Eating My Brain

So my third book, Zombie Tag, is officially released in 4 hours and 37 minutes. I have my last exam of the semester in about eighteen hours, and Hanukkah begins about four hours after that, let's say.

I'm thrilled and impatient and excited, but really I'm just sitting here crying a little and wishing I could disappear, and I figured I should blog about that a little, even if it's not the post I'm supposed to write. I should be writing a big BUY MY BOOK thing right now, but you guys know I want you to buy my book. You know how this works.

What I think you might not know is how hard this all gets.

The reason I don't like writing these posts isn't because I'm afraid of being honest with you guys; you guys know I'm pretty much the most open of books, and until someone is like WHOA HANNAH STOP I'm probably going to keep doing that forever and ever. But I don't write these sad damn posts because I'm worried about how they make me see, so, upfront, okay? I know how lucky I am. I really, truly do. I thank the universe every single damn day that I have this job.

And then stupid things swallow me whole.

You guys are so fucking NICE to me. That's what kills me. Do you ever look at people you love and just want to cry because you love them so much, and they love you, and you feel like there's this pocket of the universe that exists JUST to take care of you?

That's how I feel.

And it scares the shit out of me.

Because I don't want to let you guys down.

I don't want to fuck up and not sell and have to stop writing books.

I don't want the criticism to wear me down to the point that I can't write anymore.

I don't want to get eaten alive by my own brain and have to stop and work some office job.

I don't want to flame out before I'm thirty.

I just feel like I'm phoning it in lately, not with writing (because I haven't BEEN writing, and let's not talk about that tonight) but with publicity, talking to you guys, the sheer act of getting my shit together. And it's just this agonizing fear of failure weighing me down, and that's NOT me. I'm a lot of damn things, but, compared to a lot of writers and compared to a lot of the other things that are fucked in my head, I'm not much of a worrier. I don't overanalyze. I don't panic.

And yet here I am, crying on my bed because someone said something nice to me and my damn heart couldn't take it.

I keep writing things and deleting them because I don't know how to say it. I'm just scared. I'm scared no one will read the book and you guys will forget about me.

That's what it is. You guys loving me is scary because I'm afraid that one day you won't.

You don't have to reassure me and flatter me in the comments or something. I mean, I wouldn't HATE that, but that's not what I'm going for. Really I just want you to understand the crazy places a writer's head goes to, because I think release turns a lot of people into robots publicly, when really it tosses our brains like salads, and you know me and my problem with compulsive honesty so here I am.

So, uh, buy my book. I just hope you like it, if you do.

Really, I just hope that even if you don't like it, you don't give up on me.

So Here's The Thing: Invincible Summer's Cover

When I first saw this book, I thought it was a summer kind of read. I've heard it's rather emotional. The cover doesn't make it appear that way at all!

Because of the cover I did think it was going to be a beachy read that I wouldn't be able to get into.

The cover of this book is entirely misleading.

Actually, I'm ashamed to say I think I DID judge this by it's cover. I've seen it around a bunch of times, wasn't really drawn in by the cover so just skipped over it. STUPID ME! This sounds like exactly my kind of read!

Cover and synopsis are pretty misleading. Don't judge this book based on the cover.

First off, this cover is weirdly my #1 favorite of 2011 so far!

The cover is so infuriatingly off. But honestly, I don't have a better idea....maybe a portrait of Albert Camus?

The current cover sucks. They should really let readers take votes on these things before they come out.

The synopsis is a little misleading. Sure there were girls and boys, love and lust, and a beach, but that wasn't what the book was about.

The cover and the reviews I've read of this book turned out to be 2 different things.

They really should change the cover. It doesn't fit the book whatsoever.

From all the reviews I've read, I just can't get over the fact that the cover kind of gives the wrong impression

Now I'm going to tell you that this whole blurb is totally inadequate and only the very last line really describes this book, in my opinion. Also, this is the worst cover ever for this book.

These are all quotes from reviews, positive and negative, and I could go on forever and ever. These are the ones I could find in five minutes.

All right, guys. I hear ya.

I did a post a while back where I responded to a lot of the "wow, your cover makes me want to go to the gym" comments I'd gotten, etc. (A quick summary of that post: you're hot, shut up, and that chick is photoshopped. I saw her when she had half the tits she has now.)

But this is kind of a different issue, yeah? Because this isn't really about what the cover looks like, but about what it says about the book.

It's a beautiful cover. I'll state that outright. It's a cover I'm proud to have on one of my books. It's doing its job and people are picking it up. I think the spine in particular is absolutely lovely. If you've seen IS in person, you'll know that the cover is made out of some kind of fantastic soft I don't even know that makes you want to put your head on it and go to sleep.

It's a beautiful cover.

But no, it's not the cover I would have chosen for this book.

So my 2012 book, Gone, Gone, Gone? It's a love story. It is so completely a love story. The WIP is a love story. I fucking love writing love stories.

Back in 2008, when I wrote IS, I did not know how to write a love story.

And I wasn't trying to.

This is a story about a family.

Some of the people up there ^ are responding to a little line at the end of the goodreads description that says "Not your typical beach read." That's not part of the real blurb. That's not on the back of the book.

That's something I went in and added myself a few weeks ago.

My publisher is amazing. Hands down. And they chose a cover and a blurb that would get people to pick it up. And I think it's working. I honestly could not be happier with how many people seem to be hearing about IS and picking it up. I saw a comment on an interview the other day where a girl said that the only reason IS was popular was because it had a chick in a bikini on it. Um guys. SHE SAID MY BOOK IS POPULAR.

This cover is doing its job. My publisher knows its shit, man. It's a beautiful cover, and I have so much support from the beautiful people in-house, and damn am I proud of my little book and INCREDIBLY thankful for the people who helped me make it and nourish it and get it out into the world. I really can't say that enough, and if you take one thing away from this post, let that be it.

But see, this cover is also pissing you guys off.

And that part sucks.

You all know this, but it's worth repeating: authors don't choose their covers. Authors don't write the blurb on the back of the book. And here's one you maybe don't hear as often: authors do not know what sells.

Yes, the love triangle aspect of IS's plot has been heavily pushed. It has been since the second my then-agent read it. The two brothers sleeping with the same girl? Of course it's weird. It's the hook because it's weird. It's not a hook I'd thought of. It wasn't a major part of the story, as far as I was concerned.

Once the book sold, I amped that up and made it a larger part of the plot. I made Noah have a real relationship with Melinda. I added more fights and conversations. These things absolutely strengthened the book as a whole.

It's not as if my book was ruined by this marketing, is what I'm trying to say.

The only part of that book I can control is what happens inside of it. And the truth is, the parts of that that I think are important would make really shitty book covers. Like the girl up there said, how do you design a book cover for a book about brothers and sign language and sex and Camus?

It's not easy.

But please. That don't judge a book by its cover thing? You have to understand something.

When you don't pick up a book because of its cover, you are not punishing the design team.

When you say, I would have picked up this book, but I hate the cover, so I won't, you are not punishing the design team.

When you refuse to read a review or take a second look at a book because of its cover, you are not punishing the design team.

You are punishing the author.

There are SO MANY reasons not to pick up my book. If that's the road you want to take, pick a good reason! Make it something that I did wrong. Make it about the ugly paragraph on page whatever or the fact that you hate books about big families or that you hate philosophy or that I peed on your front lawn or I said something mean to you on twitter or you don't like my nose. Make it something about ME. About something I did. Okay, maybe not the nose thing, then.

But guys. It's a book about a family. I will tell you a zillion times if I have to. It is a book about a boy and his family. It is a book about a boy and the siblings he is co-dependently creepy close to. There is sex in. There is more sign language than there is sex. This is not a book about a girl.

Not to mention, and here's the zinger:

I have made an executive decision.

If we're going by screen(page?)-time and character importance alone, that's Chase's goddamn sister (the only character in the book ever described as wearing, and I quote, "that green bikini," just sayin') on the cover and NOT the girl Chase and Noah are sleeping with.

And Claudia, the little sister, is the hero of the story. I will say that a million times too. Claudia is the hero of the story.

And in my mind, that's Claudia on the cover. That's my girl.

She deserves a cover.

And believing that makes me like my cover a hell of a lot more. Because it makes it darker and stranger and a fuckload more awkward and dirty sexy and God don't you want to put a towel on her and cover her up now? GOOD. Then read my book because you will like it. Seriously. Read this book if you want to cover up your little sister.

My point is: it's Claudia on the cover. That's my official statement. It's Claudia on the cover. And any time discussion of this cover ever comes up again, that's what I'm going to say.

And if you want to do me a favor, you will a. buy the book because bitch has to eat and b. TELL PEOPLE. You don't have to defend the cover. You don't have to like it. You don't have to offer a big explanation. But if you see a review dissing it, just leave a comment that says, "Hey, actually that's the sister on the cover."

And then walk away.

And that won't change the way a lot of people feel. But maybe, maybe it'll make a few say guhwhatthefuck? And that's why I write, really. It's especially why I write messed up shit like IS.

So. The chick on the cover. It's Claudia. And it is a beautiful cover beacause Claudia is goddamn beautiful.

It's not Melinda. It's not the girl they're sleeping with.

And really, this is all kind of appropriate, because it's Melinda's job to screw up everything.

So that's really all I have to say, so I'm going to leave you with a few things.

The first is Invincible Summer's trailer. Yeah, I just posted this. Have it again. And here's why.

1. I worked closely with Vania in developing this. I chose the images at the beginning. I also told her I wanted making out. Because making out sells, guys. That's the moral of this story. And maybe that sucks a little.

The more important reason is:

2. The voiceover? I wrote that. Just me. No input. Vania said do whatever you want, make it in Chase's voice. And I wrote that. It isn't an excerpt from the story.

And maybe it's a response to that girl, that girl that everyone assumes--and I'm not saying it's dumb to assume this, guys, it's only natural--is the girl on my cover, and therefore the girl everyone thinks is the focus of the story.

Maybe that's what the voice over is about. Maybe I'm talking about the girl who ruined it.

I don't know.



And I'll also give you links to two reviews, one positive and one negative, from two people who I think really captured what the book is about, whether or not they liked it.


Nay

Yay


I would absolutely love comments on this post, and I would also love if you would tweet the shit out of this or get it tattooed on you or otherwise let this be known to the entirety of the world. Make a song out of this post and then sing it. Put it on youtube. Add a bugle. Self-publish a book with only the words IT'S CLAUDIA ON THE COVER repeated over and over and over.

Whatever you do, be it tattoo or nothing, thank you for reading. This is all for you guys, you know?

Getting Your NaNo On

So! National Novel Writing Month is coming up. I'm sure most of you know the gist already: 30 days, 1 book, 50,000 words. Details are here, and if you decide you're interested, you should hurry up and sign up! We're starting in 5 days!

This will be my 3rd year doing NaNo. For me, the challenge isn't writing quickly; it's getting a 50,000 word first draft. This is really, really long for me. A lot of my finished books clock it at around 50,000, and my first drafts are usually significantly shorter, somewhere in the 25-30,000 range. So even though people assume NaNo is easy for me because I'm a fast writer, it's actually a significant challenge for me as well. I won in both 2008 and 2009 (though in 2009 I cheated by adding 50K to an existing project. shhhh. But 2008 was legit).

If you're interested in NaNo but nervous about the idea of 50K in 30 days, here are some tips that you can take or leave as they suit you.

--Take a risk. I like to do something weird for NaNo. My planned project for this year is a ghost story, and hopefully (hopefully!) the first of a trilogy I have mapped out.

This is so astronomically far from anything I've ever done, but the good news is, I can't give up. I am absolutely positive that I'm going to start panicking and trying to jump ship 10,000 words in. And any other time, I probably would. But not for NaNo. For NaNo, you have to keep going. Or you LOSE. I don't like losing.

--Nail down the beginning. Choose your first line NOW. You don't want to be staring at a blank page. You can change it later, whatever, but give yourself a springboard. I have my first chapter all written up in my head. Then God knows what happens.

--Don't pace yourself. It doesn't work that way, at least not for me. Start strong. Write as many words a day as you can. Aim for 5K a day. Power through for as long as you can.

There will come a day where this gets absolutely impossible. You'll be lucky to get 1K out. And that's okay. Because you have a few days of writing 5K behind you, and you're already ahead of the game.

It will get harder to write as you get to the middle of your book. You will start doubting yourself and pulling out your hair, and the lack of sleep will catch up with you. Keep pushing as hard as you can, but give yourself permission to have some days when you're barely trickling out words. It happens. But don't try to slow down the part where you're buzzing and exciting because your book is shiny and new in hopes of saving your energy for later. It doesn't work.

--Get a support group. Physical ones work really well for some people; ask around and see if there are meetups in your area. You might be surprised!

If you're a hermit like me, there's always, thank God, the internet. You can find friends on the NaNo forums, or you can bully some of your existing friends into participating with you.

It's very, very helpful to have people to bitch to. If the Musers didn't do NaNo, I can't imagine I would. Most of the fun of this month comes from suffering together. It breaks up the loneliness we all feel sometimes, when it's just us and our laptops and our boyfriends complaining they never see us.

--Welcome help. Once you sign up, you'll get pep talk emails. Read them! Love them! They really DO help, if you let them. (And you might just find a quote from someone you know in there. I mean, maybe. You know a lot of people, right? I'm just saying it's possible. Stop looking at me like that. I don't know anything...)

People will reassure you. People who haven't read a word of your novel will tell you that it's brilliant and you can finish and you can do it. Believe them! Don't be a sourpuss. Sourpusses don't finish novels. I won't say what they do. This is a family-friendly blog. (Stop looking at me like that.)

So. If you decide to sign up, make sure to look me up. I'm right here. You can read a description of what I'll be working on, if you like. I'll put up an excerpt once the month has started. Add me as a buddy if you want to see how I'm doing, and leave links to your profiles in the comments so I can friend you back! And good luck!

"I Write Children's Books" OR How I Learned to Stop Fighting and Love the Stigma

In Fall 2009, I started college at a certain Ivy League school that shall not be named. All that I will say is that I didn't have a good time there. And that it's a color.

For the semester I was there, I was enrolled as a "Literary Arts" major. I never really found out what Literary Arts is. I think it's a more pretentious version of an English major, but I'm not sure.

I was in a class called "Literature of Children and Young Adults." On the first day, our teacher had us go around and say why we were interested in children's books, specifically young adult books. When it got to me, I told them--"My first YA book came out in 2009. My next one is 2011."

I pretty naively expected to be congratulated.

What I got was an A on my first paper followed by a paragraph that had nothing to do with my paper and everything to do with the way I introduced myself the first day. Saying I was published was unprompted self-congratulation that set me up as a precocious kid with an attitude problem. And, my professor continued, the A on the paper should not be taken as a sign that my writing didn't need a lot, a LOT of work. I was young and naive and full of myself. I was all bark and no bite.

Later, when I asked the kids in my class what they were working on, one of them mentioned that children's books were just practice for him, and--by the way--he was so glad he wasn't planning on perusing publication for years to come, because good GOD he would be so embarassed to have anything less than his very best life's work out in the world.

I don't think I have to tell you guys how hard it is to have any self-confidence at all in this business. From the outside, it's probably very easy to see published authors as self-satisfied assholes who refuse any more growth. From the inside, I haven't seen anyone who fits this stereotype. Not to say some don't, but I think this is far, far from the norm.

We're still scared. We're still searching. We're still learning and editing and crying into our pillows. I don't have to tell you guys this. You know.

They didn't. I was surrounded by people trying to knock me down a peg, except I had nothing underneath me when they did.

I stopped going out. I couldn't write.

I went home.

That professor and those students were not the reasons I left Brown.

They didn't help.

(Oops, look at that. Said the name.)

I transferred to the University of Maryland, I started out as a Theatre major just to try to get away from the drama (ha ha ha) and the baggage. It worked, but it turned out I was a really shitty Theatre major. I started my sophomore year a month and a half ago, as an English major.

I was fucking terrified.

My plan was not to tell anyone I was published. No one. Lips zipped. It was going to be my complete and absolute secret.

And then the first day of Introduction to Creative Writing, my teacher has us go around and say what we write.

Everyone else in the class writes poetry, short fiction, doesn't write anything but wants to start. A girl is working on a sci-fi novel. Besides that, no longer works.

He gets to me, and I say, "I write children's books."

I don't think I'd ever said this sentence out loud before. I hadn't been intentionally avoiding it, but this was the first time I'd spoken about what I write since Zombie Tag sold in June. Before that, I wrote young adult books. Now I write children's books.

And then my teacher said, "Are you published?"

Well, fuck.

What was I supposed to say to that?

So I said yes and he acted impressed and I said to the class, "I'm normal. I swear. I'm normal."

And my professor said, "Don't worry. I'm sure you're not here to show off."

And that sentence cracked my whole world open and filled it with sunshine.

The moral of this story is that I would have to be beaten heavily with a stick before I'd take another children's book class.

I love being an English major. I am absolutely crazy about 20th century American Lit and literary criticism and a million other aspects of this world. I'm considering doing a second major in English Education so I'll be certified to teach those English classes down there, like, ferrealsies. Surprising no one here, I love books. I love learning about books and learning about writing.

I like that I am branded as a children's book writer.

There is still a ton of stigma around writing children's books as opposed to "real books." This is another thing you guys don't need me to tell you. But it's working for my advantage now, and I love it.

It feels a little like playing a game, because I'm pretending to check the children's books at the door. And it probably looks that way. They probably think I'm holding everything I'm learning in a separate vessel for the day I grow up and decide to write a Real Book. People see my writing as this slightly hacky side career I do while I'm not at school learning about Real Writing.

They have no idea I'm stealing all the Real Writing techniques and bending them and shaping them and hacking them into pieces and smushing them together and simplifying them and extrapolating them and plugging them into my zombie book.

They don't need to know. I'm not cheating. I'm learning. I'm enjoying myself. And I got to do it through being honest. And since I'm in classes for "real" writing, not children's writing, no one sees me as the girl who's there to show off. I'm the girl with the job on the side who's learning something totally new.

I have friends now.

It feels like I'm winning this game.

I can deal with being a hack.

SCBWI!

SO. I will be in LA from Thursday the 29th until Tuesday the 2nd or the 3rd, I can't count. And after that I'm leaving for New York for the rest of the week, then Orlando for the week after that, so...posting will be light for the next couple of weeks.

That being said, I hope and pray that you will be at SCBWI and that you will come say hello to me. If you see me, you absolutely MUST say hi, no avoiding it. Check the videos if you need to know what I look like, and I'll tweet in the mornings what I'mw earing if you'd like to stalk me that much (which you obviously should).

If you have a copy of BREAK, please give it to me so I can sign it! I'll also tons of bookmarks on my person at all times, so you should come talk to me if just for a signed bookmark.

I am absolutely horrible with names and faces, so please, if you run into me, tell me your full name and your email address and what your book is about and your twitter handle and what your twitter picture looks like and your social security number and any other possible way for me to identify you. I promise I love you all, I just am dumb and this is how I exist.

If you are coming to SCBWI, or if you are just in the area, I have to encourage you very very VERY highly to come to the Muser reading at Open bookstore in Long Beach at 7 PM on Monday (details are in the flier in the post below this one.) I'll be reading from both Invincible Summer and Zombie Tag, giving away signed copies of BREAK like candy, and we will be playing a REAL LIVE GAME of Zombie Tag. So please come. Wine and cheese. A good time for all.

The Boy Problem

First, you need to know my position.

--I am a writer, not a publisher or a bookseller.
--I am primarily a YA writer, but I write MG as well.
--I am female, sex and gender alike.
--So far, all of my finished novels, and certainly all of my published ones, have had male protagonists.
--95% of what I read is contemporary. I don't generally like SF/F.
--I generally prefer to read books with male protagonists
--About 70% of my reading is in YA.


Now.

People have been talking about the issue of boys in YA for a long time, but these discussions seem to have reached a head recently--one that I think has been a long time coming.

I want to make it clear that there are going to be exceptions to every single thing I say. One of the big points I'm trying to make in this post, in fact, is that generalizing doesn't fucking work. So please understand that none of what I will say is true 100% of the time, and your knowledge that there are exceptions to what I'm about to lay out might not invalidate what I'm saying. This is literature. Nothing is universal.

So.

The problem we're talking about is fairly simple: boys don't read YA. This isn't an issue of "boys don't read"--we're not talking about these boys. We're talking about avid readers, boys who ate up middle grade but go to adult fiction and non-fiction instead of passing through YA, and nobody really knows why.

I'm not an expert on this. I'm just a chick who writes, at least from my point of view, the kind of YA that is the closest that we have right now to "boy books," which is really just to say that my books have male main characters, because right now that is all we offer boys.

And it isn't enough.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've come up with a lot of theories for why boys aren't reading YA. Some of these probably aren't true. Maybe most of them aren't. But whether or not these are the root of the problems, they are issues that I'm seeing swept under the rug, and I believe they're truths we don't want to look at.

It's not all the writer's fault. We've all heard that publishers don't buy boy books--and 1. they do, and 2. why should they if they aren't selling--and it pisses me the fuck off how many boys there are who won't pick up a book with a girl main character or, heaven forbid, a book with a chick's name in the cover.

It's not entirely our fault. But it does start with us.

Here's what we did:

--We've stereotyped boys. Most boys in YA fit into four very particular categories.

1) The gay best friend. The gay best friend is sassy. He's also deeply damaged and vulnerable from the trauma of being gay. The girl--our main character, always--might be his only friend. He desperately needs her. Maybe he has a drug problem due to his inner torment.

2) The best guy friend. Practically like the gay best friend except he's straight, and he doesn't have inner torment. In fact, he's sweet, attentive, and as reliable as death/taxes. He's also in love with the girl MC, who for some reason hasn't noticed him even though he was always there. Don't worry, by the end of the book, she'll realize he's The One.

3) The bad boy. This is the one we're all familiar with. He's pure motorcycle on the outside, but deep down, he's just a marshmallow of love for our main character. He doesn't open up to anyone else, but he loves this one girl. He needs her. Yeah, you're all thinking about that series I haven't read, I know it, you know it, we don't need to name it.

4) The nerdy boy. This is (usually, remember usually, we're talking about usually) the only boy you will ever find as a main character. If you find a male POV, it's usually him. He's geeky but never pimply, nerdy but always in a socially-proficient, sarcastic, endearing way. He talks about masturbation because it's funny, not because of something he really likes. He's a bookworm girl's wet dream.

Which leads me to the second thing writers have done:

--We've sanitized boys. What MG books do boys love? Captain Underpants, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, books that appeal to their light side. In our efforts to empower girls (oh, and trust me, there will be much more on this later) we've forgotten that it's irrelevant right now that it's hard to grow up as a girl in today's world full of fashion magazines and celebrity marriages and mirrors in every dressing room; it's hard to grow up a boy in a world where Dad wants you to play baseball and you want to draw pictures or you want to play baseball but your best friend didn't make the team.

I'm simplifying, obviously, and you can flip and flop the sexes here--boys don't always love the mirrors either, and maybe Dad would rather braid your hair then cheer you on in the stands--but we're not arguing about which sex has it harder, we're just acknowledging a fact that YA isn't right now--boys aren't skipping their way through high school, either.

So why do MG books remember this and not YA? Why are MG books looking at showing boys every aspect of themselves, like Greg's issues with his drippy friends and his little brother, and simultaneously giving them an escape with superheros and gross-out humor, when this seems to be something that YA can't grasp?

Well, I'll tell you why.

--We've stripped boys of substance and we did it to empower girls. Somehow, the message "girls can do it too" became "only a girl can do it," and men became the weaker sex in YA.

Where are the epic fantasy trilogies with male main characters? Harry Potter isn't YA, people, stop pretending. When, since Eragon, have boys gotten to save the world? Where is the Melissa Marr for boys? Where is--yeah--Twilight for boys? Where is the science fiction that boys loved in YA, and we just assumed, for some reason, they were fine with losing when they turned 14?

Oh yeah--they're over there in adult fiction, and that's where the teenage boys are going to be, too.

Boys in YA are rubber walls for our 3D female characters to bounce off of. They're props for girls to throw around to show that they're the stronger sex.

And I get that we need to empower girls, people. I get it. But how many books about girls do we need before we can consider that a job well done?

So here's how to fix it. And this is a call to writers, and it's a call to publishers, and it's a call to readers.

--Write, publish, and promote books with real boys. Stop talking and just fucking do it. Read Shaun Hutchinson's The Deathday Letter. Now read it again.

There will be no question in your mind about whether or not Oliver is written as fantasy fodder for a girl. Oliver is not written for a girl. Period. Oliver is written for Oliver, and he is real.

Now realize that he is just one boy, and that you can write any boy you want. Nothing pisses me off like a writer saying that boys have to strong, quiet about how they're feeling, but secretly weak underneath their hardened exterior.

NO! Your boy does not have to be ANYTHING. STOP MAKING BOYS THAT HAVE TO BE SOMETHING. We are no longer allowed to even hint that a girl has to have a specific quality for fear of someone calling sexism, so I am calling sexism on you.

Stop writing this boy you've imagined in your head and write a real boy. Make him gross or sweet or angry or well-adjusted or affectionate or uncomfortable or confused or ambitious or overwhelmed or smitten or anxious or depressed or desperate or happy. Write a boy the same way everyone has been telling everyone, forever, to write a girl; free of gender stereotypes, three-dimensional, and relatable.

Write books that lead logically from middle grade, that don't assume that boys wash their brains out when they hit puberty.

Put covers on books, no matter the gender of the main character, that boys will not be embarrassed to read on the subway. (My vlog tomorrow will have more on this). Teach boys that they don't need a man's name on the cover to know that they will like it.

Agents and publishers, either stop saying you're looking for boy books or start meaning it. Or figure out what a boy book is, because we need someone to explain it to us.

And I'm okay if it means, right now, "books with a male POV." Because I understand that that's a stepping stone boys need right now. I'm not okay with boys indefinitely refusing to read books with a girl's point of view. I'm completely okay with them only reading books that have real male characters in them. Let's make it easy for them to find them, first.

Write and publish fantasy and science fiction (FOR GOD'S SAKE WHERE IS THE SCIENCE FICTION) with strong male main characters. Boys need their blockbusters, too, and it doesn't matter how you feel about YA fantasy--you know just as well as I do what's selling, so let's expand that past the girl's point of view.

Boys. Shut up and read YA. The books are there. There aren't enough, we're absolutely sorry. But they're there. Stop insisting they're not. And I'm trying. And we're trying.

And we can't do this without you.

And the boy reader in your life isn't going to find this post on his own because he doesn't know me because he doesn't read YA, so you know what to do. This post has a link for a reason.

Recommendations

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

Because people ask me a lot: websites and books that I highly recommend for writers. In no particular order.

WEBSITES FOR INFORMATION:

ABSOLUTE WRITE--I pretty much assume that everyone I meet is an AW member, but if you aren't, you should be. Besides offering a wealth of information--a serious, serious wealth--being part of AW is fantastic for networking and offers connections with a ton of people. Being able to say "I'm an AWer" can get you a lot further than you'd expect. Don't miss the Share Your Work section--free critiques! You can find me there a lot--my username is Shady Lane and I'm all over the YA forums.

TWITTER--You've heard it before. Get on Twitter. Delete your facebook if that'll help motivate you. Twitter. Talk to people. I'm @hannahmosk.

GOODREADS--I'm obsessed. Librarything and Shelfari and I'm sure others provide the same basic service, but Goodreads is the most user-friendly in my opinion. No easier way to keep track of what you've read and what your friends are reading and enjoying. I'm, well, Hannah Moskowitz.

WEBSITES FOR INSPIRATION:

CRACKED--Hilarious articles on things you never would have realized you didn't know. Articles like "The Six Creepiest Places" are begging to be novel fodder.

SNOPES-Urban legends, myths, and outlandish stories. It doesn't matter whether they're real or not; a ton of them would make great stories.

TV TROPES--You can lose your life here, and I'm sorry. But there's no better place to find cliches. The article about mermaids inspires Fishboy--How do mermaids breathe underwater when you don't see any gills, and how are they sex symbols when they don't have genitals? Tada, magic gay fish.

POSTSECRET--I can't imagine you don't know this one.

BOOKS

ON WRITING by Stephen King--A classic. Don't take the rules too seriously. I like it as a version of the journey that we all, in a way, go through, and the personal parts are very brave.

CHARACTERS AND VIEWPOINT by Orson Scott Card--Very useful. I've read this one several times. Keep in mind that it is somewhat out of date, and certain parts might strike you as a bit...well, offensive, to be completely honest. And remember, take it all with a grain of salt.


For great blogs, check my blog roll right over there ---> Nathan Bransford's, Jacket Whys, Pimp my Novel, and Editorial Anonymous are some I never miss.

ARC CONTEST

Hello hello hello I am an ARC of INVINCIBLE SUMMER.



I WANT TO BE ON YOUR BOOKSHELF.



The problem is that I (now I'm hannah again) only have TWO of these. And I get to keep one, because I wrote this book and that's the kind of shit I get to do.

So there is only ONE available.

Here are some reasons you want this ARC.

1. It is uncorrected, meaning there is an entire page that is all in italics for no discernible reason.

2. Possibly the worst paragraph I've ever written somehow survived for this long and is on page 18 of this ARC. It will not be in the final version. I crossed it off and wrote "what the fuck?" next to it.

3. If you don't get this exact ARC, chances are very good that you will have to wait until April 19th, 2011 which, let's face it, is a long time from now.

4. I will sign it, obviously.

5. According to the back cover copy, this book is pretty awesome. "Across four sun-kissed drama-drenched summers at his family's beach house, Chase tries to come to grips with his family's slow dissolution while also finding himself in a chaotic love triangle, pitted against his own brother in pursuit of the girl next door. Invincible Summer is a gritty, sexy, page-turning read from a talented teenaged author that readers won't want to miss."

6. This exact ARC has been BETWEEN MY LEGS.




So. Here is how to enter.

BY ENTERING, YOU SOLEMNLY SOLEMNLY SWEAR THE FOLLOWING:

1. You are a follower of this blog. Don't make me check up on you, bitches. Here in hannahland we use the honor system. This rule is purely because I want more followers. At least I'm honest.

2. You will review INVINCIBLE SUMMER somewhere. Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Librarything, Shelfari, your own blog, whatever catches your fancy. And dude, if you hate it, give it a bad review. I just want the name out there. ARCs are for reviews, you know?

HERE'S HOW TO ENTER:

1. Comment telling me your own reasons why you desperately desperately need this ARC. The more ridiculous the better. Make shit up. Be hilarious.

2. None of that +1 for retweeting shit. I don't have time for that. Do it for good karma.

3. And the winner is going to be chosen by a random number generator. Yeah, your stories are worthless. I'm just bored.

The contest starts RIGHT NOW and will close in two weeks, on JULY 17TH, 2010. I'll try to mail it out to you soon after that.

You can enter no matter where you are in the world, 'cause I love you bitches. Oh, and obviously one entry per person. Don't make me come down there.

UPDATE: If this contest has over 100 entries, I'll randomly pick another winner for a signed copy of BREAK!

AND GO.

:)

Okay, I'm sorry that all my posts lately have been ME ME ME, but it's been a very exciting week. I promise I'll have good posts for you next week (and if you have any topics you would like to see addressed, please let me know! I'm short of ideas at the moment.)

But I needed to share this:

I'll post the PM announcement when it's up (more me me me. sigh. I really don't like to do this, guys) but right now, I can tell you that my MG novel, ZOMBIE TAG, sold to Roaring Brook Press, a children's division of Macmillan, yesterday in a two book deal. It will be a hardcover, out in Fall 2011.

And I can tell you that I am ridiculously, ridiculously excited.

I hope the lovely Suzie Townsend doesn't mind if I steal her description of the book, since it is better than anything I could ever write. It's better than the book, in fact. :)

Thirteen year old Wil Lowenstein can't help wishing his parents would
stop ignoring him and go back to the way they were before. Before,
like before his older brother Graham died in a recent accidental fire.

Wil copes with Graham's death by focusing on Zombie Tag, a
mafia/capture the flag hybrid game he created for his friends. He, his
best friend Anthony, and their other friends fight off brain-eating
zombies with their mother's spatulas. What Wil doesn’t tell anybody is
that if he could bring his dead brother back as a zombie, he would. In
a heartbeat.

In fact, when he finds a bell that can summon all the dead within five
miles, he seizes the chance. Graham returns from the dead, but he's
not the same. None of the returned are. At first they're just
emotionless, apathetic - lifeless. But then some of the zombies slowly
start to get one emotion back - anger. And Wil is going to have to
find a way to fix zombie-Graham and turn him back into the angsty
teenager he's supposed to be before it's too late. Because some of the
zombies are banding together and plotting something. And Wil isn't
sure his mom's spatulas are really going to do the trick if the
zombies really do want to eat his brains.

I'm so incredibly happy, guys.

A Special Thank You

Okay, so you know I love all of you, but today I want to direct all the gratitude I have in the whole world to a special few of you.

According to the poll from earlier this week, (last week? can't remember. too lazy) just under 1/6 of you are under the age of 18.

Thank you.

It's obvious that you and other people your age who read are the reason I have a career. But that's not entirely what this is about. I need you guys, definitely. I need you to pick up books and buy books and tell your friends about books and read more books by the authors you love. That's a given. That's how BREAK, a little paperback by a debut author that could have been lost in the shelves, is doing so much better than I could have imagined. It is thanks, hugely, to teenagers like you who have read it and told their friends about it, and I am so incredibly grateful.

But that's not really what this is about.

this is about--as much of my life is--the internet.

I started this blog *right* before I turned eighteen, and only because, rather stupidly, I thought it would help sell more books. I'm pretty sure that, all in all, this blog doesn't help sell that many copies of BREAK. It's not as if most of the teenagers in the world are reading this. The vast majority, like I said, of the teenagers who pick up BREAK are ones who hear about it from their friends or their teachers, or the ones who happen to stumble across it at the bookstore or while browsing for it online.

Most teenagers use the internet to a large degree. But the teenagers who read this blog--who comment, I've noticed, all the time, and who are very likely to have their own blogs--are a very very special breed.

You give a shit.

Teenagers who read are incredible. Teenagers who connect with authors and review books on their blogs and tweet and comment...God, do you guys know how much we love you? It's something authors discuss all the time, how incredibly grateful we are for the teenagers who come online and advocate for books they didn't write, or who take the time to talk to us, who understand that I am not just words on a page or on your computer screen, I am a girl in an armchair with a dirty laptop and a yellow tank top.

As a teenager, these are connections that are invaluable to me.

And it makes you so, so much braver and so much smarter than I ever was. Or than I am even now.

You are truly the future of publishing.

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.

If I Owe You Something

I'M SORRY I'M SO BEHIND PLEASE DON'T HURT ME

No But Seriously Guys

You want this.

Emptying My Pockets All Over My Blog

Here's some stuff that's going on in my life right now!

I'm in publishing limbo again.

Did you think it ended once you sold a book? HAHAHAHAHA.

That is the sound of me laughing at your foolishness and LAUGHING AT MY PAIN.

I'll take any crossed fingers you can throw at me. Or you can mail them, if that's easier. I'd give you my address, but I just rethought and pictured my roommate's face if fingers, crossed or otherwise, started arriving in our mail, and it wasn't pretty.

So let's talk about nicer things. Chances are, a year from today, you will have a copy of Invincible Summer in your pretty little hands. I'm assuming here that if you read my blog, you like me enough to buy my book. Also, that your hands are little and pretty. There's something pretty exciting about that. A lot of times I feel like Invincible Summer isn't coming out for ages and ages, but right now a year doesn't feel like too long. In a few days, I'm sure I'll be crying about how it's never going to come out and omigod what if I turn TWENTY before the release date and waaaah.

Copyedits on Invincible Summer are all done and getting mailed back to my editor in the next few days. After this, typeset pages and galleys and all the reaaaally exciting stuff. LIKE ARCs. I mean, I should shut up, because ARCs won't be for ages, but um ARCs. ARCs. That is all.

For those of you who care about my life as a human (vs. my life as a word processor) I'm finishing up my freshman year of college in the next two weeks and preparing for the return of my boyfriend, who's in been in Ohio for school the past year. I am astronomically excited for both these things.

This summer is going to be pretty fantastic. I'm doing a lot of low-key traveling (including a weekend in NYC over May 21st-23rd) and, of course, attending my very first WRITING CONFERENCE. I've met very few writers in real life, and no publishing professionals, so SCBWI LA is going to be insane and fantastic. Who's going to be there? You all better come find me. I'll be the nervous girl with the pink hair.

Look! Invincible Summer!

On Goodreads!

You should add it. It makes me happy, as a Goodreads whore.

Also, I have no idea if it's really going to be out in April. I just put that in because I like April. As soon as I have a release date, you guys will be the first to know. Although for BREAK, I just found out because it was up on Amazon. So anyone who saw it first me knew before I did. So if you stalk me hard enough, you might ACTUALLY be the first to know. In which case please let me know.

I shouldn't blog at 2 AM.

Oh also I'm judging this contest and today (Friday) is the last day to enter and you should enter it and here is the link. Riiiight here.

Guest Post!

I did a guess post at the FABULOUS Kathleen Ortiz's blog about what to do when you get an offer from an agent. Check it out here.

Trouble

Anyone who was on twitter today knows what went down and does not need specifics explained to them. If you don't know, I apologize--you won't find specifics here, because I care less about the incident itself and more of its existence as further evidence of a common problem.

I've talked before about how published authors are not better than unpublished authors, and published authors who act like unpub'd ones aren't worth their time make me sick.

Well, here we are. And I realize this is a post that won't win me any fans.

Publishing is not a hierarchy.

Unagented authors are not at the bottom.

Agented authors are not above them.

Agents are not above them.

Editors are not above them.

Publishing is made of a series of symbiotic relationships. Everyone is necessary to EVERYONE. Agents need editors. Editors need agented writers. Writers need editors. Agents need unagented writers. Publishing needs my agent. It needs some other agent who isn't my agent. It needs the editors at FSG and the editors at Simon Pulse and the editors at the indie press you haven't heard of. It needs me. It needs you.

You are important.

You don't have to suck up to anyone.

If you see someone abusing a position of authority, you do not have to go along with it. You can speak up. You should speak up.

You are not insignificant.

But you are responsible for everything you say.

Take responsibility. Speak up. Take risks.

As A Softer World put it, be the trouble you want to see in the world.

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.

Vlog!

I did a vlog post for YA rebels this week. Check it out!

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.