Rebel Bully Geek Pariah

once upon a time, an aspiring author wrote a manuscript. it was a huge accomplishment, because after decades of writing, it was the first time she ever got to "The End" in one of her stories.

but that story was bad - like so many first attempts at novels. this would-be writer had a lot to learn, and by the time she understood what needed to be fixed, it seemed less daunting to just write an entirely new book.

so that first book went into the trunk to collect dust. the writer pulled it out every so often to steal things from it - scenes, ideas, snippets - until finally this aspiring author became an actual author and nearly forgot about that first trunked story.

until one day... she opened the manuscript looking not to steal from it but to rebuild it. she held this idea that had been so close to her heart in her hands and thought, what if? what if this book could see the light of day? what if the only line that stays the same is "The End" and the rest could be rewritten from scratch?
what if your first love was "the one" after all?

i'm pleased to announce my own "first love" is coming to bookstores in 2015!

i can never make those PM announcements fit on my blog! so, in case you can't read the pic, my next book will be REBEL BULLY GEEK PARIAH, a story of 4 teens with nothing in common until they find themselves on the run, with only each other to trust. part thriller, part Breakfast Club on wheels.

and if you can read the pic, you'll see there's a 4th book coming after that, but more on that in the pretty distant future! ;)

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!

write what you want to write

"I want to write a book about vampires, but all the agents say vampires are over."
"I want to write a contemporary YA, but all the 6-figure deals are for dystopian stories."
"I have this really great idea, but I just heard about a book with almost the exact same concept."

but.. but.. but NOTHING!

i see all of the above lines and many more from authors lamenting how the story they want to write, isn't what they should be writing, if they want to get published.
well, here is a huge, not-so-secret-but-hard-to-believe fact i have learned: the #1 way to get published is to write the best book you can.
and in my opinion, the best book you can write is the one you want to write, have to write - the one with the characters who keep you up at night. even if they ARE vampires.
that's the good news - freedom to write the story you want.
here's the bad news: you're right. it might not get published. this post is about why that's OKAY.

JM Tohline put together a great blog post today on the biggest mistakes writers make when querying agents. (when you're done here, go check it out. he got excellent input from tons of agents and compiled it all in one neat post for you.)

one of the agents JM quoted on his blog said something that really resonated with me:

Cameron McClure (of the Donald Maass Agency) added this: "Most writers query too soon – either before the book is really ready to be read by an industry professional, or with a book that is a learning book, or a starter book, where the writer is working through the themes that will come out in later books with more clarity, getting things out of their system,making mistakes that most beginners make, finding their voice."
the bold is mine. i wrote that book - that "starter" book - and it was everything McClure says. it was my training ground for the kind of themes i wanted to write about, for practicing plot and pace, for learning whether 1st or 3rd person worked better for me and above all, for finding my voice.

fortunately, i never made the mistake of querying that novel. during the year i spent pecking away at it, i also learned a lot about publishing. by the time i was done, i could see all the reasons it didn't work. so i recognized it for what it was - a book i had to write for me, and not for anyone else.

one of the first conversations i had with my agent was about this very thing - about the books you have to write versus the books you might actually want to sell. we were talking about my other WIPs/ideas, and i was asking what kind of stories she'd like to see... and she told me she would never discourage a client from writing anything, because there are stories in us that just have to be told - even if we only ever tell them to our laptops.

i guess it's impossible to know, when you start a new manuscript, whether it's one of the stories you'd be proud to put out in the world or one of the stories you need to learn something from. but i would argue: it's equally important, either way.

if i hadn't written LOSERS, i'm 100% certain i never would have been able to write BUTTER.
i have started taking lines and scenes from L and working them into new manuscripts. i basically stole one of the characters and made him the MC in BILLY D.
i will probably keep deconstructing L until there is nothing left but the concept, and then i might steal that too, and write the whole thing over again from scratch.
for all of these reasons, i know, without a doubt, that my time was not wasted on that first manuscript.

if you feel compelled to write something - write it. the story that never gets published may very well be the most important one you ever write.

the computer ate my chapter!

...and other blessings in disguise.

the first novel i ever tried to write died a horrible death. it caught a nasty incurable virus and when it finally went into the light, even the best computer doctors could not revive it.
this was ten years ago, and the pain of that loss was so raw, i did not write again for years.

i am being completely serious now.
i allowed a manuscript-eating computer virus to put me off writing... for years. even when someone very close to me - an angel really - produced the first ten thousand words or so from his own email archives, bless him, i could not be persuaded to pick up the story again. how could i possibly remember what the NEXT ten thousand words were? and i couldn't even fathom letting those words go and starting the story again from the middle. i was so stubborn.

but i took the ten thousand words from this angel, and put them in a folder at the back of my file box with a neat little tab labeled: Sammy Vegas. for almost a decade, every time i opened that box to file a utility bill or check a bank statement, the words "Sammy Vegas" would play peek-a-boo with me from the dark rear of the box... taunting me, reminding me that once upon a time i wanted to be a writer.

when i finally started writing again, the "Sammy Vegas" file got moved to a new filing cabinet - one filled with nothing but manuscripts, story ideas and publishing information. now, when i see the "Sammy Vegas" tab, i don't see a painful loss but a story that will someday be brought back to life. SV would have been the wrong first book for me. and maybe i needed to live a little more before i started writing for real. i truly think losing that MS was meant to be, so that all the stars could align for me to write a book some 8 or 9 years later that would actually be good enough to publish.

i tried to remember the SV tale this week when technology let me down once again.
this time, it wasn't a computer virus but a malfunctioning android application that ate my words. (oh, how time has marched on!)
my trusty little cell phone voice recorder app crashed and burned - taking with it an entire chapter of my NaNo project. in the sheer panic of losing those words, i forgot every single one of them, even thought i had dictated them into the voice recorder only that morning. Handsome and i made a few feeble efforts to recover the audio files, but they were lost. i wanted to crawl into bed and forget the whole manuscript.
but NaNo waits for no drama, so i knew i had to suck it up and write something new.

and you know what? the new scene is better. once it was all written, my thoughts cleared, and i could remember the initial scene, and it wasn't half as good as its replacement. losing that first chapter was probably the best thing that's happened to me since i started NaNo.
(but, um, Karma? if you're listening? that doesn't mean i want to lose any more chapters, okay? i AM on a deadline, here.)

i just wanted to share those stories for anyone who has hit a setback in their writing, whether it's:
- a computer virus
- a lost notebook
- an accidental 'delete'
- an identical scene in someone else's book that forces you to press 'delete'
- or just about any other uncontrollable factor that erases so much of your hard work.

words get lost.
but sometimes it's a blessing in disguise.
fortunately, we know where the words come from, and we can always make more.

teen me

so, i had fully planned to participate in the rejectionist's awesome humiliation "uncontest" today, which involves digging into your childhood/teenage diaries and posting your most embarrassing entries and/or sharing some of your first ventures into writing.

but after an hour revisiting my teenage angst, i have to say - OH HELL NO! NONE OF THIS CRAP IS GOING ONLINE! my journals are mortifying. i'm tempted to burn them.
seriously.

but i did learn a few things from the exercise, and some of you who kept journals and who now write for young adults might want to give it a try.

observation - teen me thought mostly about boys, friends, Boys, theater, boys, family, BOYS, how to be popular and OMG BOYS!!
lesson - if i ever write from the POV of a girl, it should probably at least somewhat involve her interest in ...boys.

observation - teen me had decent vocabulary and grammar skills.
lesson - don't write down to teen readers.

observation - despite said vocab and grammar skills, teen me liked to write in short. choppy. sentences. sometimes the thoughts changed at lightning speed from one short sentence to the next.
lesson - pace! teens think fast and feel fast. writing for them should reflect that.

if you, like me, are well past the age of the characters you write, it doesn't hurt to return to that teenage voice and tap into those teen emotions. however, i will say - thankfully - my characters are so much cooler and more interesting than i was!

finally, one bit of youthful writing i'm not afraid to share is my first "book." (AKA 'a 3rd grader's attempt at plagiarism')
in fact, i already posted it here. <-- link! click it!

happy monday.

learn as you go

my dad (AKA the blogging police) pointed out i've been slacking here.

perhaps that's because i'm in a bit of a "path-to-publishing" lull. the agent search is over; the submission nail-biting has yet to begin. i just don't have a lot of insight to share during this brief limbo stage.

instead, i've been studying and learning. and by that - i mean writing.
i learn something new with every book, and i thought i'd share a few of those lessons here.

Sammy Vegas
the first real novel i ever attempted to write taught me:

• without an outline, my stories amble off course and never get finished.
• writing a book is time-consuming and requires some sacrifices to find that time.
• most important, it taught me: maybe i don't suck at this, and maybe i kind of love it... a lot.

Losers (Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah)
the first novel i ever finished taught me:

• a good hook/concept is nothing without a well-planned plot.
• third person with multiple MCs is not the right format for me.
• most important, it taught me: i can get to "The End," and even then the book might not be good enough... and that's actually okay, because i have this other idea...

Butter
the first novel i ever queried taught me:

• how to edit - really edit. cut scenes, re-order chapters, insert new story elements and completely rewrite multiple chapters from scratch... all after i thought i was "done."
• what kind of stories i want to write and what i really want to say.
• most important, it taught me: finishing a book is really just the beginning. and with any luck, this one's not done yet.

Billy D. & the Bully (working title)
the book i'm writing right now taught me:

• not every book gets written at the same pace; not every book is built via the same process (for me anyway).
• writing is the best distraction from all that "path-to-publishing" neurosis.
• most of all, it taught me: ....well, i don't know the "most of all" yet. i'll let ya know when i'm all done. ;)

one of the many things my agent and i talked about before signing was how every book you write is important. maybe it's not the book you query; maybe it's not the book that sells; but you had to write it for a reason. sometimes you just don't know what that reason is until you're done.

what about you? what have you learned from your own writing?

memory lane

so, i tease my mom a lot about never throwing anything away, but after visiting home this weekend, i am sooooooo grateful for her ocd saving habits, because she found something priceless.

it turns out, i finished my first book at a much earlier age than i realized.


introducing my first "book," LISA AND GRETEL. (and if you think Gretel is stolen straight out of a fairy tale, just wait. it gets better.)

i'll spare you the entire book, but here are a few highlights. (i hope you can read the pages. they're as big as i could make them):


yep, that sounds like me in third grade. ;)
now, before you forgive the pictures because of my age, i have to confess, my drawing hasn't really improved.


hey, i never claimed to be an illustrator.
but i could tell a story:


the last remaining fairy on the run from the evil fairy-snatcher, Dark Heart? hey, little third grade me, sounds like you've got a plot there!

although, young me had not learned the word "plagiarism" yet.... obviously:


weaving straw into gold? hmmmm. where have we heard that before?

also, i had yet to master the art of endings. once lisa and gretel gave dark heart the gold made from straw, he let the fairies go and turned out to be a friendly fellow. what happened to turn him from evil to good? good question:


yep, just happened.
this ending is not so different from the ending of BUTTER... which is probably why Agent Almost asked me to rewrite it. ;)

but i do still like a happy ending:

so that's my little trip down memory lane, courtesy of a closet cleaning with mom.
now i can't wait until my next trip home, so mom and i can tackle some of those mysterious boxes of mine in the attic! who knows what literary treasures we might find!