A Need So Freaking Beautiful

(You can still enter the ZOMBIE TAG arc tour right here!)

So you may have seen a bunch of posts today about the release of this amazing book called A Need So Beautiful by Suzanne Young. I don't usually do promotional stuff on this blog, but I make an exception today for two reasons:

1) Suzanne Young is my best friend. Which would be enough all on its own, but
2) A Need So Beautiful is a really, really, REALLY amazing book.

So we're having this wicked awesome contest, but first I'm going to give you a story about an act of kindness that changed my life, like how Charlotte changes people's lives--and her own--with her acts of kindness in A Need So Beautiful.

So once upon a time, about thirty years ago, this guy and this girl were in college and dating, pretty casually. They'd been together for the better part of a year, but they both knew that the guy was going to move out to California over the summer to meet the girl he'd been with before this one. All cards were on the table, everyone knew how it was going to go down.

And then the new girl sprained her ankle, right when the guy was supposed to move out to California.

And it wasn't as if it was life-threatening. It was a sprained ankle. He could have gone anyway. He wasn't obligated.

But he did. He blew off the girl he was supposed to move with (and never called her...but that's a different story) and stayed in North Carolina with the girl with the sprained ankle.

And that's how a random act of kindness changed my life. Seeing as I wouldn't exist if he'd gone out to California. Thanks, Dad!

:)

So here's the contest.

It's the same one from all the blogs, so you only need/get to enter once. The contest is open until June 28th.

There are SO MANY AWESOME PRIZES, and you'll get to choose which ones you want to try to grab on the entry sheet. Pretty cool, yeah? Some prizes are international and some aren't, so pay attention to what's available for you.

There will be 1 winner per item, and then three people will also be chosen to win a signed copy of A Need So Beautiful. Woohoo!

HERE IS THE ENTRY FORM!

And here's how to earn lots of points. You can only enter once, so make sure you have all your extra points ready to go when you fill out the form.

Earn one extra entry for each of the following:
Take a picture of an author's book in the wild and tweet it to the author and Kari (check the form for her twitter handle).
Post a positive Amazon review for a book you loved
Donate a book to a library or classroom
Tweet a good deed you plan to do this week, using the #ANeedSoBeautiful hashtag

Earn 10 extra entries for each of the following:
Take a picture of A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL in the wild and tweet it to us and Suzanne Young
Post an Amazon review for A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL
Donate a copy of A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL to a library or classroom

And here are some of the amazing prizes you could score:

First 3 chapter critique (Jessica at Confessions of a Bookaholic: http://www.totalbookaholic.com/)

YA Lit Swag Bag (Sara at Novel Novice: www.novelnovice.com)

Hourglass Order from TBD – Int (Corrine at Lost for Words: http://lostforwords-corrine.blogspot.com)

Random Books (Jessi at The Elliott Review: http://elliottreview.blogspot.com)

2 Header/Button Packs (Jessica at Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile: http://www.hopelessbibliophile.com/)

First 3 chapters Critique (Cindy at Books Complete Me: http://www.bookscompleteme.com/)

First 15 pages Critique (Kari at A Good Addiction: http://agoodaddiction.blogspot.com/)

Signed ARC of Hereafter (Kari at A Good Addiction: http://agoodaddiction.blogspot.com/)

Query Letter Critique (Shannon Messenger: http://ramblingsofawannabescribe.blogspot.com/)

Signed copy of Invincible Summer – US/Can (Hannah Moskowitz: hannahmosk.blogspot.com)

First Chapter Critique and a Skype Chat (Keri Mikulski: http://kerimikulski.com/books/pay-it-forward-the-author-edition/)

Signed copy of Tell Me a Secret with signed TMAS art print - US (Holly Cupala: http://www.hollycupala.com/search/label/blog)

Signed copy of Chasing Brooklyn – US (Lisa Schroeder: www.lisaschroederbooks.com)

The Pledge Swag Pack including ARC (Kimberly Derting: http://kimberlyderting.blogspot.com/)

End of The Year

I swear a real post will come at some point, but I needed something easy right now, so here is an end-of-the-year survey. I did it last year as well.

This is mostly real-life-hannah, if you're curious about her, but there's a lot of writing in here as well.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?

Wrote a fantasy manuscript--three of them, in fact. Took control of my health. Was single for the first time since I was 15, which *felt* like something I'd never done before. Wrote and sold two MG books. Wrote 4 books in a year, which I think is a record for me. Made new friends, which honestly feels like a new thing.

But all in all, not enough.

2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I kept almost all of them, actually, and I have already made mine for 2011. Largely writing-related.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes.

5. What countries did you visit?

I visited absolutely no countries, but I did go to the West Coast for the first time, and I'm leaving for Spain in a few days.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010.

A new book on the shelves, obviously.

A new person.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

I honestly can't think of a single one.

Pathetic.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Selling Zombie Tag and the other MG. And, honestly? Writing my magic gay fish book.

9. What was your biggest failure?

My answer is the same as last year's: College, college, college.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The first one. Same old shit, really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Well, I paid to get my industrial piercing back, and I think that was the most exciting.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Every single goddamn muser's.

And my mother's.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Clothes and food. Thank God I get most of my books for free.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Disney World. SCBWI. Christmas, like always, because I'm five. And when I knew the book deal for Zombie Tag was coming but it still took a few more days to actually get it...that was torture.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

When I Was a Boy by Dar Williams

17. Compared to this time last year, you are:
Happier?

no

Richer?

yes

Thinner?

yes

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Reading. Last year, I said my goal was 50 books in 2010. I clocked in at 28. Guh.


19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Freaking the fuck out.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

I quote myself from last year: "Christmas is done, saun." I had an amazing Christmas at home with my family. We watched movies and made whoopie pies and played board games.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?

I did not.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Queer as Folk is still my favorite, but How I Met Your Mother emerged as a new contender. I love, love, love sitcoms.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

I wish my answer were the same as last year's. "Nah, I don't have time for that shit."

It will be soon.

26. What was the best book you read?

There are a few that need mentioning.

REAL LIVE BOYFRIENDS by E. Lockhart
WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead
THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS by E. Lockhart (um, I love her.)
BEAUTIFUL by Amy Reed
THE DEATHDAY LETTER by Shaun David Hutchinson
HER AND ME AND YOU by Lauren Strasnick

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Dar Williams

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

How to Train Your Dragon

31. What did you do on your birthday. And how old were you?

Nineteen. I remember my roommate put play-doh on every stair down from my room. And I honestly don't remember much else. I'm old. I got mocked on twitter for being old, I remember that.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I honestly don't know. Maybe knowing would have made it more satisfying.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

Scrubby, in general, but I started wearing a lot of jewelry.

34. What kept you sane?

The Musers. Same answer as last year. But also my mother.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Is Noel from the Ruby Oliver books a public figure? Let's say yes.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

DADT

37. Whom did you miss?

I miss high school. And I sometimes miss who we used to be.

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?

The Agent Story--PART 1

Okay. So I've had a lot of people ask me how the hell I managed to be nineteen and on my third agent. This is actually a topic I've been fairly quiet about, but I think it's helpful for me to be honest because my story is actually, in my opinion, a very good example of the kinds of problems and decisions you might have to make with regards to agents.

So. Here's what happened. I will not be naming every name, because the purpose of this post isn't to call out anyone but to take you through the thought process in choosing an agent, leaving an agent, and dealing with losing an agent.

This is a very long story, so I'm going to divide it into three posts.

PART ONE

I queried four different manuscripts for a total of a year before I got my first offer, which turned into four by the end of that week. It felt as if something had fallen from the sky and landed on my head. Something awesome.

I was sixteen and still fairly new in the online writing community (though not new to writing)

I talked to three of the four agents on the phone. I asked the fourth (actually, the first to offer) if she'd like to talk, and she said she didn't think there was any reason to do a phone call. The first phone call went well. The second went VERY well, and I was pretty sure that unless something unprecedented happened, I would be going with her. The third phone call was fine, but we didn't click, so I confidently went with #2.

Factors in my decision:

--My friend was with her and loved her.
--We clicked on the phone. She was talkative, gregarious, and completely enthusiastic about my work.
--She offered on another manuscript, while all the others offered on BREAK. I liked the other one more and liked the possibility of going out with that one first. We ended up going out with BREAK anyway, and the one she offered on never sold, so there you go.

Things didn't work out.

I feel like an idiot now, thinking about the stuff I let happen before the split. But my logic was really clear: I thought it was normal.

I thought it was normal that my agent didn't do a lot of contract negotiations or ask me for my input.

I thought it was normal that I had to send five to ten emails on a subject, spread out over a period of months, before I would get a response. I thought being on sub meant months of silence followed by, after extensive nagging, an email with every rejection she'd collected but not mentioned.

I thought it was normal that she'd promise edits on my manuscript and never send them.

I want to make two things very clear:

1. This was a legitimate agent. She did not charge any fees or do anything unethical. She didn't steal anyone's work or money. She successfully sold my first novel. She came from a well-known agency. She had many sales before mine and some after. Many of her authors have gone on to be very successful.

I was not cheated, victimized, or taken advantage of.

I just made a mistake.

Which leads me to point two:

2. I was not an idiot. I was young and naive, yes, but I was not in a bubble. I was an active member on AW and knew a fair amount of writers. The Musers existed even before I signed with this agent, and they were with me through this whole process. So the reason I thought this was okay wasn't because of a lack of information.

Really, it was the opposite.

Because this happens to so many people.

I know so many people who have signed with agents--agents that other people I respect have and love--and the relationship did not work for them. Many of them had the same problems I did: lack of responsiveness. There's a reason that I mentioned to both agent 2 and agent 3 that I was paranoid about them dropping off the face of the earth. It happens.

It happens more often than you'd think.

And people don't leave because they are so grateful to have an agent, because getting an agent is hard. And because everyone around them seems so fucking chipper, that they think the problem might be them. They have a great agent. They have the same agent as a celebrity or a friend of theirs or they have the agent that everyone's talking about over on AW. They do not have a bad agent. They wouldn't be that stupid.

No one wants to be the guy who leaves his agent.

When I was applying to college, one of my favorite teachers said to my class, a group of stressed out, hyped up, first semester seniors, "You know, you don't have to get it right the first time. Plenty of people transfer. It's okay."

And we smiled and nodded and uh-hmmed and in our heads we're all going, "Not me, no way, transferring is for other people."

I was the fucking queen of transferring is for other people. I applied Early Decision to the school I knew, absolutely knew, I was going to go to.

I left after a semester.

I am so, so happy that I did.

I left my first agent after 15 months. And I so, so wish I had done it sooner.

Which is why I want to run around spreading the gospel now.

I know what it's like to be happy with my agent. (Hey Suzie!) At the time, I didn't. I didn't know if it could get better.

If you're asking yourself if it can, it can.

Do not stay in a relationship that makes you unhappy. If you have an issue that you have broached that cannot be solved, it might be time to leave. If you two cannot see eye-to-eye on something important, it might be time to leave.

If you think it might be time to leave, it is almost definitely time to leave.

Obviously I appreciate the value of agents. Scroll down a post if you don't believe me. But all those things that I mentioned down there? I only realized they were true when I got with an agent who worked for me.

You need and deserve an agent who works for you.

And just because an agent is great does NOT mean she works for you.

The next post will go over what happened after I left Agent 1 and how I connected with Agent 2. I'll take any questions in the comments, as always, and please feel free to email me if you have any questions you don't want all over the internet (she says as she sprays her problems all over the internet).

Do the Write Thing

So.

Guys.

This is a pretty big deal.

I'm sure you've heard about the insane floods this week in Tennessee. The fabulous (MUSER) Amanda K. Morgan has teamed up with a few other writers to create DO THE THE WRITE THING FOR NASHVILLE. Basically, it's a HUGE auction and every round has like 12-15 things you can bid on all donated by supahsweet authors, editors, and agents. And every bit of the money goes towards Nashville Flood Relief.

And, guys. You will not BELIEVE how many things that have to do with ME are in this auction. I basically donated my soul to Nashville relief. And now I want you to bid on little pieces of it.

I know there are some really famous writers in here and all, but I am going to be so sad if my things don't bring in some money. I'll probably be so sad that I'll stop blogging or something.

So do the write thing and bid on my stuff, obvs.

Auction starts at 10 AM EST tomorrow. (The website says 9 AM Central. I converted that time to EST because that's real people time.)

And here is your link! BUY STUFF.

Writer Survey

Yes, yes, I know, the vlog the vlog. But my lovely friend Sage did this over at her blog (http://sagelikethespice.wordpress.com/) and I wanted to play too.

1. What’s the last thing you wrote? What’s the first thing you wrote that you still have?

The last thing I wrote (and finished) is a YA about two boys getting together (the easy part) and staying together (not quite so easy) over the course of October 2002 sniper shootings in the suburbs of Washington D.C. This is my favorite book I've written, and it's basically my baby. The sniper attacks are, with good reason, I think, very close to me--like the MCs in the story, I was a teenager (though a young one) in Montgomery County, MD during the shootings.

I never really let the shootings go--sometimes I'd torture myself by researching details, if I was having a bad day--but John Allen Muhammad's execution this fall made them very raw in my head. I knew I had a book in me about them, and writing it was a pretty amazing experience to me. It was, without a doubt, the easiest book I've ever written, and I think the most honest in a lot of ways. It's called THE ANIMALS WERE GONE, after a song by Damien Rice. I'm working on revising it for my agent right now.

The first thing I ever wrote is a little harder to pin down. My first "book"--about 150 pages--I wrote when I was in 6th grade. It was about a girl named Augusta Margo Elizabeth Talia Clara (hellz to the yeah) who has to go live with her mom after her brother died in a plane crash. She JUST HAPPENS to be looking out her window one day and JUST HAPPENS to see a boy get hit by a car, and this boy JUST HAPPENS to be her half-brother. I. Know. It's called YOU JUST DON'T GET IT, it's all in a fluorescent green composition notebook, and I have no idea where that notebook is.

2. Poetry?

Hahahahaha no.

3. Angsty poetry?

Not since I was twelve...

4. Favorite genre of writing?

Young adult! Contemporary, gritty, angsty young adult. But it has to be funny.

5. Most annoying character you’ve ever created?

Bianca in ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING makes me want to put her head through a wall. Every. Chapter.

6. Best plot you’ve ever created?

I'm pretty into the plot of my adult book, APD. It's pretty wild and twisted.

7. Coolest plot twist you’ve ever created?

Haha, now it's deeeefinitely APD. Heehee. Although INVINCIBLE SUMMER's climax, too...hmmm.

8. How often do you get writer’s block?

Fuck writer's block, that stuff is bullshit. Shut up and write a book.

9. Write fan fiction?

A lady never tells. (So...yeah.)

10. Do you type or write by hand?

I type. I used to write by hand a lot more (in high school, really, so I could write in class) but not anymore.

11. Do you save everything you write?

Nah.

12. Do you ever go back to an idea after you abandon it? it

Rarely. I have a few plot points I've tried to work into several different books, so far unsuccessfully. Still trying to figure out where they belong.

13. What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

THE ANIMALS WERE GONE, though INVINCIBLE SUMMER is up there.

14. What’s everyone else’s favorite story you’ve ever written?

INVINCIBLE SUMMER, unless you're a muser, in which case it's THESE HUMANS ALL SUCK.

15. Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?

Dude, my career depends on angsty teen drama. Romance? Eh, sometimes it's in there.

16. What’s your favorite setting for your characters?

The beach in INVINCIBLE SUMMER.

17. How many writing projects are you working on right now?

I have a YA rolling around in my head, I'm working on the first draft of an MG, I'm editing THE ANIMALS WERE GONE and waiting for my editorial letter for INVINCIBLE SUMMER (any day now!)

18. Have you ever won an award for your writing?

I won you guys, obv.

Oh and BREAK was an ALA Popular Paperback for Teens of 2009.

19. What are your five favorite words?

Epiphany, lucid, silhouette, maybe, cameo.

20. What character have you created that is most like yourself?

Probably Bianca. No wonder she's so goddamn annoying.

21. Where do you get your ideas for your characters?

I don't really get ideas for characters. I think of a situation, then I just the characters up as I go along. They develop with the story. I don't go in there thinking "Jonah's going to stubborn and honest and introspective and..." he just talks.

22. Do you ever write based on your dreams?

Once. It was weird.

23. Do you favor happy endings?

Yes. Yes yes yes yes. Anyone who follows me on Twitter has heard my opinions on this. A good ending means you satisfy your reader. And satisfying your reader usually means that if you make them root for a character, or a relationship, or an anything, you make that part work out. Characters should get what they deserve. Seriously, I'm sick of authors teaching me some lesson about how life is meaningless and unsatisfying by giving me a meaningless and unsatisfying book. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'm in on the joke. Now I'm throwing your book against a wall and crying into my pillow.

I read fiction because I want things to work out. If I wanted a disappointment to come and smack me in the face out of nowhere, I have my own life.

(And yes, I recognize the irony that I'M the one lecturing about how to end a book. Sorry about BREAK btw. Buy it anyway, I need money for food and internet.)

24. Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

Of course.

25. Does music help you write?

Yep. I always write either to music or in front of the TV. I make playlists for all my books.

26. Quote something you’ve written. Whatever pops in your head.

I'm not sure if this is the exact wording, but...
Camus and Melinda were right: "one always finds one's burden again."--Invincible Summer

Vlog!!

Answering the first half of your questions:

Isn't this freeze-frame attractive? THANKS BLOGGER.

You Humans Are Driving Me Insane

Guys

If you have a manuscript to query

QUERY THAT SHIT.

Do you think an agent's going to come down your chimney and offer you representation?

SEND THE GODDAMN LETTERS.

The Publishing Process, or Why You're Always Afraid of Someone

I found Absolute Write when I was a 15 year old n00b. I had a few novels under my belt, most, but actually not all, of which were completely awful. I also had a lot of big ideas about publishing being some kind of corporate scheme, and agents were all part of some big capitalist machine of iron and steel and crushed dreams. To be honest, I didn't know a damn thing about agents except that I didn't want one and I was going to kick my little feet and cross my arms and tell everyone in the world I didn't want them.

So then I stumbled across Absolute Write, which is honestly the mecca of publishing information for a lost soul such as myself. And I went in there with my big ideas and my even bigger mouth and I got gently, but efficiently, slapped down to real life.

And these writers, who were bigger and older and more experienced and a hell of a lot wiser than I was? They scared the shit out of me. They'd been around the block, and they had shit like writing spaces and writing processes and writing schedules and writing pants or whatever, and all of it was stuff I'd never thought about and definitely never considered having, because I wasn't a real writer. I was the crazy little kid who wanted to get published before she was 18.

But luckily I was a crazy kid who listened, because I started querying, and goddamn was that the scariest thing ever. Forget being scared of writers, now there were agents. And agents were just the scariest fucking thing in the world, tweeting at each other and drinking coffee and taking phone calls and throwing around words like "slush" and "acquisitions" and "apartment." They were frickin adults, for God's sake. And here I was sending them emails and expecting them to waste their time on me.

I know people go through a lot of feeling when they get rejections, but does anyone else just feel embarassed? I think I'm over it now--now, if anyone rejects me, they're clearly heartless robots who don't understand my passion and prowess over the quill of amazing or whatever--but it used to be that every time someone sent me a rejection, I'd just want to email back I'M SORRY WHAT WAS I THINKING SO SORRY I MADE YOU READ THAT. Because I had it in my head that for some reason I wasn't worthy of agents' time. That they were up there on their Mount Olympus and I was down here in high school.

But I got an agent.

And then all of a sudden agents were my buddies and I could tweet at them and ha ha ha aren't we witty and oh my God, editors, oh my God.

And now it's holy shit, book reviewers.

This goddamn thing never ends, and it's awesome.

Dedication and Acknowledgments

I'm doing this post because I know how badly I'd LOVE to see other authors do it.

I adore dedications and acknowledgments. They're some of my favorite parts of books. Mine were fairly short, as far as I know, but I thought I'd do a post demystifying them nonetheless, in case anyone was curious.

First, my dedication:

To the Musers, who know this was a group effort.


The Musers, The Musers, The Musers. I would be absolutely nowhere without them. the Musers are a writing group I've been a part of since its conception something like two and a half years ago, maybe longer. We were in full, intense swing when the time the idea for BREAK rolled around, and they were absolutely vital to getting it finished. They named the characters, the helped me with the ending (as many reviewers have noticed, endings are not my strong suit), they read draft after draft after draft. They were unbelievable.

And I am SUCH a strong proponent of writer's groups. Find a good one. And I strongly believe that a good group has writer's from all steps of the process. My group has published authors--(Bethany Griffin, of Handcuffs, and Suzanne Young of The Naughty List series), writers currently on submission, writers actively seeking agents, writers working to improve their craft before they look for an agent, and writers who couldn't give less of a shit about getting an agent. And that amount of perspective is unbelievable.

BREAK was absolutely, one million percent a group effort, as emphasized by the acknowledgments:

The ever-fabulous Jenoyne Adams and Anica Rissi, Amanda K. Morgan, Chris, Alex, Emma, Galen, Seth, Abby, Mom and Dad, Motion City Soundtrack, Alexander Supertramp, and Chuck Palahniuk. Thanks for the inspiration.

Jenoyne Adams--my first agent, who sold BREAK.

Anica Rissi--My unbelievably amazing editor from Simon Pulse (more on her next week.) She edited BREAK and will also be doing INVINCIBLE SUMMER and my next book after that (and hopefully more...?) I love her. To pieces.

Amanda K. Morgan--One muser in particular who was instrumental in getting BREAK to be the best it could be.

Chris--Chris is the boy. We've been together for almost three years. BREAK's just about the only book he's ever read. He says he likes it. Thanks, darling.

Alex--my best friend. He reads everything I write the second it's off my fingers. He tells me it's fantastic waaay before it's anywhere near good.

Emma--another best friend, the only female of the bunch. One of the smartest people I've ever met. She sat down with me about halfway through BREAK and helped me plot out the whole thing.

Galen--another best friend. He keeps me fed.

Seth--another best friend. He keeps me sane.

Abby--my beautiful sister.

Mom and Dad--I think this is pretty self-explanatory. They and Abby had very little to do with BREAK or its publication, but they get credit for raising me and stuff.

Motion City Soundtrack--possibly my favorite band of all time, and their angsty energy was a perfect soundtrack to BREAK. I've already shared "Time Turned Fragile" as the song that really echoed the plot for me.

Alexander Supertramp--the codename Christopher McCandless used when he escaped to Alaska, documented in the book and movie Into The Wild. This sounds weird, but he inspired Jesse's character, and I thought of the book just after seeing this movie.

Chuck Palahniuk--hello. He wrote Fight Club.


Hope this was interesting, and if you have acknowledgments and dedications you decide to elucidate, leave a link in the comments so I can see!

BREAK love

My friend bought one of the BREAK ARCs online (and the money went to help AIDS! woo!) and just sent me this picture...



After August 25th (or even before if you can get your hands on another ARC) anyone who sends me a picture of BREAK with their cat gets their copy signed. But you have to pay for postage. I'm about to be a broke college student, people. (So buy my book!)

So hi.

I'm used to blogging with a group.

In fact, I do most things in groups. I blog in a group. I write best with people swarming around me. I poll people about what outfits to wear, what classes I should take, what the name of my blog should be. The dedication for Break says:


To the Musers,
who knew this was a group effort.

Who the Musers are is an entirely different story, but the fact remains that, once a book is finished, done, in my hands, it feels hard to have just my name on it. I didn't name several of the main characters; I said, "Hey, what name sounds good with Jonah?" and listened for responses. My editor came up with the title. What's ironic is that the farther you get along in the process, the closer you get to having a book with YOUR NAME HERE, the farther that book gets from being just yours.

I'm completely okay with that.

That's why blogging on my own is a bit frightening.

I know my dedication word for word, by the way, because I received Break's typeset pages in the mail today. I didn't really understand what these were until I opened the package.

It's like a real book.

Okay, more accurately, it's like when your teacher is too cheap to get enough books for the entire class, so she makes photocopies of her own book. Except there's no black smudge down the middle from someone shoving a paperback against a Xerox machine.

The font, the page numbers, the "If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property" is all there. It's just on printer paper. Two pages per sheet. Divided by white space, no black smudge.

And my name's on it. On every page.

Jesus Christ.