It's Time For...

..Teaser Tuesday! (It's been a few weeks, yeah?)

How about...The Animals Were Gone!

This is Craig's point of view, and he's talking about two different boys--Lio, with whom he's hit a rocky point in their very, very tentative relationship, and Cody, the ex-boyfriend who is out of his life but not at all out of his mind.

--

Things I always liked about Lio:

The gaps between his canines and the rest of his teeth that make him look like a vampire or a really dangerous puppy.

His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn't cold.

The fact that the teachers stopped making him take his hats off after the first week, probably because his hair is so fucked up.

The scar from the central line he had, and how he wears tank tops that let it show and acts like he doesn't give a shit who sees, and explains when people ask about it, with a small smile to show he doesn't mind that they asked, and plays with it, running his fingers across it and pinching the scar tissue when he thinks no one's looking.

His voice, low and gravelly, like he's always getting over a cold.

Things I now hate:

His stupid smiles he makes me work for.

His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn't cold.

The fact that I probably won't be mad at him a few hours because he's so fucking charmed.

Cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy, I get it.

His silence.

***

So Cody's dad's death pretty much destroyed my boy, and as much as we didn't want it to destroy us, as hard as we worked, as hard as I worked...

God, I held on. I held on so hard.

When he was screaming. When he was crying. When he was telling me he hated me and why hadn't I died instead. That time he slapped me across the face and shrieked that I bring him back. The time he shoved me across the room and told me if he ever saw me again he'd kill me himself, and called me two hours later, baby I'm so sorry, baby I'm just so sad and I don't know what to do and my therapist says I BLAH BLAH BLAH

When he said he was going to buy a gun and get revenge himself, and I told him no--not because I thought that was wrong, but because I knew he wouldn't go to Afghanistan and I was worried he would go to me or his mother or his therapist.

So they eventually shipped him off, not to Afghanistan, but to some hospital and then some school, and I never visited him, not once, and it took so long before he asked me to visit, and it should be simple to say no, I can't, I won't do it again, I can't, but it isn't, because he fell asleep crying in my arms so many times, and he called me Lollipop, and he told me I was the only thing, the only thing in the entire huge bad scary world, that helped.

***

So fuck frozen cold hearts, because who are they helping?

Fuck you, frozen cold heart.

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 3

So I'm on the phone, holding my breath, and Agent 2 says, "I got a job offer as an editor."

"...Oh." Yeah. I knew what was coming, but I was still gripping to a tiny bit of hope. Maybe he was about to say, but I said, screw you, bitches, I'm staying with hannah!

But no. He said he'd decided to take the job and he was really excited. But he was quick to say, "I'm not leaving you all alone. We've had a lot of meetings here, and we decided the best fit for you would probably be Suzie Townsend--"

"Oh, I know Suzie."

"You do?"

I guess it made some sense that he was surprised, since at that point, Suzie was fairly new. But I'm a ho on the internet, as you know, and I already knew Lisa Desrochers and knew Suzie was her agent. But because Lisa was the only one of her clients I knew about, my mind jumped to paranormal romance and I went WHAT ARE YOU THINKING in my head because, lovely though it may be, paranormal romance is pretty much the furthest thing from what I do. Except for the magic gay fish book. But whatever.

But when Agent 2 said, "So, can Suzie call you?" I said "Absolutely." Because what harm could it do? If it didn't seem like we'd mesh well, I could always query other people.

And then I congratulated him, and I hung up and cried my eyes out.

And then Suzie called.

Suzie is lovely on the phone, guys. Like, she's lovely in all capacities, but I feel pretty lucky that my first introduction to her was on the phone, where I could actually hear how excited she was and how much she liked my work. She thought this was going to be a great thing for both of us. I thought she was a little delusional, but at least she sounded like she liked my stuff.

I realize this part of the story makes me sound like a total bitch. But imagine you've been dating this guy for six months, and you're crazy about him, and he dumps you out of nowhere. If someone new comes along, no matter if she's super super hot and awesome and sweet, are you really going to believe her when she tells you she's your one and only true love?

Well...maybe you just need to give it a few weeks.

So I did.

And I can't really remember what happened. We started working on different stuff and re-evaluating where my career was going. I dove into Invincible Summer revisions, and her love of MG encouraged me to try my hand at it. We went on sub together and sold together. But even before that, weeks and weeks before that, I was smitten.

I think it was her ed letters.

God, nothing gets me going like a good ed letter.

So Agent 1 promised me revisions and rarely gave them. Agent 2 barely revised at all. Suzie, as some of you know, gets out her scissors and cuts your ideas into pieces and puts them back together the way they were supposed to be, you idiot.

I'd never had an agent who'd done that before. I wasn't sure I wanted it. I wasn't even sure I needed it. But the first letter Suzie sent me, on a project I'd finished years before (remember the manuscript that got me Agent 1 and didn't sell? that one) hit me in a way no critique had. You know how usually you have to get defensive first, then deal with that, then open yourself back up, before you can really see the points a critter gives you? Suzie's invented some kind of crazy magic formula that completely bypasses your defensive zone and hits you straight in the OHHHHHH part of your brain. The second she suggests something that's going to make the manuscript better, it's like I can already see that improved version of the manuscript in my head. Like I can envision all the words I'll need to change or add or take out to get there.

Writing with Suzie is different from writing without Suzie. And I never would have known that, or suspected that I was missing anything.

I'm a better writer now. I'm a different writer now. If I'd stayed with Agent 1, I'd probably still be stalled at the gate. If Agent 2 hadn't left, I'm sure I'd still be wildly happy and would probably have met a lot of success as the two of us continued together, but I would have ended up a very different writer.

But I'm with Suzie.

And I really, really like the kind of writer that's making me.

--

So there you have it. The complete and total agent story.

In some ways traditional, in some ways not.

I'll take questions, as always, and thanks for following along.

A Brief Interruption

I know you guys want Part 3, but we need to do this first.

One year ago today...



Though it had been spotted in the wild before...




BREAK was officially unleashed upon the world.



I celebrated in the usual ways...





Since then, BREAK has received reviews like THIS:

Hannah Moskowitz delivers a passionate debut about one boy struggle to make his world sane by being insane. It's a story that I'll never forget!
A Must Read!

And like THIS...

I thought this book was absolutely boring and stupid. I am not trying to be overly harsh, but I found that I was bored throughout most of the book.

And I've received so many emails that made me do this.



So I would like to offer up a big slice of



to all the lovely ladies (and men--I know you're there somewhere) of Simon Pulse who believed in a crazy book like BREAK.

And to all of you--



Who have read BREAK, especially if you reviewed it, especially if you told a friend about it.

Thank you so much. It has been an amazing year.

Happy birthday, BREAK.

The Agent Story--PART 2

So I left Agent #1 in May of 2009. I'd been wanting to split for a few months, but I had a book on submission with her and I wanted to wait and see how that turned out. But the emails slowed, then stopped, and no matter how many times I emailed and called, I got no response. I realized I had nothing to gain my staying. I terminated the contract on my way out the door to a restaurant. I felt great.

Immediately after the split, even before I queried again, I did two things.

First, I emailed the editors who, as far as I know, still had the book on sub. I pretty much groveled, asking if they knew the status of the manuscript. Most of them answered, and they were all very nice. They'd all passed, but my agent hadn't told me. So that was that.

Second, I emailed my Simon Pulse editor, who had asked for a manuscript of mine nearly six months earlier. My agent didn't think it was ready, and said we weren't going to do anything with it until I edited according to some notes she had. I asked about these notes every few weeks. They never materialized.

So as soon as we split, I emailed my editor, told her what was up, and asked her if she wanted to see the manuscript. She did. And I got to work finding another agent.

I seriously thought I'd have no problem drumming up another agent. I'd worked with an gent for over a year! I knew the drill! I had a book coming out in three months! Who wouldn't want to work with me?

It took about three weeks for that to get sucked out of me. When May passed, and then June, and then July with no new agent, I was terrified.

This was a busy summer for me. I was planning for BREAK's release, which was stressful but not time-consuming, since by that point the book's all done and completely out of your hands. I was getting ready to go to college in the fall and taking two summer classes. And I was querying essentially non-stop.

I decided to query INVINCIBLE SUMMER because it was my favorite, and really it was either that, a manuscript I didn't like as much, or the manuscript I loved that had been subbed all over the place my Agent #1, which I didn't think would make it a very attractive commodity to agents. In either late July or early August, I got one of the weirdest emails ever. Something like...

Hey Hannah. I finished reading INVINCIBLE SUMMER. Great job!

Great job? What the fuck does that mean?

I puzzled over that for a minute, then I wrote back thanking him and asking if he'd like to schedule a phone call. He said absolutely, and that's when I relaxed. Significantly.

I ended up with one other offer from an absolutely brilliant agent, but I went with the one who originally offered (hereafter Agent #2) because his vision of INVINCIBLE SUMMER meshed more closely with mine (meaning, he didn't make me do any edits. More on this later!

About a week after we signed, I got an email from my SP editor telling me she was halfway through INVINCIBLE SUMMER and loving it. Agent #2 stepped up to the plate, drummed up a mini-auction, and we ended up selling INVINCIBLE SUMMER back to my SP editor in a two-book deal. This was the week before BREAK came out.

(In case anyone's confused re. why SP didn't automatically get IS--IS was not my option book. SP had already turned that one down. Just clarifying.)

I was wildly, deliriously happy with Agent #2, and I have nothing but good memories from working with him. He didn't edit my manuscripts, but at that point, I didn't think I wanted that, since I'd gone through so much hell waiting for edits from Agent #1. He answered all my emails in a heartbeat and had a great sense of humor. I found out later that he way more clients than I ever would have guessed. I felt like I was his only one, and I never had any communication issues at all. I was in heaven.

He had great big ideas for my career as a whole, and he worked hard on subsidiary rights and encouraged me to branch out beyond YA. He's the reason I wrote an adult book. He's not the reason the adult book was a big big mess that didn't sell.

So...we're on sub with the big mess of an adult book, and he emails me and says, "Need to talk to you. Can I call?"

This is January of 2010. I'd just spent my first night in my new house. I thought this was big news. You know, one of The Calls.

I was completely jittery when he called and said, "So. I have news."

I said, "I love news."

And he said, "You won't love this news."

To be continued...

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).

I'm Lame but At Least It's Tuesday

There ARE real posts coming at some point. I promise. I even have ideas for them (okay, ideas for one). But I'm in Orlando until Friday, so for now, have a teaser! It's from Invincible Summer. It's the scene I read at the Muser reading last week!


“No love without a little innocence,” Noah says, completely still.

“I thought you were asleep. You’re so creepy.”

He shrugs. “So how was your lovely innocent night?”

“I kissed her.”

“What a man.” But he says it warmly. “How was it?”

My first thought is to relate it to soft serve ice cream, but I can already hear Noah laughing at that. “It was nice.”

“God. God, really, it was nice?” He sounds so earnest that I think for a minute that he’s making fun of me. He props himself up on an elbow. “God, I fucking miss when kisses were nice. I’m so jealous of people young enough to still have nice kisses.”

“Wait, kissing isn’t nice anymore?”

“No. It’s foreplay. Trust me, you get old enough, and everything is foreplay. Kissing is foreplay. Talking is foreplay. Holding hands is foreplay. I swear to God, Chase, I think at this point, sex would be foreplay.”

This would probably be a good time to ask if he and Melinda have really slept together, but I can’t make myself say the words. So I just say, “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Sex is a to-do list where nothing gets crossed out.”

I find the passage Noah quoted in my Camus book. “No love without a little innocence. Where was the innocence? Empires were tumbling down; nations and men were tearing at one another’s throats; our hands were soiled. Originally innocent without knowing it, we were now guilty without meaning to be: the mystery was increasing our knowledge. This is why, O mockery, we were concerned with morality. Weak and disabled, I was dreaming of virtue!”

Noah looks at me and coughs, his eyebrows up in his bangs.

“What?” I say.

With a straight face, he recites, “I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.”

“Come on. It’s foreplay? Seriously?”

“You’re too young.” He flops backwards. “You wouldn’t understand. You are a fetus in a world of Camus and spermicidal lubricant.”

“And you’re an asshole.”

“I’m just cynical. And you have no idea how far that’s going to take me.”

“Neither do you.”

“Au contraire, little brother. I know exactly how this college game works. I will arrive, the dark horse in a band of mushy-hearted freshman. College will pee itself in terror of my disenfranchised soul.”

I roll my eyes. “Beautiful.“

“Look. Listen to my words of wisdom. College’s only role these days, for a upper-middle class kind going in for a fucking liberal arts degree, is very simple. Do you know what that is?”

“A diploma. A good job. Yay.”

“No. College exists only because it thrives on the hopes and dreams of the young and innocent. College is a hungry zombie here to eat your brains. It wants to remind you that your naivety is impermanent and someday, English major or no, you’ll wear a suit and hate the feeling of sand between your toes.”

It’s not going to happen to me.

Noah continues, in a low mutter, “Like that’s not already forced into our heads every single fucking minute of every winter.”

“So you’re, like, essentially already educated, just because you’re an asshole?”

“Because I’ve resigned myself to my fate, yeah. I’ve pre-colleged myself. I’m rocking the institution, entering it already all disillusioned and shit. I’m going to single-handedly change the world of higher education.”

I clear my throat. “I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.”

“Go to sleep. Asshole.”