty soon I’m going to link them together, so that it will look like intestines instead. Just in time for Halloween.
YA and MG authors debuting in 2014
Not so daily, but definitely Dahlia.
official author website of aspiring YA novelist Amanda Smith
"The act of putting pen to paper . . . helps us regain our equilibrium." - Norbet Platt
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Young Adult Fiction Book Reviews, Audiobook Reviews, and Movie Reviews
