Rejection Sucks

You know what sucks even worse than rejection? Being rejected just when you've resolved to lose ten pounds and thus cannot smother your sorrow and frustration in chocolate.

That's all I have to say today.

Querific!

I'm still hammering out my query. I'm getting some really good advice and suggestions. Evil Editor was really helpful and I highly recommend you put your query on there. I don't even know what draft of the letter this is--it's been through so many changes since the first one I wrote a year-and-a-half ago (I cringe just thinking about it). It's so nice to have people look at it that don't know what the story is about. When you are the one that wrote the book, it's hard to look at the letter objectively to see whether everything is logical, clear, to the point, etc. But I'm enjoying the process and I think it's going to be good.

Partied Out

Well, I'm not off to a very good start on my resolution. First I lost a day to a migraine, then I went to a party. For two days. Online. But it was so great! In celebration of Evil Editor's two year blogiversary, they set up a site. I got to make friends and chat with a lot of other writers who have been doing it a lot longer than me. They gave me some great advice, but most of all it was just fun. Writers are nuts. My kind of people.

I'm holding off on sending out my query right now; it should be coming up for editing on Evil Editor's website soon, so I want to refine it one more time before sending it out any more. For those not in the know, Evil Editor is (allegedly) an editor, who does a blog where he critiques queries, answers questions, and posts cartoons that are usually profane. Just to warn you. But the insights and comments he makes on queries are really great, and I'm excited for my turn.

Did I mention he also mercilessly mocks them? I'm actually kind of excited for that, too. He's pretty funny. Should be entertaining. I'll let you know when mine is up, if you want to take a look.

Another interesting thing that has come out of me joining this group of writers online has been getting more hits on this blog. Someone in Walsall, England, is a worse blog-stalker than I am, and I even got a hit from Dubai. The one I feel bad about is the person in Vienna who did a search for Catcher in the Rye and got sent to this blog. Probably not what they were looking for.

Update: my query is up. Good advice, I'm looking forward to working on it.

College Poetry

I rediscovered my famous bra poem. Enjoy.

"B" Proud
by Kiersten
The other day I went to find
a simple bra--the white kind
to wear beneath a special dress
but soon my plans were all a mess
store after store, rack after rack,
was purple! blue! magenta! black!
After strenuous searching I then found
my size was not the ideal round
Gel packs! Push ups! Support by air!
This mentality is quite unfair.
Our nation, proud as she can be,
assumes I want to wear a "D."
I'm sorry world, I just don't want
that area to show and flaunt
Just once I'd like to go and find
a bra that fits my state of mind.

A Challenge

I'm post-migraine buzzing and won't sleep tonight. And I'm bored. So I thought I'd issue a challenge to any who want to take it. Remember my example query in which I stated that my book was Green Eggs and Ham meets Catcher in the Rye? Matt said he wanted to read that book and I gave him a couple of sample paragraphs. Your mission is to continue it. Haven't read Catcher in the Rye? Fake it. No one will know the difference.

To start us out, here is my offering (H.C. being Holden, our anti-hero, and S.I.A. being Sam I Am):

H.C. "I do not like these phony jerks,
I don't like school, I will not work."

S.I.A. "You do not like them, so you say,
wander around and do nothing all day!
People will love you anyway!"

FYI

All of the coverage of the polygamist colony drama in Texas brings up a lot of interesting questions, none of which I am going to discuss here.

The thing I am going to say is that polygamists are not Mormons. ARE NOT. They are religious sects that broke off from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the church (LDS or Mormons for short) renounced polygamy in 1890. You cannot be a polygamist and a Mormon; you will be excommunicated from the church.

The reason I am addressing this is that in almost all of the AP coverage of the Texas troubles they refer to the FLDS (F for Fundamentalist) members as Mormons. They aren't. Get it straight, and please stop spreading this misinformation.

I Dare Me

I'm a procrastinator. Always have been. If I have something that I have to do, I put it off. I had it down to an art in college; by my last semester, I was no longer writing papers the night before--I wrote them the day of. Awesome.

The problem this presents is that since I'm writing just for myself, I don't have any deadlines. Which means I put off working on things. (By like, say, posting on my blogs? All three of them. Yeah, waste time much?)

So here is my new goal, that I am posting for all of internetdom to see in the hopes that it will motivate me to actually keep it. I am going to have a first draft of BW done by my birthday. Which is May 25. Which gives me just over a month. Now, it took me over a year to write Tut, but I didn't even know if I could write a book to completion at that point, and a lot of that time was spent fine-tuning the plot. Not to mention really serious trauma that happened in the middle of writing Tut. I was pretty emotionally overwhelmed and didn't write a word for about six months. I'm not expecting anything like that (of course, does anyone ever expect trauma? It wouldn't be as traumatic if you did...), and now feel like I am jinxing myself by writing that. Let's find some wood to knock on.

Superstition aside, there it is. I'm going to try to have a finished draft of BW by May 25. Go me! Seriously, get off the blog and go write, right now.

Beginnings

I think starting a story is the hardest part. I usually have the middle and the ending planned out really well, but it's hard to get there. You have to find a good balance between giving enough background information and keeping some narrative suspense--all while setting up the really interesting parts.

That's the stage I'm in with my new project, BW. But last night I overcame a big plot hurdle, so it's clear sailing from here on out. At least, until I get stuck again.

Beginnings are so important because they're the first--and usually only--thing that an agent will look at. If you can't hook them in the first page, you're probably toast. I think that's the problem I had with Tut. The first chapter was backstory, and while it set up the character Josiah really well, it didn't match the tone of the rest of the book. So, agents were reading a chapter set at a funeral, with an eleven-year-old boy thinking back on the process of watching his mom die, and were probably thinking, "What kid on earth would want to read this?"

It took me a long time to let go of that chapter. I still love it and think that it is really good writing; it just doesn't belong in the book. I went through and added all of the necessary information into different parts of the book. I think that it worked well; I managed to fit ten pages of background into about three paragraphs. I also think that it creates a sense of mystery--you don't start out knowing why Josiah is in Egypt with his uncle, or why he feels bad about being happy. The information is spread throughout the book now, and I like how it ended up.

So, I'm excited to get on with BW. Yay for middles!

Agents

So, here is my problem with querying. I do a lot of research. Maybe too much. Last night I spent two hours reading every interview and looking at every page for a specific agent. After doing that, I put together a query for her and sent it.

But here's the problem--I get too invested. Not every time, because most agents don't have a lot out there. But when I find an agent like this one, who has done a ton of really helpful and fun interviews, I start thinking about how wonderful it would be to work with her, and then I get a strange combination of really excited/really melancholy. Excited because I love this agent! and melancholy because I don't know if she is going to love me. It's kind of like online dating--I found the profile of someone that I am really interested in; I've emailed them, and now I just have to wait, nervously twiddling my thumbs and checking my email, to see whether or not my silly little profile is enough to interest them. Meanwhile I've already imagined what our children would look like.

Except I've never done online dating. And I'm not romantically interested in the agents. And I'm happily married. And instead of babies, I'm imagining what my book would look like, and what a great professional relationship we'd have. Okay, maybe that was a bad metaphor. Whatever. What it boils down to is that I invest a lot of time in looking for an agent, and it's exhausting. But it will be worth it.

Teaser

Here is the opening to my new book, which shall remain unnamed until finished. Let me know what you think...

(Obviously, I wrote this and it is my property and please don't take it or print it anywhere else. Thanks!)

Chapter One: Dangerous Places

Willa was in trouble. Her mom stood in the kitchen, arms folded and looking very cross. Willa closed the front door gently behind her.

“Uh, hi Mom,” she said.

“You’re late,” her mom replied flatly.

“I know. I was at the park, and I lost track of time.”

Her mom looked at her and raised her eyebrows. “The park? And what were you doing at the park?”

“Um, I was, playing basketball. With some friends,” Willa added lamely. She knew she wasn’t selling it, but she had never been good at lying.

“What friends?”

Willa shrugged. “Just some kids from school.”

Her mom shook her head. “Willa, please don’t lie to me. When I was driving home I saw you walking back. I know where you were.”

Willa hung her head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“How many times do we have to go through this? You know the rules.” She held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

Digging into her back pocket, Willa took out a small plastic card and, walking to her mom with tears in her eyes, handed it over.

Her mom threw it in the trash, then sighed loudly. “I’ve asked you to stop getting those. I don’t know how many more times I can tell you—you are not to go there, ever again. I don’t want you sneaking there after school. I don’t want you meeting Megan there. I know you think I’m crazy, but this is for your own good. I love you too much to see something happen to you. Libraries are very dangerous places.”

Age Issues

One of the tricky things about trying to write for children is figuring out what age you want to aim your book for. There are several distinctions in the industry, but even these are pretty vaguely defined. Middle grade is about 8 -12, transitional middle grade or JYA 11-14, YA 13 - 18. But the problem is that, naturally, most kids don't fall into easy groupings like this. Children typically read up--they want to read about a main character older than them. And YA is trending toward more and more edgy and graphic themes.

It is especially hard for me to target an age group because I was such a weird kid. I was reading books in third grade that most of my friends read in seventh; by fifth grade I had moved on to books written mainly for adults. Granted, I had no taste, but reading level was not an issue. When I was 13 I read four 700-1000 page books over a couple of months during the summer. So when I try to think "What would a twelve-year-old want to read?" I have a difficult time.

It also reminds me that it doesn't work to try to pigeon-hole kids into a certain level or style of writing. If the characters are engaging and the story is interesting, I think that kids will like it no matter what. And if they learn some new vocabulary words in the meantime, even better.

I'm thinking about this right now because I'm struggling to decide what age to write my latest project, BW, for. I had planned on making the main character about fourteen, and writing it JYA style. But now I am wondering if maybe I should make her eleven or twelve, and write it very solidly middle-grade. A good example of recent books that fall into this are the Spiderwick Chronicles.

It's a hard decision. I think it might be an easier sell as a middle-grade, and I can see it lending itself to really great illustrations every few pages. But I also have some ideas to work into the book that would skew older. I just don't know, which means that I haven't started yet, and it's frustrating me to no end.

I guess I should just stop writing about it and just start writing the actual book. Wish me luck.

Ah, Rejection

The aspiring writer's constant companion. I try to be philosophical about it. So far I only have a few rejections, and they were from when my query was not good. No big deal, right? After all, JK Rowling barely managed to get published; Madeleine L'Engle was rejected dozens of times, and apparently Jack London was turned down over 600 times. But actually, thinking about this just discourages me. There are so many people out there trying to get published; I wonder how my little book will ever find the right agent.

I don't mind having my query letter rejected. But when an agent looks at my manuscript and then rejects it, well, that's harder. The agent that requested the partial passed; she said she "admired" my writing, but she wasn't the agent for me. That's it. But at least she got back to me quickly; the worst part about rejection is waiting and waiting and letting your hopes inch up just a fraction and then having them dashed. However, I'm trying to break into the wrong industry if I hate waiting. Ah well. I'll just repeat to myself that my book is good and deserves to be published, keep writing agents that look wonderful, hope they think I'm wonderful, and start writing my next book. As much as I'd like to get an agent tomorrow and have them sell the book next month, it just doesn't usually work like that. But it's worth it to me to press on. You will be able to find me in bookstores; it just might not be in the next year.