INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 20

SONG #20: "Bixby Canyon Bridge" by Death Cab for Cutie.

The last very important song, and the last song period.

I always like to say that I write in returns. And it's something I have to remind myself while I'm writing all the time, ha. If a character says something important or goes somewhere important, he has to somehow return to that space, literally or otherwise. There are very few times I'm not in favor of a character physically returning to a significant place. It always helps.

Invincible Summer is a book about returns, really, because it takes place on the same beach, in the same house, but each part has an entire unspoken year in-between it and the next. So there's a lot you're not seeing, and the location is what pulls the story together. If I had them in a different place every summer, it would be a lot more difficult for both of us, probably. It would be hard for you to see what's changed. That's what returns are about: an impossibly easy way to see what's changed when a space or a room or a moment remains the same.

That's what Bixby Canyon Bridge is about.

And that's the end of the book, guys. The giveaways start tomorrow! I'm crazy excited for them. There will be more details tomorrow, but quickly: each one's going to be open for only 24 hours. At least 1 of the days will allow international entry as well, but most will be only U.S and Canada, sorry. They're going to be ridiculously fun for me (and hopefully fun for you) and, well...I hope that you will like them.

I also hope that you will like Invincible Summer.

And I hope you're having a lovely day.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Barefoot in the shallow creek,
I grabbed some stones from underneath
And waited for you to speak to me.



AND HERE IS THE PLAYLIST:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie
15) "Sorry" by Pushmonkey
16) "Little Sparrow" by David Cook
17) "Long Division" by Death Cab for Cutie
18) "Not Just Sometimes But Always" by Idlewild
19) "Long Long Time" by Guy Forsyth.
20) "Bixby Canyon Bridge" by Death Cab for Cutie.

We Need You

(Aaaaaaaand we're back. Hey.)

This is a post I've had in my head to write for a long time. It comes from a few questions I've heard asked, to me and to others, ever since I've been involved in the YA community, and moreso after BREAK sold.

1) Why aren't you using a penname? (related: You'd sell better if you didn't have a girl's name on your cover. also related, but not a question, and even more infuriating: your name is too Jewish to be on a book cover!)

2) Why are there so many books about white people?

3) Why are there so many Mormon YA writers? (related, also not a question: Stephanie Meyer waaaah waaaaah)

And, the big question, the one that, in its way, sums up all of the above and so, so much more:

4) Why aren't there more characters like me?

It sounds like a selfish question, I guess.

But...why aren't there?

The truth is, this post was hard to write because it is also a post about halfie-guilt. I'm a half-Jewish and half non-practicing Christian. Since religion wasn't important on my Christian half, I was raised largely, if mildly, Jewish, celebrating those holidays along with a nonreligious Christmas (and sometimes some candy on Easter).

I know the Hanukkah and the Passover blessings and all of that, but I don't speak Hebrew and I didn't have a Bat Mitzvah. But when I tried to get involved in Jewish life in college, neither of these things was a problem for me. The thing that was?

That big clunky Jewish last name means that the half of me that is Jewish is not my mother's half. And that is, according to (all but Reform) Jewish law, the half that matters.

I have not reconciled this yet. It's still something that I think about a lot and struggle with. I've heard a lot of people say that whenever they see half-anything characters in books, that their issues with their halfiness are way overwrought.

I need more half-whatevers. So I wrote a book about them. I'm working (and by working, I mean, desperately trying to avoid working) on an MG right now that features a half-Italian, half-Japanese main character who has issues with both communities since he looks more Japanese but speaks Italian. And he's dragging around the clunky last name, too, his Japanese, that doesn't make the other side of his family too happy.

He's not spending the whole book freaking out about it or anything, but it's there and it's an issue and it's important.

Wil, my main character in Zombie Tag, is Jewish. You would only know by his last name and by the fact that he mentions his Bar Mitzvah and his synagogue, in passing. Lio in Gone, Gone, Gone, is Jewish, and I can't remember when it comes up, if ever. I can't even remember his last name. I think he might not have one.

The point is, I throw Jewish characters in without consideration, and without there being a reason for them. It's important to me that there be Jewish characters, the same way it's important to me that I have gay characters and black characters represented in my books as well.

But I'm not fully Jewish, and I'm not gay, and I'm not black, so why were these things easier for me to write about than a true halfie?

Why aren't we writing characters like us?

Regardless of reasons, there are a lot of YA Mormon writers. So...why aren't we seeing more Mormon MCs?

Why are all of our main characters so pretty?

Why are we still writing books that take place in predominately white, predominately straight worlds, without ever noticing that that isn't the way most of the world works anymore? A gentrified neighborhood should stick out. It should warrant at least a passing reference in the book. It shouldn't be the assumption.

Why are so many books with black characters and gay characters still ABOUT being black and being gay, when we have wonderful writers who fit one or both of those descriptions who are living lives that are not defined by either of those?

I'm not saying we don't need books about struggling with identity. I wrote one about a halfie who is, after all, because that was a book I needed.

I'm just wondering why there aren't more characters like you.

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!

English Class with Ms. Moskowitz--Part 1: Theme

Hello, I am Ms. Moskowitz, and I will be your teacher today.

I'm fresh out of a long day of classes and ready to toss some words at you. Topics we will cover: theme, motif, and allusion. We're starting with theme.

Before I start, we have, as usual, a few caveats:

1. I am a sophomore in college. Just...yeah. I wouldn't be blogging this if I didn't know it, but it's something to keep in mind.

2. I'm sure people will have different definitions for some of these. They're words and everyone approaches them differently. These are my interpretations and my explanations, and God knows I have a weird way of explaining stuff.

3. The most important point: no one is making you think about these things. You don't need to think about theme or motif or allusion or anything else to write a good book. You don't even need to know what they are. There's a good chance that, even if you don't know these terms, this is stuff you've already been doing.

But knowledge is power. And whether or not you choose to use these things, I really do believe that you should be aware of them. It's good to have options, and if thinking about any of these things helps any of you (they help me) then I've done my job.

Let's begin! Class in session.

--THEME

This comes first and foremost, because, in my experience, it comes first and foremost. Well, almost. Theme is the second thing I think of when I'm formulating an idea. I start with characters, proceed to theme, and then put together a plot. That's all I need to start writing.

To put it in the most naked of terms: Theme is the message of the book.

Most books have several themes. Let's talk about uhhhh I don't know. Romeo and Juliet. Here are some things you could legitimately say are themes in Romeo and Juliet.

--True love transcends societal segregation.
--Teenagers will choose their boyfriends over their families.
--True love leads to death.
--Teenagers are incapable of lasting relationships.
--Love leads to death.
--Teenage boys are full of hormones and fickle affections.

and there are a million other themes you could find in Romeo and Juliet. The truth is, if someone tells you that something is the theme of a work, it's very hard to prove them wrong. I could say the theme of Romeo and Juliet is "cats are better than dogs," and even though that's true, it's probably not one of the themes of Romeo and Juliet. Can you prove it?

And that's a very important thing about themes--they are very subjective. Because a theme is always, always, ALWAYS a full sentence.

For a theme to be a theme, it needs to be an opinion. It needs a verb. It needs to be something that you can find and identify and argue.

So "cat" could not be a theme. Cats are either in the books or they're not. No amount of arguing is going to change that. But I can argue that Romeo and Juliet has the theme "cats are better than dogs" until the cows get home, because theme is way more abstract than a simple world or two.

Let's talk about how this fits into your own writing. Your theme is the feeling that you want people to take away from the book. It's the question or the opinion or the decision that you want them to be rolling around in their brains when they close your book.

Don't worry if your theme sounds trite as hell. "Self-destruction doesn't work as a solution," is a theme in BREAK. Like, wow, hannah. Way to say something really fucking original, there. Here's your Pulitzer.

No. Themes are totally allowed to be simple, because it's still all about execution. If I were beating the reader over the head with my message (let's say for the sake of this argument that I did not do this) then it would be a different story, but if you have to suss out my theme from my 44,000 words, then I'm doing an okay job.

Theme's job is to answer the question so what? You have a nice story and some cool characters, but why do I care? What footprint are you leaving? That's your theme.

And please don't ignore that thing I hinted at two paragraphs up--you do NOT need to spell out your theme. At least 90% of the time, you shouldn't. At least 90% of the people who think they fall into the remaining 10% do not. Take out the part where you state your theme out loud, please. If your writing is strong enough, you don't need to say what your theme is.

Having a theme is NOT the same as having a moral. You don't have to be trying to teach you reader something, but your book should, in a sense, argue something. There's a reason you're writing this book. Sharing that makes the reader care too. But you've got to resist the urge to beat the reader over the head with it. Trust your reader!

Theme is your backbone, but you wouldn't go around smacking people in the face with your backbone. Keep that shit to yourself.

So class is over for today. I'll be back later with motif and allusion. They're simpler. But theme is first.

Now I have e.e. cummings stuck in my head--since feeling is first/who pays any attention/ to the syntax of things--appropriate, I think.

Anyway. I realize I'm spouting a lot of esoteric crap, here, so hit me with your questions/comments, please.

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.

Multiple POVs

SO. Let's talk about point of view.

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


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

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

However.

I love writing multiple.

I don't know. I just love it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rules

Thanks for the poll answers, guys! I'll post something analyzing the results in a little while, and by all means keep voting until then.

But here's something that's been on my mind lately.

Rules.

I bet you think I'm going to jump around and be like "FUCK THE RULES!" but my opinion on this is actually slightly--slightly--more complicated.

I think there are two kinds of rules in this business that you typically hear--those about writing and those about publishing. The latter usually come from agents. Don't send attachments with your query letter. Don't forget your page numbers. Don't query two agents at the agency at the same time. Format your manuscript in this precise way. Although these rules sometimes seem like unnecessary hoops to jump through, they actually do have, and fulfill, their purpose. These are the ones that you should follow (though there is a time and a place to break them. More on that later.)

The other type of rules, the ones you probably get more and more often, are the ones from writers.

Write every day. Write in Courier. No, Times New Roman. No, Courier. Use MS word count. No, use 250 x number of pages for word count. Don't write a book below 40,000 or over 80,000 words. Set your manuscript aside for three months before you start revising. If you write too fast, your book won't be good. If you write too slow, you'll never finish a book. Don't use adverbs. Ever. Don't use anything other than 'said' for dialogue tags. It's impossible to write with other people in the room. Don't watch TV while you write--are you kidding? Write by hand. Write on a typewriter. Write on an Alphasmart. Write on a laptop. Read all the classics. Read everything in your genre. Read outside of your genre. Write high concept. Write whatever the fuck you want. Write for an existing market. Try to expand the boundaries of the existing market. Write for the lowest common denominator. Write for your mom. Write for yourself. Write for the MFAs. Get a day job. Spend your advance on publicity. Don't expect to earn out. Use a pen name. Write in the mornings.

And here, guys, is where it gets to be bullshit.

The only right way to write is however the fuck you get it done. People decide something works for them, or they read what Stephen King does that works for them, and decide that that's the only 'real' way to write.

I'm going to go over how I write, now, too, but let's be very clear before I do--I am not advocating my method for everyone. For anyone. I'm doing this so you can see how fucked up and crazy my writing method is, so you can see how possible it is to get shit written without following the Butt-In-Chair-Allow-Yourself-To-Write-Crap methods you'll see so often quoted. If that's what works for you, fantastic. But it's not the only way, at all.

--I do not even come close to writing every day. About 80% of days, I'd estimate, I don't write at all. I spend some of these days working on edits or blogging or plotting a new idea, but most of them I spend playing video games or going to school or sleeping or watching Queer as Folk or cooking with the shiksa. Not writing. Am I thinking about it? Of course. But it's not something I do every day.

--When I do write, really write, new words on new pages, I call that initial part "fast-drafting." That's when I get a first draft down as fast as I possibly can. This isn't (just) for the bragging rights; it makes sure the idea stays fresh in my head and I don't lose interest along the way, as I'm apt to do if I stretch the story out. I've tried writing over longer periods of time, when I'm not feeling the story as much. I rarely finish, and when I do, the stories are never as good as the fast-drafted ones.

Fast-drafting so far has taken me 5 (The Animals Were Gone, Fishboy), 7 (Break) and 8 (Invincible Summer) days. I was in school during both Break and Animals, and studying for midterms during Animals as well, so I do this despite being busy. Which means I do nothing else during any moment of free time but write. Nothing. Nada. I park on the couch like a fatass and I write. Eight hours a day, nine hours a day, whatever it takes.

I write my first draft in single spaced, 10 pt font. I am not kidding. This is actually something I recommend. Don't do 10 pt if it's going to kill your eyes. Do triple-spaced 30 pt Comic Sans for all I care. Do anything to keep your manuscript from looking like a real manuscript. Make it something you can fuck up. Double spaced 12 pt looks way too fucking intimidating for a first draft, if you ask me.

I flip to the internet every 70-100 words and screw around. Because that's how I roll. It still gets done.

I watch TV while I write, or I chat with my roommate or my boyfriend, if they're around.

--My fast drafts come out very short. BREAK was 27,000 words. INVINCIBLE SUMMER was 23,000 words. The one I just finished was 25,000. This comes with angst, every single time, that the book isn't going to be long enough.

--I start editing that draft immediately, as in an hour after I finish the first draft. I do not let it sit. If I sit, I'm going to hate the story. I'll start hating it halfway through the second draft anyway, so I might as well get the thing over with. (This is where I am right now. Someone stop me before I set the thing on fire.)

--After the second draft, I've lived and breathed this story for about two weeks, breaks, cereal standing up, sleeping four hours a night kind of living, and I don't want to think about it ever again. Off it goes to Suzie and betas.

--We work from there.


This shit. It is not typical. But it's how I work, and it's what works for me.

You will hear a lot of contradictory advice about how to be a "real writer." But the only ticket to being a real writer is to write. I know you've heard that a million times, but let it give you some freedom this time. You're released. You write words, how you want them, when you want them. You don't have to prove shit to anyone.

Do whatever you do to get it done, and smile and nod when people tell you how their way is closer to the "real thing."

Because I'm Me

And if I didn't start a new book every week, I wouldn't be me!

So here's a bit from the middle of a brand new book.

--

Mom sits at the table with me and beats eggs. She has the baby monitor pressed against her ear for Dylan's nap, like she's trying to use it to make a phone call.

I tell her, “I saw Fiona today.”

Mom shoves her hair off her forehead. “What are you paying attention to her for?”

Fiona is a ragged woman who lives at the end of the island. She tells fortunes.

“She was telling me this story about the ghosts who haunts this island. Not even just Mrs. Delaney. It's the whole island.”

Mom says, “Really, Rudy,” in this voice like she hasn't slept for days. Maybe she hasn't.

All the more reason she needs a good story. “It's a ghost of this boy they threw into the ocean, and he drowned.”

She looks up. “Why would you say something like that?”

“It's not my story, Mom, God.” Never mind.

Her eggs are all the same color now, but she doesn't stop beating them. Her whisk keeps tapping against the bottom of the bowl. I have this thought that she's going to keep going forever, like a wind-up toy that never winds down. Like her whole purpose in life is to beat these eggs.

Before Dylan was born, I never would have thought my Mom was the kind of person who could handle a sick kid. She'd cry that she was a horrible mother if I ever got a scrape. I always felt like I needed to keep her safe. Even when I was a kid. Dad would give me these talks about how we needed to protect her, and I would feel like a knight.

Now she's made entirely of steel, and Dad's the one who cries every time any little thing is wrong. He thinks every cough from Dylan or bad grade from me is going to be the breaking point, that we're just going to crumble in on ourselves at any minute.

The house creaks in the wind.

“Your father wants to take you fishing,” Mom says.

I wonder how hard dad would cry if he dipped his fishing line in the ocean and pulled out a boy.

Or a ghost.

Maybe he was a ghost.

I should have touched him. I missed my chance to find out what he was.

I can't believe I've turned into the kind of guy who wonders if people are ghosts. I guess that's what this place does to you.

A ghost is as good a guess as any for what he is, I suppose.

And now my father is trying to schedule time to be with me, acting like Mom is his secretary, and that feels even more unbelievable than a ghost.

We used to play ping pong in the backyard.

The ancient clock on the wall clicks with every second, but the hands are so springy that every click has two tones.

I'm trying to drink water, but all I taste is salt.

Mom gets up and goes to the stove. I say, “Mermaids can breathe underwater, right?”

She doesn't look at me. “Rudy, can't you do your homework?” She presses the monitor harder against her head.

“Can you look at me for a second?”

She turns around and does, of course. She has this soft expression in her eyes like I'm her baby. I'd forgotten that she still looks at me like that.

The fisherman was touching him, I realize. He couldn't have been a ghost. The fisherman had his hands all over him, kissing him, trying to...

“How do you have sex with a mermaid?” I say.

“Rudy, honestly.”

“Okay, sorry, God,” but I don't know if she even hears me, because she's holding that monitor like she wants it to be a part of her skull.

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.

Deleted Scenes from BREAK

These come from different parts of the book, but I thought I'd post them together because they have a nice little link, which you'll discover if you read carefully.

Neither of these scenes made it to my editor; they were both removed by yours truly when I realized they weren't really important.

Elements of these scenes were snatched up and used elsewhere, and parts contradict with stuff that made it into the book. I figure you're smart enough to figure it out.

------------

“Jesse?” I call.

I hear him stop. “Uh-huh?”

“Feel like a visitor?”

He doesn’t answer for a moment. “Sure. Come in.”

I leave the hammer and transfer over to Jesse’s room. He’s sweaty and gross, a heap on his slated wood floor.

He flops down and peers up at me, his hair covering his eyes. “What’s up?”

His room smells like teenage deodorant and feather dusters. I lean against his bed and close my eyes. “I’m going to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

He sighs and scratches his throat. “The reaction?”

“Yeah. Don’t scratch.”

He starts his sit-ups again, exercise-growling between his words. “I broke out in some intense hives like five minutes after you left. Went inside, took some Benadryl. Throat closed up. Epi-pen. Ambulance. Standard fare.”

“Who did the epi?”

“I did.”

I sit for a moment, watching his pristine stomach muscles tighten every time he sits up. “I should have been there.”

He rests his elbows on his knees. “Stop, Jonah.”

“I should have been there.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about this. Seriously. I don’t want to deal with you.”

“How bad was it?”

He pushes off and resumes the sit-ups. “They’re all the same.”

I thought talking to Jesse would make me feel better, and now I just want to kill him or myself or both.

“Did Mom and Dad stay with you until the ambulance came?”

“Of course. God, I hate ambulances. I wish they’d just drive me. It would have been faster.”

“Could you breathe?”

“It was okay. I only thought I was going to die for a minute.”

Even when I was in the car accident, I never thought I was going to die. Now, I’m jealous of him in this horrible way.

“What’s it like?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “You basically just want to breathe.”

“You’re fine now, right?”

“Of course.”

“Do you want something to eat? I can make you a shake. Or get you a rice cake or something.”

“I’m all right.” He flips onto his stomach and starts push-ups. “Thanks.”

Yeah, thanks, Jess.

I retreat back into my room and sit on the floor. Push-ups are quieter than sit-ups, and now all I hear is the whisper of his wheezing if I listen very, very closely.


-------------

The cold road is like an ice pack on my chest.

No, wait. There’s an ice pack on my chest.

I open my eyes and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

The first thing I see is Jesse, both his hands tight on the steering wheel. I’m packed in ice from the top of my head to my shoes, like I’m some kind of corpse.

There’s ice in my shirt, over my hips, stuffed in my socks. I’m soaking wet, shaking. Too much ice, or too much fever?

“Jesse,” I say. Jesse is my angel.

“Shh.”

“I--”

“We’re going to the hospital,” he says. “You’re going to be fine. You stay with me now, all right?”

The psych ward will find me at the hospital, but...they can’t make go back. If Mom and Dad want me, if someone here needs me...

There’s no crying. I sit up as straight as I can. “Where’s Will?’

“Naomi’s got him.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m right here,” Naomi says from somewhere behind my head.

I spin around. There she is in the backseat, clutching Will on her lap.

He’s not crying.

“Did I kill him?”

“Jonah, of course not,” Jesse says. “Just close your eyes. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re okay.”

I didn’t know my heart could beat this hard. My blood feels like it’s made of maple syrup.

Naomi says, “Jess, take the beltway.”

He shakes his head. “This is faster.”

I start coughing, and Naomi says, “Shit, you are sick.”

I shake my head.

“Yeah, you are.”

“What’s wrong with Will?”

“He’s fine, Jonah.”

The more I think about not shaking, the more I spasm like I’m having a seizure. Jesse steps harder on the gas.

I say, “Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

His voice is steady and clear. “Because I can get you there faster. You hold on, now. That’s an order.”

After a minute, he takes his right hand off the wheel and finds my broken and swollen left one underneath all the ice packs. I close my eyes and think about Jesse’s hand and Charlotte’s eyes, and how I’d rather not die right now.

He says, “Please be okay.”

Will coos, “Jo.”

how a book becomes a book--writing a synopsis

So next in our "how a book becomes a book" series is something a bit earlier in the process.

If you're anything like me, when you query agents you avoid, definitely, the ones who ask for a synopsis with the query letter. Like, I'm sure they're perfectly good agents, but synopses are horrible and no one should ever have to write them.

There are a few reasons they're so horrible. A lot of people have trouble with query letters, and, for them, synopses are understandably even more evil. You have to sum up the entirety of your book without taking away its voice and without making it boring as fuck, and you don't have the pleasure of using 1st person, if that's your thing, and there is very little room for error. If you love query letters, like I do, you can STILL hate synopses. And there's a very clear reason why I do.

In a synopsis, you can't lie.

Query letters are like commercials to me. You shouldn't lie, and underneath every lie you do tell, there has to be some truth. But...I've always been a little liberal with my query letters. I say what I need to say in order to get the book read.

Obviously you don't want to write a query for an entirely different plot. But if it's actually Stacey's great-aunt's dog that drags the magic locket out of the garbage and shows it to her? It's okay to say "Stacey finds a magic locket." Let Stacey take the credit. Make your query snappier. It's okay to fudge the truth a little if it makes the query look good and read well.

Not so with synopses.

Helllll no.

Synopses need to say exactly what happens in your book and no more. There is no lying. And that's what makes them so scary.

BUT do not think, for a minute, that I'm saying your synopses needs to have ALL of what happens in your book. No no no no. Knowing what to leave out is what keeps it from getting voiceless, confusing, and boring as all fuck.

So. Here are my guidelines to writing a synopsis.

1) HAVE AS FEW CHARACTERS AS POSSIBLE. Aim for five or less named characters in your synopsis. BREAK named Jonah, Jesse, Naomi, Charlotte, and Will, so I was pushing it a little. Don't give your reader more names to have to remember. Have you ever tried to read the summary of a Shakespeare play on Wikipedia? Too many fucking names.

The first time a name appears, CAPITALIZE it.

2) GIVE AWAY THE ENDING. The whole ending, the entire ending, every speck of the ending. And more than just what happens, try to set up the feeling of the ending. If it's happy, make it feel happy. If it's open, make it feel open (and shame on you.) Etc etc.

3) START IT AS A CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER OUTLINE. This is the only way they get written for me. Start out summing each chapter up in a paragraph, then go through and cut EVERYTHING you can for the thing to still be cohesive. Sometimes you can cut entire chapters from your synopses, which is always really exciting. It doesn't mean you have to cut them from the manuscript. Maybe they're full of nuanced and beautiful character development. But, in the synopsis, Jesse didn't come visit Jonah at the psychiatric hospital, and Jonah didn't have a nice phone conversation with Charlotte's sister. I don't think the video store was even mentioned. Cut out as much as you can so the synopsis is still cohesive.

4) DON'T FOCUS ON SCENES. "Jonah and his family are sitting around the dinner table discussing..." Fuck that. The reason you can cut down from your one-para-per-chapter structure is that you don't need to write a synopses in scenes. This is not a book.

5) INJECT IT WITH VOICE SERUM. Voice. Voice voice voice is SO important. Your synopsis should read like your book, not a dried out raisin version of your book. Make it all the good parts smushed together. It should be EXPLODING WITH VOICE.

This does not mean that you can write it in 1st person or 2nd person or whatever person you like (unless that person is 3rd). You need to adhere to synopsis rules. And that's tricky. But YOU CAN DO IT.

I'll leave you with the first paragraph of BREAK's synopsis. It started as "one paragraph per chapter," then I cut cut cut cut. This first paragraph sums up the first four or so chapters of the book.


JONAH falls off his skateboard. He and his best friend, NAOMI, confirm he’s broken his right wrist, his jaw, and a few ribs. This is great news. Jonah’s on a quest to break every bone in his body. His theory: the more he breaks, the stronger he gets. He sees the power of overcoming challenges everyday through his younger brother, JESSE, whose horrible food allergies have forced him into a better person. And Jesse’s practically a candidate for sainthood. He’s also the only one in the family who knows about Jonah’s mission. He thinks it’s stupid and self-mutilating. Naomi calls it an act of artistic integrity. His parents and ‘not-girlfriend,’ CHARLOTTE, are too idealistic to suspect their Jonah’s a secret wackjob.

Questions? Throw 'em at me.

Names

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

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

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

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

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

(Kitten pictures tomorrow)

Teaser Saturday

We should get my name out of the way first. It's Body Count Beatrice.

I mean, really it's Beatrice Tanerbaum, but the Disco Dykes always were fond of alliteration. I've been Body Count Beatrice ever since Kiley, who was girl number two. Kiley was the accident. That's how I think of her in my head. Elizabeth was the tragic. Kiley was the accident. Lea was the mistake.

When the Dykes came up with the name, after Kiley, in September, it was joking, gentle, to make me feel better. You silly girl, can't you see it's a coincidence? You're a voodoo princess, they'd say, rolling their eyes, mocking me. Body Count Beatrice, two isn't so impressive.

After Lea, in January, no one said it, everyone pretended the name had never existed, because that rule they teach you in acting class, about how things are funny when they happen three times? It doesn't count when your girlfriends are dying.

And then in April, I started dating Benji, and the few people who hadn't been avoiding me because I carried death on my fingers suddenly were, and “Body Count Beatrice,” they whispered in my ear while they pushed me into my locker, “How long are you going to give the boy?”

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.

Let's Answer These Puppies

You guys asked some truly excellent questions. HERE WE GO.

At the moment, would you prefer to write for adults or YAs?

YAs. I just finished my first adult novel, and I'd LOVE to have a career in both adult and YA books, but YA is my passion and probably always will be.

Are you sick of writing for YA?

Nope. But there are things about YA books as a whole that frustrate me. Namely, the hype of fantasy novels to the detriment of contemporary, Twi-hype--I haven't read Twilight, so I have no judgments to make on the quality of the books, but you guys already know I object to the notion that it's the be-all-end-all of modern YA--people's attitudes towards YA and YA writers as a whole...I don't have any complaints you guys haven't heard elsewhere from tons of other people. But, by and large, I love YA and I can't imagine ever getting sick of writing it. I worry that people are going to get sick of me, because a lot of times--big secret here--I do worry that I'm writing different versions of the same novel over and over again. I just hope people disagree.

And I always say I could write about 15 year old boys forever. God, they're so beautiful and angsty. Love them.

What do your parents think of the "content" (gahhh, what a horrible, prissy word) of "Break", i.e. swearing and stuff?

Oh, they're totally cool with it. I learned everything I know from then, y'know? ;)

Plus, my three best friends--all teenage boys--basically live at our house, so they have firsthand experience that some boys really do talk that way.

Do you worry about sharing your writing? I'm not sure what the hard and fast rules are on sharing your manuscript, but I've got a friend who molts whenever I suggest putting an excerpt out on the internet. She is sure people will snatch it up and whore it out and I will be left penniless AND bereft of manuscript rights or something. So, can you spill on the proper pimping protocol of an unpublished, unagented, completely naked of rights novel?

First off, nothing you write is EVER completely naked of rights. Your words are copyrighted (I typed that as "copywritten" the first time. What.) the second you put the down on paper. And, worst comes to worst, there are ways to prove that--your word processor will tell you when you started a document, or if you emailed it to yourself, that's proof, whatevs.

But honestly, I think the chances of someone stealing your novel are really, really slim. And maybe that's naive of me.

i wouldn't suggest putting a whole manuscript online (unless you're doing a serial on your blog or something, and that's a whole different sack of potatoes) but a snippet? Sure.

Yes, there is a chance that someone might steal your idea. But who's left out there who doesn't know that the idea is the easy part? God, I can think of seven ideas for a book a day, but that doesn't mean I have to discipline--or the time--to sit down and write the books for them. And even if I did, it would be a completely different book from someone's based off the exact same idea, just because things always evolve differently, and there is so much variability out there.

And ideas are recycled and reused all the time. And books are similar to other books all the time. And that's entirely okay.

I'll give you an example. A few months before INVINCIBLE SUMMER sold, when the manuscript was already edited, polished, and going out to agents for round of querying numero dos, I started stalking publishers. Because that's how I roll. On Knopf's website, I saw an ad for their new book just out by Brent Runyon, one of my FAVORITE authors. The book? SURFACE TENSION, a coming-of-age about a boy over four summers.

So I basically shot myself and slit my wrists and overdosed on painkillers and told myself my book was never going to sell. And guess what? It sold. We even submitted to Knopf. And they didn't even mention SURFACE TENSION in the rejection!

I didn't steal the idea from Brent Runyon--I swear!--but the two books do have a sort of eerie similarity. They're not by any means identical; INVINCIBLE SUMMER, like most of my stuff, is very very family focused, while SURFACE TENSION is more romantically-based. But if you read descriptions of the two, they definitely sound alike. And they both sold. And, fingers crossed, we'll both be fine.

(Also, you should buy SURFACE TENSION, because I did as soon as I recovered from my wrist-slitting, and it's really good. And also you should buy INVINCIBLE SUMMER, but not for another year, which is annoying.)

Why do you hate Brown? DETAILS PLZ. :)

Bwahahaha. I'm so hard on Brown. To be honest, it's not Brown's fault. Brown is a perfectly lovely school IF you are willing to work your ass off. Which I am not. I want to lie around and write books.

Also, just personal stuff. I don't like being far away from home, and I don't like living in a building full of teenagers. I need my space sometimes. I'm a SENSITIVE ARTIST or some shit.

What's your favorite color? (boring question, I know)

Indigo, due in no small part to my obsession with Hilary McKay's INDIGO'S STAR, which you should also buy. It's MG. I think MGs are some of the best books out there.

How do you feel about YA books today compared to YA books in the past?

I'm crazy about YAs from the 80s and 90s--Joyce Sweeney, in particular. There's this certain kind of angry sitcom feel to them. Everything is super angsty and dramatic and affectionate and...you're not really the same after you read one of them. Stuff now is more realistic, I think, which is cool, but it some ways less fun. I lurve the drama.

Do you think there needs to be more edgy, true-to teenage life, f-bomb dropping books or do you think writers should continue to sugarcoat things?

Ha, I'm sure anyone could predict how I'm going to answer this one--fuck sugarcoating.

What's you favorite song at the moment?

"When My Boy Walks Down the Street" by The Magnetic Fields.

Have you always been a fast writer?

Nope. BREAK was my first fast-draft, and INVINCIBLE SUMMER and the book I just finished (working title THE ANIMALS WERE GONE--more about that in a minute) are the only ones I've written very quickly. Of those, INVINCIBLE SUMMER took the longest--8 days, and was also the shortest, with a first draft of about 23K words--and THE ANIMALS WERE GONE was the fastest and the longest--5 days and 40K words.

I love the ones I write quickly. They feel the most passionate to me, and they're my favorites, and maybe it's not a coincidence that they keep being the ones to sell. But some of my slower drafts turn into good books, too, I think. The first drafts of those generally take me about two to three months.

If you could have one writer, dead or alive, read and critique your work, who would it be and why?

He's not a YA writer, sorry, but...John freaking Irving. I love him so much. And he knows how to pack a punch like no one's business.

I read THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE when I was staying in a hostel in Florence on a school trip. I was alone in my room, devouring a box of Special K, when I got to the big scary twist. I had to crawl out into the hallway and wait for my best friend to come hold me. I want to do that to someone someday. I want to totally fuck up their lives with words in the middle of a box of Special K.

ooh and how about if they made a movie about your journey/success, who would you want to play you? :)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, if he doesn't mind the gender-bending.

So I know that your novel-that-hasn't-sold-yet, THESE HUMANS ALL SUCK, is kind of quirky speculative fiction. What's the difference, for you, between writing this kind of YA and contemporary? And which do you like better? And why?

Ohhh, THESE HUMANS ALL SUCK. sniff. I hope someday to bring that shit out of the closet. We'll seeeeeeeeee.

I'm trying to figure out if it feels any different. I think it's scarier for me, trying to write spec; it's like I'm dipping my feet into very unfamiliar territory. I never go very deep into the spec elements, because I'm sure I'm going to screw something up, and intense worldbuilding absolutely scares me. (Pop Quiz: Where is BREAK set? Yeaaaaaaah I don't know either.)

So I probably prefer writing straight contemporary just because it's less scary for me. Btu when the ideas come to me with spec in them, sometimes it's hard to excise out. But I try. Sometimes.

I do love magical realism, so as long as I can tell myself that's what I'm writing, it gets a little easier.

Could you give us a kind of outline of your favourite books that-you-haven't-sold-yet, like THESE HUMANS ALL SUCK and a couple of others? Whenever I read about you mentioning them, I'm always curious :P.

Absolutely. Are you ready? HERE WE GO. Big explanation of ALL MY BOOKS OF ALL TIME.

Warning: This shit is long.

Crash, Burn, Etc. (2005)--a story about a kid named Jason whose mom hangs herself in the basement. His sister tries to keep the family together. Lots of angst. So bad it hurts, but, guys, this was my FIRST NOVEL EVER so it was really exciting. I finished it at the end of 8th grade. I queries FSG with it. I'm so silly.

Color us Blissful (2005)--a boy named Jamie discovers a government plot to eradicate unruly teenagers when his best friend becomes a target. Pretty dumb. I loved it.

Craving Private Ryan (2005)--This was about two half-brothers who met for the first time and fell in love. I was obviously a precocious little thing. No plot, lots of angst. My main character was 19, which was weird, since I was 14. I subbed this one to small presses and got a few partial requests. That was pretty sweet for me. I didn't really know about agents at the time, because I was too busy writing about gay incest to do any research, I guess.

The Sublime (2006)--Jack gets stuck on a mysterious island with some mysterious people, mysterious things ensue. This came out on ebook with a small press. It's out of print now. My agent and I might do something with it, but probably not. We'll see. I like it, but it's very quiet.

Birthday Cake (2006)--The first draft of this one took me 6 months. That's my longest ever. It's been through like a zillion different drafts, and it was the first book I used to query agents. Unsuccessful! Probably won't ever see the light of day. It's cute but quite flawed. It switches viewpoints between 4 best friends the week of their eighteenth birthdays, when they've promised to give up their bad habits.

These Humans All Suck (2007)--So this is the first book I wrote that I think has any hope of being really good. Ian follows his adopted brother to D.C. where he meets his brother's pregnant virgin cousin and wonders if Noel might have been conceived in the same way. I...really, really love this book. I queried my ass off with it, and it's actually the book that got me my first agent, though we subbed BREAK instead and, well, you know what happened after that. We subbed this one after and it didn't sell. I'm not really sad about it anymore. It happens. (Published authors out there--hate to say it, but one book deal, or two book deals, or twelve book deals does not guarantee another.)

Singleton (2007)--This book is randomly pretty awful, which is kind of a shame. It's about identical twins, but it's also about, like, every single thing you could possibly imagine. It tried to do way too much and it didn't work. I stole lots of bits from this and used it in later books, though, so there's that. I queried this one, too (basically I was querying four different books at once) and I got all of two full requests for it.

Break(2007)--yaaaaaay. Originally called If It Ain't Broke. Jonah wants to break all his bones. My first novel, Simon Pulse, 2009, you all know the story. Tons of requests through querying, no offers for months, then suddenly three offers in a week. Wrote the first draft in six days. It was less than 30K--basically a detailed outline. The 2nd draft was much different, added major characters and subplots and things.

Pumpkin Patch Kids (2007-2008) Co-wrote with a really good friend of mine, Andrew Carmichael. I'm really, really hoping things will happen with this one. It's about two teenagers at a boarding school who have a fake romance and a very real pregnancy. I wrote a girl's POV for this one!

A La Mode (2008)--a sequel to Birthday Cake, mainly written just for fun.

Invincible Summer (2008)--Written in eight days of not-sleeping. Like I said, it's a coming of age about a boy and his big family that takes place over four summers. I love it. Break sold a few weeks after I finished this one. It comes out in Spring 2011. It's my second novel--do you see now how ridiculous the terms "first novel" and "second novel" are?

The Beekeeper (2008)--my first NaNo! I like this book okay, but my betas basically trashed it. As did everyone in the publishing world who read it. Haha, okay, I get it, it's not going anywhere. It's a cute romance between two boys at boarding school. Super innocent. 3rd present, switches viewpoints. I stole all the good parts for it and harvested them into The Animals Were Gone.

The Support Group (2009) -- really weird and teeny and...weird. And pretty bad, to be honest.

All Together With Feeling (2009)--drama centered around a high school chorus, told from the points of view of a soprano, an alto, a tenor, and a bass. I have hope for this one. I like it a lot.

A.P.D. (2009)--my first adult book. It's about a leper colony of sorts for people with a blood-borne illness that makes them turn into machines. It's pretty sick. And it has PICTURES. Stay tuned (hopefully).

The Animals Were Gone (2009)--finished this last week. It's about two teenage boys falling in love and staying in love over the course of the D.C. Beltway sniper shootings in 2002. I'm...sort of crazy in love with this one.

So there you have it.

It takes a lot of books to get a book deal.

It takes a lot of really shitty books to get a book deal.

It takes a lot of good books to get a book deal.

And most of all, it just takes tiiiiiime.

When you are hammering out a story at the speed of lightening, I'd like to know what's going through your mind. Are you just putting down whatever comes to mind and riding the wave or are you writing carefully from a well-thought outline in your head (or on paper)?

I don't outline. Generally, I won't start writing until I know the beginning, the end, and a few things that happen along the way. I keep the next big plot point in mind while I'm writing, but I give myself a lot of leeway when I'm trying to get there, and I basically just fool around.

What is your energy is like? Urgent or mellow?

Ha, definitely urgent.

How much do you edit your rough draft and when do you abandon? Do you feel that you edit your work to it's satisfying optimum or do you get scrambled at some point and feel like you aren't sure anymore if it is better or worse for the pen lashes? Do you struggle with tuning in on some of your characters? If a character is giving you a hard time, how do you get them clearer?

I actually only like to edit my first draft once or twice before I had it over to my agent, because I like to get feedback early on in the process. I don't want to burn out before I've done the work that it needs. And...this isn't going to win me any fans, but here we go. I'm not an editor. I'll edit to the best of my ability, but I'll be completely honest and say I do NOT have the ability to see or fix what's wrong with my story as well as, like, an editor. So while I'll clean up the manuscript the best it can, I don't edit the thing to within an inch of its life before I actually get editorial feedback.

Are there any themes or subjects in particular you feel you cannot tackle or feel very uncomfortable in doing so?

I have a hard time with race-related issues; I tried to incorporate some into All Together With Feeling and I'm not sure I was entirely successful.

As your next question says, I do a lot with gay teens, and I feel, to be honest, a little weird about that too. I absolutely love writing gay teens and I don't think I'm going to stop anytime soon, and honestly I'd be fine with that being my brand, of sorts. But there are so many GREAT gay men out there writing GREAT YA fiction about gay boys--David Levithan (I LOVE YOU) and Alex Sanchez come immediately to mind--and I don't want to be, well, the fag hag of YA lit. I'm not going to stop what I'm doing, but it does make me wonder if I'm doing the genre a disservice by stepping all over it with my straight girly feet. I just hope I do a good enough job that nobody minds that, no matter what, I will always be an outsider to the issue.

I do a lot with Jewish or partly-Jewish teenagers feeling ever-so-slightly at odds with their surroundings, and that's really the only minority-related issue I feel like I do well.

You've written about gay males more than once. Any plans for a lesbian or bisexual female protagonist/major character?

No concrete plans, but I do definitely want to have one at some point. The only reason I haven't is that I have so much trouble writing girls. A girl who falls in love with a girl means I have to write TWO GIRLS.

An Open Letter To Writers Looking For An Agent

Dear Writers,

Please never, never make the mistake of thinking you're having a different experience from anyone who's sold their book.

I queried four different books before I got an agent. I got form rejections and personalized rejections and partial requests and partial rejections and full requests and full rejections. I went through it all. It sucked.

I haven't forgotten it. I'm never going to forget it.

We're only different because we've had luck you haven't had. You could get an agent tomorrow. You don't know. Hell, I didn't wake up the morning I got my agent with some feeling that something big was going to happen.

When you work hard, success falls on you no matter if it's an up day or a down day or a Saturday or a Tuesday. You have to believe it will come. You have to not think I'm some level you're not.

You're the reason I blog. Because, Jesus, can we lift the veil and show you that published authors don't sparkle like vampires? We're just you, but lucky. And you NEVER KNOW when you'll be one of us.

Believe, believe believe. DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN. Especially when those bastards are us.

Love you.

Fitting in/Standing Out

A NOTE: This post talks about writing as a craft and a business. It talks about the business of selling writing. If you're looking for praise of art for art's sake, look elsewhere. I'm a commercial writer, let's just put it out there--I have my literary moments, but I write for you and you and you, damn it, not for The Sake Of The Written Word--so advice from me (fuck what I'm giving advice??) is going to come from a commercial standpoint.

A lot of the problems new authors face, whether they're on their first manuscript or their tenth, base around the problem of fitting in vs. standing out.

Benefits to fitting in:
--Your audience is built right in. That's huge. You know where your book will go and who will pick it up.
--Easier to find an agent. Look at what they've sold until you find one that's sold a book like yours. Query them. Then query some more people. If you're good, you'll get lucky. And if your book fits into the current market easily, an agent shouldn't have much trouble placing you.
--You are instantly your own brand. Readers will know what to expect for your next book, and if your first was the type they liked, they'll be loyal.

Problems with fitting in:
--Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
--You're asleep
--Your readers are asleep


On the other hand...

Benefits to standing out:
--Bam pow zap! There's nothing like a shock to get people's interest.
--Books that stand out are the ones that become big deals. No one ever got famous overnight from a ho-hum book.
--This is how things get started, y'know?

But problems with standing out:
--Good luck selling. You're a risk, and that's going to make it a hard road.
--Unless you do something quirky really well, you risk looking like you're trying too hard.
--The WTF factor. Expect people to question your sanity.


So you want to do something innovative and original without doing something that can't blend into the current market.

My solution to this dichotomy is this--write to fill the holes.

Don't try to start a new genre your first time around. You do have time to be a revolutionary.

But don't write the same book everyone else is writing because you think it will sell. (No Wuthering Heights and Witches, in my friend's words)

Don't write what's already out there, but don't write something that doesn't have a place. Look at what books are in your genre (which you should be familiar with) and look what could easily fit in that isn't yet there.

BREAK (surprise!) is a pretty decent example of this. YA books about self-injury are not new. I knew there was an established market for them. What is new? Books about a self-injury from a male perspective. So I did it. And it made sense, but it still had a touch of that Bam Pow Zap, this is different.

In a larger sense, I write largely YA, and I use a lot of the genre conventions because I LOVE YA and I love the conventions and I love selling books, so I'm not going to write a book about, you know, a tadpole and try to say that's YA. (Someone is trying that now. Stop.) But while a lot of YA is friend/romantic relationship focused, I put a heavy emphasis on family life and the relationships my characters have with their parents and siblings.

Find your genre. Love your genre. Meet the expectations of your genre. And add something new.

Fill some holes.

What is INVINCIBLE SUMMER about?

Everything bizarre in Chase McGill’s life can be blamed on his four siblings. Between screaming baby Lucy, perpetually naked Claudia, Deaf but ASL-impaired Gideon, and wanderlusty Noah, Chase has his hands full trying to hold everything together. But during the summers, everything is perfect. Every year, they return to beach to revive their passions for sand, salt, and Camus—everything that will keep them young and beautiful forever.

And they will stay innocent. Chase is their anchor.

But Chase is slowly cracking. Noah’s never around to hoist him up. His parents are divorcing. How’s Chase supposed to resist the pull of adulthood as his eighteenth birthday creeps up and his whole family’s succumbing to the adulthood disease? Claudia’s promiscuity explodes, Gideon’s learning to sign, Noah’s talking about college whenever he’s not on one of his escapes. Even Lucy’s using full sentences. Chase thought they’d be invincible as long as they were together. But they’re not invincible. And after one horrible night, they’re not even together.

INVINCIBLE SUMMER is a YA family saga complete at 40,000 words.

More on the Word Count Myth

So I hinted a few posts ago that word count isn't nearly as big a deal as a lot of writers would like to believe. I thought I'd elaborate on that, so you know that [this time] I'm not talking out of my ass.

BREAK is 272 pages. This would make you believe that it's a reasonably average sized novel, yeah? 272 pages, that sounds about normal for a YA book. It's not huge--huge is like over 400, right? And small is like 150 or under, yeah? So BREAK probably hits what a lot of people site as the YA word count sweet spot--60,000 to 80,000 words.

Yeah, no.

BREAK is roughly 42,000 words. It was about 44,000 when I handed it over to my editor. She cut that extra 2K because the story didn't need them.

Dozens of writers saw my query letter and told me that my book would never get me representation, let alone an editor, if I didn't beef up the word count. I was in Nathan's "Agent For a Day" contest, and a ton of the people who rejected me said they did so because the word count was too low.

And I got a ton of rejections for agents. And I got my fair share of rejections from editors, too.

Not a single. One. Mentioned the word count.

My next book, INVINCIBLE SUMMER? About 42K. God knows if my editor will chop any of that off. I'm sure any writer would tell you an editor would have to be insane to make a 42K book shorter.

But the only think that matters with words is this: does the story need them?

Here is your ideal word count: Exactly how many the story needs and not a single one more.

Don't freak out. Write a good book and no one will give a shit.

Massive Playlist for the WIP

Working on something new. You'll get a query teaser later, but first you get the huge playlist...

Monster Hospital--Metric
All That's Known--Spring Awakening
Rent--Rent
Boston--Augustana
How the Heart Approaches What it Yearns--Paul Simon
Octopus's Garden--The Beatles
Bleed Like Me--Garbage
I'm Just a Kid--Simple Plan
Never Be Ready--Mat Kearney
This is Why--Say Anything
Where I Belong--Motion City Soundtrack
Life Support--Rent
Walk Away--Kelly Clarkson
This Is Not an Exit--Saves The Day
Quiet As a Mouse--Margot and the Nuclear So and So's
Tic--Loch Lomond
Can't Break Her Fall--Mat Kearney
An Insult To The Dead--Say Anything
Talking in Code--Margot and the Nuclear So and So's
Waiting On The World to Change--John Mayer
Sons and Daughters--The Decemberists
Everyone I Know--Mat Kearney
Falling Awake--Gary Jules
Walter Reed--Michael Penn
Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and Be Loved)--Bright Eyes
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away--The Beatles
Virgin Mountain--Loch Lomond
I Don't Want to Die (In the Hospital)--Conor Oberst
For No One--The Beatles
Say What You Will--Damhnait Doyle
See The World--Gomez
Same Old Stuff--The Feeling
Train Under Water--Bright Eyes


Listening to this now, trying to figure out WTF actually happens in this book.