Scout, Glee, and Agent Happiness

I got a nice treat after my final today.  Agent Dan emailed around midnight his time (seriously, when does this man sleep?) to tell me that he was watching Glee and was reminded of Scout because Kurt, one of the Glee characters, was fighting with his dad on the show thus reminding him of Scout fighting with her dad all the time. So, he figured he’d email to say “hello.”

Too funny.

He admitted that this connection made little sense but I still liked it! Plus, he wanted to check to see how my revisions were going, to which I had to hang my head in shame.

Actually, it was a really nice chance to email him back and tell him what’s up. I got to tell him how law school tried to take me down this semester and that I really wanted to make sure I was putting the best product possible out there. I told him I was really loving the project and the characters and couldn’t wait to share the book with him again! He’s been really understanding about my schedule.

He was nice enough to write back another speedy response about how he wasn’t rushing and that he just wanted to say hi and tell me about the Glee thing.

This is yet another reminder of why I’m so thankful for my agent-author relationship. His continued, no-pressure support has been truly “just the ticket” for me. I was really motivated by his enthusiasm for my writing and for Scout’s story when I met him in New York this January. I know there are a lot of people that don’t get quite the right fit with their agents the first time around, so I feel extra lucky to have an agent that always responds within 24 hours despite the fact that I’m by no means a big name client. He’s professional and to the point, but also funny and personable.

Like I said, this is my first agent and there is absolutely no sure-fire way to tell how working with an agent will be until you actually work with that agent. But, I do attribute a good portion of my good luck to the fact that I really listened to the advice of those more experienced. I followed it to the letter. I treated it as a business decision. I got other people’s input and tried to erase any preconceived notions I may have had.

So obviously this post didn’t end up where I thought it was going, but my brain is a little fried from the 500+ hearsay hypotheticals I did pre-Evidence exam, so cut me some slack. I think we can all agree the clear take away from these ramblings is this: My agent is awesome. Glee is good. Apparently Scout could be in that show. The end.

My Life, Updated

Here’s what I’m working on right now:

Priority #1: Rewriting SCOUT so I can send to my agent. Hopefully asap.

Priority #2: Working on an audition for a new Working Partners series. Due April 6th.

Priority #3: Setting up an awesome group blog with a few super special writing friends. Seriously, it has a cool new spin. The other participants are sparkly and wonderful. Launch this in 1-2 weeks I’d guess.

Priority #4: Writing a pitch for the popular site The Frisky. Due whenever, but will probably get that sent out tomorrow.

Priority #1,000,000: Playing around with an idea I want to write very badly and which is currently serving as SCOUT motivation.

Priorities with no particular ranking: blogging, correspondence, checking in on friends’ blogs, seminar paper, law school outlining, homework….oh yeah, and spring break fun!!

Courtesy of http://www.inkygirl.com

I Like Even Numbers Better

So I’m officially 24 now. Good riddance to my previous prime number status. But, 24…man…24. I signed with my agent when I was 22!! Yikes! And I had/have aspirations to have a book deal by 25. I guess I better get moving, yes? All this leads me to believe that this must be the year. I mean, I always like to get in under the wire. So, why would I have thought it’d be any different in this context, right? Like how I turned this into a positive? I thought so.

So, while most people do this around New Years I’m going to do it as I move into my personal “next year.” Here’s what I want to accomplish this year:

Things I can control:

-Finish revisions and go back out on submission with SCOUT

-Complete another manuscript, probably my new YA contemporary urged by my lovely law school friends Emily and Kelley

-Apply for more work-for-hire positions

-continue to research other avenues for writing work

-Read at least 50 YA books

-be more intentional with my time, be a better balancer

-update the blog regularly

-Write every single day, no matter how few words

-Try different techniques (outlining v. not, different methods of revising)

Things I can’t control:

-Sell a book (or two)

-have an article published

-attract more readers

So, I’ll keep you updated about how many of these I accomplish. I think it’s very important to differentiate between those things which I can control and those which I can’t. This was a strange past year for me so I’m really looking forward to a brand new lease. Next post I’ll be talking about how I’m working to accomplish one of the tasks on my list!

And for your viewing pleasure, some pics from my b-day!

Five Things on a Friday

Thing the first.  I ordered Heist Society by Ally Carter last night. I think the cover is adorable and I love the the Gallagher Girls series, so sold! Do y’all not agree that Ally writes the cutest books ever? Cammie’s voice in Gallagher Girls is very teen without being overwrought or vapid. She writes so well, but every word sounds authentic. Love!

Thing the second. One of my best friends, Emily, just got a new puppy. And guess what she named him? Scout!!! My sweet friends have been so supportive of my writing and it was really cute when she told me what she was naming her new pup. Of course, she liked the name, too, but we’ll pretend it was completely out of love for MY Scout. So, here is a picture of Scout the puppy. (P.S. My Scout would probably roll over in her literary grave at having a d-o-g named after her, but that’s alright!)

Thing the third. Tonight my parents are coming down to celebrate my Golden Birthday!! What is a Golden Birthday you might ask? It means I’m turning 24 on the 24th. For those of you who don’t remember from last year, birthdays in my family are national holidays beginning with a present for the parents on the start of my birthday month, then a countdown at the beginning of the birthday week. It’s all very exciting. So my parents, because it’s my golden, are taking my friends to the Stephen F. Austin hotel for dinner and drinks and then the “kids” (sans parents) are going out on the town. My friends have some festivities planned next week. I believe we’ll be hitting up Midnight Rodeo, aka the happiest place on earth. So, this year for my birthday, I’ve asked for a book deal. Hopefully NYC will get the memo that anniversary of my birth is kiiiiiiiind of a big deal and oblige. Yes?

Thing the fourth. Recently I’ve been working on becoming a better blog commenter. I read a lot of blogs, but am not so good at leaving the comments, which is okay I guess, but I know how much I love comments and that leads me to believe other people enjoy comments as well. So, yes, I’ve been commenting up a storm recently. Well, maybe not a storm, but certainly a flurry. It’s my goal to comment on about 5 blogs a day. I got this advice from Shelli’s blog, Market My Words. I think she actually suggested 10, but baby steps, people, baby steps. Consequently, though, I’ve f0und a bunch of cool new blogs to read like Elana Johnson’s and Cynthia Hand’s.

Thing the fifth. I’ve been tweaking the blog a bit when I have time. I have a new picture up. You can ooo and awww over it if you want (just kidding). You can now subscribe to the blog via email if you’d like and I’ve provided RSS feeds for some of my favorite blogs on the side bar. WordPress is still a bit fussy about what widgets you’re allowed to add, but I hear there is a new follower widget akin to google’s so I’m going to work on that. If anyone knows how to get 2 columns, one on each side, that would probably make me a bit happier.

Fenceposts for Your First Person Narrative

This week I’m going to be talking about writing in first person. I know that I struggled with the idea of writing in first person. I don’t find it the most natural mode of storytelling and always feel a bit of “Why is the character telling me this?” 

But, I’d say the vast majority of YA novels are written in first person and I’ve come to love it. First person adds voice and sympathy for the protagonist. There is no closer narrative form than that of first person. So embrace. I did.

The first work I switched over to first person landed me an agent. Of course, that’s not to say that everyone should write in first person. I love Melissa Marr’s works, written in alternating 3rd limited POV. 

Rather this series of posts is meant to help those interested in a foray into first person. And please, feel free to leave your tips and comments below. Thanks!

 

So today I’m talking about fashioning fenceposts. *So much alliteration, I can hardly handle it!* Anyway, fenceposts are something I use before I start writing. If you want to outline before this point that is more than fine. But, fenceposts are there to help you find your voice. 

I think I can explain this best through illustration. 

From I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have To Kill You by Ally Carter, narrated by Cammie:

“We waited two weeks. TWO WEEKS! Do you know how long that is in fifteen-year-old-girl time? A lot. A LOT, a lot. I was really starting to empathize with all htose women who talk about biological clocks.”

“Okay, so I didn’t know the Jacksons, much less how Granny way feeling, but Gradma Morgan had taught me that Chinese Water Torture is nothing compared to a grandmother who really wants to know something.”

 

From The Forest of Hands and Teeth (because it’s fresh in my mind) by Carrie Ryan, narrated by Mary:

“But there are times when I stand at the edge of the Forest of Hands and Teeth and look out at the wilderness that stretches on forever and wonder what it would be like if it were all water.”

“Inside it feels as though the stone walls drain the heat of the day and the hairs on my arms stand on end.”

 

Or from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling [Not in 1st person, but definitely a fencepost for Hermione's voice]:

“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have.”

 

Ok, so of course, I don’t know what these authors did or how they started or anything like that. But what I do, prior to beginning, is talk in my characters voice. I get out a notebook and just think of random things that my narrating character would say. These become my posts. 

Naturally, the focus is not so much on what the character says, but how the character says it. 

I started with an opening line: “If the gnashing teeth ten feet behind didn’t kill me, my dad would. But that was a problem for Future Scout.” 

That was fencepost #1. 

One of my other earlier fenceposts was: “The fact that my eyes hadn’t burned crop circles in place of his nostrils felt like a small miracle. Of course God would be on his side.”

We’ll call that fencepost #2. 

 

After the creation of several more fenceposts, I’m left with a bunch of supporting structures jutting out vertically. That’s good. I’ve got them written down in no particular order, but I’m going to work with them. Because to build the actual fence, I need to constantly link back to the posts. 

Voice is about consistency. The character has to own the voice you give him or her. So these fenceposts you create are there to refer and link back to. Each sentence you write in first person has to be close enough to attach to one of the vertical posts. 

That’s the real danger with first person, I think. You want to go into some beautiful description about what the passage of time feels like, but Cammie Morgan is just going to say that it is A LOT of time in fifteen-year-old-girl time. Yanno?

Or you might want to describe the setting really eloquently. If you are writing from Mary’s perspective, you can get away with the pensive, lovely description. If you are Cammie Morgan, you can’t. Not ever ever. Never. Seriously.

So, start out by writing your fenceposts and in every sentence ask, Is that too far away from one of my fenceposts to link back to?

Sent

 

It feels so good to see the words “Sent” flash across my screen. I just “sent” an email to my agent, Dan, with the revisions he asked for *yay!* AND and an additional three chapters that I’m really pleased with–at least until I’m not anymore. Post-completion glow possibly. It’s always nice to get something off your plate, to cross it off your list. Especially knowing you did your best. At this point it’s out of my hands. I’m sure it will be back in my hands when Dan has revision notes for the next three chapters. But! Focus on the positive: That’s the first 50 pages written, beta-ed, and edited.

We’re shooting for between 50 and 75 pages to send out as a proposal, so I’m getting there. 7,500 pages left to get to 75 pages. Not too bad at all.

And guess what else? I’m actually ahead on my law school work. *gasp* I know, right? Ok, fine. My contracts class was cancelled today so that helped, but still. I could have slacked off and I didn’t!

 

Status: Reading devotion. Going to bed.

Five Things

 

Thing the first. I wrote ten pages this weekend. I feel pretty good about that. I *might* write one page today, but I’ve pretty much reserved the whole day for law school stuff and The Office.

Thing the second. The Office is an hour long tonight! I have consistently lamented the fact that The Office is only a half hour show. It’s just NOT ENOUGH!!! The legal writing and research memo my professor assigned is about Jim Halpert suing Ryan Howard for defamation. So, I guess maybe that will more than make up for all The Office I can handle.

Thing the third. Why is everyone on LiveJournal except me? I’ve been thinking about this and, I won’t lie to you, it makes me a little sad. I tried to use LiveJournal once, but it confused me a lot. What do you do with your list of friends over there? I don’t get it.

Thing the fourth. I do not appreciate everyone writing posts about The Hunger Games. Ok, people? Now, I really really really want to read it. Ok, that and The Graveyard Book. But I one hundred percent do not have the time right now. Plus, I’m currently writing a book and I don’t like to read books and write them at the same time because I’m like a parrot. The voice in the book I’m writing will automatically start to sound like the voice in the book I’m reading. Generally, that’s not a good thing. Anyone else refuse to read while they write?

Thing the fifth. Nate’s apartment is puppysitting this weekend and guess what the puppy’s name is? Scout!!! Ok, yes my Scout actually is a feline shapeshifter. But minor detail. Anyway, I had to take pics of course. (Sorry, they’re a little blurry. I took them on my phone.)

 

                                                                                               scout1  

 

scout2

 

scout3

2008 Wrap Up

I was checkin’ out Shelli’s blog the other day and really liked her review of her life in 2008. Since so much has happened in my writing (and personal) life this year, I thought it’d be nice to look back.

So here we go…

-Graduated a semester early to focus on writing

-Researched industry, tried to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do

-Found Absolute Write Water Cooler

-Finished book #1, a YA mystery titled WEIRD TATTOOS AND LOW IQS

-Queried WEIRD TATTOOS, racked up rejections

-Wrote the proposal for SCOUT, a YA graphic novel

-Started Fumbling with Fiction!

-Began receiving review copies of fabulous books like The Gargoyle, The Map Thief, Land of Invisible Women and many more–an unexpected perk

-Joined the Verla Kay Blueboards

-Discovered some of my all-time favorite YA books: The Boyfriend List, Wicked Lovely, Twilight, I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You, Thirteen Reasons Why…

-Found artists for SCOUT

-Queried SCOUT

-Moved from Philadelphia, PA to Austin, TX to start law school at the University of Texas

-Found Purgatory and the fabulous Purgatorians

-3 offers of representation for SCOUT, plus 1 offer of represenation for WEIRD TATTOOS

-Signed with Super Agent Dan Lazar of Writers House!

-Nate (boyfriend) moved from Washington, D.C. to Austin

-Finished SCOUT script, lengthened synopsis, completed proposal, signed contracts with artists

-Wrote an article for SCBWI’s January issue of Sprouts

-Agent began subbing SCOUT

-Went in a hole to study so that I would not fail out of my first semester of law school

-Met some great writing friends through Purgatory whom I am so thankful for because I know that I would not know half of what I know now without them

-Began work on next 2 proposals/projects

…And here we are. That’s a pretty successful year if I do say so myself. It will be interesting this time next year to check back and see how much has changed and how much as stayed the same. I certainly hope to have taken the next (or next several) step(s) in my writing career. And you can bet that I’ll be spending another year working my tail end off to make sure that happens.

Muses Do the Darndest Things

Of course, the second I sit down to start studying for the night, the muse strikes. She’s been in hiding or playing hard to get or something. But that was fine because I wasn’t interested anyway. At least not ’til next week.

I guess that made Miss Muse mad because she decided to make herself known tonight in a big way.

So what’s a girl to do? I can’t exactly just let it pass because as soon as the words are gone–they’re gone for good. Unless, that is, I somehow managed to write them down before.

So I opened up a word document and tapped away. Typed about 500 words then briefly outlined a bit more about the characters etc. I think that’s all the work I can justify doing on it tonight. This is not the Scout-character book that I talked about before, but I will probably work on these two projects sort of simultaneously. Whenever I get stuck, hop to the next, etc.

See, I’m not the type of girl that cares much for muses. Or at least I didn’t. Look at my writing quote on my About page. I like to feel firmly in control of the process. I like to think that “inspiration” constitutes a miniscule part of the actual writing of a book. I hate to feel dependent on waiting for a spark. Because if I do that, then who is to say another idea will just pop into my head? No, I’ve typically been a very methodical writer. Still am.

But, when I wrote SCOUT, unlike in my other writings, I relaxed my death grip on total control of the process. I allowed myself to admit that my ideas were better when I stepped away from the keyboard and waited for inspiration to strike.

Luckily, I’ve come up with a compromise in the way I think of Miss Muse. I lay the groundwork then let the subconscious provide the extra somethin’-somethin’. Unfortunately, when I plotted meticulously, thought about the “correct” way to do things, and consulted theory in order to hammer out a book, the book I came out with felt, well, uninspired.

SCOUT changed that. I wrote down what I could think of, allowed that to marinate, and then I’d be lying in bed, and Poof! a plot twist.

So, yeah, apparently the subconscious had been churning away and decided to spit out the product today. I’m sure that many more similar incidents will be required for this idea to form itself into a book. But for the time being, I’m pretty darn happy with this new project. For the time being at least, I’m calling it SECRETS OF A SUPERNATURAL SLUT. It’s YA urban fantasy and would fit nicely next to SCOUT.

 

So yay!

 

 

Status: Watching Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe–can I please be C.S. Lewis?? And now, more studying!

Whipped Into Shape

I’m feeling a bit out of shape.

Each word plops onto the page only after much huffing and puffing.

And I’d be lying if I told you my paragraphs weren’t a bit flabby.

And the adverbs? I need to shed those fast!

Yep, it’s sad, but true. I’ve fallen out of writing shape and I’m embarrassed.

In mid-November I wrapped up my writing projects and decided I would devote myself to school entirely. Well, my last final is on Tuesday and I can already just imagine how painful it’s going to be to get those creative muscles back in working order. When you get into the groove of writing every day you can feel yourself getting better and better. But getting started and getting in that groove…well that’s tough.

I watched Jay Leno last night and Michael Phelps was a guest star. He said that for every day you took off swimming you lost two days of training. Well, I hope its not that steep a loss with writing, but I’m not sure I’d equate knowing how to write with riding a bike or anything.

Luckily, even though gluing my butt to the chair and making myself eek out words the first few days might be painful, I am so looking forward to it! I’ve missed writing and I can’t wait to get back into it. I’ll also be back to doing prose. I’m doing a couple chapters as per the request of my agent with the characters of SCOUT. I can’t wait until Tuesday–ok, well I might not be writing Tuesday riiiiight after the exam, but Wednesday for sure!

Despite the fact that I’m a bit rusty, I have written much more intensively since my first novel (not SCOUT). I’ve landed a great agent. Lots has happened. I do feel like I’ve grown as a writer. I think that’s going to make things much more difficult because I’ll expect more from myself, but I’m also thrilled to be flexing my new writing muscles a bit in another full-length project. I’m pumped to see what I can do, but I’ve also gotten to know a bunch of great writers in the recent months and am hoping to use some of their input to bring my work to the next level. (That is, if they love me that much when I ask ‘em!)

 

Anyway, to start slowly getting my behind in gear, I was wondering if y’all knew of any good websites with daily writing prompts or character exercises or maybe you just have some that you enjoy doing before really digging into a project. Let me know!

 

Upcoming Topics:

Falling Back in Love: I’m so NOT over you…

Starting with a sense of Direction

What’s OK in YA?

The Left-Brained Artist

Playing off the Pressure

 

 

Status: And…Back to studying.