My Life as a Teenage Novelist

ABNA is coming. Again.

2011-12-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

Hey, all. I haven't posted in quite a while, mostly because all my final projects were eating me alive. But, now I'm done with them. And I'm done with my first semester at Hampshire College. So, hooray for me!

You know what's coming soon? (And no, it's not Christmas. Although that's coming soon, too.)

The annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Also known as ABNA. Also known as, "that crazy writing thing Brigid will be ranting about for the next few months."

If you don't know what it is, you can read about it here.

Basically, it's a contest for unpublished and self-published authors. You need to have written a complete novel between 50,000 and 150,000 words. You also need to write a pitch. There are various stages of the contest––starting with a judgment of the pitch, then the first 5000 words, then of the entire manuscript (assuming you get that far in the contest).

So, if you've written a novel and you're not (traditionally) published yet, it's worth checking out. Even if you don't get too far in the contest, you can meet a lot of other writers on the forums and get advice from them. It's a terrific learning experience about the publishing industry. And if you do make it far in the contest, you get a review from Publishers Weekly... which is pretty dang cool.

Oh yeah. And if you win, you get a publishing deal with Penguin and a $15,000 advance. And that's also cool. But, you know ... the chances of getting that prize are 1/5000.

So, yeah. I'm entering this thing for the third year in a row. I plan to do what I've done for the past two years: frantically edit my manuscript throughout the remainder of December and January, until the deadline (which is January 23rd). Hopefully I'll get some feedback of some sort. I'll probably edit some more. Then I'll spend the summer sending out queries and most likely drowning in rejection letters. HOORAY!

This year I'm entering Unraveling, which I finished writing in February. So, we'll see what happens.

Anyone else entering? Or thinking of entering?

Review: The Girl Who Owned a City (Graphic Novel)

2011-11-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

Hello, friends. I've decided I'd try posting a review for once. After all, I review a lot of YA books, so I might as well share some of my reviews with all of you. If anyone wants to see more reviews on my blog, I'd be happy to post more.

Here's a link to the original review on Goodreads, which has a few more spoilers in it. But I'll post the totally spoiler-free review here. So, enjoy.

Title: The Girl Who Owned a City (The Graphic Novel)

Author: Dan Jolley, Illustrator: Joelle Jones

Release Date: April 2012 (ARC provided by NetGalley)

My rating: 3/5 Stars

So, after I finished reading this, I saw on the last page that it had been based on a novel from 1975. I have not read the novel or ever heard of it, so I don't know what the similarities and differences between the original and graphic novels are. Whether the flaws in the graphic novel are in any way the fault of O.T. Nelson––the original author––I don't know.

Anyway, to briefly summarize the plot:

The Girl Who Owned a City is the story of a grim, futuristic world in which a mysterious virus kills all the adults and turns them into piles of dust. Our protagonist is a girl named Lisa Nelson who is determined to find and protect as many surviving children as she can. But she is rivaled by another gang, led by a boy named Tom Logan who wants to steal her power and form some kind of dictatorship over all the other kids.

I obtained a digital version of this book via NetGalley, which is like my new best friend in website form. After I downloaded it I decided to look through it––so of course, I ended up reading the entire thing in one sitting.

This is an exciting and fast-paced read, and it's fairly short. So, it's something I would recommend if you were looking for something quick and fun. And what with the current dystopian craze, I could see this being a successful graphic novel.

Lisa is a likable main character, although I'm not sure how realistically she's portrayed. I don't think her age is ever defined, but supposedly she's younger than 12. (Otherwise, she would be a pile of dust.) I spent the whole book assuming she was around 14 or 15, because she seemed to be acting a little more like a teenager. Then, of course, I realized that wasn't possible. Granted, she seems to have gone through a lot so I wouldn't be surprised if she'd matured early. But regardless of her age, Lisa is easy to relate to. The reader can feel her stress and frustration as she tries to keep everything together and keep everyone safe.

However, I thought the other characters could have been fleshed out more. At least the relationship between Lisa and her little brother Todd was pretty nicely done, and Lisa's friend Craig was also somewhat interesting. But in the short span of the book, I didn't feel like I quite knew most of the characters. Most of them just seemed to be there to be Lisa's little helpers and not to have personalities of their own.

As for the plot ... It's not the most original thing in the world. Basically, this book is Lord of the Flies, Gone, and Maximum Ride combined. Once you've read Lord of the Flies, you've pretty much read all the books with the "Oh no! All the adults are gone!" plot, so you can probably already guess what this book is like. As for the similarities to Gone (by Michael Grant), it has the same premise where all the adults conveniently just "disappear" and there is only a vague explanation as to why. (More on that in a minute.) I guess I'm kind of stretching it with the comparison to Maximum Ride, but the whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking that Lisa is pretty much the same character as Max. She has the same tough-girl attitude where she doesn't want anyone to help her, and she wants to handle everything by herself, etc. And it didn't help that Craig kind of has a Fang-ish attitude with his whole "Let's just forget everyone else and live by ourselves!" attitude.

Anyway, as I was saying, I have the same issue with this book as I had with Gone by Michael Grant: the reason for the adults disappearing makes little sense to me. I believe that in Gone, the author blamed it on a nuclear chemical spill, which I found difficult to understand. In The Girl Who Owned a City, this is the only explanation the author makes: "for some strange reason, the sickness is not fatal to children."

You know, for once I would like to see one of these "post-apocalyptic-worlds-where-there-are-only-children-left" books where there is actually a believable explanation as to why all the adults are gone. Not only that, but it would make more sense if the adults didn't just "vanish." It would make more sense if it was like the Black Plague all over again, with rotting corpses all over the place. Disgusting? Well, yes. But far more realistic. I can't bring myself to believe that there would ever be a disease that would literally just turn people into dust.

The originality and lack-of-explanation issues aside, I think my biggest problem with this book was the lack of emotional reactions in the characters. At the beginning, Lisa informs us that it's only been a few weeks since the plague killed all the adults. Yet, none of the kids seem extremely upset. They all focus solely on surviving and don't seem to remember anything that happened before they were left by themselves. You don't have little kids crying for their parents all over the place. I can't recall any point where Lisa and Todd had a conversation about their mom and dad. It was like the author was so focused on making the story "kickass" that he completely ignored the realistic, emotional impact of the story. I understand if the kids are in shock or in denial or something, but at least a little more effort could have been made. I mean, in such a horrible situation, I really wanted to know how the characters felt. How on earth would it feel to see your own parents turn into dust? Because I'm pretty sure it would be devastating.

I swear I'm almost done ranting now. There's only one more thing I have to criticize, and that's the ending. I'm not going to specify too much so as not to spoil it. But in my humble opinion, it was a total cop-out and I was kind of disappointed.

So, in conclusion, I think this book had some potential in its premise, but there were a lot of issues with its execution. However, I still found it enjoyable. It was an easy, fun read and something that could keep you entertained for an hour or two. Even though the characters aren't totally fleshed-out, at least they're likable.

And if all else fails, the illustrations are pretty cool.

What order do you write in?

2011-11-25T13:15:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of other writers who have no problem writing stories out of chronological order. And I understand the benefits of doing this. I get stuck a lot of the time, and instead of writing future scenes like I possibly should, I either force myself through the slow parts or I give up.

Obviously, the whole "giving up" thing can lead to problems––mostly the guilt that I abandon so many of my poor little stories. But on the other hand, I can't seem to force myself to write out of order. I do plan ahead as I write, I just don't want to "skip" anything as I'm actually writing.

Of course, just as there are benefits to writing out of order, I think there are benefits to writing in chronological order as well. My fear is that, if I didn't write in chronological order, I would only write the "interesting" parts of the story––the main events and whatnot––and skip over everything in between. Sure, the in-between stuff can be kind of dull, but I also think it's important for creating tension and building character relationships, etc. I guess I feel like, if I don't force myself through the less interesting parts, I don't know my characters well enough to be sure of how they would respond in the most disastrous situations––if that makes sense. I find that my characters usually turn out differently from what I initially expect, and if I wrote out of order, maybe I would miss out on that.

So, what does everyone else think? Do you write in or out of chronological order? What do you think are the costs and benefits of each?

What I'm Listening To (As I write my NaNo)

2011-11-23T11:44:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!
I hope everyone doing NaNoWriMo is having fun & success. (Only a week left! Ahhhh!)
Since I haven't posted anything in a while, I thought I'd share with you guys some songs/lyrics that have inspired me as I'm writing. Whether it's the lyrics or the moods of these songs, these are all songs that have helped me survive NaNo so far. As you can see, they all involve some kind of "dreamy" mood or the mention of dreams ... I can't help it. I'm so ... literal.

So, yeah. Here it is. My playlist for Sweet Sorrow:

1. "Set Apart This Dream" by Flyleaf

Close your eyes pretty girl
'Cause it's easier when you brace yourself
Set your thoughts on a world far off
Where we only cry from joy

2. "On Top Of The World" by Boys Like Girls

Let's spend tonight on top of the world
We can do anything
We can be anything
I'll meet you tonight on top of the world
As real as it seems
You're only in my dreams

3. "Blinding" by Florence + the Machine

Seems that I have been held
In some dreaming state
A tourist in the waking world
Never quite awake

4. "Painting Flowers" by All Time Low

When I wake up
The dream isn't done
I want to see your face
And know I made it home
If nothing is true
What more can I do?
I am still painting flowers for you

5. "Keep the Car Running" by Arcade Fire

The same city where I go when I sleep
You can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name 'cause I told it to them
But they don't know where
And they don't know
When it's coming

6. "Ghost" by Blue Foundation

He's burned down many a bridge
And he's scared of walking in the dark
It hurts when the rain falls on his skin

Oh he is worn out from marching
And he's forgotten for what he's searching

7. "Don't Wake Me Up" by The Hush Sound

You came to me
In seamless sleep
Slipped right in
Behind my eye
On the back of my mind
We swam a sea
Of pretty sights and chandelier skies
I swore I could feel you breathe
It was all so real to me

The light had slipped through the window
The morning ripped you away, oh

8. "Where the Fence is Low" by LIGHTS

Each shadow I walk
To the ends of the forest
And the shape of the hands
That break the ground for us
The fear that contains
That binds like a blessing
I've been here before
Then again I'm guessing

9. "Misguided Ghosts" by Paramore

Misguided ghosts,
Traveling endlessly,
The ones we trusted the most,
Pushed us far away,
And there's no one road,
We should not be the same,
But I'm just a ghost,
And still they echo me

10. "Unleashed" by Epica

Where was I meant to be?
I'm feeling lost in a dream,
Long for the day I can be myself

11. "Sweet Dreams" by The Eurhythmics

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something

12. "Imaginary" by Evanescence

Don't say I'm out of touch
With this rampant chaos––your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge
The nightmare I built my own world to escape

13. "Trust Me" by The Fray

Looking for something I've never seen
Alone and I'm in between
...
I found a friend or should I say a foe
Said there's a few things you should know
We don't want you to see
We come and we go
Here today, gone tomorrow
...
Take it from me
We don't give sympathy
You can trust me, trust nobody

14. "Leave My Body" by Florence + the Machine

I'm gonna be released from behind these lines
And I don't care whether I live or die
And I'm losing blood, I'm gonna leave my bones

15. "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane

I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

16. "Help I'm Alive" by Metric

I tremble
They're gonna eat me alive
If I stumble
They're gonna eat me alive
Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer?

Well, that's all folks!
Anyone else have any particular songs that have helped them through NaNo so far?

Collage Brainstorms

2011-11-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. This post is going to be very short and sweet because I'm a busy gal and I need to get back to NaNo-ing. (Or whatever the word is. The point is, I'm working on my NaNo at the moment and I'm trying to reach the magical 50k mark today. And I still have quite a bit to go. So ... wish me luck!)

This is a fun idea I got from my friend Ally's blog, NOVEL IDEAS (which is a fabulous blog, by the way, and you should all read it). She probably explains it better than I do, but the basic idea is that you search around on the Internet for pictures that represent ideas/places/characters/etc. in your story. I tried it out and found it quite fun and motivational. I've always found images to be inspiring, so I think this is a tool that could really help me in the future. (I already make book covers for my own stories, so this is kind of similar to that.)

So, here it is! My first collage brainstorm. It's for Sweet Sorrow, my NaNo novel. :)

(You can click on it to make it bigger.)

I found photos on deviantArt (so, they're not my photos!) and edited the collage using Picasa. (Picasa is a free photo editing program on Google, and it has a cool collage-making tool.)

So, what do y'all think? Is this an activity you think would be helpful? If anyone else makes collages, I'd love to see them! :)

It has begun. How will you survive?

2011-11-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

So, it's the second day of NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what that is after I've explained it a billion times ... just read the post before this one.

I know a lot of people are hesitant to participate because the challenge is intimidating––but really, there's nothing to lose even if you don't reach the word goal. Trust me, I'm busy as heck. I'm always busy. But I'm still trying to find time in my hectic schedule to work on my novel. So you should try it, too. You might be surprised by how much you get done! And no matter how much or how little you get done, it's better than writing nothing at all.

Anyway, to those of you who have decided to participate, I've decided to put together a list of survival tips, being an experienced Wrimo myself. Hopefully this will help. :)

8 NaNoWriMo Survival Tips (In No Particular Order):

1. Write crap. Seriously. What you write is probably going to suck, and that's okay. Don't delete words. Don't think too hard about what you're writing. Just let go of all your inhibitions and write whatever comes into your mind. It doesn't matter if your prose is cluttered with filler or if you keep repeating yourself. It's all about getting out that first draft. It's about quantity and not quality. If you want quality, you can edit in December (or, you know, whenever). Write rants, internal monologues, dialogue, whatever. Write anything, and don't be too concerned with your plot.

2. Keep the NaNoWriMo website open at all times. Heck, make it your homepage for the month. I at least always have it open in one tab, so that every time I open my web browser, I'm reminded of what I'm supposed to be doing. That way, if I'm about to get on Facebook, I always get a wake-up call.

3. Get on Write or Die. This website is a life saver. It always keeps me focused. Enough said. Linkage: http://writeordie.com/

4. Have writing buddies. Doing NaNo alone is a sad, sad thing. Just explore the NaNo forums for anyone else who wants a writing buddy. If it's someone who writes at about the same pace as you do, that's ideal. Challenge other Wrimos to word wars. Adding a little bit of competition does wonders for motivating you.

5. Get ahead of schedule. Don't just stop at 1,667 words every day. If you get there and you still have ideas, keep going. I like to get at least a little bit ahead every day, because you never know when there's going to be a day when you'll have no time to write at all.

6. But remember to take breaks, too. Don't expect to sit down and write all 1,667 words in one sitting, or your poor brain is going to burn up. I'll usually write for 15-30 minutes and then take a break for a few minutes to think about what I'm going to write next. It's best to write in chunks over the day. That way you have time to think––and thinking is just as important as writing.

7. Exercise your wrists. I know one big problem I have that prevents me from writing is when my wrists start to hurt like crazy. I highly recommend doing exercises like these ones whenever you take a break from writing. You don't want to get carpal tunnel!

8. Find a song that really inspires you. For me, that song is "Blinding" by Florence + the Machine. It fits the mood and the story of my novel perfectly. Whenever I listen to it I feel excited about writing and that helps a lot to motivate me. I recommend finding a song that fits a particular tone/theme/character in your novel that will excite you about writing. Or it doesn't necessarily have to be a song. It could be a poem, quote, whatever. Just come up with a little reminder that will inspire you every day. :)

Hopefully that helps!

Now I should get off Blogger and return to writing ... *Waves*

Why You Should Do NaNoWriMo

2011-10-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

It's October 1st. That means two important things.

1. It's my birthday. I'm nineteen today. I guess I'll have to change the name of this blog in a year ...
2. There's only one month until NaNoWriMo.

I expect that #2 causes a variety of reactions:

--> YAAAYYYY!
--> OH GOD NO. WHY DID YOU REMIND ME?
--> Haha ... What?

If you had the third reaction, I'm here to explain.

NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo takes place every year during November. During this month, writers take on the challenge to write at least the first 50,000 words of a novel, from scratch, in a month. You're not allowed to start until 12:00 AM on November 1st, except for outlining and other planning. It's okay if you don't finish the novel by the end of the month ... You just have to hit the 50,000-word mark before 12:00 AM on December 1st. If you get there, you win! (Side note: I've had to explain this to a lot of people but NaNoWriMo is not a contest. It's a challenge. There are perks to participating and to winning, but no one judges your work. It's all about writing those 50,000 words.) For more detailed rules, visit the NaNoWriMo website.

REASONS YOU SHOULD DO NANOWRIMO:

1. 50,000 looks like a pretty intimidating number, but it's not as bad as you may think. It's 1,667 words a day, which is about two and a half pages. That might still seem like a lot, but you'll be surprised by how the words add up when you really get into writing something, or when you're writing whenever you have a spare moment. I usually write first thing in the morning and right before I go to bed, and at random times during the day if I have time. If you disperse those words throughout the day, they'll add up quickly.

2. Like I said, there are perks. For example, if you win, you can get a free proof copy of your manuscript from CreateSpace. Here is me with my lovely CreateSpace proof of Walking Shadow:

Last year, programs such as Scrivener and Storyist––which are programs designed specifically for writers––provided free trials for NaNo participants. I don't know if the same exact thing is happening this year, but I know there are always benefits to participating! If anything, you'll at least get the bragging rights if you win. ;) So, it's worth checking out.

3. You learn to write without inhibitions. When you're concentrating on getting the words down, you focus less on editing and censoring yourself, and you'll be surprised at what you'll come up with. Yes, you'll write a lot of filler crap––but some of that filler will still have useful descriptions or ideas in it. It doesn't matter if your first draft is a piece of junk; that's what editing is for, and you can edit later. NaNo is about getting out that first draft, however crappy it may be. When you have a first draft, you at least have an idea of what you're working with.

4. Best-selling novels have been born during NaNoWriMo. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, and Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins are all examples. So even if the rough draft you write during NaNo is very ... well, rough, you know you have the potential to sell it someday!

5. Because I said so.

So, what are you doing? Get planning, you fools!

Is It Wise To Criticize?

2011-09-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

Greetings, earthlings. I apologize for not blogging in over a month. I was very busy packing for college and starting classes at college, and doing other college-y things. (And college is awesome, by the way.)

Now, I should probably be writing (since I haven't in ... uh ... forever) but my brain is clogged up right now. So, I'm going to write about a subject that's been cooking at the back of my head for a long time. It's a topic I'm always nervous to bring up ... and that's authors criticizing other authors.

Here's the thing. I love writing. You all know that. I love reading as much as I love writing. And when I read books, I review them. I do my reviews on Goodreads, and they're not meant to be particularly professional. I write them for fun. Furthermore, I feel like I should share my thoughts on every book I read. I spent my time reading those books, so why not review them?

Obviously, I don't like everything I read. Sometimes my reviews are negative. However, I don't mean to make any ad hominem attacks on any authors. I never say an author is stupid or fat just because I didn't like his/her book. But if I don't connect with a character in a story, or there's a plot twist I find illogical, I'm going to say so. I do try to find something positive in everything I read, and I always point it out in my reviews, but I can't pretend I love everything.

About a year ago, I posted a review on Goodreads that was pretty dang negative. As hard as I tried, I could find very little I liked about this book, besides that the prose was okay. I found it illogical, boring, sexist ... I could go on and on. So, I said so, giving examples to back up my thoughts. That is, it's not like I wrote some review that said, "LoL dis book is lyk sooo stoopid. I H8ed it. lolz." It was pretty specific.

Yet, soon there were a bunch of people leaving comments on the review along the lines of, "How can you be so harsh? How would you feel if someone wrote a review like this for your book?"

Well, the thing is, people have said negative things about my writing. Very negative things. I've been told my stories are too emo, too clichéd, too boring. I've been told my characters are stupid and unlikable. I've been told that I can't structure a sentence properly. This criticism came from other writers, from agents, from Publishers Weekly, you name it.

I don't love getting scathing feedback. It can be overwhelming, especially when I start to realize I might have to totally scrap something and start over. But, although it's never a warm, fuzzy feeling, you learn to live with it if you're a writer. If you never received criticism, your art would never develop. In the end, I'm always grateful for feedback––no matter how harsh it is––because it pushes me to work harder and get better at what I love to do.

Of course, the typical troll reaction to that argument is, "Oh, so you're just bitter because this author is published and you're not. Well, if you were any good at writing, you would be published too. And this book wouldn't be published if it wasn't good. So, nyah nyah."

Right. Well.

I'm not going to deny that at times, I feel bitter. When you work so hard on your own writing, and you read a book that doesn't tickle your fancy, it can be frustrating. You get that feeling like, "Why is this person published and I'm not?"

Being a writer, you get extra picky. You know it's important to craft a good plot, to develop your characters well, to show and not tell, to avoid horrible grammar mistakes, etc. And when you see these errors in published books, it's hard not to notice them. So personally, when I review books, I point out the flaws, just as I would do if another, unpublished writer asked me for an honest critique.

Yet, there are those who believe that honesty among writers is a bad thing. I've read numerous blog posts that say authors should have nothing but praise for each other. They say we're all here to hold hands and support each other, and that's it. In my opinion, these people are more concerned with karma than with developing as artists. They don't give negative reviews because they don't want to receive them.

But what if, one day, you have to meet the author you criticized face-to-face? Well, I can't deny that such a situation might be awkward, but on the other hand, I think it's best to be honest. I consider my reviews to be constructive, and I treat published and unpublished writers equally. In both cases, my criticisms are meant to help and not to hurt anyone's feelings. If an author were to stumble upon my review of his/her book, I hope it would give him/her something to think about. I know that every review I've received, no matter how scathing, has at least given me something to think about improving in my work. If an author is professional enough, I think he/she should know how to find the helpful hints in negative reviews, and to not get angry at every person who criticizes him/her. Because––let's face it––if you're an author, you're going to get criticized. You're going to get bashed. You're going to get ripped apart. If other authors hold back their negative comments, it's not going to change that fact.

So, fellow writers, what do you think? Do you ever write critical reviews––and if you do, do you think they're helpful or harmful?

Interview with Published Teen Author, Steph Bowe!

2011-08-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

Say hello to Steph Bowe! She's the 17-year-old author of the YA novel Girl Saves Boy, which was published in New Zealand and Australia by Text Publishing in September 2010. You can check out her blog (Hey! Teenager of the Year) for more info.

Steph was kind enough to answer some questions for me. So instead of going on my usual rant about my publishing fails, I bring you the story of a teenager who has actually been published. I know you will all be as impressed and inspired by her achievements as I am! :)

Brigid: When did you first know you wanted to be an author?

Steph: I've always loved writing, since I was really little, and I've wanted to be a published author since I was about seven. I think it was less about accolades or money or anything like that, and more about a love of stories and wanting to share them with other people.

Brigid: What authors inspire you most?

Steph: There are so many! Melina Marchetta and John Green are probably the main two - I am amazingly envious of their brilliant writing and success.

Brigid: Do you have a specific writing process? Or do you "wing it" and see what happens?

I make it up as I go along. Generally I have a clear idea of my characters, a few major conflicts and the beginning and end in my head before I start writing, but they might change as I write. I love that writing is such an organic thing and you can incorporate everything and go off on tangents - this is your own world to freely play around with, why limit yourself?

Brigid: I know writers sometimes have trouble remembering how they got ideas ... Do you remember what first inspired you to write Girl Saves Boy?

Steph: I don't think I ever have specific inspirations - I always have thousands of tiny ideas inspired by things I see and read and hear and experience all swimming around in my head and sometimes growing into plots and stories.

Brigid: When did you start trying to get Girl Saves Boy published? How long did it take before you got a "yes" from an agent?

Steph: I started sending queries in August of '09. I had a few different offers of representation, and signed with an agent in September. I was insanely lucky.

Brigid: Has getting published changed your perspective of writing at all?

Steph: It's made it a lot harder. Instead of just writing for my own enjoyment, I'm always thinking about whether my agent/editor/readers will like it, whether it will sell, is it as good as the last book... there's lots of new and different things to take into consideration, and it's a lot easier to put off writing in the fear that you won't write something that's good enough.

Brigid: What are your other interests besides writing? And do those interests influence what you write?

Steph: Writing and schoolwork take up so much of my time right now, I hardly have any time for anything else. I do read a lot, and I enjoy photography, acting, dancing, cooking and spending time with my friends and family. I think everything a person experiences influences them, so obviously if that person is a writer that will show through in what they write. I don't think I can specifically point out anything I do in my real life that's affected what I write, but I may be able to do that in a few years time (I certainly know that I keep accidentally adding foods I eat to books as foods my characters eat...).

Brigid: What writing projects are you working on right now?

Steph: I am in the midst of revising my second book... and sneakily writing bits and pieces of books three and four (all standalone novels)... I don't want to jinx them, so I'm being deliberately vague... How mysterious!

Brigid: What is the most challenging part of writing for you?

Major edits! What a nightmare. Trying to figure out how to fix a book you've already spent so much time working on is pretty difficult.

Brigid: What advice do you have for other teens who are trying to get published?

Steph: Just go for it, don't let your self-doubt or anyone else's negative words get you down. Write first and foremost because you love writing and stories. Get as much feedback from others as possible, and learn to improve your writing. Send your work out there. If you aren't published as a teenager, that doesn't matter - you're still a success. Everything you write and submit and everything you experience is contributing to the writer you will become. I have faith in you! Just remember to do lots and lots of writing. That's the main thing.

Thank you, Steph! :)

A Letter To My Novel

2011-07-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

I've been querying again lately, and it's made me feel a bit ... hopeless. So, to cope with my stress, I wrote a letter to my novel. If you are currently feeling similar feelings of frustration and/or disappointment, I suggest doing this to make yourself feel better. Not only was this fun to do, but it also made me realize why I fell in love with my novel in the first place. And because of this, I feel more willing to stick with it. :) Enjoy.

Dear Walking Shadow,

I remember the first time I became aware of your existence. It was in the middle of English class in 10th grade. I barely knew anything about you then; I only caught a glimpse of you in the corner of my mind's eye. However, your mysterious nature intrigued me. At first I thought you were like all my other ideas; you would wander around in my head for a while, and maybe we'd have a brief relationship, but ultimately we would go our separate ways and forget all about each other. But then I found that I couldn't stay away from you. When I wasn't spending time with you, I was thinking about you. I daydreamed about you in class. I couldn't sleep at night. It felt like you were there with me no matter where I went. You were so new and exciting. My friends loved you. Even my parents approved of you. I was starting to think you were The One.

But then, I began to see your flaws. It was inevitable, as it is with all long-term relationships. You were too boring, too clichéd, too long. Yet, I stuck with you and tried to help you deal with your imperfections.

Alas! Then the literary agents came along. They confirmed all my fears about you and more. Our relationship began to fall apart. For months, I didn't even want to look at you. I had relationships with other stories, but they weren't quite the same. At last, I shyly approached you again.

Although you have changed a lot in the past few months, I still feel us becoming more distant from each other. Some days, I admit, I want to give up on you completely.

And so, I have written this letter as a reminder to myself, that on all those miserable days when I think there is no hope for you, I am being a total idiot. Thousands of authors have suffered relationships like ours and somehow managed to make it through. Plus, even if you're not perfect, you've improved quite a bit. I mean, look at you! You've lost more than 70,000 words. You look good.

No matter what stupid things I've said, I still love you and I always will. I can always help you to get better. I'm still in this if you are.

Love,
Brigid

The Next Harry Potter?

2011-07-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, I finished reading the final Harry Potter book yesterday. I know, I'm behind on the times. Everyone and their grandma and their dog read Harry Potter before me. But that's not the point.

I wanted to point out something that annoys me about YA books. Don't get me wrong––I love YA. I read it, I write it. It's wonderful. What bugs me is the popularity contest.

High school never ends, eh? It's like how one day, the most popular girl in school walks in wearing a green hat, and everyone says, "Oh, she's wearing a green hat and she's popular. Maybe if I wear a green hat, I'll be popular too!" And before you know it, everyone is wearing a green hat, so it's not new or exciting anymore.

With books, it's the same way. After the success of Twilight, everyone started writing vampire books and other such paranormal romances. After the success of The Hunger Games, everyone started writing dystopia books. And in both cases, the trends got terribly old. (I wasn't old enough to be reading YA when Harry Potter first came out, but I'm sure there were a lot of wizard rip-off stories as well.)

I read a Wall Street Journal article about James Frey that really pissed me off, in which he said something along the lines of, "Someone has to write the next Harry Potter. Maybe it will be me." Okay, okay. Just stop there. There are so many things wrong with this picture.

First off, James Frey doesn't even write his own books. He uses (and abuses) ghostwriters. "His" YA book, I Am Number Four, is part of a plot to make unknown writers crank out books for him, so he can then market them to movie producers––which is why the book and movie versions of I Am Number Four came out at practically the exact same time. (I didn't see the movie, but I read the book. And yes, it was terrible.) Did he make a lot of money? Oh, sure. But to compare himself to J.K. Rowling ... ? Ugh. I just want to throw up. (If you don't know this already, Frey is also the author of A Million Little Pieces, a notorious memoir which turned out to be fictional. And he lied to Oprah. So, shows what a great guy he is.)

Has Harry Potter made a lot of money? Oh, heck yes. Tons and tons. Have Twilight and Hunger Games made a lot of money? Yes and yes.

I'm not talking about the quality of any of these books, or my personal enjoyment or opinion of them, but regarding the authors ... None of them were trying to set up an enormous money-making scheme. They were all authors who just wanted to write and share their stories––and, beyond their control, they became wildly popular.

But being popular and making money definitely don't automatically put you on the same level as Harry Potter. It ticks me off when people say Twilight and/or The Hunger Games are "the next Harry Potter", because the three series really aren't comparable. And not just because Harry Potter is evidently the most popular of the three. It's also that Harry Potter is a much more beloved series––and I suspect it will remain that way, while the craze over Twilight and The Hunger Games will probably fade over time. J.K. Rowling put a lot of time and effort into her series, which involved very careful planning, world-building, and detailing. It's rare that a YA book series is so critically acclaimed and reaches such a wide audience of people––and that its popularity can remain just as strong for more than a decade. If any YA author hopes to achieve such success, he/she will have to work just as hard. But more than that, he/she will have to be just as original.

What's sad is that so many YA authors seem to sit down and think, "Okay, what can I write that will make me more popular?" And when they struggle to be more popular, it shows. (Like how, when all the girls at school start wearing green hats, they don't look cool ... They look like copy cats.) As I said before, authors like J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Suzanne Collins did not intend to be trendsetters. It just worked out that way. They wrote stories because they wanted to, not because they were trying to imitate someone else, which is what made their books appealing to so many people.

So what I'm saying is, don't write something just because you think people will like it. Write your own story. Write what you love. Write about characters you care about. You have to be new and daring. You have to be the first girl to walk into school wearing a green hat.

Or else, well ... You're just going to look stupid.

You know you're a writer when ...

2011-06-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

- In your dreams you think, "This would make an awesome story." (Although usually the dream is about something stupid, like talking zebras.)

- You look in bookstores/libraries for the place on the bookshelf where your book would be if it were published. (At my local library it'd be between a book called A Taste for Quiet and a collection of short stories called Gothic!)

- You say to your sister, "I need a stupid boyfriend name and a bunch of gay guy names" and she automatically gives suggestions without questioning.

- You're talking to your writer friend in public and say something like, "I don't know, I might kill him. I just have to think of a good way to do it." And then you realize the people around you don't know you're talking about a fictional person.

- When someone asks you, "So how's that book you're reading?" you give them a long speech analyzing the plot and characters that they really don't want to hear.

- ... But when someone asks you, "How's that book you're writing?" you respond by banging your head against the closest inanimate object––preferably against something large and solid like a wall or a table. Or you burst into tears. Or you do both.

- Whenever you watch movies/TV you're always on the lookout for actors/actresses who look like your characters.

- Your computer is full of documents containing stories, outlines, and character inventories.

- Everything inspires you––people, places, songs, books, movies, photographs, paintings, plants, animals ... Heck, LIFE inspires you!

- You write because you exist.

So, tell me. How else do you know you're a writer? :)

Editing. It's all about letting go.

2011-06-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

I used to think editing was just about fixing typos, adding in a few more details here and there, and calling it a day. Ha!

If anything, I've been taking things out of Walking Shadow, not adding them in. Originally, the manuscript was nearly 170,000 words long. Now it's a little under 98,000 words. That means I've taken out approximately 72,000 words, which is about the entire length of Unraveling (the shortest novel I've written). And I'm still word-chopping. Yikes.

I used to think a bigger word count would make me look more impressive or something. The truth is, a huge word count makes you look unprofessional. It means you're afraid of editing and letting go.

But you have to let go. You have to kill your darlings.

Last year I tried querying Walking Shadow when it was still nearly 150,000 words long. (Oh God, what was I thinking?) The first time an agent suggested cutting it down to 100,000 words, I just about had a heart attack. Cut out 50,000 words? When I'd already cut out 20,000? NO WAY!

But then I started reading through my manuscript again, and I realized there was a lot I could cut out––adverbs, dialogue tags, the hideous word "that", needless descriptions, telling instead of showing, statements of the obvious, etc. After going through the whole thing again, I managed to cut it down to about 99,000 words.

And I'm still going. Recently I've been taking out 300-word chunks of my manuscript and chopping them down to about 250 words. This forces me to refine every sentence, reshaping them so that they have the same meaning but in fewer words.

But editing is more than fixing typos and cutting out unneeded words ...

This morning I cut an entire scene. It was a good 1,500 words or so. I'd been debating over whether to cut it out or not for a long time––because I always thought it was a fairly well-written scene ... but, well, it was a scene where the main character starts cutting herself, and in the end I decided it was too melodramatic and clichéd. Not only that, but it seemed uncharacteristic of her since she was kind of doing it over a boy, and I didn't want her to seem all whiney and pathetic. There are too many of those girls in YA literature these days, and I don't want Cassandra to be one of them.

So that's something else important to think about when editing: creating meaning. What are you trying to say? What message are you conveying?

Nothing is going to be perfect the first time you write it. The first time you write something, it's just like talking; you write whatever comes to mind. And like the brilliant Lemony Snicket once said, "If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then al;dkfj;dsf;jsd."

Okay, that didn't really have anything to do with anything. I just really, really like that quote.

Anyway, if you want to read a longer rant of mine about editing, you can check out this older post.

Anyone else have editing tips and/or methods? Please share!

First Page Contest with Victoria Marini

2011-06-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

So, here's what's up.

Fellow blogger and YA writer Shelley Watters is hosting a contest on her blog, "Is It Hot In Here Or Is It This Book?". The idea is, writers submit the first 250 words of their manuscripts, and the entries will be judged by literary agent Victoria Marini of the Gelfman Schneider Literary Agency. The winner will receive a full request from Victoria, as well as a partial critique. Victoria will also select runners-up, who will receive partial requests.

Awesome, right?

Full contest rules are here.

As part of the contest, writers are posting their entries on their blogs for critique. So, without further ado, here is my entry. Critique away!

brigidrgh@gmail.com
Walking Shadow
YA Fantasy
99,000 words

Everything is a lie––their faces, their words, the books on their desks, the clothes they wear. It's a barrier as fragile as a bubble. Underneath it, there is only emptiness.

I know their fears, their secrets, the feelings they hide. I know their loneliness; it emanates from their minds, building from a whisper to a murmur to a scream that ricochets around in my skull.

One of the shrieking souls is my own. I may not be normal, but I'm still human. I share their pain. On the inside, we're all screaming.

But I've learned that I'm different. I accept the scathing mess of words their minds throw at me: freak, girl, freak, witch, goth, freak. I don't care what they think, as long as they never know the truth. They can think I dyed my hair blood-red, that my reflective eyes are contacts. They can think I wear long sleeves because I cut myself, even though I'm hiding something very different from the furious red slashes they'd expect.

I don't blame them. It's human to make judgments. If I had a choice, I would make them, too.

Instead, I have to know everything about everyone––who hates who, who's sleeping with who, who's doing drugs, whose parents hit them. Thoughts and dreams and memories and fears all burst inside my head like fireworks … and someday, I won't be able to take it anymore.

I never asked for this. I sure as hell never wanted it. My whole life, I've kept it inside. And it's killing me, crawling through my veins like a disease.

How long before it takes over––before it takes me, like it took my mother?

What I learned from Query Shark

2011-06-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

In case you've never heard of it, Query Shark is a wonderful blog created by literary agent Janet Reid. The idea is, writers send in their query letters, and some of them get critiqued on the blog. A literary agent critiquing query letters, you say?! Yes. Very useful stuff. It's an extremely helpful and eye-opening blog.

Ms. Reid suggests reading through all the posts––which I did, and learned a lot of things about queries I didn't know. I recommend looking through the blog and reading all the posts if you have the time. But I figured that most people didn't have the time, so I thought I'd give an overview of the notes I took while I read through the blog. Some of these things I already knew, but others I'd never thought of before.

I know I said I'd try to cut down on such lengthy posts, but, this one required a lot of detail. And trust me, I cut it down a LOT. A lot of stuff goes into query-writing.

So, here we go. The rules of writing a good query letter.

- Remember: the query letter should not only tell what the book is about, it should also show how well you write and how your professional you are.

- DON'T put contact information at the top of the query letter, and don't include it in the query letter. Put it at the bottom, after you sign your name. (Include your full name, address, and phone number.)

- Don't put your title at the top of the query letter. It will be included within the query letter.

- Start off with a normal salutation. Not "Greetings!" or "Good evening!" Just plain old "Dear Mr./Ms. [agent's last name]. And NEVER "To Whom it May Concern" or "Dear Sir or Madam"; these just show you don't know who you're querying, and therefore you did not do your research.

- Immediately get into the story. Don't start with an introductory paragraph; don't put the title and word count in the first paragraph. Put this information in the last paragraph. Agents seem to be split about this, but according to Ms. Reid, "A quick drop into cold water is EXACTLY how you want to start a novel (and thus a query.)" She says the very first word in the query should be the main character's name. Describe what he/she wants and what is preventing him/her from getting it.

- Don't start with a log line––aka, a one-sentence summary of the entire plot.

- Don't start your query with a quote or random fact. (i.e. "Did you know that a thousand elephants turn purple every year?" ... Obviously this is just an example, and not actually true.)

- Don't start with a rhetorical question. (i.e. "Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be a purple elephant?")

- Don't start with clichés. (i.e. "In a world ...")

- Don't start off by saying what kind of agent you're looking for; if you're querying an agent, it's understood that said agent represents the genre of your book. (i.e. "I'm looking for an agent who represents fantasy.") Yes, it's good to personalize queries, but you should cite specific articles/blogs/interviews/etc., not just mention what genres the agent represents, because that's vague and impersonal.

- Open with the important event, not with backstory. Don't start with a setting. Start with a character and an action/choice he/she must make. Also, don't start with a clause rather than the subject. (i.e. "Prancing through the daisy fields one day, Mary Sue makes an unexpected discovery.")

- Don't quote the book in the query letter.

- Make it clear who the main character is; don't mention too many characters, or it becomes too confusing. Focus on one or two characters; mentioning three or more characters is pushing it. Query Shark says, "Think of characters as headgear. One thing on your head is fine, two might work, and but three is too many. Plus three and you're past calling the Fashion Police, we're calling the guys with nets."

- Don't put the names of characters in ALL CAPS or put their ages in brackets; that's the format for scripts, not for query letters.

- Don't write in first person point of view of your characters. Avoid this and all other gimmicks. To an agent, a gimmicky query signifies crap writing; that is, you have to write a "quirky" query because your book is not good enough to speak for itself.

- No second or first person in the plot summary. Don't use "I". Don't use "we". As the Query Shark herself says, "There is no 'we' in querying, much like there is no crying in baseball."

- Make the main character sound like someone the reader can sympathize with, even if he/she is not a "good" person. If his/her motivations just don't make sense, the agent will lose interest. And if you can't make the motivations make sense, there might be something wrong with more than just your query; there could be something wrong with your book.

- The reader of the query should feel a connection to the main character. You have to do more than tell "what" the main is. (i.e. "Mary Sue is a teenage girl.") You have to show what the main character is like. (And I mean show, don't tell! Don't write, "Mary Sue is a very determined person." It should show, through her actions, that she is determined.) But don't spend too long describing what your main character is like. The letter is primarily focused on plot.

- Show and don't tell, and be specific.

- Only mention characters' choices if they are relevant to the central plot.

- Focus on the plot in the query letter. If you can't describe an actual plot, then there is something wrong with the novel itself.

- Sense of stakes and sense of choice are important. What choice does the protagonist have to make, and what consequences will follow?

- Basic form of the plot summary, provided by Query Shark: - Basic form provided by QS: "What does the protagonist want? What's keeping him/her from getting it? What choice/decision does he/she face? What terrible thing will happen if he chooses ____; what terrible thing will happen if he doesn't." OR "The main character must decide whether to ____. If s/he decides to do (this), the consequences/outcome/peril s/he faces are ____. If s/he decides NOT to do this: the consequences/outcome/peril s/he faces are ____." And don't just fill in the blanks; use it as an outline to get your information in the proper order. Don't give a list of events.

- Entice readers with what happens at the start of the book, not the end. That is to say, don't give an entire plot summary and definitely don't give away the ending.

- Keep it short and sweet, but long enough that the agent feels a bit of a connection with the main character (that is, understands why readers might sympathize with the main character). It should have a clear sense of voice.

- Story comes first. Don't sound as if you're trying hard to make a point or convey a certain message.

- Don't put random words in quotes. Query Shark says, "Quotes imply something is NOT what you say it is. Example: Oh yes, Cruella DeVill is a real 'dog lover'."

- Write in present tense, and don't switch tenses!

- Don't use showy, overcomplicated writing. Write in short, declarative sentences. Start by writing sentences that are 10 words or fewer, then revise into longer sentences only for the sake of clarity. Avoid rambling, jumbled sentences. And try not to use metaphors.

- Write the title in ALL CAPS (not in italics or underlined or anything like that) and try to avoid punctuation in the title besides commas. Don't say your book is "named" anything. It is either "called" or "titled". Also, do some research and make sure your title is not too similar to other popular titles.

- Read a lot of books in the category you're writing in; understand the audience. Make sure you know your genre. For example, YA books have teen protagonists. If your book does not have teen protagonists, don't call it YA––especially if you just want in on the YA market because it's hot right now.

- Genres should be one or two words, no more. Don't say your book is a "paranormal romance thriller", for example––choose either "paranormal romance" or "thriller".

- Don't say your full manuscript is "complete" or "immediately available"; it's expected that if you are querying, your manuscript is complete and available.

- Agents are skeptical from the start with unusual word counts. It varies based on genre. But generally, under 70,000 words is probably too short, and more than 100,000 words is probably too long. Some agents might even auto-reject based on word count alone. So before you start querying, check out your word count. You might not be done editing.

- Don't try to excuse or justify your word count. (i.e. "I know it's long, but ...")

- Writing credit has to be relevant. Publication is writing credit; nothing else is. Writing for your school newspaper and such is not enough. If you don't have any credit, it's fine. But don't struggle to make it sound as if you do. If you have none, don't mention anything, and don't tell the agent that you are inexperienced.

- Don't mention self-published or vanity-published books. Like it or not, agents generally don't respect self-publishing.

- You don't need to be qualified to write a novel; that is, you don't have to go through the same things as your characters in order to write about them.

- Don't tell the reader what your book will make them think or how it will affect them. And don't make your novel sound like a self-help book. That is, don't talk about how much it will "empower" readers.

- Don't compliment your own book. Query Shark says, "Telling me your novel is an altogether soaring tale is like telling me your kid is good-looking. I'm sure you believe it (I hope you do in fact) but I'm not going to believe you until I've seen the kid myself. In other words: show me, don't tell me."

- Don't mention test/beta readers. Sorry, but the agent really doesn't care what they think.

- Don't say how you think/hope readers will respond to your work. Don't say your book will appeal to both male and female readers. You don't actually know these things.

- Don't compare your book to other books; that's someone else's job.

- Don't say your book is part of a series––or if you must, say it's part of a "potential" series. Saying you've written a series makes the agent think you've written several "okay" books; it makes you sound less focused on revising one, good novel.

- Don't write about how your own story makes you feel, or about how attached you've become to your own characters. You think it will show the agent how passionate you are, but instead it makes the agent think you will take rejection too personally and that you are not a serious writer who will be willing to make revisions.

- Never offer exclusivity. And you don't really want exclusivity, either. It's best to query widely.

- Don't "recap" at the end of the query. It's not an essay, so you don't need a "concluding paragraph". Never repeat what you've already said.

- Don't dismiss yourself. Don't say you would be "humbled" if the agent asked to see your novel, etc. Just a plain old, "Thank you for your time and consideration" will do.

- NEVER, NEVER attach materials unless it's in the agent's guidelines to do so. Copy and paste excerpts, synopses, etc. into the body of the email. Attaching anything might make the letter end up in the agent's spam folder. Also, agents just plain don't want to have to open anything.

- Proofread. Don't misspell anything. Have other people proofread your query to make sure there are no stupid mistakes. Or at least read your query out loud to yourself a few times.

- Keep queries short but not too short. Around 250 words is a good length.

- Cut down your word count as much as possible. Start off by taking out all the uses of the word "that" which you don't need. Then change all the instances of "was [verb]-ing" to "[verb]ed" and you'll probably cut out a few thousand words. (Use Ctrl+F, aka "find") Take out adjectives and adverbs.

- Never use emoticons in queries. Ever. :)

- Only use plain text. No italics, no bold, no underlining. No weird fonts. No weird colors.

- Don't send in a huge-ass block of text. There should be double spaces between paragraphs, and there should be about 3-4 paragraphs, with the plot summary being the longest one. Make sure there is a lot of white space. Query Shark says, "White space is CRUCIAL."

- For e-queries, don't use weird subject lines. Include the word "Query" and your book's title in the subject line. Email to different email platforms to make sure the letter doesn't show up in a weird color.

Well, folks, that's about it. Of course, you don't necessarily need to follow all these rules, and sometimes breaking them might work in certain cases. This is just a general guide. I know it's overwhelming, but after drafting your query a few times you'll realize it may not be bad at it seems. I wish you luck!

As always, I appreciate your feedback. So if you thought this was helpful, or you have any comments/questions, let me know! :)

I Gave My Blog a Makeover

2011-06-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

So, I decided I should make my blog look a bit more interesting––hence the new background, layout, heading, etc.

As you can see, I also added a couple new pages (because I just figured out how to do that). So now you can read about me and my writing. :)

I now have over 150 followers and almost 10,000 page views (yikes) so I'm thinking I should start taking this thing more seriously––which means I hope to post more often, and to make my posts a bit more concise so no one has to drown in my rambling.

Thoughts on the new blog design? Suggestions for topics to write about?

You have a brain. Use it to comment. :)

The Romance Rant

2011-06-10T14:17:00.001-07:00

Greetings, writers!

I realize I haven't written on many "random" topics lately––besides my rant about the Wall Street Journal article. So today, I thought I would give my ROMANCE RANT!

I do a lot of (rambling, informal) book reviews (on Goodreads). And especially with recent YA books, I find myself ranting a lot about the romances. Especially because so many of them are the same ... and not very interesting.

Lately, the trend seems to be:

1) The main character is an awkward, and/or insecure teenage girl, who lives in a small town and thinks no one will ever like her and nothing will ever happen to her. In other words, she's a Mary Sue.
2) A mysterious, sexy boy moves into town from some weird foreign place and ends up in one of the girl's classes at school. (And for some reason it always seems to be science class––I guess because ... chemistry? Nyuck nyuck!) OR vice versa: the girl moves into a new town from some weird foreign place, and meets a mysterious, sexy guy at school.
3) Mr. Sexy stalks the Mary Sue for a while, showing up absolutely everywhere she goes. And she's like, "Hmm, that's kinda weird. Lolz. Whatevs." (Because it's not like he's a stalker or anything ... I mean, he's HAWT!)
4) They eventually start making out with each other, usually in a very short period of time. (No need to develop a relationship after all, because they're soul mates!)
5) Somehow the girl ends up mixed up in all the guy's weird problems, and he's all like, "Boohoo! I should have never brought you into this!" ... etc.

I think you get the idea. And we can all probably name about ten (if not more) recent books which follow this outline. But I don't want to seem like I'm pointing fingers here, so I won't. I also see a lot of teenage writers writing this type of story. No, these books/stories aren't necessarily bad ... but they could be less clichéd. And more realistic.

So why is this type of story so popular? Well, because it's what teenage girls wish would happen. I mean, hey––I'm an insecure teenage girl. If some random sexy guy appeared in my life and suddenly fell in love with me, that'd be pretty cool. (Although, I'm not sure I want guys climbing through my window and watching me sleep ... Errrm.)

I guess there's no harm in giving insecure girls hope that one day they'll be in relationships. The only problem is, these types of romances don't happen in real life.

Which is why I prefer much more drawn-out, developed romances. I don't like this idea of "soul mates"; really, it's just an excuse to not adequately develop a relationship between two characters.

I want to care about both characters involved; I'm tired of these stories where the guy is an object to be drooled over, while the girl is just a prop. They both have to have flaws and insecurities. They have to be unsure about their feelings. They have to struggle and argue like normal human beings do––yes, even when/if they officially become a couple. The more you make readers wait, the more badly they'll want the romance to happen ... which is why it pays off more in the end, when it finally does happen! If the two characters get together on page 50, it seems way too rushed and unrealistic.

Some YA books/series with great romances in them (in my opinion):

1) Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
2) The Darkest Powers trilogy by Kelley Armstrong
3) The Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan
4) The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness
5) The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
6) North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
7) Graceling by Kristin Cashore
8) Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (Well, she has several good romance books, this one's just my favorite.)
9) Unwind by Neal Shusterman
10) The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
11) The Host by Stephenie Meyer

So, anyone else have an opinion about YA romance? Have an other reading recommendations? Please share! :)

First Paragraph Critique - an untitled story by Cara

2011-06-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

It's time for another first paragraph critique! Hooray!

A reminder about my critiques:

You can email paragraphs to me (brigidrgh@gmail.com) or if you have a Goodreads account you can post them in this thread.

Before you submit, you might want to read this post on what I think makes a good story beginning (and revise your paragraph accordingly). And try not to go over 100-200 words. That might not seem like a lot, but I try to be very thorough. Also, I will always get your approval of my critique before I post it. :)

This paragraph comes from my Goodreads friend Cara. Hope you all enjoy this and find it helpful! :)

----------

Paragraph:

"The night is quiet and snow softly falls around me. There's a thin layer of it covering the road I walk on. There are no stars out, no moon. The lights of the big white houses are all out. No lights are allowed on after midnight, except for the streetlights. The air is cold but it's not too bad and there's no wind. It would be the kind of night Pax would call perfectly beautiful, except she is not here and the beauty is ruined by the remnants of a burnt down house."

What works:

1. This opening instantly puts the reader in a clear setting––on a dark street, lined with big white houses, and it's snowing. Right away, the reader has a clear picture of where the beginning of the story is taking place.

2. There are surprising and mysterious elements in this paragraph which create an air of intensity. There's something "off" about the whole thing that grabs the reader's interest. There's not much explanation, but there doesn't necessarily need to be ... because it shows a lot without telling, while still leaving room for curiosity. The reader gets the feeling that we're in some sort of creepy futuristic/utopian society. ("No lights are allowed on after midnight, except for streetlights.")

We don't know who Pax is, although it can be assumed she is a friend of the main character––and the narrator pointing out that "she is not here" adds to the creepy feeling. Who knows––maybe I'm reading into things too much, and Pax is just not there because she's at home. But the fact that her absence is mentioned, alongside the sudden mention of a "burnt down house" seems to suggest that something bad might have happened to her. Either way, the reader is immediately engaged and has several questions in mind: Where is this taking place? Who is Pax? Why is she not there? Why is there a burnt down house?

What could be improved:

1. "The night is quiet and snow softly falls around me. There's a thin layer of it covering the road I walk on. There are no stars out, no moon."

--> This doesn't immediately grab my attention because it's just a description of snow. I don't feel engaged/interested in the paragraph until "No lights are allowed on after midnight ..." This is the first striking sentence to me, because it's unexpected and original. I suggest rearranging the sentence so that you start with this sentence and build the rest of the paragraph around it:

"No lights are allowed on after midnight, except for the streetlights. The lights of the big white houses are all out. The night is quiet and snow softly falls around me. There's a thin layer of it covering the road I walk on. There are no stars out, no moon. The air is cold but it's not too bad and there's no wind. ..."

2. "The air is cold but it's not too bad and there's no wind."

--> "Not too bad" is a bit vague. What exactly do you mean by that? If the air is cold, why is it "not too bad"? Does the narrator not mind the cold, or possibly even like the cold? Or you could even cut out the "not too bad" and leave it at, "The air is cold, but at least there's no wind."

---------

You do an excellent job setting a tone and setting. I recommend grabbing the reader's attention just a little sooner, and being more specific in places, but over all this is a pretty solid beginning. Great job!

Good luck with your writing endeavors! :)

YA Saves! (A Response to the WSJ article "Darkness Too Visible")

2011-06-05T04:59:00.000-07:00

I thought I should bring attention to a recent issue. I don't normally do this kind of thing, but this time I just couldn't resist.

So, yesterday Wall Street Journal released an article, Darkness Too Visible in which they deemed modern Young Adult fiction "rife with explicit abuse, violence, and depravity". The author goes on to point fingers at books such as The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Scars by Cheryl Rainfield, and Shine by Lauren Myracle.

The article suggests that you can't go into the YA section of a bookstore without being faced with "lurid and dramatic covers". There's one quote from a 48-year-old mother, who leaves the bookstore empty-handed because apparently the YA section "was all vampires and suicide and self-mutilation, this dark, dark stuff." Well, first of all, not all YA books are about vampires, suicide, and self-mutilation. Secondly, the latter two are a regular conflict in teen life––like it or not. What are you going to do, hide your kids in a box and never let them glimpse reality? Adolescence is a transition between childhood and adulthood––and how can you expect teens to become responsible adults, if they are never exposed to adult material?

"The argument in favor of such novels is that they validate the teen experience, giving voice to tortured adolescents who would otherwise be voiceless. ... Yet it is also possible—indeed, likely—that books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people ..."

Seriously? The author of this article obviously does not understand the concept or purpose of Young Adult fiction. At least she's right in saying that YA fiction gives voices to the voiceless––but implying that books about self-harm encourage self-harm? What?

Look, Wall Street Journal. Just because something happens in a book does not mean that the author encourages it to happen in real life. In fact, usually it's the opposite. In literature, harmful actions result in consequences. That's what a story is. It needs to have a conflict. Furthermore, the purpose of dark YA literature is not to rape the minds of innocent children. Firstly, teenagers are not children, and they can make decisions for themselves. Secondly, YA fiction is not focused solely on darkness; it's about hope. I know I, for one, don't read YA books because I have some kind of morbid fascination with bloodshed and self-mutilation––no, I read these books so I can discover characters I love, so I can see how their relationships and their strength prevail even in the darkest of conflicts. I walk away from most books feeling inspired, not depressed.

I'm graduating from high school today. Somehow I've managed to survive the past four long years, and a lot of credit goes to reading and writing. Without both these things, it would have been near impossible to cope with stress. Reading has helped me become more knowledgeable about the world, to realize that life can be terrible but that things can always get better. Writing helps me release any of my inner turmoil, and to expose truths and issues that I care passionately about.

Maybe I'm a bit biased, being a teenager, and quite an open-minded one at that. But on the other hand, this Wall Street Journal article is extremely biased as well. Besides the first sentence in the above quote, there is almost no support for dark concepts in YA fiction at all throughout the article. There are no quotes from teens themselves, or even from YA authors––except a brief quote from Sherman Alexie, which the author of the article basically ridicules.

As a writer of YA fiction, this article made me very nervous at first. When my work is published, is it only going to be shot down by a terribly closed-minded world? Luckily, I was given hope by the wonderful Maureen Johnson––who is one of my favorite authors, and also a very awesome person––who immediately started a protest of this article via Twitter. She started a hashtag, #YAsaves, in which people share stories of how YA fiction has helped and inspired them. #YAsaves is currently the #1 tag trending worldwide, and has gained support from YA authors such as Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Laurie Halse Anderson, Malinda Lo, Sarah Dessen, Gayle Forman, and Shannon Hale ... and many others, I'm sure. I'm only naming ones I've seen thus far.

So in a way, the release of this article is almost a good thing. It started a very important conversation, and it also encouraged readers and writers everywhere to voice their love for YA fiction. I was furious at first, but seeing such a strong backlash against the article has given me so much hope.

Any thoughts? Opinions? Stories? Do you think YA fiction is too dark? And/or has YA fiction helped you any way? Please share! (Or better yet, share on Twitter! #YAsaves!)

First Paragraph Critique - Cloaked in Shadows by Kenny

2011-05-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

Remember that *SHINY NEW FEATURE* I talked about? Well, it has actually come into existence! In case you don't know or don't remember, I am now offering to critique other writers' first paragraphs and post them here. You can email paragraphs to me (brigidrgh@gmail.com) or if you have a Goodreads account you can post them in this thread.

Before you submit, you might want to read this post on what I think makes a good story beginning (and revise your paragraph accordingly). And try not to go over 100-200 words. That might not seem like a lot, but I try to be very thorough. Also, I will always get your approval of my critique before I post it. :)

So without further ado, I bring you my first critique ... This paragraph is from fellow Goodreader Kenny, whose story is called Cloaked in Shadows. I hope all ye writers enjoy this and find it to be useful.

----------

Paragraph:

"I woke with a start and the dream shattered, falling to oblivion in tiny image fragments that made me want to reach out and catch them. I needed to know what I had dreamed. What I had seen. Something told me it was important to figure this out. So I searched my mind for the scenes. I came up into the light again frustrated and fruitless. I was right in saying my dream had shattered...because it did. I could not find it anywhere inside me. I dislike a lot of things, but one of the things I loathe the most is forgetting. And so I told myself that I must remember."

What works:

1. In this first paragraph, you've already created a strong mood. I'm guessing something supernatural is going on here; usually acknowledgment of dreams implies that, and these seem to be "unusual" dreams, too. It's mysterious, and it makes the reader wonder what the person dreamed about and why it's so important for him/her to remember the dream.

2. The image of the dream "shattering" is strong and specific. It's striking how you describe the dream breaking into pieces and how the narrator tries to "catch" them.

3. The reader can tell the narrator is frustrated, and it's something we can all relate to. Everyone's had trouble remembering a dream before. It's a very aggravating feeling, and you describe it well––how the dream seems to have "shattered", how the narrator tries again and again to remember it, only to fail.

What could be improved:

1. "I woke with a start and the dream shattered, falling to oblivion in tiny image fragments that made me want to reach out and catch them."

--> There's a parallel structure problem here. That is, the two clauses don't quite match up with each other. The subject of the first clause is "I" ("I woke with a start ...") but the "and" sets off a different part of the sentence, in which the "dream" is the subject. The dream "shatters" and "falls to oblivion in tiny image fragments". Since the subject is now the "dream", the end of the sentence should read "that made me want to reach out and catch it" (not "them"). However, I assume the narrator wants to reach out and catch the "fragments", so this idea would probably be more clearly expressed in another sentence.

I would recommend cutting this sentence in two. "I woke with a start and the dream shattered, falling to oblivion." Then in a second sentence, be more specific about the fragments––what about them makes the narrator want to catch them? What are they doing? Dancing? Glittering? Strong verbs are key! "The fragments were [verb]ing in a way that made me want to reach out and catch them."

2. "What I had seen."

--> This is a fragment––that is, it's not a complete sentence. You're probably aware of this and using the fragment for effect, which is fine. As long as the writer knows his/her grammar rules, he/she is free to break those rules intentionally if he/she knows what he/she is doing. Having only read the first paragraph of this story, it's hard for me to judge whether this fragment is needed. I'm not saying it should necessarily be taken out, but I don't think it needs to be there since "what I had dreamed" already implies that the narrator has "seen" something.

3. "Something told me it was important to figure this out."

--> Try to avoid the phrase "something told me", for two main reasons. One, it's vague. What is it that makes the narrator think that remembering is important? Does some specific feeling or sensation make the narrator feel that way? Two, it's telling rather than showing. It seems like the author stepping through the narrator to tell the reader that this is important. In this case, I think you could take out the sentence completely; it's already clear from the rest of the paragraph that the narrator is struggling to remember the dream, implying that it's important to him/her.

4. "I was right in saying my dream had shattered...because it did."

--> Should be "because it had"

5. "I dislike a lot of things, but one of the things I loathe the most is forgetting."

--> This could be more specific. Everyone dislikes a lot of things. I would suggest giving particular examples of what else the narrator dislikes. Maybe something like "I dislike [blank], and I hate [blank], but what I loathe more than anything is forgetting." Not only would it be more specific, but it would tell us more about your narrator. Which brings me to my next point ...

6. We don't know much of a backstory here. No, I'm not saying that the first paragraph should be an info dump, but you could show a lot more about the narrator. In the very first paragraph, the reader likes to have an instant connection with the main character. And "readers" might include literary agents. You may or may not be thinking about publishing quite yet, but it's something to keep in mind for the future. Literary agents have to read a lot of query letters and excerpts every day; some even skip reading the query letter and go right to reading the excerpt. If they don't feel that instant sense of originality and strong character, they might reject the writer solely based on the first paragraph.

So, you want to be clear about who's narrating the story. A boy or a girl? What age? What time period is it? What is the narrator's personality like? You don't necessarily have to include all these things, but at least acknowledge a couple of them so that the reader gets a sense of who's talking. Right now, all we know is that the main character has strange dreams.

Furthermore, the "waking up from a dream" beginning is kind of a cliché. You want to start off your story with something that hasn't been done before, because that's something else that will peak the reader's interest. Everyone has weird dreams sometimes––so what makes this story different? Why should the reader continue reading to find out more?

7. You could cut down on repetition a bit. In the one paragraph you use "shattered" twice, and out of the 9 sentences, 6 begin with "I". (Also some with a conjunction followed by "I"––i.e. "And so I...")

---------

Over all, you've set the mood well and created some strong imagery/emotions, but here are some things you could consider:

- Parallel structure
- Fragments
- Being specific
- Establishing a narrator/setting
- Sentence/word variation

Good luck with your writing endeavors! :)

5/17/11 - Teaser Tuesday

2011-05-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Hello there! It's Tuesday again ... and I haven't posted a teaser in quite a while.
So, here's a bit more of Rage, since it's really the only thing I've been writing lately. Enjoy! ;)

----------

I couldn't bring myself to believe that Neal would follow me all the way here, into the forest.

But there he was, walking toward me, and coming to a stop only a few feet away. It was then that I saw, he was carrying his crossbow in one hand, wearing the familiar quiver of arrows on his back.

“Back to your old ways, I see,” I said, since he didn't bother to greet me.

He shrugged. “Looks like it.”

“What do you think you're doing here? You shouldn't be here.”

“Neither should you.”

“What are you talking about? I'm the Sacrifice!” It was the first time I'd said it out loud. I'm the Sacrifice. The words nearly made me cringe, made my blood go as cold as winter.

“You know what I mean. No one should be here,” Neal said. “And that's why I need to put an end to it.”

I finally lowered my knife. “You can't be serious.”

“I'm going with you. I've always said I would kill the Monster, and now is my chance. Our chance.”

“You're not bringing me into this … this plan of yours.”

“You can't go through the forest alone.”

“I have to!” I burst, silencing him. “This is the way things are, Neal. I was chosen as the Sacrifice, and now I have to make this journey by myself.”

“How do we even know the Monster is there?” Neal shot back. “Everyone who's gone into the forest––everyone who's not a Sacrifice, that is––supposedly gets killed by demons. How do we know the Sacrifices are any different? What if they never reach the Monster at all? You used to say these things yourself, Natasha …”

“And what? I don't say those things anymore? I'm not myself?” I said. He was silent. “What right do you have, to tell me who I am?”

Neal sighed, shaking his head. “I've known you a long time, you know. You don't know how much I notice. In fact, you think I'm an idiot.”

“What does that have to do with anything? No matter how observant you are, you don't know anything about me. I'm not the same person I was three years ago.”

“I know,” Neal said, with a quietness that surprised me. “You really went into the forest that night, didn't you? That's what changed you.”

I couldn't see his face clearly in the dark, so I couldn't guess how serious he was being. “You didn't believe me,” was all I could manage to say.

“I don't think I ever said that,” Neal said. “I didn't know whether to believe you or not. But you were … different, after that. And I started to believe it was true.”

“Then why did you stop talking to me?” I demanded. “Why did you keep treating me like you thought I was crazy?”

I saw Neal turn his head away, although I still couldn't read the expression on his face. “I … don't know. It's so complicated. I was still trying to decide why you'd told me, of all the people you could have told.”

“I told Brandon,” I said. I didn't mention telling Mother Dearest; something about saying it felt wrong.

“But not your mother?” said Neal. “Not Michelle? Not anyone?”

“I didn't think you would believe me.”

“But I do.”

I sighed, wondering how much time I could afford to waste. I wondered if the Monster was waiting for me, whether he'd kill me if I didn't come at the expected time. At the thought, an invisible tight fist seemed to clench around my heart.

“Well,” I said, “if you believed me then, then believe this now––I know things about the forest, things I can't explain. Ever since I came out of it alive, I haven't been able to get rid of all these … these strange feelings. The forest does things to us, to our minds. It's dangerous, and it's unpredictable, and it has a certain … balance. And I'm afraid that if that balance is disturbed, it could mean terrible danger for the Village. Whether that's the Monster's doing or not, I don't know.”

“But what you're saying is …”

“We shouldn't break his rules,” I finished Neal's sentence for him. “No one ever has, and we don't know what the consequences are.”

“What if there are no consequences? What if, all along, we've had a chance to defeat him, but we're too afraid to try?”

Even though I wanted to cry, I could feel a bitter smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “You know, you're the only Villager I've met who would dare to say such things.”

“I could say the same about you,” he admitted.

I swallowed. “But I still believe there's a reason for the Sacrifices, and I'm going to find out what it is.”

“On your own.”

“That's the way it has to be. Trust me, you should stay here. You're more needed in the Village than out here. Someday, your dreams about killing the Monster will seem like … like silly fantasies, to you. You're not thinking this through.”

“But I've been thinking, since the moment you were chosen for the sacrifice, and I …” He trailed off, sighing. “No. All along, I knew you were going to react like this.”

“What? React like––”

“Let me finish. I figured it couldn't hurt to try, but I had a feeling you'd say no. You wouldn't want me to go with you. But as much as I hate to admit it to myself … and I hate saying it now … I also knew, all along, that you're probably better off alone. And I––I don't mean that the way it sounds. I guess what I'm saying is … I trust you, Natasha. I trust to to take care of yourself, to survive.”

“And if I don't?”

“You will. If anyone can defeat the Monster, it's you.”

Long Time, No ... Blog

2011-05-15T14:22:00.001-07:00

Hey guys!

I realize it's been well over a month since I last blogged. How did that happen? Guess I've been pretty busy. I apologize. But, it's good to be back and blogging again!

If you didn't notice, I got some new "pets" on my page. Check out the fishies over there --> Cute, eh? :)

Notable things that have happened in my life since I last blogged:

- I decided I am going to Hampshire College this fall. Woohoo! :D
- Primarily I've been focusing on writing Rage. I'm on about page 80 now and a little past 45,000 words, although I'm a bit stuck ... Hopefully I can get myself out of the corner I've written myself into. I also got an idea for a new story, which I'm having difficulty explaining to people because I'm not entirely sure what it's about yet ... Let's just say, it's about ballet and sibling rivalry, and yesterday I read a 30 page guide on amputations. (Oh, the things I do for writing.)
- I didn't make it to the semifinals of ABNA, and my Publishers Weekly review of Edge was ... not so positive, but it had its useful tidbits. The reviewer called my book "video game esque", "lukewarm", and "dotted with stock characters" among other things. However, he/she said the writing was "consistent enough to maintain interest" and that there was "potential for a riveting story here in this manuscript"––so, at least there's some hope. I saw the reviews of some other manuscripts that were far less encouraging, so I'm grateful mine at least suggested there's a chance it could be a good story. The review will be helpful once I start editing Edge again––although that probably won't be for a while since it's not my primary focus. And I'm glad I at least got a good review of Walking Shadow last year.
- I've been thinking of adding something *NEW* to this blog. (Besides the fish...) But I would need some help from you guys. See, I've been thinking I'd like to post critiques of other writers' first paragraphs, if anyone is willing/interested. I could do it once a week, like a "First-Paragraph Friday" or something. I think it would help to blog more about the editing process and show it in a more hands-on style. So, if anyone would like a critique feel free to email me! (brigidrgh@gmail.com)

Hope everyone is having wonderful lives and success in their writing. I will try not to fall off the face of the Blog-World again anytime soon. :)

Tuesday's Coming! Did you bring your coat?!

2011-04-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Ah-hem. It's Tuesday! (The title of this post is a reference to Rejected Cartoons––which you shouldn't watch if you are easily disturbed O_o)

So now it's time for a Tuesday Teaser! Lately I've been working on Rage more than anything else, so I guess that is what I will post for today. Enjoy!

“Natasha, dear. You're shaking. What's wrong?”

I bowed my head. “Mother Dearest, I … I don't know if you'll forgive me for what I did.”

“I'll always forgive you, dear.” She placed one of her hands over mine. “Now tell me, what is it?”

“I went into the forest.” I said it before I could stop myself. I dared to look up, and saw Mother Dearest's gray eyes grow wide.

“Do you mean … ?”

“Yes. I went … far into the forest. It––It was a demon that attacked me.”

A moment ago, Mother Dearest's hand had been gentle and comforting, but now she gripped my wrist with surprising strength and hissed, “What were you thinking?”

I'd never seen her like this––her eyes blazing, her whole body trembling. It took me a moment to get over my surprise and find my voice again.

“I don't know,” I answered hoarsely. “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” Mother Dearest repeated the word like it carried a fatal disease. “You could have disrupted the entire balance …” She trailed off, sinking back into her chair again and letting go of me.

I rubbed at my throbbing wrist, my head reeling.

“I'm sorry,” Mother Dearest sighed, but I could see that she was still shaking.

“No, I … You have a right to be angry,” I said. “And I know I should never have gone into the forest. But, listen to me. I––I need to tell you what I saw.”

Mother Dearest didn't protest, but she didn't urge me to keep speaking, either. She only looked at me, her face draining of color until it was nearly white. Although I'd always known she was old, I'd always thought of her as being eternally young and strong. Now, for once, her age showed in every line on her skin. She appeared so small, so frail. I was almost afraid my words would break her apart … yet, I had to tell her. She was the only one who would be able to do something, if anyone could.

“I think … I think maybe the Sacrifices are still alive,” I said.

Mother Dearest still didn't answer. She only gazed at me, the fire flickering in her eyes.

“I met someone in the forest,” I went on, my voice lowering until it was almost a whisper. “It was dark and I couldn't see, but … I'm pretty sure he was a human being. And he knew Caroline. He thought I was her.”

Mother Dearest looked away, holding tightly to the armrest on her chair. The only sound in the room was the fire crackling.

“Please,” I said, at last. “You have to believe me. There was someone in that forest, and … and my sister could be out there, too.”

“I believe you,” Mother Dearest answered, her voice empty of emotion. She slowly rose to her feet, and stood before the fire with her back facing me. “Who else have you told?”

“What?”

“Did you tell anyone else about what you saw?”

“No, I … only Brandon.”

Mother Dearest turned toward me, half of her face illuminated in the fire's orange glow, and the other half in shadow. “And what did he say?”

“He said not to tell anyone. But, I felt like I had to tell you. I thought you'd know what to do.”

“Hmm,” Mother Dearest murmured. She strolled away from the fireplace, walking along the wall and trailing a hand over her books. “Natasha, you would be wise to listen to your older brother.”

Almost involuntarily, I jumped to my feet. “What?”

“I don't want you telling anyone else about this.” Mother Dearest pulled a book from place and opened it, leafing through its pages.

“But––But I know what I saw!” I burst, unable to contain myself anymore. “I'm not insane. Don't you understand? We need to do something!”

“Like what?” Mother Dearest snapped, slamming her book shut. “Send everyone into the forest with their weapons, only to be slaughtered by demons?”

“But––”

“Our population is dwindling, Natasha. We can't afford that.”

“But what about the Sacrifices? What about Caroline?” A lump swelled in my throat, choking my words. “We need to try …”

“No.” Mother Dearest turned around briskly, pushing the book back into its place on the shelf. “I don't want to hear another word about this. I don't want you spreading this story of yours throughout the Village, either. I want you to pretend like this never happened, do you understand?”

No. No, it wasn't supposed to happen like this. Mother Dearest was supposed to make everything all right. She was supposed to see that this was our opportunity to go into the forest, to save the Sacrifices, to kill the Monster.

“I'm the only person who's ever made it out of the forest alive!” I cried. “How can you tell me to forget what I saw?”

“Because you were never supposed to see it,” Mother Dearest said. “And your story will only endanger the other Villagers. Please, Natasha. Stay away from the forest, and never tell anyone what you saw there.”

“I …”

“Promise me.” Mother Dearest's eyes flashed, like a pair of gray storm clouds flickering with lightning.

I looked down, noticing how my dirty old shoes appeared out-of-place in the middle of the intricately designed carpet.

“Yes, Mother Dearest,” I whispered. “I promise.”

Guest Post: Nellee Horne on Self-Publishing

2011-04-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

OH, BOY! FIRST EVER GUEST POST! I KNOW YOU'RE ALL EXCITED!

So, I mentioned that this would be happening in my most recent post, "On Being Brilliant". But, in case you forgot, Nellee is a friend I met through ABNA (which she also entered) . She's the 16-year-old author of Meeting Death (Kensey's Story), which is available on Amazon. She also has a wonderful blog which you guys should check out. :)

Nellee is a self-published author. Now, I have no experience with self-publishing. I chose to go the traditional publishing route, because a) I get professional feedback from literary agents (even if they reject my manuscript), and b) I hope that if my book is published traditionally, it will reach a wider audience. Also, tremendous success in self-publishing is rare––but there are inspirational cases such as Amanda Hocking and Christopher Paolini. And with her great determination, I'm sure Nellee will also go very far with her self-publishing endeavors!

So, without further ado, I present to you Nellee Horne's post about why she loves self-publishing! Learn and enjoy!

Ok, I’ve met a lot of people in the writing communities who are either for traditional publishing, self-publishing, or are split down the middle. In this post I will discuss my decision to self-publish.

I attempted to traditional publish a little over a year ago. I didn’t try that hard so it’s not like my decision was because I was desperate.

I sent a query directly to a publishing house and then to an agent. They rejected me. Well, they said it was because they were busy with other projects which I could easily understand. They receive possibly thousands of queries a day and they don’t have enough agents to look over every one and pick anyone. It took from February 12 to March 22, 2010 just to hear about the query, which was a summary and the first twelve pages of my book. I immediately began searching for new agents to try, but found some articles and reviews from people who talked about how great their experience was with self-publishing. I discarded it because one of my friends had said before that self-publishing was really hard and I wanted to make it to the best-sellers list and go on tour and be a common name among YA readers like Cassandra Clare, Stephenie Meyer, etc. (I think most writers want that.) I didn’t want to do that, but it interested me so I kept researching.

I found out about this woman (and I’m still trying to find this particular article for my friend Brigid here :)) who wrote an eight book YA series. The last book was split into two because it was too long. But, the editor completely changed the beginning of the eighth book without the author’s permission. She protested but because the publishing house owned most of the rights, there was nothing she could do. That really made up my mind. I wanted my book to be the way I wanted it to be; I didn’t want somebody who thought they knew what readers want and what not.

I looked into self-publishing again. I looked at what I had to do, people’s experience, and people’s success with it. I read one woman (she went with Lulu.com not CreateSpace like me) who self-published a book about her story of cancer or some kind of disease and she was interviewed by Oprah! I was amazed!

I also found out about some authors switching to self-publishing. Now why would they do that? They had an agent, they had an editor, they were going on tour, and they were selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Why would they give that all up? Because they could keep all of the rights and they could make a living.

Some people won’t read or review self-published books because they automatically assume that the person must have been desperate or this was their last resort and they must have been rejected by tons of agents. I could totally see that, but it’s simply not the case for most authors who self-published. It wasn’t for me.

I published my 300 page, 109,000 word YA novel with CreateSpace and Kindle publishing. I knew what was ahead when I made this decision, but I knew that, if I tried hard enough, which I was determined to do, I could make it to Oprah. (Then I found out that Oprah was ending so I changed Oprah to Ellen :))

Publishers and agents like to believe they know what readers want in a YA book. No they don’t. Here are some examples:

1) Look up Amanda Hocking first of all.

2) Freddy Krueger. That movie was rejected by all of the studios. However, the director or producer or whatever believed in his work so much and knew in his heart that it could be big, he decided to do the hard thing and make his own studio and make The Nightmare on Elm Street an independent film. Well, it’s become a 500 million dollar franchise. He brought the movie to the people and let them decide how far it was going to go.

3) Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. This is a little different but still the same outcome. It started with an idea and then a shop. Then, they wanted their ice cream to appear in stores. Pillsburry didn’t like that so they tried to tear them down and threaten them because they saw Ben and Jerry as competition. Ben and Jerry brought it to the people; let them know what Pillsburry was trying to do. The people sent tons of complaints to Pillsburry and they backed off.

4) America…the people rule.

It’s always the same outcome, isn’t it? I figured I’d let the people decide how far my book goes. It can go far but then it can’t.

A publishing contract does not guarantee success.

I read this comment somewhere: The good thing about self-publishing is that anyone can publish a book. The bad thing about self-publishing is that anyone can publish a book. So true.

Jacqueline Howett is a perfect example. (Brigid interrupts to say ... If you don't know who Jacqueline Howett is, read this blog post and the comments on it, and … then you'll know.)

The ones who can’t write outweigh the ones who can and who just want more control and rights and what they believe is best for their book. People like Jacqueline give people like me and Amanda Hocking and a lot of other self-published authors a bad name. It breaks my heart especially when I read things like, “And this is why I don’t review self-published books.”

Financially, it’s a great choice as well. An author who has been with a publishing house for seven years only gets $0.68 per paperback while I can get $3 per paperback and per e-book. If I and a traditional published author sell 100,000 copies in one year, who makes more? I do. I’d make $274,000 while he/she made $68,000. That’s about how much my father makes in a year. Some authors make less than that yet they sell the same amount of copies and they still have a day job.

I would like to make a living off my books. I want to be a full-time author, not part-time.

I know it can be difficult, but with all this social networking, it’s easier than how it used to be. Word of mouth can get you far.

I really want to be that person who shows people the other side to publishing. I want to be an example of perseverance and determination. I don’t have someone providing everything for me. I can’t go on tour and I can’t set up book signings myself. I don’t have the time what with my school and everything. But, I can let all that go for more rights and for my family to have a better life than what we have now. I just want to be an author, but I also want to be a self-made woman and to be an example and show others that you can do it yourself.

I know, very long post. :) Here's a post from the dark side! Muhahah! JK

Thank you, Nellee! :)

So, what do you think, fellow writers? Do you prefer self-publishing or traditional publishing? Why? Are you undecided? Share your thoughts!

On Being Brilliant

2011-03-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

I'm in a happy mood right now, so I'm going to write a random blog post expressing my random thoughts.

Four exciting things first:

1. I got into Hampshire! Yaaaaay!!! :) Now to choose … Hampshire or Emerson, Hampshire or Emerson … Well, I have about a month to think about it. And it depends on a lot of boring money stuff and whatnot. Anyway ...

2. My ABNA excerpt is now up on Amazon! It's available as a free Kindle download. So you can read it if a) you have a Kindle, or b) you download the free Kindle app. If you guys would check it out, that'd be just splendid! *thumbs up* Thanks! Love ya!

3. This blog will soon experience its first guest post, from my friend and fellow teenage writer, Nellee Horne. She's 16 years old and is a self-published author! Here is her blog and a link to her book on Amazon. :)

4. One of my plays was chosen to be featured at a young playwrights festival this Thursday ... I even get to rehearse with the actors and stuff! *squee* I will most certainly blog about this. :)

Now, for today's topic ...

ON BEING BRILLIANT.

I had an epiphany about this lately, so I thought I'd share it with the world.

At some point (or at many points) all writers must wonder, "What makes an author brilliant?" Surely you've read something before that was so good, it made you want to tear your own writing to shreds. You finished reading, and you thought, "Why can't I be that gosh darn brilliant?"

We tend to use the word as if it's a God-given trait. But the truth is, no one is born brilliant. In fact, the world's most acclaimed authors are/were extremely critical of themselves. For example, James Joyce nearly burned his original manuscript of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, and similarly Vladamir Nabakov attempted to burn Lolita. Harper Lee threw To Kill a Mockingbird out a window after working on it for five years.

I don't know about you, but I find these things pretty shocking! To think the world could have lost some of its most amazing books because their authors thought they would never be good ... ! Ack, I don't even know how to complete the thought. It blows my mind.

But then again, I am very critical of my own writing. I doubt I'd ever go so far as to burn (or otherwise destroy) anything I'd written, but there are definitely many days where I hate my own work––where I attempt to write or edit, and I end up crying in a fetal position instead. (Well, not literally––most of the time––but you know what I mean.) Just ask any of my writing-ninja friends; they have to tolerate my whining every single day. Bahaha.

It's not that I don't believe I'm talented. If I didn't think I could achieve brilliance, why else would I write? Is it not the writer's life goal to change the world with one book, to make everyone see life in a new way? There must be some reason why I'm sitting here, banging my head against the keyboard ... Because I have something to say, godammit! I just need to figure out how to say it, first. I have to find my own voice.

That's what all writers want to achieve––the ability to express the meanings of life in a way no one has done it before. And as I'm sure you all know, it's pretty dang frustrating. You often have that feeling like "It's all been done before. Why am I so special?"

But the thing is, that's the feeling that helps you get better at writing. That's what drives you to keep trying. If you already said to yourself, "Hey! I'm brilliant!" you'd stop trying to get better. You wouldn't try anything new, and you wouldn't take any risks.

That's the thing about the world's most brilliant authors ... They don't realize how brilliant they are! It's the struggle to create something ideal, which drives them to try crazy new things in their writing. That dedication and courage is, ultimately, what makes a writer unique and unforgettable.

Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts!

Another wonderful Tuesday! (And this one is particularly wonderful)

2011-03-22T15:48:00.001-07:00

Hello, blog-world! I have two very good pieces of news today. :)

1. I GOT INTO EMERSON. AAHHH! I'M GOING TO COLLEGE. (Assuming I get the financial aid I need and whatnot.) I'm so excited! For those of you who don't know, Emerson has an excellent writing program. And it's right in Boston, so I'd still be close to home. So psyched! :)

2. I MADE THE QUARTERFINALS OF ABNA. So, I got two reviews on my excerpt of Edge. I'm pretty happy with them.

The first reviewer said the strongest aspect of the excerpt is the voice. "The writing sounded like an 18 year old was talking rather than an adult trying to be hip or a forced teenage voice." HA! How funny is that? ;) And he/she concluded by saying, "The author has a clear vision of what he sees and how his characters feel, and expresses it concisely and fully. I loved it, and will be looking forward to it’s release." Well, despite the typo and the fact that my reviewer thinks I'm a man, that's pretty good stuff! (Actually, I'm happy that he/she thinks I'm a man since my protagonist is male. Guess I make a convincing boy!)

The second reviewer was not quite so positive ... He/she said the strongest aspect is that the plot is "interesting" and it has a good hook, etc. However, he/she said it was "frustrating to read. Maxwell (the main character) is an idiot. ... But he IS amusing in his stupidity." I guess that could be taken as harsh ... but I'm not all that offended. I actually agree, kind of. Max does start off as rather stupid ... but (I hope) he develops more, later on in the story. ;) And even if he is idiotic, he is endearingly so! I still love him. :) Anyway, this reviewer ended by saying it was better than 80% of the excerpts he/she had read, and that it was "pretty good". *Shrugs* So it's not a glowing review, but it's not scathing either and I'm thankful for that.

What both reviewers seemed to agree upon was that Max accepts his situation too easily. He just wakes up with no memory, has a voice in his head telling him what to do, and he's like "This is weird, but … OKAY!" And yeah, I think they're right. The pacing is a bit rushed. So, I should work on that. :P

I guess the lesson to be learned here is, you need to give your characters strong and realistic emotional reactions in order to hook the reader. Part of what draws the reader in isn't just a good plot (although that's also pretty essential), but also a character that is real and relatable.

So, this means I'm going to get a Publishers Weekly review. HOLY TALKING MUSHROOMS. I'm terrified. Well, I'll be sure to update on that once I get it. (Which will be on April 26th. *already biting nails*) And soon my excerpt of Edge will go live on Amazon (so it will be available as a free download for Kindle! Woot woot!). I'll post a link as soon as it goes up! :)

Also, I recently did an interview about Walking Shadow with Ana Mardoll––a vine reviewer from ABNA. Check it out here!

It's Tuesday. You know the drill.

2011-03-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

Hello, people out there! Wow ... does this blog really have more than 5000 views? That's pretty awesome. :)

I'm not really writing anything currently, but I'm giving Walking Shadow another edit. (Still need to cut out about 30,000 words. GRRR!) So, I figured I'd post another teaser from it today. I think I've only posted one teaser from it before, anyway.

Now I need to finish writing a poem for Writing class. (What else rhymes with "grow"? *chews end of pencil*)

Enjoy this (very short) teaser, in which Cassandra has creepy dreams and such. Oh, and the "eyes on the walls" refer to the paintings she's done all over her room. So yeah. HERE IT IS!

Tonight, I dream of a place I've never seen. A layer of snow glitters on the ground, but the air isn't cold. The sky is a pale shade of pink. The strangest thing is, there are roses growing everywhere––their vibrant, blood-red petals standing out against the starry whiteness.

My footsteps whisper against the snow. I gaze around in wonder, as an unfamiliar tingling feeling rushes through me. Whatever it is, it makes me turn around … and that's when I see him.

He kneels on the ground, his dark clothes standing out in the bright landscape. A rose pokes out of the snow near to him, and he reaches for it. His fingers curl around the stem, and he plucks the flower from the ground. A thorn pricks his skin, and drops of blood stain the snow red.

The edges of the petals fade from red to ashy gray. The darkness spreads like a burn, all the way down the shriveling stem. He lets the crumpled flower fall, where it lies in the bloodstained snow. He looks up, and I feel the electric shock of recognition when I meet his eyes, so dark that they're almost black. There's desperation in them, like he wants to tell me something.

But he doesn't have a chance to say it, because everything is already gone.

My heart beats violently, like it's trying to break out of my ribcage. I rub at the goose bumps on my arms, blurring the drawings on my skin. This is the time when I'd normally reach for my pen, but I've turned to stone. I close my eyes and I can see it still, painted on the backs of my eyelids. The white snow, the roses, drops of blood falling, the flower shriveling and dying, his dark eyes looking up into mine––questioning, pleading.

Restlessness overtakes my mind, dragging me out of bed. As I pace around my room, the eyes on the walls watch my every step.

I've never seen that part of the Otherworld. And he wasn't like the Othersouls that I'm used to encountering. He seemed more human.

More alive.

Because Answering Questions is Fun!

2011-02-26T07:33:00.001-08:00

So, in my last post I asked if anyone had suggestions for what I should write about and I got three very good questions from Cora ... And I figured I'd just answer them in this post because they're probably useful to all you teenage novelists out there. Here we go!

1. How do you deal with the times when you just want to give up, crawl into bed and eat Cheetos because you won't ever finish this novel/project? Have this ever happened to you? If not, how did you stop it from happening, or was it just by chance that you never experienced this?

Hmm ... I don't think I've ever entirely lost faith in a novel. That is, even if I'm extremely frustrated with something, I figure I'm just not ready to write it and I'll move on and get back to it later. But sure, I've been in many writing slumps where I moped around going, "My book sucks ... It'll never be any good ... I'm going to bang my head against a wall ... Blaaahhh." But there's always something you can do to get yourself out of this slump.

My first suggestion would be––as hard as it is––force yourself to write. Just start with one sentence, and see what happens. A lot of the time, I discover that the only reason I was "stuck" was because I was being lazy and not trying. But if you absolutely can't think of anything, try doing something else. Make an outline, do character inventories, etc. Even move on to another project if you have to! Just because you set something aside temporarily doesn't mean you're giving up. Sometimes you can't help it, and you need to wait for inspiration to strike!

2. I've been working on this novel idea but a new one just sprung into my head. It's not as developed as my original idea, but I'm really excited about it. How do you get out of the cycle of this happening again and again?

Actually ... I don't. According to my "STUFF I'M WRITING" folder, I'm juggling 8 stories right now––and that's not counting all the ideas I have but haven't started yet. Granted, I haven't touched most of those stories in a long time, but that doesn't mean I won't go back to them.

There's nothing wrong with writing more than one story at once. If you have an idea––by all means, start writing it! I know how tempting new ideas are. They're all big and shiny, and not tainted with plot holes yet ... *sighs dreamily* It doesn't hurt to write a first chapter or two. But make sure that you don't have a thousand first chapters and no complete stories. Personally, I like to outline all my stories so I have an idea of where they're going; that way I have a reminder that yes, cool things will happen in this story so I shouldn't abandon it! You have to remember to finish what you start––but it could take months or years, and there could be other stories in between. For example, this is what my past year in writing has looked like:

1. Finished Walking Shadow
2. Edited Walking Shadow
3. Started Unraveling and Rage at about the same time
4. Continued writing Jump after about a 6-month break ... Wrote more of Unraveling and the occasional chapter of Rage
5. Edited Walking Shadow again
6. Kept writing Jump ... Also wrote the first chapters of Sky-Fall and Spill
7. Finished writing Jump
8. Didn't write much for a few months ... Maybe wrote a few chapters of Unraveling
9. Started writing Zenith and kept writing it for half of November ... Then halfway through November switched over to Unraveling, which I kept writing until the end of November
10. Edited Edge
11. Went back to Unraveling and finally finished it
12. And now I'm trying to decide between writing Rage or Sky-Fall while also outlining a bunch of things, and thinking about editing Walking Shadow yet again.

*Whew* So as you can see ... There are 8 stories mentioned in there, and I still managed to finish three of them! You just have to remember to go back to things you've started, even if it takes a while.

3. If you talk to parents/teachers/friends about writing novels, have you ever experienced the "Oh, good for you!" kind of reaction, when it's plain in their faces that they don't believe you're any good, based on your age? You're older by now, but did you deal with this when you were young?

Hmm. I don't remember ever getting a reaction like that––at least, I've never interpreted it that way. Usually I keep quiet about my writing, especially around adults ... but if it comes up, usually people seem pretty impressed and enthusiastic. Honestly, I don't think adults care about the quality of teenagers' writing; it's kind of a given that teen writing isn't perfect. But we all have to start off somewhere, and adults know that. If you tell an adult that you're a writer, he/she will probably just be impressed that you take the time to write in the first place. After all, it takes a lot of dedication.

And even if they do think, "Oh, she's probably no good" ... then so what? You can't control what other people think. But you know how much you love writing, and you know how good you are. So, isn't that all that matters?

Thanks for the questions, Cora! If anyone else has questions, feel free to ask :)

Victory Dance

2011-02-25T08:13:00.000-08:00

Hello, citizens of Blogger world!

So, I have two great pieces of news.

1) I finished writing Unraveling on Wednesday night. Woot woot! It's my shortest novel so far––a little under 70,000 words. But my ninja-writers love it, and I'm pretty happy with it. So, it's taken me 18 years and 8 novels, but I've finally written a realistic fiction book. IT'S A MIRACLE!

2) The second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest was announced yesterday. And I made the top 1000 in the Young Adult category with my novel Edge! *releases a long breath* So, I got through round one––in which my pitch was judged. Next comes the excerpt round, which I'm more nervous about. This is what happens, according to the rules:

Between February 24, 2011 and March 13, 2011, our expert reviewers, including Amazon editors and at least one Amazon Top Reviewer, will review and judge the Excerpts of each second round Entry. The expert reviewers rate each Excerpt on a scale of 1 to 5 on each of the following criteria:

a) Overall Strength of Excerpt
b) Prose/Style
c) Plot/Hook
d) Originality of Idea

*bites nails* Well, last year I made it through this round (and the round after it), but this is a totally different story so ... we'll see! Wish me luck!

As a random side-note that's not very exciting at all ... I've actually started to use my Twitter account. So if you have one, let me know! (I'm @BrigidRose)

The Quarterfinals of ABNA are announced on March 22nd, so I'll update then! In the meantime I'll have to choose some other project to work on. Luckily I have a bunch of unfinished stories to choose from. Urgh. And I'll probably do some other posts, although I'll have to come up with ideas ... Any suggestions? :)

Hey look! It's Tuesday again!

2011-02-22T15:27:00.001-08:00

Well, before I post my Tuesday teaser for this week, I have a few things to say.

First of all ... I'm almost done writing Unraveling! *gasp* I hope to finish it this week, in fact. Which means I have to race through this blog post and then get back to writing, because I still have a bit of work to do before it's done. Wish me luck!

Secondly, I did a guest post on my friend Ally's blog, Novel Ideas Life of a Teen Writer, which you fellow writers out there MUST check out––not just because of my post, but because the blog is amazing and Ally gives excellent writing advice! (My guest post is on the topic of fantasy writing, by the way.) So if you have the time, I would be ever so happy if you'd stop by and take a look!

Thirdly, Round 2 of ABNA is announced on Thursday! I will be sure to update then ...

And now for the teaser! I know I posted one from Unraveling last week but ... I'M GOING TO DO IT AGAIN, because it's the only thing I've been writing lately, anyway. :) So here it is ... In Which We Find Out Emily's Middle Name. Huzzah!

I didn't know your middle name until we were about ten years old. I knew almost everything else about you––the scars that hid under your sleeves, the pain and the fear that hid beneath your smile. But I'd never known the secret name that hid between Emily and Lawrence. Maybe it seems like something insignificant, but once I knew it I felt as if I had some new level of power.

You told me late one night, when we were having a sleepover at my house. We were closed away in my room, like we were sealed from the rest of the world. I was painting your toenails bright red, one by one. We talked as I did this––or, it was more like you were doing the talking while I was concentrating.

I don't even remember how the subject came up. I just remember the small details––how that stinging smell of nail polish seemed to rush up my nose and burn between my eyes, how my hand shook slightly as I struggled not to make a single mistake, how that perfect shade of red reminded me of so many things. Like strawberries. Or blood.

Although I don't know how the seed was planted, somehow the question sprouted from my mouth. “What's your middle name, anyway?”

You were oddly silent. “What's yours?”

I don't know what it is with people and their middle names. Everyone is so guarded about them, like they're trying to protect some hidden identity. In elementary school, kids swap them like secrets, whisper them into each other's eager ears. They compete for worst place, seeing whose parents managed to come up with the most hideous one. Personally, I never had much of a problem with mine, and I almost felt like there was something wrong with me because I didn't.

So when you asked me, I went through all the steps I'd seen the other kids do, like it was choreography: the dramatic pause, the wrinkling of the nose in disgust, the quick shake of the head.

“Come on,” you said. “Tell me.”

I finished painting your nails, and I carefully avoided your gaze as I screwed the cap back onto the bottle. You wiggled your freshly red-tipped toes and chanted “Tell me, tell me, tell me” until it became a single word––“Tellmetellmetellme”.

“It's Ashley,” I said, finally.

“Ash-ley,” you repeated, dissecting it. “Mia Ashley Wise.”

“Okay. I told you mine. Now it's your turn.”

You kept your mouth shut and shook your head.

“Come on. It's only fair.”

“Nuh uh.”

“You promised!”

“No I didn't.”

“Emily. Please?”

You gave the signaling sigh of defeat, which I knew meant I had won.

“Fine,” you said, and closed your eyes for a second. “My middle name is George.”

I waited for the twitch of a smile, something to betray the joke.

“You're kidding.”

“Shut up.”

“You're serious?”

Your face went red, almost the same color as the nail polish on your toes.

“Your middle name is George,” I said, trying to process this. I would have laughed, but there was something in your face that stopped me––an unusual hardness in your eyes.

You looked away, resting your chin on your drawn-up knees. “It was my dad's name.”

As always, a dark feeling stirred inside of me at the mention of your dad. When we were younger, it had felt too strange to talk about. It was too difficult for me to imagine growing up without a father. And for you, you didn't know what it was like to have a dad. Yet, you had accepted that empty aspect of your life for what it was.

Now that we were older, it was difficult in a new way. You were old enough to start questioning what your drunken mother had told you. Sometimes you asked me, What if she's lying? What if he's not really dead? But then the thought of him being alive brought you other fears, like, If he's still alive, then where is he? Did he leave because of me?

And then there were even more questions that neither of us dared to voice out loud. Did your mom beat you because of him? Did she look into your eyes and see someone she had once loved, someone who had betrayed her? Left her?

So, I didn't laugh at your middle name. I just held it inside, felt it burn away at the inside of my stomach. Emily George Lawrence.

“Anyway,” you said. “George can be a girl's name, too. There's some writer or something named George, and she's a girl.”

I shrugged, not wanting to argue with you. “Okay.”

But I couldn't get rid of the strange, rushing feeling. I finally knew something about you that wasn't beautiful.

It was like that Greek myth we read that year in school. You probably remember it. Everyone kept laughing because it had the word “ass” in it, even though the teacher kept desperately explaining to us that, in this contest, ass meant donkey.

Anyway, in the story there's this king, Midas. And he does something rude that results in a curse that causes him to grow a big pair of donkey ears. He wears fancy hats and whatnot to cover up these ears, but one day his barber comes to cut his hair and sees them. King Midas tells the barber not to tell anyone, and the guy doesn't. But keeping the secret inside is killing him, so he goes around whispering to plants, “King Midas has an ass's ears!” And the wind takes the secret and spreads it all over town until everybody knows.

So, I didn't tell anyone. But the truth was always bursting to come out. When no one was around, I could whisper it to the walls, to the ceiling, to the darkness. “Emily's middle name is George.” Maybe the words are still caught in the wind somewhere.

TuesdayTeaserWhatNow?!

2011-02-15T18:13:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so … I totally forgot that this "Tuesday Teaser" thing existed. But then I remembered, and––hey, it's Tuesday! So, what the heck. I haven't been writing much lately, sooo nothing new to share. Just a tidbit of Unraveling that I wrote during November, in which Mia wanders around in her old, abandoned house. How cheerful! Enjoy. :)

The house feels haunted. As soon as I step inside, the screen door swings closed behind me. I jump, my heartbeat accelerating wildly. Then I remember that the screen door always closed that loudly. Funny, I wouldn't have remembered that if I'd never come back here. I'll probably forget it as soon as I leave.

It's sad how our minds erase the little details like that––the sound the doors make when they close, which steps on the staircase creak the most, the way you have to jiggle the handle on the toilet just the right way in order to make it flush. You always find yourself adjusting to a new place, forgetting all the rituals that kept you alive in your old habitat.

I walk in a slow circle around the abandoned living room. My sneakers squeak against the wooden floor. I look out the window, and the sight outside is so familiar and yet so alien. It makes my chest ache. I try to picture the room furnished again––couch here, coffee table over there. But I can't picture it right, no matter how I try. No, no. Maybe the couch was over here. I don't know. Maybe we moved the couch a few times.

I sit down in the middle of the floor. Shivers shoot up my spine. “This is mad creepy,” I mutter to myself. My voice sounds strange in the stillness. Immediately, I feel like the shadows are closing in around me, strangling me, hissing at me.

You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't speak here.

I eventually get up, and I make my way through the other rooms, a ghost in my own old home. I run my fingers over the peeling wallpaper. I crouch on the floor and draw swirls in the dust with my fingertips. The living room, the dining room, the kitchen. They all throw memories at me in all directions. Every scrap of my history comes back, thrown together in a pile. I'm not sure where all the pieces fit––whether they're real, or whether someone told me a story about my childhood so many times that I believed it to be true. I hastily sew together the truths and the untruths and the maybe-truths, and in the end I'm left with a messy quilt.

I decide that it's time to go upstairs. I hesitate at the bottom, gazing up into the darkness. Something rattles inside my chest––like a penny bouncing around inside a tin can, trying to find somewhere to rest in the hollow area, clanking against the thin barriers surrounding it. The stairway is a tunnel, and it seems to go up and up for miles.

I begin to climb. The steps creak, and I cringe each time I hear the noise. I glance over my shoulder, more than once, to make sure there is no one there to hear. I still feel like I'm not alone, like the ghosts are following me everywhere.

At the top of the stairs, I stop. It's dark, even darker than it was on the first floor. I know where the hallway's light switch is. I could reach out now, flick it on. But it probably wouldn't work. There wouldn't be any power, right? And anyway, it feels wrong. The shadows belong here. Here they have stayed for the past two years, and I have no right to take away their kingdom. I'm an intruder.

I move through the dark hall, and I swear I can hear the sound of my heartbeats, bouncing off the walls. My breathing becomes shallow as I reach my bedroom door. I place a hand against it, and my fingers are trembling. My knees are weak. I want to slide down to the floor.

But I stay upright. I put some pressure into my hand, push against the door …

No, I can't do it. I can't look. I've made it through the rest of the house, but this is different. As soon as I see my bedroom, dead and empty, it will really hit me. I can't do this to myself. But what if I don't look? I know that if I don't look, then I'll always wonder. I'll always regret that I had one last chance to take a look, and I wasted it.

“Fine,” I mutter to myself. I wince, and I open the door.

As I predicted, it's a painful sight. Right away, I recognize the shape of the room––the four walls, the window on one wall, the other window on the other wall, the way part of the ceiling is slanted because it's right beneath the roof. It used to seem smaller, but I guess that's because my furniture took up the space. There's a darker square in the wood where my dresser used to sit, and another similar dark rectangle where my bed used to be. I walk over to the bed-rectangle, and I stand at its center. I turn around, drawing in my breath, blinking away the sting in my eyes.

I walk over to the closest wall, and I reach out slowly. I imagine my fingers passing through it. I'll realize that I'm a ghost. I'm not real. None of this is real. But the wall I touch is solid. It doesn't give way under my fingers. I press my palm against it. It is cold, hard, dead.

I rest the side of my head against the wall. I used to do this often, when I was a kid. I don't know why, but I found it comforting. I could hear everything––the strange hum, the sound of my parents' voices. It was like the whole house was alive and breathing. But now there is only silence. It's like trying to listen to a grave.

I return to the bed-rectangle. I sit down. I remember the way my mattress used to feel underneath me––springy but firm, always there to support me. I remember my guitar in my arms, how I held it like it was a friend who could protect me. I remember the way it sang to me and drove out all the unwanted noises.

I remember you. I remember you sitting next to me, sitting across from me, sitting by the window looking out at the stars. I bend over, press my hands against the floor, like I'm searching for something. But all that's left is dust.

I close my eyes and I lie down on the ground, right where the bed used to be. The floor is hard underneath me, unwelcoming.

I'm the only living thing in the house, the only heart beating.

It's true. I am an outcast. This house, this whole town, all of it … None of it is a part of me anymore. It's like I've died, this world is dead. If anyone else saw this room, they would never know that it belonged to me. They would never know that it was a part of my life, or that I was a part of its life.

That's the weird thing. We move through phases of our lives so quickly, and we don't hesitate about leaving each of those phases behind. Places fade away, and we leave them to rot and dust over like they never meant anything special. And what's strangest of all is, we don't realize those places are special until after they're gone. By the time we realize how much they mean to us, it's too late to get them back to the way they used to be.

I keep my eyes shut, watching the shapes move and twirl, emerge and evaporate as quickly as the years pass … until there is nothing left but the darkness, and it swallows me whole.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning, a Very Good Place to Staaart!

2011-02-02T07:59:00.001-08:00

Thank you, Julie Andrews. The beginning is, indeed, a very good place to start.

So, if you haven't guessed it already, this post is going to be about story beginnings: a) because it's an important subject that I haven't addressed yet, and b) it ties together my adventures at the Boston Book Festival (which I've been meaning to write about for AGES) and all the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award chaos that is currently going on (because I am frantically editing and re-editing my excerpt).

So, let's start with the "what I learned at Boston Book Festival" part. In case you've forgotten (or I never bothered to explain, possibly), BBF is an annual festival in Boston with a bunch of different events, mostly authors speaking and such. I got to hear several authors speak––Dennis Lehane, Tom Perrota, Kathryn Lasky, Noni Carter, Francisco Stork, and OMG KRISTIN CASHORE. (Did you know she writes her books by hand? Craziness! ... and yes, I'm a little bit obsessed.) So, that was an inspiring experience.

But before I went to any of the author speeches, I attended an event called Writer Idol. The gist of the idea: You bring the first page of your manuscript and put it in a box. A professional actor picks pages out of the box at random, and reads them to a panel of four literary agents. The literary agents each raised their hands at the point where they would stop reading and reject the author. Once two agents raised their hands, the actor would stop reading and the agents would explain why they lost interest ... and they weren't afraid to be painfully honest. And this was in front of a rather large audience of people.

In other words: my worst nightmare come true.

I was convinced to do this without really knowing what I was getting into ... and when I understood what was going on I pretty much had a heart attack. But, there was no going back now, so I sat there and listened to the agents criticize the first few pages. Then––because fate hates me––the actor picked out the first page of Walking Shadow. Luckily the whole thing was done anonymously, but I'm pretty sure the people around me knew it was mine since I said "SH**!" rather loudly and tried to hide under the seat in front of me.

To begin with ... I hate hearing other people read my work out loud. It's one of those things––like how I hate looking at pictures of myself or hearing a recording of my voice. It makes me all self-conscious, so I hear every single flaw. And if that wasn't bad enough, there was a panel of agents sitting there, ready to rip it apart.

The rest happened a blurry nightmarish kind of way. On the bright side, one of the agents said it had a strong voice. The rest ... Well. They didn't like it. They said it was too ambiguous––"It could be narrated by a DOG for all we know!"––and one guy said it reminded him of "Mean Girls" ... but, you know, not in a good way. I guess because Cassandra hates everyone?

They seemed to have the same reaction for all the ambiguous-type beginnings. So, anything that started off all mysteriously was dead meat. Apparently when agents read the first page of your manuscript they want to get a general idea of who the main character is and where the setting is. That doesn't mean you have to start with something obvious like "Once upon a time there was a guy named Joe Shmoe. He was 23 years old and 6'2" tall and he was sitting in a cardboard box ..." But, you know, you want to include something concrete. I'd say, after the first page the reader should at least understand the main character's general age and gender, and something a bit about his/her personality. The setting doesn't have to be described in detail on the first page––in fact, that's boring ... don't do it. But if you, say, mention something about washing machines the reader will know we're in a laundromat or something.

Point is, you want to get right into the action. Set up the plot. Start out with a scene that's original and attention-grabbing.

Beginnings to avoid:

1. The "average life" beginning. I can't tell you how many times I've come across this beginning ... Please don't start a story with someone getting out of bed in the morning, choosing an outfit, brushing his/her teeth, etc. We all do these things every day. IT'S BORING. Start with something unusual.

2. A long description of the setting (as I mentioned before). Yes, descriptions might create clear images, but they tend to bore the reader. Focus more on introducing characters and a conflict.

3. White Room Syndrome: "A clear and common sign of the failure of the author’s imagination, most often seen at the beginning of a story ... “She awoke in a white room.” The ‘white room’ is a featureless set for which details have yet to be invented — a failure of invention by the author. The character 'wakes' in order to begin a fresh train of thought — again, just like the author. This ‘white room’ opening is generally followed by much earnest pondering of circumstances and useless exposition; all of which can be cut, painlessly.

It remains to be seen whether the 'white room' cliché will fade from use now that most authors confront glowing screens rather than blank white paper."

Haha ... I must admit, I am guilty of this one––because it's how Edge starts. I didn't know this kind of beginning was supposedly a failure and a cliché. It makes sense, though ... that since you start with a blank white piece of paper, the first thing that comes to your mind is a blank white room. What I find hilarious is that last sentence ... since I write on my computer, and I started off with a glowing white room. So I guess the cliché will never die, after all. I'd change the idea if I could think of something better ... although I'm not sure if there's another way. Plus the white room comes back into the story a bunch of times. Hrrrrm. Well, uh, point is––try to avoid this beginning.

4. The textbook beginning. A lot of fantasy/sci-fi stories are guilty of this. Avoid prologues that give the entire history of the world; important information should be scattered throughout the story.

5. The "WTF is going on?!" beginning. Yes, it's good to start with some action, but not so far into the action that you fail to ever introduce the setting and characters. You want the reader to feel intrigued, not completely lost.

6. The "dream sequence" beginning ... in which you start off with something totally weird and/or intense happening, and then at the end of the chapter: "And it was all a dreaaam!" It's a fake beginning, in a way, because––well––it didn't really happen. Same thing goes for flashbacks. Try to avoid them.

Now, of course there are exceptions to all of these "rules". Yes, in some cases any of these beginnings could work. So if you've started a story one of these ways, you shouldn't necessarily be freaking out. Just keep in mind, you should try to avoid such beginnings in the future.

And thus ends my rant. Back to editing.

Bashes head against wall GUILT GUILT GUILT

2011-01-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

So, basically I am only writing this post out of guilt, if you can't tell by the title. There is really no significance to it except to assure everybody that no, I haven't forgotten about this blog, and I haven't run out of ideas or anything. I've just been too lazy to update in … errr … three months. Has it really been that long? Crap.

I don't have much of an excuse … except, ya know, school and homework and college apps, etc.

Now, some quick updates.

1) Yes, I did go to the Boston Book Festival (gosh, a looong time ago). I've had plenty of time to reflect on that, so I should have a post up on that soon. I have too much to say to put it in one puny paragraph. Learned some rather valuable lessons there ... the hard way. More on that coming up soon.

2) Natalie Fischer did send me a critique of my query, synopsis, and first ten pages of Walking Shadow. It was very helpful. She said it was well written and all, just that Cassandra didn't seem very likable and that the plot sounded kinda melodramatic .... Sooo I'll take that into consideration when I'm editing (again). But … *winces* … I'm kind of giving up on pursuing publication of Walking Shadow for now. (Oh no, oh no, it's Reborn all over again!!!) I told myself I wouldn't do this, because every time I do, I just give up. But ahhh I'll try to get back to editing Walking Shadow after I finish editing Edge. Which brings me to my next update ...

3) ABNA 2011 has started! I thought about submitting Walking Shadow again, but I'm not very happy with it at the moment, and I figured it wouldn't do any better than it did last year. So, I am submitting Edge. Unfortunately, I haven't touched it in the past couple of years so the writing is pretty horrendous. But, I'm still workin' on it. I have no idea how the contest will treat me this year, but I figure it can't hurt to try.

4) Zenith ... utterly failed. NaNoWriMo failed in general. I wrote about 20,000 words of Zenith, but I just couldn't get into it. The characters just wouldn't open up to me, the plot wasn't going anywhere, I felt no attachment to the story whatsoever ... So, I switched over to Unraveling and wrote 30,000 more words of that for the remainder of NaNoWriMo. And I only met the 50,000-word mark at like 11:15 PM on November 30th. I still haven't finished (or, uh, touched) either of those stories since November. Or any other story, for that matter.

So I guess I haven't been posting lately because all I've been doing lately is––well––failing. Plus I'm real stressed out because of school and college stuff, etc. But I'll try to get my act together and post more soon. *forced smile* *thumbs up*

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF WRITING

2010-10-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

Howdy y'all! It's a four-day weekend! YEEHAWW. Plenty of time to rant … I mean, write useful blog posts.

As usual, I'm going to rant about myself for a few sentences before I get to the important stuff.

So, what's up in my life? Well, this weekend I am going college-visiting! Yay! I feel so grown up.

Next weekend I'm going to the Boston Book Festival; a ton of authors are going to be there (and some agents, too) so that shall be quite exciting and I will post about it. :) If you live in the Boston area you should definitely check it out. (It's free!) http://www.bostonbookfest.org/

Now, on to the fun part of this post.

So, a long long time ago, when this blog was a wee little baby, I wrote this rather long and annoying post called Sooo How Do I Write a Book, Anyway??!! which was probably way too long and rambling and confusing for anyone to want to read. So I thought I'd write another long––but more organized––post on the same basic idea, using a little something my Writing teacher showed us in class the other day.

Frequently people ask me: How do you write a book? Seems like a simple enough question, but a great number of aspiring writers have a problem with pulling together a novel. Luckily, author John Dufresne wrote the simple but useful Ten Commandments of Writing, in which he basically says a lot of the things I said in that annoying earlier post, only in a more concise way. So I'm going to post each of his Commandments and add my personal interpretation/notes to each of them, and hopefully that will be useful.

If you are uber-religious and this offends you … sorry. But then again, I didn't write it. :) Also, the first one has a very mild swear in it. Just warning ya. So here goes.

1. Sit your ass in a chair.

I apologize for the mild profanity. However, it certainly gets the idea across. And it's true. If you want to write a book … you've got to sit down and physically write it. It's easy enough to walk around with ideas floating around in your head, but it takes real dedication to actually sit down and write. It might seem like "No, DUH!" but it's not as simple as it sounds. We all procrastinate. Just give yourself at least a few minutes a day to write. If you have difficulty getting the words out, try out a site like Write or Die. Getting out those few words a day can make a bigger difference than you may realize.

2. Thou shalt not bore the reader.

True that. I know I've said this a billion times before, but DON'T BE BORING–-especially when you get into the later drafts. Sure, it's inevitable that the first draft will be at least a little dull. The first time you write something, there will probably be a lot of needless descriptions, dialogues, inner monologues, etc. and the pacing will be a little awkward since you haven't seen the story clearly as a whole, yet. But once you start editing, you have to let some of those things go. Oh yes, that's a lovely description of a teapot––but I'm sorry sweetheart, it doesn't add much to the story.

For me, this is a very difficult part. I admit, I am often afraid of letting things go. To cope with this … a) Save the original draft, just to make yourself feel better. b) Have someone else (someone trustworthy!), who is not emotionally attached to the writing, chop out words for you. and/or c) While you're editing, thoroughly consider every single word/sentence/paragraph/chapter. On a small scale, does that word actually add to the sentence? On a larger scale, does that chapter actually add to the story? Try to find the important parts and make them stand out.

3. Remember to keep holy your writing time.

You have to be dedicated. If it's really a struggle for you, just write for five minutes every day. Write something––a sentence, a paragraph, an outline, a random description, a journal entry, a blog post. You can always write something, even if it's not necessarily your book. There is inspiration in everything you write.

4. Honor the lives of your characters.

Yes yes yes. This is very important. This may be a matter of opinion, but I think good characters are the most essential part of a book. I've never felt drawn to a story unless I sympathized with the characters. Note: that does not mean, necessarily, that the reader has to relate to the characters. Sure, your main character can be an axe-murderer, but somehow you've got to make the reader understand the character's motivations.

Now, some authors will argue that characters are your tools, and that you can boss them around and control them like puppets. Others will say that you have to be, like, BFFLs with your characters and have long heartfelt conversations with them to the point where you get very emotionally attached. I would say, you have to balance the two. For me, I feel like I have a very distant kind of friendship with my characters. They walk into my mind one day, they pour out their stories to me, and then they leave. They're like … foreign exchange students. They come and visit for a bit, then they return to wherever they came from and I never see them again. It was long enough for me to get to like them, but not long enough that I feel devastated when they go.

So yes, I do think you should have some "conversations" with your characters. Get to know them. Fill out character inventories––even the tiny little details that might not seem to matter. You'll probably find out a lot about your characters that you didn't know before, and that will inspire you with new story ideas. Really, if you just go and Google "Character Outlines" I assure you that you will find something useful.

5. Thou shalt not be obscure.

Aaah … I suppose this one could be interpreted in a number of ways. The way I see it is, writing fiction is not the time to show off your wonderful knowledge and/or vocabulary. It's about telling a story and getting your idea across. If the reader doesn't understand the words or historical references you're using, they're not going to be interested and they'll walk away. So try to keep it simple. No thesaurus-raping allowed; the first word that comes to your mind is (usually) the right one to use!

6. Thou shalt show and not tell.

Oh, joy. I'm sure you've heard this one a million times. I know I have. And I probably have screamed it at you before. And I probably have already said that it's something I struggle with. But anyway … SHOW, DON'T TELL. Three simple words, yet it is one of the hardest parts of writing. Don't tell me "I was scared", "He was confused", "The tree looked creepy" … Think of unique ways to describe these things. If you just say what the character is experiencing, the reader can't really relate. What does "scared" feel like? What does "creepy" look like? Be specific! Get into the details!

7. Thou shalt steal.

Wait … what? JOHN, ARE YOU TELLING ME TO PLAGIARIZE? No no no. "Stealing", in this case, is different from plagiarizing. The point is to try out different styles. Try to imitate the voices of your favorite authors. It may sound strange, but in exploring the techniques of other writers, you will hopefully find a voice that makes you feel the most like … well, like YOU.

I remember reading a quote by Phillip Pullman once that I really liked, where he said that authors are like bees. The books we read are like flowers. The bee takes pollen from each flower and uses it to make its own honey. The writer takes something away from every book he/she reads and reflects in it his/her own writing. :)

8. Thou shalt rewrite and rewrite again. And again.

… And again, and again, and again. AGH. Yes, I know. It's frustrating. But nothing is ever perfect the first time. In fact, no story will ever be perfect. But if you keep rewriting, at least you'll eventually find what feels right to you.

9. Thou shalt confront the human condition.

Well, this one's a bit tricky. I'd say, you might not even want to think about this until after you're done writing the first draft. Every story has a purpose. Yes, your story does have a purpose, even if you don't realize it. There is some reason that you felt compelled to write it. Something nudged at your conscience that made you itch to write down those words. Maybe it was a story in the news that made you particularly angry/depressed/shocked. Maybe it started with a simple "What if … ?" question. Whatever it is, it should give you some idea of a theme.

In my opinion, this is the part of the story that you shouldn't plan in advance. The plot and characters make up the story itself, but the theme at the heart of the story can only emerge when you actually write it. Sure, you might have a vague idea of a theme throughout, but if you decide too early on about it, you might end up being a little too preachy and forcing it out of the story. Let the story speak for itself, and eventually you will find out what you are trying to say about humanity.

10. Be sure that every death in a story means something.

I could rant about this for an hour. I could probably write an entire post on it. (Maybe I will, someday.) Frankly, character deaths tend to piss me off. Once in a while, they really get to me and I can actually see the purpose behind them. But so many authors––from published authors to unpublished teen writers––seem to think that the only way to end a story is to kill someone. Why? I dunno … Just because they can!

Look. Killing off a character does not automatically make your book deep and meaningful. In fact, it can do the opposite; it can really bring out the weakness in your writing. If a character dies, it has to be heavy. It has to affect the entire story. It can't just be, "Oh, he died. I am sad." And then ten pages later: "By the way, I am still sad that so-and-so died." I mean, you have to think about all the stages of grief––the denial, the anger, the acceptance, etc. And if you haven't experienced grief, this is a really really hard thing to pull off realistically. Grief never completely goes away and it changes who you are entirely. So if you're not willing to make some major changes in your characters, and if you're planning to kill off a character "just because", you might want to reconsider. Often, killing a character (or characters) is taking the easy way out––instead of coming up with something more creative and/or realistic.

When my Writing teacher explained this point to us, he said "You should equate the decision to kill a character with the decision to kill a real person." It may sound intense (and yes, a bit exaggerated), but it's true. You have to be really REALLY sure that killing off that character is something you really must and really want to do. Think long and hard about it.

THE END!

Hopefully these Ten Commandments illuminated something for you. As always, if there's any confusion ask away in the comments! :)

It's Tuesday. I did NOT forget this time!

2010-10-05T14:23:00.001-07:00

I know, I know. I have been a bad little blogger. I have skipped two Tuesday Teasers in a row, and I've barely posted anything else. But today that will change! Today I did not forget that it's Tuesday, so I will post something! I will! I'm simultaneously working on two other posts at the same time, so those should be coming up this week, too. I have a four-day weekend coming up so I should have plenty of time to get blogging again …

Well, I guess since my last teaser was from Edge, I will now post a snippet from its sequel, Jump. It might not make perfect sense in context, but I think you'll get the gist. As always, if there are any questions about it you can ask in the comments. :) And just to clarify (since no one seemed to understand this from the Edge excerpt) the main character, Max, IS A BOY. I guess I'm just not very good at being boy-ish? Or everyone assumed that I only write from female point of views? Well, I don't know. But here it is! Enjoy! :D

“Max,” Lacey said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I answered, but I couldn't look up at her. For some reason, I didn't want to see the sympathy on her face. “Why?”

“I don't know. Something seems … off.”

“Yeah, well … Everything is pretty screwed up right now.”

Lacey was quiet, like she didn't know how to respond. Finally she said, “I'm sorry about, you know, your portal thing.”

I didn't answer.

“What are you going to do?”

I sighed, feeling the headache pound deep in my skull again. “I don't know. I'll have to find another way back.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lacey fiddling with her hands, knotting her fingers together and releasing them again. “How soon will you have to go back?”

Oh, no. This was what I had been dreading. I finally looked in her direction, but now she was the one who refused to make eye contact.

I took a deep breath. “Soon,” I said. “I––I don't know when. But soon.”

Lacey continued to stare down at her lap. Her voice became even softer, almost a whisper. “Do you really have to go, Max?”

I tried not to wince. “I'm sorry. I mean, I wish I could stay longer. But, there are so many things I have to do, people I left behind. This is just … a transition, sort of. You're …” I stopped, feeling like I wanted to punch myself in the face. “This is coming out all wrong.”

“It's okay,” Lacey said, before I could continue. “Really. I get it.”

“You do?”

She finally looked up at me, and I couldn't deny that there was a wounded expression in her eyes––something so deep and so sad that it almost physically hurt just to see it. Yet, she was still trying to smile.

“I do,” she said. “I mean, I've known all along that you weren't going to stay forever. Of course I know that. It's just …” She trailed off, blinking, like she was trying not to cry.

“It's just … what?”

“Forget it,” Lacey said, looking across the water again. “It's nothing. I'm being dumb.”

“No, you're not.”

“Max, you don't even know what I was going to say.” There was an edge to her voice now, almost like a threat. Then she sighed, like she could hear the hostility and was trying to make it go away. She laughed, but there was nothing happy in it. “Even I don't know what I'm saying.”

“You can tell me,” I said, without thinking. As soon as the words came out, they just hung there, waiting to be acknowledged.

Lacey ran a hand through her hair, only glancing at me briefly. “I …” She spoke the one word and then stopped, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “I don't know. I'm just really confused, right now.”

Well, that made two of us.

“I know I complain way too much,” Lacey went on. “I mean, compared to most people in the world, my life really isn't all that hard. But it's just been … empty, you know? It's like, I feel like I've worked so hard for everything I have, but what I have is still … nothing. I've always wanted something out of life. I've always wanted to find some kind of happiness, and I just can't.”

She fell silent again. I kept watching her, waiting for her to continue. I didn't know what else to do, whether to say something, whether to try to comfort her. I felt like it wasn't the time for me to talk yet. She still had more to say.

“I really thought I'd found something,” Lacey whispered, “with Garrett.”

I stiffened upon hearing the name. “Garrett?”

“I know. It's stupid. But I thought that would be the turning point, that I'd actually found that joy I'd been searching for. I mean, he was nice at first, but when he got more serious …” She swallowed, closed her eyes. “You know, I––I lied to you about it, about how bad it was. He wasn't just pushy or anything. He was … cruel.”

Lacey bent over, covering her face with her hands like remembering it was suddenly too much. Silently, I put an arm around her, and she leaned against me.

“I've never told anyone this, how bad it really was.” Her voice was shaking. “He talked down to me, made me feel like dirt. He got drunk. He'd … He'd hit me. More than once, he tried to …” She stopped, as if choking on the words.

It was at least a minute before she continued. I waited patiently, just holding her, watching the calm water in front of us.

“Every day, it was like a nightmare,” Lacey said at last. She seemed to have collected herself a little more, her voice steadier. “I was always terrified, not knowing what he was going to do next.” She paused, took a deep breath. “And yet, I stayed with him. I thought maybe it was my fault, for not loving him enough or something. I just had to try harder. I really thought I could change him. But, it's like I said before … People don't change.”

The words still scared me a little, but I nodded.

“Once I realized that,” Lacey went on, “it was like I … I sort of lost hope for the world. It was the point where I thought nothing was ever going to get better. I've spent so long, thinking that way.” She lifted her head again, pulling away from me and still avoiding eye contact.

I looked at her, and it was like I was seeing her for the first time, for who she really was. She'd always worn such a brave face, but especially after what she'd just told me, it was becoming clearer to me that she wasn't as confident as she appeared. She was beaten, she was scarred … in places that couldn't heal, that couldn't fade with time. There was no way I could imagine what it was like, to go through the things she'd endured, but in that moment I felt as if I carried all her pain. I felt the enormous, overwhelming weight of it all, and I knew I didn't have the power to lift it.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

Lacey finally looked at me, probably out of surprise. “For what?”

“I––I don't know. For everything. For how hard it must be … And the way Garrett treated you …” I couldn't even think of words to express the rage I felt. I'd hated Garrett to begin with, and this just made it worse. Why had I ever felt guilty about beating up that guy?

“Max, you don't have to apologize,” Lacey said, taking hold of my hand. “That's what I'm trying to say. I'm saying that you … you're different.”

“Different?” It was the only thing I could say.

Lacey smiled. “Not in a bad way. And I don't mean just all the superpowers and whatever. I mean you, as a person.” She shook her head, her face becoming serious again. “I know, this is all pretty ridiculous. It's like you said before … I don't even know you, not really. Or, not in the way you normally know people. But somehow, I feel like I––like I'm actually worth something. And no one has made me feel that way since … ever.”

She let go of my hand, touched my shoulder. A strange feeling seemed to pour through me, tingling inside my veins, and I wasn't sure whether it was a good feeling or not. It was just unexpected. I stared at Lacey, surprised, and I found that I couldn't look away from her. It was something about her eyes, how they held a world of feelings, of so many things that I wondered how she could contain it all. And, I realized, she was saying that she felt all these things … because of me?

“I know it can never happen,” Lacey said quietly. “But I just don't want it to end. I don't want you to go away.”

Her hand slid up to rest against the side of my face. I didn't move, didn't react, even though there was a storm of clashing emotions inside me. I suddenly didn't know what I wanted or what I'd expected. The panic started to settle in. What could I do? I tried to say something, anything. But I couldn't find the words, because I didn't even know what I was thinking or what I was feeling.

“Max,” Lacey said. “You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I can't … I can't lose that.” She leaned forward, resting her forehead against mine, and I stiffened. I could feel her hand shaking. “Please,” she whispered. “Stay.”

OH GOODNESS. It's that time of the year again! freaks out

2010-10-02T12:24:00.001-07:00

Hello world!

First of all, I changed the blog (again). I was getting tired of the old one. Ooh, pretty picture of me with FAIRY WINGS -->

Yeah, I know I've skipped like two Tuesday teasers in a row. That is because I haven't really written anything and I'm in a "all my writing sucks" mood so I don't want to post anything old, either. And I'm still working on the cliché-post thing. Sorry to disappoint my thousands of adoring fans! *crickets chirp* Well, you know. More or less.

So, news for today.

Not much has gone down (or up, or sideways) in the publishing world. I still need to revise Walking Shadow and send it out again. :/ Meh. BUT … I did win second place in literary agent Natalie Fischer's "Hilariously Horrendous Query Contest", and she is going to critique my query, synopsis, and first ten pages. *dies of happiness* This will be great. :) You can read my entry and all her great advice on her blog! I shall inform you of more happenings … when they happen.

More importantly …

I TURNED 18 YESTERDAY! YESSS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! I am now a legal adult. So I can buy cigarettes and lottery tickets and go to jail … which coincidentally are all things I don't want to do (well, lottery tickets maybe) so I guess it doesn't really matter. Guess I should change my blog to "My Life as an Adult Novelist"? Nah, doesn't have a good ring to it. :P

Now for THE ACTUAL TOPIC OF THIS POST WHICH IS …

NOW THERE IS ONLY A MONTH UNTIL NANOWRIMO. HOLY TALKING MUSHROOMS.

I assume I've talked about NaNo before, right? Well, if you are an ignorant fool, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month––an annual challenge to write at least 50,000 words of a novel between November 1st and November 30th. More details on the NaNoWriMo website.

So that means … there is less than a month until NaNo begins. O_O !!! Oh crap. I need to plan. A lot. So far, this is what I have …

My novel is called Zenith (which is pronounced "ZEE-nith", btw. I just found this out since I started taking Astronomy heh heh). It's one of those futuristic/dystopia/sci-fi things and it should be a lot of fun.

I have a cover for it. But I don't own the image so I suppose I can't post it. I assure you, though, that it is awesome. Really.

Um. I need to create some kind of polished synopsis. But here is a glimpse of what it's about:

The Great Incineration: a devastating explosion with an unknown cause.

Project Regenerate: a scientific feat that saved thousands of people from the Incineration by replacing their organs with machinery.

Autohumans: a new race of people that forms from the victims of the Incineration––viewed as a miracle by some and an abomination by others.

Zenith: a mysterious gang of Autos who cause chaos and destruction wherever they go.

Michael Lewis: a 16-year-old boy torn between two worlds, constantly struggling with a single question: Is he still human … or is he a machine?

I am rather excited to write this. I hope it doesn't blow up in my face. Wish me luck! :)

So, anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? If so, add me as a buddy! Here is my profile. :D

Happy writing!

9/14 It's teaser time again!

2010-09-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

*Yawns* Brigid is tired. And choosing to talk in the third person.

Sorry I haven't really been posting anything besides teasers lately. I think my next non-teaser post will be about clichés. Hopefully that will magically appear in the next few days.

Since lately I've been depressing you to death with my teasers, here's something from Edge. I've probably brought it up before, but it's a sci-fi I wrote … ehhh … a year and a half ago? And I just finished writing Jump (the sequel) not that long ago––like, two months ago or something. So here's a fun little part from the beginning-ish of Edge. I need to edit it, sooo I know it's not perfect. But ahh well. For the record, Max is my favorite character. Like, ever. (Of my own characters, that is)

By now, the sunlight had diffused through the sky, bleaching it with pale gold. The city almost looked beautiful – in a sad, disturbing kind of way.

I walked the deserted streets, without knowing where I was going. But at the same time, I didn’t feel lost. In fact, I felt confident that I was going in the right direction. That didn’t mean I wasn’t still afraid and bewildered; I still felt like I was striding through some unreal, nightmarish world. It simply meant that I had a feeling that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing – or what the voice wanted me to do, anyway. It seemed to have some kind of power over me; that is, it could not only speak into my head, but it could also control my physical actions, to a certain extent.

I hoped that it was trustworthy.

Everything was still, making prickles go up and down my spine. I kept expecting someone to jump out and attack me, kept hearing the voice’s ominous words: “Most of the ones left are your enemies.”

Speaking of which, the voice hadn’t said anything for a while. In a weird way, I sort of wanted it to come back. It was the only company I had, the only thing I could depend upon.

“Still there?” I tried, cautiously.

“We’re always here.”

“Right,” I croaked, and then didn’t know what else to say. “Um … So, I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me who you are?”

“We can’t do that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Didn’t think so.”

“But you can trust us.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve already told me that.”

The voice fell silent, and I actually started to feel bad that I had gotten so impatient. Of course, it’s not like it wasn’t expected that I felt impatient. Anyone would have been, if they’d found themselves in my unimaginable position: wandering through some post-apocalyptic world, without a clue as to who I was or what I was doing, with no company but the voice inside my head that wouldn’t answer any of my questions. It was a little frustrating. Just a little.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I sputtered, “but you’re kind of driving me crazy. You keep saying that you can’t tell me anything, that I’ll find out all the answers soon, but I need some answers now. Why can’t you give me one hint?”

“What sort of hint did you have in mind?” the voice asked, surprising me.

I frowned. “I – I don’t know. About anything. About who you are, about who I am, about what my purpose is.”

“You may want to be more specific,” the voice advised. “And start with something simple.”

I breathed out a long sigh, and tried to keep my patience. “Okay … How old am I?”

“You are eighteen years old.”

Okay, so I had guessed correctly on that one. “So, how old was I when I … fell asleep?”

“You were seventeen. It was about half a year ago.”

Half a year. That wasn’t so bad, I told myself. It could have been worse.

But why did I even care? It’s not like I could remember what I had left behind in that time. It’s not like I had anything or anyone to worry about, except for myself. So what did it matter? I could have been asleep for a century, and it wouldn’t have made a difference.

The thought irritated me, for some reason, filling me with bitterness. I kicked a piece of broken brick as I walked, watching it skip ahead of me on the littered pavement, over and over again. It was like my mind, my memories: right there, right in my reach, and yet always getting away from me, always a step ahead.

“Okay,” I said again, realizing that I hadn’t spoken for a whole minute. “So, you keep telling me that I have some special ‘destiny’ or whatever, all this save-the-world crap. Right? So, I assume, then, that I have some sort of … abilities, to help me with that.”

“Clarify,” the voice instructed.

“Fine, fine,” I exclaimed. “I know this is a stupid question. But I guess what I’m trying to ask is: Do I have superpowers?”

The voice paused. “Something like that.”

“Yay,” I said, with no enthusiasm. “What can I do, then? Can I fly?”

“No.”

“Read minds?”

“No.”

“Shoot lasers from my eyes?”

“No.”

“Uh … Do I have telekinesis?”

“No.”

Darn. Telekinesis would’ve been cool.

“Can I turn invisible?”

“No.”

I was running out of ideas. “Can I drink an entire gallon of milk without puking?”
The voice’s tone remained serious, impassive. “Why would you want to do that?”

“I wouldn’t!” I exclaimed. “But you’re not really helping me out, here. Are you going to tell me what I can do or what?”

Right then, I got that feeling again: the feeling like I was losing control of myself. I stopped, suddenly, and looked at the ground. I saw the piece of brick that I had been kicking, and felt compelled to pick it up, which I did. I felt its rough edges, its coarse texture, its weight in the palm of my hand.

Then my fingers curled around it, lightly at first. I narrowed my eyes, and a strange, blank emotion washed over my thoughts. At the same time, an irresistible adrenaline shot through my veins, tingling at my fingertips. My fist grew tighter and tighter, closing around the solid object I was holding.

In the back of my mind, I wondered what I was doing. I wondered what I expected to happen, or what the voice expected to happen. Nothing was supposed to happen … Right? I was squeezing a piece of rock – or whatever brick was made out of. Big deal.

Only, instead of resisting, the piece of brick gave way. When I should have stopped, unable to close my fingers any more, they kept going, closing, crushing.

Then the only thing left in my hand was a crumbled mess, a dull red gravel that slipped through my fingers and fell to the ground.

I stared and stared, coming back to my senses with a jolt. “Oh,” I said.

9/7 TUESDAY TEASER TIME!

2010-09-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

Hullo there. I have some lovely writing to share with you today.

But first I quickly want to say that I have become addicted to Inkpop. If you know what Authonomy is, it's the exact same thing but for teen writers. That is, you post writing and people review it and "pick" it. At the end of each month, HarperCollins editors read the five most popular stories. I've recently set up an account, so if you have one look for me! My username is Brigid.Rose and so far I've posted Unraveling. My rank is like 746 right now, so yeahhh my story could use some love! Thanks :) And if you don't have an account, I recommend getting one. It's a great site for getting/giving feedback. Seems like the people on it are online pretty much all the time––so if someone says they'll do a review for you, they usually do it pretty fast. Check it out!

NOW IT'S STORY TIME!

Today I am going to share a bit of Sky-Fall, since I haven't yet. I've only written a chapter of this story so far––except that one chapter is like 10 pages long since there are four points of view and soooo … Never mind. I'm rambling.

I know I've mentioned it briefly before, but just a reminder that this is a sci-fi/dystopia about four teenagers living in this world where people fight with giant robots. There are no giant robots in this part though because it focuses on Avery, a girl who is currently trapped in a concentration camp––inspired by the Holocaust and Japanese Internment camps. (Hooray for history class.) Enjoy!

Avery had grown very used to the sight of her shoes. She had watched their condition deteriorate every weary day for the past three years. Once, the leather had been smooth and brown. Now the color had faded to a dull gray to match the dusty ground. Her feet had once been too small to fit in the shoes; now she had to curl her toes, and they ached from being crammed up inside. She knew it was only a matter of time before the shoes fell apart and she would have to walk the Camp barefoot … that is, if she survived long enough. She wasn't even sure if she would survive the next five minutes.

She held her breath and watched the guard's boots trudge by. She was standing next to her older sister, Elisa. They were holding hands, and she couldn't remember who had reached for whose hand first. A story ran through her head––a story her parents had told her years ago. The story was about two sisters stuck in a tree, and at the roots there was a demon singing “Don't look down, don't look down” and the girls knew that if they looked down, their souls would be sucked into darkness. Yet, even knowing what would happen if they slipped for just a moment, they had still been tempted. It was how she felt right now––knowing that she was dead if she looked up, and yet feeling this rush of curiosity.

The black boots passed, but she heard them as they crunched against the ground, moving down the line. The silence made her ears ring, made her want to scream. Why couldn't someone speak already? She didn't care what horrible news it was, but she needed to hear a voice, something to assure her that she wouldn't be standing here forever.

At last, the sound of footsteps came to a stop. The guard spoke, and he spoke words that had chased Avery through her nightmares ever since the day her parents were killed.

“Someone escaped last night.”

No one said anything. No one screamed, no one sobbed, no one made a sound. But Avery knew, without looking, that almost everyone was crying silently in fear. She felt the tears sting at her own eyes, and she had a sick feeling in her heart.

“There will be no protest. There will be no accusations of who ran away or who let them run away. You all know the rules.”

Of course she knew the rules, just like the rest of them did: If someone escaped from the Camp, one other person would be killed at random. It always made her feel like screaming in rage, to think of those who escaped. She wished that she could get away; everyone wished for that. But how could you be selfish enough to actually do it, knowing that some innocent person would have to die because of your actions?

Avery was aware of a pounding headache blossoming between her eyes, like nails being driven into her skull. She swayed on her feet, but she didn't move. If she made one small movement, if she caught the guard's attention for one second …

“You.” The bark of an order jolted all of her nerves alive, making her so tense that she felt like she was sculpted out of ice. Even though the voice had come from the other end of the line, she still felt that rush of horror, waiting to feel a hand grab onto her arm and shove her down onto her knees in the dirt. But she was still standing, still alive, and she could hear a woman screaming, “No, no! Don't take him! No!”

Avery dared to look up, just out of the corner of her eye. She saw a young man kneeling on the ground, his head bent in submission. The woman screaming was probably his wife. Two other women were holding her back, whispering to her––probably reminding her that if she kept screaming, the guard would shoot her, too.

Again, there was a demon-voice in Avery's head, singing “Don't look … Don't look …” but she couldn't look away. She saw the guard step behind the man, raising a gun and holding it to the back of the man's head. But all she could think about was when her father was in the same position, and then how her mother had been killed in the same way, for the same reason. She heard the crack of the bullet as it was released, the noise that always ended her dreams and made her wake up sweating and sobbing in terror. She saw the man drop to the ground, not making a single noise. He was probably dead before he knew it.

Avery stared at the eyes turned towards her––lifeless, like a pair of glass marbles. Blood spread around his head, appearing black as it seeped through the gray dirt. The dead man's wife let out a choked noise, holding back her screams. Avery remembered how Elisa had covered her mouth after they'd watched their parents die, how her sister had whispered fiercely in her ear, “Don't scream, don't scream.” But she'd heard Elisa's voice shaking, and she'd known that her sister was stifling screams of her own.

She had lost track of how many deaths she'd seen by now, but she knew the pattern––first she felt the numbness, then the ache of weariness and hopelessness as the day dragged by, and finally, at night, she would cry in the darkness. She would see the injustice of it all.

The only reason they were here was because they were Eversio. Even before she and her family had been taken to the Camp, she'd seen the way people looked at her parents and her sister, how people spat on the ground and called them scum, called them Hostilis. It hadn't been until she was about nine or ten years old that she understood: People thought they were enemies, just because of the darker shade of their skin, the black hair, the brown eyes. They came from the same land as the Hostilis, as the enemies. That didn't mean they were spies, but Avery had learned from an early age that when someone called you Hostilis, you didn't defend yourself. You kept your eyes on the ground, and you kept your mouth shut.

For Avery, it had always been less of a problem, because she confused people. Her skin was a few shades lighter than that of her parents and sister. It still had that darker tint to it that betrayed her Eversio blood, but it was light enough that she could pass as Moenian––as one of the city people, as someone who belonged here.

Elisa had suggested several times that if Avery could escape, she would actually have a chance of surviving in the city.

“One look at me, and they'd just send me back here, right back where I started,” she'd said. “But you could be mistaken for one of them. You could make a life for yourself.”

Avery had never quite believed it. She would never live a life free of discrimination. Maybe no one would ever outright call her Hostilis, but she was still just a little too dark to automatically be considered Moenian. People would always look at her twice. People would always look at her with that hardness in their eyes, biting back insults just in case they were wrong about her––but nevertheless, the taunts and the accusations would always be there … at least until the war ended.

But she had a feeling it wouldn't be over for a long, long time.

Outlining––Why It's Awesome!

2010-09-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

A long, long time ago (well, okay, about a year ago) I wrote a lengthy post on how to write a novel. Most writers have the same big problem: they can write pretty well, but they can't write a whole novel no matter how they try. The key to finishing a novel, in my opinion, is the outline. So, I thought I'd elaborate on that point.

I know what a lot of you are thinking … Eew, an outline? Why should I write an outline? I know what I'm going to write! and/or I'm just going to wing it and see what happens!

Well, I'm not going to tell you there is one "right" way to write a book. You can do whatever works best for you. But if you never outline, I strongly urge you to try it. I find that if I have a full outline––or at least most of one––I'm more likely to finish something and to produce something I like.

I didn't discover the beauty of the outline until about two years ago. Before then I always made up stories as I went along, but this led to a lot of boring parts where I didn't know what to write, to plot holes … to overall messiness. All rough drafts are going to be very messy, outline or no. And outlining isn't going to make writing a book "easier". But at least, if you plan carefully, you can find a sense of direction in your story and be aware of where its gaps are.

So, how do you go about outlining? Well, you can break it down to three simple things––the setting, the characters, and the plot.

Setting:

Decide where the setting is. Is it in a city, a town, the middle of nowhere? What time period is it? Does it even take place in our world? How does the location/time/world affect technology, how people dress, how people act, how people survive, etc. ?

Characters:

Decide on a main character. Male or female? How old is he/she? What's his/her objective in the story? What's his/her personality like? You can do more detailed planning on your MC using character inventories or character interviews (You can easily find ideas for character outlines/interviews via Google or another search engine). What are the supporting characters like? Friends? Family? Love interests? Plan out the most important characters. (And make sure none of your characters are Mary Sues, please!)

Plot:

There are several different techniques for plotting out your story. I always start by writing down the basic premise––a few sentences, maybe a paragraph, about the story. Then I write a more detailed summary––something two or three paragraphs long similar to something you'd read on the inside cover of a book. And then I get to the real dirty, extensive outline. There are a few approaches to this, and everyone has a different method. Here are three pretty common/basic ones that might help you.

1. The detailed outline: Write what's going to happen in every chapter, paragraph by paragraph, down to the very small details. The pros: You pretty much know everything that's going to happen, including dialogue and descriptions. The cons: You sacrifice some freedom/spontaneity, and you might end up feeling constrained by this type of outline.

2. The rough outline: Write a bullet point for each chapter––only a few sentences at most for each point. The pros: It leaves freedom but still gives you a sense of direction. You can simply figure out what to write but not necessarily how to write it. Sure, you're free to put in specific descriptions here and there But it's not necessary to plot out every single little detail. The cons: In this case you might end up with more "holes" in your outline, which can be frustrating. Sometimes you just have to wait for inspiration to strike. But of course, that's better than starting to actually write a novel, only to find that you have no idea where it's going.

3. The Snowflake Method. This is like a combination of the rough outline and the detailed outline. That is, it's a method where you start with a rough outline, and then you keep adding details until it's a detailed outline. It uses the idea of a fractal to explain how to go about doing this––starting with a "triangle" and ending with a "snowflake". The whole thing is explained better here. I've never tried it and it looks a bit time consuming, but if you have the patience it looks like it would be helpful!

An outline template that looks useful :)

Thanks for reading! Hope the advice was useful. As always, post questions if you have 'em.

Tuesday Teaser tomorrow! :)

8/31 Tuesday Teaser

2010-08-31T18:58:00.001-07:00

Hello again! I am very tired and must get up early tomorrow for my first day of senior year. Woohoo. Just one more year and then high school is over. Forever. Although a year is still a pretty long time. Anyway, since it's Tuesday I ought to post one of them Tuesday Teasers.

So here is a very short bit from Glass Flowers, a story that I probably will not get around to writing again for … well … a few months. I have a ton of things waiting in line to be written. Plus I need to finish editing Walking Shadow (again) because now three agents are waiting to read the 100,000-word version of it. Just 33,000 more words to cut. O_O Well anyway, here's Glass Flowers!

My father once told me that the sea always gives back what it takes. I remember how I used to run along the shoreline, bringing back treasures from the journey and dropping them into his hands. He would run his rough fingertips over the sea-smoothed stones and one time he told me, “You know, some of these rocks might have traveled across entire oceans to get here.”

I stared, disbelieving, at the white stone that sat like a tiny moon in the palm of his hand. “How?”

“Well, there's no telling exactly how it got here. Maybe one day, a long time ago, on some island far away, there was a little girl like you who threw this rock into the ocean. And the motion of the water tossed it around, carried it across the ocean floor all the way here, to where we are.”

I looked out across the tossing waves, squinting as I tried to find this imaginary island my father spoke of.

“The sea always gives back what it takes,” he said. “Maybe it takes hundreds or thousands of years, but sooner or later, each little stone finds its way back to shore.”

The words were forever imprinted on my mind. From then on, whenever I picked up the ocean's gifts from the sand, they felt heavier, as if I held the weight of the whole soft, glowing world in my hand. I imagined each round stone making its treacherous journey, tumbling over the ocean floor––then finally, at the end of a hundred years, finding a place to rest in the sand. The thought always made hope bloom inside my chest, like a flower opening and tasting sunshine for the first time.

The sea always gives back what it takes, I would tell myself.

But the sea never gave back my mother.

Jealousy––Is it "healthy" for writers?

2010-08-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

One of my fellow teen-writer/bloggers brought up a question in one of her recent posts that really got me thinking. (Here's a link to the post. Check it out!) In this post, she wrote:

"I am jealous of other writers. … My question to you is: Is jealousy healthy for a writer, or even justifiable in any case? As long as I am not angry with the person, could this strengthen my writing in some way?"

This is a question that I've asked myself many times, and now I see that it is on the minds of other writers as well. So, can envy towards other writers "healthy" and/or justifiable? It's a tricky subject, but I think it's also an important one that should be addressed.

My answer: Yes––I think that a certain kind of jealousy can be very healthy for a writer. There are some cases in which it would be bad. But I think that, if you understand how to channel that envy into productivity, it can make you a better writer.

Let's face it, jealousy is bound to happen. I've never met a writer who said, "I'm the best writer ever!" In fact, writers tend to be really down on themselves (myself included). If you're on any writing forums, it's inevitable that you'll see something along the lines of:

Writer A: Gosh, I suck. I wish I could write like you, Writer B!
Writer B: Noooo. I'M the one who sucks! I wish I could write like YOU, Writer A!

Fact of life is, no writers totally like themselves. We criticize ourselves constantly. We see the flaws in our own work and agonize over how to fix them. Trust me, I've hated my own work with a burning passion before. Then you might look at someone else's writing and say, "Dang, this is perfect! How does he/she do it?!" But the truth is, that writer is just as––if not more––critical of him/herself as you are of yourself.

Good writing takes a lot of self-discipline. Someone may seem to write effortlessly, but probably (unless the writer is some freak of nature) they have not always been great at writing. And they may have gone through tons of drafts before they produced what you're reading. Just like you, this writer has been envious of other writers. He/she has tried and failed and tried again.

So ask yourself … What do I envy so much about this writing? The style? The characters? The world? The dialogue? And then see if you can learn something from it. Set goals for yourself. Maybe you need to study your characters more. Maybe you need more dialogue. Maybe you need your writing to be more concise or more descriptive.

In short: if this jealousy you feel is a form of admiration rather than hostility––if you learn something from it––then it can be a positive thing.

Of course, jealousy can also be bad. It's not good if you say to yourself, "Gee, I'll never be as good as so-and-so! I GIVE UP." Or if you say, "Gosh, I'm so jealous! I'm just gonna steal this idea and then everyone will like me. Teehee. 'ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A GIRL NAMED STELLA AND HER VAMPIRE BOYFRIEND, FREDWARD …'"

In both of these cases, you're giving up on yourself due to jealousy. While other writing should inspire you, you have to remember that originality is important. This "so-and-so" writer isn't "better" than you, necessarily. He/she just has a different style from you, and you shouldn't see that as a bad thing and/or feel the need to steal ideas in order to be "good". You have your own, unique style too. Good writing should motivate you to find your own voice, not to hate it. Be patient. Developing a personal writing style takes time and practice.

So, I urge you to ask yourself which writers you envy. Maybe make a list, and then write down what it is you envy about them. Then decide how you can channel these skills into your own writing (without becoming a plagiarist, of course!).

Thanks for reading! STAY GREEN!

(haha, Get it? It's like "Stay gold!" but with "green" instead because … you know … "green with envy". Wow. Outsiders reference + bad joke = not funny. But I couldn't help myself. I love The Outsiders, btw, but that's off-topic. PEACE!)

8/24 Tuesday Teaser! (almost forgot, luckily Amy reminded me)

2010-08-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

Hello there friends! I love you all … in a CREEPY way! Just kidding. Maybe.

So now, it's Tuesday. I almost forgot. Not that it's Tuesday, but that it's TEASER DAY! Luckily for you, my dear ninja-friend Amy reminded me. And also recommended (took me three tries to spell that right) that I post some of Rage.

Rage is my creepy fantasy-dystopia version of Beauty & the Beast. Enough said. Here is a snippet from it. ENJOY, AND THANKS FOR READING. :)

It was morning, but it was as dark as the dead of night outside.

I woke up to Caroline's voice, hissing my name. "Natasha. Natasha!"

I opened my eyes, which quickly adjusted to the dim light. My sister was shaking me, and I could see that her eyes were wide with terror. Right away, my heart started thudding. I heard the distant crackle of thunder, and my fear was confirmed. Like always, it was a feeling that came out of nowhere, a sensation that couldn't be defined. It was like a snake slowly coiling around my neck and choking me.

I couldn't breathe. "Today?" was all I could manage to croak out.

Caroline already had a shawl wrapped around herself. Her teeth chattered. She nodded.

I sat up, rubbing at my eyes, running my hands through my hair. My head reeled, trying to clutch at my own fluttering thoughts and pin them down.

Today. Today was the Sacrifice. Caroline and I were fifteen years old now, and that meant that, for the first time, we were in danger.

As I got out of bed, the chill of the early morning seemed to sweep around me in a cruel embrace. I noticed that our mother and Brandon were up, too. They were both standing at the cottage door, my mother crying and Brandon trying to comfort her.

I grabbed a simple blue dress from the closet. Caroline turned away, and I hastily got dressed, my fingers fumbling with the buttons. I could hear my own loud pulse in my ears, my breathing coming out thin and shaky.

I couldn't believe this was happening. Me? And Caroline? In danger of being Sacrificed? I wasn't sure whether to feel terrified or angry about it. Of course I feared being chosen, having to journey by myself into the unknown. But I was also furious. How dare that Monster demand this from us! And why did we obey? Why did we choose to do so without protest?

I hopped over to the door, still pulling on one of my shoes. Caroline handed me a shawl, which I draped over my shoulders.

I tried not to look at our mother, but I couldn't help it. One glance, and I could see how devastated she was. She had always been fragile and emotional, which probably had something to do with the death of our father; he had died when Caroline and I were babies, so neither of us could remember him. Lately, things had seemed to get worse for our mother. She kept getting paler, skinnier, until she almost looked like a child. Right now, tears were running from her dark eyes, streaking down her thin face.

“No, no,” she was sobbing, wild with fear. “Girls, you can't … I won't let them …”

Brandon had a hand on her shoulder. “Mother, don't worry. They'll be fine.” He gave me a pleading look, like he was begging me to say something. He probably didn't trust Caroline to comfort our mother; she was the kind of person who would only break down crying and make everything worse.

“We'll be fine,” I echoed my brother. I tried to force a reassuring smile onto my face. “Now, come on. We have to get to the Meeting House.”

Walking outside, I felt like I was experiencing the end of the world. Black clouds rolled across the sky, roaring with thunder, lightning branching down from them like electric blue veins. Rain lashed into my face right away, and I had to keep blinking in order to keep the water out of my eyes. In seconds, we were all soaked.

Meanwhile, the other Villagers were emerging from their cottages and scurrying towards the Meeting House with their hands over their heads, as if that would shield them from the downpour. Some people were shouting, crying out in fear. Others were murmuring to each other in anxious tones. I couldn't clearly see the expressions on anyone's faces; everyone kept their heads down to avoid the assault of the rain. The only comfort I felt was the brush of Caroline's shoulder against mine, as we walked side by side towards our unknown fates.

“Natasha.” My best friend, Michelle, came up behind me, out of breath. Her face was flushed; she had the type of fair skin that blushed easily. She brushed her dark brown hair, which was limp from the pouring rain, out of her face. She clutched at her wet shawl, pulling it tighter around herself. “I can't … can't believe this is happening.” Her voice was hoarse, almost a whisper.

“I know,” I answered in a mutter. I swallowed, feeling like I was going to be sick. “Neither can I.”

We didn't say anything else. The Meeting House had come into view. It was a simple, sturdy building built out of stones. It had small, round windows that didn't provide much light; on the inside it was always dark, giving the place a gloomy atmosphere. Especially on a day like this one, it didn't improve the mood.

Inside, everyone was crushed together, like every person was trying to get lost in the crowd. I held my breath, staying between my sister and my best friend. My mother and Brandon came in behind us. My mother was still crying, but more quietly now.

I searched the faces of the people around me, searching for the girls who were in danger. I saw parents trying to comfort hysteric daughters. Or, in some cases, the girls were trying in vain to console their parents. Everywhere, there were voices whispering that everything was going to be all right. Every girl seemed confident that she wouldn't be the Sacrifice. But it had to be someone, I wanted to scream at them. One of us has to go. One of us has to die.

As if in a dark reminder, thunder rumbled through the sky, and it sounded like deep laughter.

At the front of the round room, there was a wide platform. An elderly woman in black robes stood on it, as still as stone. Her snow-white hair was pulled back in a tight bun. Even though we all knew that she was very old, there was still an unusual hint of youth in her face, a sparkle of wisdom and intelligence in her eyes that made her appear younger. She was the leader of the Village, the one who watched over us all. We all addressed her as Mother Dearest.

Mother Dearest raised her hands, her white palms outstretched towards us, to calm the unsettled crowd. The voices around me fell obediently. Caroline and Michelle both reached for my hands, and I squeezed their hands in return. Like everyone else, I turned my face up towards Mother Dearest to listen. I couldn't help but feel a burst of blind hope: she would make everything all right, just as she always did. I trusted her, and she wouldn't let anything happen to any of us.

But I knew, in my heart, that she was powerless against the Monster. As many times as she had saved us all, she could do nothing to prevent the Sacrifice from happening.

Tuesday Teaser (and it IS really Tuesday this time! I swear!)

2010-08-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

OKAY. I WILL NOT FORGET THIS TIME. It is Tuesday, thus time for a Tuesday Teaser. Your teaser for today comes from my new story, Spill, which is about a girl who is bullied to death. That is, two girls torment her to the point where she kills herself. Mostly the idea came from the Phoebe Prince story, although that's not the only story about bullying and suicide that has horrified me. But what I wanted to explore was more about the bullies' point of view and how it might feel if you caused someone to kill herself/himself. Yeah, I know, not a very happy subject … but an important one that I think deserves some more attention. So, enjoy! **WARNING: Again, there are swears in this one!**

You can't kill someone with words. No matter how scathing they are, no matter how much hatred they contain, they're nothing more than a handful of syllables, a jumbled mess of letters.

Bitch.

Maybe they seem to lash out, like someone is slapping you across the face.

Slut.

It's an explosion inside your head, a sensation that could almost be mistaken for pain.

Whore.

Yeah, so maybe they can hurt. But a word is not a physical blow. It can't make you bleed. It doesn't hold up a gun to your head and pull the trigger. It doesn't wrap a noose around your neck and strangle the air from your lungs.

It's all words, words, words. Nonsense. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself. I have to believe it.

I have to believe that I didn't kill Claudia Anders.

***

Karina is sitting on my bed. I'm standing at the window. We're both completely still. I don't know what's running through her mind, but mine is replaying the message we heard over the intercom this morning.

Claudia is dead. She killed herself––went home after school and hung herself in a closet, just like that. I remember how in Health class last year, we learned about how afternoon is when most suicidal kids choose to do it. It's unexpected, your parents are at work and they don't get home until it's too late.

I also remember this retarded thing we did with a paper doll in Health class. We had to pass it around the room, and one by one we had to insult it and then fold up a little piece of it.

You're stupid.

You're ugly.

No one likes you.

By the time the paper doll had made its way all around the room, it was crumpled into a ball. The teacher held it up for us to see, saying, “This is what happens when you throw insults at someone. Maybe you don't mean it, but it folds up a little piece of them. And they just keep folding and folding in on themselves until there's nothing left.”

Karina was in that class with me, and I remembered how she looked at me right then and rolled her eyes and how I rolled my eyes back at her like I always did––because Health was stupid, because we never learned a goddamned thing from it.

But there was something about that scrunched-up mess of a paper doll that secretly got to me. I tried to crush down the stirring of fear inside, that part of me that opened and exposed the secret part of my soul that I had always hated––the part of me that always split open when I saw the hurt deep in Claudia's eyes.

Now it's ripping its way through again, like an evil demon leering at me.

You did this. It's your fault. She's dead because of you.

I was one of the people who folded her up, who crumpled her. She wasn't strong enough to withstand it, the constant flow of words that tore her apart piece by piece, that wore her down like a stone eroded into dust by a rushing river.

Karina says, “It's not our fault.”

But I don't answer. I want more than anything just to nod, just to tell her she's right. But there's that demon still inside of me, grinning in my face and threatening to kill me if I lie.

Maybe you can't kill someone with words. But you could have the thickest muscles in the world, and no physical strength could protect you from the brutal slap of insults. One word could still make you collapse in tears.

“It would've happened anyway, you know? She was messed up. She would've done it anyway,” Karina says.

I look out the window, watch each car go by, watch my whole vision start to go blurry.

“Damn it, Hilary. Talk to me. You know we didn't do anything. It's not like we murdered her.”

Shut up, my mind snarls at her. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

“She just did it to get attention. She knew no one would care about her unless she was dead. She would just love it if it messed us up.”

My hands are curling into fists and I want to scream at her, words that I've always been too afraid to say to her. Words I still can't say now.

“You're not crying, are you?” She chokes, sniffs. “God damn it, Hilary. You better not be crying.”

But suddenly, I'm as calm as can be––floating over the world and feeling nothing.

The funny thing is, she's the one who's crying.

Thanks for reading! :)

Why Teen Writing Does NOT Suck

2010-08-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

Hi there, folks! I meant to post this earlier but I was on vacation all week and had no internet, so it was not possible. Quick update on my publishing life: Laura Langlie and Katherine Boyle both rejected my full manuscript. However, Ms. Boyle suggested that I cut my manuscript down from 147K to about 100K and she'd be willing to look at it again … so I'm working on that. I also got another full request from Helen Zimmerman and a partial request from Logan Garrison. Woohoo! Plus a bunch of form rejections but … eh, those aren't very interesting.

Anyway, on to today's topic!!!

So, I was randomly surfing around on the internet the other day, and I stumbled across this blog post by author John Scalzi called 10 Things Teenagers Should Know About Writing, the first point being #1: Right Now, Your Writing Sucks, in which he claimed that teenagers lack the grammar skills, knowledge, experience, etc. to produce good writing. Now, this post had a lot of good advice in it, but he made a note about how most kids reading the post automatically stopped after the first point and wrote him a long angry note in the comments section. He then wrote a second post called On Teens, and the Fact that Their Writing Sucks in which he basically shot down all the comments he received; this irked me more than the original post.

To be fair, I read the entirety of both these posts, and I understood what he was trying to say. Furthermore, I actually agreed with most of it. The thing is, he said it in a way that was angering teens instead of helping them, so they wouldn't listen to his good advice.

It's not fair to tell teenage writers that their writing "sucks". Inexperience does not equal suckageness. That's like telling some little kid on a tricycle, "Dude, you SUCK at riding a bicycle!" Then what's the kid going to do? Will he feel like riding a bicycle ever again? Or is he more likely to feel discouraged and offended? Hmmmm?

So, I thought I'd make this easier by explaining it teen-to-teen. None of that condescending crap. Yes, I am learning and growing as a writer, and I know what it's like to constantly be reminded of it as if I didn't know. Yes, teenagers lack life experience and possibly the basics of English grammar, but that does not mean that we "suck". We just need practice! In my opinion, the adolescent stage is one of the best times to be a writer, and I'll tell you why.

WHY TEEN WRITING DOES NOT SUCK/WHY IT'S AWESOME TO BE A TEEN WRITER IN THIS DAY AND AGE

1. You don't have to worry too much about publishing, so it's a good time to practice, practice, practice. Yes, of course I support teens who are trying to get published––I'd be a total hypocrite if I didn't. But I know that many kids are just starting to experiment with writing at this age, and I completely support that too. If you're a teen writer, it's not like "OH CRAP, MY EDITOR NEEDS MY MANUSCRIPT IN TWO WEEKS!" There are no deadlines, so you can write whatever the heck you want. You can try out all different kinds of styles and genres, and there's no pressure to make it "good"––not that teens can't be critical of themselves. But if you are critical of yourself, you can also edit/rewrite as many times as you want to.

2. You have the time. Sure, you have school and homework––maybe some after-school sports or a job. But (hopefully) you don't have a bunch of kids to take care of or a full-time career. It's easier for kids to find time in their schedules to just sit down and write. Finding the time to write is the first step of becoming a good writer, and time is something that most teens have a lot of.

3. There are a lot of ways teens can get published nowadays. I'm not talking book-publishing necessarily, but there are great literary magazines where teenagers can get short stories and poetry published––such as Stone Soup, Cicada and Teen Ink, to name a few. There are also a lot of websites where writers can put up work and get feedback, like Mibba, WEbook, Goodreads, etc. It's a good idea to start small when it comes to publishing, because it's not too overwhelming but you still get a glimpse of what the publishing experience is like. I used to enter Cricket magazine story contests all the time; I got third place once for a lovely little story about singing mice. :) But Cricket also sent out little form-rejection postcards to the entries that didn't win, so I learned what that was like, too.

4. You're in your "prime suffering years". Okay, so one of my favorite movies of all time is "Little Miss Sunshine", and here is one of my favorite quotes from it:

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap––high school and everything––just skip it.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?

Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.

Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-–those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

A little off-topic I guess, but the point is, you learn a lot from your suffering––and as teenagers, we suffer a lot. What's great about teens is that we are brimming with angst. Now you're probably wondering, "Why is it a great thing that I'm full of angst?" Well, when you are a teenager you become very questioning about life. You start to wonder what the point is and where you're going. It gets to the point where you're so confused and stressed out that you feel about ready to explode from it. And that's why a lot of teens write––to get out their ideas and questions and relieve all that stress. So yes, this may produce rambling and/or choppy prose, but it helps you to get out a lot of ideas. Maybe not all of these ideas will be useful to you now, but they may be inspiration to you when you're an adult. I know I get inspiration from my old writing all the time, and I'm predicting that my writing today will inspire me in the future.

5. There are teenage authors out there! Now, I suppose this point is kind of a cheat. Just because some teenagers have published books doesn't necessarily mean that they're "good". In fact, most published teens seem to have stories that go along the lines of, "My mom's neighbor's grandma's cousin's friend happens to be a literary agent and heard about my book and wanted to read it! What a crazy random happenstance!" But oh well, at least these teenagers had the integrity to write full novels in the first place, and some of them have talent. Teen authors include S.E. Hinton, Mary Shelley, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Isamu Fukui, Flavia Bujor, Nancy Yi Fan, Alexandra Adornetto … and I suppose I have to include Christopher Paolini but … ah, let's not talk about him. I'm sure there are lots of others that I don't even know about, but as you can see there are already quite a few that come to mind. And even if these teens haven't produced flawless books, they all write a lot better than a majority of adults. If they can do it, so can we!

To make myself clear, I'm not saying that all teen writing is publishable. I have to agree with John Scalzi that a lot of young adults still have much to learn about grammar, about style, about originality, etc. That doesn't mean that they SUCK, but it means that they have to keep practicing. Write every day, get feedback and take it into consideration, and (as corny as it sounds) keep believing in yourself! Don't expect it to be perfect, but don't be too hard on yourself either. Polishing your writing and finding a voice is very important, so keep at it. ;)

** Now, to be completely off-topic, I would like to advertise one of my best-friend-ninja's blog since I promised her I would. So HERE IS SELLA'S BLOG in which she gives out "free advice on life and fiction". :) Sella is amazing, I love her, and she needs followers. So check it out! Thanks :)

Wednesday Teaser! (heh heh)

2010-08-04T19:28:00.001-07:00

Wow, I'm soooo stupid that for some reason I spent like all of yesterday thinking it was Monday. Or I didn't think it was Monday but I kept thinking "Tomorrow is Tuesday!" So naturally, I didn't post a Tuesday Teaser as I promised. So now I will cheat and post a Wednesday Teaser (even though that ruins everything because there's no alliteration).

Here is a snippet from Unraveling. Yes, it's supposed to confuse you, even if you've read the whole thing. Haha. But just to give you a little bit of context, Mia––the main character––is going back to her hometown to visit her ex-friend, Emily. Some mysterious thing happened that broke their friendship part, but the reader doesn't know what it is (yet). The whole thing is narrated as if Mia is speaking to Emily, just to clarify why a lot of it is in second person. CONTAINS SOME SWEARING (nothing too heavy though, just if you're uber-sensitive about that kind of thing, I thought I'd give you a little warning.)

Shannon stares at me like she expects me to disappear. I probably look like crap; it's a wonder she recognizes me. I run a hand through my hair, trying not to cringe at every snarl that my fingers encounter. “Hi,” I manage to say. My voice probably matches my appearance: worn down, exhausted, defeated.

“Wow. Oh, my God. Hi.” Her freaky blue eyes look about ready to burst from her head. Her mouth twitches, like she can't decide whether to smile or not. “This is … whoa. I can't believe you're here.”

“Neither can I.”

She bites her lip, pulls the strap of her purse up further onto her shoulder. “So, um. Mind if I sit down?”

Yes.

“No. Yeah, it's fine.”

She shuffles over to the seat across from me, her flip-flops slapping against the tiled floor. She sits down, right in that chair where you always used to sit. I guess, if I was looking out of the corner of my eye, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. She has the same color hair as you, Emily, just a little lighter in shade. She doesn't have a single freckle on her face, though. And her eyes are too bright. But, you know, no one can be you. I know, because I tried.

Shannon immediately starts picking up sugar packets and fiddling with them, turning them over and over in her fingers. She puts her purse down on the table, picks it up again. “Uh, you know, I should go buy my coffee first. I'll be right back.”

“Okay.”

She comes back a minute later, plastic cup of iced coffee in hand. I watch as she dumps about five packets of sugar into it and stirs it with her straw.

“So, you're on vacation now?” she asks.

“Yeah. It's the first day.”

“Cool. We got out on Wednesday.”

I don't look at her. I watch droplets of condensation bead up on the glossy surface of the plastic cup and run down its side, pooling on the tabletop.

“So. Are you okay?” Shannon says.

That's always the question these days. I started realizing there had to be something wrong with me, when people never asked me “How are you?” anymore. It's always “Are you okay?” now, like they don't even have to bother to inquire whether I'm in a good mood or not.

I shrug one shoulder, heat rising to my face.

“I'm sorry,” Shannon blurts. “I know, that was a dumb question.”

“It's okay.” I sit up a little straighter in my chair, clear my throat. “I've, uh, been getting better.”

“Good. Well … That's good.” Shannon picks up her coffee and takes a sip, before setting it down again. The silence stretches out like a fathomless ocean between us, dark and deep.

“You know, I––I'm really sorry,” Shannon says.

My eyes sting. I swallow. God, I'm just so … tired. And I'm sick of people apologizing. It's the only thing people seem to be able to do.

“Don't be.” I finally gather the courage to look up, and Shannon is staring back at me like she's afraid I'm going to slap her. She sits at the edge of her seat, and I almost expect her to get up and leave without another word.

Shannon looks down, stirring her coffee again. The ice cubes rattle against the plastic interior of the cup. “Mia––you shouldn't be mad at her.”

Something stirs in the pit of my stomach, and I don't know if it's just because I'm hungry. I still haven't taken a bite of my muffin, but I don't really feel like eating. I feel like you're standing behind me, Emily, waiting for me to speak.

“I know. I'm not,” I lie.

Shannon sits perfectly still, like it's too hard for her to think and stir coffee at the same time. “It wasn't her fault.”

I nod, and I hate myself for it. Your phantom-like presence is still standing behind me, smiling in triumph.

Shannon seems to lose interest in her coffee. She leans back in her chair and gazes out the window. She laughs, but not happily. “Shit, Mia. I don't know … Maybe you don't believe it, but it wasn't just her. It wasn't the things she said or did, or what you did. It wasn't your fault, either.” She lets out a shaking breath, rubbing her hands over her bare knees. “It wasn't just the two of you. It was the whole damn school. It was all of us. You know?”

“I guess.”

Shannon shakes her head. “I'm just saying. You know how people get. They just want to, like, fit in. And then there's that whole 'mob mentality' kind of thing. They go along with everyone else, just because they don't want to be outcasts or whatever. And, you know, it's not like anyone tried to help you. No one stood up for you. But I'm saying, that doesn't mean they believed everything she said.”

You'd be happy to know, Emily, that I doubt that. I think they all believed it. You've always had that ability to turn everyone in your presence into a helpless little puppy dog, looking up to you for guidance. All you have to do is say the word, and they hang off of every syllable like it's sacred. All you have to do is widen your pretty blue eyes and the world bows at your feet.

“I'm not saying that people don't talk about it,” Shannon goes on. She reaches for her coffee again, drinks some more, swirls the cup around absently. “They still say things. But, you know, don't take it personally. I've just always felt bad about it. I would've stuck up for you, except I was just as scared as anyone else was. But Emily … she lied. I know that, and I think everyone knows.”

It's the first time I've heard someone say your name out loud like that in a long time. It shocks me back to reality. I haven't seen you in such a long time, sometimes I forget that you're a real person. I forget that you're still on the face of the planet. And I'm not sure whether remembering makes it better or worse. It feels like a pound of ice cubes are sitting at the bottom of my stomach.

Shannon lets out a long sigh, before she continues. “Hell, it's been––what? Two years by now? That's the sad thing, you know. People don't realize how stupid they were being until afterwards. I don't know about everyone else, but I think the whole thing was so dumb. And I'm sorry I went along with it.”

“Well, thanks.”

Shannon makes another attempt at a smile. “I'm sorry. Am I being totally weird?”

“A little.”

“I know. Sorry. It's just, you know, I figured I might as well say something before you go off and disappear again.” She picks up her coffee and examines it like she's never seen it before. “So, what are you doing here, anyway?”

I shrug again. “Nothing. I just thought I'd come back. I haven't been here in so long.”

“Yeah.” She takes another drink of coffee. “It's like you totally disappeared from the face of the earth. Where have you been?”

“I moved.”

Shannon rolls her eyes. “Well, obviously. But you also, like, cut off all contact from the rest of the world.”

“Yeah, well. I kind of wanted to just get away from it. Away from … this town. From everything.” From you, Emily.

“Right,” Shannon says. “Makes sense. I mean, I see where you're coming from. I would've done the same thing.”

I always hate when people say that. Would have. Could have. Should have. I could make a list about ten miles long of everything that could have happened, of everything I should have said and done. And what's the use in thinking about something that didn't happen and never will? When it's too late to turn back, the only thing you can do is let go. But we're so stubborn that way, holding onto things that could have been. It's one of those things that makes life so unbearable.

Besides, it's not like Shannon knows me. She can't put herself in my shoes. She can't imagine what I went through. She was just one of the people standing on the outside, watching from the sidelines. Now that everything is over, of course it's easy for her to step forward and say that she's sorry, say that she sympathizes with me and understands what I did. But that's because she's a coward.
I don't mean that as an insult. Not really. I mean, everyone is like that. Everyone wants to fit in, to be a part of the majority, to follow everyone else and stand in line. Like Shannon just said, it's that mob mentality. When someone lays the blame down, you point in the same direction as everyone else, because it's the only way to protect yourself, because people fear what they disagree with and what they can't understand. And fear is the origin of hatred.

So, I'm not saying that it's wrong of her. It's just typical, almost clichéd.

“Anyway,” Shannon says. “How long are you staying around here?”

That's a good question, one I haven't really thought about yet. “Until I feel like going home, I guess,” I answer. “Or I mean, after … I really only came here to …”

“Emily,” Shannon says.

I cringe on the inside. There's that name again. Her name. I mean, your name.

I take a deep breath. “Yeah. I just want to … talk to her first, you know?”

I expect to get an incredulous look in response: one of those “Mia-are-you-out-of-your-freaking-mind?” looks. But Shannon just nods, likes she thinks she understands.

THANKS FOR READING. PEEAAAACE. :)

Artworky stuff

2010-08-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

Hello there. I have nothing to write about today so I thought I'd share some of my gorgeous artwork, since I've never shared any of it (besides the Walking Shadow covers). Here goes.

This is a comic strip I drew for Illustration class. It's backwards because my computer takes pictures backwards, and I'm too lazy to edit it right now. So. Haha. If you can't read it, it says "Baby Monster by Brigid Gorry-Hines", then on the TV it says "Godzilla", and in the last two panels one monster says "What are you looking at?" and the other one answers, "My future!" (That was the "script" we had to work with.)

Butterflyyy. And a river and a tree and grass and the skyyy!!! I also drew this for Illustration class. And you can see my beautiful hands too.

Pretty pen drawing, also for Illustration. It was based on the quote "My childhood and my dog share a grave in my backyard." I don't know where my teacher got the quote though. :P meh heh.

Wheeee emo heart drawing! I like this one. I drew it on my Biology binder with Sharpie, then I took a picture of it and messed with it to make it look all pretty. Yay! ^_^

EVIL ROBOTS MAKE THINGS GO BOOM. YAY.

It's a KOALABIRD!!!

MONSTER WITH LOTSA EYEBALLS EATS CITY. NOM NOM.

An evil-lookin' guy with a top hat!

Cover of a pop-up book I made!

Aaaaand …

THE INSIDE OF THE POP-UP BOOK!!! (You can't see it, but the rocket ship moves!!!)

Lastly … a picture of an angel-thing. YAYYYY.

As for writerly stuff: still haven't heard back from Katherine Boyle or Laura Langlie yet. I assume that means they are both thoroughly enjoying my novel. Or so I try to tell myself.

Also, since I started participating more in the Absolute Write forums, I found that a bunch of people have this "Tuesday teaser" thing on their blogs where, every Tuesday, they show a snippet of something they're writing. So seeing as tomorrow is Tuesday, I think that tomorrow I will participate in this thing. Sooo teaser coming up tomorrow! SEE YA.

Brigid Interviews Herself

2010-08-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm bored and I like interviews. Now, there is no one to interview me so I thought I'd interview myself. That way I can ask myself all the quest
ions that other people usually ask me, plus the questions people never ask me that I want to answer anyway! By the way, I'm REALLLLY high on caffeine right now, which may have influenced this decision. So yeah, now I'm going to ask myself some questions, trying to mostly focus on Walking Shadow and writing. Although there will some random stuff thrown in there. ((Thanks to my Ninja friends for giving me some ideas for extra questions, btw))

Q: Hi there Brigid! How are you?

A: Great. I guess.

Q: Who's your favorite Teletubby?

A: What an odd first question. But anyway. My favorite Teletubby is Tinky Winky, because his name makes me giggle. Also he's gay and carries a purse, which is awesome.

Q: Where do you get ideas?

A: From your MOM. Just kidding. From the Idea Fairy. Psh. Unless your mom IS the Idea Fairy! O_O No, seriously. I don't know where I get my ideas. No writer does, as far as I know. That's the annoying thing about them. You just have to wait for them to come along. Usually they come from something totally random––like a snippet of conversation that I overhear, or a line from a song, or a picture I see, or a magazine article or something. And then it's like BAM! There are suddenly these weird images in front of me and voices talking in my ear. It's like a drug trip, mannnnn. Really, it's kind of a bizarre experience. I think all writers are a bit insane. Creativity is psychologically similar to schizophrenia, you know.

Q: Where did you get the idea for Walking Shadow?

A: The idea for Walking Shadow came from multiple things. It was one of those ideas where it actually started as two ideas, but it turned out that neither of them worked without the other so I put them together. If you're not familiar with the story, there are two main characters: Cassandra and Jason. Originally it was just about Cassandra, and I tried to write it and it failed––mostly because I had no idea who/what she was. I knew that she had weird visions and stuff; at first I thought it was a ghost story. But I knew it was missing something so I put it aside. Later on I had a glimmer of an idea about a boy who kills everything he touches, but I didn't know why. The two ideas merged when I was reading Macbeth in sophomore English class. I read the line "Life is a walking shadow …" and I was like "Oooh, now that would be a great book title!" And with all ideas, there was that inexplicable moment where the whole thing suddenly just worked. The two ideas clicked together and I was like *HAPPY DANCE*. So I wrote the idea down somewhere and I wrote it for NaNoWriMo '09––started it in November, finished in early January. No idea how I managed to write it so fast, it being Junior year and all …

Q: Do you have any wonderful covers you've created for this book?

A: BAHAHAHA. Yeah. Lemme show you. I've made some pretty kick-ass covers using images I don't own … so I guess I can't share those because then someone would find them and be like "OMG I'M SO OFFENDED" and then I'd have to take them down from my blog and burn them and stuff. So, I'll just show you the ones I drew myself. Basically I drew a pretty rose and then I used it to make pretty book covers like THESE:

Q: What authors inspire you?

A: Lots and LOTS of authors! But I'll try to narrow it down.

Markus Zusak (The Book Thief), Patrick Ness (CHAOS WALKING TRILOGY!!!! *I'm a little obsessed*), Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, Kane Chronicles series), Cassandra Clare (Mortal Instruments series), Neal Shusterman (Unwind, the Skinjacker trilogy, Downsiders, The Schwa was Here), Libba Bray (Gemma Doyle trilogy, Going Bovine), Maggie Stiefvater (Wolves of Mercy Falls series, Books of Faerie series) … And probably a bunch of others that I'm forgetting. Woohooo. :)

Q: What music inspires you?

A: *Takes deep breath*

Acceptance, Adele, Blue Foundation, Boys Like Girls, The Cab, Civil Twilight, Cobra Starship, Corinne Bailey Rae, Dashboard Confessional, Daughtry, Death Cab for Cutie, Dido, Elisa, Evanescence, Fall Out Boy, A Fine Frenzy, Five for Fighting, Florence + the Machine, The Fray, Glen Hansard, Goo Goo Dolls, Gratitude, Hey Monday, The Hush Sound, Imogen Heap, Jason Mraz, Kate Voegele, Kelly Clarkson, The Killers, Kings of Leon, KT Tunstall, Lifehouse, Lights, Linkin Park, Marina and the Diamonds, Matchbox 20, Meg & Dia, MGMT, Michelle Branch, Muse, My Chemical Romance, Nelly Furtado, Nickel Creek, Nickelback, Owl City, P!nk, Paramore, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sara Bareilles, The Script, Sia, Snow Patrol, Taking Back Sunday, Third Eye Blind, The Ting Tings, Tokio Hotel, Train, U2, Vanessa Carlton, We Are the Fallen, Within Temptation

*grins* :)

Q: What are you writing right now?

A: Well, I could tell you. … But then I'd have to kill you.

JK.

Um, I'm writing four things at the moment. One is a short story sci-fi/dystopia/romance thing that I'm writing for a collection of Ninja-Writer stories. I'll post updates on that. Other than that … I'm writing Unraveling, which a realistic fic that is basically a teenage girl ranting about her hatred for her ex-best friend and remembering everything that led to them becoming ex-friends. I'm also writing Rage, which is a fantasy-dystopia retelling of Beauty & the Beast. And lastly I'm writing Sky-Fall, which is this epic sci-fi thing about people fighting each other with giant robots! I'm sorry, I'm terrible at describing my own stories. Heh heh.

Q: What book are you reading right now?

A: Runaway by Meg Cabot. :) heehee

Q: How do you choose character names?

A: Behindthename.com <-- best thing ever Anyway, answering the question. It varies. Sometimes I want them to mean something or be an allusion to something. Like Cassandra can see the future and the mythological Cassandra was a prophet. Sometimes I like the names to mean something in an ironic way; like how Jason means "healer" (or something to do with healing) and my character Jason kills everything he touches. A lot of the time I just choose names randomly though. The right name always "clicks", like it was meant to be. :)

Q: Who's your favorite character that you've created?

A: MAXWELL COLLINS. He's a superheroooo!!! (according to Acacia) He's the main character of Edge and Jump … and the third book, Crash, which I have not yet written. I, uh, don't know what much else to say about him. He has superpowers and he's adorable and he kicks ass.

Q: How do you get titles for your books?

A: Heh, I have no idea. The only one I really chose was the title for Walking Shadow, since I got it right out of the Macbeth quote. The rest of them were either really obvious or they just occurred to me and seemed to fit.

Q: What's the funniest typo you've ever made?

A: One time I was trying to write "I sense danger", and I had written "I sense d-" when my sister ran into the room and said "We're having doughnuts for breakfast!" And I looked down and saw that I had written "I sense doughnuts."

Q: What is your computer named?

A: Frederick the Second. He is descended from Frederick the First, who is a ninja.

Q: What do you think makes a good book?

A: It depends. Good and distinctive writing is a plus, characters that are both realistic and believable, unique world-building if it's a sci-fi/fantasy, showing instead of telling, etc. I like books that are either really original, or a book that takes a clichéd idea and makes it unique somehow. My favorite books are ones that can be terrifying and/or depressing in some parts and hilarious in others. Because life isn't just funny or just depressing, ya know?

Q: What is the purpose of Walking Shadow?

A: To be rejected by every literary agent known to mankind. Just kidding. Umm not exactly sure. I never sit down to write a book with a certain "purpose" in mind. Themes seem to write themselves into my books and I'm like "Okay … cool." I think the message in Walking Shadow is that it's hard to tell what's real and what's not. There's this whole thing where the Underworld is a state of mind, where believing in it is what gives it its power. It's like, is believing something what makes it real? I don't know how to explain it very well, but that's the basic idea.

Q: When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

A: I always liked reading/writing. I used to make books with crayons when I was, like, five years old. I think I was about eight or nine when I first got the idea in my head of writing a novel, a book with CHAPTERS. OOH. Although I found that I could never get past page five or so, so I switched to short stories and kept writing those until I was about eleven. At that point my fourth grade teacher (who was pretty much the most awesome teacher ever) was putting together a writing club and I joined, since I had never shared my stories with anyone. I remember one of the first writing clubs I was reading one of my stories out loud and this other teacher walked in and was like, "What book are you reading?" And I was like, "Mine … ?" Heehee. That was when it first really occurred to be that I could be an AUTHOR, and I realized that, not only did I love writing, but I was purty good at it too. I started writing my first novel when I was twelve, and I've been writing novels ever since then.

Q: How do you react to negative reviews?

A: Psh. I don't get negative reviews. Just kidding. Well, they are pretty rare though. It depends. If there's actually something useful/constructive in the negativity, then I'll take it. Sometimes people point out things in my writing that I didn't notice before, so it's useful. If it's just like "I don't like this. I don't know why, I just don't." Then it's like … Alrighty then, that doesn't really help me so there's nothing I can do.

Q: Do you have a specific writing style?

A: I dunno. I think it changes, depending on what fits the story. I try to keep it concise, not a lot of description. But my characters think/analyze a lot, and there's a lot of dialogue. I love dialogue. Dialogue and inner monologue are my true loves. I try to be funny sometimes, although my humor's usually dark humor. Mostly my books are serious-ish.

Q: Have you ever been abducted by aliens?

A: Only twice.

Q: Will you survive the zombie apocalypse?

A: Unfortunately, no. I can't run very fast, my fighting skills are so-so, and my brain is extra-delicious because it's so rich with knowledge.

So yeah, I'm done here for now. Hopefully everyone learned something about me. Now I should get around to interviewing people besides myself. :)

A wonderful post on EDITING!

2010-07-31T05:53:00.000-07:00

Hello there, my fabulous fans. I have exactly 70 followers now. How on earth did THAT happen? But WOOT! That makes me feel a little more awesome about myself.

Anyway, before I get into the heavy stuff I'll quickly update about the whole publishing thing. Since I last posted, mostly I've been getting form rejections. But yesterday I received another request for a full manuscript and another request for a partial! And the full request was from Laura Langlie who is Meg Cabot's agent! (*Squee*) I hear she replies fast though, so for all I know she could reject me in the next two minutes. But hey, at least she requested the full. Plus, Katherine Boyle is still reading my full, too. So *FINGERS AND TOES CROSSED*

Now onto EDITING.

Okay so a while back, someone requested that I write a post on editing. My response was something along the lines of "HAHA You are asking the wrong person." It's not that I don't like editing, or that I'm bad at it. It just scares me, since it's such an overwhelming process. I remember the innocent days when I thought "editing" just meant you fixed all the typos, and you were done! Huzzah! But noooo … There are all these horrible things called "plot holes".

But before I can go on a long angry rant about that, let's approach this in a more organized manner. So I guess I'll share how I, personally, go about editing. That doesn't mean there's a "right" way to do it, but this is my advice.

1. Once you finish writing your first draft, don't attack it right away. Let it sit for a while. Enjoy that wonderful "I finished writing a book" feeling. Start writing something else. I wait months and sometimes years to edit things … Partly because I'm a procrastinator and partly because it's good to look at a manuscript with fresh eyes when you're editing.

2. Before you start editing, read the whole manuscript first without changing anything. Take notes about things that might need work, and fix any typos or spelling/grammar mistakes you notice, but don't do anything major yet.

3. Remember: You have to pretend the book is not yours. Then you'll start thinking like "OMG, this book is my baby. I cannot kill my baby." And that's bad. You must learn to murder your children. Errr … I'm sorry, that's too morbid of an analogy. The point is, you can't help but be emotionally attached to your book. Writing a book is a long process that involves a close relationship with the story and the characters, etc. The hardest part is detaching yourself from it. Continuing with the child analogy … If you never punish a child or teach him/her anything, the kid's going to grow up to be a spoiled idiot. You have to give that child some tough love and whip him/her into shape, and he/she will grow into a good person. With books, it's the same way. Of course you love your book, but you have to teach it a few lessons. Books, like all children, have a rebellion stage, where they start to go off on their own and go out of control. You have to remind that crazy teenager who's boss! And then you have to let it grow up and make its way out into the world. :)

4. Allow someone else (or a lot of people) to read the manuscript and give feedback. And I don't mean your best friend or your grandma or your dog. It should be someone who you trust but also someone who won't be afraid to rip your book to shreds (figuratively, not literally. If you think someone would literally rip your manuscript apart, I wouldn't trust them as an editor if I were you …). Like I trust my mom, for example. Now I know a lot of people are like "Your mom? Psshhh that doesn't count!" But trust me, my mom kicks serious ass at editing. She rocks. Most of you probably can't trust your mom's because they'd be like "Oh goodness dear, what a lovely little story!" If your mom is a kick-butt editor like mine, then you are lucky. I also trust my good ninja-writer-friends who I met through Goodreads.com and now communicate with through Facebook and Skype also. It's good to have an online group of writing friends. There are tons and tons of websites to get writing feedback. Be careful about spilling writing all over the internet, but there are a lot of great websites for posting/critiquing websites, such as Goodreads (as I already mentioned), WEbook, Mibba, Critique Circle, Critters, etc. Get more than one person to read your book and give feedback. Others are better at catching the little mistakes (I find that I tend to read over my own typos hundreds of times without noticing them) and they catch the big gaping plot holes too. Now you don't have to take all of everyone's advice, but if there are patterns in the critiques (like a lot of people have problems with the same things) then you should probably change those things.

5. Make sure the writing has a good flow. A lot of readers get caught up on writing style, even if it's a great story, so this is important. When it comes to dealing with this, the first thing I do is take out all the useless words, which mostly consist of ADVERBS, ADJECTIVES, and DIALOGUE TAGS. I write these things in caps because they are evil. Well, not really. To a certain degree they're alright. But too much of any of them makes your writing sound awkward.

"Hello!" the beautiful, smart, young girl exclaimed brightly.

"Get out of my face!" the talking, purple, fat mushroom retorted angrily and indignantly.

You see what I mean? It gets ugly. (btw, I have no idea where the talking mushroom came from.) Unfortunately, I used to be obsessed with adjectives, adverbs, and dialogue tags. And sometimes the bad habit still sneaks up on me. It makes editing my old work total hell. But anyway, the point is, powerful verbs and nouns = good. Adverbs and adjectives encourage telling rather than showing, which is FOR THE WEAK. ARE YOU A WEAKLING? I DIDN'T THINK SO. And excessive use of dialogue tags exposes you as an amateur. Forget all those words like "exclaimed, shouted, screamed, shrieked, gargled" … whatever. Use them very very very occasionally, like if you REALLY need to, but not after every piece of dialogue. And if you must use dialogue tags at all, please just use something simple like "said, asked, answered" etc. This may be a shocker to you, but most of the time you don't need dialogue tags at all. *GASP* The actually interesting part is the dialogue. As long as the reader can clearly follow who's talking, there's not much use for dialogue tags except for an occasional reminder of who's saying what. We don't need to know how something is said, because it's usually implied in the context of the scene. You can pretty much tell how someone is saying something just by what they say. Like, "I hate your freaking guts you stupid talking mushroom!" … I think anyone could make a pretty good assumption of what tone that would be spoken in. You don't have to say that anyone "shouted angrily" for readers to get the idea. :P

Also, read out loud to yourself. It might feel silly at first, but it's a useful strategy. When you hear your own words out loud, it helps you get a better sense of how the writing flows or doesn't flow. And if it doesn't, you can play with it by talking to yourself until it sounds right.

6. Adding/removing scenes. Now, this is the tricky part, not really my strong point either. But I'll try. I'd say, only add a scene if you think it's necessary––like, if you need to develop a certain character a little bit more, or there's a gaping plot hole that you forgot to explain somewhere. Likewise, remove scenes if they're NOT necessary. Like maybe there's some long scene where the characters are all eating breakfast for 20 pages and nothing really happens. Maybe there are some good bits of dialogue or a great description in there somewhere, and you can still use those … just in a more interesting scene. Just because you remove a scene doesn't mean you can't take the gems out of it and use them elsewhere. But if there's a scene that drags out for too long and interrupts the flow of the story, you need to take it out. One of the worst things you can do as an author is be B-O-R-I-N-G.

Well, that's the advice I got for ya, and I hope it helps. If it doesn't, well SORRY. If it does, well YAY ME. As always, if you have questions for me you can leave a comment. :) Thanks for reading!

A long, rambling post that includes some bad news, some good news, a happy story, and some of my writing

2010-07-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

Hey, folks. It is I, Brigid, once again. Life has been absolutely nuts in the past three weeks since I've posted––and I don't really have one topic to focus on, so this is going to be a long rant about a lot of things that are bouncing around in my brain.

I thought I'd start off by giving you the bad news. Then I'll get to the good news. Then I'll tell you about some awesome stuff I've been doing for the past couple weeks. Lastly, I realize that I've never really posted any of my writing directly on my blog, so I figured I would share a snippet of it for once.

Alrighty, here goes …

The Bad News

The bad news is,

a) Kristin Nelson double-rejected me. You know how I emailed her back before, after she read my partial and said it was "relentlessly dark" and all? Well, then I got the reply back from one of her assistants or something, who was like "Kristin says thanks, but she has too much to read" or something. Oh, well. That's pretty much what I expected. If dark and depressing isn't her thing, I guess she just wasn't the agent for me.

b) Jason Anthony also rejected me––although as far as I could tell, he seemed to like the manuscript at least a little … He basically said that he was impressed I'd written it at my age, and that my writing style was good, but he didn't like the structure and thought the story was too clichéd. So over all, "You're good for a kid, but you're not good enough. *pat pat*" At least he said he's interested in future projects, so I'll have somewhere to turn when I finish/edit something else.

As for Walking Shadow … Well, I started frantically sending out queries again a few days ago. Which brings me to …

The Good News

The good news is, I sent out somewhere between 20-30 queries in the past two days. *whew* Today I sent out a bunch at about 4:30. I just checked my email like half an hour ago and found I had one response that came at 5:16. So I'm like, "Wow, that was fast." And then I just stared at it, not wanting to open it.

I hate hate hate that feeling of opening a response to a query. I always tell myself "It's a rejection, it's a rejection, it's a rejection" but there's always that part of me that hopes so badly that it won't be.

And this time, it wasn't.

I GOT MY SECOND FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUEST FOR WALKING SHADOW, PEOPLES!

So, Katherine Boyle of the Veritas Literary Agency requested my full manuscript. Woot! Of course I made sure she's an AAR member and looked up her background on AbsoluteWrite. From what I've read, people say she's friendly and enthusiastic, and she's willing to request revisions if she thinks a manuscript has potential. So, that's good. :) I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up but … Maybe this time will be different? Maybe maybe maybe?

Anyway …

Happy Story!

So, the past few weeks have been totally awesome because I've been hanging out with my ninja-writer friends: Acacia, Ilana, and Sella. Sella flew over here from CA and Acacia and Ilana both live in MA … So now we are all here in MA and it's been the greatest experience hanging out with all of them. I met all three of these amazing people through Goodreads.com––not that I am encouraging meeting with random people from the internet, because these guys aren't random. I've known them all for at least a year, and we've talked through Goodreads, Facebook, Skype, and over the phone pretty much every day since we "met". It's kind of an out-of-body experience though. You'd think it'd be weird, but when I met up with them in real life I didn't feel like it was any different––besides that they're even more amazing in person, but it's like we've been friends forever and ever. :D So yeah, since Sella got here we've had a bunch of sleepovers, and watched movies (and lightning storms, which Sella had never seen before :P), and stayed up all night … and oh yeah writing, that's pretty important too. ;) lol. It's been like the best summer ever! I love my ninjas!!!

My Writing

Okay, so here's what's up with my writing.

First of all, I finished my book Jump! Yay! I have now completed seven novels :)

I'm now switching my focus between Sky-Fall, Unraveling, and Rage. Not really sure which one I'm going to focus on next. … I told myself for months that Unraveling was next in line, but now I keep getting ideas for Sky-Fall and Rage too. Dammit. Well, I'll probably end up sharing tidbits of all of them in the future.

For now, since I talk about it so dang much, I thought I'd share some of Walking Shadow with you. So, enjoy this little excerpt. Peace out! ;)

----------

Jason stops dead in his tracks. He whirls around to face me again, so suddenly that it startles me.

“I don't know what I am, anymore,” he blurts. There's a wild, terrified gleam in his dark eyes now, like his fear is driving him into insanity. “I don't know what I've done. But I have to get back, somehow. I have to become human again.”

We're both silent, staring at each other like we're looking through a pane of glass––one of us on each side, separated but still able to see each other. The only thing I can hear is both of us breathing. My heart is pounding faster and faster in my chest.

I can tell that he's holding something back. I still see the image from him in my dream––curled up on the floor, bleeding, dying, so close to me but yet so far away, beyond my reach. I feel lightheaded, just thinking about it.

“What do you want me to do?” My voice is low, almost a whisper. “I don't––don't understand.”

His eyes go dull, like he's starting to get some of his sanity back. I can practically see it, when reality hits him. “I don't know, either. I don't know what you're or what I'm supposed to do. But I just can't keep living like this. Or not 'living', exactly, but you know what I mean.” He shakes his head. “I'm just really scared, okay? I know that maybe you can't help me, but if you could just consider it, at least. If you could just try …”

“You're not telling me something,” I interrupt him. The words burst out of me before I can stop them. He looks at me, taken aback. “Maybe I'm wrong, but …”

“No.” The surprise is gone from his face. “I mean, you're not wrong. You're right.”

“So, what are you not telling me?”

He closes his eyes, like he's trying to concentrate on something. When he opens them again, they seem darker and blacker than ever. “You have to promise that you won't be afraid of me, if I show you.”

I wrap my arms tighter around myself. The cold of the autumn morning presses in around me. I want to tell him that I won't be scared. Normally, it would be true. I've never been truly afraid of anything, except my own mind. But I feel afraid of him now, with an intensity like I've never felt. Still, I need to know who he is. What he is.

I don't promise anything, but I give the command, keeping my voice and my gaze steady. “Show me.”

Once again, the wind picks up, as if in forewarning. This time it's stronger, making my hair whip into my face, snatching the leaves from the ground and throwing them into the air. More leaves fall from the tree branches above us, orange and yellow, so it looks like fire is falling from the sky.

Jason is still standing there, like he's waiting for something. But what is he waiting for? Is he waiting for me to change my mind? Is what he has to show me really that disturbing, that dangerous? Violent shudders go up my spine. What's he going to do, grow fangs and eat me?

Jason doesn't change. He doesn't shape-shift. He doesn't burst into flames. He just looks down at the gloves on his hands––and slowly, he starts to take them off. When his hands emerge from the gloves, they look perfectly ordinary. No fur or scales or claws or anything. Just normal, human hands. What am I supposed to see?

Jason puts his gloves in the pocket of his denim jacket. He's not looking at me anymore; he's looking around at the ground, like he's searching for something. He walks closer to me, and the cold, Otherworldly feeling of his presence nearly overwhelms my mind, filling it with blackness. I'm dizzy for a second, but I force myself to stay alert, to keep watching him.

He kneels on the ground, so close to me. His head is bent, still staring downward. I can't see what he's looking at, so I kneel down too. My legs are shaking so badly, I'm afraid I'll fall over. But I manage, clumsily, to make it onto my knees.

I brush red strands of hair out of my eyes, my fingers shaking. The only thing on the ground between us is a small patch of uncovered soil. In the middle of it, there's an anthill. It's getting a little late in the year for the ants to still be alive, I think. But that's probably not the point.

The tiny black creatures climb in and out of the small, dark hole. I lift my eyes, looking at Jason. His face is a blank mask. It's like he's concentrating on something––something that is beyond my perception. Then he reaches down, and he brushes one finger over some of the ants.

At first, nothing happens. I'm about to decide, once and for all, that he's crazy and that I should just walk away. Then, I see that something strange is happening to the ants that he touched. They stop in their tracks, as if they've been frozen in time. One by one, they start curling in on themselves, their little legs struggling like they're trying to fight against an invisible, crushing force. They crumple. They disintegrate. Their tiny bodies burst, leaking black fluid. The ants that Jason touched lie in a miserable, messy trail of death.

I almost fall backwards in horror. I stare and stare, not knowing what to feel. I feel like I've been punched hard in the stomach, like I'm choking, like I'm going to throw up. This is not what I expected in the least. It would be an understatement to say I'm surprised, and hardly anything surprises me. I haven't even breathed this entire time.

I can feel Jason watching me, like he's waiting for my reaction, and his gaze––even though I'm not even looking at him––chills me to the core. What does he expect me to say? What does he want me to say? Is he hoping that this convinced me to try to help him? Did it convince me?

I'm starting to think that I'll never be able to look up, but at last, I let out a deep breath and I lift my eyes; they lock on Jason's. Right away, my breath catches again. It's not that he looks different, but that there's the hint of something new there, like he's scared of what he's just done, but there's another part of him that doesn't see the horror in the situation, maybe even a part of him that enjoyed it. But fear and desperation overpower that satisfaction, so strong as they reach me, from across the small space between us, that I can almost taste them. I've never felt fear like his.

Again, I see him in the middle of the white room, in my dream, his bloody hand prints streaking the walls, his fingers dripping blood as he reaches for me. I can see his eyes overflowing with bloody tears, leaving red trails on his face. I hear those words, repeated, even though he doesn't say them aloud this time. It's like his very soul, if he has one, is screaming and calling out to me.

Help me, it cries, tearing me apart. Help me, help me, help me …

Happy Independence Daaayyy!!! (And I have lots of news to share :P)

2010-07-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

Helloooo everyone! *ducks rotten tomatoes* Yeah yeah, I know I haven't posted in forever. Sorry! Well, I have lots and lots and lots to tell all my fabulous fans … you know, all two of you who read this or whatever. Heh heh.

Alrighty, so, the first thing I have to talk about is the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, which ended like a month ago or so. The bad news is, I didn't win. The good news … I believe the last time I wrote I had made the quarterfinals of the contest. Well, I ultimately made the SEMIFINALS!!! THAT'S THE TOP 50 OUT OF 5000 YOUNG ADULT ENTRIES, TOP 100 OUT OF 10,000 TOTAL ENTRIES! AD;KFD;SKJFSKJ. I've known this for like three months and it still blows my mind. Anyway, a couple of great things came out of this, even though I didn't win. First of all, I made the semifinals based on a review and rating from a Publishers Weekly reviewer (AAHH!).

So, my friends, here is the PUBLISHERS WEEKLY review of my book Walking Shadow. I will put in bold all the phrases that made me die of happiness:

"Two teens connect under very unusual circumstances in this well-crafted novel. Both seventeen, Cassandra is a psychic and Jason has just died in a car crash. Cassandra is closed off socially, suffering from dreams of the souls that live in the Otherworld. Jason, after his death, makes a deal with the Lord of the Underworld to be returned to his past life, not realizing that he will be a ghost. When Cassandra is the only one who can see him in his ghostly form, Jason pleads with her to help him. Cassandra agrees, thinking that Jason might be able to help her lift the curse of psychic ability that has affected all the women in her family. A solution is presented to them, thanks to Celeste, a spirit from the Otherworld and Elaine, a ghost like Jason. If they are able to journey through the Underworld, Jason can regain his soul and Cassandra can lose her psychic ability. But this journey has never been completed by a human--will they be the first to achieve this? Told in two voices, these engaging main characters live and breathe on the page. While the idea of a journey to the Underworld is not new, there are interesting twists, such as Jason's ghostly state. The plot is well-paced and thoughtfully developed, the Underworld clearly established without long passages of exposition. Combining romance and action with a dual character study, this manuscript is a wonderful, thrilling read."

HOLY TALKING MUSHROOMS, can you believe that? I had to re-read it about ten times the first time I saw it because I couldn't believe it was real! I still don't believe it … GAHHH! So yeah, that was definitely a life-changing experience.

And as if things couldn't get any better … shortly after I made the semifinals, I received an e-mail from literary agent Jason Anthony (Lippincott Massie McQuilkin agency). Apparently he discovered my Kindle excerpt of Walking Shadow and enjoyed it, and then––get this––he found THIS BLOG (woot!) and also enjoyed it, and so he asked to have a phone conversation with me. Thus, I ended up having my first phone conversation with a literary agent, during which he asked to see the full manuscript. (Squee!) Well, I haven't heard back from him yet. But even so … This is the first time a literary agent has approached me, rather than vice versa. Feels purty special. I'll keep you peoples updated on this. Hopefully I will hear more from Mr. Anthony soon. :)

I also got a partial request from Kristin Nelson (Nelson Literary Agency) for the first 30 pages. She rejected me a few days ago saying she thought the writing was "solid" but it was "relentlessly dark" and she would have liked to see a glimpse of hope in it. Well … it's kind of hard to show hope shining through in the first 30 pages of a 500-page book, especially when the story is about one character who is doomed to die while the other is already dead. So, I don't know, maybe this was a horribly stupid idea, but I decided to stand up for myself and e-mail her back, explaining more about what the themes of the book are and that I want to show teenage kids that "love triumphs over fear" and that it does actually have a hopeful message … or something along those lines. I'm kind of afraid to go back and read it, but I felt good about it at the time. Oh, well. I expect that she'll either ignore me or reject me again, but at least I tried.

AWKWARD TRANSITION

So … other random things going on.

It's summer! Yay! I finished my horrible, intolerable, depressing, soul-crushing junior year of high school! I got my report card yesterday. Meh heh. Well, let's not talk about that. Just kidding, I pretty much did fine in everything (EXCEPT STUPID STUPID GOSH DARN MATH WHICH SHOULD DIE IN THE FIERY PITS OF HELL). Ah-hem. Nobody saw that.

Also, IT'S JULNOWRIMO!!!!! (which is like NaNoWriMo, only in July and not as important). Guess what?! I HAVEN'T STARTED YET. CRAP. Ah … well, I can still probably do it. I intend to finish writing Unraveling for JulNo, but right now I'm trying to finish up Jump, which I am like 3.5 chapters away from finishing. *sigh* Just need to get working on that, but I decided to do this blogging thing instead.

And another thing! I AM GOING TO MEET MY GOOD WRITING-NINJA FRIEND SELLA TOMORROW!!! HOOORAAAYYY! :] SO EXCITEDDD.

I guess that's all for now. I will try to post again soon … er … !!! :)

Success! ^_^

2010-03-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

HELLO THERE! :)

I believe I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I had entered my novel, Walking Shadow, in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, and that it had advanced to the second round. Wellll … as of March 23rd, it has now advanced to the third round! That's right––I am a quarterfinalist! That's the top 250 novels out of 5000! HOLY CRAP!

Several of my amazing, wonderful, and freakishly talented writer friends made it to the second round but not the third round. :( I love you, my ninjas. YOU SHOULD HAVE MADE IT TOO! GRRR! >:(

Anyway … So, a 5000 word excerpt of my book is now available on Kindle. You can download it for your Kindle, and if you don't have a Kindle you can easily download a Kindle application for your computer for free (which is basically just like reading it as a PDF, so you don't need to have a Kindle). My excerpt is free too. If you have an Amazon account, please leave a customer review! I want to know what you guys think. :] Thanks!

LINKAGE TIME!

Amazon Breakthough Novel Award homepage

Walking Shadow - Excerpt (UPDATE 2/12/11 - This link no longer worky. They took all the excerpts down––however you can still read the excerpt here and see the Publisher's Weekly review here.)

As for how my writing's going … Well, I haven't written much lately. Life has been hectic. I started yet another book––so that makes four at once. This one's called Sky-Fall and it basically involves warfare with giant robots. Fun fun. I'll figure out more of it later.

I've started writing again for the first time in, like, a week or two. So that's good. Write or Die is my hero. Best website ever. If you're a writer, I highly recommend that you check it out, because it really helps me get my writing done. Just be sure to copy/paste the work you do on it, or it'll disappear.

Write or Die

Oh! Another piece of exciting news: Karey Shane (aka KSR Kingsworth), author of Secret Speakers and the Search for Selador's Gate and a good friend of mine, randomly selected me to interview Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of Tantalize and Eternal. Squee! :) So, I will post a link to the interview when it's up on her website. I'm excited!

Alrighty, that's all I've got to say for today. :) Stay tuned!!!

UPDATE: Here is the link to the interview!

Rejection, Rejection, Rejection … (I was hoping that saying it a bunch of times would make it sound less scary. It didn't work.)

2010-03-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Hi there, people. As I mentioned in my last post, I am now going to dedicate an entire post to the idea of REJECTION! And don't run away screaming, because this is important. It's a tough topic, and everyone hates it. But all writers go through it, also––a lot of it. So I'm going to share my experience with rejection, and all my lovely thoughts on it.

So, I believe I mentioned in some post, from like a billion years ago, that some literary agent had requested my manuscript. REJECTED. Since then, another agent requested a partial of my manuscript. ALSO REJECTED.

Now, that's a good 40 or 50 rejections I have, by now. I don't know how "normal" that is. I think it varies for every writer. Some people are rejected 10 times, and some are rejected 100 or more times. You never know. Writing is a tricky business like that.

But whether you get rejected twice or a million billion times––if you are a writer, you're going to experience rejection. So, you have to have a thick skin. If you don't have one, get one. Rejection is hard, of course, but it's not an entirely bad thing. Now, I'm not saying I like rejection. It's not fun. It's very frustrating.

My first piece of advice: allow yourself to have those silly emotional breakdowns. I have one every two months or so. I think that, in a weird way, it's healthy to have those moments where you're like "OH MY GOD! WHAT IF I NEVER GET PUBLISHED? WHAT IF I NEVER BECOME AN AUTHOR? OR WHAT IF I ONLY BECOME AN AUTHOR AFTER I DIE?" I mean, every writer has those moments and it's perfectly fine. I find it sort of motivating, actually. So, when you've suffered rejection after rejection, you don't have to hold it all inside. Rant to somebody. And usually that person will assure you that you do not fail at life, and that you're going to be fine, and that someday you will be published (hopefully before you die). Yes, breakdowns are annoying and embarrassing, but at least, once you come out of them, you feel a little bit better about yourself, because you know you can take the rejection and keep going.

Secondly, don't take rejections personally. Believe it or not, literary agents are human beings too! They have those days when they wake up and think "You know what? I hate today." And maybe that means they're going to reject everyone who queries them that day. It could be that your book just doesn't fit with the agent's personal taste. Plus, these days, when the economy is so messed up, literary agents are especially reluctant to offer representation unless they're REALLY sure the book is going to sell.

Now, I'm reading this book called How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead by Ariel Gore. 'Tis a great book with a lot of good advice. One passage that especially caught my attention was one on rejection. If this doesn't make you feel better about rejection … I don't know what will:

"… Classics famously and repeatedly rejected: War and Peace, The Good Earth, Watership Down, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Fountainhead, To Kill a Mockingbird, Remembrance of Things Past, and Joy of Cooking. Doris Lessing was once rejected by her own publishers when she submitted a novel under a pseudonym. And, in early 2006, the Sunday Times of London took two Booker Prize-winning novels … and submitted them as works by aspiring authors. None of the agents or editors queried recognized the manuscripts as prizewinners … of the twenty-one replies, all but one were rejections. … All this to say that if you get a rejection slip, you're in pretty good company." (p. 187)

So, there you have it. Just because your book gets rejected doesn't mean that it sucks. It could be amazing prize-worthy material. You just have to wait for your lucky day. Because a lot of getting published has to do with luck. Yes, of course it helps to have an awesome query letter/synopsis/excerpt/etc. But like I said, literary agents have moods and such. So it depends on a lot of things that are beyond your control––which is aggravating, I know.

But the thing is, you gotta keep trying. Odds are, one out of the a million literary agents in the world is going to want to represent your novel. Just keep sending out those queries like there's no tomorrow. And keep revising your query, too; ask friends/family for feedback. In the meantime, try to get some recognition. Try publishing some short stories, or entering contests, or starting a blog (wooo!). That way you'll have more to brag about in your query letters. ;)

I strongly recommend checking out this website, Preditors & Editors, which has a great list of agents, publishers, contests, critique groups, etc. and notes on how reliable said agents/publishers/contests/critique groups are. (http://pred-ed.com/)

Personally, I interpret all the rejections I've received as a wake-up call. After getting feedback from a couple agents, I've decided that my book isn't really ready for publishing and needs some revisions first. Maybe your manuscript has been rejected a gazillion times (more or less) and you're starting to feel the same way. No problem. This is another good thing about rejection. When you start off trying to get published, you're sort of in denial … like, "Okay, I am SO done with this book. I've already rewritten it ten times, so I'm just going to get it published and it will be out of the way forever!" Well, of course things can't be that convenient. The more your book gets rejected, and the more it sits around, the more you think about it. And the more you think about it, the more flaws you see in it. And you start thinking, "All right, maybe this means something. Maybe rewriting it a couple times wouldn't hurt …" It's not a good feeling. It's pretty overwhelming. But writing and editing and rewriting and begging for feedback––these are all the painful parts of being an author.

If you don't know where to start, there are a lot of great writing feedback websites you can try. Now, I've only just started using these sites, but they seem very helpful and organized to me, and P&E has them listed as recommended critique groups. So, check 'em out!

WEbook: http://www.webook.com

(This site has a lot of different sections. You can post any writing for feedback, chapter-by-chapter. People can leave feedback for different categories––general, plot, character development, etc. There's a section called PageToFame where people submit the first pages of their novels, then other members rate them, and literary agents look at the ones with the best ratings. You have to pay to submit––this is the ONLY section you have to pay for––but rating the pages is free. And fun. There's also a feature called AgentInbox that helps you put together a query letter, synopsis, excerpt, etc. Then it gives you agents who represent your genre and you can send your submission to agents right from the website. I've used it and it seems like a great feature. There are also groups and discussion forums on the site.)

Critters Workshop: http://www.critters.org/index.ht

(This site is only for science fiction, fantasy, and horror. You can submit both short stories and manuscripts, and it sounds like submissions are supposed to get approximately 10 critiques or so. I haven't submitted anything yet, but I've read through the website and it has a ton of information. So, I won't go on a long rant describing the whole thing. I recommend checking out the website for more of a description, rules, guidelines, etc. Anyway, I'm impressed with its level of organization and I'm looking forward to using it.)

Critique Circle: http://www.critiquecircle.com

(Looks pretty similar to Critters, except it accepts all genres [except poetry]. Once again, it looks very organized. The website claims: "At present time there are 2,463 active members.
We have processed 48,260 stories and 220,558 critiques." Sounds good to me. I'm just waiting for my application thingie to be approved, and then I can say more about this one.)

Note: the best way to get feedback is to give feedback first. If you join any of these sites, it's important to give some other members some good, honest, and constructive feedback, and they will be likely to return the favor. :)

So, that is my advice for the day. Stop wallowing in your self-pity and go do something productive. ^_^

BRIGID RISES FROM THE DEAD!!!

2010-03-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

Well, hi. This is awkward.

So, I am aware that I haven't posted anything in, like, half a year. How embarrassing. But of course, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation. See, I was abducted by aliens. And then, when I finally convinced them to send me back home, they accidentally dropped me off in China. So, I had to swim across the Pacific Ocean, where I had to battle giant sea monsters. And when I finally got to the United States, I found that the country had been overtaken by zombies, so I had to kick some zombie butt on the way back home, which took up a lot of my time. Then I finally got back home, where there was a monster pile of homework waiting for me and it tried to eat me and then it killed me and I came back from the dead.

Okay, so none of that story is true, except the part about the homework-monster. But basically, I have been too busy with school and my job and my procrastination to update my blog. So, now I am back and I must be more dedicated now or everyone should come after me with torches and pitchforks.

SO BRIGID. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?

Well … uh … rejection. Lots and lots of rejection. But I think I will dedicate an entire separate post just to that. More on that later. For now I'm just going to get y'all caught up on all the random stuff I'm doing.

Ahem. So, on a happier note: Since I last posted, I finished writing my sixth book, Walking Shadow. I wrote it during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November). If you do not know what this fabulous event is, you should check out nanowrimo.org (well, if you're a writer and you also happen to be insane).

Walking Shadow is a fantasy that is basically about these two kids who have to make a journey through the Underworld, and there are demons and deals with the devil and Shakespeare references and all sorts of other wonderful things. I like to think of it as, like, Greek mythology meets Alice in Wonderland––but of course, with its own weird twists. For now, I still love this story, but knowing me I'll probably hate it in a month or two and feel like re-writing the whole thing. Oh well …

ANYWAY. As for my other projects:

First of all, I am writing Jump, sequel to my book Edge (which I finished writing last July) and second book in a trilogy (I hope … if I can get it all organized and everything). I won't go into much detail on this one, since, you know, it's a sequel and everything. Even if I explained the entire first book it wouldn't make much sense, since the plot's pretty unorganized and full of holes and I don't even understand it myself. I need to get working on piecing it all together. But, to explain it in a few words, it's this sci-fi/action thing about clones and mind-wiping and superpowers and stuff. It's gotten a lot more complicated than I intended and now I'm kind of going crazy with it … but, if I do a lot of rewriting and adding of stuff then I think it could be pretty cool.

Secondly, I am working on Unraveling. This one I'm probably the most excited about, mostly because I think it's going to be my first completed realistic fiction novel. … And I haven't made a real attempt at realistic fiction since I was 11––and THAT story accidentally morphed into this weird fantasy involving a talking stuffed pig. But I promise, no talking inanimate objects in this one. It's about this teenage girl going who goes back to her hometown two years after she moved away, and as she wanders around she reflects on life and her childhood, and most importantly on the events that led her to become enemies with the girl who was once her best friend. YAY! I was sort of inspired by Catcher in the Rye––coincidentally, I got the idea like an hour before I found out that J.D. Salinger had died (nooooooo!!!) so I guess I took that as some sort of sign. Haha. That, and I wanted to write something that everyone could relate to. Everyone has suffered through the ruin of a friendship, whether you or your friend moves away, or you get into some huge argument, or you just let it slip away, or you hated your friend all along … blah blah. And a lot of people have read it and been like "OMG this reminds me of my old friend who did such-and-such", so I guess it's working. Bwa haha.

Then, last of all, I started another story called Rage. I'm not really sure about the details on this one at the moment, since I only started it like three weeks ago. But anyway, it's this myth- and fairytale-inspired story about an isolated village under the control of a force that the people call the Monster, although no one has ever seen him. But whoever he is, he controls the weather and keeps them all trapped inside this place which is surrounded by demon-infested forests, plus he demands the sacrifice of a teenage girl every once in a while. The sacrifices have to go into the forest alone and no one knows what happens to them … dunh dunh dunnhhhh. Yeah, so I'm still planning/outlining this one and there's not much plot so far. But it's getting there.

Soooo other stuff I'm doing!

Well, I entered Walking Shadow in the Amazon Novel Breakthrough Award contest––which is this contest for unpublished and self-published novels, and the winner gets a $15,000 publishing deal with Penguin. So, woot woot! I made to the second round, which is the top 1000 novels out of about 5000, so that is pretty cool. I'll hear about the third round on March 23rd. *Scared*

I also got an account on WEbook, which is this pretty cool writing feedback site that I found. If you want to check out some of my writing you can do so here: http://www.webook.com/member/BrigidGH

And of course, I am always on goodreads.com, doing my book reviews and posting writing. I have more stories posted here: http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/886144

YAY!!! So that's what I did while I was dead. Very soon (like, within less than sixth months––haha) I plan to write an entire post on rejection, because I've been thinking about it a lot recently. Stay tuned … :)