Who's a Good Boy?

That's my new dog, Maxx.  I was thinking about changing it to something like Percival or Gimpmeister Sir-runs-into-a-lot-of-trees, but I didn't want to confuse him. 

He's maybe the sweetest dog I've ever met.  Of course, I'm biased, just like most parents are of their own ugly, drooly children.  Maxx doesn't drool though.  Seriously, he's awesome.  He snorts when he gets excited (just like dad!) and he's not real keen on carpet yet, but we're getting there.  He woke up this morning and scared himself so bad that he snorted amazingly loud and woke up my neighbor...which is totally payback for all the mornings I had to wake up to Queen's Greatest Hits.  Anyway, say hi to my new crazy writing companion!

The writing goes.  I'm at a point.  I'm not sure what that point is.  I'm either 1/3 or half way through with the book.  I like where it's going, what it says (what it says about me) but something's off with it.  It's like, I like the first part and I like the last part, but I feel like there's a middle part that I'm missing.  It's difficult.  THE DEATHDAY LETTER spanned one day, so charting a path was pretty easy.  This book follows about six months.  I have to choose the moments which best reflect the story.  I guess I'm just questioning whether the moments are cohesive enough to create a whole.  I won't really know that until I finish, which I hope I'll do before I get my edits for DDL, but I highly doubt.  

I got around to reading THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan this weekend.  It was a really fun read.  I like my zombies hungry.  It read like the best kind of slasher, horror flick from my youth.  The kind where the killers never, ever stop tell you why they're going to kill you, and the protagonist (by protag I mean:  Large breasted virgin who runs fast enough in the dark to always stay ahead, but manages to trip and take ten minutes to get back up) keeps going long past the point where she even knows why anymore.  The book was heavy on fantastic description, and the lurve story was touching.  The prose was a little uptight but I think that Ryan will loosen up a little as she goes, and there was a history, a mythology, if you will, that was hinted at but never went anywhere.  Neither of those things detract in any way (and I think that Ryan has stated she's writing a second book, so maybe the mythology of the Sisterhood will be addressed more in that), so I say, go read it, but don't plan on eating at the Rib joint for dinner.

Snail and Puppy Dog Tails (and porn)

The things boys are made of.  

I'm totally psyched about rescuing a dog this weekend.  I hope it works out.  I've been skirting the idea of a dog for a while; crazy, fat writer guys need dogs.  Anyway, I was on some rescue sites when I found Maxx.  He's a cute as crap little Shih Tzu.  What really broke my heart is that he's been blind since birth.  I'm going to meet him tomorrow and see what his personality's like.  Sure, I'm a little nervous about adopting a special needs dog, but I have the perfect life for taking care of a little dog like that that no one else seems to want.  Plus, he's got the same name as a major character in my WIP.  

It's been a quiet week with both my agent and editor on vacations.  I've had lots of time to go crazy over my WIP.  The good thing about it is that I have a clear picture of where I want the story to go.  The bad is that the closer I get to the end, the more I realize the beginning isn't working.  That's okay, that's what second drafts are for, and I have plenty of time.

One thing I've discovered is that I have a theme.  I mean, each of my books has had a theme of its own.  Deathday Letter has a Carpe Diem theme, my current WIP has a friendship theme, my next story has themes of xenophobism and competition and other stuff I don't even know about, but they all have one theme in common:  becoming the you you want to be.  

That's something I struggled with, that I still struggle with.  In HS, I didn't know who I was or who I wanted to be.  In college I became who I thought I had to be to survive coming out.  In life, we all have to struggle with what we want versus what others want versus what we know is right.  That's what my characters all face.  They're all struggling to become the men they want to be.  Sometimes they fail, sometimes they succeed.  Being that we're all human, I think being the man you want to be is more about moments than anything else.  In each moment, are you who you want to be?  It doesn't matter what you did twenty years ago or twenty minutes ago.  Are you who you want to be right this very second.  I think maybe if we live our lives like that, then the gains will outweigh the failures and the moments will equal a greater whole.

I promised I was going to be funnier didn't I?  Right.  Here, if this doesn't make you laugh, you're dead inside.

Why Agents Rock

I've been having a lively conversation over on Self-Publishing Review about the nature and responsibility of an agent. There are a lot of negative ideas out there about agents, and I can't address them all, so I thought that I'd tell my story. Tell how I got my agent and what our relationship is like.

First off, I think that a lot of the anger that revolves around agents comes simply from rejection. No one likes it. No one likes repeated rejections. But statistics are not in the writer's favor. I follow Jennifer Jackson's blog and she posts her request rates every Friday. Usually she reads about 100 - 200 queries. I don't think I've ever seen her make more than two or three partial requests. Kristen Nelson read something like 30,000 queries last year, and I think she took on about two clients (it's early and I'm not fact checking but I'm pretty sure that's close). The point is: Agents have a lot of rules and quirks and guidelines, all of which are make writers feel like they're jumping through hoops just to be rejected. I think a lot of the anger comes from this place. If writers stopped focusing on the agents and more on their own work, maybe the ratios would rise a little.

On to my story. I finished my book THE DEATHDAY LETTER (it's my job to be shamelessly self-promotional) and had been researching agents. There are a lot of really great sites out there to make sure that you don't get scammed (Predators & Editors, Miss Snark, AgentQuery, just to name a couple). I amassed my dream list, the ten agents I felt were a match for my book, my personality, and my style. Then I worked on my query letter. I used other query letters for inspiration, and read up on some do's and don'ts of the query letter.

I'll find out from my agent if I can put up my query letter here. Until then I'll just tell you about it. Because my book was funny, I used humor to sell my story and myself. Out of ten agents, I got partial and full manuscript requests from nine. I believe my book had a good hook, but it was the query letter that got me in the door.

I hadn't expected to get so many replies so quickly. I sent my query letters, expecting replies to take six weeks or so, and then when on my vacation to Europe. I was happily surprised by all the attention, but since I was on vacation, my ability to reply was very limited. It was Chris at Firebrand Literary that really went above and beyond. Originally I had queried Nadia Cornier. Firebrand Literary, and Nadia in particular, just had the right mix of quirky playfulness and professionalism. Plus, their solid sales record was great. Chris was a new agent, I'd never heard of him, but Nadia passed my query to him and he tracked me down.

I'd sent him my full manuscript before leaving, and he wanted to talk immediately. The time difference made things difficult, but Chris went out of his way to accommodate my schedule. I was only going to be gone for two weeks, so I was surprised when he was so eager to talk to me. I had other offers from the agents I queried, but it was Chris's exuberance that sold me. He was so psyched about THE DEATHDAY LETTER that he tracked me down in Europe and made time to get to know me. That was the kind of guy I wanted representing my book and career.
When I got back, we worked on some editing. He had some good suggestions, some of which I resisted. It wasn't all roses. Both Chris and I have strong personalities, so there were misunderstandings, but one thing never changed: my agent's excitement about my book. Even after we started sending it out and my own excitement was replaced with fear and anxiety, Chris was my cheerleader.

Just recently, we sold THE DEATHDAY LETTER, and Chris was there to guide me through the process, to make sure that we got the best terms, to make sure I understood what was going one. He negotiated me a wonderful deal and I'm now working with a wonderful editor who is as excited about my book as Chris was.

A great agent can make the whole process of getting published, seem less daunting, because it is daunting. There were days where I wanted to give up, where the waiting seemed like too much. Chris isn't there to edit my stories, but he's invested enough in my career to read them and provide me with honest feedback. A good agent is worth his weight in gold. But it's a two way street. If you want to get an agent, you have to be a good writer, you have to follow their guidelines whether you agree with them or not. Once you get an agent, you have to be a good client. You are not your agent's only writer. You may feel like four days is too long a response time if you've asked your agent to read a manuscript, but really, it's not.

This whole thing has been an amazing learning process for me. I'm sure I've screwed up and done things that caused Chris to face palm in exasperation, but as I move forward with my career, I move forward with an agent who cares about my career, and about making me the me I can be.

Gateway Drugs

I've been pretty harsh on Stephanie Meyers and the Twilight series.  Not because of her writing ability or because of the glittery vampires (okay, yeah, a little because of that), but mostly because of the message she was sending.  I don't want to beat that dead horse anymore.  Lots of people have beaten it way better than I ever could.  What I want to say is that in spite of my misgivings over Twilight, I owe Meyers a debt of gratitude.

It's my secret shame that half my family thinks books should either be used to even out wobbly tables or as camouflage for skeevy porn.  When my nephew was born, I started building him a book collection in the hopes that when he was old enough he'd have a worthy library and I could plant the seed of book lovin'.  I assumed my niece (step-niece but I only make the distinction to explain the age difference) was a lost cause.  She showed little interest in books even though every time I gave my nephew books, I gave her books too.  Until Twilight.  

Through my family grapevine I heard that she'd become addicted to Twilight.  I threw up in my mouth a little, but having been part of the Harry Potter craze, understood you can't fight a tween phenom.  If peer pressure is being used to push books, then bring on the social conformity  

Wednesday night we had a family get together to celebrate my sale.  Imagine my surprise when she came up to me to tell me that after she'd finished Twilight she read the other books I gave her.  She read His Dark Materials, and The Hunger Games and Thirteen Reasons Why and books I don't even remember giving her.  And even better?  She totally asked for more.  I'm going to introduce her to Neil Gaiman by way of Coraline and The Graveyard Book, and to E. Lockhart.  It's pretty exciting all around.  I could see in her the hunger to read anything and everything, and she was looking to me for direction.  I'm pretty well read and don't discriminate between "girl" books and "boy" books, but the books I read tend to be more testosterone laden.  I'm willing to take any suggestions for a thirteen-year-old girl.  I kind of feel like I have a responsibility here, and an opportunity.  I want to make sure I get the right books into her hands and turn her into a lifelong reader.

So to Stephanie Meyers and all her glittery creatures of the night I say:  Thanks.  You can stop writing now.

Officially Official

The end of one path, the beginning of another

FYI, the first thing I realized is that my blog is OMG-BORING.  I've hired someone less boring to post as me from now on.  Bring in the dancing puppies!

So this is the entry.  This is the one where I look back on the start of this blog that no one reads and go, "Wowiee, wow!  I'm a real writer now.  Paid and everything."  And that's true.  I started this blog to track my path from first written word to sold manuscript, and we're there.  Yesterday it was official.  And I'll continue this blog as I begin a new journey as an actual author.  Will I be able to turn this into a career that supports me?  Will my book bomb?  Will they actually name it THE GREAT COOKIE?  (The day after I found out it had sold I had a nightmare that they demanded my book be named THE GREAT COOKIE).  Those are the questions I'll be answering over the next year as I move from published author to "holy sh!t that's MY book on the shelf with the neon-puke cover."

Until then though, I'm going to answer the one burning question on everyone's mind:  what's my secret?  What made THE DEATHDAY LETTER what it is?  

The answer is:  masturbation euphemisms.  And penis euphemisms, and sex euphemisms.  

My next book is just a listing of samurai and ninja themed porn movie titles.  And some other stuff that happens.

Stay tuned for my next entry:  The entire plot of the Twilight series in haiku.  

Oliver Travers is my co-pilot

Today is the day.  Today it's official.  THE DEATHDAY LETTER is going to be published by Simon Pulse in the summer of 2010.  

Holy frakkin' crap!  It's real! Frak, frak, frak.  The feeling is absolutely insane and awesome and FRAK!

I'll have loads more news soon along with a real description of THE DEATHDAY LETTER.