"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.

What Are We Doing to YA?

This post is more of a question than most of mine are. I fully admit that this is all speculation. But it's something I've been wondering for a while.

Has the internet community changed YA?

Am I right in thinking that YA writers are the most active online? We tweet word counts and deadlines and what our main character would eat for breakfast. We friend each other on Facebook and leave each other rep points on AW. We have blogs just for posting excerpts and shit like this. We know each other's names, agents, and editors like we're all related. We're The Contemps, the Debs, the Tenners, the Elevensies, the Musers.

The word "blogosphere," ugly though it may be, is so appropriate. We're our own little biosphere. We have staked out our little corner of the internet, and we're loud and social and crazy and God knows I'm part of the problem.

And lately I've been worrying that it really is a problem.

To put it plainly, I'm starting to wonder if YA is turning into something written by/for the internet community under the guise of writing for everyday teenagers, and that who likes you on the internet is more important to your career--or, if not to your career, to your psyche and your perception of your success--than if teenagers are picking up your book.

Is the gap between "successful" author and "author teenagers want to read" getting wider and wider as our main audience to impress becomes bloggers and librarians instead of teenagers themselves?

(For the record, I realize and acknowledge that some of us are teenagers ourselves. But if you're reading this, you're not the average book-reading teenager. You know too much. We've relinquished our right to be considered the average YA reading teenager.)

Are we getting too self-referential to be relevant?

I don't know. But recently, YA has started to look very clubby to me, and I'm wondering if that's really fair for the readers. If we're writing to be social, are we doing our readers a disservice?

We give each other biased Goodreads reviews because we don't want to piss anyone off. We tell people we love books we haven't read just because we're friends with the author. We're so loud about the books we love--which should be a great thing!--that we might be fooling ourselves into thinking that our tastes reflect those of a teenager.

We hear so much about publishing trends. Vampires are in, vampires are out, zombies are in, zombies are out, angels are in, angels are out. But a teenager who loves vampires wants to read more about vampires. She doesn't give a shit whether it's out or not. So is our perception of a "saturated" market affecting her? I'm not saying, obviously, that we should all be out writing vampire books, but wouldn't it make more sense if we did stuff steadily instead of in trendy slews? And wouldn't that be possible if we weren't so intent on responding to and competing with the authors we follow on Twitter?

I think the reason I'm posing these questions is that lately I've felt very disillusioned and overwhelmed. I still love YA. But when I'm writing stuff like #magicgayfish, I start questioning my own relevance really, really easily. I love that you guys are all over it, and obviously I hope that teenagers would have the same reaction, if the thing gets published.

But how closely does our taste reflect that of an actual teenager?

Are the boys we swoon over the ones THEY find hot?

Okay, I'm asking a lot of questions. So here's what I think.

What was initially cool about YA, in my opinion, was that it had the least adult influence from the shelf to the hands of the reader. YAs pick out and buy and read their own books. Their parents don't screen them first. And obviously [adult] publishers still have to decide to publish them (and that's a HUGE thing, but we really can't change that) and the bookstore or the library still has to decide to stock them, but it was still more direct than other childrens' books. It's the kid's wallet, the kid's choice.

And now for some reason, it looks to me like we're letting it become books about teenagers and for adults rather than about teenagers for teenagers, and the way we're going, I don't think that's going to change.

WE'RE the ones counting down the days 'til the next big YA comes out.

WE'RE the ones fantasizing about ourself and the Next Hot Boy.

WE'RE the ones trend-chasing and trend-hating and jacking up the Goodreads reviews.

I think in the future, people are going to equate expecting YA to be only for young adults to expecting science fiction to be only for scientists.

I don't know. I've had very many emotional crisises lately where I'm like I DON'T KNOW WHAT TEENAGERS WANT. So maybe I'm just projecting. But I still think the market shift is noteworthy and worrisome.

Your thoughts?

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.

Humor Me Here

I know, I'm posting a lot lately. I have some things to say.

This is one I've been meaning to say for a while. And I apologize if this comes up as somewhat of a rant. And, actually, for probably the only time in the history of ever, I'm going to apologize if this offends anyone. Because, this time, it's actually not my intention.

Because ME ME ME this is about me. Yesterday I told you not to blog about yourself, today I'm blogging about myself. Welcome to Invincible Summer.

So.

Do you remember when Mary-Kate and Ashley made that big announcement about how they didn't want to be called The Olsen Twins anymore? I guess this is kind of like that.

I've thought a lot about this, and I've decided I don't want to be called a teenage writer anymore.

This is a weird declaration to make, because it implies some sort of deceit or, at the very least, shame, that isn't at all what I'm intending. I'm fine with being referred to as a writer who was first published as a teenager, or a nineteen-year-old writer, or a writer who is a teenager, or, hell, a teenager who is a writer. So it's not the actual meaning of the term "teenage writer" that I'm trying to break away from. It's the three connotations this term has come to have.

The first one is the predictable one, and the one that is less of a problem for me. "She's good for a teenager." Yeah, awesome. That was cool when I was turning in papers in high school. It's not going to cut it now.

I'm obviously not the first person to experience it, and I think even people who haven't had this firsthand can see and understand that this is frustrating. And it is, but it is not my biggest problem with being called a teenage writer. Not at all.

The second is bigger. Let's use a story to illustrate this one.

So let's say you have this woman. When she was 27, she decided she wanted to be a writer. She was horrible at first--who isn't?--and she was fine with that, and had fun dabbling around and playing with different things. She started researching the possibility of publication when she was 30, long before she had anything of publishable quality.

She finished her first piece of long fiction when she was 31. That was the same year she got her "great idea," which took her until just after her 34th birthday to finish. This was her first novel. It sucked, but it was hers. But she knew she had a long way to go, and she continued working and working without trying for publication until she turned 36. And then she sent her first query letter.

She kept writing, and she kept querying. She finished projects and queried them and got requests and rejections and no offers. She kept writing. After completing six previous novels, she finally wrote the one that got her an offer of representation right before her 37th birthday. The book sold that summer and came out when she was 38, the same month she got a contract for two more books. She is now 39 and waiting for the release of her 2nd book shortly after her 40th birthday.

Yeah, did you figure out the punchline? Subtract 20 years from all of those ages, and you have my journey.

There's this idea that, because I'm young, this all must have happened very quickly for me. I must have skipped steps, or gotten really lucky, or come out of the womb a perfect writer. I must have slept with someone, or done the twelve-year-old equivalent of sleeping with someone, to get to where I am.

It's bullshit, and it didn't feel fast to me, and I'm not a prodigy. The only reason I got published a lot younger than other people is I'm a stubborn little shit who decided that she had a career when she was eleven years old. The fact that my journey became public when I was a teenager shouldn't lock me into that age. Fuck, call me a child writer, if anything; it's more accurate, in the end. That's when I started.

And here's the third problem with the term. My third problem.

I have slightly less than eight months until I turn twenty.

I'm not planning to be come irrelevant overnight.

I don't want my twentieth birthday, exactly a week before the INVINCIBLE SUMMER release, to be the day in which I'm stripped of something that makes me 'edgy' or 'interesting' or 'catchy.' 'Cause guess the fuck what, bitches. Eight months from now, I'm still going to be edgy and interesting and catchy, and I don't want there to be any doubt about that.

I'm not a child actress. I'm a career bitch, and I have my feet firmly planted in the ground and no no no I'm not going anywhere. And hannah in 8 months is still hannah. She's not any less relevant than this chick right now, just because she doesn't have that edgy little 1 in front of her age.

So I would like to lose it now, because I would like to prove--to you, to the world, and most of all to me--that I don't need it.

When I was a kid, I said I had to be published before I was eighteen, because if I wasn't, no one would care about me. I wasn't good enough, interesting enough, brave enough to run with the big dogs.

I'm calling bullshit on old hannah tonight. In favor of new hannah.

I'm a teenager. I'm a writer. I'm not ashamed of either one. And yeah, I'm fucking proud of what I've accomplished at my age. And my age is staying in my blogger profile. But it'll be there when I'm twenty and when I'm thirty-two and when I'm forty-six, too. Because I'm not here to fucking play games.

The bottom line is, yeah, I'm young, but I'm planning to be around kicking ass for until I'm really, really wrinkly.

And I want you there with me. And I don't give a fuck how old you are.

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.

I'm ooooooold

so very oooooooold

Vlog!

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

Free Query Crits!

Have I mentioned I love query letters?

Go ahead and post your query in the comments section, and next post I'll dissect all the ones I got and explain what I think works and what doesn't!

I'll cap the comments if I get an unprecedented amount, but until then, spread the word and keep them coming.

Two DISCLAIMERS:
--Your critique (and query) WILL be published for all the world to see. I will not be cruel, but I may be a little candid. Be prepared.
--You may ask--Why should I take your advice? Uh, GOOD QUESTION. There is no real reason to take anything I say about query letters seriously. I am not an agent, I am not an editor, I am a barely-legal writer who likes her some letters. (That said, my queries did get ridiculously good request rates.)

Go go go!

EDIT: I'm going to aim to post the crits THIS THURSDAY, so make sure you submit before then!

EDIT AGAIN: It probably won't be 'til Friday, guys. Thanks for the subs, keep 'em coming!

If You Think BREAK's Language is Inappropriate for Teenagers

As 90% of my teenage reviewers haven't mentioned the language and 90% of adult reviewers have, I'm going to say that if anything, the language is inappropriate for adults.

There should maybe be a warning on the back? WARNING: This book may not be suitable for readers over 21.

(Like, are you kidding me? What the fuck do you think they hear in high school?)

I haven't forgotten about you!

I'm just so busy it hurts.

I will have some BIG NEWS in the coming days/weeks whatever, however. Stay tuned.

Lalalala first draft cheating...

Words left: 8,000

Days left: 13


move along, move along, nothing to see here...**sweeps words under rug**

Argh

All Together With Feeling is going so well. You know what's not? My plan to avoid high school.

I barely have time to write, and it's driving me crazy. Right now I'm editing a paper, with ATwF minimized at the bottom of my screen...wah.

I'll be back after exam week.

It's been awhile...

...and Baby Ghost has been long abandoned in favor of an old, previously abandoned manuscript! I'm about 51,000 words into it thus far.

Today is my eighteenth birthday! I'm a teenage writer no longer.

An Interview

I'm reposting this from lovely friend Kristin Briana's blog Acceptable Forms of Schizophernia (like here: http://kristin-briana.livejournal.com/)




KB: When did you start writing? (You know, like books, not the alphabet.)

HM: I started working on my first long manuscript when I was ten. Around that time, my fifth grade teacher read us that (fantastic) Andrew Clements book, The School Story, which is all about how this middle schooler writes a book and her friend pretends to be an agent and gets her published. So my best friend and I, of course, decided that we needed to do this, and she would be my agent. I think that was the first time I ever wrote something with the idea that it would someday be a real book.

The first long manuscript I finished was when I was eleven; it was a hundred pages or so. I wrote my first legitimate (though awful) novel when I was fourteen, and since then I've written nine total.

KB: Describe your upcoming book in 20 words or less.

HM: BREAK: A boy is on a mission to break all his bones.

Nine words to spare!

KB: What made you decide to write a novel and try to get it published?

HM: I think I sort of figured it was the natural consequence of writing so many novels. I've queried all but one of those nine novels I mentioned---some more extensively than others. This was just the one that got picked up.

I've yet to develop a deep answer for "why I write." I think it's because I'm a masochist fast typist with too much time on my hands...but that's not usually what people want to hear.

KB: Describe the process of getting your agent and publishing your book.

HM: At the time I was querying two novels--Break and another novel, These Humans All Suck. I'd been querying both for almost a year when out of the blue I got four offers in one week--three for Break, one for These Humans. I went with the agent who offered for These Humans--Jenoyne Adams at Bliss Literary (and she is such a rockstar). After she read Break, we both agreed that was a stronger first novel and subbed that one first. I got an offer from Simon Pulse after about three months.

We're hoping These Humans will be my next novel released, since it's my and my agent's favorite.

KB: Did anyone ever tell you that you were too young to sell a novel?

HM: Oh yeah, people tell you that all the time. Mostly it's those "how to write" books--there are always a few paragraphs addressing young writers, basically telling us to accept that our stuff is crappy and stop trying to get published.

I don't think it has anything to do with age. It has to do with experience. And age doesn't necessarily equal experience. I spent several years writing crap, just like most adult writers too. I just wrote crap from when I was 9-14 instead of when I was 30-35.

KB: What inspired you to write "Break"?

HM: I had this vague idea in my head that I wanted to write about a seventeen-year-old on some kind of weird mission. I had no idea what I wanted this mission to be, but I knew I wanted it to be over-the-top, high concept, and interesting. Then, a few days before Halloween, I saw Into The Wild with my best friend. I tend to latch onto weird things when I see movies. For Into the Wild, I was fascinated by the image of Chris McCandless near the very end, when he couldn't eat because of an accidental poisoning. I was totally entranced by this idea of starving surrounded by food you couldn't eat.

That night, we met up with some other friends and participated in some general teenage mind-altering hijinx. And it just hit me--I want to write about a boy who wants to break all his bones.

And maybe he has a brother (I LOVE writing about brothers) with really bad food allergies who can barely eat and how would this affect my main character and let's name him Jonah and it could start like this and end like...and it could be like Fight Club and Into the Wild all rolled into...

I went home and wrote the book in six days.

KB: Are any characters based on friends or family?

HM: Based on? Nah. Inspired by? Yeah...

KB: Did you always want to be an author?

HM: No, when I was a kid I wanted to be a singer.

In fact, I kind of still want to be a singer.

But writer will do.

KB: Name your top five favorite books.

HM: Sadly, a lot of these aren't YA.

Hotel New Hamsphire -- John Irving
Fight Club -- Chuck Palahniuk
Looking for Alaska -- John Green
The Stranger -- Albert Camus
A Prayer for Owen Meany -- John Irving

I love almost all YA books. But my very very very favorites tend to be non-YA. It's weird.

KB: What is your favorite flavor of jelly bean? ( )

HM: Toasted marshmallow. Hell. Yes.

KB: What advice would you give to young writers who want to be published?

HM: If you're good, don't stop sending out query letters until you get an agent. Ever.

If you're bad, don't ever stop improving. Ever.

The problem is that very few people really know which one of these they are. That's why I recommend doing both. Never think you're not good enough, and never think you can't get better.

That's what I'm still doing.

KB: How cool is it to tell people they can buy your book at Barnes & Noble this August?

HM: People don't really believe me. Also, they don't understand what's taking so long. The book was accepted last summer!?!? Why isn't it out now?

I'm not sure I really believe it, to be perfectly honest. I still think someone's going to shake me and wake me up and remind me I can't spell, and I don't know comma rules, and I'm seventeen, for God's sake!

So ask me that once again when it's really happened?