the road to book 2

I am having a moment.

Later this morning, I will be sweating over my laptop, stressing about new words in a new manuscript. This afternoon, I will be hosing off my car after a very muddy trip to the mountains. And tonight, I will be cleaning up a scrapbooking mess I made in the living room.

But right now... right this second... I am having a moment -- a good one. I have the day off work, and I'm starting it off on the back patio watching the sun shine on the yard and drinking a cup of coffee (iced. This is Arizona after all. It's only 8:30am, and my temperature gauge already reads 90 degrees.)
This sunny caffeinated moment is how I am celebrating the launch of my second book, DEAD ENDS. (out today!)

I remember, after selling BUTTER, thinking the 2 year wait to publication would feel like a lifetime. In hindsight, it went by in a flash. But that flash was nothing compared to how fast it seems DEAD ENDS was published. We sold this book in the spring of 2012, so it's been a little under 18 months from sale to pub. For all but 1 of those 18 months, I was also planning my wedding, so I had very little time to obsess about this launch the way I did the first time around.
In fact, this quiet moment right now may be the very first time I've actually reflected on the road to book 2 at all.

I wrote the first draft of DEAD ENDS the month after we sold BUTTER, in part to keep myself from clicking on my email inbox every two seconds. *Best advice ever, by the way! There is a lot of waiting around on the path to publishing. Use that down time to write something new! Once edit letters and blog requests and cover comps start rolling in, you may find your writing time is being eaten away!

After my speed-drafting, I sent the manuscript (then-titled Billy D. & the Bully) off to one of my crit partners, who told me what I already suspected - I had a good start, some great characters... and not much plot.
So I spent the next 9 months or so rearranging, revising and rewriting. By the end of the year, with more help from crit partners, I had something worth submitting.
It was another few months before we sold it, and then I hit a wall of "now what?"

See, the first time around, every moment is a milestone.
book sale? champagne dinner out on the town!
cover reveal? splatter the internet!
launch party? everyone you know is coming!

It's a two-year-long party to celebrate a dream come true. But if book 1 is the dream, what is book 2?
It took me some time to figure out BUTTER wasn't the end of a journey but the start of a new one. And DEAD ENDS is the first step down that new path - a path that forks off in many directions, like a "choose your own adventure" book.
Do you want to write full time?
Do you want to explore a new genre?
Do you dream of longevity as an author?

It's a path of nothing but possibility, and it's a little intimidating, because once your biggest dream comes true... do you dare dream bigger?

For today, my dream is this: that readers who pick up DEAD ENDS will meet Dane, Billy D. and Seely... share their journey... and find something to love.

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! ;)

Happy Birthday BUTTER!!

sooooo.... it's release day.
officially.

i think i'm supposed to say something really profound on this day. but all i can think is:
eek! hee hee hee! wheeee! whoa. huh? wha?? really? wheeeee!

sometimes words fail me.
or i fail the words, to be more accurate.
i'm having a tough time putting them together in a meaningful way today.

i know i should write a long post thanking everyone who helped make BUTTER come to life, but it would read an awful lot like the acknowledgements in the back of the book.
which you can now read.
because it is published!
eek! hee hee hee! wheeee!

so let me say for now "ditto" to those acknowledgements and promise more thank yous to come. because what i really want to do today is say something to all of the writers out there still dreaming of publishing.

Dear Writer,

every single day you put words down on paper to tell a story is a miracle. every rejection you shrug off in order to keep writing is a triumph. every writing rule you break in order to tell the story you want to tell is an achievement. every friend you make along this bumpy path to publishing is a gift. and every moment that you get swept away by your own words - writing for the pure joy of it - is priceless.

publishing is not the promised land. your imagination is. you have the gift to create your own worlds to escape to whenever you wish. and if your dream is to share those worlds with readers, then all you have to do is keep writing. authors come up from the slush pile all the time. i should know. i'm one of them. i can't tell you how to get published, because every writer's path is different. but i can tell you there's only one way to 100% guarantee you will not get published - and that's to stop writing.
so keep getting up every day and putting words down on paper.
one day those words will come to life inside of a book.

i didn't fully believe it myself until today.
whoa. huh? wha?? really? wheeeee!

BOOK NEWS !!!

pssst!!!!!!

can you keep a secret?
me neither.

that's why i'm SO glad i didn't have to sit on this news for very long.

what news?
this news:

I SOLD ANOTHER BOOK !!!

here is the official announcement:

BUTTER author Erin Lange's BILLY D. & THE BULLY, about two very different boys who reluctantly team up to find somebody who doesn't want to be found; their only clue is an atlas full of riddles, again to Caroline Abbey at Bloomsbury Children's, for publication in Fall 2013, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (NA).

i want to tell you i'm excited, but that word doesn't begin to describe how i feel. i am over the moon.
this book started with two characters i just could not get out of my head. i wrote scene after scene for them before i ever really knew their story, because i liked them so much and just wanted to hang out with them. actually finding their story and getting it all down on paper was one of the biggest challenges i've ever faced as a writer, but the struggle was worth it to be able to introduce them to all of you.

Happy Day !!!
:D :D :D :D :D :D

copy edits, a lesson in humility

every author fantasizes about some moment along the path to publishing. maybe you daydream about a 6-figure deal or a starred review or a cover that makes people swoon.

me? i used to dream about the day my copy edits would arrive. the manuscript would have a big STET stamped right on the front with a note from the copy editor saying it was the cleanest ms she'd ever read.

haha. haaaHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
joke's on me.
there is a reason we have copy editors, folks.

i think i can still hold my head up high and say i have pretty darn good grammar, but it's certainly not perfect. and no matter how many times you read your story - no matter how many other people read it - there are errors that slip by.

i am halfway through my copy edits, and so far, my character has:
- demanded to speak to the manger at a restaurant.. (and mary and joseph too!)
- eaten two entire deserts.. (can i get some chocolate sauce on that cactus?)
- let out a peel of laughter and peaked over something.

the good news is, my copy editor is almost as fond of em-dashes as i am and even more fond of commas. it's been educational and humbling to read through her marks. and above all, it makes me so grateful for absolutely everyone who has a hand in making BUTTER the best book it can be.

it really does take a village.

oh yes, she did!

today, i give my blog over to my crit partner and friend, Gemma Cooper, for two huge announcements that will knock your socks off! take it away, Gem!
----------------------------------------------------

I've announced two big/massive/gigantic bits of news this month.

Gigantic news 1:
I am now a literary agent at The Bright Literary Agency, representing children’s books - picture books, chapter books, MG and YA. Further info here and here.

Gigantic news 2:
I have accepted an offer of representation from the amazing Joanna Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary for my scary MG book, 'The Sinister Mr. Smythe.'

I did consider making these announcements a few weeks apart or not making one at all about my wonderful agent. I thought it might be better to keep my writing life separate from my work life....but then I realised the two have never been separate.

These strands of my publishing career are intertwined. As I’ve learnt and developed skills in one, I’ve polished and honed skills in the other. So this isn't a typical 'how I got my agent story'. It's a ‘how I got into publishing story’ or more correctly, ‘how I achieved my dreams.’ (Warning, as Erin will tell you, I don’t do short stories, so settle down with a cuppa for this one!)

The story begins in a rather lovely drinking establishment in a magical land far far away (read this as an Irish pub in New York City, my home at the time). I was drinking with my bestest friend and we were having one of those conversations you only have after the second bottle of wine. Those conversations where you share your secret hopes and dreams.

“I've always wanted to write a book,” I said.
“Why don't you?” awesome BFF said.
And in the harsh light of day, after a coffee and my hangover cure of chips and ice cream, I thought, “Why don’t I?”
So I did.

Time passed, as it does. I wrote, researched, critiqued and booked a place at a writer’s conference. The name of one particular agent at the conference stood out, that of Joanna Volpe. This was because I’d followed the exciting, ‘how I got my agent and book deal story’ from her client, the talented Kody Keplinger.
“Brilliant,” I thought. “Kody is the perfect conversation starter.” Talking to Joanna became my main goal of the conference.
So I did.

I told her how excited I was to read THE DUFF (by the aforementioned amazing Kody) and then pitched my first novel - a YA UF. Joanna said, “Sure, send me a query,” and then we said goodbye, and walked away probably both thinking we’d never meet again.

(and this would be a rubbish story if that'd happened!)

I sent Joanna my first ever query letter. She did request a partial, but ultimately passed. But it was okay as that same week, I got a revise and resubmit from a renowned UK agent.

The conference was amazing as I met my first critique partner and now friend for life. And l learnt more about publishing, including more about the role of a literary agent. I'd worked in sales for eight years by this point, and I loved books. So how did I not know that there were people who got to sell books? And why was I not doing this job?!

Cue epiphany.

I had to become an agent! So I researched how I could make that happen. I stalked writers online and offered to beta books to hone my editorial skills - which lead to me finding the incredibly talented Erin (and we would need a blog post double this size for all the gushing I could do about her editing skills and amazing friendship over the years).

My research showed I could get into publishing by doing an internship.

Cue heaps of coincidence with a dash of fate.

The first and only internship I found and applied to was a joint one with FinePrint Literary and Nancy Coffey Literary. The application said to write a cover letter to Joanna Volpe.
So I did.

And after talking Suzie and Joanna's ears off about books during my interview, I got the internship. My first day, I heard back from the UK agent who was considering my R+R.

It was a no.

I threw myself into my work, reading sometimes until the sun came up. If I couldn't be a writer, then damn it, I'd learn to be the best agent there ever was!

The internship was awesome, but eventually I had to move back to the UK. Fortunately, fate played its hand again. I'd happened to mention to the wonderful UK agent who'd rejected my R+R that I was interning, and she suggested I contact her when I moved back.
So I did.

And two weeks later I was back in publishing again, learning from some of the best agents in the country. The long commute to work also gave me time to start writing a new book based on an idea I’d had after finding a black and white photo my dad. The book was very different from anything I'd written before. And it felt like THE book.

Time passed, as it does. I moved again and started doing some freelance editorial work. I finally finished THE book and mentioned it to Joanna. She read it and liked it, and along with Sara (assistant extraordinaire), gave me some amazing editorial notes.

Cue light bulb moment.

It took a while, but I finished the revision and sent it back to Joanna. That week I attended a SCBWI event and ended up catching the train home with the lovely Assistant Regional Co-ordinator. I talked his ear off about books the whole journey and he recommended me for a job at The Bright Literary Agency.

I interviewed at Bright. They offered me the job. My first week, Joanna offered me representation.

So this is me. Literary Agent. Writer. Lover of wine and chocolate.

I’ve lucked out joining the experienced team at Bright and will be working closely with Vicki the MD and the other agents in the office. Our key focus is to develop new talent and as a new agent, I have more time to spend with my clients and can offer my editorial experience to make your manuscript polished and ready for submission.

We are currently renovating the literary website, but please check out the link to Bright Group International. I only accept email submissions, so please send the first 3 chapters plus a synopsis or the full text if your submission is a picture book to literarysubmissions@brightgroupinternational.com

To pre-empt one question, ‘why does an agent need an agent’?
An agent is your advocate. They fight for you. They stay rational when helping you make the tough choices. They give you honest feedback. They empathise, sympathise and encourage. I know I can do this for my authors, but it would be impossible to do for myself. Luckily I've signed with a person who I've seen do all these things.
Yes I did!

I'll answer any and all questions in the comments.

The Revision Diaries (5)

sometime late last night, i tweeted something that looked a little like this:

I fixed it I fixed it IFIXEDIT!!!

except it wasn't bold or in massive type, because - dang it - twitter doesn't allow us to express ourselves through font!
but big and bold is how i felt after getting past a major hurdle in my line edits.

and really, "line edits" is a bit deceptive here.
often, at the line edit stage, and editor will have a few additional suggestions for revision. one such suggestion, for me, required a lot of pacing around the house and muttering to myself. i avoided the scene for a couple days - if you can call obsessing about it, emailing about it and jotting down notes on it avoiding. what i mean is, i didn't touch the scene in my manuscript. i worked on everything else - the actual line edits, the moments that needed rewording and other minor fixes that were easier to tackle. but i was afraid to mess with this one scene for fear of screwing it up.

over the weekend, i finally ran out of other edits, and i knew i had to face my fear. today, i want to share with you how i faced it and what i learned from it.

face the fear:
- my paralysis came mostly from the fear that the manuscript is pretty well polished, and this edit would require me to tear apart some of those polished pages. to help curb that fear, i took the chapter that would be mostly changed and copied it into a new word document. this way, i could mess it up all i wanted, and the original chapter would remain untouched in my ms. - a small, obvious, solution probably... but it really helped me relax.
- in fact, i liked working in this new document so much, i made THREE of them. and i started to write 3 different scenes - each with a different approach to the "FIX." one scene fell apart so fast and furious, i deleted the whole document. it wasn't even worth archiving under "experiments." the other two scenes worked a little better, and i treated them both like rough drafts - i gave myself freedom to make mistakes ranging from typos to total character revisions.
- then i did what i would do with any rough draft. i sent the scenes to one of my crit partners. with her notes, i was able to see which scene was working. i rewrote that scene, revised it again, then took the now-polished chapter and plugged it back into the manuscript.

lesson #1 - the domino effect:
- as polished as that chapter was, i had created changes that required me to now go through the rest of my clean ms and start mucking things up again - the one thing i wanted to avoid!
but now that i knew i had "fixed it," the other changes weren't so scary. i went backward from the scene to plant some clues of the scene to come, and i went forward in the manuscript to create a few moments that would be altered by the new scene.
- the lesson for me was - no matter how much i tried to isolate the issue, to make it this one small fix in this one small corner of the story - the fact is, any important change will have a domino effect throughout your story, even if the change is small and at the almost-polished stage of your revisions. if the change doesn't ripple through the entire manuscript, it probably wasn't that important to begin with.

lesson #2 - don't be afraid to TRY:
- i agreed with my editor that we needed this "fix," but i wasn't sure if her suggestion for fixing it was the right way. i got it all stuck in my head that i could fix it another way - a way that i had already tried and that wasn't working but that i was sure would have a different result if i kept doing it. hello, definition of insanity!
- the scene i wrote first was my own solution. i wasn't happy with it, but i couldn't figure out how to fix it. so i told myself, just TRY to do what your editor suggested.
well. yeah. my editor - she's a pretty smart cookie.
i liked the second scene so much better. i knew this before i even sent the scenes to my crit partner, but i wanted an outside opinion. ...and that opinion was a clear smack down on scene one and hearts for scene 2. lesson learned: even if an idea doesn't sound like the right solution, just try it out. you may surprise yourself.

so i tweeted to the world that IFIXEDIT! and now i can start my final pass through the manuscript, making sure everything is still polished. of course, it's always possible my editor will say:

Yo. You SO did NOT fix it.

(well, no, that's not actually possible, because my editor is much more eloquent than that - but you get the idea.)
if that happens, you'll know, because i'll be back here with another round of the revision diaries.

but for now:
Line Edits. Conquered.

The Revision Diaries (4)

i got my line edits this week, so you know what that means...
we're in for another round of:
The Revision Diaries: Confessions of an Author on a Deadline!

first, a brief word about line edits, for those not in the know. (those of you who are in the know, feel free to nod your head all, y'know, knowingly as we go along.)

line edits come after an author has done most of the major revisions. instead of big story or character suggestions, your editor will focus in on smaller moments on the page - bits that aren't working or need rewording, beats that are missing, moments that need to be amped up, and of course, lines that need fixing.
the accompanying editorial letter is probably shorter, but the manuscript pages probably have more marks. it's the detail work.

so i have had my line edits for all of 24 hours, and of course, i have already busted out the colored Post Its, consulted with my crit partners and sent one - possibly deranged and definitely way-too-long - email to my editor.
now i am ready to begin the work.

here's all i know for sure about the work that is to come:
it doesn't necessarily get easier.

when you are revising a rough draft, you can take a sledgehammer to that thing. you can go all demolition derby on it and rebuild from scratch.
when you get to revisions with your editor, it's more like tearing down a single wall and building it back up in a different spot, with better support beams and a fresh coat of paint.
and now i'm learning, when you reach line edits, you have to trade that old sledgehammer for a scalpel.

(yes, i know my architectural metaphor just turned surgical. i would fix that, but i'm saving all of my editorial skills for the manuscript right now. thanks for your understanding.)

what i'm trying to say is this step in the editorial process is all about being careful. there may be a scene to add or rework here and there, but mostly my job is to make the fixes without mucking up the manuscript too much, since it's so close to being done. it's making me just a little bit afraid to touch the page, for fear of smudging what is already polished.

as soon as i get over that fear, i'll be back with another installment in the revision diaries!

The Revision Diaries (3)

this week's installment of the revision diaries (confessions of an author on a deadline!) reads a little like a Goofus and Gallant episode.

side note -- Goofus and Gallant, for those who did not grow up with Highlights magazine, are two boys who get placed in a situation with choices. Goofus always chooses the irresponsible path, while Gallant is more thoughtful.

side note to the side note -- as a kid, i always pronounced it Goofus and Gal-AHNT, because i'm fancy like that.

totally off-topic tangent -- when i was growing up, G&G were drawn with pencils in black and white. but i just checked out the website for Highlights magazine, and those boys are full-color computer graphics now! and guess what else? you can totally play a G&G "choose your own adventure" game online! i played it... twice.

okay, back on topic!

Friday, i was oh-so GalAHNT. i wrote and revised and wrote and revised again. new scenes. reworked scenes. continuity checks. word choices. i stayed on schedule and did not get distracted. very responsible author this day.

Saturday, i woke up a Goofus. i was exhausted from two full days of revisions and decided to put off writing until the afternoon. i ran errands, did chores, chilled out with Handsome. typical Saturday stuff. except this was not supposed to be a typical Saturday, because the Tic-Tock-Deadline-Clock waits for no weekend!
of course, my day got away from me until only the evening was left. at that point, i had to choose between revisions and poker night with friends.
i won the first game, lost the second. net gain: fifteen dollars.

Sunday, the Gallant on my shoulder came to the rescue. i wrote from practically sun up to well after sundown.
and... i finished.
i know! crazy! i so didn't deserve the satisfaction of being done after my Goofus Saturday, but there it is. i reached The End - again. and then i panicked. Goofus and Gallant were perched on each of my shoulders, having an argument:

Goofus: we're done! press send and let's go celebrate.
Gallant: maybe we should have a crit partner look at those scenes we're still concerned about first.
Goofus: naw! we're tired of revising. let's play some more poker.
Gallant: but we haven't fully addressed that one issue our editor mentioned. let's go back to page one and --
Goofus: you're boring!
Gallant: maybe i am, but if we work just a little harder, hopefully no one will say the BOOK is boring.
*poof* Goofus disappears in a ball of smoke.

actually, i compromised. Gallant isn't always right, and he is a little boring sometimes. so i sent the questionable scenes to a crit partner and took Monday and Tuesday to be a Goofus. i hit the gym, hung out with my gal pals and relaxed with Handsome.

Wednesday, i spent all night dealing with that issue Gallant had mentioned until i was satisfied.
Thursday, i thought long and hard about a possible big change i had proposed to my editor and ultimately decided against it (because, among other reasons, i realized my editor is much much smarter than i am.) i tossed out my outlined changes and polished up the newly revised manuscript instead. and THEN i pressed send. Goofus and i are going to have a blast this weekend.

so that's the end of the Revision Diaries for now.
i'm in uncharted waters on this path to publishing, but i hear there are often several rounds of revisions, then copy edits, then bound pages, ARCs, etc... so i expect this "author on a deadline" will have more confessions to come.

The Revision Diaries (2)

...week two in the chronicles and confessions of an author on a deadline!

so, as promised (to, um, myself), i truly began revising on Sunday. it was going great. i was trucking along, knocking down those skinny little post-its page by page for a couple days - until i hit a scene that stopped me in my tracks.

this scene needed a fix similar to a scene i'd already revised, so i attacked it in the same way - trimming back paragraphs here and rewriting the language there. but it wasn't working the same as it had worked for the other scene. and no amount of shaking my laptop could shimmy the words into their proper place.
so i got up and walked away for the first time since i'd really started revising.

but unlike with first drafts, or even revisions for my agent or crit partners, when i can walk away for as long as i need to... i knew i couldn't pause for too long. when writing/revising on a deadline, you can only let something sit and stew for so long before - in the immortal words of Tim Gunn - you have to "make it work."

so even though i wasn't sitting at the laptop, whatever i was doing, i forced myself to be thinking/scheming/mentally revising. i schemed while i played iSlash on my phone. i thought hard while watching the Real Housewives of who-knows-where. and i mentally revised while making dinner with Handsome.
(isn't it funny how much thinking/scheming/mentally revising all have in common with procrastinating? huh. wierd.)

but seriously, it was during one of these moments of obvious procrastination that the lightbulb went off. i knew how to fix the scene. i had to completely rewrite it - my first big full-scene makeover in this revision.

but AH! here was a new problem.
i am not one who can edit a single scene in multiple sessions, bouncing in and out of the chapter over the course of a few days. i have to do things in chunks. i needed a good block of time to write the scene AND make sure it was polished, so it wouldn't read like a first draft. but at this point, i was thick into my work week with other obligations looming, and i had not budgeted my week-day writing time for a marathon session - merely for a few sprints.

so with that deadline clock Tic-Toc-Taunting me, i set aside the manuscript for two whole days.

fortunately, i was able to use vacation days from work during this revision period, so i started again Thursday, with 4 full days of nothing but writing time stretching out before me.
and oh boy, did i rewrite that scene! it took the better part of my Thursday and kept me away from the gym and other chores i had hoped to slip in on my day off. but i got it done, and then i went back to sprinting - and smashing those post-its.
today i have a new scene to write and another scene that needs a big re-write, so i hope to be as productive as yesterday.

the only hiccup in my plans will be the carpet cleaners i scheduled to be here this afternoon.
but even if i only write 5 words while they are here, i'm sure i'll still get more done than if i had spent the entire day off cleaning the carpets myself.

i'll be back next week with another installment. (and probably sometime before that when some other random blog post inspiration strikes - i.e. when i need to walk away from the revisions again.)

The Revision Diaries (1)

OR: Confessions of an author on a deadline!

you know what you should do when you get your editorial letter? you should totally, ABSOLUTELY, commit to a new blog mini-series.
because that's responsible.
and a good use of your time.
ahem.

here's the deal. i thought it might be fun to share my editing crazies with all of you here on the blog. this is partly to make sure i AM, in fact, blogging during this time and not letting the space go dark. it also gives me an excuse to blog exclusively about revisions, which will be all i can think about for awhile. prepare for the descent into madness.

The Revision Diaries, Week 1:

my ed letter arrived on a friday, while i was at SCBWI. everyone told me you should let the letter sit and sink in for a few days, so i figured that was perfect timing. i'd just get started when i got home.

48 hours later, i was skipping the one free meal at the conference and an entire afternoon of sessions in order to sit in the lobby for a few hours, reading my manuscript and taking notes. (guess i'm not one for sitting and stewing!)

i spent the first few days back at home doing the same thing - reading and taking notes. all of this prep work is good, i told myself. i'll really be organized and ready when i actually start to edit.

eight pages of handwritten notes later, it was time to get back into the book and really start to work. BUT WAIT! the manuscript pages with my editor's notes had just arrived. naturally, i had to write out all new notes for myself based on those pages. really, you can't be too prepared.

the next friday, i talked to my editor on the phone to discuss revisions and bounce ideas back and forth. it was a great convo. i took lots of notes. i am so ready to start working, i thought.
(meanwhile, somewhere in the background, a deadline clock is ticking away. one week gone.)

finally, saturday arrived. my first full day to devote to editing. but i was TOTALLY UNPREPARED! i simply HAD to rush over to the office supply store to stock up on multi-colored Post-Its in all sizes. and as long as i was there, it made sense to pick up a 3-ring binder and new red pens and highlighters.
now i could REALLY get organized!

i spent a good half hour using a hole-puncher on my pretty manuscript pages. then i used my fancy new Post-Its to color-code my manuscript, page by page, with each color representing a different thread of things that need to be changed.

look how pretty! you can see how much work went into all this, right?



and do you know how many words i had actually edited in my manuscript at this point?
zero.

on the one hand, i do think it is CRITICAL to organize and prepare. at this point, i have my letter and my notes memorized, which should make the writing part much easier.

on the other hand, i confess, this first week was partly an exercise in procrastination. i find it very difficult to START revisions, because it means taking that polished manuscript - the one with every word spelled right inside of its perfectly-formatted one-inch margins - and tearing it apart. it's hard to take the thing you once called "done" and go back to calling it a "work in progress."

but it's time. i could not possibly be more organized. today, the REAL editing begins.

making the time to write

Inquisitive friend/family member/acquaintance/stranger: How do you find the time to write?
Me: You make the time.

sounds simple enough, right?
take a few minutes, sprinkle in some seconds and a big helping of hours... and voila! you've made time.

or if you're not so great at following recipes, you can do as your friend/family member/acquaintance/stranger suggested and find the time. maybe time just slipped in between your couch cushions or got pushed under the bed. really, it has to be around here somewhere...

no?
yeah, making and finding time hasn't really worked for me either. here's why:
there are only 24 hours in a day.
there's just no getting around it. i have personally tried to squeeze an extra few minutes out of that last hour of the day, and still the clock flips to Midnight, and a new day begins.

see, when we writers tell people we "make time" to write, what we're really saying is:
we make sacrifices; we make tough choices; we make ourselves sick from lack of sleep.

if you're anything like me, you have a day job that makes it impossible for you to write for 9 hours out of the day. you also require a minimum amount of sleep. (for me this is about 6 hours a night with the occasional good solid 9-hour slumber thrown in to catch up.) it's also hard to avoid about 2 hours each day of eating, driving, attending to personal hygiene. (please do not neglect the hygiene, i beg of you.)

so we're up to what? 17 hours out of 24 gone. well that leaves a full 7 hours! surely that's plenty of time to write.
yes, by all means spend your 7 hours writing.

OR - start subtracting the time you spend:
attending your children's dance recitals and sporting events, talking on the phone to family and dear friends, paying bills, cleaning your home, running errands... those 7 hours are disappearing right before your eyes.

making/finding time to write is HARD, and you have my empathy. it's all about figuring out a schedule that works for you. maybe one day you spend your 7 free hours running errands and doing chores. another day or 2 or 3, it's all about attending to your family. but some days - some days - you will find that those 7 hours are wide open. and then you have to choose. you can spend those hours catching up with your TIVO, connecting with people on social media, playing your favorite video game, lounging by a pool, reading, working out.... the list is endless.
but at some point, you have to choose writing.
and to make this choice, you should enjoy writing as much as you enjoy all of those other things. it doesn't have to be your top priority (like family - or hygiene!), but it should be A priority.

for example, i love TV. i mean, i looooooove TV. whenever Handsome suggests we cancel cable, i get a clutch in my chest. don't take away my TV! but i am equally entertained - and a hell of a lot more fulfilled - by writing. so about 80% of the time, i will choose writing over television. that means, while i TIVO my soap opera daily, i only watch one episode a week and delete the rest. other shows have been wiped from the recording schedule altogether.
as a writer, cutting back on TV was my first step toward making time, and i've never regretted it.

i've also sacrificed having a spotlessly clean house. "picked up" and "not obviously dusty" are now good enough.
i let my roses get 5 feet tall before trimming instead of obsessively sculpting them at a perfect 3 feet every few weeks.
i found the time to write in my rose bushes and under the pile of dishes in the sink.

and still i don't write every day. heck, i don't even write every week. i take long breaks between drafts to catch up on life and recharge the creative batteries. and i don't beat myself up about it. i know i am capable of choosing to write, so i give myself permission to sometimes choose something else instead.

holy long-winded post!
all of this is to say... whatever sacrifices you are making, however you are stealing your moments, you are doing OKAY! you don't have to write as often as anyone else. you don't have to feel guilty for sometimes choosing yourself over your characters. as long as you are making some time to write, you are on a good path. some days you'll find more time, some days less, but set your own pace. and - above all - write as often as you need to to scratch that creative itch, but only as often as you can and still love it. make the time to write because you want to.

Inquisitive friend/family member/acquaintance/stranger: But how do you make the time?
Me: *sigh* Let's just say I borrowed this time turner from my friend Hermione...

that which does not kill us...

...well, you know how the saying goes.

every year, at least one freeze (yes, freeze, in Arizona) comes along and fries my backyard bushes.

every year, after hacking away at the dead leaves, i end up with a pile of sticks.


every year, i see those dried-up bones and think THIS is the year they won't come back.

and every year, this happens:


it starts with a little green here and there, then a few flowers, and in about a month - a brand new, healthy bush.


the sticks will still be there, scarred from my hacking away with power tools, but now they are the bones of a better, stronger plant - a plant that would not have thrived without being cut down first.

this is what happens to writers on the path to publishing.

we spend a season growing something beautiful, but then a dark time comes along - negative feedback from a crit partner, an agent rejection, a book that doesn't sell... and suddenly everything we once thought pretty now looks sort of brittle and gray and unworthy of sitting next to the other beautiful things. so we hack away all those ugly parts and try to grow something new to cover up the scars.

that's perseverance. that's how we get better, how we come back stronger with every draft - we absorb the criticism and take pride in the scars that help make our skin a little thicker.

i guess all i'm trying to say is, there are setbacks on the path to publishing. sometimes those setbacks are many and painful, but that's all they are - setbacks. not stop signs.

as writers, we love to plant something and watch it grow.
but you want to feel real pride?
cut something down to nothing... and watch it grow back stronger.

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.

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!

the importance of distance

when i hear writers talk about discipline, the advice is usually some form of "BIC" (Butt in Chair): sit down and write, even when you'd rather watch TV or play outside. force yourself to write.

this is excellent advice IN GENERAL. (i think i've already both applauded and criticized the BIC method in this blog.)
but i've realized over the past month that sometimes discipline is forcing yourself to NOT write.
when i got my incredible first beta notes on BILLY D., i was eager to jump right in and start fixing things. that's how i did it with BUTTER - got right to work, and it turned out well - so that's how i should do it this time, right? well, the same method doesn't always yield the same results.

after tearing apart BD's plot (working every day, morning and night, for weeks), i grew so frustrated, i nearly considered trunking it. i was unable to let go of passages i loved, so i squished them into new scenes where they didn't belong. i shoved my characters into situations and conversations they wouldn't naturally be in, so their voices didn't ring true. basically, i was making the book worse, because i was trying to force the manuscript into shape under some crazy self-imposed deadline instead of slowing down to let the first draft speak to me.

finally, after weeks of stress, Handsome said to me: "I think you need to get off books for a few days."
just like that. like books/writing are a drug you can overdose on.

well, Handsome is very wise, so i followed his advice. i took a whole week to clean the house, catch up on TIVO, chat on twitter - anything but touch my writing files.

when i did return to writing, i still felt a knot in my stomach about BD, so i worked on SOMETHING ELSE. i fleshed out the outline for GRIM, wrote a couple scenes and let myself feel the freedom of first-drafting.

once the wheels were spinning, i returned to BD, and surprise! it didn't seem nearly so daunting. over the next 48 hours, i deleted like crazy and churned out about 5,000 new words. that got me to a point in the manuscript where i know what needs to be added and which upcoming scenes need to go. i'm back in the groove, because i forced myself to walk away and come back later with a fresh perspective.

so, yes, "Butt in Chair" is good advice.
but so is getting your butt OUT of the chair and walking around in the real world for a little while to clear your mind.

the inspiration hour

this is really part two of yesterday's post.
a friend was asking me about making time to write, and he specifically asked how do i find time to write and when??

i told him my creativity is at its peak in the morning, so i make an effort to set my alarm and get up before dawn if i have to in order to write my best stuff. if i'm under a self-imposed deadline, i'll write at night too, but i have to force it. it's not my "inspiration hour."

then he revealed to me the reason why he asked. it's because his inspiration hour is at two in the morning! he wakes up from a dead sleep, filled with ideas and words and ready to write. i don't envy him, but i did tell him if that's the time he feels most creative, then that's when he should do it. (i hope i was not wrong to tell someone to sacrifice sleep, and it's totally one of those "do as i say, not as i do" things, because NO WAY would i get out of bed at two in the morning to write.)

however, if you're passionate about writing and serious about finding a schedule/pattern that works for you, why not get up whenever inspiration strikes? if it's truly miserable, your body and brain may adjust and find you a new "inspiration hour." the point isn't to devote your life to choppy unsatisfying sleep. it's to be willing to try anything to stoke the creative fires - until you find what works.

uninterrupted sleep is not something i would personally sacrifice for writing, but sleep in general - yes, definitely. my "inspiration hour" is in the morning. the more 'morning' i have the better, so if that means waking up after just 5 or 6 hours of sleep, then i'm willing to do it.

(disclaimer: if sleep is integral to your own health or sanity, then by all means, do NOT give up sleep.)

i think the bottom line is... few people really have time to write. you have to MAKE the time. and that often means making sacrifices.

what about you? when is your "inspiration hour," and what have you sacrificed for writing, if not sleep?

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.

forest for the trees...

...or something like that.

i figure the post-NaNo glow is a good time to talk revision.

first, let me say - i suck at it.
that is, i suck at doing it on my own. last year at this time, i was finishing up the first draft of BUTTER, which - to tell the truth - didn't look that much different from the draft i sent to agents. i used a few suggestions from early beta readers and did a serious line-by-line edit, but i didn't make any big-picture changes... because all i'd heard was that people liked it, and hey, i liked it too, so what's to change? (ha.ha.ha.)

it wasn't until i got revision notes from agents that i could really see what needed to be changed. i also got a serious beta who wasn't afraid to tell me when those revisions weren't working and to give me big-picture critique like "cut this entire boring chapter." (i'm paraphrasing. Gem is honest but much more eloquent than that.)

anyway, as much as i loved the praise of my alpha readers, i found my motivation to edit came from publishing pros and other writers who basically said, "i loved x,y and z, but these other bits really suck."
it worked for me, because it made my stubborn little writer heart say, "oh YEAH? well watch this!"
and suddenly i learned how to revise. i found the courage to press the delete key on an entire chapter. i managed to shuffle up scenes, change the timeline of major plot events and still sew everything back together. what a breakthrough! now i'll be able to hack up my next book all on my own!

not so much.

it turns out i still need that feedback. i thrive on the criticism. a one-line crit comment can cause an entire new chapter to explode open in my brain. But without that input, i stare at my chapters all cozily knit together and can't see how to rip them apart.
so i'm settling for my line-by-line edits on BILLY D, then rushing this baby to betas, so they can tell me what sucks and inspire me to start hacking.

...and i suspect my biggest revisions may still be to come, when i get my editorial letter for BUTTER.

what about you? at which stage do you do your biggest revisions/rewrites? and how many do you do? as varied as the writing process is from person to person - i'll bet we're even more diverse when it comes to revisions.

word count wednesday - fifth and final

it is the morning of December 1st, and that means some of you may still be sleeping off your NaNoWriMo hangover.
some others of you may be pointing and laughing at the folks with the NaNo hangover, saying "see? glad i didn't do that this year."

as for me, i hit my 50K on Sunday.
finishing a few days early is like drinking a lot of water and taking advil before you go to bed. it helps prevent the hangover, so i'm feeling pretty good. ;)

my final word count in the NaNo validator was 50,950 !!!

since i had written nine chapters of this book prior to november and because i went on a writing spree monday on my day off to finish the whole darn thing, my total WC for the full manuscript is almost 72,000, including these two words: "THE END."

so yeah, of course i'm feeling all kinds of cheery about that, but here's what i really want to say:
whether you have 72,000 words or 7,200... YOU should be celebrating too!
i've mentioned before that BUTTER was a NaNo novel last year, and i didn't even get halfway to the goal before it got derailed. and as you know, that all worked out okay.

so if you didn't hit 50K, i hope you will continue to work on whatever projects you started in november. if you DID hit 50K, i hope you'll come back to your MS after a few days or weeks off and sit down to revise Revise REVISE. because as we writers all know, the first draft is just the beginning.
we also know that november may be a whole lot of fun, but writing is a year-round job and a lifelong passion.

take that momentum from NaNo and use it to propel you into the new year. however many words you wrote... you are that many words closer to making a dream come true. keep the momentum going!

best of luck. you are ALL AWESOME, regardless of word count.