What a Difference a Day Makes

I started the day quite differently than it ended.  This morning, I was blow drying my hair when my hair dryer attacked.  The kids, who were eating cereal in the dining room actually called to me, asking "Mom, whats going on with the blow dryer?"  It made this cracking noise, then a guttural growl, then a snapping sound.  I threw it to the ground in terror, hoping not to rip out a large handful of my hair in the process.  A quick glance in the mirror told me my locks were intact.  But the dryer was a goner.  I ripped the plug out and hurled it across the vanity.  I never touched it again.  My 8 year old actually threw it in the trash outside.  I refused to handle the thing.

Later, I had a terrific job interview and the unemployment check finally arrived.  Two pretty good things, almost enough to cancel out the manic hair appliance.  But the best was surely yet to come.

I have blogged before about prepping another manuscript for submission.  This one is another YA paranormal romance with a ghost story twist.  The working title has always been The Girl, The Ghost and The Guys, but after polishing it up, I have retitled it JUICE AND THE HIGH SCHOOL GHOST.  I like this title because it identifies both the genre and the age group.  I submitted it to my new publisher and somewhat held my breath.  Then, the aforementioned great news....wait for it......they love it!

My publisher not only loves it, she said the same editor I was lucky to work with for SPELLBOUND really wants to work with me for this one.  And the best news of all?  It will be released tentatively in September!  The news is just sinking in and I am over the moon.   What this means to be is it not only validates that I am a good writer, it validates I am more than a one hit wonder.  I jokingly wrote on facebook that I now don't feel like a My Sharona!  (Get it?  The one song that made The Knack famous before they faded into obscurity).

I think the very most best thing about the news is that I am energized beyond comprehension and the ideas flowing through me are massive.  I can't write them down fast enough!  Thank goodness for Blackberrys and my fingers of lightning!  And also the fact that since not many people read this blog yet, being grammatically correct has never been a pressing issue!

So stay tuned, this blog will once again catalog a publishing journey, this one now for JUICE AND THE HIGH SCHOOL GHOST.  Buckle up babies, here we go again!

Writing YA

My post yesterday about the conference I attended made me dig up my old notes.  I found some great advice in there I had forgotten since I attended.  The best seminar by far was the one called "Young Adult: Why Write It, How Not To" taught by the editor-in-chief of an award winning small press.  Many of the things I learned I am employing today.  They may seem like no-brainers, but they were quite enlightening to me at the time.

Most importantly, don't dumb down or patronize your words just because you are writing for kids.  Kids are smart and will spot that a mile away.  Mine do.  They also have a strong sense of justice.  You have to decide how far you will go before your character offends your audience's sense of right vs. wrong.  I find I analyze that as I write now.

Another biggie is that while your story will have an antogonist, it won't always be the bad guy.  This was a stunner for me and helped me out of a writing corner.  Your antagonist can be the person who loves them the most, but just keeps them from getting what they want.  He or she will hinder, challenge, or outright deny them their goal, while loving them all the way.  In this way, the antagonist will illustrate the protagonist the most and help us understand him the best.  This conflict, then, drives the story.  Isn't that awesome?

Here's a couple more eye openers for me:  Dialogue should NEVER reveal the character.  Only action reveals the character.  That, for me, was the definition of show, don't tell.  Take a paragraph you've written that just isn't working for you.  Yank out the yammer and rewrite it with show words.  Now read it out loud.  Better, right?  I love, love, love doing that.  Works every time.  Layer in sensory words for taste and texture.  End each paragraph with a landing line, a pause that makes the reader WANT to read more.  Then you are exciting the reader's curiosity.  Kids bore easily.  You as the writer have to keep their world alive.

Another cool trick:  A one word paragraph punches the reader in the stomach with finality.  Here's an example.  The landing line would be:  She said she was pregnant.

Twins.

See how powerful it is when it sits by itself?  Do this on your first page and an agent can't help but be interested in what you do next.

Great notes, right?  See?  GO TO A CONFERENCE.  I'm telling you.  Worth the money.  :-)

Query Letters

So now that I have a book being published, I am in the middle of writing the sequel.  I also have another young adult paranormal romance I want to start querying.  My mind went back to some great advice I got at a convention I attended last September.  Now, I know they can be pricey but if you can beg, borrow or steal the money (I begged for mine) you can't believe the information available at one.

I went to the Southern California Writers' Conference in Los Angeles.  It was their 8th one and they've got it down pat!  I got my little schedule and marked all these killer seminars I wanted to attend.  Defining Genre.  First paragraphs and What They Must Do.  The all-time fave, Show, Don't Tell.  What I learned right away was the value to the conference is the Read and Critiques and getting your face in front of an agent or editor.  Sign up for as many of those as you can!  And go to ALL the Read and Critiques you can stomach.  One of mine was a Rogue Read which started at 9pm and lasted till nearly 2am!  But it was incredible.  The people leading them are unmatched in their fields and have the most amazing things to say.  And this is where I learned the best thing I ever learned about a query letter.  And here it is:

There are only 4 things the query letter has to do:

1. Introduce the protagonist and his/her problem.
2. What the protagonist is going to do about the problem.
3. What the conflicts are that are keeping the protagonist from reaching his/her goal.
4. What are the stakes?  What happens if he/she doesn't succeed and why does the reader care?

Isn't that brilliant?  I have seen a million books and posts about the query letter but that one piece of advice slugged me in the solar plexis with its simplicity.  I even format my query letter with the 4 things in a sort of template, like this:

• First paragraph, name of my book, genre, word count.  Launch into #1 and #2
• second paragraph, #3, wrapping up with #4, maybe leave with a question.  (ex: But, can he do it?)
• third paragraph, who I am, some credentials, thank intended reader for time.  Boom.  Goodbye.

Other thing I learned at the convention, agents and editors HATE wordy queries.  If you can be in and out under 250 words, they are LOVING you.

Now, I only offer this as my opinion.  But, it worked for me.  I'm going to try it soon with my second PR, THE GIRL, THE GHOST, AND THE GUYS.  We'll see how it goes again.

Editing

So, the first round of edits have been completed.  These were called the pre-edits.  Basically, I went through the whole manuscript and looked for the following:

• overuse of the character's names in dialogue or narrative.  Excessive pronouns, too
• removed words like very, really, smiled, turned and grinned.  To do this I use the "find" feature in Word.
• I was reminded that words cannot be growled, hissed, or any other animalistic sound, unless alliteration allows it.  (found a couple!)
• no head hopping.  Only one POV per scene
• I checked for and removed excessive adverbs ending in LY
• I removed all cuss words except for hell and damned in their intended forms.  My publisher wants to be able to market to all age groups and I agreed to this condition in my contract.  Plus, as I write for young adult anyway, I had only one or two places where I could find alternative wording.

The rest of my editing was grammatical in nature.  I spelled out chapter numbers, made only one space after periods (I did this with the "find and replace" feature also), and indicated scene breaks with only three asterisks, not my standard million of them. :-)

I think the above list is a great place to start when you are looking to generally edit yourself.  I know I learned a lot I will remember going forward.  I'm sure I'll learn to hate editing, but since it was for my first book, I have to say, I really enjoyed it.  (almost put a really in there, then backspaced and deleted it.  Old habits die hard.)

Exciting News!

I have pretty bad at blogging.  I suppose 3 months and 6 days qualifies as stupendously bad at blogging.  But I have something to blog about now.  I have a publisher for SPELLBOUND!  After countless agents chose not to go with me, I decided to go right to the source, the actual publishers.  That turned out to be a great decision, because as soon as I did, I started getting requests for partials and fulls for my young adult paranormal romance/supernatural fantasy.  I even got a request from Harlequin Teen, the holy grail of the publishing world.  The bummer is they didn't take me on, but I got the most wonderful rejection letter EVER! 

It proved to me that I did have talent, I can write and SPELLBOUND is a publishable commodity.  And it wasn't a month later that I was offered a contract.  So now, I am in the editing phase and soon to be assisting in the design of the cover of my book!  SO EXCITING!

The release date is to be either early to mid June and my new publisher is a wonderful company called Astraea Press.  They can be found at www.astraeapress.com and working with the talented team so far has been nothing less than a delight.  Head on over there and check them out.  I am starting to read several of my other fellow authors on the site and am awed by the talent I am rubbing elbows with!

As I am writing a sequel to SPELLBOUND, I am indeed hopeful that I am starting a long relationship with Astraea Press.  I'll keep you posted on this journey I am embarking on as I start this new phase of my life....as a published author.  Woo-hoo!