Category Archives: Writing

Blog A-Go-Go.

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So, like hi. Let me get in here, dust this off, move a few pieces of furniture around.

Housekeeping.

My poor, neglected blog. I didn’t walk away because I didn’t love you, baby. You gotta believe it’s me, not you. No, really, I was finishing A CURSE IN CLAY and it’s a whopper at 117k words. Fantasy, so I get a pass on length, but still – that’s pretty long when my typical books are more in the YA range of 70 to 80k!

It’s been an arduous journey with this book — almost nine months? — and though I’d love to say CLAY is poignant and deep, it’s a cowboy book with dick jokes, a transvestite sidekick, fairies, and witches. I think it’s a GOOD book with dick jokes, a transvestite sidekick, fairies, and witches, but the jury is still out. When I hear back from those who shred my work for fun and profit, I’ll have a better idea if I succeeded or failed horribly.

Lemme do that writer roundup thing I tend to do after every manuscript is finished!

The Good: The cast. The characters carry the book. They’re distinct people with distinct voices and problems and I think I captured them well. I like the way I did the timeline (current chapters alternating with snippets from the main character’s past). I like the third person limited even if it’s a bitch to write at times. I think it’s legitimately funny. Also, I nailed the epilogue.

The “I Worries”: I am HOPING Cora’s as fleshed out as she needs to be. I think so? But really, in comparison to the rest of the cast she’s actually a little more normal so we’ll see if that translates as “boring.” The witches are fun, but I want them to be appropriate bad guys. Also, this is cowboy fantasy but I worry that the romance angle and a few other tidbits might give it genre confusion.

I like to think with every book I write, I hone a skill. In this one, I think I worked on voice and characterization. My next book I’ll be working on mood and nuance, but this one was definitely all about the narrative and the cast playing inside said narrative. And writing third person limited? It’s trickier than it looks. If you get a voice down (and basically in this book I was going for something like Mal from Firefly) and then, you know, screw it up? It sticks out. Like a sore thumb Consistency is a must and it’s difficult when you have as many words as I do.

But, it’s over. Once I hear what the pack of hyenas has to say, I will update as to the success or failure of this latest literary adventure.

For now? ONWARD. And then DISNEY.

*****

Cora had a thing for pillows. She couldn’t have one for each side of her bed, she had to have forty, and every night before he fell asleep, Clay tossed a heaping pile of feather bags onto the floor so he wouldn’t suffocate in their fluffy depths. Frederick was all right with it, always climbing the mountain and sprawling across the top, but it made getting up in the mornings a little more difficult. Clay had to navigate around a mini-disaster just to don his drawers.

“Pillows are stupid,” he announced to no one and everyone, his fingers fiddling with the buttons of his pants.

“No, you’re stupid,” came Cora’s sleepy reply.

Busy Part Deux.

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Or more like Twenty-Deux.

Yes, the blog is quiet again. I’m finishing Clay very soon (no, for real this time – I have two chapters left. You beta readers are forewarned). I had to take a minor break on it because I was editing THE AWESOME, which is such a fun project. I spend my entire time laughing while I’m writing, and because of it, it comes really fast. It’s one of those books that falls from the fingers. I get to flex some comedy muscles in the story, and while the plot isn’t what I’d call super revolutionary, I’m really proud of the narrative voice and the characters. Also, it’s deeper than it looks on the surface. I play with gender roles, burgeoning female sexuality, and societal slut shaming. Of course, I address them in my own weird way, but they’re there.

There’s also boy kissing. Gross, huh?

A lot has happened since my last blog post, and I suppose I could go back and give my take on the Boston bombings and all that transpired in my dear old state, but instead I think I’ll bullet a few things that amuse me and/or have made my brain twitch. The news has been depressing lately. I don’t want to contribute to depressing.

Without further ado:

  • I went to see Great Big Sea last week at the Wilbur Theater in Boston. A great show at a great venue. The seats are actually comfortable at the Wilbur (ARE YOU LISTENING, ORPHEUM?) and every ticket assures you a perfect, close view of the stage. I’d strongly recommend any Boston native or visitor to consider the Wilbur in your next pass through town. Also, for anyone who doesn’t know GBS, might I recommend some of THIS or THIS to get you acclimated? They’re Irish pubby kinda stuff, but they also do some killer pop music and ballads.

  • I’m hoping y’all heard about the deranged sorority girl email. Basicially, some chick named Rebecca Martinson went uber psycho bitch on her sorority mates in a brilliant display of profanity and bullying. And by brilliant, I do mean that this young lady is probably not fit for society any time soon. Her Twitter feed indicated she was a racist, hated fats and gays, and that she liked to be the meat in boy sandwiches (which hey, all the power to you if you like getting spit-roasted, but that might not be something you want on your Twitter feed, chick. YOUR PARENTS MIGHT SEE THAT.) Anyway, in the wake of her tantrum, a couple of things happened. One, she had to tender her resignation to Gamma Whamma Ding Dong. Two, she was immortalized brilliantly on Funny or Die.

  • I’m on Goodreads. Holy crap! Check it out!

  • I read a wonderful book y’all should scoop. CODE NAME VERITY (incidentally put out by the same publisher as UNLEASHED!) It’s a heart-stabbing story about two WW2 era girls: an English female pilot and her best friend, a code-writer who’s captured by the Nazis. This is not the most cheerful book on the planet, but it’s enthralling and beautifully written. Thank you, Lauren, for another solid recommendation!

  • My new favorite show: Archer. It’s on Netflix. Dear God, if you haven’t seen it, watch it. It is hysterical. SPLOOSH.

  • Internet cats. Because LOL.

    • “It’s Not Personal.”

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    I talked about rejection over here before, saying (quite scandalously I might add) that it’s good for you. I suggested that you could farm your rejections to get to the heart of what may or may not be wrong with a project. It certainly helped me with UNLEASHED – I didn’t do an onspec revision, but took the few notes I’d received from submission editors and went at my rewrite armed with their criticisms. It made the book more marketable in the long run, and for it, ended up on the auction block.

    Today, I want to talk about a different angle of rejection, and that’s the picking-yourself-up-off-the floor angle. Recovering from the necessary slight. True crappy fact: every writer will be rejected. It’s unavoidable. Taste in art varies so much – what some people think is brilliant, others think is trite and boring. You might pen a story with your heart’s blood, but someone somewhere won’t care that you did. Someone won’t like it. Honestly? Many someones won’t like it, and that cold, hard truth is made abundantly clear when you start to query agents. If you are a mystical unicorn and managed to avoid the rejection ax with agents, prepare for it with editors. And if once again you dodged that bullet? The bad reviews are coming, y’all. They’re marching over the horizon like a Peter Jackson ensemble cast.

    Even the best books in the world have their naysayers. Everyone in publishing will be rejected.

    It’s a pretty awful feeling. You don’t want to care so much, but you do – this book or project took you a long time to complete and here comes this stranger saying it’s just not good enough for X reason. That’s tough. Crushing, really – books aren’t something that happen over the course of two days. It’s months or years of labor dismissed because someone couldn’t get behind your vision. You put your soul into that sucker, damn it, why can’t they see that?

    The reality is people in the industry do understand. People who write are dreamers and those stories are manifestations of our dreams. We want to resonate with an audience and this is how we go about it. Unfortunately, just because it’s a little dream doesn’t mean it’s the right dream for a specific agent or editor. They get a pile of dreams thrust at them over the course of the year and they have to sort which ones to adopt into their stable according to their tastes and pub house needs. Most industry folks aren’t cruel about their rejections, but they also can’t take the time to cradle everyone to their bosoms and tell them their story is special – it’s just not feasible nor is it really fair to expect that of them. They have a job to do. This is an uglier facet of that job.

    The readers and reviewers are a slightly different bunch, but suffice it to say ten minutes on Goodreads will show you how little your dream matters to some of them. There are people who take insidious glee in tearing down a book. Snark is easier than kindness and gets more attention. We, as writers, are expected to rise above it and ignore it. Part of the downside of our job is that we’ve put ourselves out there, all exposed and flabby and knobby as we are, and the faceless throng will delight in poking at our flaws. It’s, uhh. Well, it’s hurtful a lot of the times.

    And hurtful sucks.

    How do you get over it? Well, not really glorious, but you bitch about it to people who can understand. Not abusively so, but feel free to talk about it with people in the industry who’ve experienced the same things. Which is, you know, everyone. Talk about your rejections. They’re not shameful secrets because we all deal with it. Maybe what you have to say will help a peer come to grips with the associative emptiness that comes with constant rejection. Maybe what they have to say will help you. Talk out your feelings because it’s not as simple as saying “it’s not personal.” It certainly FEELS personal and it’s okay that it does. Bee stings hurt. So does being told you’re not good enough. Don’t think you have to be this stoic robot standing alone in the corner.

    The thing is talking about it is only the first step. You have to move on after that, which is infinitely harder than complaining. If you don’t move on, you’re obsessive and whiny and then you are THAT PERSON and no one will want to talk to you ever. You’ll be like Creepy Todd the Sock Sniffer – avoided and loathed, shunned by society. Stop yourself from getting to that point by doing two very important things:

  • Look ahead. One rejection will not crush a project. Shit, twenty won’t. Realize that it’s one opinion in a vast ocean of opinions. Don’t put too much onus on one voice when there are so many other voices to be heard.
  • Write another story. For God’s sake, write something new.

    • If you’re busy crafting a story for that saucy vixen Gloria the Wonder Gnome, you can’t be all hung up on someone saying bad stuff about your previous work. Take your angst about rejection and pour it into another literary baby. Let the feelings flow like water on the page. You know that cliche’ bit about artists producing better art when they’re miserable? WELP. YOU CAN BE ONE OF THOSE BROODING MASTERPIECE CREATORS. It’s like recycling, really – take the bad feelings about a pass on a project and use them to fuel something new. Give Gloria the Wonder Gnome a machete and have her attack a badger army. YOU WILL SHOW THE WORLD YOUR GREATNESS. WITH LASERS AND FLYING SHARKS!

    I think you catch my drift.

    So, yes, rejection is a necessary part of the writer’s journey. It’s a miserable one that’s capable of crushing our souls, but it also plays a vital role in making us better, stronger writers. Remember, it’s okay to let yourself feel badly about it. It’s okay to talk about it with others who will understand. Cut yourself a break. And when you’re done cutting yourself a break, get up, shake off, and go make something bigger and brighter. It’s the only way to go.

    Home Employment. WOO TO THE HA.

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    Whenever I tell people what I do for a living, folks get this slightly glassy-eyed look and their mouths fall open – not because they are in awe that someone can sit in a chair for 110,000 words and construct a world or make and ruin lives, but because I get to work from home. This is the Holy Grail of employment options apparently, and while I respect that it’s a perk, it is not the be-all end-all everyone seems to think it is. In fact, there are days I wish I had an office somewhere so I could work without the trappings that come with operating out of home base.

    Why?

    AHEM.

    1) Everyone — and I do mean everyone — assumes you make your own hours and because you make your own hours, you can rearrange everything however you want and do as many things as you want and the work still mystically gets completed behind the scenes. This means when folks need a ride somewhere or an errand or a favor, you are their personal go-to. Now, they’re grateful for your assistance and that’s keen, but when too many people assume a freedom that isn’t there, that means you get inundated with requests for your time. Each of those requests is less butt-in-chair time, and any writer will tell you the key to success and productivity is butt-in-chair time. So you get around to saying no, which in itself shouldn’t be a problem, but-

    2) When you say you can’t help someone because you have to work, there’s acceptance but also that disappointment that you didn’t rearrange your Home Worky Cosmos for them. And listen – it’s not that you don’t love your friends/family, it’s just that they’re the fifth person to want a twelfth thing from you between Monday and Friday and you can only stretch yourself so thin. Surely they must understand.

    3) And most of the time they do. But then there’s those times they don’t. Those times are stupid.

    4) There’s also the distraction problem. Our homes are our sanctuaries, our happy fun places to store everything we’ve worked hard for. Video games. Televisions. Computers. Distractions lie around every corner. No, sometimes literally, because-

    5) Pet and kids? Don’t get that you’re not home to see to their needs. So they’ll eat electrical cords or lick light sockets or fall on their heads and expect saving. And you do save them because HOLY SHIT VET BILLS ARE EXPENSIVE but that’s more time to not get to that last chapter and you promised your agent a book and you haven’t taken a shower yet and you’re wearing the same ugly old sweatpants from yesterday.

    6) Because you don’t actually have to get dressed when you work from home. You do simply so you don’t traumatize the mailman, but putting off things like jeans and bras? Totes fine, except when the UPS man shows up and you look like Hobo Joe and he’s wondering why that bird is nesting in your hair, which you didn’t notice until he stared at it and you realized you have Radagast face (see The Hobbit, you’ll get it) and . . . well, screw it.

    7) After the UPS man leaves, you laugh in a creepy way. When you work out of your house, you don’t socialize much and you get weird. Without society’s judgmental embrace, you twitch and do things like armpit sniff tests to determine if you NEED that shower or if it can wait a few more hours while you finish editing. There’s also that thing about you talking to the inanimate objects like you’re Belle in the Beast’s castle, but thanks to the scrubby clothes and the odor and lack of shaving, you are definitely MORE Beast than Belle.

    So. Yes. Working from home. A perk when I need to go to the doctor or the bank. Sort of a bane when it comes to productivity, personal hygiene, fashion, and . . . everything else. It’s cool, dudes. I get it. Envy away that I am the mistress of my own castle, but when you get to the window-licking TRAPPED IN MY OWN HOUSE WITH NO CLEAN LAUNDRY AND I’M WEARING A GLAD BAG AS A DRESS portion of the day, it ain’t so pretty anymore.

    Not pretty t’all.

    IT'S UNDER CONTROL

    IT’S UNDER CONTROL

    Writing Reality: Roadblocks.

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    Writing sucks. It doesn’t suck all the time, of course, or I wouldn’t want to do it as my livelihood, but the fact is, sometimes writing is not clouds raining Skittles over Princess Buttface’s Beauteous Castle. Sometimes, it sucks more than your Hoover on its best day, and enough of those sucky days back-to-back, your project is in serious danger of going the way of the dodo. Your brain starts to associate it with toxicity, and as no one actually glugs Drain-O for fun, you tell yourself to avoid it because it’s bad for you. Writing this makes you unhappy and no one should be unhappy all the time. I’ll just walk away for a few days . . .

    Aaaand you never return. Because you just don’t. It’s like promising yourself you’ll go back to school one day – it sometimes happens, but the odds are stacked against you.

    Having “been there, done that, bought the tee shirt” with this particular phenomenon — and having lost projects to the associative mindset — I’m going to talk about how to get over it, past it, through it. The hardest part of a project isn’t having the initial idea or scribbling five or six chapters, it’s finishing it, and these roadblocks are anti-completion. As they are anti-completion, they must be EXTERMINATED.

    Roadblock One: PLOT HOLE.

    You’re going along your merry way in the story, giving your talking beaver magical butterfly wings and delighting in the knowledge that Slappy the tree frog is actually a prince in disguise when you realize OH NO! SLAPPY’S ACTUALLY A CIA OPERATIVE AND IF HE BECOMES A PRINCE HE CAN’T WRESTLE PRINCESS PEACH FROM GODZILLA! Plot hole. One you believe must be rectified before you continue your story. In the above example, the obvious answer is to introduce Hans the Professional Yodeler to save the day, but sometimes, in the midst of the PLOT HOLE disaster, we can’t see things so clearly.

    Thing is, you actually don’t have to solve most plot holes right away. Unless this is an earthshaking point in the story — as in it will actually direct any and all interactions throughout the novel — you can put it aside and keep going. Books have a revision and rewrite period, and for most writers, it’s time consuming. You’re hunkered in for a few months after THE END. As you’re already committing to that (or should be) by writing the novel in the first place, allow yourself to cast burdens to the wind during drafting. If it means you’ll be able to get back to business, it’s okay to pull a Scarlet O’Hara and “think about it tomorrow.”

    Roadblock Two: PERFECTION!

    You think picking at the already completed words is helping the project in the long run, but no matter how many times you edit it, it’s never going to be perfect. Never. Why? Perfect in fiction is subjective. Seriously, what you see as perfect, some other assclown will rip apart in a review a year and a half later. Gleefully, even, because we love to squash our heroes. Also? What you deem perfect on a Tuesday? May very well suck on Thursday when you reread it because headspace plays a huge role in how we see ourselves, and by extension, our work.

    You cannot progress if you obsess over the first parts you already wrote. And if you won’t stop tinkering with the chapters you already have, you are exhibiting obsessive behavior. Acknowledge this, and when you catch yourself doing it, stop. It’s that simple. Stop. Go write new stuff and leave the old stuff alone. If you really want to know if those first five or six chapters are any good, hand them over to someone else who will give you an honest opinion, but stop striving for perfection because it does not exist.

    Roadblock Three: OTHER PEOPLE.

    There are two ways to absolutely, one hundred percent ensure that you won’t finish a book. The first is by watching too much Real Housewives of Hooterville. The second is by comparing yourself to other people. It’s said so many times it’s cliche’ these days, but I swear by Sky Poobah, no two publication journeys are the same. You’ll see stories about writers who go out on submission for two weeks and get picked up by a house right away, but even then, the circumstances behind the scenes are different. Every case is as individual as the person who wrote the book.

    So! Stop comparing yourself and your work to everyone else in the world, because when you actually go out there? You’re going to be your own special snowflake. You have your own voice. You have your own writing strengths. Where you thrive, other writers are weak. Where you are weak, other writers will thrive. It’s the nature of the beast, and you cannot determine your success or failure based on your peers because down that path lays madness. Worry about yourself. As a person who wrote a book that went on sub for fifteen months, rewrote it, and then got picked up at auction two weeks later? My path to publication was insane. Yours might be, too.

    Roadblock Four: IDEA FAIRY IS A HO.

    There she is, all shiny and sparkly. She sees your brain fixed on Project A and she comes by flaunting dat ass with Project B and whispering her sultry lies. Lies like, “You should ignore Project A and play with Project B just a little bit. Just a few chapters. C’mon, what could a poke and a tickle hurt?” IDEA FAIRY IS A PUSHER AND A LIAR AND A SLUT. NO. You might think you’re just going to go sample Project B, but when you get into it, you convince yourself it’s better than Project A. Next thing you know, you’re shacked up with Project B while Project A is at home with the fourteen chapters you abandoned wondering if she’ll get alimony.

    Greener pasture syndrome is a real thing. The writer that has the resolve to dally and then get back to the matter at hand is a rare creature. Work under the premise that you are not such a creature. A tendency to want to wander off and do new things because a story is getting old or complicated is natural, but it’s also deadly. Recognize what you’re doing – that you’re pretending your new hotness is better than your old project, because NEWSFLASH! I bet you had another idea you cheated on when you started Project A. This is a perpetuating cycle of crap and a surefire way to never finish anything ever.

    Roadblock Five: WRITING STUFF I DON’T LIKE.

    This is the one I’m battling myself right now, actually. We all have things we like writing better than other things, whether that’s funny anecdotal stuff or dialogue or love scenes or monkeys flinging poo or whatever. But there are also things we don’t like writing. In my case, that’s combat. I hate/loathe/despise choreographing fight scenes because it’s complicated and very . . . I don’t know. Tedious. It annoys me. A lot. I’d rather write sex than a fight scene and that’s saying something. Anyway, point is, I have no less than five combat scenes in five chapters in the current WiP. Why? Because I hate myself, but also because I’m at the climax of the book and that means everyone’s being all ornery and shit. I’ve been slower writing these chapters because it’s flat-out less enjoyable for me, but I am trudging through. How? I’m writing stuff in between. I break up the monotony of POINTY THING GOES INTO FLESHY PART by interspersing these chapters with scenes I enjoy.

    If you know your writerly Achilles heel up front, which chapters you dread doing versus not, try to space them out a little? I know writing out of order for some people triggers their OCD, but if writing a bunch of stuff you like, pausing to write 4,000 words you don’t, and then getting back to the fun stuff means you can finish the project? Kick the OCD in the teeth. Weep while you do it if you have to, but don’t effectively cockblock your own progression by setting yourself up to fail. Recognize your own preferences and then intersperse the writerly down swings between happy fun times so they feel more rewarding when you get to them.

    Links ‘N Things.

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    With one hundred percent less sheets!

    Not much to report today save for a couple links.

    For starters: My first official author interview is here. I talk all about writing the Bloody Mary book. Well, I sort of talk about it – what I remember writing the first draft could be poured into a thimble. The whole thing was a blur at the beginning, though the two months of rewrites are still a particularly vivid memory mostly because I peeled off my face during those six weeks. I function pretty well for an animated skull.

    Second: Read this post by Lauren. It’s why CNN’s bunk reporting job on the Steubenville case is indicative of a HUGE societal problem. When a reporter can sit there and grieve the wasted lives of the young men over the trauma of the victim, YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG. MANY THINGS WRONG.

    Last: A Wendigo post. Long and short of it, the chick that wrote 50 Shades is going to write a “How to” guide for writers. Now, I won’t pee in your Cheerios if you’re into her books, but I will say from a craft of writing perspective? Her books were, umm. Yeah. She writes sex well! The comparisons and narrative are . . . just read the article.

    Submission Blues.

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    It’s coming again – the dark times. Those days when I scurry from one dark place to another, too frightened to look out my window yet not too frightened to refresh my inbox four thousand times a day to see IF THERE’S NEWS AND IS THERE NEWS AND OH-PLEASE-SKY-POOBAH LET THERE BE NEWS.

    Yes, I’m going on submission again. At the end of this week or next, in fact.

    Well, crap.

    There’s this dark fantasy novel called THE WAGON WITCH’S APPRENTICE sitting in my Completed Manuscripts folder. I’d originally intended it to be an older YA, but after a discussion with She Who Knows All (MIRIAM), we decided it’s better suited for an adult audience. Wagon Witch’s is about a young gypsy woman named Elisabeta who is tutored in the ways of magic by her creepy grandmother. Something hideous happens to Elisabeta, and those responsible for the wrongs done will discover in bloody, horrible ways why it’s a REALLY bad idea to cross Gran and her apprentice. Like, running-with-scissors or licking-a-light-socket bad.

    Fupid stuckers.

    The book is close to me for a number of reasons. One, I tackled a really, really difficult subject, and for all that it makes me nervous to put that out there (it’s a trigger for a lot of people and possibly a lot of editors) I think I handled it with as much grace and decorum as I could. Two, it’s creative. There’s really not a lot of books like this probably because it’s super violent and dark. Not everything is bleak, though. There’s a subtext of hope there – personal strength, too, and I think that’s important. Not all victims stay victims. Many are survivors. I wrote a survivor book.

    I’ve got a lot of mixed emotions about this whole submission thing. I’d assumed (incorrectly) that the next story out by me would be A CURSE IN CLAY, the cowboy fantasy, but after Miriam and I took a good look at WWA and realized it was suitable adult material, we’re changing our strategy. That’s not bad, really. I need more time on Clay to make it as awesome as possible (and it’s pretty awesome indeed) and I’m frothing at the mouth to find a home for WWA, so it works, but it does mean I’m going to be twitchy and anxious sooner than expected. I’ll get my sub list, see the houses and editors on it, and find myself watching Twitter like a hawk JUST IN CASE SOMEONE SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT FALLING IN LOVE WITH A BOOK AND OH GOD IF THEY SAY SOMETHING GOOD DOES THAT MEAN IT’S MY BOOK? That’s the worst thing you can do, btw – Twitter stalk. I mean, it’s fine to do so long as you’re not poking the editor or crossing that invisible line of being a psycho hosebeast, but every time an editor posts, you really do read too much into it and start to assume you’re the center of their publishing universe.

    And you’re not. Get over yourself. But you can’t because they have your literary brain baby and HOLY CRAP. It’s a killer.

    Anyway, back into the fray. I kinda figured getting my first sale would make my second go-round on the carousel easier, but it doesn’t. I’m putting more pressure on myself. Before, I had nothing to lose, but now that I know what it CAN be like? Mmmf. I know what I’m missing out on if it doesn’t land on its feet.

    Feelings. Many of them. I has them.

    Wish me well, fellow nerds, as I venture off into that psychotic, whiskey-requiring abyss once more. And if you hear me screaming or scratching at the walls? Just ignore me. It’ll go away sooner or later.

    Maybe.

    I Have A Question!

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    Someone on my Twitter feed started off the day with a message that said, “I’m having A MORNING. It’s like it was written by Lemony Snicket.” Of course, this got my brain juices gushing. What if our days WERE written by the madmen and women of publishing? What if we were the brain babies on someone else’s page?

    QUESTIONS FOR YOU GUYS.

    If you were a character in a book, who would you want to write your day? Why?

    Conversely?

    If you were a character in a book, who is the last person you would want to write your day? Why?

    For me, if I had to pick someone to script my day, I’m going to go with Christopher Moore. Why? Well, I’d very likely meet a cast of incredibly funny people, one of which would be so tongue-in-cheek, sarcasm would ooze from their pores in drippy rivers. Said sarcastic individual would undoubtedly shred me awhile, maybe make me want to punch them in the face, but in the end they’d turn out to be the best, most reliable friend I could have when the going gets tough. There’d probably be a talking sidekick of some sorts, maybe a fruitbat or an entertaining demon, but after I got past the weirdness of it, I’d find that pretty cool. I’d be so down with a vampire cat.

    The LAST person I’d want to script my day? Shit, this is a toss-up between GRRM and Abercrombie. Let’s go with GRRM. Not only would everyone I encounter in my day be out to fuck me over, half of them would be willing and able to kill me. They’d have some huge secret agenda to oust me from any power I could claim, and — when I wasn’t looking — there would probably be a better than fifty percent chance that they were humping their sister. All of my friends would probably hate each other, and every other hour someone would throw a dead wolf head at me because that’s just how GRRM rolls. Let’s not even talk about how crappy his parties are. You go in, expect to have a beer and a cocktail weenie, and the next thing you know, everyone dies. No, seriously, like everyone. OH, COME ON, SIR.

    So! PLAY ALONG. Who would script YOUR day? Who wouldn’t? GO!

    BRING IT!

    The Writer’s Contract To Herself:

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    I, ____________ ____________, in the interest of creating the best art possible, do hereby commit to the following:

    • I shall remember to do things like leave the house and interact with other humans beings once in a while. I will not let my only friends be the imaginary ones I put to page. I will make time for the real world and all it has to offer so that I have life experiences to draw from when I sit down to draft.
    • I will forgive myself the days when the words don’t come.
    • I will not forgive myself for giving up.
    • My brain is my temple but my body is my foundation. As I have a sedentary job, I will take care of my foundation so that my temple doesn’t crumble. I will remember to eat slimy green things and drink non-coffee from time to time. I will exercise –preferably outside so I get vitamin D and an actual skin tone — and I will try not to weigh my mind and body down with too many carbohydrates. They make the temple sleepy and needlessly expand the foundation.
    • I will dare.
    • I will listen to others who wish to help me improve my manuscript, but I will also stay true to my principles. If an edit or criticism flies in the face of what I sought to achieve with my work, I reserve the right to say no.
    • I will say no.
    • I will also say yes.
    • I will remember that no matter how successful I am, it is very easy to become unsuccessful in such a mercurial industry. A little bit of humility goes a long way.
    • I will not forget what it was like to be that fresh-faced hopeful querying agents. I will not forget the utter torment of the submission wait time. I will do my best to help new writers because established writers helped me along the way, too.
    • I will give my eyes a break.
    • I will remember to shower because GROSS.
    • I will not publicly react to criticism regardless of my injured feelings. Faced with negativity, I will walk away from my computer and do something productive with my time. Barring that, I will stab pins into my voodoo doll. If neither improve my mindset, I will speed dial the confidante most likely to tell me that I’m allowed to be hurt, but that lashing out will only make me look like a crazy.
    • I will ask questions because I never want to stop learning.
    • I will repeat the following mantra whenever I feel my productivity failing me: pushing ahead is more important than polishing. The hardest part of writing is finishing the draft. The plot holes can be filled, the language smoothed, the characters made more consistent after the fact when I graduate to the editing phase. Trying to make something too perfect too soon is an excellent way to never finish anything.
    • I will take time to pat my dog because dogs are awesome.
    • When I can’t remember why I got into this crazy business, I will open up a book and learn to fall in love with words again. I will allow another writer to move me to laughter, to tears, because that is why I do this. Love. Love of story. Love of reading. Love of the promised journey inside of every book.

      • Signed,

      ____________ ____________
      Writer

    That Post I Always Wanted To Write.

    Posted on by

    And here it is. It’s official, I’m a Disney Hyperion author. Yes, someone bought my brain baby.The Rewrite From Hell yielded me a few offers, Miriam did her Miriam thing, and the end result is I can dedicate the spongey piece of meat inside of my skull to storycrafting for the next couple of years.

    So. Details. Well, Mary (possibly titled UNLEASHED?) is a YA horror about Bloody Mary – the mirror ghost you summon in darkened bathrooms. It’s “scare your pants off” horror because I’m all for freaking out folks. I’ll be writing two books for Hyperion and we’re hashing out whether book two will be a Mary sequel versus another urban legend horror YA.  My editor is the wonderful Christian Trimmer who works on all sorts of cool stuff for Hyperion, so I’m super stoked.  What else? Oh, right. It’s due out in fall of 2014 to capitalize on Halloween madness. I’m sure there will be stuff and things and whatnots announced later on, but more details as they become available.

    Thoughts: many. I have them, but they’re jumbled. I’m overjoyed, terrified, and grateful. So very goddamned grateful. This is a process that starts with one person writing one book, but then it takes a whole tribe of people to get it beyond that point. Miriam’s my hero for obvious reasons right now, but really, it only sorta starts there. Lauren, Becky, and Sarah edited the crap out of that rewrite and considering I killed myself to get it written in five weeks while working a day job? Yeah. Those ladies knocked it out of the park by getting their commentary in early. I’m fortunate to have them as friends and crit partners. Dave has supported me through all of this, so thanks to him for being my number one fan (and my own walking, talking horror database). Thanks to Eric and Greg for being such rockstar super friends. Thanks to TS Ferguson for being a sounding board (and one day, Sir – one day.) Thanks to my parents for their love, support, and ability to produce such a weird, eccentric kid. Thanks to the beta readers who told me honestly whether or not my book sucked (Lara, Crystal, Chandra, Evie, Lauren, Renee, Nikki, Claire, Brian, Melinda, Laurie . . . and on and on. If I missed you, I swear it wasn’t intentional.) Thanks to the rest of my friends (Scott and Reuben, I’m looking at you) for putting up with the blubbering madness that spills from my mouth on a daily basis.

    I’m a lucky, lucky girl. I’ve been blessed with an amazing circle of family and friends. Thanks for believing in me and my bizarre little hobby-turned-career.