Answers: The Blessed and Glorious Appliance Edition

Jennifer Welborn asks, What is the best self-editing advice you can offer new authors?  It is really hard to edit your own stuff!

It IS really hard to learn how to edit your own stuff.  So the best advice I can give you is to have Stephanie Perkins as a critique partner so she can teach you.

However, since that isn’t a viable option for every aspiring author out there, I’ll just give you my basic methods.  I highly, highly recommend a) reading your own work out loud, b) critique partners who are better than you, and c) studying the books you read for what works and WHY it works, including plotting and mechanics (such as dialogue tags).  I do all three.  Also analyze every scene for what it DOES.  Does it develop characters?  Does it move the plot forward?  Every scene needs to work for and earn its spot in your book.

Kari asks, If you were a demigod, which god/goddess would be your parent?

Wait, what’s with this “if” nonsense?  Are you saying you don’t think I’m divine?

I actually love this question.  I’m a bit of a mythology nut and always have been.  I’d probably lean toward Athena, although Hathor, Egyptian goddess of beer and sex, would come in a close second.

Hmmm.  Wait.  She’s kind of the opposite of me.  Is there a goddess of sobriety and unsexiness?

Sadly I don't have much internet access right now so I can't research and pick the best option.  Anyone know of a goddess of motherhood, sleeping, writing, sugar, and sarcasm?

Nicole Mc asks, When you first started your writing blog…did everyone you know in “real life” know about it and your desire to be published?

Only those that I liked, and they probably started really disliking me and my endless discourses on the ins-and-outs of getting an agent and the infinite why-isn’t-this-happening-ARGH-I-HATE-THIS that accompanied my first book going out on submission.

I actually played it pretty close to the chest, because it was so important to me and such a huge dream of mine that I didn’t want to deal with disappointing other people (or having other people know how disappointed I was if it didn’t work out).  I tend to downplay things, so I acted like writing was a hobby, which was rather dishonest of me because I was always passionate about it and determined to make a career of it.  Of course, anyone who read my blog knew otherwise, but for the most part those weren’t people in my “real life.”

And to be honest, it still freaks me out a bit when someone I know—but not very well—in real life tells me they read my blog.  Umm, hi.  Pretend like you don’t know this much about me, okay?

Tracey Neithercott (seriously, are you guys making up these last names?  Because they are awesome.  Now I want characters with last names of Welborn and Neithercott) asks, Which do you value more: Internet or an in-house washer/dryer?

You can’t do THIS with the internet, Tracey:

 Yes, washer and dryer, with you I will share my last Dr Pepper!

 My dryer is especially good at cuddling.

They laugh at all the right spots.

Seriously, after eight-and-a-half years of marriage and two kids (one of whom is a notorious puker and has been his whole life) without an in-home washer and dryer, every load I do feels like a little miracle.

She also asks, Once you knew you’d be writing a series, did you outline the entire thing?

In retrospect, I probably should have.  I always knew the ending, and had a lot of the plot points of how to get there, and the general plot arcs of books two and three.  However.  I didn’t outline the entire thing in detail because that’s not how I work.  For the most part this is a good thing (I just wrote an entire chapter of a wild ride with Selkies behind the wheel that happened very organically and surprisingly and never would have been outlined), but sometimes it comes back to haunt me, like a small unimportant scene I cut from Paranormalcy that introduced unimportant characters that I really could have used for book three.  Alas.

If/when I do another trilogy, I will definitely take better notes.  But so far I haven’t had any major regrets, other than that one cut scene.

Jennifer asks, What do you do in your free time?  (When you’re not writing or reading.  Is there anything left?)

Ha.  Ha ha ha.  Ah ha ha ha ha ha.  Ahem.  Sorry.  I think you’re forgetting I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old.  I also haven’t had an uninterrupted night’s sleep in years.  So, when I get a couple spare hours and I’m not writing, I nap.

I do also enjoy playing German board games with my husband in the evenings.  Our favorite is Dominion (not kinky, despite the name and my claims of being Hathor’s daughter), but we like all sorts of card and board games.  As long as they are strategy based—I hate games based entirely on chance.  I’m too competitive to leave everything up to a roll of the dice.

Also on Friday nights I go wild and do laundry.  AND I LOVE IT.

Leah Miller asks, How do you get into the teenage mind set?

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending) I have a very good memory and can easily recall what it felt like to be sixteen.  Obviously most of the time I do whatever I can to suppress those memories, but when writing YA they come in very handy.

I also listen to music that I wouldn’t otherwise.  Right now my playset is defined by “perky angst” and consists mostly of Paramore.  Music really helps me to set the mood and get my voice going.  I can’t listen to the music that I normally love while writing because it’s all very non-teenagery-feeling stuff.

I know some authors try to be around teenagers and listen to them talking but that mostly just makes me feel like a creeper.  “Hey, guys?  Can you please keep flirting for a few more minutes?  I need to get a better feel for this dialogue.  Also, tone down the swearwords because I don’t like writing those.”

More answers tomorrow!