Six Days From Now and Ten Years Ago

Six days from now, my 4th book, Gone, Gone, Gone, comes out.

It's been getting really good reviews, which is pretty fucking cool. Look at these nice quotes!


"Moskowitz captures the teenage mentality and voice in this tender yet emotionally complex romance."
- Publisher's Weekly

“Moskowitz, as usual, imbues her prose with a dreamy quality that makes every off moment feel monumental….Despite featuring the very real sniper attacks of 2002, this is as amorphous as the author’s Invincible Summer—not necessarily a bad thing for those inclined to float along with the lullaby rhythm. The theme of the randomness of tragedy (literalized here by 9/11, the sniper, cancer, and Craig’s 14 lost pets) is particularly well-handled.”
- Booklist


So there's that, and that's awesome, but let's lay it on the line: this is my fourth book, and after four books it takes a lot to get my feathers ruffled (gross?) in either a good (yeah, it's gross) or a bad way. ANY review means that someone's picked up the book, and that's what's important to me at this point, and maybe that means I'm soulless, Supernatural or Zombie Tag-style.

Except the thing is...it's different with this one. Even though I'm pretty fond of that magic gay fish thing, GGG gets a special section of my brain all to itself. GGG is just very, very me. Both 'me' as a writer--pretty much every hannah-trope you know and hopefully grudgingly accept is in this book, seriously, make a drinking game--and as a actual, real human.

And it's kind of the end of an era. As of right now, this is my last male-POV fully contemporary YA book. This was me doing everything I love so much, wringing into one book, and letting it rest.

This was me closing a door, for now.

That's not really why it's special.

**

John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind of the D.C. metro sniper shootings, was executed on November 10th, 2009.

I was at Brown then, and a friend of mine had a blog where he wrote about political events and such, and he asked me to take a look at a post he wrote criticizing the death penalty with regards to Muhammad's execution. Because I was from Maryland, and also because I'm a bleeding heart liberal who was attending a bleeding heart liberal school and I assume he was expecting me to have a certain reaction to the news that someone had been executed.

In any other circumstance, he would have been wrong, but the thing was...

I'd been waiting for John Allen Muhammad to be executed for seven years.

Except, if you'd have asked me, I would have said eight. Because I would have sworn up and down that the sniper shootings and 9/11 were the same year.

I was young--ten for 9/11, eleven for the sniper shootings, so it makes sense that my memories get muddled. But I don't think that's the reason I was so sure that the sniper shootings were a month after 9/11, rather than thirteen.

I think it's a Maryland thing. A suburbs-of-D.C. thing.

They're linked for us. They always will be. We sat right next to a city that lost 125 people in 9/11, and we very obviously were NOT in New York. We weren't even in D.C. We were Maryland, uncomfortably close and uncomfortably detached, and thirteen months (feels like one month) later we, we fucking suburbanites, were the playground for two snipers and two weeks and ten casualties.

We have issues.

It's a Maryland thing.

So I was at Brown in 2009, and my friend showed me the blog post, and the way he talked about Muhammad's execution was...

normal.

He talked about it like it was any other situation, any other murderer. He used it as a support in a larger argument.

It just made so much sense.

And there I was, seven years out of it. Seven years of reading the Wiki page obsessively, of reading about John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo and timing the shootings and figuring out how far I was from each when it happened (not far, never far, and how the fuck could I use that as a reason something was important? People die all the time. Why the hell does it matter if I'm five miles away?)

Seven years out of running in zig-zags on my way to voice lessons and reading about a boy my age getting shot on his way to school. Seven years out of our chief of police crying on TV and our faculty members wearing orange vests and patrolling our grounds.

There was nothing else on the news.

People ducked while they pumped gas.

People talked, all the time, about 9/11.

Seven years out of it, and still shocked that anyone could think it made sense.

So I wrote a book.

(I did what I have to do to make anything make sense. I made a love story.)

So I wrote GGG over a few days a month after Muhammad was executed, during final exams, because I take my studies very seriously, obviously. And because I can't be objective about it. I can't. I can't let it go.

I can't shut this door.

So I wrote a book.

I hope you read it.

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 15

SONG #15: "Sorry" by Pushmonkey.

This song. Not only did it appear, like No One's Boy, on my iTunes with no reasonable explanation for its existence, but you can't actually buy it on iTunes. It doesn't have it. When I wanted to get it again for my new computer, I had to jump through all these hoops and get a download of it, which depresses me, because I never pirate music. (Or anything. Seriously.)

While looking for a video of this song, I discovered that a lot of people are saying, "This song just appeared on my computer!" Song. Where are you coming from.

So. This song. No idea how it got there, but it went on the playlist the first time I heard it mostly because it works so well with No One's Boy. You'll see in the excerpt that I very obviously am alluding to No One's Boy in this scene. This is just...an angrier, more final version of it.

We're really getting towards the end of the 3rd summer now. Something's about to happen.

Five songs left.

Also, a nice big excerpt for you today! Right after the--

SAMPLE LYRIC:

So drink your coffee
I made you breakfast
You're wearing my t-shirt for the last time
A revelation, we'll never make it
I'm staring at you for the last time
I'm sorry
You know I'm sorry

You lay in bed next to him at night
Convince yourself that what you did was right
Instead of him, you'll want me back
You can't move on
I know you'll wind up missing me

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

For some reason, my response to this is to take my restless hands and pull my shoes off and throw them toward the bed. Then I'm on my feet, feeling the carpet grain with my toes and wishing I was feeling the sand. Digging in with my toes, I won't get off I won't get off I won't move you can't make me while the ocean wears the sand away.

The bass booms downstairs and I hate it, I hate it. I can't hear the rain anymore. Maybe it stopped.

“I am not your boy,” I'm saying. “I'm not anybody's boy.”

Noah doesn't move.

“Not yours.” My voice is so hoarse and the next thing I know I'm facing Noah and screaming, “Get off the floor! Get off the floor and take me home!”

--p. 225




1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie
15) "Sorry" by Pushmonkey

Promises

NOTE: This post contains possibly incorrect spoilers of the following, many of which I know nothing about:

--Queer as Folk (US TV series)
--Harry Potter (the whole series
--Lord of the Rings (okay and I've only seen the movies but I'm pretty sure either format works for the example I'm using)
--Twilight series (which I have not read, but know enough about to perhaps erroneously cite)
--The Boyfriend List series by E. Lockhart (only very minor spoilers)
--The Great Gatsby (also minor)
--The Stranger (ditto)

You have been warned.

--

One thing I rarely talk about on this blog is--aside from my cries in the night for more strong male characters--what I like to see in stories, and how I try to write my stories. But when my dear friend Scott Tracey suggested I blog about Queer as Folk, I realized that the show (which is possibly my favorite show ever) highlights a lot of elements that can make or break a story, in my mind.

And they're all about promises you make your reader.

One True Pairing. This is a concept rooted, I think, in fanfic. (which, TANGENT: I adore almost as much as Queer as Folk, and even more if the two are combined. Some writers get all up in arms--and, in my opinion, up in their own egos--about it. Use a pseudo, don't try to make money, and write on, bitches.)

The concept of One True Pairing is that there is a couple you are rooting through throughout the entire book--or, commonly, throughout the entire series. This doesn't mean the couple is always obvious, or together through the entire work. There are bumps. There should be bumps.

But they should end up together.

I know a lot of people are going to protest this. They're going to talk about how books should resemble the real world, and the real world isn't always fair, and couples break up all the time regardless of how much they love each other, and it isn't fair to promote some kind of fantasy in our books, blah blah blah.

To which I say: bullshit.

I am 100% pro happy endings--see the next heading! But I don't think my definition of a happy ending is the same as other people's. Most of my stories have an ending that is bittersweet, but goddamn it, the couple stays together.

This togetherness doesn't have to be very overt, even. In Queer as Folk, Brian and Justin are set up from episode 1 as the One True Pairing. For the entire first season, they're not officially a couple. They go episodes at a time without seeing much of each other. Brian doesn't even like Justin that much, despite bringing him home in the first ten minutes of the first episode.

By season 2, they're as official as they ever really get. Neither of them is into monogamy or serious relationships, at least not for a while, so they are happy and very much, even though Brian would never admit it, in love. They break up twice over the series, and it's painful to watch, even though you know they will get back together.

And they do. You know why? Because the whole fucking thing would suck if they didn't. A book I really love broke this rule, and it was absolutely crushing. They spent the whole book trying to get together, then together and deliriously happy, and then they broke up in the last 5 pages. It was so sad, and the book lost so many points with me for that.

I want payoff. I want hope. I want promises fulfilled, and the biggest promise a lot of books give you is that One True Pairing. Your readers are trusting you.

Queer as Folk ends with Brian and Justin calling off their engagement (more on that later) and separating when Justin moves to New York for a while to work on his art. For me, this ending was not open. I was a hundred percent satisfied. They're still together, they're just living in different cities for a while. A lot of people didn't agree with me. There are huge sections of the fan base convinced that they ended the series broken up.

To which I say, again, bullshit! And recently, someone did an interview with the two creators of the show, one of which said, "I have no idea why people think they broke up."

So HA. One True Pairings win again. And I never had any doubt, because I trusted the creators the way I trust authors. I trust the good guys to win and the right people to make out. You never REALLY think Bella's going to end up with Jacob. If you're paying any attention at all, you never REALLY think Harry's going to end up married to Hermione.

And, to extrapolate a little on this point--

Give me a goddamn happy ending.

I get it, realism realism blah blah blah. But to quote Seinfeld, "If I want a long, boring story with no point to it, I have my life."

Your book has a goal. Achieve it. The ring gets destroyed, guys. Voldemort doesn't win. Even if Harry had died, which many people think he should have (holla) it would have been a happy ending because evil would not have triumphed. Guys. Evil can't fucking triumph. Come on now.

I'm crazy about books that make me think about life and the universe and the world at large. And I don't even everything to work out peachy keen. Think The Great Gatsby. Think The Stranger. Those are some of my favorite books, and both of them have someone kicking it at the end.

But there is hope. There is spirit. Evil isn't winning.

No evil winning. Your characters don't have to be making out in the sunset, but they have to at least be holding hands in the wreckage.

You're fulfilling a promise you're giving the reader. Don't be that asshole who's trying to teach the reader there are no promises in real life. You're like the Grinch right now.

The last few lines in the entire Queer as Folk series:

So the thumpa thumpa continues. It always will. No matter what happens. No matter who is president. As our lady of Disco, the divine Ms Gloria Gaynor has sung to us: We will survive.

Excuse me while I wipe my eyes a little.

But before we get all sappy, we have one more promise you make your reader, and it's one that Queer as Folk very badly fucks up.

Character consistency. On a larger scale, this is valid more in a series than in a stand alone, though it's valid as hell either way.

When you introduce a character with a certain set of traits and abilities, you make a promise to your reader. And that promise is--if this character is changing from this thing I've set up from you, you will know.

By all means, your characters should develop and morph throughout the story. But the reader needs to see it happening. They need to understand why and how, or they're going to feel like they're looking at a different character at the end of the work than they were at the beginning. And that's not good.

E. Lockhart's The Boyfriend List series does a fantastic job of this. Roo is Roo, through all of them. Yes, you can see her growing and maturing and learning new skills to cope with her ridiculous life, but she is still very consistently Roo.

Now. Queer as Folk.

In case you missed it in the OTP heading, Brian fucking proposes.

What the fuck is that shit? We get that they love each other. We know. We've got it. We don't need to hear Brian say it, or see him fucking plan a wedding. It completely destroys the image we have of who Brian and Justin are. If they'd both just started quietly wearing wedding rings, that would have been one thing. But the last season of Queer as Folk turned Brian into some kind of domesticated animal, and a looooot of people are unhappy about it. He sent out fucking wedding announcements. He bought a house. What is this shit? This is not the Brian we were promised.

So if you want the reader to follow through with reading your whole book, you have some things you need to do to deserve that. Or to make sure, if they do finish it, that they don't end up throwing it at a wall.

There are of course a million ways to do all the things I've mentioned and still write a wall-throwing-worthy book. And there are ways to ignore everything I've said (except maybe the consistent character one...but you never know) and write something phenomenal. And in all honesty, if you're writing something you want analyzed in English class, you're probably going to need a less happy ending.

But, looking back, there are very few endings I've read that I've read that I would consider altogether too depressing. The only ones that I think really fit the bill are ones where the One True Pairing fails.

So guys. Less realism, more making out. End scene.

Things Not To Worry About

There's a lot of stress in this life. There are a lot of reasons to freak out. There are a few things that, pretty much without exception, suck. Full rejections suck. Bad sales suck. Bad dialogue sucks. There are things you can fix and there are things you just need to let push past and let go.

There are also things that you should not be worried about.

--People leaving publishing. I know that with Nathan Bransford's recent announcement, some of you are probably left feeling a little stunned. I am too! And remember how surprised we were when Colleen Lindsay told us she was going to stop agenting? And my second, incredible agent, Brendan Deneen, left to pursue a job as an editor (and is doing a fantastic job!) after we were together for just six months. (But glorious months they were, Brendan.)

It's jarring. It makes you afraid that someone's going to leave you in the middle of the process. It makes you wonder if publishing is going to shit.

Here's why you shouldn't worry. New agents are appearing all the damn time. My amazing agent, Suzie Townsend, has been in the game for just a little over a year, and she's made amazing sales since then (and seriously, if you don't know her name by now, you've got your fingers shoved in your ears). And she's not the only amazing agent we've gained this year. How about Mandy Hubbard or Taylor Martindale or Weronika Janczuk?

And there are still tons and tons of agents who have been at this for years and are showing no signs of stopping. And so what if they do? Just like there will always be new writers, there will always be new agents. Don't worry. Publishing might be changing, but it isn't going anywhere.

On that note...

--Paper books are dead, self-publishing is taking over, and it's the apocalypse. It's very easy to get sucked in to all the talk about how publishing is an outdated, dying model, and that if you have children in the next five years, they're never going to know what a book is. And they probably won't know how to write in cursive. Or how to read. Also books will be animated, Amazon will rule the world, and gay immigrants will start making out in our public schools.

Here's why you shouldn't worry. With the exception of that last one (which I am entrusting all you magic gay fish to ENSURE HAPPENS), none of this has to be your concern. Let someone else worry about all this shit. Shut up and write a book. They're not going anywhere.

--Celebrity books. They sell for huge advances. They're written by ghostwriters. They're not very good. They're cliche and pandering to an illiterate audience, so and so forth.

Here's why you shouldn't worry. Celebrity books sell for huge advances because they make huge amounts of money. Tuck away the jealousy and realize what this does for a publisher.

The more money they can make on sure things, the greater their ability to take a risk on new, unknown writers. In all likelihood, this means you!

Be proud of your publisher/a publisher you like when they buy a celebrity book. They're being fiscally responsible! It doesn't mean that the people there don't recognize good books. Trust me. They do. And if you don't like the celeb book, don't read.

--Twilight. It makes a lot of money, its merchandise fills the YA section, there are a million knock-offs of it, Edward is a pedophile, glitter sticks to your clothes.

Here's why you shouldn't worry. God, guys, this shit is old. No one cares anymore. We're the only ones talking about it. Move on.

--You get a small advance. So you're hearing about all these six figure advances, and even though you're freaking ECSTATIC that your book sold, you can't help but be a little disappointed by your three figure (for a small publisher), four figure or low five figure advance. You can't quit any day job for this kind of money.

You didn't have any delusions about writing making you rich, but you had a little inkling of a dream that maybe it would. And that's understandable.

Here's why you shouldn't worry. For a first book, a small advance can be a blessing. They're easier to earn out, and earning out gets you major props with your publisher, and they'll be more willing to take risks with you in the future. All that stuff about how hard it is to get off the midlist is scary, I won't lie to you, but it isn't a death sentence. You can always try out different age groups and genres, or you can win a bitchin' award, or you can chug away happily with your small advances and keep producing and producing and building a fan base. Your life is not over.

Hello, I'm Hannah Moskowitz, and I am midlist. And my life fucking rocks. So don't worry about it.

--Bad reviews. Son of a fucking bitch, it's not even that it's bad, it's that it's like they didn't even read the goddamn book. They spelled your characters' names wrong. They mixed up major plot points. They said they didn't get your main character's motivations, when nobody else had that problem. What the hell?

Or maybe it's a professional review, and they checked all their spellings and their plot points twice, but the guy who wrote the review must have been on his period or something, because he ignored all the best parts of the book and only focused on its faults.

Or maybe your book isn't out, or your book hasn't sold, but the idea of a bad review has you quaking in your shiny sexy writer boots.

Here's why you shouldn't worry. Yeah, they sting a little. But every book gets them, and everyone knows that. Go look up your favorite book on goodreads. There are people who hated it.

Then go look up books you hated, read the bad reviews, and laugh quietly to yourself. It happens. Learn to shrug it off and laugh at yourself. Don't respond, don't let it affect your writing, and, if you can--learn from them.

After a lot of reviewers commented on Break's weak ending, I started putting a lot more consideration into how I end my books. I hope it shows. And if it doesn't, well, fuck it. I can laugh it off. And then I can creepily go stalk books you liked more than mine and read all their bad reviews. It's a cycle!

MG vs. YA

I've written YA for a long time, and I've only seriously been writing MG for about six months. In a lot of ways, I'm still learning the ropes.

But MGs are my favorites to read. They have been ever since I was very, very young. Even while I was still reading picture books or early chapter books on my own, my mom was reading my sister and me MG books before we went to sleep. I know a lot of voracious readers who grew up reading the classics. They read Huck Finn and Jane Eyre when they were five. I didn't do that. (Hell, I still haven't read Huck Finn). I grew up with middle grade books.

By the time I was eleven, I'd switched mainly to YA, and that's still the bulk of what I read. And don't get me wrong. I love YA. Some of my favorite books are YA. But a lot of my very, very favorites are MG, which is why writing it has been this pretty amazing experience.

People have asked me lately what the differences are between writing YA and writing MG. Some of them are easy. But before I start...

I'M INVOKING THE EXCEPTION RULE: YES. THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. FROM HERE ON OUT, EXPECT EXCEPTIONS. COOL? COOL.

--In MG, your main character's probably going to be 8-14 years old. In YA, you're looking at 15-18.

--Sex, drugs, cursing, those things that some people still think you can't do in YA? Well, you can't do them in MG.

--MG is probably shorter. This is way more relevant in contemporary (as is probably everything I'm going to say) than in fantasy. And if you're like me, they'll probably end up being about the same size anyway, because all my books are fairly short. BREAK (YA) is 43,000 words, INVINCIBLE SUMMER (YA) is 53,000, ZOMBIE TAG (MG) is 44,000. Not a huge amount of variation there.

There are other differences I've noticed that are harder to define, but that I think are really noteworthy and interesting.

--THEMES.

MG books tend to be very focused on the main character's place in his community, whatever that may be. The MG protag wants to fit in. That doesn't have to be as literal as "I want the popular kids to like me!" though it certainly can be. You'll see a lot of "I want to be the son my father wants me to be," "I want to make the baseball team," "I want everyone to stop treating me like I'm a freak because I have cerebral palsy," or "I want my community to trust me despite this mistake I made a while ago." From there, conflict happens and things can get very confusing (though they can also stay focused on that initial motivation) but when the book starts out, very often the main character's primary goal is to find his place and slip into it.

I know it isn't a book (and I haven't even read the books. I suck) but I use the movie How To Train Your Dragon all the time when people ask me what a MG book is, because it's such a perfect example in my head. At the beginning of the movie, all Hiccup wants is to be a big strong dragon hunter like the other men in the village.

The themes in YA, on the other hand, tend to be focused on the individual alone or on her relationship with a very select group of people. "I want to get over my father's death." "I want to get into a healthy relationship. "I want to stop doing drugs." "I want to start doing drugs." "I want to get into a good college." "I want everyone to leave me alone."

Unlike MGs, which typically start wide (Hiccup's whole village) and later narrow somewhat (Hiccup's friendship with Toothless--though please keep in mind that the wider issue does not get left behind), a YA sometimes starts wide but almost always ends up very narrowly focused.

I can't use a book example for YA when I'm not using one for MG, so let's use My So-Called Life. Angela Chase wants a new life. She has all these people and they're all new and exciting. That's the first episode. By the middle of the first season, her conflicts aren't with the whole world around her anymore. They're with whether she's going to let Jordan Catalano keep copying her homework. The other people are still there, and she can still interact with them, but the individual bits of conflict tend to be on a very very tight basis. And the main conflict is definitely not how the whole school thinks of Angela, as it is for Hiccup and his village.

And before I go on--you guys know that "fitting in" or "getting a boyfriend" or "romance" or "killing dragons"...you guys know those things aren't themes, right? I saw a writer misuse the word "theme" the other day, and it broke my heart. Those are "thematic elements"--stuff the themes are concerned with--but they aren't the themes themselves. "Fitting in is impossible without altering who you are," or "Getting a boyfriend requires more persistence than most people are willing to put in," those are themes. Really depressing ones, but themes nonetheless.

Let me know if I should do a post on stuff like themes and motifs and the differences between them. I'm an English major. I can bring it if you want it.

Anyway.

--SCOPE.

The easiest way to define this is--in MG, you get to save the world. In YA, you don't.

And this is related to the last point. A typical plot arc in MG starts with the kind of conflict mentioned above and turns into something like...

MAIN CHARACTER wants X. Through doing X, he learns that he has to save the world from CONSEQUENCES OF X.

By trying to accomplish his initial goal, the protagonist might learn something or do something or figure out something that will cause him to have to save the universe, or whatever his version of the universe might be (His town, his school, his family, an actual universe).

How to Train Your Dragon:

HICCUP wants TO KILL A DRAGON. Through TRYING TO KILL A DRAGON, he learns that he has to save the world from KILLING ALL THE DRAGONS BECAUSE THEY ARE ACTUALLY NOT BAD.

Zombie Tag:

WIL wants TO BRING HIS BROTHER BACK TO LIFE. Through BRINGING HIS BROTHER BACK TO LIFE, he learns that he has to save the world from ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE HE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE.

In YA? Not so much. The climax is way more likely to be between the main character and her boyfriend, or the main character and her best friend, than it is to be between the forces of good and evil.

Are these set in stone? Nope. A YA fantasy is way more likely to have a world-saving element than a quiet, meandering MG. But these two rules *are* the reason I'm staunchly on the "They're all MG" side of the Harry Potter debate. Harry grows up, but the themes and scope don't. It's not like we're reading thousands of pages to see if he and Ginny are going to get it on, and it's not like we wanted the final showdown in Book 7 to be Ron and Harry fighting over Hermione. The rules are looser in fantasy, but I still think the Harry Potter themes stick them all into the MG camp. A lot of the fantasy we have in YA right now is paranormal romance. Not a genre I'm well-versed in, but even though there's that element of a bigger threat, most of the conflict is still interpersonal, right?

--DEPTH AND BREADTH.

I've been giving YA sort of a bad rap in this post, which...sucks, because it's not at all what I intended. I love YA. And maybe this point will help illustrate why.

Generally, word for word, page for page, not as much happens in a YA. You get to linger. You get to really sink into a main character's voice. The fact that you're focused on two or three important relationships and not the fate of the whole world is such a blessing because it lets you go into everything very, very deeply. You can have fantastically complicated relationships in YA--think about Angela and Rayanne's in My So-Called Life. You have time to really delve into them and explore them and do whatever the fuck you want with them. And that's the thing, if you ask me, that makes YA so damn cool. I think again, measuring proportionally, word for word, YA books do more for character development and exploration than any other genre. (Go ahead, kill me for that. I don't care.)

In an MG book, usually more happens. You have a lot more action and movement and excitement. You cover a lot of ground. You don't have as much time to pause and dive into things. Is there time? Of course, and an MG that doesn't give itself time to build strong relationships between the characters is going to fall completely flat. Even if you're drawn to a book because of a cool plot--and at this age, most of the readers are--you're going to stay because you love the characters. But MG does sometimes need to leave more to the imagination than a YA, simply because there isn't time to explore all the nuances of the characters' relationships.

I mean, you have to go save the world.

Zombie Tag Rules

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

There are a few reasons why this is the most important thing you will ever read.

1. It details proven zombie-killer techniques.

2. It's the most fun you will ever have with spatulas, brains, and your mouth.

3. If you are at SCBWI, we're going to be playing this, and you better be part of the fun, bitch.

Before we begin, I would like to state, for the record, that as much as I would like to, I can't take credit for Zombie Tag the game. (I can take full credit for Zombie Tag the book, so put down your pitchfork.) It was invented by my lovely friend David Colby who kindly insisted that I write a book about it. I made a few small tweaks, but this is largely his game. This is a very good example of how most of my good ideas come from infiltrating (eating) the brains of others.

This official rulebook WAS written by me, as you can probably tell by the snark, but the ideas behind it are his, and I thank him enormously. He'll be in the acknowledgments, and he is also a Zombie Tag player in the book.

So. Without further ado, the rules to Zombie Tag.


--

For the best game of Zombie Tag, you need somewhere between 8 and 15 people. More or less can work, depending on the size of the house. Wil, the main character in Zombie Tag, plays with closer to 6 people, because his parents would never let eight kids in their house at once.

This game is played at night, in the dark.

Let's say you're playing with eight people.

--Your objective is: If you are a zombie, turn everyone else into a zombie. If you are a human, escape the house.

--One person is Zombie God. This is a great honor, usually granted to you if it is 1. your birthday or 2. your house.

-- Zombie God has one very important job. He writes BARRICADE on seven post-it notes, and ZOMBIE on one. He shuffles these and passes them out to all the players, keeping one for himself. The post-its are secret, and none of the players, including the Zombie God, know what post-its the others have. The Zombie God's job is now over.

--Everyone secretly looks at their post-it notes. Chances are, you are a human, in which case your post-it will say BARRICADE. Keep that note. Keep your face neutral.

--Everyone gathers into a circle and closes their eyes. At this point, the lucky player with the ZOMBIE post-it sneaks out of the circle. In some versions of the game, all players will stomp their feet to drown out the sound of his sneaking. But true zombies will not need this, as they move silently and possibly with powers of invisibility.

--The zombie takes a predetermined object--in Wil's versions, a stuffed dinosaur--and hides it somewhere in the house. To escape the house, you need to find this object. It is the key, and the only way to open the front door.

--The zombie runs around the circle and taps each person on the head. Once you are tapped on the head, you silently count to ten before opening your eyes. This allows the zombie to sneak back into the circle.

--It is now time to play. Grab a flashlight and a spatula. You'll need them. You may either strike out on your own or team up with as many people as you like to search the house for the key. The zombie, at this point, pretends to search as well.

--The zombie has thirty seconds to pretend to be normal. At this point, he then reveals himself as a zombie ("RAWWWR, BRAINS," etc.) and attempts to bite as many humans as possible. Ears are a good bet, but anywhere will do.

--If you are the victim of an attempted zombie attack, you have four ways to escape:

1) Fight him off with your spatula. Zombies are terrified of spatulas.

2) Hit him on the top of his head with the flat of your hand (gently, please) which is a zombie paralysis move that will freeze the zombie for ten seconds, allowing you to make an escape.

3) Run. Be warned, however: Zombies possess super speed.

4) Remember your BARRICADE post-it? Slap it on a door and hide in a room. The zombie, upon encountering a barricaded door, must bang on it for thirty seconds to break the barricade before he can enter. This should give you time to find the key if it is hidden in this room, at which point you will need to find an alternate route or fight the zombie long enough to sprint to the door. Or, if the key is not in the room, it is enough time for you to call your mother and tell her you love her.

--If you are bitten, you become a zombie. But all is not lost! You now begin hunting the others with your zombie compatriots. And you win if everyone is a zombie at the end.

--If you are a human and you find the key, run like hell towards the front door. If you escape, you win! You are now the only hope for humanity.

Professionalism

This post has nothing to do with writing and absolutely everything to do with being a writer.

The stereotype of a writer--the middle-aged man pounding feverishly at a typewriter, cigarette in his mouth, sending hard-copy manuscripts to his agent and protesting the change of every word--has yet to catch up with the reality of what being a writer entails today.

We are not locked in our attics alone. We are not even the romantic writers of the '20s, drinking coffee and discussing literature. We are a legion of overworked, underwashed normals, pounding away at our laptops and shooing the kids to the next room.

And more importantly, we are not alone.

If you are reading this blog, you have obviously already met at least one other writer (hello there.) Chances are, I'm not the only one. Agent, editor, and writer blogs, facebook, forums like Verla Kay and Absolute Write, and God, above all Twitter, mean that, at the very least, most writers are at least a friend of a friend of yours. The term 'networking' is so appropriate here, because, in actuality, we--writers, publishing professionals, book bloggers--are a net. A web of interconnected people.

We know the same people. The truth is, this world feels very big sometimes, and God knows everyone is talking about writing a novel, but when it comes down to it--the people who are really out there, querying, editing, submitting, representing, accepting, rejecting, publishing, copyediting, waiting...well, the truth is, there aren't that many of us after all.

Which is why the act of being a professional writer has come to mean much more than it used to. Fifty years ago, all most writers had to do was avoid getting arrested and not respond to bad reviews.

You have a much bigger job to undertake. And it's stressful, and it's scary, but it can also be one of the most rewarding parts of this job. Somedays, my writing is absolutely shitty, and the house is a mess, and I'm crying because I can't find my socks, but I have 239 blog followers, Goddamn it, and I said something funny on Twitter today, so at least this day isn't totally for the birds.

You may think that I am the worst possible person ever to talk about how to be a professional. I'm loud and I'm obnoxious and I say fuck like it's a part of my name.

Yeah.

But I'm hoping all that will make me easier to listen to, because when people think 'professional,' they a lot of the time think boring, sanitized, safe. And that's not who you have to be. I'm living fucking proof over here. And I knew from the start that I was taking a big risk, but I hoped that people would find me interesting and remember me.

It's worked pretty well so far. And that, kittens, is the real reason you want to get out there and put on your professional face. So that people will remember you.

Now that I'm done fucking babbling, here are some guidelines. How to be a successful professional writer, by yours truly. And these are not big, life-changing rules. These are just tricks. Tricky little tricks.

--GET ON TWITTER. I don't care what your objections are. I objected too. But it is hands-down the best way to connect with people you would never have the balls to approach any other way. You can follow someone, which causes them no pain or trouble whatsoever, and you can talk to them in a completely neutral, undemanding way.

--READ ABOUT BOOKS. What do Hunger Games, Twilight, Lord of the Rings, The Da Vinci Code, and a hell of a lot of other books have in common? I haven't read them.

I'm not proud. But I know I don't have nearly enough time to read as much as I should, so I make a point of reading *about* books I wish I had time to read. Know enough about popular books to be able to fake your way through a conversation. I can discuss Twilight with the best of them, damn it.

--REMEMBER NAMES. I can't stress enough how important this is. You might have never read a book by this author most people haven't heard of, but you better be able to connect the book to the name in a second flat. You need to be able to talk about other writers like you went to high school with them. Memorize authors, titles, editors, agent. Know who goes with whom.

--DON'T ALIENATE. Or if you have to, choose one book or author to singularly alienate. People ask me a lot what my least favorite book is. Obviously I've read a lot of stuff I don't like, but I have one that I use so I'm not spreading the hate around too badly (and trust me, the author of said book is way too famous to give a shit what a plebe like me thinks).

You never know who you will need.

--DON'T TALK ABOUT YOURSELF ALL THE TIME. I know I've been a bad example of this one lately (though possibly not as bad as example as I am of the alienating thing) but God, I get bored of author blogs that are all me me me look where my book got reviewed look what I'm working on blaaaah.

Do me a favor and don't go and read my archives right now. I was very young. And I had nothing else to talk about.

But seriously. If you don't feel qualified to give advice (through trust me, if I'm qualified, so are you) find articles and other blog posts you find interesting, post your thoughts, and open your comments up for discussion. You'll find a lot more followers and a lot more interesting discussion than you will by posting boring shit about yourself every day.

--DON'T BE BORING. Unsurprisingly, this is my biggest point. Don't be boring. If someone else is saying what you're saying, people are only going to listen to one of you. Do you want a fifty/fifty chance of being drowned out?

Swallow your fear. I'm scared every day. I do this anyway. Because I love it. And because I don't want you to forget me.

Because I only have books coming out every so often. And I'm a professional, and if you forget me between books, I'm not doing a very good job.

And I mean, fuck. No one wants to be forgotten. Which pretty much leads me to the most important thing.

--REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE A HUMAN CONNECTING WITH OTHER HUMANS. You don't need to pretend to be Superman. It's boring. I told you. It's GOOD to show that you care about people, that you care about what you're doing, and that you care about your readers. Stop pretending that the ride is easy. You're not earning any respect that way. Show some of your vulnerability and maybe you'll do more than sell your product. You'll meet some very cool people.

You'll maybe even help them.

Multiple POVs

SO. Let's talk about point of view.

First, some quick stats, just so you know where I'm coming from.


--Of my recent (read: decent) books, two use more than one point of view (hereafter POV.) These two are THE ANIMALS WERE GONE and ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING, both of which you will have heard of if you are a regular reader of this blog, but the latter only if you are a REALLY regular reader. Because it has been in hiding for a little while. If you're curious about either of these, they're tagged at the end of the post. Click on the link and you'll see all the posts about 'em.
--THE ANIMALS WERE GONE is my favorite of all my manuscripts, and I love ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING, too (though I like INVINCIBLE SUMMER more. In fact, if I ranked my top three of my YAs, it would probably be 1. ANIMALS, 2. INVINCIBLE SUMMER, 3. ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING. Am I allowed to say this shit?)
--Here are some of my favorite books written with multiple POV, some of which are epistolatory, which may or may not be the word I'm looking for: Will Grayson, Will Grayson, The Realm of Possibility, Love Is The Higher Law, Are We There Yet, (can you tell I love David Levithan?) The Kings Are Already Here, The Year of Secret Assignments, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Caddy Ever After, P.S. Longer Letter Later, 33 Snowfish.
--Despite that long list, the VAST majority of my favorite books are written in one POV.

So. It is fair to say that I am far more experienced, both in reading and writing, in single POV than in multiple.

However.

I love writing multiple.

I don't know. I just love it.

I wasn't planning to write THE ANIMALS WERE GONE in two POVs. In fact, I'd already considered and dismissed the idea. It was all going to be in Craig's POV. And then I finished the first chapter, hit enter a few times, and typed LIO at the top of the page. Because apparently it was Lio's turn.

Listen, I don't pull all that shit about how I'm controlled by my characters or my books have a mind of their own or something like that, because frankly, I think that stuff is stupid. I'm sorry if I offend anyone (but seriously, if you're reading this blog and you choose THAT to be offended by...)

I love the roles my characters play in my stories. I love writing them. I smile when I write good lines for them. I don't ever forget that they aren't real people. They are words on a page. I'm happy you like them. I like them too. But they're here to tell a story--my story--and, even though I'm a romantic (I am, damn it, don't laugh) I don't like to get stuck in that sensitive writer mode of thinking your characters are real people with real minds of their own. It sounds cold-hearted, but characters are tools. And point of view is a tool. And words are tools. All of these are tools to tell your story. Characters are not beautiful and unique snowflakes, etc.

So. Lio did not jump off the page and insist I write his viewpoint or anything like that. I just knew, in that second, that Craig's part was closed for now, and it was Lio's turn, or we were only going to get half of the story. But it was a revelation that came after I'd started writing.

ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING, on the other hand, came into my head as four different points of view, because it's a story about four kids in a high school chorus--one soprano, one alto, one tenor, and one bass. (Yes, yes, girls, I'm writing girls.) The point of views, in this case, are a bigger toll for the story than the are in ANIMALS. They form the premise of the story, while, in ANIMALS, they're just making sure that you hear from both the quiet character and the loud character.

Which leads to another problem I'm having, now that I'm hardcore revising ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING. Keeping voices distinct. This gets harder and harder the more POVs you have, and four is definitely in tricky territory for me. I'm concentrating a lot on speech patterns, rhythm, and word choice--my bass, if run through one of those scanner things, would result in a much higher reading difficulty than my tenor. But I'm still struggling with this. My alto and my tenor are still blending together a little, and sometimes my soprano starts to sound a little like them, too.

So. Let's wrap this up. What are your thoughts on multiple POV? Do you read it? Do you write it? If you do, how do you keep the voices distinct, and how do you approach revisions? (basically, HELP ME.)

how a book becomes a book--copyedits

Hello everyone, happy April. I'm going to be nineteen in ten days, which is ridiculous.

So as you should know, last week I was working on my edits for INVINCIBLE SUMMER. Basically, my editor sent back my manuscript (this time it was electronic and hard copy--for BREAK it was just hard copy. It's fun to watch things change) with a letter summing up the basic things I needed to do--add about 40-60 pages, draw out a minor character and strengthen her relationship with the main character, slow down the ending (you're going to like this ending, goddamn it), etc. In the manuscript, she'd marked specific lines she didn't like or places where she wanted me to add more.

Somehow all these edits translated into me being like "MOAR SEX" and stuffing the book full of the dirty bits, so if you're scandalized by the nakedness when you're reading INVINCIBLE SUMMER, please remember MY EDITOR MADE ME DO IT.

heehee.

So, she emailed me yesterday and essentially said "Good work, hannah." (Actually she said I'm a genius and a rock star and I made her sob through the last fifth of the book, but even I'M not egotistical enough to post that kind of praise on my blog, hello.) We don't have to do another round of edits, which is exciting, because I hit all the points she wanted me to hit (and I'm a rock star) so now we're going straight to copyedits, the next part of the process.

Copyedits are cool. For BREAK, they were hardcopy, and I have a feeling they will be for IS too. Basically, you get a passage, and inside is your manuscript, all crazy marked up. It's already been through the hands of at least two people--your copyeditor and your editor. These edits are all small. In BREAK, there was a lot of changing "Seven-Eleven" to "7-Eleven" and making sure the therapist's name was spelled consistently (I had like twelve different versions of her name) throughout her scene. The copyeditor will also make sure that a character who you said was sitting down isn't suddenly standing up. Copyeditors freakin' have your back, basically. I love it.

Some of the changes might have "STET" next to them already--that means your editor saw them and disliked them and vetoes them. My editor didn't like capitalizing "popsicle," even though it's technically supposed to be, I think, so that stayed lowercase in BREAK.

You have veto power too, which is fun. I can't remember specific examples for when I wrote STET for BREAK, but I know I did it at least a few times. If there's something you don't like, you just write STET next to it. The other changes you leave as-is. You don't have to go into the document and make the changes the copyeditor gives you; that's the typesetter's job. You just look the edits over and approve them. It's one of the first times you really feel like you're working with your publisher as a member of a larger team, and I really like that feeling. It stops being just you and your editor and becomes you and your editor and your copyeditor and your typesetter and your art designer and your marketing director and your publicist and your everythingelse and that's pretty cool.

So I'm anticipating those! Any questions about the publishing process (or anything) let me know.

Pimping Myself

'cause that's how we do over on Invincible Summer, I guess.

My darling friend Misty wrote basically my favorite blog entry ever, and not ONLY because it makes me sound like a rock star (though that might be my favorite part.) You should check that shit out. It is here.

In other news...

I'm hard at work on my Invincible Summer edits (full disclosure: I'm hard at work on Invincible Summer edits in-between fighting Pokemon trainers) and also enjoying sunny (it's not sunny) Disney World with Christopher/the boyfriend/the shiksa/whichever of these names means more to you.

How are your lives?

Would you like another teaser from INVINCIBLE SUMMER, by the way? Because I can provide that shit if necessary.

I know I know I know

I've been hiding from this blog. It's been a crazy few weeks. BUT SOON I'M GOING TO VLOG FOR YOU.

However...

It might sell.
--EVEN IF the book isn't perfect.
--EVEN IF it's not your favorite thing you've ever written.
--EVEN IF you don't feel schizophrenic when you're writing it and you heard that's supposed to happen?
--EVEN IF you started your query with a rhetorical question or your manuscript with your main character waking up.

You might make a shitload of money.
--EVEN IF...well...I don't know anything about making a shitload of money, so I'll shut up on this point. But I hear it's possible!

And mo matter what happens:
--You might be happy.
--EVEN IF...
--Yeah. Even if.

But A Quick Note...

Lately...I've been noticing an influx of over-confident writers.

I feel sometimes like the world is split between raincloud I WILL NEVER SELL writers and writers who are convinced they are J.K. Rowling. If you are of the first camp, please drink some tea and enjoy this blog post but realize it is not for you.

For the rest of you...

Here are some things you should maybe consider/deal with.

--The manuscript you are writing and pouring your life into and dreaming about and crying over? It might not sell.
--EVEN IF your characters are really hot.
--EVEN IF you have a great query letter.
--EVEN IF it truly is a very, very good manuscript.
--EVEN IF you can see a place for it in the current market.
--EVEN IF your best friend is Jodi Piccoult.
--EVEN IF you already have an agent.
--Even if your agent loves it.
--EVEN IF YOU'VE SOLD A BOOK BEFORE.
--Even if you've sold fifteen fucking books before.
--Even if "but it's me and I sold"--no no no, EVEN YOU.

--If you are loudly overconfident, you will piss people off.
--EVEN IF you are attractive.
--EVEN IF (and maybe especially if) you turn out to be correct.

--If your book sells, it likely will not be for a lot of money.
--EVEN IF someone else sold a book for a lot of money.
--Even if every writer you know sold for SO MUCH MONEY.
--They didn't.

Don't get depressed. Accept it and deal with it and consider shutting your mouth next time you tell someone how sure you are going to sell.

Because:

--I got an agent.
--That book I got an agent with? It was not the first book we put on sub.
--I sold a book.
--That book that I got the agent with? It didn't sell.
--Even after I'd sold BREAK. Didn't matter.
--I left my agent, and got a shiiiiiitload of rejects looking for a new one.
--Even though I'd sold BREAK
--Even though I'm really hot.
--heehee


In conclusion, there are exactly three things it is ALWAYS safe to be.
--Hopeful
--Modest
--Grateful


Just something to think about.

Names

I'm the first to admit that character names and titles are not my strong suit. More often than not, someone else comes up with them for me. BREAK was not my original title--that was all Anica Rissi and her fabulous army over at Simon Pulse. I chose the name Jonah myself (Fun fact--a ton of my manuscripts have a male main character whose name starts with J, though not a lot that will ever be published) but the lovely Suzanne Young thought of Jesse. I was all "QUICK WHAT NAME GOES WELL WITH JONAH" and she gave me Jesse. Pretty sweet.

It also totally breaks that rule you always hear, that you shouldn't have two main characters whose name starts with the same letter. If they'd been Jonah and Jonas, that would have been a problem, but Jonah and Jesse look different enough for it not to be a problem.

(They also sound different. Do you hear words in your head when you're reading, or is that just me? I think this keeps me from being able to read very quickly, because I have to hear each individual word before I can move into the next one. Holy mother of digressions.)

ANYWAY. Do you ever get help on character names or titles? You hear a lot about how publishers will change your titles, and they do, frequently, but not all the time. INVINCIBLE SUMMER, as far as I know, is going to be the thing's name, and that title I actually did come up with all on my lonesome. (Not entirely--it's from a Camus quote, "In the middle of winter, I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer." It's about the only line Camus ever wrote that ISN'T quoted in the novel.)

So though publishers do change titles, it's by no means a guarantee that your book won't hit shelves with the same title you gave it in its word document. So how much thought do you give to your titles? What about to your character names? Do you get help?

(Kitten pictures tomorrow)