Wednesday, March 30, 2011

fight the flames

okay, i have something to say.
first, you should read this blog post and the following comments:
booksandpals greek seaman

oh wait. you probably already read it, huh? you know, due to everyone linking to it on twitter and facebook and forums and blogs. because that's what happens when authors royally screw up and go batshit crazy about a negative review. they get held up as an example of what not to do. and so they should be.

i'll go on the record now and say the reviewer is right, and the author is wrong. no question. the author went crazy, and even after that, the reviewer was professional. i'll also say i applaud the first commenters who stuck up for the reviewer and gave the author a few slaps. that probably needed to be done too.

but 50 or 100 comments later, i started to squirm. 300+ comments later, i was crawling out of my skin. maybe it's just me, but when i see an author's comments devolve from outrageously defensive to simply outrageous to finally just swearing/screaming in frustration, i start to get concerned. i read the first few comments with an eyeroll (authors need thicker skin. sheesh!) then a cringe (wow. she sounds... off.) and finally worry (where did the author go after that final "F-off!" comment? is she okay? what if she tries to hurt herself?)

maybe that's just my overactive imagination, but it's not the first time i've seen an author go wild, get flamed and disappear in a flash of obscenities. and every time i see it i think - i hope that person is okay. regardless of the bad behavior and the well-deserved smack down that follows, i do think there's a point when the flaming crosses a line into something else. (i won't use the word "bullying" because it's become a buzz word that's losing it's meaning. that's another blog post, another time.)

it just surprises me that members of the online literary community - the same community that embraced the "it gets better" message in a big way - can forget to be kind... even to people who don't seem to deserve kindness.

wow, i sound like a mushy sap in this post. i should confess: most people in my “real life” – particularly those who know me professionally – would tell you i have little tolerance for thin skin and irrational behavior.

i’m not telling anyone they shouldn’t comment or tweet or write their own blogs on the topic. i’m all about freedom of speech! do what you will. i’m only suggesting… maybe take a closer look at these cases when they come up and ask – has someone already said what I want to say? Does the target of this flame seem unstable? If I’m really still angry, what is the best way to fire back?

personally, i would suggest: don’t buy the authors’ books. refuse to read their words. as a writer, i can think of no greater punishment. beyond that, it’s just boxing the ears – painful, abusive and occasionally bloody.

of course, there are exceptions. some behavior is so consistent and outrageous that it deserves equally relentless berating online. (i'm looking at you, Charlie Sheen.)

Thursday, March 24, 2011

inspiration confetti

i've mentioned before that shiny new ideas often come to me when i'm in the thick of another project. it's my brain's escape mechanism, i think, when i'm tired of revising or when i hit a dry patch in a first draft.
the ideas often lose their luster once i actually have time to write them. i've learned to ignore those light bulbs that pop on and only focus on them when they refuse to go out. i write the ideas that stick with me.

so it occurred to me recently that this doesn't just happen when i'm working on a project. new ideas happen ALL THE TIME... for all of us writers, i'm sure. for every idea that takes root in our mind and eventually becomes a story, there must be dozens - hundreds, even - that we toss aside.

this morning, for example.
the google header today is celebrating Houdini.
hey! what if there was a modern Houdini? a teenage girl? But instead of getting out of tricky boxes and straight jackets, she was an expert at getting out of trouble? Until one day she finds herself in a pickle she can't escape?
then i thought - "what's the pickle? eh, i don't know. i should be revising my WIP."

there was a spark of an idea, but it didn't take hold. it's now like a little scrap of paper in the trash bin of my brain. it could get plucked out, but it will probably just join the pile of hundreds of other scraps - all of those ideas i don't even bother to write down - one big pile of inspiration confetti.

on vacation, standing at the edge of the ocean while the post-tsunami waves pulled away from the beach a little too far and a little too fast, several bits of water-logged prose popped into my head. but i didn't write any of them down or transcribe them into my voice recorder, because none of them blossomed into plot or characters. add those scraps of prose to the pile.

when people talk about writing discipline, we often mean forcing ourselves to sit down and write. but i think it also takes discipline to filter through the ideas and inspiration to determine which ones HAVE TO BE WRITTEN NOW, which ones will have to wait and which ones are just confetti.

what about you? do you jot down every single idea or snatch of dialog that pops into your head? how do you filter the noise of ideas to focus on just one or just a few stories?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

best lines, vacation edition

there's something about reading a story set on the grim future beaches of the gulf coast... while actually SITTING on a beach and getting sand in the cracks of the book pages.

this was how i read Paolo Bacigalupi's SHIP BREAKER.
there is still sand stuck in all the nooks and crannies, and i hope it never falls out.

so, in case you haven't read this awesome story yet... here are a few of the best lines from the best book i read on vacation:

"Sea foam lapped around his ankles, rust and bits of wire. Shells and insulation. And intermixed with the ocean froth, his blood. Running down his legs in streams, bright and red and steady, staining the waters with the pounding of his heart."

"...we get all excited about being like Lucky Strike and we lose our heads. We waste all our money throwing dice, trying to get close to Luck..."

"The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. Everything else was just so much smoke and lies."

and my favorite... the curse that popped up every few pages:

"Blood and rust!"

now THAT is a beach read. ;)

Friday, March 18, 2011

words and pictures... but mostly pictures

oh hello again!

i am officially back in the blogosphere, but i'm still on island time and exhausted, so allow me to entertain you with pictures instead of words today:

warning sign? what warning sign? by the way, this rectangle on a stick is totally blocking my view of the ocean.

so wierd how there's no one else on any of these beaches. it's almost like a tsunami came through here today or something.

seriously, what warning signs? i have no idea what you're talking about.

who can be bothered by signs when there's a view like this?

besides, this guy doesn't seem scared, and he's a local!

hmmm. now this sign's a little hard to miss.

and, uh... who really needs a warning when this is coming at you?

still, i'm contemplating whether or not to get in.
(just kidding! are you crazy?)

i'll just stick to this scenery, thanks. ;)


Wednesday, March 2, 2011

evolution of a query, part II

yesterday, i posted a "before and after" of my first-ever query letter. (that is, before revisions and after revisions.)
the idea is to use queries as a small-scale example of why revising is so important. this importance is only magnified when applied to a full-length piece of work!

today, i'm going to show you the different stages my query for BUTTER went through before i actually sent it off to agents.

this is draft 1:
Six summers at fat camp, 423 pounds on the scale and one dangerous defining moment.

A boy everyone calls “Butter” is about to make Scottsdale High history. He’s going to eat himself to death live on the internet – and everyone is going to watch!

My 51,000-word young adult novel “Butter” explores what happens when you get so big people can’t see around you and start looking right through you. It’s about just how far some teenagers will go to get noticed, to feel in control, to be somebody.

Butter is fed up with a dad who won’t talk to him, a girl who won’t look at him and a whole school full of kids who don’t even know his real name. If it weren’t for mom’s waffles and his saxophone, he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
When the syrup comes off the waffles and the obesity makes it hard to play the sax, Butter decides to stop waking up altogether.

He announces his deadly plan to an army of peers and expects pity, insults or even indifference. Instead, he finds morbid encouragement.
When that encouragement tips the scales into popularity, Butter has a reason to live.
But if he doesn’t go through with his plan, he’ll lose everything.

As a journalist, I write facts all day, every day. This is my first work of fiction.

I would love to send a partial or full manuscript of “Butter” for your consideration.
just like yesterday's query, it's a little long. or at least, i thought it was only a "little" long. when i posted the first draft on Absolute Write for feedback, i learned it was a LOT long.
the good folks at AW also let me know they'd rather see a character introduced in the opening line.
so i revised and came back with this second draft:
A boy everyone calls “Butter” is about to make Scottsdale High history. He’s going to eat himself to death live on the Internet – and everyone is going to watch.

Butter is fed up with a dad who won’t talk to him, a girl who won’t look at him and a school full of kids who don’t even know his real name. If it weren’t for mom’s waffles and his saxophone, he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
But mom starts taking the syrup off the waffles and obesity makes it increasingly harder for him to play the sax, so Butter decides to stop waking up altogether.

He announces his deadly plan to an army of peers and expects pity, insults or even indifference. Instead, he finds morbid encouragement.
When that encouragement tips the scales into popularity, Butter has a reason to live.
But if he doesn’t go through with his plan, he’ll lose everything.

My young adult novel BUTTER is 51,000 words about a 423-pound boy, six summers at fat camp and one dangerous defining moment. It explores what happens when Butter gets so big people can’t see around him and start looking right through him.

As a journalist, I write facts all day, every day. This is my first work of fiction.

I would love to send a partial or full manuscript of BUTTER for your consideration.

still too long, and you can see i merely moved my first line down, instead of deleting it. i think this is happens a lot with first revisions on novels too. writers can have a hard time letting go of the words they've created. they're not ready for the delete button.

so i was encouraged to "murder my darlings" (delete my favorite bits) and reminded that if the book sells, i can use those favorite lines later for promotion, etc...

so i offered this third draft:
A boy everyone calls “Butter” is about to make Scottsdale High history. He’s going to eat himself to death live on the Internet – and everyone will watch.

Butter is fed up with a dad who won’t talk to him, a girl who won’t look at him and a school full of kids who don’t even know his real name. If it weren’t for mom’s waffles and his saxophone, he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

He announces his deadly plan to an army of peers and expects pity, insults or even indifference. Instead, he finds morbid encouragement.
When that encouragement tips the scales into popularity, Butter has a reason to live.
But if he doesn’t go through with his plan, he’ll lose everything.

My young adult novel BUTTER is 51,000 words about a 423-pound boy and one dangerous defining moment.

As a journalist, I write facts all day, every day. This is my first work of fiction.
I would love to send a partial or full manuscript of BUTTER for your consideration.
you can see it's finally getting shorter!
this time, the squirrels (as the query critters are affectionately called on AW) told me i had too many details that weren't essential to the nut of the story. -get it? nut? squirrels?- anyway... they suggested a few more cuts, and now that i'd exercised my "delete" finger, it wasn't hard to keep chopping.

so i ended up with this final draft:
A boy everyone calls “Butter” is about to make Scottsdale High history. He’s going to eat himself to death live on the Internet – and everyone will watch.

He announces his deadly plan to an army of peers and expects pity, insults or even indifference. Instead, he finds morbid encouragement. When that encouragement tips the scales into popularity, Butter has a reason to live. But if he doesn’t go through with his plan, he’ll lose everything.

My young adult novel BUTTER is 51,000 words about a 423-pound boy and one dangerous defining moment.

As a journalist, I write facts all day, every day. This is my first work of fiction.

I would love to send a partial or full manuscript of BUTTER for your consideration.

and that is the letter that got four manuscript requests from my first round of agent queries.
for all i know, that request rate would have been zero without revisions.

so whenever i get frustrated with book revisions, i look back on the evolution of my queries to remind myself that revising - while hard work - always pays off.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

evolution of a query, part I

i can't speak for all authors, but for me, revisions are not "fun."
(wait, the title of this post is about queries. yeah, i'll get to that. stay with me.)

first drafting is fun. pure creation and freedom with no pressure for perfection.
revising is work. confined within a mold already created and with a LOT of pressure to perfect.

but as much as first-drafting gives me pleasure, it's revising that gives me pride.
revisions are hard work that pays off, because when they're done, you look back and think, "now that is good."
that first draft was fun, but it's an embarassment at this point. the revisions - the hard work - are what made that stinking pile of crap something to be proud of.

i started thinking about query letters and how they go through a similar evolution. the first drafts are fun to write, but they often need revising before they're good enough to present to an agent or publisher.

i thought it would be fun to share a couple of my own query letters, from the first stage to the last, to see how "ho-hum" turns into "hey now! that's not half bad."

today, i'm sharing the query for my trunked novel, LOSERS.
this is the first version of the query, which i shared online in a contest on fabulous-former-agent-with-five-million-blog-followers-who-shall-not-be-named's blog:

Today, a bully broke a kid’s nose against a urinal; a rebel wrote her high school hit list; a sci-fi dweeb got caught with porn in class; and a social pariah got humiliated in the girls’ locker room.
Tomorrow, they’ll all be in deep trouble with no one to turn to but each other.

LOSERS is a 50,000 word young adult novel about isolation, friendship and discovering who we are through the people we connect with. Trapper, Andi, Boston and Tuna are four teens with nothing in common, until they witness a police officer committing a crime. Scared for their lives and caught up in the excitement, they hit the road until they can figure out who they can turn to for help. The novel takes place over a 24 hour period, and by the end, they learn exactly who they can count on – each other.

I wrote this novel because, while I never experienced death or drugs or other untold horrors in YA novels these days, I DID experience the daily abuse that can define a teenager at the most vulnerable time in their lives. I wanted to tell a story that every young adult can relate to.

As a journalist, I write facts all day, every day. This is my first work of fiction.
I would love to send a partial or full manuscript of Losers for your consideration.

*cringe*
well, okay, it's not ALL bad. it's very long, it's vague on the storyline, and i got shredded in blog comments about that "i wrote this novel because..." paragraph. big no-no. but as far as rookie mistakes go, it wasn't the worst one i could make.

i ended up winning a query critique from fabu-agent, so i did a second draft to tighten things up, get more specific, and of course - i deleted that cringe-worthy paragraph.

this is the version i sent him:

Today, a bully broke a kid’s nose against a urinal; a rebel wrote her high school hit list; a sci-fi dweeb got caught with porn in class; and a social pariah got humiliated in the girls’ locker room.
Tomorrow, they’ll all be in deep trouble with no one to turn to but each other.

LOSERS is a 50,000 word young adult novel about isolation, friendship and discovering who we are through the people we connect with. Trapper, Andi, Boston and Tuna are four teens with nothing in common, until they witness a police officer committing a murder. Scared for their lives, they hit the road until they can figure out who to turn to for help.

A corrupt cop may be the catalyst that brings these teens together, but as they make their escape, they discover what they’re really running from are the inner demons that so many teens have to battle in high school. Some Losers just have more demons than others.

The novel takes place over a 24 hour period, and by the end, our Losers discover they may not be able to fight the law, but there are a few fights they can win.

As a journalist, I write facts all day, every day. This is my first work of fiction.
I would love to send a partial or full manuscript of Losers for your consideration.
honestly, it's still a little long, but at least all the words are now spent on the story and not wasted talking about things that don't matter to a potential agent.

and guess what? instead of a critique, i got a partial request! it was my first-ever agent request, and the manuscript wasn't even finished at that point.
i never did query that book, or i suspect the letter would have gone through even more changes.
but the experience did teach me revisions get results.

tomorrow, i'll share the evolution of the query that landed an agent!