Invincible Summer Illustrated (and three other things)

So right now I'm on vacation at my beach house, where Invincible Summer is set. In my head, same beach, same house. So I thought I'd do an illustrated version of the first chapter, with pictures of the places I mean.

I'm no photographer, and you'll have to imagine these places not so empty, but...I hope you like it.

On an unrelated note, I've decided that, in the tradition of many great bloggers before me, I'm going to have to disable anonymous comments. I'm sorry to do this. I really do want to respect your privacy. But I need you all to respect each other and to respect this space, and if I have to insist that everyone has names and accountability in order to make sure everyone treats each other kindly, that's what I'm going to do. Disagreeing is fine. Disrespecting is not.

Without further ado:

--


Gideon keeps falling down.




He and Claudia slipped outside to the beach and were out there for at least ten minutes before my parents or Noah or I noticed they were gone. They’re greasy and gritty now with sand and sea water, so there’s no point in dragging them back inside and getting everything dirty our first night here. Plus none of us feels like putting in the effort to chase them. My mother, who’s a little too old and way too pregnant to run around outside and parent them hands-on like she used to, drifts to the porch off the first floor to watch them and make sure they don‘t kill themselves, one hand on her stomach, one on the railing.




Noah and I linger by the windows on the other side of the family room, our foreheads pressed against the glass.



We’re moaning every time we see a particularly good wave roll by and looking at each other—maybe we should go out? Maybe we can? No.

Outside, Claudia is laughing loudly enough for us to hear. She always says she’s way too old to play with Gideon, and she’s not going to, no way, and if we want a babysitter, we can pay her. But she always ends up playing with him anyway, at least when we’re here. Here no one is too old. Except Mom and Dad. And Claudia and Gideon are the two youngest, so they get shoved together and there is no way to avoid it, even though Claudia’s eleven and Gideon’s barely six.

Dad says, “Aren’t you two going out?”

We can’t. Even though there’s sand stuck to our feet from the walk from the car, up the stairs, inside, and back, and back, and back, while we hauled in suitcases. Even though the carpet smells like old sunscreen. Noah and I know that it isn’t quite summer. Not yet. Summer can’t start at night, first of all, and it definitely can’t start before we see the SUV roll up outside the Hathaways' beach house. And until it comes, we’ll wait here. That’s tradition, and Noah and I do not kill tradition. If we get here before the Hathaways, we wait.

Dad says, “You boys are sticks in the mud.”

“Heathen,” Noah mutters.

Dad’s not pregnant, but he acts like he is, complaining that he’s so tired from the drive, that he needs to put his feet up. He sits on the scratchy couch—the one with years of our sand embedded between the cushions—and complains, like every year, that the renters have moved the furniture.



We’re totally not listening.

“Boys,” he says. “They’re probably not coming until tomorrow.”

“They always come the same day we do,” I say.

Dad says, “You’d be able to hear the car from the beach. Go outside and make sure Gideon doesn’t get dizzy.”

Making sure Gideon doesn’t get dizzy is one of our family duties, along with getting Mom’s slippers, thinking of a name for Chase’s song, washing the makeup off your sister’s face are you kidding me she is not leaving the house like that, and finding out where the hell Noah is.

Mom laughs from the balcony and reports, “He’s tipping over every which way.”

"Claudia will catch him,” Noah mumbles.

"Claudia’s catching him,” Mom calls in.

I can just barely see Claudia and Gideon if I crane my neck and press my cheek around the window. Noah laughs because I look silly with my face all squished , but I like seeing my little siblings, pushing each other over, spinning in circles, always getting up. I can see Claudia’s hands moving, but she’s too far away for me to know what she’s signing.

God, I can taste the ocean. I’m weak. “Let’s go out, Noah.”

He shakes his head and says, “We’ve got to wait for Melinda and the twins.” This is so weird, because usually it’s Noah trying to go somewhere—the movies, out for a run, college—and me begging him to stay, to wait, though I never have a specific thing for him to wait for.

Noah, Chase, come sit with me,” my father says. “You’ll be able to see the headlights, still, I promise.”

This is enough of an excuse for me to abandon our stakeout. I give Noah a little headjerk, but he frowns and, instead of staying where he is, shows how disappointing he is by heavyfooting into the kitchen to put away groceries. He could not act more put-upon if it were his job.



Whatever. I join my father on the couch and tuck under his arm while he strokes my hair.

I’ve just barely closed my eyes—the grain of the couch against my cheek, Noah’s malcontented grumblings in my ear—when I see the headlight glare through the windows and through my eyelids.

“Noah, they’re here!”

We run barefoot across the street to the Hathaways' and maul Melinda, Bella, and Shannon as soon as they step out of the SUV.




Their parents laugh, pushing back their sweaty bangs, hauling duffel bags out of the car. Shannon pulls out of my hug and taps his fist against mine, sticks his hand in my hair. “Welcome back, soldier,” he says.

“Welcome home, Shannon.”

“Can we make s’mores, Mom?” Bella asks. She’s clinging to one of Noah’s arms, which is kind of weird. I wrap the hem of Noah’s shirt around my finger until I have a good enough hold on him to tug him away from her.

He’s not even paying attention, because Melinda is milling by the other arm. She’s nineteen, older than Noah, and so thin that she always looks like a part of her is missing and the rest of her might be about to go find it. Her long fingernails close he gap between her hand and Noah’s wrist. I’ve seen Claudia do the same grip, when she wants Noah to do something.

Melinda is his sister in a different way.

“Of course we can,” Mrs. Hathaway says, with a laugh like a string instrument. “You boys want to get your family here?”

Noah says, “Chase, run and get everybody.”

I sprint across the street and straight onto the beach. I’m in the sand for the first time this summer. I always forget how cold it feels on your feet.



“Claude!”

Claudia’s wearing her first two piece bathing suit. She bought it around February, when they put the first bathing suits on the racks, and she’s been clamoring to wear it ever since. I pretty much hate that some company thinks her preteen body is capable of being sexualized, and that this—this night, this beach—is the time and place to do it. She screams, “Chase!” and tackles me into the sand, and she’s a child no matter what she’s wearing.

“Melinda and the twins are here,” I say. “Get dressed and we’ll make s’mores.”

But Claudia’s already running across the street. “Gimme a shirt, Mom!” she yells, and Mom tosses down some old t-shirt of mine. Claudia doesn’t stop running as she catches it and pulls it over her sweaty hair.

“Gid!” I yell. He’s deaf as a board, but he’s still spent all six years of his life getting yelled at. He’s watching me, asking me with his eyes and his hands where Claudia went.

Across street I sign to him. Come here. Don’t fall down. My ASL sucks, but the light’s so bad right now it doesn’t matter. Gideon runs over to me and I sign hold my hand before we start across the street. Either he sees this or just holds out of habit.



At the Hathaways', we make s’mores on the grill, pushing down on them with the spatula until they hiss. I sit with Shannon at the Hathaways' picnic table and we try to fill each other in on our lives since last August. During the year, I always feel like there are a million things I need to remember to tell him, and now nothing seems important but our siblings and our summer and the smoke from the grill.

Shannon keeps asking about my family—mostly Claudia and the baby yet to come—and I'm trying to pay attention, but my eyes keep going back to Bella. Was she this tall last summer? Maybe that’s why she was hanging off of Noah. I’m still waiting to hit my growth spurt. But I’m the one who’s her age. I hope she keeps that in mind.

I respond to one of Shannon's questions about Claudia with a quick, “I always forget how old she is,” and then clear my throat. “So what's Bella been up to?”

Shannon looks over at his twin. She dances in circles in the spots of moonlight that break through the Hathaways' awning. Her bare feet glitter. They're white and pointed, like something off a fairy.

He smiles. “She got the lead in the Nutcracker this year.” It’s his turn to ask about someone. “So how’s Gideon?”

Gideon’s hugging on to Mom’s leg, watching Claudia, probably wishing she were talking to him because she’s the only of us who signs well. The rest of us really only pretend we can, but, then again, so does Gideon.

“Deaf,” I say. “Melinda?”

“Grumpy. And she dyes her hair a lot. She's always sighing and mumbling about the universe.”

But right now Melinda’s at the corner of the balcony, talking to the dogs. “Mom?” she says. “I'm taking the dogs out for a run.”

Her mother is by the grill with my parents, where they’re laughing over a few beers, throwing coals down to the sand, touching Mom’s huge stomach.

Shannon says. “Chase? How’s Noah?”

“I’ll come with you,” Noah says, with a glance Melinda’s way, and he has the dogs unclipped from their leashes and free in no time, and he’s gone, chasing them across the street and onto the beach. I listen for the sound of them splashing in the water, but they're too far away. I am getting a headache, listening this hard.

I try to think about Bella again, and I don’t answer Shannon, but his father asks me the same question when I go over to the grill to collect my s’more. He claps me on the shoulder and says, “Noah excited for college?”

I want to tell him Noah doesn’t really get excited, but I don’t know how to describe my brother to someone who’s known him just as long as I have but doesn’t understand him any better. So I smile. It’s so dark, now, but the coals and the stars illuminate my siblings and Shannon’s siblings and our parents and make us all look permanent and important.



I say, “He’s kind of quiet about how he feels.”

“Yeah. Did he run off with Melinda?”

“I guess so.”

My parents exchange looks, like they were expecting Noah and Melinda’s flighty romance to take a hiatus this year, or something.

Noah does not ruin tradition. I could have told them that. And Melinda is his summer. More and more every single year.

So I just say, “He runs off a lot.”

Mr. Hathaway laughs and says, “Man, your brother’s a flight risk, isn’t he?” He serves me a s’more and says, “Still playing guitar, Chase?”

I grin and look down.

They drag their old guitar out so I don’t have to run home, and I make up chord progressions while Bella sings along in this ghost voice that makes me hyper-aware, like my whole body is made of fingertips. They smile at me in that way adults do when they’re drunk that makes you feel not so much younger.

We carry the plates into the kitchen, where the lights dazzle us into submission until someone has the sense to dim them. Once all the dishes are cleaned and stacked, the adults convince us to run down to the beach and try to find Noah.

He’s up to his waist in the ocean, the Hathaways' two dogs swirling around him like they’re trying to create a whirlpool. My brother is the eye of his manufactured hurricane.



“Get in!” he yells, and none of us need to be told twice.

The six of us splash in after him, screaming at the cold water, screaming at each other, screaming at every single foot of empty where the sky is and we aren’t. Bella’s on my shoulders and I’m twirling her around, Melinda’s holding her breath for as long as she can, everyone’s always yelling, “Where’s Gideon?” and pulling him out from underneath a breaking wave, yelling, “Where’s Noah?” and realizing he’s swum halfway out to sea.

Whenever there’s a split second of silence, we can hear our parents across the street, strumming the old guitar, laughing, clinking their beer bottles together.

Eventually my brother the flight risk comes and holds my head underwater until everything swirls, and, when I come up and sputter and blink, everyone’s skin is shiny and spotted from the stars. Bella and Claudia are running around on the sand, throwing handfuls at each other, shrieking, and Melinda’s squeezing the ocean out of her over processed, somehow colorless hair, her legs absolutely sparkling.

I want to be exactly this old forever.

“Y’all right, soldier?” Shannon asks me, his voice raspy from the salt.

I nod and count heads. There’s Claudia, Gideon, Melinda, Bella, Shannon. . . there’s everyone but Noah, who somehow managed to disappear in that split second I wasn't watching him.

So I look at Shannon and smile, and I try not to care, I try not to worry that my brother will leave me for good, because nothing is as permanent or important as the first summer night. Bella’s voice puts mine to shame, but I sing anyway, until Shannon dunks me underwater. When I come up, I hear everyone’s laugh—Shannon and Bella’s, as identical as they aren’t, Claudia’s, trying to be a woman, Gideon—that haunted sound that he doesn’t know he’s making—and Melinda’s. Twinkling into Noah's ear as he swims back, back to her and not to me.



--

NOW. Two other things. Both visual. Both very important.



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND

Questions?

My ARC contest is open until midnight, July 17th. Please enter here.

In the tradition of the great Nathan Bransford, I'm having an open thread today. Ask me anything you like and I'll answer in the comments. Or ask each other things. Or tell me something you want me to know. Or or or whatever. And go.

Tail End of Tuesday

I have a real post coming at you tomorrow, but today is Tuesday, so have a teaser and a video. This video won't make much sense to you unless you saw Monday's (which is right here!) but you might enjoy it anyway. If you're into that.

From FISHBOY. Rudy is doing his homework. Teeth interrupts.

--


I'm only lying there for a few minutes before he bobs out of the water. “Hey.”

I try not to look surprised. It's been a few days since the rescue with not a lot of signs of him, and I guess I didn't think he'd be the one seeking me out. Maybe I didn't really think I was going to see him again unless he needed more saving.

I'm getting used to the look of him, at least, with his flaky scales and his millions of bruises. “Hey,” I say.

“Aren't you cold?”

I shrug. What else am I supposed to say, yeah, but I was hoping you'd swim up?

“What are you working on?

“Math.”

“I can do addition.”

I look at him.

“I'm very smart,” he says.

Still, I don't know where a guy like him learns addition, or where he even learns the word addition. And he speaks English really naturally, not in a way I'd expect from someone who's only ever eavesdropped and never spoken himself.

He leans his elbows onto the dock and watches me work. Then he sinks under the water, and I think he's gone for good for today, but a few seconds later he pops up behind me on the other side of the dock.

“What are you doing?” I ask him. He's back beside me again, this time with his elbow right next to mine. But now I can only see him out of the corner of my eye. He smells like a fish, I'll give him that.

“Watching.”

He touches the numbers as I write them, then he turns his attention to the lines at the top of the page. He traces the date, then puts his finger on the word next to it. He writes the letters with one finger, trying and failing to curl up the rest of his hand. The webs between his fingers stretch so thin.

I stop working and watch his finger. He's left-handed.

After a minute, he says, “Rrrr.”

“Hmm?”

He's staring at the top of the page. “Rrr. Ruh.”

Oh.

“Ruhd,” he says, after another minute. He's frowning hard, the skin wrinkling between his eyes.

“Rudy,” I say, kind of gently, I hope.

He's quiet for a minute. Then, “Oh.”

“Where the fuck did you learn how to read?”

“I can't read. You just saw me not reading.”

“Someone obviously taught you something.”

“Go away,” he says, in this small angry voice, the exact same one Dylan uses when he wants me to think I'm mad at him but he really isn't. It doesn't work any better when Teeth uses it.

I say, “You know, if you want? I can teach you to read.”

He studies me for just a second before he frowns hard and dives back into the water. He's really gone this time. He splashed my page, and now I can't read the math problems. The ink is all smudged.

How to Cope

Let's be honest.

This game can suck your soul dry.

There have been times when I've tried to pull myself out of it, just for a little while, when everything gets to be too overwhelming. When you meet someone who just tapped out the first draft of their novel five days ago, and now they have four agents clamoring to represent them. When a book you think yours could run circles around sells at auction two days after it goes out, and you're still waiting in the dugout. When you're starting your second draft and realizing half the stuff you've written will need to be cut and you're really not sure about the love interest's motivations. When you don't have the time or the money to go to writer's conferences, and the agents you tweet don't tweet you back, and nobody likes your query in Query Letter Hell, and every agent who reads a full "couldn't connect."

Times like these, I try to get away from everything. I stop reading the blogs, I take a break from whatever I'm writing, I try to remind myself that there's a world outside my computer screen.

It never really works. Love it or not--and most of the time I do--I'm entrenched in this world. There's no going back. And that isn't because I'm published. It's because--like, I'm guessing, a lot of you--I care too fucking much.

I read Pub Lunch every day because I have to know what's going out. I read Jacket Whys because I need to know what the cover trends are. And this part of the process, actually, has nothing to do with jealousy. It's driven completely by this hunger to know everything that's going on in publishing, because, when you get right down to the point, I love publishing. I spent last weekend in NYC meeting with my fabulous agent and editor and as many other people as I could get my dirty D.C. hands on, and it was undeniably one of the best weekends of my life. It's amazing to talk about something you know about and care about with people who know about it and care about it too.

But.

It can wear you down if you don't feel like you're as good as everyone else. And let me say it, loud and clear--everyone feels like they're not as good as everyone else.

It doesn't matter where you are in the process. You will always think that someone is writing faster or better or getting more attention from their agent or going out to better editors or selling faster or getting a better cover or selling more copies.

Here's what I've found keeps you from getting gnawed down to nothing with the jealousy, fear, and guilt that seems to go hand in hand with writing.

Tell someone who isn't a writer.

When I was querying in high school, I had a few people ask me why the fuck I kept running to the computers like an addict between every class. So I explained querying to them, with a flow-chart. All paths lead to rejection--query, partial, full--except this one skinny path over here that leads to acceptance.

One kid said, "So any step of the way, someone can just hit the YOU SUCK button on you?"

Yeah.

So after that, we called it the "YOU SUCK" button. Every once in a while he'd asked me if anyone had hit the "YOU SUCK" button on me lately.

Usually they had, and he'd grumble and say "Those bastards! They must be crazy to reject you! You're amazing!"

Keep in mind, this kid had never read a thing that I'd written. For all he knew, I could have been horrible. But just the fact that I was out there writing and sending letters made me fantastic to him.

So go tell someone about the industry. Teach them about the process. Sit down with your husband or your girlfriend or your best friend or your mom or anyone who gives a shit about you but doesn't know anything about this and tell them what you're going through and listening to and praying for every day.

You will be shocked at how much they don't know about how publishing works.

And they will be shocked at how incredible you are for getting through this day after day.

My boyfriend and my roommate know very little about the books I'm actually writing, but they know a shitload about the publishing industry, thanks to me.

And thanks to that, they know I'm a star.

I'm ooooooold

so very oooooooold

ASK ME ANYTHING

I decided this is going to be a monthly feature, for when I get sick of listening to myself talk. SO. I'll keep the comments open over the weekend, and you can ask me ANYTHING ANYTHING AT ALL and I promise to answer honestly.

Writing-related, not writing-related, serious, funny, hard, easy, ANYTHING AT ALL AAHHHHH GO GO GO

I'M ALIVE

And I am going to be a better blogger in 2010. I SWEAR.

I have nothing important to say to you today at all. Can this not count as 2010 blogging? It's 4 in the morning. I think I should be exempt from making sense at this hour.

If I'm smart, I'll delete this post right now. But I wanted you to all know I haven't abandoned you. (And if you sent me a query, I will read it. Really. At some point. I swear.)

Working up to a move on January 13th. Very excited. And I'm getting kittens on the 15th. There will be pictures.

BUT. First, a challenge.

NAME MY KITTENS.

They are nearly identical, two light gray tabbies, both boys.

I'll think of some reward if I end up using your names. It will probably be a fairly nice reward. Aaaaaaand go.

Open Blog!

Feeling lazy. So the comments section is now your playground--any questions for me? Anything you'd like to say to me at all? Go go go.

TO EVERY REVIEWER WHO SAYS (S)HE LIKED BREAK ENOUGH TO EXCUSE ITS WEAK ENDING

Thanks. Me too.

12 days

And the winner is....

The committee (uh, me) has voted and the winner is definitely Miss Sarah and her most fantastic kayaking story. I was laughing all over my keyboard.

Sarah, please give me your character name for this chapter of ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING as soon as you're ready, because I think right now I have her named Tabitha or something. And she is not a cat.

And she could be a boy, too, so no worries there.

OKAY. Thanks so much everyone who participated! Reading your stories was even more fun than I expected, so I think there will definitely be another contest in the near future...maybe a 2-weeks-until-BREAK contest? Maybe a get-in-the-acknowledgments contest?? Hmmm.

All I know is I need to start blogging more often. I judge other bloggers who only post once a week. Juuudge.

Tonight (or like, three days from now, knowing me) I'm going to post a supah-secret deleted scene (okay paragraph) from Break. It was one of my favorite favorite little bits of the book, but it got cut...so we'll look at that and maybe talk about why our writing that we love is, a lot of the time, not our best writing.

Look at me, having an agenda and shit. Damn, am I growing up???

If I have promised you an interview/an ARC/a hug

I am behind.

I am so behind.

BUT.

It will happen.

Oh, it will happen.

Point of No Return

I just passed 10,000 words on the manuscript I'm working on (All Together with Feeling, still.) Generally, I consider 10,000 words to be my point of no return. It's where I've invested too much in a book to give up on it.

Granted, this isn't foolproof--I've given up on books at 15K, 40K, 52K, but usually if I reach 10K, I'm in it for the long haul.

Do you have a wordcount that works as verification that the ms is going to work? Or are you one of those freaky people who finishes everything she starts?

What We Strive For

I've been having a hard time with writing lately because I feel like I'm trying to figure out my place in the writing world. Not my current place--I know where I am currently. I'm a kid with a novel coming out; I'm in the dug out waiting for my turn at bat, and we'll see how I do. I understand that, even if it's haaaard to be patient sometimes.

I mean as a writer at large. I've been reading so much about the publishing industry lately. That probably isn't a good idea. I've been reading about literary fiction vs. genre fiction, debut novels vs. second or third novels, selling a book vs. succeeding as an author...and I've read so many things about how good, honest, literary fiction is dying.

It's hard as a YA writer. In some ways, it's just plain hard to be a YA writer, the same way it's hard to be a science fiction or a romance writer. There's still that stigma that I'm not a "real" writer--that my books are more formulaic than contemporary adult literature, that I'm just churning them out. And I wonder, in a lot of ways, if that's true.

How do I reconcile my desire to feel important with my desire to accurately portray the honest life of a teenager?

I don't want to sacrifice good story for a message. More than that, I'm not sure I have a message yet.

I feel like a hack a lot lately. And I'm blogging about it because, in bitching about that to my friends the way that I do, I'm finding I'm not the only one. Is this a universal thing? Does everyone feel like they're striving for something they can't reach because they don't know who they want to be?

I'd like to be important as a writer, but I don't know what type of important I want to be. I want to be remembered and fresh and original, but not gimmicky. I want to be serious but not morose. I want to be funny without being a joke.

I wish I knew where the line is that divides real writers from unreal writers. I don't think it's publication anymore.

Pushing Through

I've decided to take somewhat of a writing haitus. I'm definitely not planning for this to be anything permament. I just had a hard time finishing the last book--not in the sense that it didn't go well, or I don't think I did it justice, or that I'm not proud of it, but in the sense that I didn't really enjoy it. I like the finished product a lot, actually. But getting there wasn't fun.

I do wonder if it's school doing this to me...we're doing a lot of analytical papers right now, formal writing and the like, and it really just isn't my thing. So I'm second-guessing myself all the time. Again, it's not the ideas themselves I'm questioning, it's the actual physical sentences. I'm wondering if my structure is all screwed up and I really never noticed. I'm wondering if I should be embarrased of the stuff I churn out.

And I also wonder if I'm making a mistake taking a break. Should I be trying to push through this? Would writing more and more help me get better or at least convince me that I'm good enough?

I don't know. What do you think? Is taking a break a healthy way of dealing with burn-out (or self doubt?) or does it make it impossible to gain that confidence back?