Deathday Letters

Writing About Something

2012-01-29T10:11:00.001-05:00

About two years ago, I wrote a three-part post on YA and Sexuality. Mostly it dealt with my struggles and talked about why literature for gay youth is so important.

One of the things I've been trying to do in my own writing is be inclusive of different sexualities, different races, different cultures, without drawing attention to that fact. Mostly because that's how I grew up. I briefly "dated" a black girl in high school and never thought it was strange. Actually, the strangest part of that sentence was that I dated a girl ;) But my parents never made a big deal out of other races or cultures. I grew up in an environment where those things didn't matter. So that's the world I've tried to show my readers.

But it's naive of me to think that people don't struggle. That gay teens don't struggle. Hell, I just read another article last week about a gay teen who killed himself. When I was developing The Dark Days of Me and Him, I had some frank conversations with my friend Margie about the story. In a small way, it's based around the myth of Orpheus and Erydice. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by giving that bit away. I knew I wanted to retell that story of Orpheus losing his love and traveling to the underworld to get her back. From the moment I conceived the story, it was always about Charlie Hudson and Theo Jackson. But I worried that I'd be alienating a huge chunk of my audience if people began to think of it as a "gay romance." Margie and I went back and forth, and at the end, she told me what I already knew: that I needed to stop worrying about the audience and write the best story I could.

Back when I wrote that post about YA and Sexuality, a couple of people, one in particular who knows who he is, told me that I needed to write MY story. I still don't think people would be interested in my boring life, but The Dark Days of Me and Him is as close as I'm ever going to get to writing "my" story. It's about more than Charlie and Theo. It's about how far someone will go to save a person they care about. It's about bullying. It's about fear and small town loneliness. It's about feeling like there's not a soul in the world who could ever understand you. It's about feeling small and falling in love and fitting in and ending the world.

It's about Charlie and Theo.

It's about time.

The Dark Days of Me and Him

February 1, 2012

http://www.thedarkdays.com

The Dark Days of Me and Him - Teaser

2012-01-28T14:21:00.000-05:00

On February 1, the website will go live and the first two chapters of THE DARK DAYS OF ME AND HIM will be up. Two weeks after that, another two chapters will be up.

But for now, here's a teaser from the first chapter:

Charlie Hudson drinks his morphine through a straw and decides that the next person who tells him how lucky he is to be alive is going to get a rectal thermometer shoved up their nose.

His mother sleeps in the corner with one leg stretched out in front of her and the other turned at an uncomfortable angle. Charlie hasn't seen her sleep so soundly in years. He tries to sit up and nearly blacks out from the pain. Never in his life did Charlie think a three inch incision in his belly could hurt so damn much. Even with a gratuitous helping of pain killers coursing through his body, Charlie still feels everything. The stitches tugging at his skin, the throbbing hole where his spleen once took up space doing whatever it was spleens do, the ends of his broken tibia rubbing together minutely every time he moves. No one has signed his cast yet. It is moon white and itches, though not enough for Charlie to do anything about it and risk waking his mother.

Good Samaritan is quiet now. The last time he awoke, people ran in and out, immediately poking him and shining lights in his eyes and asking him questions he didn't know the answers to. Dr. Echols told him he'd rattled his brain pretty good and didn't seem surprised that he had trouble remembering what had happened that night. Charlie doesn't know what time it is. He looks down at the pale outline his watch left behind wonders where it is. Not that it had any sentimental value, he just feels naked without it. Maybe the paramedics cut it off when they zapped him.

Charlie Hudson flinches at the memory of the accident and retreats back into the narcotic haze. It's a little like trying to recapture a dream when you've just woken up. Part of your brain remembers the world you left behind while the other part is happy to remind you that daylight is just on the other side of your eyelids. Most times, dreams slip away, but for now Charlie lets go of the real world and drifts for a little while longer, trying to forget all that he's lost.

The Dark Days of Me and Him

2012-01-23T18:23:00.001-05:00

In the claustrophobic town of Blackpool, Tennessee, Charlie Hudson dreams of escape, Audrey Allen dreams of being a star, and Theo Jackson no longer dreams at all.

After Theo Jackson's apparent suicide, Charlie Hudson only wants to play his guitar and watch the world burn. He doesn't mean to start the apocalypse, but then again, he didn't mean to fall in love either.

When Audrey Allen meets Charlie and invites him to join her band, she doesn't realize the high price she'll pay to see her dreams come true. But she doesn't know how to stop the coming darkness...or if she even wants to.

As the world unravels, so do the secrets and lies surrounding Theo's suicide. They say the dead can't speak for themselves, but that's not always true.

The Dark Days of Me and Him is an experimental serial story told in bi-monthly installments over the course of 2012. It follows the lives of Charlie Hudson, Theo Jackson, Audrey Allen, and the residents of Blackpool, Tennessee, as they try to solve the mystery of Theo's death and mend their fractured lives–even as the world whimpers to its end.

The beginning of the end starts February 1, 2012 at http://www.thedarkdays.com

The Point of It All

2012-01-15T09:53:00.002-05:00

Why does this scene deserve to exist?

If your answer is not something along the lines of–because the story would die without it–then you must cut it.

I go through manuscripts multiple times before turning them in. Each time, I mark my favorite passages and favorite scenes. The ones that make me stop and say, "Wow! I love this." I do that because I know that by the third or fourth read I'm very likely going to cut them.

To be a writer, you also have to be part sociopath. Keep the lines you cut as trophies or bury the bodies at the bottom of the ocean, but gut your work ruthlessly.

On February 1 I'm going to unveil a secret project. It's a free serial novel. I'll be releasing 2-4 chapters per month until it's complete (which will likely take through the end of 2012). It's an apocalyptic love story. I'm not going to call it YA. You might, but I won't. The main characters are teenagers though. I also shouldn't call it a love story even though there is love. The one thing I can say for sure is that there is an apocalypse. But not in the way you may think.

In addition to that, I'll be running a mirror image website for writers who are interested in the process. I don't like teaching or preaching or whatever it is I feel like I've been doing on this blog for the last couple of years. Because the truth is that I still struggle as much as the next writer. On this mirror image site, I'll be releasing my rough drafts, character sketches, outlines. So that anyone who is interested will be able to see how I got from my crazy scribblings to my finished page.

So, if you want to watch a sociopath work, check back next week when I'll release more details.

Double Spaces in Writing

2012-01-05T13:41:00.000-05:00

Don't we have better things to worry about? I keep seeing this issue pop up. I even read a really self-rightous article about the double-space pop up in Slate, that went on to damn and demean anyone still putting two spaces after a period. The nerve!

Here's the thing: I learned to type in 9th grade. We used computers with monochrome screens. Before that, I was a hunt-and-peck specialist. My typing teacher was a strict old dame who used to remove the letters from our keyboards so we couldn't cheat and look at our hands. She was the person who taught me to put two spaces after ever period. She practically horse whipped it into us. It's more than habit, it's muscle memory.

Is it outdated? Yes. Does it need to be done anymore? No. Am I going to retrain myself to type with one space despite 19 years of writing with two? No. I'll put two spaces after my periods until the day someone drowns me in a lake.

"But, my editor prefers one space after a period," you say. "What's a poor writer to do?" Write your damn book. When you're done, use Edit and Replace to replace all your " " with " ". I just did it. 4,797 replacements in 5 seconds.

Everyone is happy. Problem solved.

Now, let's talk about the Oxford Comma...

And 2011

2011-12-28T13:20:00.002-05:00

Last post of the year...better make it good.

Or not.

2011 was a struggle for me. Lots happened. Most of it was amazing. Some of it was annoying.

Now I'm looking forward, moving on.

But before I do, I want to share a couple of 2011 greatest hits.

READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline. It's not going to win awards for being intensely deep, but this was my favorite read of 2011. Fast paced and fun, READY PLAYER ONE was the book I needed to sail out of the reading doldrums I'd been stuck in.

STICK by Andrew Smith. I'm beginning to think he's going to have a book on my list every year. STICK is more than a great book. It's experimental and sweet and the kind of book that you'll want to read again.

EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS by A.S. King. As a kid who faced bullies during his middle and high school years, this book spoke to me. I've had trouble connecting to some of King's other protagonists, but Lucky Linderman was awesome. And the writing, as usual, was brilliant.

INVINCIBLE SUMMER by Hannah Moskowitz. What can I say? I'm a Hannah fan. She has a way of writing families that makes you ache. And her sophomore effort was better even than her debut, BREAK.

Now that that's out of the way. What am I looking forward to in 2012 other than the end of the world?

PASSENGER by Andrew Smith. Another Marbury book? Yes, please.

GONE, GONE, GONE by Hannah Moskowitz. A gay romance set to the backdrop of the DC sniper shootings? If anyone can do it, Hannah can.

PIECES OF US by Margie Gelbwasser. I've already read her amazing book but I'm dying for others to read it. The story of 4 fractured teens will break your heart.

SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL by Trish Doller. I've been hearing about Trish's book forever and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

KATANA by Cole Gibson. Ninjas? Samurai? Shopping? I've read some of this and can't wait to read the rest.

What books are you waiting for in 2012?

The last bit of business is that the blog and website are going to undergo a major change in 2012. Over the month of January I'll be redesigning my site and changing the focus of my blog. The truth is that I feel I've run out of things to say that are worthy. The thing about blogging is that anyone can do it and few people actually have anything worth saying. I feel I've become one of those people. When I began blogging, it was to chronicle my journey on the path to publication.

Now that I'm published and part of the machine, I don't know that I have anything left to say...or rather the things that I do have to say shouldn't be said. Publishing is a business like any other, and just like I wouldn't blog about the goings on in my day job at an IT professional, it wouldn't be cool to blog about the goings on between my publishers and I.

But that doesn't mean I'm done blogging. Just that I'm going to change my focus. In 2012, I'm going to begin a project. An ambitious project where I'll write a book on-line and publish it like a serial under a Creative Commons license with a 2 chapters per month goal.

My blog and website will have two areas. One for people who just want to enjoy the story. I'll talk more about the story in January, but it will feel more like a television show than a book, because of the medium in which I'm going to tell it. The reader area will have the chapters, info about characters, a place for people to discuss what's happening...stuff like that. The other area will be a writer's area. A place where I'll post the first drafts of each chapters along with notes. How I go to the final draft. My outlines and all the little bits of how I write. The process of every writer is different, so reading self-important posts by other writers about what you should and shouldn't do in a novel are kind of pointless. But maybe by sharing my process, someone out there will find something useful to them.

I was aiming to launch this January 1, but obligations to my publisher and my day job have kept me too busy to keep that schedule. So February 1 is my new launch date.

And that's it. That all I've got for the year. I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year, and I'll see you back here in January.

Rotters

2011-12-26T10:11:00.001-05:00

I snuck this book in under the read-it-in-2011 wire. I read it based on the recommendation of Andrew Smith. You should read it too.

You're either going to love it or hate it. I loved it and hated it depending on the position of the sun as I was reading.

It's a dissection of the complexities of the father-son dynamic. But done so in a rather unusual way–through grave-digging.

We say that there shouldn't be boy books or girl books–and in some respects that may be true–but this is definitely a boy book. Girls will read it, girls will like it (or hate it), but they will never be able to truly understand it.

That's not a judgement. It's not a dig. It's a fact. It's biology. Only someone born a son can fully appreciate the horrific complexities of the father-son dynamic.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-20T15:40:00.000-05:00

As I slowly suffocate under the weight of obligations, I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a happy *insert holiday of choice here*. And remember, he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, so try not to be a dick. See you next year!

Oh, Twitter! Thy Sword is Mighty.

2011-12-15T13:59:00.003-05:00

I keep promising longer posts about something I'm working on that I hope to release in Jan/Feb, but a revision that I'm THIS close to finishing is taking up all of my free time.

But I've been doing something for a while now that I thought was interesting. Sometimes I fight sentences. I work them and rework them. This goes for paragraphs too. But they don't quite work. So I'll take them and put them into Twitter and tag them as #favwiplines. Putting them in Twitter forces you to conform to the character length rules. And I want the lines to actually make sense to the people on Twitter who might read them.

So it forces me to rewrite the lines, and I've found that 99% of the time, the way I structure it for Twitter is a million times better than the line I'd been trying to rework. I'm in crazy mode right now so this post is a little crazy too. But the gist is: Putting troublesome sentences/lines/paragraphs in Twitter can help you be concise and brief while still getting your point across.

Go, Twitter. I still hate your new iPhone app. Give me my old one back.

Love,
Me.

What I Learned From Stephen King

2011-12-13T21:45:00.000-05:00

Of all the books I've read about writing, Stephen King's no nonsense, common sense book ON WRITING was the one I credit with giving me the kick in the ass I needed to get published. I think it should be required reading for every aspiring writer.

I also think his book UNDER THE DOME should be required reading, but for wholly different reasons.

Out of mutual writerly respect, I don't usually review books negatively, but in this case, I think Stephen King can take it. And, for the record, there was way more to like about this book than dislike, but there were two glaring problems with this book that I think those aspiring to publish a book will appreciate.

I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers but they may happen. I'll try to keep my brief discussion as vague as possible.

The short short version of the book is this: A dome suddenly appears in the town of Chester's Mill cutting them off completely from the outside world. Chaos ensues.

What I liked about this book was that King set up a huge cast of characters. He wove in wonderfully unique backstories and built up each event so that all the threads came together in ways I hadn't thought of. I also loved some of the language. Simple stuff really. The way King described these characters, as if he had known them his whole life.

But then came the problems. King was trying to set up the idea that people, in a situation like being trapped under a dome, would slowly go mad. Rational people, good people, would stoop to committing horrendous acts, cruelties they'd never before considered, and that it was only a matter of time before those things occurred. And I agree with his sentiment. People in groups become irrational mobs. However, King moved at an accelerated pace in less than 7 days. It only takes 2 days before the citizen police force, made up of mostly former juvenile delinquents, to begin abusing their power. Raping and killing and acting like a brute squad rather than a police force. It only takes 3 days for the resident sleazy politician to gather all the power to him and become a de facto dictator. And it only takes about 5 days for the climax of the book to occur. If this book was only a few hundred pages long, I could understand the accelerated pace, but UNDER THE DOME was well over a thousand pages. If King wanted to show us the deterioration of a society cut off from the rest of the world, he should have used his book's length to show a realistic timeline. The way the town unravels–even accelerated at they were by the novel's main bad guy–was simply too unbelievable in the length of time of the story.

The sad part about this is that the things that did happen, I could see happening. I could see riots. I could see people committing suicide out of a sense of hopelessness. But not after 4 days. After 4 days trapped under the dome, people begin killing themselves. At that point, there was no shortage of air, food, water. They simply lost hope and killed themselves. And I call bullshit on that.

My second major problem was that the good guys were too virtuous and the bad guys were too vile. King hinted at flaws in our heroes, but never took the time to develop them...which is a real travesty in a book of this size. But worse than overly virtuous heroes are bad guys that are practically twirling their mustaches.

A great bad guys is someone we feel pity for. Someone we can relate to. Someone whose actions we can watch and think, "There but for the grace of God go I." King's villains were so douchey that I felt nothing but relief when they were foiled. They were so ridiculously over the top that I groaned when they did something else. Not content to be corrupt, they have to be the MOST CORRUPT EVER!!! Not content to be bullies, they have to be SUPER BULLIES. In one scene, the earlier rape I mentioned, one of the citizen officers involved was a girl...a girl who egged the rape one. Which I found so utterly unbelievable, I nearly quit the book right there. Now, had King taken the time to show us why a young woman might enjoy watching the rape of another woman–say she hated the girl in question or she herself was raped once and no one helped her and now wants other women to suffer as she did–I might have understood the motivations behind it. But there were none. This character was simply imbued with a boundless cruelty for no other reason than King decided it should be so.

A third problem I had, which related to the character issue above, was that characters often acted in such a way that I could see King pulling the strings. Characters withheld vital information from other characters for no discernible reason except to push the plot in a specific direction. It was maddening to say the least.

At the end of the day, UNDER THE DOME was interesting. It was enjoyable. It also taught me a lot about what NOT to do in a book. Timelines and chains of events must follow believable patterns. A society can break down in under 7 days, but only under very extreme pressure...and King just didn't earn the kind of breakdown he wrote. It was too much too soon. And it's okay to have nuanced characters. Good characters can sometimes be bad and bad characters can sometimes be good and bad guys need to have MOTIVES. Bad for the sake of being bad is sloppy, lazy, and just plain wrong.

So read it if you have time. If you don't, read ON WRITING instead.

Seattle and Onward

2011-12-12T11:25:00.002-05:00

Well...back to life.

I had a nice week in Seattle with my brother and his friends. For my next book, I'm hiring my brother to be my publicist. I met more people who had read Deathday in one week than in the last year of publication. It was pretty awesome.

I ate a lot, drank a lot of coffee, and saw a lot of cool stuff. It was just what I needed.

But now I'm back. Back to writing, back to working, back to ignoring the fact that Christmas is two freaking weeks away.

Later in the week, I'll do a better writing post, along with details on my big writing adventure for 2012, but for now, here are some pictures...mostly of food.

Blog Chain - The Perfect Place

2011-11-28T18:18:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the last blog chain of the year :) Tere brings us this question:

What conditions do you need to get your best writing done? Closed door, crowded coffee house? Computer or notebook? Can you just sit down to write, or do you need to wait for the time to be right?

I used to be a big believer in the perfect time and place for writing. Except that for nearly three decades, I was so obsessed with needing the perfect time and place, that I never did any writing. What I learned is that it doesn't matter where I am or what time of day it is. All that matters is my state of mind.

That's right. That's all it takes. There are certainly things I like to have. A cup of coffee, a keyboard with tappity keys like the ones on the Apple flat keyboards, a quiet room where I can put whatever music is in my brain on repeat.

But those things are difficult to come by. I usually work with the sounds of dogs snoring beside me and the lawn people cutting grass outside my window or Matt playing video games in the living room. Sometimes I work longhand, sometimes on my computer, sometimes in BN or Starbucks or sitting in the front seat of my car with my laptop propped on the steering wheel.

When it comes to writing, my state of mind is all that matters. My intent. When I sit down to write, I tell myself that I'm going to write. I'm going to write like my soul depends on it. And then it doesn't matter where I am or what time of day it is, only that I'm doing what I love.

Tere came before me and kicked this awesome chain off, and head over to Margie's blog to see what it takes to get her in the mood. See y'all next year!

Traveling By Map

2011-11-28T08:14:00.001-05:00

The Muppets. I remember them. I remember Kermit the Frog stuffed animals. I remember watching the TV show.

I went to see the new movie last night. Despite the fact that Jason Segal is kind of creepy looking in an earnest sort of way, the Muppets today are as relevant as ever.

I chuckled, I sighed, I was embarrassed by the songs, and I laughed my ass off. The Muppet movie simply shows that there is a place in this world for unabashed sentimentalism and positivity. Maybe there's not enough of that. Or maybe we need all the cynicism, all the darkness to recognize just how friggin' brilliant the light stuff truly is.

Now, where are my fart shoes?

Every Time

2011-11-25T22:56:00.001-05:00

Every time I sit down to write, I'm not trying to tell you something, I'm not trying to make anyone laugh or cry or shoot beer out of their nose. I'm simply trying to explain the world around me.

Because sometimes the world makes sense. And sometimes it doesn't. Half the time, I plow through life like a blind guy driving a bus filled with explosives. The other half, I stumble around like I'm drunk.

My hope is that someone reads something I've written and it helps them understand their world a little better. I think we each live in our own bubble worlds. Some are smaller, some larger. Sometimes those bubbles collide, sometimes they merge for periods of time, allowing two people (or more depending on how you roll) to share their world. And all I can do is describe my world. How it works and what doesn't make sense and how fucked up it all can be. In the hopes that it makes sense to someone else.

Even when, sometimes, it doesn't make sense to me.

I read for the same reason.

Because, despite living in our own bubble worlds, everyone wants to know they're not alone. Sharing experiences, sharing ideas about the worlds we live in--even if those worlds are pure fantasy--helps us cope with the dark.

The real truth, is that I don't know Jack about writing. I don't know anything about publishing. Some days I can barely manage to get my shoes on the proper feet. But I can tell you about my world. I can tell you what I know, what I don't know, what I love, what freaks me out, what wakes me in the night with cold sweats.

And maybe, if one person gets it, that'll be pretty cool.

And maybe our worlds will make a little more sense.

Catching Up

2011-11-16T16:32:00.001-05:00

I feel like I've been off my game for a few weeks. I've had my head buried in revisions, which are kicking my ass.

OCCUPY WALL STREET - I wasn't sure how I felt about this until I read this article. I'm all for capitalism. I believe that people should work hard and be rewarded for their work. I don't believe in unfairly taxing the rich. I do believe we have an obligation to help those who have fallen on hard times. I have no sympathy for people who try to game the system. What bugs me about the opponents of OWS is that they claim the OWS protesters are a bunch of lazy bums who just want to ride the coattails of the more prosperous in our society. Maybe there are some people like that, but for the most part, I think people are simply fed up. Just as I'm against lazy people gaming the system, I'm against the super rich using their wealth and influence to unfairly rewrite the rules for their continued benefit. I don't expect the government to tax me 30% and tax the super rich 50%. That's unfair. But I do expect that if I'm being taxed 30%, that the super rich are paying their 30% as well. Sadly, that's not the case. Special interest groups run our country. Public money is being used to bail out private enterprises because we deregulated to such a degree that we allowed these banks and investment houses to hold our economy hostage.

So, while I may not necessarily agree with all the sentiments of the protesters, I do think it's time for a serious change in this country. I'm most reminded of the book FEED by MT Anderson when I think of how bad we've become.

HOLIDAYS - Seriously. It's not even Thanksgiving. Do I really need to see all this Christmas crap?

GREAT BOOKS - EVERYONE SEES THE ANTS, READY GAMER ONE, THE SECRET WAR. I've been having trouble reading lately, but these three books have really been great. EVERYONE SEES THE ANTS is the latest from AS King. I was interested from the day I heard about it, and it didn't disappoint. There's an emotional distance in King's writing that always keeps me from completely embracing her characters, but I think it's me and not her, because her writing is brilliant. READY GAMER ONE was just amazing. Fun and energetic and well written. THE SECRET WAR is the second Jack Blank book by Matt Myklusch. Second books of trilogies are always tough to pull off, but I actually think I liked it better than the first. With the heavy lifting done in book 1, Matt really got to launch the story in a fantastic direction. Can't wait for book three.

WRITING - I have stuffs in the works. I'm working on finishing revisions for my second book. I've got some other stuff going on that I can't really talk about, also because I'm a tease. But one thing I can talk about is publishing and the internet.

I've decided to conduct an experiment. I'm not sure just how well it's going to work, but I'm committed to trying it. I'll write up a much more detailed post in the coming days, but the gist is that over 2012, I'll be writing a book on-line. Two chapters a month minimum. I'm going to offer each chapter free on my website. In every format I can think of. I'll publish it under the Creative Commons license so that others may also convert it into various formats. I'll also put it up for sale for the Kindle, Nook, on Smashwords, and all those other e-books places. I haven't decided how I'll do that yet, since I don't think it would be fair to charge Kindle users .99 for every chapter. So I may publish it in chunks, as novellas.

But beyond that, I'm going to attempt to make it interactive. I have the story I want to tell pretty much mapped out. But I'm going to open the world up and see if anyone else wants to play in it. Readers will be encouraged to add to the world, and create characters in the world, which might be incorporated into the story I'm telling.

Truthfully, I have a lot of stuff to figure out, and this might fail miserably. I want to see how the internet can be used to tell stories. I don't expect to make money, but I'd like to see if it's possible to do so by using the Radiohead method...offer people something worthwhile without asking for anything in return and see what happens.

Anyway, I'll be posting more details in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for it.

VACATION - I gets one! Sort of. Visiting my brother in Seattle in a couple of weeks, so I'm psyched about that. If anyone is near seattle and wants to meet up, let me know :)

And that's it. Hope everyone is doing well!

Blog Chain - Greatest Achievement

2011-11-14T08:37:00.000-05:00

We're back for another round on the blog chain! This time, it's Michelle H. asking the questions, and she wants to know:

This is the month in creating writing goals and making big accomplishments. What is your greatest accomplishment — in writing, your life or perhaps something incidental that had a big effect on you?

This was a difficult question for me to answer. It might be easy to say that getting published was my greatest accomplishment, but I think that Deathday was simply culmination of some hard work and a lot (A LOT) of luck.

You know what? I don't know. I think the truth is that my greatest accomplishment is still waiting for me to accomplish it. My life has definitely had a lot of high points. Some lows. Some WTF moments. But I think I've yet to really tap into my own potential. I'm a work in progress, and I think the best is yet to come.

Check out Margie's greatest accomplishment from yesterday, and then head on over to Sarah's blog tomorrow :)

Blog Chain - We All Float Down Here

2011-11-01T09:13:00.000-04:00

Happy November! I know a lot of my friends are covered in snow, but down here in Florida, I'm just happy the highs are down in the 80s.

We're back with another blog chain, this time brought to us by Matt, who wants to know:

Who is your favorite monster?

My horror movie fascination was kindled at a young age by my older brother. He introduced me to a frightening world of monsters and psycho killers and crazies. And with my overactive imagination, he spent many nights sleeping on my floor to keep those same monsters away.

The two that stick out in my mind, and have had a lasting impact on me are this guy:

And this monster here:

To this day, I'm incapable of watching IT and then taking a shower. The scene in the showers where Pennywise comes up from the drain, is forever imprinted on my brain. Even though I remind myself that Pennywise the clown is still just Tim Curry (it's just not possible to be afraid of Dr. Frankenfurter or The Butler), I'm still absolutely petrified of that stupid clown. I haven't seen that movie in years, and it still gives me nightmares.

CUJO, however, is a beast of a different breed. When I first saw that movie, I lived out in a heavily wooded area. A place with dirt roads, where people rode horses around. And there were plenty of big dogs. My next door neighbor had a big dog, and I vividly remember a day when I was walking to his house. I saw a dog that resembled my friends standing in the road. I tried to go put it back in the yard, but it wasn't my friend's dog. And it started to chase me. I ran as fast as my skinny little legs would go, thinking about that stupid dog Cujo, thinking that I was going to be some rabid dog's dinner. And to this day, I still have issues around big dogs I don't know.

So that's it. That's my tale. Check out Margie's answer to this (which includes an awesome Buffy shout out), and then head over to Sara's blog tomorrow to see what monster's scare here. Happy Halloween!!!

Money, Meet Mouth

2011-10-31T11:27:00.000-04:00

Over at Andrea Brown agent Mary Kole's Kidlit blog, she answered a question about whether publishers are looking for boy-focused material. Her short answer is that boy books without girl appeal are a tough sell. Her article is honest and blunt. No one is really doing anything. Publishers aren't really doing anything. They're waiting for the boy market to explode the way the girl market has.

I'm not going to talk about boys not reading. Boys are reading. Maybe more than ever before. Andrew Smith talks about this at length at his blog. Boys want to read. They're just not reading YA. Why? Because YA is a pretty hostile environment for a lot of guys.

What I'm bothered by is that publishers--who are slowly becoming irrelevant in this new marketplace--seem to be content to just let half of their readership slip between their fingers. Sure, everyone once-in-a-while there's a book that appeals to them. THE HUNGER GAMES, HARRY POTTER, PERCY JACKSON. But for the most part, publishers have given up on boys. They've conceded half of their readership to graphic novels and video games and adult books and on-line porn. Okay, well YA never had much chance against that last one.

But imagine if Apple simply gave up half of its customer base. Imagine if they said, "Well, businesses aren't really buying Apple products, so we're just going to pretend that business customers don't exist." As someone who uses Apple products, I can tell you that their business segment wasn't performing the way they wanted. They stopped spending the dollars on what wasn't working, and found new approaches. They found a better entry point into the market. The iPhone and iPad helped Apple gain a foothold in the business sector.

But publishers have given up. They occasionally publish boy books, occasionally take risks, but for the most part, they don't. And I get that publishing is a business. But you've got to spend money to make money. You've got to put your money where your mouth is.

So here are some things publishers could do to lure boys back to YA:

1. Advertise where the boys are. This one is simple but probably costly. However, you can't expect boys to buy your books if they don't know you exist. Buy ads in comic books, video games, and promote heavily at conventions. A lot of what makes something popular is word-of-mouth, but that initial spark has got to begin somewhere.

2. Do more multi-format crossovers. Publish graphic novels along with the books. Or limited run comics as a run up to the publication of the book. Do more interactive internet puzzle games to get people involved. Get involved with music. Stop making lame book trailers and make a kick-ass music video for a book. Create games out of books. But stop thinking so linearly.

3. Publish books with multiple covers. There are legitimate books out there that girls are reading that would definitely appeal to boys, but the covers are a major non-starter. The answer isn't gender neutral covers either. From experience, I know that girls are often put off by a cover that's too boyish. And boys are put off by one that's too girly. So, try multiple covers.

4. Embrace gender differences. I'm not talking about boys love guns and girls love dolls. There's a huge difference between stereotypes and differences. And boys and girls ARE different, whether it's PC to admit it or not. Embrace those differences and create books that embrace them too. Want more boys to get excited about THE HUNGER GAMES movie? How about a comic book from Peeta's POV from his time in the games? Better yet, where's that first person shooter video game? I'd play a HUNGER GAMES tie-in game on my PS3.

5. Start an imprint dedicated to books aimed at guys. This one might be reaching some, but I don't think so. There precedence for it, in fact. DC Comics created an imprint called Minx in 2007 to try to lure teenage girls into the graphic novel market. Sure, it was a failure, but the titles created were quality titles that were well reviewed. A lot of the failure was pinned to the fact that they weren't able to get the comics shelved in the YA section of the bookstore. The point is that DC recognized that there was a huge untapped market out there, and they went for it. Publishers need to do the same.

6. Create more crossover titles. Forget the whole YA title altogether. Stop trying to force boys to come to you, and go to boys. Get boy oriented books shelved where boys will find them. Sci-fi and fantasy shelves are always a great spot for a book that won't fit in. You'll never sell a book if your audience can't find it. So find them instead of making them find you.

The point is that publishers can't sit on their assed and then claim that boys aren't reading. I don't buy it. Boys are out there and they're reading. But if you want them to read your books, you've got to go get them.

Genre Conventions and Expectations

2011-10-24T08:26:00.000-04:00

Predictable is a four letter word.

We like the unexpected (in most cases...in surgery or during commercial airline flights, not so much). One of my favorite roller coasters is The Hulk ride at Islands of Adventure. It looks like a regular roller coaster. It begins with the climb, has the descent, the loops. You look at it from the line and think it's just a regular green roller coaster. But it's got a surprise. Something unexpected. It's still a roller coaster. It still scares the crap out of you. It still has all the regular things coasters have, but the touch of the unexpected makes it feel new and exciting, like nothing else that's come before.

Books are the same way. They have to balance a reader's expectations of the genre conventions with doing the unexpected. Follow the conventions too closely and you become predictable. Stray from them, and you upset people who bought your fantasy novel hoping to see the hero triumph at the end.

NICK & NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST is a wonderful contemporary YA romance that gives people exactly what they want in an unconventional way. You know that the two main characters are going to end up together at the end. You know that they'll meet, fall in like, fall out of like, fall into lust, have a fight, make up, and wind up together at the end. You know that before turning the first page. You expect that. And frankly, you'd probably be upset if that didn't happen.

What makes that book so much fun is the unexpected ways in which it happens. Much like the Hulk ride, NICK & NORAH is predictable in an unexpected way.

The truth is that if you're writing a romance, we know the main couple will end up together. If you're writing a mystery, we know your detective will solve the case. If you're writing a dystopian, we know your heroine will outwit the government. Anything else would probably be unsatisfying. But that doesn't mean that the ride should be predictable.

Blog Chain - Critters

2011-10-21T12:56:00.002-04:00

See, told you I could stay away long. Here we are, back for another round of the blog chain :) This round was brought to you by caffeine, homemade cookies, and the always wonderful Sarah, who wants to know:

Do you work with critique partners? How did you find your crit pals, and what influence have they had on your work?

Writing is a solitary task. That's what people always tell you. And for the most part, they're right. But sometimes, you have to let other people in. At least, I do anyway. I have vision, when I write. I can clearly see in my head what I want my book to be, what I want it to say, to mean. And what I get on paper, doesn't always match what's in my head. Only, because we human beings are masters of self-deception, my wily brain fills in those gaps between what I wrote and what I mean, leading me to believe I have created the ultimate work of staggering genius!

That's where my awesome peeps come in. I don't have a dedicated writing group. The only person who I can always count on to read my stuff is my best friend Rach. I'm pretty sure I'm the reason her son started watching Blue's Clues. She doesn't read as a writer, but as a reader, and I can always count on her to prop up my ego when it needs it, and to gently call me out for the things that suck. She's my cheerleader. And when I write, she is the one person I think about. She's my ultimate reader. It's her, that I want to impress.

But I also have a network of amazing writer friends. Fellow chainer, Tenner, and author Margie. She's not only a fantastic critique partner, but also a great friend. She's got a wonderful eye for pointing out things that I'd never see otherwise. I never let too many people read early drafts, but I usually try to get one totally subjective opinion. A reader who isn't used to my writing, who can see things no one else will.

I think that without crit partners, my books wouldn't be anywhere near where they are. They help me peel away the parts of my books that don't work, and find the parts that do. Without them, I'd be lost.

If you haven't already, head on back and read how Margie feels about Crit partners, and then start at the beginning and catch up on everyone else!

Blog Hiatus

2011-10-12T13:12:00.000-04:00

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. I haz them.

I'm taking most of the rest of the year off of blogging. Not just because I'm busy, but because I fear I've run out of things to say. I'll still post with the Blog Chain, because they always give me awesome things to talk about, and I'll still post about my favorite books, but for now, I'm taking time off.

Have a picture of my dogs.

STICK

2011-10-07T15:48:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, STICK by Andrew Smith comes out. Tuesday can't come quickly enough.

I was lucky enough to read an ARC of STICK. If you've been reading the blog then you know that I'm an Andrew Smith superfan. Seriously, when he comes down to Miami for the book festival, I may just go all Misery on him.

Here's the thing about STICK. It's not THE MARBURY LENS (which is getting a sequel next year called PASSENGER...). Not even close. It's a quiet, often sweet tale about a young boy named Stark McClellan, nicknamed Stick. He's got a deformed ear, and it's that deformity that forms the basis for the unusual structure of this book. Lines of this book as scattered around the page as if Smith typed them up, cut them out, and then scattered them about for kicks. Initially, I was annoyed. But as I continued reading, and the rhythm of the words began to take shape in my head, I was blown away. Not only does Andrew show us what it's like to be Stick, but he lets us hear what it's like to be Stick as well. It's an amazing feat and I don't mind admitting that I'm jealous for not thinking of it. But this book isn't THE MARBURY LENS...and that's okay, because it's heart-wrenchingly spectacular all on its own.

Aside from the brilliant structure, st's the relationship between Stick and his older brother Bosten, who happens to be gay, that makes this book so damned amazing. The brothers form a united front against the abuse inflicted upon them by their parents. They lean on each other and rely on each other that reminds me in all the best ways of the brotherly relationships in Hannah Moskowitz's books.

Stick, himself, is a bit naive, is bullied, and talks about boners a lot. Especially when he's around girls. One girl in particular. But it hardly ever crosses over into crass or vulgar territory. It's the language of a thirteen year-old boy trying to describe his feelings and the world he lives in. It's not easy, and Smith does an outstanding job channeling his inner horny budding teenager.

There were a couple of parts at the end that felt slightly rushed and a little too "happy-ending" to me, but I honestly don't think anything else would have sufficed for young Stick. He deserved a happy ending; by the ending, he'd earned it. So I don't begrudge him his happy ending.

Like I said before, I'm a huge fan of Andrew Smith's work. I think he's one of the best writers working today. But STICK will hold a special place in my book collection. If it doesn't make you tear up a little, then you're probably dead...

Pick it up Tuesday.

Book Trailers

2011-09-22T10:40:00.000-04:00

I never did a book trailer for Deathday. I find most to be somewhat cheesy, amateurish, and most importantly, they don't make me want to read the book.

The trailer below is an example of how great a book trailer can be. It's for Patrick Ness's A MONSTER CALLS, which I read and loved. I think you'll love it too. That is all.

Bits and Bobs

2011-09-20T12:05:00.000-04:00

I don't really have anything specific to write about today, but it seems like THINGS are happening. Lots of things. All the things. And it's kind of exciting.

Don't Ask Don't Tell is finally over. This makes me happier than states allowing gay marriage. Being a patriot means upholding the constitution. And the constitution has not ever and will not ever institutionalize the oppression of any group. Every single person who claims to be a patriot while simultaneously trying to deny basic, unassailable rights, is a hypocrite of the highest order. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Remember that kerfuffle last week about the authors who were supposedly asked to remove a gay character from their book? Turns out it may not have been true...at least not in the way it was portrayed. It's turned into a game of he-said/she-said that I'm, quite frankly, not interested in. Any agent that discriminates against anyone, won't be an agent for long. And any author who tries to manipulate readers, bloggers, and other authors in order to make a name for themselves, won't be writers for very long. However, what I am interested in is the response. A lot of other agents rallied and claimed that YA is a super inclusive group, that homophobia isn't really an issue in publishing. To which I call bullshit.

Listen, people may not be sitting around trying to figure out ways to keep gays or blacks or muslims or christians out of books, but there is a subconscious vein discrimination in publishing and YA. Every time someone says, "Gay books are harder to sell," or "Black protagonists aren't popular in bookstores," they're discriminating. There ARE publishers who take chances. There ARE writers who sell these stories. Hannah Moskowitz recently sold an MG book featuring a gay protagonist. In fact, it's about a kid who's breaking into a high school prom to meet the guy he's got a crush on. But to suggest that there's no discrimination in YA or publishing is ridiculous. The excuse that books with black protags don't sell well, therefore it's best to put a white girl on the cover, isn't just discriminatory, it's insulting. It's insulting to readers, to writers, and to anyone with half a brain.

I know publishing is a business, but it's also more than that. Especially in YA, we're reaching out to kids. We're showing them the world. If we wrap a book about a black girl in a cover featuring a white girl, we're telling black girls everywhere that they're not as good. If we eliminate gay characters from books, we're telling gay kids they're not worthwhile. So, you know, there's that.

Here's a happy thing: I got new dogs! Matt and I adopted Chewie (the obese Pomeranian) and his buddy Rory (the maltese/poodle). They came as a package deal and they're super sweet. The surprise was finding out that Rory is deaf. I'm not sure if the shelter knew, but it was pretty clear to me and Matt that he couldn't hear. They're a handful, but totally sweet and awesome. Chewie clearly needs to shed some pounds. He's supposed to be like 5-7 lbs and he's currently approaching 17lbs!

Enjoy some pictures :)

Chewie chillin'

Matt and Rory about to nap.

Rory and Chewie excited for a walk.

Blog Chain - You Gotta Have Faith

2011-09-18T10:26:00.000-04:00

I don't know how I'm going to follow Christine's blog chain. Seriously, reading all those stories was awesome.

But it's my turn and I have to come up with something :)

In writing, we talk a lot about grabbing the reader from page 1. From the first paragraph, the first sentence. I spend a lot of time working on my first paragraphs because I know that agents and editors are pretty much going to decide whether they want to keep reading based on that. It's the first impression. A crappy first page is like walking into an interview in your underwear. So it's important to grab your reader right away.

But what about those books that don't?

What are three books you would tell people that they need to keep reading even if they aren't immediately sucked in by the first page?

1. Any book by Melina Marchetta...but especially JELLICOE ROAD. Every time I see someone reading a book by Marchetta, I tell them that they need to give it 50 to 100 pages. That's a lot. It's a lot to ask someone to give a book 100 pages. But Marchetta is an author in whom I have faith. Recently, my friend Trish was reading THE PIPER'S SON. She said she wasn't into it, and I told her to give it about 75 pages. A little bit later she told me that on page 62, she became invested. Marchetta isn't the kind of author who grabs you from page 1. She weaves a web of characters. They take time to trap you. Every Marchetta book I've read has that "A-ha!" moment where all the pieces make sense.

2. THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO. The thing about this book by Patrick Ness is that the dialog uses broken dialect. The first time I read it, I nearly quit, and when I see one of my friends read it or when I loan my copy out, I make sure to tell them to give the book a chance. Don't let the dialect distract you from this amazing story. And it is amazing. One of the best YA series ever.

3. THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY. I know this one might be a stretch for some, since it won the Pulitzer in 2001, but when I read it, it took me 2 months to get through the first 200 pages and about a week to get through the remaining 450. It's a dense book, and Chabon makes every word count. But in the beginning, there's a lot to take in. It's not an easy book to just sit down and read for twenty minutes before bed. It requires some patience and dedication. But it's ultimately worth it. Chabon's book about two young men who bond over comic books is one of the best books I've ever read. And if I hadn't had some faith, I would have missed out.

So that's it! I could actually go on forever, about books that need some extra patience, but three is all I have time for. What about you? What books would you recommend that maybe need some faith on the part of the reader? Drop some titles in the comments, and then head on over to Sarah's blog tomorrow to find out what kick-ass titles she's going to recommend.

Blog Chain - Write Now!

2011-09-13T17:30:00.001-04:00

Blog chain time!

Christine picked the topic for this round (Thanks a lot, Christine) and here it is:

Since we are all writers, I thought it was about time for us to stretch our creative muscles and do a little writing. So, take the following topic and go crazy! Show us what you've got. Your story can be as long or as short as you choice.

The topic: A dark and stormy night.

I'm just going to dive in, so here goes.

The biggest thing I ever set fire to was a house. But the house deserved it. I promise. I swear. On the life of my best friend. Not that you'll believe me. No one ever does.

But I gotta tell someone what happened and it might as well be you.

Theo and I rode our bikes down the steep hill with our hands in the air and the wind blowing across our sweaty noses like there wasn't nothing else in the whole universe that was worth doing. Truthfully, there wasn't. I mean, sure if you asked my mom, she'd have told you that I should have been mowing the grass or cleaning the wet leaves out of the gutter or doing my homework even. But moms have to think like that. They're hardwired to put everything practical over all the best parts of life. Sometimes I wondered if having babies made moms forget how to have fun at all. Just thinking about it made me never want to have a kid.

"Jones!" shouted Theo as he kicked on his brakes and skidded to a stop at the bottom of the hill. I flew right by him and just about crashed into Mr. and Mrs. Pond's mailbox on account of I was looking at what Theo was pointing at.

It was a house. On the corner of Song and Canterbury. There hadn't been a house there the day before. Or the day before that. I'd lived in Pascal my entire life--fifteen years--and there'd never been anything on the corner of that street but the occasional lemonade stand. I should know. I had one there myself when I was eight. Made four dollars.

Except there it was, plain as the fear in Theo's eyes.

The house itself wasn't much to look at. Two stories. The paint falling off of it in patchy bits here and there like a dog with mange. But, and you can call me a liar if you want or tell me I need to get my head examined--don't think I haven't already thought it--I swear that the windows watched me, that the walls breathed. I forgot I was on my bike and I turned to run. Damn near busted my front teeth in when I fell and hit the pavement. Not that I felt it. The primeval part of my brain, the part left over from when every day was life or death, was screaming at me to run. Run fast. Run far. Run and don't stop running until I reached safety or collapsed from exhaustion. Just run.

"Theo?" I'd known Theo Parker my whole darn life. He didn't talk much and repelled girls like he was surrounded by an anti-girl field, but he was my best friend. The kind of friend my dad told me I'd look back on when I was ancient like him and be thankful I'd had. And in all the time I'd known him, I'd never seen that look on his face. Not ever.

I wished I hadn't seen it then.

"Stop it, Theo, you're freaking me out." I got up and winced when I brushed my hands off on my jeans. They were scraped and bleeding and there were bits of gravel and sand buried in the cuts. It stung like fire ants but I had to get to Theo. He was taking slow, deliberate steps toward the house on the corner of the street. But that wasn't what scared me. Even as his feet moved, he resisted. That's what was on his face. The fear. The terror. The absolute certainty that he didn't want to go near that house, didn't want to go in it. That doing so would be death.

"Jones?" called Theo. "You gotta help me. I…I don't know what's going on. C'mon, Jones."

I ran to Theo and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him as hard as I could. Tear ran down his cheeks and dripped onto his shirt. I couldn't budge him. "This isn't funny," I said.

"I'm not playing," said Theo. He reached the sidewalk in front of the house. "Jesus, Jones, what's going on?" Theo was screaming for help. I figured that any moment Mrs. Pond was gonna come running out of her house in that yellow dress she was always wearing, and tell us to shut up so she could watch TV, but no one came. In fact, there wasn't a single sound. Not a bird, not a car, not even the wind. It was like everything had been put on mute.

"Hold on, Theo," I said. Without thinking, I took a run at Theo and tackled him to the ground. We went down in a tangle of arms and legs and, at one point, I lost one of my sneakers. Theo fought me, he bit me, but I refused to let him go.

But the house was stronger than I was.

Theo punched me so hard in the nose that my eyes burned and I couldn't see or swallow or breathe. Hot blood poured into my mouth as I groaned and fell backward. That's when Theo got up and turned back to the house. One foot in front of the other, he walked up the weedy path until he was standing at the front door.

"Theo!" I yelled and tried to stand. Vertigo rushed through me and I teetered to the side. I thought I was going to throw up but I gritted my teeth and straightened up. "Theo, come back!"

The front door of the house opened up. The hinges creaked as it swung inward. Despite the sun and the heat, I was cold. Theo screamed. It was raw and tore from his throat like no sound I'd ever heard in my entire life. A stain of urine spread across the front of his pants and down his leg.

And then it stopped. The scream.

I blinked and Theo was gone. The door was closed.

The house remained.

Truthfully, I don't know how long I was standing there in the middle of the road. I might have stood there all night long if a car hadn't come down the hill and nearly run me down. It was Mr. Goodman. He honked his horn and yelled something foul at me as he jerked the steering wheel and went around me.

Maybe it was my imagination--though I'm pretty certain it wasn't--but I could have sworn I saw Theo standing in the window, looking at me like he was the house's eyes. Like he was the house.

That's when I knew I needed to save my best friend and get rid of that house forever.

As I picked up my bike and got on it, my hands screaming with pain, my nose stuffed full of dried blood, and bruised like an overripe plum, lightning arced across the sky and thunder followed shortly. It began to rain. I hoped I had enough gasoline.

Annnnnnnd done. Sorry for the suckage. I thought I was posting tomorrow so I didn't have time to come up with something more fun. Anyway, if I haven't put you to sleep, go check out Tere's awesome space adventure, and then head over to Margie's blog tomorrow to find out what kind of story she's going to spin. Until next time!

Diversity Now

2011-09-13T08:06:00.000-04:00

This. Read this. Then come back.

Allegedly, two authors submitted a book and were told by an agent that if they removed a gay character, that the agent would represent them. I only say allegedly because the authors won't reveal the agent (and I'm on the fence about whether or not they should), making their story unverifiable at this time. I wouldn't be surprised though, to find out that it's true.

I really only have this to say: Any agent or editor who tried to force me to remove a gay character or a black character or a Muslim character or a disabled character, because they were worried the book wouldn't sell, is an agent or editor I wouldn't ever work with.

I'm on the agent hunt right now. And when I created my list of agents, I sought out those who published books by authors who were courageous. Books that pushed the boundaries. Those are the agents I want to work with. The kind of people who get handed a book by their author that might be a tough sell, and then go out sell the crap out of it. Those are the kinds of people I want to work with.

And I think that the agent who suggested these authors remove gay characters from their books is probably going to find it difficult to remain an agent for long. Karma's like that sometimes.

Sometimes I think some agents take their roles as "gatekeepers" too far. They only want to take books to editors that are 100% guaranteed to sell. Where's their adventurous spirit? Where's their drive to push the boundaries? Andrew Smith has a book coming out next month called STICK. I'm going to do a full fledged review of it as the date grows closer. It's exactly the kind of book I'm talking about. Fearless, courageous, amazing. And probably the kind of book that a lesser agent might have had difficulty placing. But his agent found it a home. And his editor helped bring it to the world. And when you read it, you're going to be really grateful that not everyone is as close-minded as the agent who requested those changes.

I'm done here.

Explanations

2011-09-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

You must give them.

Mysteries are fun. They're compelling. They make for great stories. Something strange is happening, and it's up to our heroes to figure out what's going on and stop it.

As a writer, if you string your reader along with a mystery, you have a responsibility to explain to your readers what is going on.

Take MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. Great, fun book. Agatha Christie presents us with a murder. She goes through the suspects. Then she tells us who the murderer is. (I'm being deliberately vague in case someone hasn't read it.) However, what if she had stopped there? Told us who the murderer was but not why the murder had been committed. That'd be okay, right? WRONG. The mystery isn't just WHO killed a man, but WHY.

I've been watching TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY over the last ten weeks. I've been a fan of the DOCTOR WHO spinoff for some time. But I was blown away by the miniseries CHILDREN OF EARTH. It was a 5 part series that was a nearly perfect example of how to tell a story. The conceit was simple, the stakes insanely high, the pacing brutal, the explanation simple and clear, and the conclusion compelling. I had high hopes for the second series which involved a day when people stopped dying. It was a wonderfully high concept idea.

Writers, when your editor and agent talk about a high concept idea, this is what they're talking about. An idea that can be distilled to one line. Miracle Day is about what happens when people on Earth stop dying. You can imagine the implications. Easily understand it.

My problem with the show was that I spent ten weeks following this. I expected to find out who caused the miracle and why. If you don't want to know anything about it, stop reading now. I won't spoil any specific plot points, but be warned.

Last night the show concluded and we learned HOW the miracle came to pass, but the WHO was left vague. There was even a scene when one of the characters tried to explain what was happening and another looked at him and said, "You have no idea what this is, do you?" And they left it at that.

Was it alien? Was it terrestrial? Who know? And they're never going to tell us.

As an audience member, I was left feeling ridiculously unsatisfied. As a writer, I was embarrassed.

Now, I'm not saying that a story can't have a central conceit that goes unexplained. Hell, I did it in my own book. I asked the readers to accept that in my world, every person got a letter warning them 24 hours before their death. But I never made the book about trying to find and stop the letters. My book was about the implications of getting such a letter. In early draft, my characters did try to find the source of the letters. My agent and editor wisely helped me realize that no answer I gave would ever be satisfactory.

If Miracle Day had been about the world once people stopped dying, and focused only on that, the why or the who wouldn't have necessarily mattered. But that wasn't the case. This show was set up as a mystery. THING A happened. By the end of the series, we were promised that THING A would have an explanation. That promise was never fulfilled. Not only is that sloppy, but it's irresponsible.

Blog Chain - It Ain't all Doom and Gloom

2011-08-27T15:37:00.000-04:00

After a little hiatus from the blog chain, I'm glad to be back and would like to welcome all our new, awesome members.

This chain is brought to us by Sandra who asks:

Have the recent changes in the publishing industry affected your writing plans/career? If so, how?

Way to start small ;)

I touched on this some a little bit ago, but I wasn't particularly coherent. I don't think I'd ever make it as a journalist because it takes me so long to formulate my thoughts. I have to pare off the emotion, and organize my argument. Luckily, I've had some time to think about my future.

I don't think the changes in the industry are responsible for altering my plans, I think reality is. When I first got an agent, I thought it would be all gold bars and dollar bills. The reality has been shocking. Selling a book isn't the key to instant success.

Certainly e-books and Amazon have changed the playing field, but my main goal was and is to get my books out there. My secondary goal is to get paid to do it. I still think that traditional publishing is the best way to achieve my goals. I'm intrigued by some current trends (such as writers withholding e-book rights the same way they withhold foreign rights) and would also like to try self-publishing something under a pen name to test the waters.

But traditional publishing, in my opinion, is still the best way for me to be my best. I'm a terrible self-editor. I'm too in love with my own vision for my book to see its flaws well. I love revising, but I need great people during the process to point things out that I miss. Recently, I was revising a book and a wonderful friend who agreed to edit it for me pointed out such a huge flaw in one of my characters. It was so simple and fixing it altered the book in a profoundly amazing way. I'd gone through a dozen drafts in 13 months and never caught it. Frequently in self-publishing, unless the author has access to a freelance editor that they trust, their work will be as good as it could have been.

So the short answer is no. I still plan to write books I love and try to get them published. Because that's what I'm here for.

Enough about me. If you haven't read Margie's answer, go find out how all the changes have affected her plans (and hope she doesn't get blown away by Irene!) and then tomorrow head over to new member Jon Arnston's blog to get his take. Until next time!

Quantum Mechanics is people

2011-08-26T10:20:00.000-04:00

People are photons. They exhibit a particle-wave duality. When no one is watching, they act one way, they act many ways. Their actions are unpredictable and varied. The possibilities are endless.

Observe them, and they act uniformly. It's in their nature. When a person knows they're being watched, they become governed by the rules that govern society.

Characters are like that too.

Until the moment we write them down, their possibilities are endless. They can act in ways that are both contradictory to what we know about them, and completely in line with who they are.

Two Sides

2011-08-23T12:47:00.000-04:00

When I was around nine or ten, I loved Judy Blume's books. Super Fudge was one of my favorites. I remember playing sick so that I could sit with my stack of books and read them all day long.

I remember reading ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET? when I was just on the cusp of understanding sexuality. I was old enough to know that these things were serious, scary business, but young enough to still find it all hugely funny. I laughed when the girls said their little chant to increase their bust size. It gave me a greater understanding of what girls go through. But I didn't really understand it. It was a book I read and discarded.

Then I read THEN AGAIN, MAYBE I WON'T. It tackled puberty with the same care and sensitivity that ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET? did, but I could relate to the main character. The book spoke to the experiences that I, as a boy, was going through. Suddenly, I felt like I wasn't the only person in the world going through these things, being afraid of them. I read that book a hundred times.

Boys and girls experience the world in different ways. They each need books that speak to those experiences. Judy Blume proved that a man doesn't have to write a "boy book" for it to be effective.

When people call for books that speak to boys, they're not trying to diminish the role of books aimed at girl or at female writers. They're not saying that the experiences of girls are somehow less important than those of boys. All they're saying is that boys need to know they're not alone. They need to be able to see, through eyes like theirs, that they're going to be okay.

Denying them that isn't a victory for feminism, it's a defeat for us all.

This Article - Boy is not a four letter word

2011-08-21T00:41:00.002-04:00

Here's another BOYS DON'T READ article. I'm sure you saw it all over the internet. Lots of people had a ton of things to say about it.

Sadly, most of it was crap.

Here's what I'm sick of: people getting up in arms every time someone suggests that we need to do more to get boys to read as if somehow that diminishes girls.

Here's a fun fact: boys and girls are different. They have different likes and dislikes. They're turned on by different things. They view the world in different ways. They approach situations differently. You can't deny that.

No boy will ever know the fear and joy of getting pregnant. No girl will ever know the supreme embarrassment of popping a boner in front of her English class during a presentation.

There are some books that will appeal mostly to girls, some that will appeal mostly to boys, and a whole freaking slew of books that will and should appeal to everyone. Who does it harm to try to sell and market books to both genders equally? Why do so many people feel that a call for more books with boy appeal is automatically a call for fewer girls?

READING IS NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME. It's not boys versus girls out there. Acting like boys are these vicious monsters because they're embarrassed to be seen with a mermaid girl on the cover of their book is ridiculous. I hope that the next generation isn't as scarred by the bullying that they endured in middle school as I was and is more open to things that challenge their masculinity. But this "take it or leave it" mentality when it comes to books is, quite simply, fucking ridiculous.

I'm not even going to address why boys aren't reading and what we should do about it problem. If you want boys to read, give them a book. If they don't like it, give them another. If they don't like that one, give them a gift card and a Kindle and tell them to buy their own.

I simply find it sad and ridiculous that for a community that prides itself on openness and acceptance, there is this instant backlash against the idea that we bring more boys to reading by trying to meet them where they are. It's petty and childish and selfish.

I thought the YA community was better than that.

For the record, here's a great post: http://novelnovice.com/2011/08/20/lets-get-guys-reading-no-matter-what-okay/

About Tomorrow

2011-08-05T08:52:00.000-04:00

I seemed to have missed a day. Whoops.

So here's my take on publishers right now: They're essential.

There's a disconnect between how many people view publishers and the people who actually work for them. Many (if not most) major publishers are now owned by huge media conglomerates. They're being forced to do more with less. They have to make money and don't have as much time to nurture the careers of writers as they may have had in the past.

Books have a couple of months to make it, after which they disappear. There are exceptions (Thirteen Reasons Why springs to mind) but for the most part, books that don't sell well right out of the gate go away.

Because of tightening budgets, a lot of the responsibility for marketing falls to the author. For Deathday, I built my own websites, had my own bookmarks printed, and spent a lot of time networking to get the word out. And these were difficult for me. I work a full time job, plus I was writing, AND I suck at all that small talk nonsense that some people seem to excel at. Don't get me wrong, I love people. The people I met through all of this are amazing, but I'm rubbish at hob knobbing. I'd rather eat a bowl of razor blades than engage in small talk.

My publisher did a lot of work too, but it was mostly behind the scenes stuff. Sending my ARCs to reviewers and doing the cover art, etc.

The thing is that advances seem to be shrinking and writers are expected to reinvest a significant portion of those advances back into marketing their own book. After all was said and done, I questioned this practice.

I wondered if publishers were becoming irrelevant. Obviously, they're not now. But what about in 5 years? I could hire an editor, hire an artist to design a cover, send my own book to reviewers. Right? Or is that just hubris talking? Having never worked at a publisher's office, I'm sure there are a million things that go into making books of which I'm unaware. But if I did it, the rewards could be substantial.

I'm not talking about making tons of money. I'm talking about being able to control my own destiny. One of the things that's bothered me about Deathday is that the e-book is priced one dollar less than the paper book. I've harbored suspicions that if the price dropped to say $4.99, it could help spark interest and increase sales. But I'll never know. I haven't got control over that. If I'd self-published, I could give it a whirl. If lower pricing had no effect, I could lower it more, play with it, experiment.

I talked to my best friend and she broke it out into pros and cons for me. In the pro list, I'd be able to publish some of the quirky projects that I seemed to come up with on a regular frequency. Maybe they'd sell, maybe not, but the same could be said of any book published traditionally. I'd also receive a much larger cut of the books I sold. I'd be in control.

In the con list, I'd have to do all the work. I'd never be able to find my book in a Barnes and Noble. I'd never be considered for an award or get the kind of professional recognition that most people crave.

Maybe someday soon, there will be a merging of traditional publishing and quality self-publishing. But that day isn't here yet, and self-publishing almost guarantees failure. A small percentage make it. Some do modestly well. But I think most do not.

I don't know where things in the business stand now. They're in flux. Most writers I know are barely hanging in there. Amazing books are being passed on by the big chains, book contracts are being cancelled, great authors are considering themselves failures when that couldn't be further from the truth. What is true is that publishers are taking fewer risks. They are taking some. I was a risk.

So I don't know what the future holds. For now, I've decided to keep trucking on in the traditional world. Agents are amazing folk who do great work. All the editors I've met are hard working, brilliant people. For now, I think that sticking with them is the best way to produce the best work.

But I've also decided to try going it alone. Under a pen name. With a different kind of book than I usually write. Just to see what's going on out there. I can make all kinds of predictions but until I've gone through the process, it's all conjecture. And as I go through that process, I'll document it all here. This blog started as a means to track my journey from unpublished slob to published slob. It's been an amazing journey that I hope lasts forever. We'll see.

Happy Friday.

My Thoughts on Agents

2011-08-03T15:37:00.000-04:00

Agents play a huge role in publishing. Because fewer editors at fewer houses are reading more material, they rely on agents to be the gatekeepers. There are few editors who will read unagented material.

But more than that, agents are your first serious reader, sometimes providing editorial guidance, your sounding board, your advocate, your foreign rights representative, your contract negotiator. A good agent shepherds you through the process. Some are more willing to hold your hand than others, some offer more editorial advice, but that's all a matter of style and preference.

As I rejoined the ranks of the agentless, I began crafting a list of agents that I thought would better suit me. I wrote my query letter and did all the things you're supposed to do. Except I began to wonder why...

Think about forever. Most books have a limited shelf-life. They go into print. Then they go out of print. Rights revert back to authors when books go out of print. Agents earn money from books sold, so when a book goes out of print, an agent is no longer earning from it.

But an e-book never needs to go out of print. Which means, that your agent is essentially getting a cut of your book forever. Like their children and their children's children.

I know that a lot of these issues will be ironed out and resolved as time goes on, but it's something to think about as we begin to shift from focusing on paper books to focusing on e-books.

There's been some hoopla on-line about some agencies starting e-publishing services in addition to agenting. I can't stress enough that I think this is a huge conflict of interest. If you read Courtney Milan's posts on conflict of interests than you'll understand. Even the POSSIBILITY of impropriety is problematic. Safeguards would have to be put in place. Such as a rule stating that if the agency e-published for someone, they couldn't also act as their agent, and vice versa.

I get that with things changing, agents need to come up with other sources of revenue. I even applaud their innovation. In my opinion, it seems like a waste of money to pay someone to do something you can do yourself, but I have lawn maintenance people not because I can't mow my own lawn, but because I freaking hate doing it. And people will feel the same way about finding an editor and formatting their books for the different e-reading devices.

As I was thinking about all of this, I asked my friend Rach if I was being a knob for considering not going with another agent. We talked about it and some things became clear:

Agents are still immensely valuable. Their roles are changing and I think that when I'm ready to query, I'll have to really have a conversation with any interested agent as to how they see the future working. Because I don't know. I'm not sure whether agents are going to be useful in this new future. I think that agents are smart people and will find ways to be useful.

But as to whether or not I need an agent this time around? I'll answer that later. First I want to talk about publishers. And I'll do that tomorrow.

Monday Is For Sleeping

2011-08-01T08:45:00.002-04:00

Last week I read a really great blog post about the ethics of literary agents becoming gateways for self-publishing. Courtney Milan wrote a really wonderful bit about it that I linked to from Friday's post. If you haven't read it, you should. Then on Sunday, I read about an agency that was going to do something similar. And earlier in the week I'd heard from another agency that is doing that. I questioned how an agency could justify 15% of the monies over the lifetime of the book (which is forever for an e-book) for helping a client publish an e-book.

I have a lot to talk about when it comes to publishing and agents and all that crap. I started writing this post and then realized two things:

1. I haven't had enough coffee to write intelligently.

2. This is going to take more than one post.

I'll keep it short this morning. Mondays suck too hard to deal with a long rambling post.

So, yes, in June my agent and I parted ways. It was amicable. He's a stand-up guy, an outstanding agent, and that's all I'm going to say about that. If you were hoping for drama, you won't find it here.

The interesting part is what happened next. I have a book I've been working on for over a year. It's just about ready to go out. A friend is giving it a really detailed read-through. I'd prepared query letters to agents that I thought would be a good fit.

Then I wondered why.

I questioned the role of a literary agent, the role of a publisher, and wondered whether self-publishing was maybe the way for me to go.

Whether we want to admit it or not, publishing is changing. I'm not going to hide in a corner or cry to the heavens that publishing is dying. It's not. People freaked out when YouTube came on the scene. People were worried that if easy to upload, free videos were all the rage, that no one would want to watch TV. TV was going to die. Oh noes!

That didn't happen. What did happen was that TV continued to thrive, YouTube remained a niche, and the two met somewhere in the middle. Sites like HULU and Netflix began streaming quality shows on-line. Those who wanted to remain tied to their TVs could, and those who wanted to watch on the internet did. Experiments came and went, web shows haven't really taken off but experiments like Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog proved that they could be great AND profitable.

I think the same will happen to books. The medium of a paper book is too deeply ingrained in our collective subconscious for them to simply go away. People who want books will get them, people who want e-books can have them, and people who want free, user created content (book versions of YouTube videos) can have those as well.

But like it or not, it's all changing.

Wednesday, I'll share some thoughts about where I see the role of the agent going and how I see the role of the agent in my own personal journey.

Happy Monday. First person to bring me more coffee wins a pat on the head.

So Many Thoughts

2011-07-29T13:57:00.000-04:00

I was going to write a post about this photo that I saw while reading Nathan Bransford's blog. It was going to be about how in the world you could possibly have a panel about the future of YA without including a single YA author of the male variety. Maybe I'll write that post one day. Or maybe I'll just shake my head and move on because I'm tired of talking about it.

But then I read this post by Courtney Milan about the role of agents, about how some are turning to publishing and how it's creating a huge conflict of interest. You should go read it.

I think next week I'm going to put together my views on publishing and agents and the where I see myself and others like me in this new world. I know a lot of people are certain that self-publishing is going to kill traditional publishing, but the same people thought YouTube was going to kill traditional TV. Hint: it hasn't. Traditional TV is doing a good enough job of killing itself (Did you SEE that proposed Wonder Woman reboot?).

I left my agent back in June and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how to proceed. So yeah, check back Monday and I'll post something intelligible about all this. Until then, have a great weekend.

You Are NOT a Snowflake

2011-07-22T08:24:00.002-04:00

Last night I was reading an article about a movie that looked interesting. It's called IN TIME. This is what I read:

In Time is Timberlake’s next big picture, and the premise plays out a lot like a modernized riff on Logan’s Run. He stars opposite Amanda Seyfried as a man in a dystopian future where time has become the only currency.

Immediately, I started yelling at Matt, who was just sitting on the couch, minding his own business. It was MY idea. I'd come up with that. Me. For the next hour, I searched through my notebooks until I finally remembered that I'd emailed the idea to myself. On February 2, 2010, I sent myself the following email:

A world in the future where the only real currency is time. A person knows how long they'll live when they're born (ex. 22 years 8 months 7 days 18 hours 23 minutes 2 seconds) and that's the currency you have. The protagonist needs help for his sick mother and trades all but one week of his life to save her. In the process he meets a girl who mAkes him want to find a way to get back the lost hours of his life.

Of course, the first thing I figured was that Google was out there reading my email and passing off all my best ideas. Which, itself, might make a good plot. I learned more about the movie and found out that the only similar plot point is the idea of time as currency. I was still disappointed because I'd never done anything with the idea, but it hits home a point that I don't think a lot of writers really, truly get: Your ideas are not unique.

Somewhere out there, someone has had the same idea as you. They're writing out YOUR ideas in THEIR notebook. And there's nothing you can do about it.

What matters is timing and execution. Timing is simple. If you have an awesome idea, write it. There will never be a better time to write it than now.

Execution is what editors and agents will tell you is key. Ten people can have the same idea, but if yours is done better--the writing is tighter, the characters are full and unique, the angle is something they haven't seen before--then yours is the idea that'll sell. Look at vampires. The market is flooded with them. They're definitely not unique. But the way people use them is. And that's what continues to sell.

So....what's the point? The point is the same as it's always been: if you want to be a writer, you've got to get out there and write the best damn story you can. Not later, not tomorrow. Now.

Not About Harry Potter

2011-07-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

Except that it is.

I'm not going to talk about how great the movie was. If you cared, you were probably there last night and already know. If you don't care, my gushing isn't going to persuade you otherwise.

What I want to comment on is how amazing the people were. Anyone who says the power of reading is waning hasn't been outside. Sure, it was a movie, but these people were there, having wand fights and arguing over who was cooler (Snape FTW). Those are things that came from reading and loving and living the books.

I'm 33. I was there with a group of people around my age. Behind us was a row of 14 and 15 year-olds. In front of us was a row of 40 something women with nary a child in sight. There were boys and girls and older folk and every single kind of person you can imagine.

YA is a myth. The idea that certain books are written for certain age groups is a myth. The diversity in th theater last night proved that.

When people say that books no longer have the power to reach kids, I think to how many kids love Harry Potter and are searching for the next thing to love, and I can only conclude that people are simply not trying hard enough.

Kids, they want the books, they want to read, they want something magnificent and bigger than themselves. They want it like oxygen.

If they're not reading, if they're not falling in love with books, then we're not trying hard enough.

Bloodless Nerd

2011-07-12T09:04:00.000-04:00

I was reading this about books and Kindles and other e-devices. In the article, children's author Penelope Lively (whom I've never heard of) states that "anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd." Here's the entire original article.

I love books. I grew up with them. Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I practically wet myself when I get ahold of a new book. I also grew up with records and CDs, and non-digital television, and analog telephones and dial-up internet. I have some nostalgia for those things, but I would not, could not lament their loss because their replacements make life better.

Half of my library is still made up of paper books. But here's the thing: books are not a status symbol. Ms. Lively's quote seems to encapsulate the position of a lot of people. And I think the reason is because having loads of books makes people FEEL smarter. Others walk into their houses and see all the books and assume they've read them and assume that they're intelligent.

Owning books doesn't make you smarter, reading them does. So who gives a crap whether you read them in book form or from one of the many wonderful e-devices now available?

Opinions like this annoy me because they seem to try imbue paper with more significance than it actually has. The manner in which a story is transmitted from storyteller to audience is less important than the story itself. I think e-books are the way we're going to bring boys back to reading. Devices that allow them to read whatever they want without fear of bullying are amazing to me. I wish I'd had them.

Also, I am a bloodless nerd. Below are pictures of my library and my e-library. And you know what? I've read all those books.

Shut Up and Write

2011-07-11T09:09:00.001-04:00

I was browsing a website called: My Unfinished Novels. It's basically a blog where people can put their unfinished books and explain why they never finished it.

The funny thing is that as I read through them, the biggest common thread I saw was that people lost interest.

Now I'm not saying that you should finish every single book you ever start. If you're bored writing it, chances are that people will be bored reading it. I've had some ideas that I wrote a few thousand words on and realized it wasn't a good idea after all.

But the real, true thing about writing is simply this: You have to freaking finish.

Writing isn't easy. It's grueling. It's a marathon. A triathlon. You don't have to finish first, but you do have to finish.

You don't become a winner by giving up at the half-way point.

That is all.

Power Hour

2011-07-08T08:22:00.000-04:00

I never knew what a power hour was until I researched it for my next book. It's kind of crazy.

Being on an Internet hiatus is really spectacular. I can sit down and read for more than ten minutes at a time without checking my Facebook status or email (which is usually junk anyway). If I can figure out a way to structure in Twitter too, I might just keep things this way.

I've been reading (and listening) to a lot of Agatha Christie lately. I'm not sure why. It started out because I read that the book THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD featured a really well done twist. But then I couldn't stop. I've put away half-a-dozen Christie books since then.

One thing that I noticed her do while reading THE ABC MURDERS was being meta. She used her narrator, Captain Hastings, who frequently read pulp mystery novels, to comment upon the concept of mystery novels themselves. I can't repeat the conversation verbatim but he and the hero Hercule Poirot, were discussing how dreadfully boring a mystery novel became when the murder was committed in the first act and then the rest of the book was spent looking at clues. Hastings commented that books would be more interesting if murders occurred in greater numbers throughout the book or the murder happened later.

I don't know if Christie was using this conversation between Hastings and Poirot to directly speak to her audience, critics, or whathaveyou. I'm curious to do a little research to see if she face criticism at the time for becoming too set in her ways. But the interesting thing is that THE ABC MURDERS featured multiple murders spread throughout the book, and the one I finished before that A PERIL AT END HOUSE featured a murder that didn't happen until 80 pages in!

There's really no point here. It was just an interesting point that I noticed. I tried something similar once. I had a character who used the medium of a graphic novel to speak directly to the reader to make a commentary on the events I was writing. However, in revisions I realized I wasn't speaking to the reader, but to myself. That character was how I was making sense of the story in that first draft, and in future drafts, I cut that character completely (though I kept the concept of the graphic novel).

So maybe there is a point: If you find you have a character speaking directly to the audience, explaining things, maybe you should be the one listening to what that character has to say.

Experiment

2011-07-05T16:07:00.000-04:00

You see, I remember when email was something you only checked once, MAYBE twice per day, because you paid for your internet connection by the minute, and because it was painfully slow.

I used to be able to sit down for hours at a time and just read. No distractions. No interruptions. Just read.

I don't know if I'm just getting older or what, but I find myself utterly distracted by technology. I'm not some luddite either. In my day job, I run an IT department. Computers are my thing.

But they're taking over my life. Television, computers. Taking over.

So I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to turn my telephone back into a dumb phone. No more email, no more internet. I'm going to turn my computer into a glorified typewriter.

For the rest of July, I'm only going to check the Internet one time per day. I'll have an hour to check emails, reply, do my Facebooking, and check the news. One hour. That is all.

I'll let you know how it works out.

YA Propaganda

2011-07-01T08:35:00.001-04:00

Over at Andrew Smith's blog, there were some awesome comments about the whole "boys and YA and men-writing-YA" kerfuffle.

I'm honestly too tired this morning to be coherent. Here's a great example though, of a book trying to include both boys AND girls.

Beth Revis wrote a fun sci-fi mystery called ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. It was great fun to read, with a little romance, a little sci-fi, a nice dose of mystery, great characters, and a villain with depth. The cover, however, was designed to appeal to girls. All-in-all, I think Beth wrote a book that would definitely cross the gender divide. But that's not how it was marketed. Or so I thought. When I got my copy, I pulled off the dust jacket and found out that the backside was a different cover. A more gender neutral cover. How genius! The book could be aimed more at girls, or more at guys or just plain neutral.

The first cover is clearly designed to highlight the romance between the two main characters (the romance which is not really all that big in the book), while the second cover is designed to appeal to the sci-fi aspect.

I think it's great, actually. It gives booksellers and readers the chance to decide what they want from their book. I wish more publishers would try this.

I Miss Everything

2011-06-30T08:25:00.000-04:00

Been busy. Busy writing (!), busy living, busy working.

Social networking is awesome in a lot of ways. I wouldn't have been able to meet or talk to some of the amazing people I've met. Writing is this solitary thing but the Internet makes it less so.

And yet...

I wake up at around 7am. I stand in front of my computer until around 9-9:30am. That's my designated writing time. The internet usually goes off, the music goes on, and I get down to the business of making shit up.

Then I go to work. I have a 30 minute commute I reserve for audio books and thinking about the projects I'm working on. In my day job life, I'm an IT wonk. I sit in front of a computer, building databases and fixing computer problems until about 7pm. Then I commute home.

When my favorite person in the world is home, we spend a couple of hours together, chilling out, reading. That time together is almost as sacred as my writing time.

When he's not home, I catch up on house chores, catch up on reading, catch up on TV shows that he hates.

Sometimes I go to the gym, but not often enough. Sometimes I hang out with friends, but not often enough.

If I have time, I blog. Tweet. Post to Facebook.

It's not that I hate social networking, it's just that a year ago, I was living alone, hated my job, and had too much free time on my hands.

That free time has evaporated. Between my home life, my new job responsibilities (which are awesome but huge), and the writing...I'm not sure where social networking fits in. I feel like a slacker for not being on. Social networking is supposed to be a conversation, not just people shouting into the void, but that's how I feel lately. I talk, people talk back, but I'm dragged away before I get a chance to hold up my end of the bargain.

So how do you all balance it all? How does social networking fit into your life?

Libraries, E-Books, Indies, and Piracy. Oh my.

2011-06-24T09:15:00.000-04:00

I wasn't poor growing up, but I wasn't rich either. Money was often tight. When I hit puberty and graduated from kid shoes to adult shoes, my mom tried to buy me women's sneakers and tell me that they were men's because it was during the time when Nike was trying to rape consumers with $200 shoes, and we couldn't afford anything near that price. Sometimes we had breakfast for dinner because it was cheaper.

But the one thing we always had money for was books.

Both my mother and my father nurtured my love of books. Going with my father to Waldenbooks on Sundays or down to the outlet bookstore where I could find hardcovers of my favorite authors for $5 were some of my best days.

I was lucky. I know that. I didn't utilize libraries frequently because I loved owning my books. I read them over and over and over. But I loved the idea of libraries and I visited them often. There was something romantic and exciting about a whole building devoted to books. About a place filled with people who cared about books.

When I was in middle school, I went to a Catholic school. It was a pretty progressive Catholic school that had a great library and an even better librarian. I wish I could remember her name. Despite my failure of memory, I do remember that we talked about books and computers and she guided me to some books that I'd have missed otherwise. Like the works of Robin McKinley.

Again, I was lucky. I know that.

Indies are closing and big we-have-it-all bookstores are becoming less relevant. These are sad, terrible, shameful things. Each has its place. Large chunks of Deathday were edited in a Barnes & Noble. Having access to all those books while I was working helped me. A friend of mine from high school worked as a kid in an indie book store. I remember a few times, him sharing his passion for books with patrons. Passion is one thing you can't find on Amazon.

You can't hand your best friend a dog-eared Nook with notes written in the margins.

I sometimes wonder what I would have done if I were a child today. If I'd been too poor to afford books. If the libraries in my area were shut down or under-funded. If I lived in an area that had no independent bookstores. Or any bookstores at all! (As a matter of fact, when I was promoting Deathday, I struggled to find a single indie bookstore in my area. The only one, about an hour drive away only had the time/funds to deal with "big" authors.) What would I do if I'd lived in a house where reading wasn't encouraged? With parents who didn't treasure books the same way I did?

I'd have stolen them.

I can say that with certainty.

There's a lot of doom and gloom surrounding the publishing industry right now. A lot of pessimism about books. Let's be honest: keeping libraries open is expensive. In a time when governments are in crisis, when the federal government is squandering our tax dollars on foolishness that could have been avoided, libraries are an easy target. Except that reading is vital. Here's a really fantastic page full of startling statistics. Libraries are essential to our continued growth.

A couple of years ago, Guys Lit Wire ran a charity call for books to be donated to a youth prison in California. Apparently, they had a library with no books. None at all. Which is ridiculous. How can you rehabilitate youths at risk without books? Without the ability to learn?

I support indie bookstores and I love my local Barnes and Noble. I love buying books on my Kindle and my Nook. I love collecting books and sharing them with friends. I love buying e-books and staring in wonder at this little device that can hold more books than I could read in my lifetime.

But I wonder if the problem of e-books, the same e-books that are bringing bookstores to their knees, is the solution for libraries and kids who are too poor to afford books.

For a second, forget the notion of piracy. Forget that this is a utopian idea that disregards the rights of the artists. Just for a moment.

E-books are cheap. They only need be produced one time. Copying them costs nothing. Storing them next to nothing. Shoot, you can buy a 16Gb flash drive for $20 (the cost of one hard cover book) and put tens of thousands of books on it. More books than my middle school library had. You could copy all those books onto one device and give it to a library or a child or a prison, and instantly solve a problem.

E-books aren't a problem, they're a fucking solution.

I have about 400 e-books saved on my computer. With one click, I could duplicate them all and send them into the world. I could burn them to a CD and flood the world with them, like AOL used to do with their discs. I could go to a school and give the files to a librarian, who might not be able to afford books otherwise.

But I don't. Because a lot of the books on my e-device are by people I know. And I respect them too much to do that. I respect all the authors.

What I don't respect is the system. The restraints in place.

It's idealistic of me, yeah. It's idealistic to think that we can solve all the problems so easily. But can't we?

Listen, I sure don't write books for the money. If my publisher came to me today and said that they were giving away e-book copies of Deathday to every library, school, prison, and child who wanted one, I'd high-five them. I might even do a fist pump. Hell, I might even raise the roof.

I feel like reading has become that thing that only people with money can do. Libraries are evaporating, bookstores (realistically) cater to those who can pay. Books are getting pricier. Even e-books are pricey. When a parent has to decide between money for food or bills and money for books, books are almost always going to lose.

I'm just going to say it: Kids have a right to read. And we have a responsibility to get books to them.

Idealistic? Unrealistic? I think not. I could give away hundreds of books with a click. A publisher could fill a library to bursting with the same click. All the libraries. All the schools.

I wasn't kidding when I said that if I were a kid today and there was no library around me and I was poor, that I'd steal books. I'd steal all the books. And maybe I'd feel bad about it, but at least I wouldn't grow up unable to read. Unable to comprehend basic instructions. Unable to read to my own child when I had one. Kids who read are smarter. It's just a fact. They test better, they learn better, they do better in life. Reading really is fundamental.

Libraries and librarians and parents who encourage reading are a child's greatest resources. But those things are disappearing. Sadly. It's a war and we're losing.

Reading by any means necessary.

*Note: This rant applies to specific situations. I'm not condoning taking down the entire publishing machine and making all books free all the time. The authors of said books work hard and deserve compensation. I'm talking about books for kids, for libraries, for children who can't afford them. If you're an adult and you have money and you steal books, you're an asshole.

What is YA?

2011-06-21T11:32:00.000-04:00

So I'm readin Melina Marchetta's THE PIPER'S SON. I think adults would love it. The first book my mom read on her Kindle was Marchetta's JELLICOE ROAD. Both books are sold here in the States as YA.

Markus Zusack's I AM THE MESSENGER and THE BOOK THIEF are sold as adult books in Australia and YA in America. Though THE BOOK THIEF has been a hugely popular crossover.

THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW was sold as an adult book but the narrator is clearly a teen and I think it's a book that teens would clearly be able to relate to.

There's a secret about growing up that no one ever tells kids. The secret is that there is no secret. Growing up is a suggestion, not a rule. You can still be an adult--pay your bills and have children of your own and enjoy rollercoasters and get giddy over a new movie release and still feel alienated and alone and like no one will ever get you--and not be grown up. I thought the secret was that adulthood was a profound line over which I'd cross and suddenly "get it." Turns out, it's not. It's still just as confusing as being a kid. Maybe more so.

If there's no real and true line that separates men from boys, women from girls, children from adults, then why is there a line, a definition, that segregates YA from adult literature?

This is where the parents come out of the woodworks and mention that some adult books are inappropriate for children. Just as I'd say that there are some children's books that are inappropriate for adults, and some adult books that are inappropriate for adults (or anyone for that matter) and some children's books that are inappropriate for children.

I will agree that not every child has the maturity for every kind of book. I would gladly hand my teenage cousins Andrew Smith's GHOST MEDICINE or IN THE PATH OF FALLING OBJECTS but would wait a couple of years to suggest THE MARBURY LENS. Simply because I know both boys well enough to know that they're likely not ready for it.

But this dividing line between books for children (the dreaded YA label) and books for adults cuts each group off from amazing literature. I write books with teenage characters in them that I think teenagers would relate to, but a lot of people who read Deathday are adults.

Going back to THE PIPER's SON. It's a book in which most of the characters are out of high school. But they're still struggling with identity and the future and what it all means. And those are universal issues that teens and adults alike can relate to.

YA is a figment of our imagination. It's a ruse. And kids are smarter than that.

Summer

2011-06-13T11:17:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel like I haven't got anything left to say to the Internet. After all, the Internet has said it all.

I think I'm going to neglect my blog for the summer and spend more time on Twitter. Between writing a book, vacations, a grueling work schedule, and refilling my well, I think I need a break.

When you sell a book...even before that...people tell you that you have to have a web presence. And I think that's true. But your internet life isn't real life. It's not real at all. And I think there are times when you have to step away and live your real life. This is probably one of those times.

Trust

2011-06-12T10:41:00.000-04:00

Reading and writing both require trust. The writer asks for it and the reader offers it.

When I first read THE HUNGER GAMES, I accepted the rules by which Suzanne Collins was going to play. Everyone was going to go into an arena, only one would come out. She complicated the story by also sending in a boy the main character liked. About mid way through the book, Collins changed the rules. She said that two, instead of one could survive. I felt betrayed. I actually remember yelling some obscenities. As far as I was concerned, the writer had broken my trust. But I read on, if only to see how it ended. And I was relived, by the end, to find out that the rule change had been a ruse. Collins had not, in fact, broken my trust. In fact, she'd pulled the rug out from under me in the most delicious way.

Writers have a responsibility not to betray the trust of their readers. It was why I told people on the very first page of Deathday that Ollie is going to die. That way, not matter what else you thought of how Ollie spent his day, or how big a jerk he was, or wondered too where the letters came from, you could trust that I was leading up to something. Ollie was going to die and his journey was going to mean something.

The first time I read Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, I nearly gave up on it a dozen times. The beginning was boring to me. But now I count it as one of my top five favorite books of all time. And every time I read a book by Marchetta, I trust that she knows what she's doing, where the story is going, and that she won't let the story get away from her, no matter how often it seems like it might in those first 100 pages.

Reading and writing is something of a compact between two people. When I write, I'm not writing for a group of people. I'm writing for just one person. One individual at a time. All I can say is that I have a plan and I hope you'll trust me.

Blog Chain - Outlaw

2011-06-10T23:38:00.000-04:00

This blog chain post is a little late, but this time around the amazing, wonderful Abby wants to know:

There are SO many writing rules, but sometimes we have to break one or two, just to keep things interesting. Is there a writing rule you’ve broken on purpose? Why did you choose to break it? And if you want to post a snippet of your writing as an example, even better!

I don't think I've ever broken anything on purpose. I mean, when I've broken "rules," I've done so knowingly (most of the time) but I don't think writing "rules" should be broken just to break them. If you're going to break then, it needs to be done for a reason. However, I also use quotes around the word, because when it comes to writing, there are no rules. We're all out here on the frontier. A never ending plain that we're all making our way through.

That said, my favorite "rule" to break is the one about long stretches of dialog without any action our dialog tags. I frequently go too far and have to edit it back, but sometimes that staccato back and forth is just begging for simplicity. Sometimes description and dialog tags interrupt the flow. Here's a short example of something I'm working on now:

"You want a ride?"

"To the party?"

"It's on my way."

"Really?"

Stella shook her head. "Not really, but I was about to spend my entire Saturday night listening to ABBA and putting makeup on dead people."

"Ew," I said.

"I know. My mom's a funeral director and I get roped into helping her with the bodies. It's not a calling but it puts gas in Stay Puft." She pointed at her white car.

"The corpses are fine," I said. "I was talking about ABBA."

That's just a little snippet. There's stuff that happens before and stuff that happens after, but in this little bit, Stella and Simon's back and forth is interrupted as little as possible. They've just met and are getting to know each other, and they've got such great chemistry, and I think their dialog in this bit shows that.

So yeah, that's the "rule" that I break most often.

IF you haven't already, head over to my wonderful friend Margie's blog to see what kind of rebel rule breaker she is, and the next, head over to Sarah's blog and see if she's up to breaking any rules...and wish her a congratulations on her brand new baby boy!

On Writing - Part 4 Fear is an Adverb

2011-06-09T13:13:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a short bit. I don't believe that every rule is meant to be followed without exception. When I was younger, I remembered reading somewhere that one should never use contractions except in dialog. My writing was a veritable desert. So formal and stodgy.

So when King says that adverbs are the devil, I give him a nod and quickly move on. His advice about passive voice is solid. People enjoy reading books about people who do things rather than books about people to whom things happen. And the dialog tag is also solid advice. If you've written your scene properly, then you should rarely have the need to use anything other than the solid tag "said."

But the main thing I took from the section about passive verbs and adverbs and dialog tags, was about timidity and fear.

A writer may be a lot of things, but he must never be afraid. Not of parents, not of librarians, not of reviewers. And certainly not of his own words. A writer must not be timid. He (or she or course!) must be bold. Must take chances, even if conventional wisdom says that it's wrong.

Being a writer is all about taking risks. Every single word that makes it to the page must push the boundaries. It must be heartfelt and beautiful and terrible and bold. There must be nothing safe about your books or about your words.

Every adverb should be an act of defiance.

In the end, it's not about adverbs or dialog tags or passive voice. It's about knowing what you want to say and being brave enough to say it.

Dear WSJ - Suck It.

2011-06-06T08:24:00.000-04:00

The article in the WSJ DARKNESS TOO VISIBLE has whipped the YA community into a frenzy this weekend. Just go check out the awesomeness that is the Twitter hashtag #YASaves. It's pretty amazing.

I only have two real beefs with this article.

The first is that it is an opinion piece masquerading as journalism. I am a firm believer in the right of people to have their opinions and to state their opinions and to shout their opinions from the highest rooftops. However, journalism is supposed to be neutral and unbiased, something this piece was not. They should have interviewed some of the authors they damned so that they could get other side of this story. The author of the article should be ashamed of picking on a book like SCARS without even giving the author an opportunity to refute the charges. Ms. Megan Cox Gurdon of the WSJ acted as judge and jury in this highly biased article. In fact, she was little more than a bully, presenting her lopsided opinion as factual.

There are some who would agree that YA has grown darker. It's probably a topic worth exploring. I think I may have even talked about it here. But it's not black and white. There are no easy answers. Certainly, there are enough differing opinions that Ms. Gurdon could have interviewed some YA authors or publishers or even some *gasp* kids. Maybe Ms. Gurdon picked up SCARS or THE MARBURY LENS and couldn't imagine a teen reading one of them. But I'm sure there are teens out there who have read them and are thankful they have them.

As a small aside, I wish there had been books like this when I was a kid; books that were more frank. When I dealt with my coming out, I was a cutter and self-injurer. I punched walls so often and so hard that I permanently damaged the knuckle of my hand. My upper arms are still marred by scars. And back then--the late 90's--there were no books to help me understand what I was going through. I assumed I was alone. That my behavior was an aberration. Which only worked to increase my sense of isolation. Books that deal with these issues can be lifelines, and I wish that the "article" had presented a more well-rounded view that could have included conversations with teens that these types of books have reached.

The second issue I have with this article is that it doesn't make the distinction between a parent monitoring what a child reads, and the censorship of all YA books. I'm not going to delve too deeply into this. I'm simply going to implore parents to be aware. Read what your children are reading. And don't immediately dismiss it. If your child is reading something challenging, read it yourself. Talk to them about it. Maybe they have questions. Maybe they're reading it because THEY have questions. Pretending these issues and these books don't exist will only make your child want to read them MORE. And they would be better off reading books with difficult subject matter if they have someone to whom they can talk.

And, for the love of God, if you feel that a book isn't right for your child--something you have every right to do--please don't try to impose your morals on everyone else. If you've raised Mary Sunshine who eats a steady diet of unicorns and poops sunshine and never ever has anything bad happen to her, then you have my applause. But the world isn't like that, and it's unconscionable of you to deny these books to children they might help.

You don't have to approve them, you don't have to like them, but you should read them and make an informed decision.

Oh, and I have a third beef: to the BN bookseller who couldn't identify ONE single book for this mother to read: shame on you. Hang up your badge, quit your job, go work for McDonalds. That is all.

*It's Monday, I'm sleepy. Any incoherence is mine.

ON WRITING - Part 3 Plums Deify

2011-06-03T08:37:00.000-04:00

I like rules. There is a certain comfort in knowing where the lines are, in knowing the boundaries. Lawlessness makes me uncomfortable. True anarchy could never really happen. If our government ceased to exist--just one day poofed from existence--something would rise to take its place. People want to be told what to do, what's appropriate, and how they should act at any given moment. It's how dictators rise to power. People will follow anyone in a vacuum.

Liking rules isn't necessarily a bad thing. Because there's liking rules, knowing rules, following rules, and then there's breaking them.

Breaking rules is my favorite part of liking the rules.

King spends very little time on grammar. Enough time to say that you should know it. You should know the rules. I'm going to put it out there that I believe knowing grammar and KNOWING grammar are two different things. One of the reasons that I believe most high school and college foreign language courses fail students is that they teach you nothing about actually speaking the language. They teach you verb forms and mechanics and long lists of nouns, but very little about the actual language. Or more simply: you can't learn to drive a car from reading a book.

You can learn that verbs and nouns form sentences (Plums deify!) and that sentences form paragraphs. And so on. But that doesn't teach you the soul of grammar. It doesn't teach you how to write.

I realize as I've gotten to the end here that I seem to have put up two contradictory arguments. One is that rules are awesome, the other is that rules can't teach you to be a writer. But it actually all works (even if my coffee starved brain thinks otherwise). Here's the thing: I know what an adverb is. What an adjective and a gerund are, and how you shouldn't split infinitives or end a sentence in a preposition. I know those rules, which means I also know that sometimes, "He's got to have something worth fighting for. Something worth living for," sounds better than, "He's got to have something for which to fight. Something for which to live."

But I don't just know these rules, I feel them. When I'm writing a sentence, I'm not thinking about rules. I'm not thinking about verb forms. I'm just writing.

So know the rules, yes, but don't fetishize them. Break the rules, definitely, but not until you know them.

But above all: forget the rules. Just write.

The Marbury Lens - Jack isn't Crazy

2011-06-01T18:16:00.000-04:00

If you haven't read Andrew Smith's THE MARBURY LENS, you should probably check out of this post now. I'm going to spoil the hell out of it. You've been warned.

Last year, I was taken by Andrew Smith's THE MARBURY LENS. It was violent and raw and amazingly well written and it messed with my head. I devoured it in a short time and didn't let a lot sink in. I've been thinking about it lately and decided to read it for a second time, taking care to pay attention.

On my first go, I wasn't sure what Smith was getting at. Was Jack crazy? I had my own idea. I thought that Jack never actually escaped Freddie Horvath's place. That Marbury was an escape for Jack. I also thought that Ben and Griff and Con were all there in Freddie's with him.

The thing about book is that we bring our own meaning to them. I had a professor in college who was convinced that books only had one valid interpretation. Which I still think is a bullshit pretension by someone who assumes they're always going to be right. Even what the author believes becomes meaningless once the book is out in the world. There are layers of meaning to every book. A multitude of different ways to interpret them.

My interpretation of Marbury was different on my second read. Interpreting THE MARBURY LENS depends on one decision: Is Jack Whitmore a reliable narrator?

The first time around, I would have said no. But this time around, I'm not so sure. I think the fact that Jack questions his sanity, helps make the case that he is reliably reporting what he sees and believes. Not what's real, but what he believes is real.

Once I decided that Jack was reliable, I decided to also believe that Marbury was real. There are lots of little things that Jack talks about that made me believe that Marbury was a real place. The first being that he has no reason to lie. The second is when he talks about the worlds being like nesting dolls and himself being an arrow that transects all the different levels. Worlds within worlds within worlds. I'm a fan of quantum physics and the concept of multiple universes. So this was easy for me to buy into.

So if you believe that Jack is telling the truth, and Marbury is real, then the question becomes: Why does Jack keep returning?

Marybury is a land with no real night. It's hot, there are no girls, no family, little food or water. Bugs eat the dead, monsters torture you, rape you, and then eat you. It's not a beach resort. So why does Jack choose to leave his London vacation to constantly go to Marbury? He even states multiple times that he's like a junky. An addict.

I have two distinct thoughts on this:

One is that Jack is an addict. Jack goes back to Marbury for the high. Because Ben and Griff are there and they need him. He knows it's bad for him but he does it anyway. He's punishing himself. He thinks he deserves to lose everything he cares about. That he deserves to be in hell. I mean, if he were a good person, why would Freddie Horvath have chosen him? No, obviously Jack deserves what he's gotten. And Marbury, while an escape, is also his punishment.

Two is that everything in Marbury is black and white. There is Jack and Ben and Griff, and everyone else. You're either human or monster. The real world is full of phonies like Freddie Horvath. People who present one face to the world (a doctor) while secretly kidnapping and raping kids. The real world is a complicated, fucked up place. Marbury is hell, but at least the monsters have brands. They're easy to identify. So Jack keeps going there because the real world is too much for him to take. Is Henry Hewitt a bad guy? Does Nickie really love him? Is Con really his friend? These are questions that don't have easy answers in the real world, but in Marbury, they do.

There are things I have questions about. Was Henry Hewitt a ghost? I think he had to be at some point. He gave Jack the lens (just like Seth did with the two blue ones), Con couldn't see him when he followed Jack to the bar. However, we know he was alive and real at one point, because Con saw him in the pictures. So I think that at some point, he dies and becomes a ghost. If that's true, who killed him?

The other question I have is what the two blue lenses were. The ones that Seth leaves behind when the bugs eat him. Are they for Ben and Griff so that they can all get into Marbury or do they lead elsewhere? I think they lead to another layer. I'm open to thoughts though.

I'm also curious what you all think the connection between Marbury and the real world is. Why do Jack and Con get sick when they transition from one to the other? Why do they crave it when they don't return?

Lastly, is it possible that Jack both did and didn't escape Freddie Horvath? If we're talking about nesting dolls and a multiverse, is it possible that Jack did escape Freddie and didn't at the same time?

Okay, that's what I've got. I hope anyone who's read it will want to chat about it.

ON WRITING - Part 2 Burn Your Thesaurus

2011-05-31T07:42:00.000-04:00

I'm going to take the easy way out on this one. King's next bit of advice is regarding the writer's toolbox. It should have levels, he claims, and in the top level should go your vocabulary.

Reader, and commenter, and writer, and all around awesome guy, Michael Winchell, wrote a great post over at Project Mayhem about this very topic. I'm going to point you to read that. You can find it here.

All that I'm going to add is that nothing screams newbie like reading a draft of a novel that the writer has clearly gone through with a thesaurus and upgraded the words. Sometimes it's good to hotfoot it somewhere, or to sprint, dart, hurry, or dash. But usually it's appropriate to simply run.

I greatly admire the vocabulary and general knowledge of Stephen Fry. He's intelligent, witty, and it all seems to come to him so easily. He's got so many tools in his toolbox. I have fewer tools in my toolbox. Though I love words--their origins, meanings, etc--I simply don't have the skill for retaining them that someone like Fry does. So when I sit down to write, I use what I have.

I'll admit that occasionally I go to the thesaurus on my computer. However in those circumstances it's generally because I've echoed a word three or four times on the same page, not because I'm looking to upgrade my vocabulary.

The truth is this: if I wouldn't say it in real life, I don't write it.

ON WRITING - Part 1 Take Your Shit Seriously

2011-05-26T12:08:00.000-04:00

I was a reader long before I was a writer. I read widely, so widely that I daresay there isn't a type of book (fiction and non-fiction) that I haven't attempted to read. And that does include a stray romance novel that I found tucked away in the back of an airplane seat when I was young (back then I was excited by the provocative nature of such a book, with its scantily clad characters, but ultimately bored). I still read quite broadly for enjoyment. Currently I'm reading a book about Patti Smith, a book about parallel universes and quantum mechanics, a fiction adult book called THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW about an old woman obsessed with Buckminster Fuller and the grandson who defies her for a love of punk rock, and a YA book written by a dear friend (THE DARK WIFE by Sarah Diemer, available now!). Some of those books, I read to learn the craft. JELLICOE ROAD, for example has been a huge influence on my writing as of late.

But I credit one book more than any other with putting me on this writing path. Stephen King's ON WRITING. I've talked about its influence before, but every time I find myself stuck, I return to it. Recently I did so and decided to blog what I learn as I learn it. Who knows how many parts there will be. Some will be long, some short. If you have a copy, read along. If not, go buy one. And, as always, feel free to share in the comments. I'd love to know what you all took from the book.

I'm starting with the second part of the book because King's biography, while illuminating and entertaining, isn't the part that called to me.

King starts out writing about telepathy. That the reader and writer share a type of bond. It's a bond that traverses space and time. The written word is a way for a writer to transmit his thoughts into the future. The better at it you are, the further your thoughts will go. Shakespeare was such a master of language and character that we still, with little interpretation, get him. But King isn't concerned with your legacy...yet. He wants to make the point that writing is serious business and that if you're no going to take it seriously, not to bother.

This meant something important to me. For years, I'd procrastinated. I'd skip writing because I wasn't inspired or I didn't have time or I didn't have the correct desk or chair or computer or paper or or or or....

The excuses were endless. But that book wasn't going to write itself. I couldn't call myself a writer if I didn't sit down and write. I was approaching 30 when I came to that realization. It was time to put up or shut up. And I'm not even talking about being published. You can be a writer and never ever seek publication. I'm talking about simply finishing a book. Up to that point, I hadn't done it. But from that moment on, I sat down every day and wrote. Sometimes only a paragraph came out, but the more serious I took my writing, the better I got at it.

I finished one book. Then I finished another. Then I finished a third and sold it.

To this day, I write 5 days a week without fail. I wake up in the morning and write. When I'm tired, when I'm hungover, when I'm not in the mood, I still get up to write.

Because here's the thing, even if your entire book is nothing but one long string of penis jokes, if you don't take yourself seriously, no one else will either.

Blog Chain - Silver Linings

2011-05-23T16:23:00.000-04:00

We're back on the blog chain and this round's topic was chosen by Michelle H. who always manages to crack me up.

Be positive! Name some of the positive aspects of your writing --- be it a compliment from a mentor, friend or crit partner to anything special you learned concerning your writing skills.

She couldn't have chosen a better topic for this round. Writing is difficult, published or not, and it's helpful to remember all the good things.

1. Friends. Last week, Margie sent me these AMAZING pastries that I gobbled my way through. When our schedules sync we manage to Skype, she's always there to prop me up when I fall or listen to me complain. I hope I'm even half the friend she is. By my nature, I'm an introverted person. I don't make friends easily, but through being published, I've met some of the most amazing people. Margie, the chiefest among them.

2. Immortality. Sometimes people write to tell me how Deathday affected them. A line they loved or a character they felt was particularly real. Most people love Nana from the book. And that makes me glow. She's loosely based on my own Nana and I think that in some small way, that means my grandma will live on forever.

3. Confidence. Growing up, I always thought I was one of those people who was good at many things and great at none. I'm not a great writer yet but every day, I think I could be. The last couple of years have given me the confidence to devote myself to something wholeheartedly.

4. When I finish a book, no matter how bad it is, I get that rush of completion. Everyone wants to write a book, few people actually finish one. Published or not, just finishing is amazing.

There are so many things that writing brings to my life. It helps define who I am, yet it doesn't define me. It's amazing, my friends are amazing. I'm lucky to be able to do it.

Well, check out the awesome Michelle M. for yesterday's post and then tomorrow see where the stupendous Sarah finds her bliss.

Subverting Expectations

2011-05-23T07:58:00.000-04:00

Formulaic stories work. The old boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, is a formula that has served books and movies well for....well, even Shakespeare was in on the game.

As an audience, when we see a set of circumstances, we begin to have certain expectations. We know the formula and connect the dots. Which is fine. There is a certain comfort to be had from knowing what your'e going to get. You just know that if the boy screws up his relationship then either he'll do something fantastic and get the girl back OR realize that the girl he was chasing wasn't the girl he really wanted. As an audience, we expect those things.

As writers then, our job is to give the audience what they want but some how manage to subvert those expectations, giving them something fresh.

This weekend, I saw the movie Bridesmaids. First off, it was hilarious. I haven't laughed that hard or that loud during a movie in forever. And I wasn't alone. There was a mom and her daughter in front of me, howling. There were a group of guys cracking up. The movie appealed to every age, gender, race. It was that good.

I won't give any of the plot away, but at about 2/3 of the way through the movie, I said to myself that A would happen, leading to B and then C. Well, we got C but not even remotely as I'd imagined. We kind of got B too but it looked more like M. Not sure what I'm talking about? Neither am I. Okay, seriously. If this movie had been a regular formulaic summer movie, A, B, and C would have happened and I would have left with a smile. But the writers of the movie gave into my expectations but subverted the route we took to get there in a satisfying, hilarious way that turned out to be better than I could have hoped. That's what's making this movie a word-of-mouth blockbuster instead of just another throwaway romcom..

People always say that it's not the destination but the journey. That's also true in writing. The destination id definitely important but the journey you take to get to the end can determine whether you're book is good or whether it's Bridesmaids.

Oh, and it wasn't just me. I was telling M about my expectations after and he chimed in, that he'd thought the same thing was going to happen. Those formulas are so burned into our minds that everyone recognizes them.

A Monster Calls

2011-05-19T08:32:00.000-04:00

Friends of this blog know that I'm a huge Patrick Ness fan. He blew me away with his Chaos Walking trilogy, which if you haven't read, you should. Now.

So to say I was excited when his next book was announced is a bit of an understatement. The book is based on an idea from author Siobhan Dowd who sadly died before she was able to bring it to fruition. Ness states in the introduction that he wasn't going to write a book in the voice of Dowd because doing so wouldn't honor the author or the idea. Instead, he let the idea and characters created by Dowd carry him away.

Here's a description of A MONSTER CALLS from Goodreads:

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. But it isn’t the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming... The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.

I ordered it from England because I couldn't wait. I wasn't sure what kind of book I was getting but when it arrived, I was blown away by the beauty of the cover and the illustrations inside. Honestly, the black & white illustrations provide a somber tone to the book that elevates this to something beyond a mere book.

A MONSTER CALLS isn't anything like the Chaos Walking trilogy. However, Ness' humor and insight are all over it. I've only read one of Dowd's books, THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, and I can say that while her voice isn't as present, she is in this book's DNA. It's a real testament to both authors.

The story itself isn't what I expected. It's like a cross between Shel Silverstein and Neil Gaiman's THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. It's about a boy whose mother is struggling with cancer. A monster arrives one night at 12:07 and informs the boy that he'll tell 3 stories. Once done, the boy will then have to tell one story of his own. One truth about himself. The prospect of which scares the boy senseless. There are plots involving his grandmother and bullies at school and a girl. This is such a short, sweet, complicated book that I was left in tears and in awe at the end.

I don't want to spoil this book by saying anything else except that Patrick Ness has once again earned my utmost respect by writing a touching book that tears out your heart and puts it back together again. He's a rare author and A MONSTER CALLS is a rare book.

Boys Are Not Stupid

2011-05-17T07:34:00.001-04:00

I was reading a particularly terrible book that I will not name. The writing was clunky and it was all tell and no show. It was like, "He was angry, so angry but the girl in front of him was very, very pretty." Okay, that's not a direct quote, but it's actually fairly close.

I was quite annoyed by how poorly the book was written and went to look up reviews for it. The reviews were mostly positive. I thought I must have been reading a different book. So I drilled into the reviews to see why people liked it. Maybe the book magically got better after 100 pages. What I saw pissed me off.

Many of the reviews had this sentiment: this isn't a great book but boys will like it. The reasons they listed for boys liking the book were the blood, the action and the distinct lack of overt smooching.

All I really want to say to that is yes, those things may appeal to some boys. They appealed to me, which is why I bought the book. But having aspects that appeal to boys doesn't excuse a book for sucking and sucking hard.

There are so many well-written books out there that would appeal to boys, that I don't understand why people would give a pass to a terrible book simply for having things in it which would also appeal to boys.

Boys are not stupid. I wish people who write books would stop treating them like they are.

A Series of Dreams

2011-05-15T14:20:00.002-04:00

I adopted Maxx from a shelter that had saved Maxx from being euthanized. Two families prior to me had adopted and returned him. He was blind from birth and only a year old. There were times after I brought him home that I thought about returning him, but I couldn't. He was so badly matted that he'd had to be shaved down to the skin.

For two years, Maxx drove me nuts. He was loud, annoying, needy, and I loved the shit out of him. He made my life difficult in so many little ways, and yet none of that mattered when I walked through the door and he'd lazily wander up to meet me, his face half-matted because he'd been sleeping. I'd pick him up and he'd hug into my shoulder. He barked during all the good parts of my TV shows, he constantly hid his toys under the couch so that I had to fetch them, and he hated walking on wet grass.

I used to daydream of the day when I wouldn't have to worry about finding a sitter for him when I went on vacation, or when I could make it through an entire movie without him needing to be walked. Now that he's gone, I hate coming home alone. I have someone wonderful to come home to, but there's something special about a dog. Even a dog as annoying as Maxx. He's irreplaceable. I never thought I'd miss him so fucking much. That dog was one of a kind.

Blog Chain - We All Float Down Here

2011-05-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about IT and Pennywise the Clown. Don't know why.

Anyway, after some time off, I'm back on the chain, and happy to be back :) This time around, Laura wants to know:

What keeps you going (either trying to get an agent or to get published or finish that WIP that’s kicking your butt) when you know the odds are stacked way against you?

I keep going because I'm too dumb to stop.

It's really that simple. Sometimes I know I should. I have a day job. It pays well and I'm happy. I could grow old in it and never need to write again.

But I can't stop writing.

There's a disease where a person has excess iron in their blood. They have to periodically give blood in order to keep the excess iron from building up in their system and wreaking havoc. That's how I feel about words. They're inside of me. I have too many of them. If I don't get them out, scratch them onto the page, they'll crawl out of the cracks in my skin. They'll drive me mad.

It's hard to love something that makes you so crazy, but I think it makes us crazy because we love it.

That's what keeps me going: stupidity, need, madness.

It's better than drinking. Better than...nah.

Check out what keeps the amazing Laura going, and then tomorrow head over to the fantastic Michelle's blog and see from where her well of hope springs.

Karaoke God

2011-05-04T11:45:00.000-04:00

First off, thanks to everyone who was thinking of Maxx. He's on the mend, scared of the new house, but loving all the space. My days revolve now around whether he poops, but I'm just happy he's alive.

When I was little I loved to sing. In 5th grade, I had a part in a little school musical. My mom cried when I sang. I used to ride around in the car with her singing along. I had a pretty voice. Then I hit puberty. I didn't love singing any less. I did a high school musical, sang in chorus, and even auditioned for a couple of local musicals. As I grew older, I didn't love singing any less. I did karaoke, sang in my car, and bedeviled my neighbors with 1am renditions of my favorite songs.

No one every asked me when I was going to record an album or go on tour. For me, singing is something I love doing. I'll sing any chance I get. And I'm not terrible. I'm just not good enough to go professional. That doesn't make me love it any less. It doesn't make me sing with less passion.

It's okay to love doing something, to love it with all your soul, and still treat it as a hobby. It doesn't make me any less of a singer that I don't ever plan to do anything with my singing beyond performing in my local shower. In fact, I think knowing that I'm not good enough to sing professionally allows me to enjoy it more. I don't have the angst of worrying about "making it." I can love singing for singing's sake.

Life, Interrupted

2011-04-27T08:26:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the blog silence!

All by May 1, I was supposed to move out of one apartment and into a house; finish my revisions and turn them in; and complete a bunch of projects at my day job that are extremely intensive.

April has been a stressful month but I was on track to finish it all. Then, last Friday, my dog swallowed a treat and spent until yesterday in doggy hospital with a failing liver and blocked esophagus. It was a bit of a nightmare. He still may not recover but at least now he's sitting here beside me as I type, sleeping.

I still have to move, I still have to finish those revisions (though luckily my wonderful editor at Simon Pulse gave me some extra days...animal lovers unite!), and I still have to go get ready to go to work.

Oh, and I turn 33 on Saturday. Not ready for that either.

But life goes on. That's the reality of being a writer...of being a human being, I suppose. Life happens, and we just do our best to keep up.

I'll be back on the blog after all this current craziness is over. In the meantime, enjoy a picture of Maxx before he swallowed a stupid treat whole.

Bibliophile

2011-04-15T10:41:00.000-04:00

I love music. I devour it. I blast it when I write; I sing along to it when I drive; and I let it wrap me up in a bubble when I'm wandering through airports, being jostled by strangers on their way to far off destinations. Music feeds my soul.

When I was young, I had records. I played them on this toy turntable that sat against the wall of my bedroom. I danced around in my underwear to Michael Jackson and Donnie and Marie. I cried when my records got scratched but I loved putting the needle down on the groove and listening to that first scratchy hum before the actual music began.

I don't remember when I got a tape player. Christmas maybe. It was this black boombox with detachable speakers that ate C batteries like I ate music. I lugged it up to my fort, still listening to MJ but having added some heavy rock and whatever played on the radio. I giggled along to Salt N Peppa's Push It, was shocked by George Michael, and strangely enthralled by Phil Collins. I was a master of fixing tapes that had been mysteriously swallowed by the strange toothy mechanism inside the deck.

When CDs came along, I couldn't afford them. I had a CD player, given to me by my father for either my birthday or Christmas, I can't remember which. But I do remember its diminutive size and being awed by the technology. On weekends when I'd go visit him, we'd all go to Peaches music store and search for new music. Both of my parents inspired my musical adventurousness. My mom was into Motown and the BeeGees while my father listened to Pat Benetar and Fleetwood Mac. I had started listening to Guns N Roses and 10,000 Maniacs and REM.

CDs were when I began collecting. I had hundreds. I spent more money on music than on anything else during my adolescence. I know I wasn't alone in that. When I moved out on my own, I didn't take much, but I took my CD's. I lugged them around in boxes, even the scratched ones. I took them to Orlando and Atlanta and Rhode Island and then back home to Jupiter.

Finding music to listen to wasn't always easy. As I grew up, I realized that my tastes were wildly different from mainstream. The radio didn't appeal to me. I loved indie music and rock music and singer-songwriter stuff. I loved great music. But finding it was difficult. I'd hear it in movies or on TV shows or friends would tell me about this great band I had to try. It was word of mouth mostly. But the problem was that record companies controlled the distribution channels. Radio stations controlled exposure. And there was no way for me to find the musicians I wanted short of moving somewhere like Seattle or Austin or New York.

Then the Internet happened. MP3's and Napster and Audio Galaxy. Even Myspace. I didn't care that the audio quality of a lossy MP3 was slightly inferior to a record. I loved the music. The words. The connection to the feelings. Bitrates didn't mean jack to me. I didn't care if I listened to it on a computer or a CD player or a fist sized digital player. I just wanted my music.

Suddenly, finding music became easy. Artists could interact and sell directly to their fans. I used to spend hours browsing the music pages on Myspace just to find one unsigned band that I loved and could support. I downloaded thousands of tracks from Napster back in the day to find that one diamond. I was finding and loving bands months and years before they become popular, if they became popular at all. And the thing was, that the metrics for success were changing. An artist like Amanda Palmer, who has no major label deal, isn't rich, has probably never been played on the radio, is (in my opinion) successful. She's doing what she loves with the direct support of her fans and she's able to support herself as she does it.

There was a tipping point for the record labels. A moment at which they could have embraced the paradigm shift before being rendered irrelevant. It was right around the time iTunes came onto the scene. They ignored the fact that people in general like cheap and easy over difficult and pricey. They thought that they could continue to sell CD's for $20 when you could buy the whole album in digital format for less than ten dollars without having to drive to a store or even deal with physical media. One click gets you what you crave. They ignored the signs and instead of adapting, they sued their customers, fought iTunes, and tried to hold on to the old ways of doing things.

The old ways no longer work. They're not logical.

As a consumer, I don't give a shit about the internal politics. I care about getting the music I love at a fair price. Sure, when I buy an album from an artist like Amanda Palmer, I feel good knowing that because she's not on a label, that she's making most of the money, but I'd buy her music either way.

The reason record labels fell is because an artist alone will meet the customer wherever they are. They'll even give their music away for free if that's what it takes. The record labels forced customers to come to them. For years, customers did it because they had no other choices. Times changed, the labels did not.

Record labels will always exist. There are audiophiles out there who will pay a premium for records. Nostalgia will keep bands putting out their music on CDs and vinyl for many years to come. But the days of big record labels being able to control every aspect of a musician's career are over. Some will still choose to go that route, and some will be wildly successful. But a lot will take another road. And some of those will be wildly successful too. Just like some will fail and fade into obscurity and some will manage to make just enough to keep their career going on and on and on.

Records or CDs and distribution channels and labels. None of that matters to me though. I just love the music.

On Being an Artist

2011-04-11T09:15:00.001-04:00

I'm probably going to ramble. I apologize in advance.

For a while in my twenties I hung around with a group of friends who were crazy. Most of them were artists or wanted to be artists. They lived together in a house and I lived on the outside looking in. We spent nights getting drunk and smoking and doing the things that twenty-somethings do. We read obscure books and not-so obscure books like Kerouac and Plath and Burroughs. We listened to old rock and obscure rock and punk rock and we ran around naked, beating our chests and making crazy, violent, amazing art.

Sometimes we'd sit around with wine or beer or whatever we had on hand, and speed write. We'd write whatever we could as fast as we could in the time it took to smoke one cigarette. Then we'd go around the room and read it.

I had insomnia so bad back then that I'd stay up all night making art. Painting and writing and drawing and singing. I had art crawling under my skin, dying, begging to burst through the seams and come out.

One of the girls broke old TV's and turned them into landscapes from her brain. The backyard was a minefield of glass, the ashes of her dead television sets. She used doll parts and anything else she had on hand. Poverty is a great instigator for invention.

The guy who lived there mostly painted. He had this idea in his head that in order to BE an artist, he had to suffer. Happiness was an enemy. Only through pain could great art be created. He was good too. Great even. He was also frequently too stoned to do more than sit around watching Golden Girls repeats.

Over at this blog is this post about how to steal like an artist. You should go read it. It's probably more coherent than I am. One of the things he says is that art isn't simply about what you make but about what you leave behind. I'm mostly paraphrasing. It's brilliant really.

I don't drink much anymore. And I don't really see those people. I still listen to punk and read Kerouac. Sometimes I go back and I look at the art that I created back during those times. The journals and the paintings. Sometimes I'm blown away. It's crazy, violent, amazing art. It's also incomplete and diseased.

These days I work an 8-5 job. I watch movies and TV. I hang out with good people and lead a stable, normal life. Twenty-something me would have see 33-year-old me and called me a fucking sell-out. Maybe he would have been right. I did just spend all of yesterday shopping for household items for my new place, for my life of domestic bliss. But then I could have shown my twenty-something self my art, the art I'm creating today. And it would have blown him away.

Art and the artist are linked. They're one. But in order to become a real artist, I had to put up walls between my life and my art. There's only one place in which those walls come down, and it's when I'm sitting in my chair, letting all my crazy, all my violence, all my magical fucked up thoughts out onto the page.

I read this fantasy book recently called THE WAY OF KINGS by Brandon Sanderson. Good book. In it, there's this stuff called Stormlight. And one character, an assassin, can breathe it in and perform feats of great magic. To hold the stormlight, he holds his breath. And even still, it bleeds out of his skin, leaks from his eyes. Art is like that. If you try to keep it in, it will tear you apart. You can't hold your breath forever.

I believe I mentioned that I was going to ramble. The more I think about it, the more I consider myself lucky that I survived BEING an artist. These days, I just like being normal and letting the art be something I do when no one is around. I'd rather people not find out I'm crazy when they meet me. They've got my books for that.

Also, because I never had the courage to say it to my friend: suffering and pain don't make you an artist, making great art does.

Why Inception Sucked

2011-04-08T13:43:00.000-04:00

I'm just going to come right out and say it: INCEPTION blew.

The concept was intriguing, the acting was fantastic, and the visuals were inspired. But the movie wussed out on its own concept. As a story, that was a real letdown.

So many people walked out of that movie feeling their minds blown. But not me. I was insanely annoyed. As storytellers, I think it's our jobs to take people to the line and then push them over it. The first act is littered with literary guns that simply fail to ever go off.

Take for example the concept of the dream within a dream within a dream. In order to accomplish their mission, the characters would exist in the target's mind for what would feel like 30 years! When I heard that, I was excited. How would the story play out for 30 years? Would they go crazy? Would they be the same people they were when they went into the dream? I mean, wow! The idea is insane. And then they speed up the entire sequence into hours rather than years and blew that which made the whole thing exciting.

Sure, one character is stuck in Limbo for decades but he comes out no worse for the wear, and we never see what he goes through.

All in all, it was a promise unfulfilled.

The Architect character played by Ellen Paige was another wasted opportunity. She had the ability to BUILD WORLDS! And she gave us a snow range. The whole thing was supposed to be some kind of maze, but because of the time constraint, she had to make a path right through it.

To me, the ending was the least interesting aspect. Was he awake, wasn't he? Who cares? This was a character drama that succumbed to plot. It was wasted opportunity after wasted opportunity.

In my opinion, if you want to see a concept throughly explored, go see THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.

What We Want

2011-04-08T08:54:00.000-04:00

I've been wading through pools of literary blood as I embark upon revisions for my next, untitled book. It's been a bit of a challenge for me because my cast of characters is larger and more diverse than anything I've written. First of all, it's going to be in 3rd person, which means I'm not telling the story from just one perspective. That, in and of itself, is a challenge. But it's character motivations that are really troubling me this time around.

See, in Deathday, everything was pretty clear. When I wrote the Ollie/Ronnie romance, I had this feeling that if Ollie hadn't gotten his letter, eventually he and Ronnie would have reconciled and worked out. So their journey toward the end, while sped up a bit due to Ollie's demise, was fairly easy to script. Plus, I only had to primarily deal with the whole thing from Ollie's point of view.

Not so in this untitled book. I find myself frequently asking: what does this character want? I'm fairly clear on most of the characters, however there's one to which the answer has repeatedly been: I don't know.

And that's a problem.

Everyone has an agenda. I know that sounds crass but it's true. Even if that agenda is to get completely trashed and act like a wanky jackhole, it's still something. Of course, if you dig deep enough, you'll likely find a deeper motivation behind someone who goes to a party to make a complete fool of themselves.

I should know; I've been the fool.

So when you sit down to write a scene, ask yourself what the characters in that scene want. Are they trying to impress someone, make them jealous, make them smile, feel guilty? Knowing the answers to those questions can help sort out your scenes and character motivations.

Connectedness

2011-04-01T08:38:00.000-04:00

I love the Internet. I grew up with it. From the first time I logged on to Prodigy, I was hooked. I remember the joy of going from a 9600 baud modem to the blazing fast 14.4. Back then, there wasn't a lot to do on the Internet, but it was still exciting.

These days, I still love the Internet, but I hate it even more.

I love the free flow of information. I love being able to find anything I want, whenever I want. If I'm researching a book, I don't have to wait until tomorrow to find the info I need. I can have it now. I hate phones, so the Internet allows me to talk to friends effortlessly via email. I love being able to research products and shop on-line and being able to find the name of that one movie, you know the one, that starred that guy who was in that show.

But I hate the ubiquity of it. Lately I've taken a break from Twitter. It began to overwhelm me. I felt like the protagonist in FEED. Just missing an hour of the feed, I mean Twitter, could result in pages upon pages of missed info. It made me feel guilty. I spent more time reading Twitter and less time doing the things that mattered.

Then there's blogging and my RSS feeds and Reddit and Email and skyping and and and.

Over the last couple of months, I've said to myself that what I want more than anything is to take a cruise for a couple of weeks. Not because I necessarily love cruises, but because there's no cell signal. No phones, email, internet. Just me, my thoughts, and my drink.

This morning, I logged back onto Twitter and immediately felt overwhelmed. So I shut it off.

As I ramble here on a Friday, I'm curious how you all handle being connected all the time. Is it a bane or a boon? How do you unplug when the information is everywhere?

Perseverance

2011-03-29T12:23:00.000-04:00

I hate running. And I love it.

The hardest part of running is that moment when I'm standing in my kitchen after a long day of work, staring at my running shoes and thinking that I deserve a day off and a nice cookie.

Then I put on my sneakers and go. The first mile is easy. With my music in my ears, I settle into a nice rhythm. Around 2 miles, my knees feel a little sore and I start wondering what the hell I'm doing. Why did I decide to run again? It's too hot, I'm too thirsty, I could be watching Modern Family and eating Chinese food. I'd do anything to be able to stop running. It's stupid and I'm stupid and I hate it.

Then I hit mile 3 and that sense of accomplishment sweeps over me. I'm almost home. I can do it. Maybe I've tripped and skinned my knee, maybe I took a wrong turn and had to backtrack a little, maybe chest hurts and my shins are throbbing. It doesn't matter because I know I can do it.

When I finally get home, sometimes after 3.5 miles, sometimes after 5, and I'm stretching my sore, tired muscles, I realize how glad I am that I finished. At that moment, running and I are in love. I forget how much I hated it only a couple of miles ago.

Until the next day.

Writing is a lot like running. Only hard work and perseverance will get you home.

Blog Chain - Money Shot

2011-03-24T11:16:00.000-04:00

It seems we've gone from favorite literary couples to what literary couples do in the dark. This blog chain is Kat's and she wants to know:

How do you feel about love scenes? As a reader, are you put off by the gratuitous? As a writer, do you shy away from spelling out the down-and-dirty? Or do you write until your computer lights a cigarette?

Kat, Kat, Kat. Sigh. You've managed to tap into my single greatest writing fear. So how do I feel about love scenes? I don't like them. As a reader, I'm not into them. I'm not a prude, I simply find them mostly unnecessary. Unless they show us something vital to the characters, then I think they're gratuitous. But the truth, and I believe this, is that anything you can reveal during a sex scene, you can reveal somewhere else.

The other reason I'm not for them is because sex is inherently funny. If you objectively look at the mechanics of it all, sex is a cosmic joke. So from a writing perspective, I think that most sex scenes either turn out laughably flowery, overly mechanical, or vulgar and porny. If my characters talk about sex, I usually approach it with humor. Sex is a difficult thing to take seriously. Especially for guys. They seriously want it, but can barely buy condoms without breaking into a giggle fit.

In my current book, I have to deal with two characters who do have sex. They're a couple, in love, but decide to have sex. It's an important step in their relationship. However, I feel no need to let readers peek under the covers. The scene cuts before clothes come off and returns to those characters in the aftermath.

I think it's especially important in YA that love/sex scenes, if they are shown, NOT be gratuitous or titillating. Teens have sex and no amount of denying it will make it otherwise. But I feel no need to glorify it.

And that's it for me! Take a jaunt over to Laura's blog to see how steamy her books get, and then tomorrow find out what Sarah has to say!

Feeling Nostalgic

2011-03-21T16:40:00.000-04:00

This weekend I rewatched STAND BY ME. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. My best friend at the time, Chase, and I were maybe 9. We watched it over and over again. My favorite scene was always the scene where Wil Wheaton's character tells the story of Lardass and the puke-o-rama. It was one of the earliest times I can remember thinking I wanted to be a writer.

Recently, I've been watching a lot of my old childhood faves. Spaceballs, Running Man, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I've been disappointed with how poorly most have held up. STII is still the best of all the Star Trek films, but the overacting and bad costuming are groan-worthy now. I was surprised by how well Stand By Me held up over the years. In fact, I think if the film had been made today, it would have looked very similar.

The best books are the same way. They're timeless. They're not flash-in-the-pan with the coolest slang or loads of pop culture references. They're the kind of books that kids in twenty years will pick up and read it in awe, unable to believe that it's twenty years old.

That's it, I suppose. There's a lesson to be learned from Stand By Me. Maybe it's never make fun of someone because they might puke all over you. Maybe it's something else.

Something To Say

2011-03-18T13:42:00.000-04:00

Writing isn't about messages. People who sit down at their computers or typewriters or notebooks to force feed a message to their readers are doing it wrong. Books can have messages. They can be about important things. But the message isn't the IT. The plot, the characters, the story of it all, that's the IT, the thing about which you could be concerned.

But you should still have something to say. Don't worry if it's worth saying; it'll be worth it to someone, somewhere. You should have a point of view that's unique to you.

Hannah Moskowitz is a good example of someone with something to say. So far I've only read BREAK, but based on what I've read about her forthcoming books INVINCIBLE SUMMER and ZOMBIE TAG, along with BREAK, it's pretty clear to me that Hannah has something to say about the nature of brotherhood. About the interactions between members of a family. About how your family can ruin you but how you'll try to support them anyway. Her characters in BREAK were so frustrating because I could see that their fierce love and loyalty for one another was killing them. I've heard that in INVINCIBLE SUMMER, the brotherly relationship goes beyond co-dependent, beyond affection to something more. I can't wait to read it because Hannah has something interesting to say about brothers and family and how fucked up they all can be.

But I guarantee that she didn't sit down to cram that down your throat. She wrote a good book and her point of view simply bled through.

I have something to say about how regular people relate to a screwed up world. I don't care about extraordinary people. They're boring to me. I think ordinary people, quiet overlooked people are the real heroes. But I don't set out to make you see that. When I sit down to write, I want to tell you a story about a kid who's got one day to live, about a group of friends partying in parallel worlds, about a guy playing hide & seek from Death in the hospital where his parents died.

So make sure you have something to say, just don't worry so much about saying it. Write a great story and the rest will follow.

I'm No Mozart

2011-03-14T09:20:00.001-04:00

Go read THIS article.

If it's too long, then the gist of it is that this guy created a computer program that can create music by assimilating other music and rearranging it. That's a gross oversimplification. You should really read the article.

It made me think though. Are all my books just gutters in which the flotsam and jetsam of my daily life collect and organize into a semi-choerent form? The names I use for characters, the songs they like, they way the dress. Are they all just bits and pieces of my life?

Better yet, are my books living dreams? If dreams are my subconscious' way of making sense of the world, are my books just dreams that I have while awake? We call it inspiration but maybe writers just process the world in ways that seem alien to other people.

Or maybe I'm just a computer program running on a server somewhere and this dream of existence is just a glitch in the system. A hiccup as I sort through data.

Kill Bill and Other Stuff

2011-03-13T12:31:00.000-04:00

The time change really messed with my head today. I'm pretty sure there's a reality in which I'm still in bed sleeping with the covers over my face. Of course, there's also probably a reality where I'm bathing in noodles, so whatever.

I'm feeling down on the whole Internet thing. The introvert in me needs a break but the Internet feels inescapable. A vacation would suffice but that's probably a long way off. In the meantime, I might just shut off Facebook and Twitter for a while.

Three observations:

1. I was hanging with the bf last night playing Wii. One of the things I love about him is that he is infinitely patient, rarely lets anything bother him, and has this "go with the flow" mentality that makes being with him so easy. And then we played video games and it brought out this competitive streak that was really quite jarring. Not bad, just different. And it made me realize that when creating characters, little surprises like that can help make a character more real. One situation can turn a perfectly wonderful person into a basket case.

2. I was watching Kill Bill and I got to the scene in the trailer home where Beatrix is fighting Elle. It's my favorite fight scene of the entire duology because of how limited it is. They had a wide open desert outside the door that they could have fought in, but Tarantino decided instead to use the limitations of the trailer--the narrow halls and cramped, confined spaces--to elevate the duel. Instead of a hinderance, he used it to his advantage. Impose limitations on your story and see how creative it makes you.

3. The title, KILL BILL. I have to come up with a title for my next book and watching Kill Bill made me realize just how perfect the title is. The movie itself is so layered. There are subplots and stories within stories. It's such a brilliant bit of writing. Yet, the title tells you everything you need to know about the movie going into it. It's about killing Bill. And at the end of the day, everything that happens ties directly or indirectly to that singular event. I think the best titles are like that. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is another of my favorite titles.

Blog Chain - A Lot to Learn

2011-03-12T17:35:00.001-05:00

Back on the blog chain! This weeks topic is brought to us by the lovely Sarah, who wants to know:

What has been the most unexpected part of your writing journey up to this point? What has happened that you could never have predicted? Has it been a help or a hindrance?

There have been a lot of surprises on the road to publication, but the most unexpected thing is how much more I have to learn.

The naive Shaun, went into this publication thing with a solid book thinking that once published, he could quit his job, sip coffee, write all day, and people would publish everything he wrote.

Life love smacking me in the face with reality. The truth is that I have a long way to go, a lot to learn. Being published isn't the golden ticket that I (and a lot of other people) thought it would be. Look at it like this: Those million words you write as you're learning your craft are like college. Your query letter is your resume. Getting an agent and getting published is like landing your dream job. But once you land your dream job, you don't get to put your feet up and relax. You have to work hard every day. You have to prove to you bosses that you deserve your job, that you're the best person for it, or they'll can you and give it to someone else. There's always more to do, more to learn.

Writing, as in life, is a process, not an endgame. I think that was the most unexpected thing I've learned.

So head on over to Laura's blog to see what she wrote yesterday, and since I'm the end of the chain, if you haven't read the rest, just keep going backwards from there.

Distractions

2011-03-11T16:31:00.000-05:00

Word counts. Turn them off. I used to use the live word counter in MS Word. But I found myself constantly looking at it. Gauging my worth as a writer by it. Usually I do an end of the day check to see how many words I've written and I've put myself on a strict schedule. Sometimes you need to do that, like when you have a deadline looming.

But sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is blinding and you just need to focus on putting one foot in front of the other so that you don't trip and fall.

And by you, I mean me.

Seeing the forest for the trees is great and all but sometimes the trees are pretty too.

I need a nap.

Writing is Hard

2011-03-10T12:05:00.000-05:00

Sometimes writing is hard. Not just the coming up with stories or working through a difficult scene. I mean that sometimes you aren't in the mood. Sometimes life intrudes. Sometimes your alarm goes off and you feel like getting up and sitting in front of the computer is the worst fraking thing you're going to have to do all fraking day. It's not; that would be too optimistic.

Job problems, money problems, significant other problems, friend problems, house problems. You're going to have them all. And they're all going to suck the life out of you.

But the writing will always be there. Waiting.

If you sit around praying for the day when your dog won't be barking outside the door and the lawn people won't be mowing right outside your window and people won't be calling you to fix their computers and you won't be exhausted, then you will be sitting around for a long, long time.

Write through the good times, embrace the bad times, and keep on trucking.

Or give it up and take up knitting. Of course, if you could do that, you already would have. Welcome home, word junkie. Get to work.

Like an Onion

2011-03-07T08:41:00.000-05:00

I've been doing a lot of revisions this year. When I write a first draft, I usually have only a vague idea of what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and what it's going to end up being. There's always the possibility that I'm going to get to the end of a first draft and realize that I don't even like the story much at all. That's why first drafts are exciting. They're trips into the unknown. Anything can happen. The possibilities are endless.

Second drafts are where I begin to think about structure. I wonder if I'm using the right POV, if I've got too many characters or too few, if I'm suffering from that dreaded middle drag (I usually am). This last weekend, I spent a lot of time thinking about subplots.

Does a story need a subplot? No. Not necessarily. I'm sure there are books out there with no subplots. But a good subplot or two will enrich your world. Especially if it ties well into the main plot arc. ***Deathday Spoiler Alert***

One of my favorite subplots in Deathday was Shane's coming out. Some people saw it coming from a mile away, others were clueless until he spilled it. In another story, this subplot could have been a throwaway. Characters coming out just aren't the shocker they used to be. But I didn't do it for the shock value. I did it to tie back into the concept of living before dying. Of seizing the day rather than seizing the deathday. Shane comes to realize throughout the day that until he tells Ollie his secret, he's not really living. That one day he might end up a kid with a letter and only one day to fulfill all his dreams. So Shane tells Ollie and (I like to imagine) goes off to have this really awesome life. And for Ollie, it shows him just how much he's touched the people in his life and how much his last day has meant to everyone, and not just him. Shane's personal journey impacts Ollie's physical and emotional journey.

Layers. Like an onion.

To be honest, it's not a particularly subtle subplot. A good subplot is like a soup. You add your ingredients and let it simmer for days. You let the flavors develop and the deepen and intermingle. JELLICOE ROAD is maybe one of the best examples of subplot I've ever read. By the time you get to the end and see how all the strands come together, your mind is already blown.

But my point is that subplots aren't just random plots thrown in. They need to be developed along side the main plot, they need to connect to the main plot, and they need to be real and flow organically from the story.

It's Alive!

2011-03-03T11:44:00.000-05:00

I love to learn. I was a good student in college but I attended in fits and starts because while I love learning, I hated being taught. But that's a topic for another blog. If I had my way, I'd audit college classes for the rest of my life and learn anything and everything I could. I'd be that old dude in the back of the class always interrupting the lecture to ask questions.

I've been reading Donald Maass' WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL because I've heard from a lot of friends that it is a good book. I credit Stephen King's ON WRITING for giving the me the necessary push that ended up landing me my first book deal, so I thought Maass' book might help me continue to grow. As a writer, we should constantly seek growth.

Most of the stuff in there feels like stuff I already know. But that doesn't mean it's not useful. For example, I'm working on a new draft of a book that I really love. It's about a young man who lives in a hospital. I don't want to give anything away but in writing this draft, I've taken a lot of care with refining the characters from my first draft and making the plot more streamlined. All the things that I should be doing in a second draft. I've had a lot of time to think about it as it's been over six months since I wrote the first draft, and I really felt like I was nailing every chapter, ever scene.

Except...I started reading Maass' book and I had a very sudden realization between the chapters on setting and character that I'd been ignoring the biggest character of all. The hospital. The concept of the story is simple: Andrew Brawley lives in a hospital, hiding from Death, who was late to get him the first time around. He comes out of hiding to befriend a boy who was set on fire by bullies and will risk anything to keep Death from getting the new boy too. I spent countless hours crafting the cast of characters that inhabited the hospital but forgot that the hospital itself was the most important character of all. It lives, it breathes, it has moods.

And this wasn't a new revelation for me, merely something I'd forgotten, that I'd overlooked in my desire to make everything else right. Even if I get nothing else from Maass' book (which I'm sure won't be the case), it opened my eyes to something I'd forgotten. Places are characters too. Don't forget about them.

And don't stop learning.

What Are The Rules

2011-02-28T08:27:00.001-05:00

I'm not ashamed of the fact that I'm a Vampire Diaries fan. The show, not the books; I've never read the books. It's entertaining, fun, I don't have to think too much, and the writing is witty and never dull. A lot of shows have maybe one WTF moment in an episode. Some only one per season. Lost was famous for having that one WTF moment near the end, the moment that reversed everything, turned the world on its head. But TVD has so many of those moments that they should really just call it: WTFVampires.

One of my concerns has always been that, as they pile on those WTF moments, the internal logic of the story will begin to crumble under the weight of so many reversals. I thought that had begun to happen during an episode a couple of weeks ago. Our trusty anti-heroes found out that the Big Bad they were supposed to kill could only be killed in one very specific way. With a knife dipped in some special ashes. And that after, the knife had to be left in for the Big Bad to stay dead. It was a WTF moment that irked me. It threw a wrench in our anti-heroes' plans and I felt like it was silly.

"Why don't they just dismember the body, burn the pieces, and bury the ashes at remote parts of the world?" I asked my editor via email conversation.* It seemed silly to me that they'd just leave the body of their most formidable enemy to date hanging out in their basement with a dagger sticking out of his chest for anyone with hands to come along and pluck out.

So there I was having this existential crisis over the illogical turn WTFVampires had taken when my editor came along and saved me. She's SuperEditor. She told me that dismemberment and burning of vampires had never been part of WTFVampires' mythology.

Duh! SuperEditor hit the nail on the head. Internal logic preserved. The writers had never created the expectation that killing a vampire in that fashion was part of the norm, therefore the readers (watchers) shouldn't expect it either. It made me think about my own books. The lesson I took from this is all about managing a reader's expectations. Story logic isn't always real world logic. Maybe if YOU locked yourself out of your house, the first place you'd look for a spare key is under the flower pot but if the character in your story always kept the spare key on the ledge over the door, it might not occur to her to check the flower pot, no matter how much you yell at her.

You can do almost anything you want in your book so long as you manage the expectations of the reader. Give your reader no reason to expect a character won't do something (in fact, give them plenty of reasons to think that he won't) and they won't roast you alive when your character doesn't do that thing, no matter how stupid not doing it might seem.

And in case you're wondering, our dashing anti-heroes on WTFVampires, did make an attempt to burn the body in following episode and discovered that even in its dead state it was immune to the flames.

*Yes, this was an actual conversation. And yes, I love my job.

Clever and Beautiful

2011-02-21T11:13:00.000-05:00

This month has been BUSY! Working on a March 1 deadline, which has taken over my life. But in a good way.

During the brief moments of respite that I have right now, I've been revising a book that is very dear to my heart. It's a bit of a labor of love that sometimes feels like more labor than love. Still, I adore it so. I haven't looked at the book much in maybe six months, so I returned to it with fresh eyes, trying to be a reader rather than a writer. I had made a lot of notes to myself about particularly clever or beautiful passages in the draft that I was reading.

And yet, when I read them this time, they pulled me out of the story. That's not to say that the lines weren't clever or beautiful or both, simply that they were writerly, which was part of the problem.

Take the following description of a character:

Emma's a sweet girl raised on sitcoms and infomercials. Sometimes I think she's about as fragile as one of those little glass figurines you can buy for three easy payments of $19.95, but then she wrestles a drunk into a bed and I know that her bones are steel.

In my original draft, I made a note about how much I loved this description. Yet, when I reread it, I had to stop and think about what kind of girl she'd be if she were raised on sitcoms and infomercials. Optimistic? The kind who thought all problems were solvable in just thirty minutes? Someone with a short attention span? I think this description is clever in that the first sentence calls to mind so many possibilities, then the second sentence describes her fragility while calling back to the infomercial in the first sentence, and then providing a contrast that topples the notion of her fragility. But for the cleverness I'm left unsure just who this girl is.

Sure, as the story progresses, we learn more about her, but this is the first time I introduce her, so I should provide a clear, meaningful description of who my main character thinks she is. And this paragraph, while possibly clever, doesn't do that. Not only does it pull me out of the story because I have to think about the meaning, but it isn't particularly meaningful.

The same can be said for beauty. Nearly every sentence that I tagged as particularly beautiful was distracting. The sentences were meaningful and even did their job, but the flowery language distracted me.

I suppose what I'm saying is that, as writers, sometimes we tend to get caught up in our own genius. But beware lines that you're overly taken with. Tag them and then take them out and see if they impact the story. There can be beauty in bold, plain statements, and cleverness in simplicity.

Writers, This Applies to You

2011-02-18T14:32:00.000-05:00

Follow the link. Read the whole thing, down to the last line. Then go forth and write like a motherfucker.

Best Writing Advice Ever.

Borders Closing and What it Means to Me

2011-02-17T12:38:00.001-05:00

I've thought for a while about what to say in regards to Borders' bankruptcy filing. There seems to be a pall of doom hanging over Twitter in regards to this but I have to say that I don't think this is all bad.

Yes, it sucks that a lot of employees will lose their jobs. There's no way to spin that into a good thing. But this is happening all over. Friends have lost jobs, the economy is in the tank, even my own job is uncertain.

Let me back up. My fondest book experiences come from wandering small Waldenbooks stores in my youth. They weren't the megastores that we have today but they were big enough to have a little bit of everything. The people who worked there genuinely loved books and were always eager to push their favorites. Indie bookstores are even better.

See, in this age of digitalization, the best part of bookstores isn't how many there are or how big they are, it's the people who work in them. I don't have time to read about every new book coming out. I depend on recommendations from friends and booksellers and librarians. I have a core group of people who can get me to read anything.

In my opinion, the reorganization of Borders gives it the opportunity to regroup. To find what it does best and then focus on that. In the age of e-books, we simply don't need sprawling stores that take up more space than an Ikea. What we need are smaller stores, stocked with knowledgable people.

Imagine this: Small stores, like boutique stores, that specialize in certain books. Similar to Books of Wonder in NY, which specializes in children's literature. More money is spent on well trained, knowledgable employees because carrying stock isn't a requirement. Sure, they'll carry the hottest, best selling titles, or titles that the bookseller feels passionate about, but they won't need to stock them all. Because there will be a couple of computer stations throughout the store where customers can purchase any book not stocked through an affiliate program. This includes physical books AND e-books. Programs like Google's e-bookstore allow booksellers to sell e-books. That way you can go to your favorite indie bookstore and buy the books you want for your Nook or Kobo or whatever, while still making sure to support that store. And since booksellers won't have to devote as much space or cash to stocking every single book ever written, they can stock their core sellers and still have access to the rest. Leaving them more money to focus on having the best booksellers in the business. Because when it comes to pushing a book, nothing beats a real live person who loves it.

Maybe I'm being optimistic, but I think the time of the book megastore is over, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I'm psyched to see what the future brings. I think that bookstores will need to become destinations. It's so easy to sit at home and buy books from my couch, so bookstores will need to become places we want to go if they want to capture the sales.

I think that small stores with this type of concept can be profitable in a digital age. And I think that if Borders is smart, they can emerge from this a stronger, better, more viable company.

Blog Chain - Show Me the Love

2011-02-14T08:28:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! And not only is it Monday, it's also Valentine's day.

When it comes to the V-Day, I've never been particularly lucky. Over the years, I began to see the day as another corporate marketing strategy to make single people feel awful and committed people feel the deep burning desire to go to the mall and spend money.

I still think Valentine's day is a sorry excuse to get us to buy cards and chocolate (Okay, I don't really need an excuse to buy chocolate) but this year I'm feeling a little mushy on the whole thing. This year I'm feeling the love. Which leads me to this blog chain's question:

Who is your favorite literary couple and why?

It's easy to root for the dramatic relationships. The love triangles. The doomed-to-failure love destined to reach across time and space. But those relationships are basically crap. I'm not being cynical. Those relationships are great fun to write (and read) because they're easy. Take boy, add girl, dump on complications, multiply by drama, watch the chaos. But that's not real love. Not in my opinion.

Real love takes time. It's slow. It's sneaky. Half the time, you're in it before you realize it and by that time, it's too late. Real love doesn't threaten to commit suicide for you, it brings you bendy straws when you're sick with a sore throat.

That's why my favorite literary couple is Taylor Markham and Jonah Griggs from Jellicoe Road.

I've made it pretty clear that Jellicoe Road is one of my favorite books ever, and if you read it you'll know why. There's so much that happens in that book but the relationship between Taylor and Jonah is just amazing. It's a slow build that you don't see coming until it's too late. They don't see it coming either. But that's not what makes it brilliant. What makes it brilliant is that when love does rear its head, it feels so right. You see them come together and you're like, "Duh!" Their drama is personal. No one dies, there's no love triangle, no misunderstood kisses. It's just sweet and real.

And that's it! As I'm the first link in this chain, you'll need to head over to the super sweet Sarah's blog tomorrow to see who her favorite literary couple is.

E-Books: Stop Being Lazy

2011-02-11T08:09:00.000-05:00

I am a reader. I've been a reader far longer than I've been a writer. I've been reading e-books now for a little over a year.

And I've figured out what bothers me about e-books.

They're riddled with mistakes.

I'm currently reading EVERLOST by Neal Shusterman. I've loved two of his other books and everyone told me this was the best. But my enjoyment of it is being disrupted by issues with the Kindle version of it. There are so many errors in this book that I'm almost unable to finish it. Characters called by different names in the same chapter, formatting completely messed up, parts of sentences missing. This book is a mess. And it's not the only one.

Less care seems to be taken with electronic versions of books than their counterparts. Now, I've only read Kindle versions but I'm willing to bet that these sorts of errors pop up in other versions too. I applaud authors and publishers who take the time to make sure the e-versions of their books come out properly. Patrick Ness stated on his blog that they'd held up the e-release of his Chaos Walking books until they were able to get the "Noise" to show up properly. But it still seems that publishers are rushing books to the e-market without taking time to make sure they're good.

Listen, it's not going to be long before e-books sell just as many copies as regular books. Stop treating them like second class products. If the book isn't perfect, don't send it to market.

Dear Authors

2011-02-10T12:43:00.000-05:00

Don't do it.

No one likes bad reviews. They sting. But the thing about the Internet is that it gives everyone a voice. Which is a good thing. Hell, it's a great thing. It means that people who may have no other outlet will have a way to reach the masses.

It also means that every single person who has an opinion on something has a way to shout it to the world. Maybe you don't like that opinion. Maybe you think it's unfair or unjustified. Maybe you're even right.

But you should never, ever, EVER, respond directly to a bad review. Never call a person or a website or a reviewer out by name. It doesn't matter what your intentions are or what justification you use, you will always look bad.

If you read a bad review and you feel like you HAVE to respond, then write out that response. Write every horrible thing you want to say. And then send it to your mother. But don't put it up for the world to see. And don't make comments anonymously; everyone will know it's you.

Just step away from the keyboard and let it go. Your career will thank you.

What is a Family?

2011-02-04T12:04:00.002-05:00

I think this speaks for itself.

Blog Chain - Out There

2011-02-03T11:15:00.000-05:00

This week's blog chain, started by the awesome Amanda asks the question:

Are you a good social networker? What aspect of platform building do you focus on the most? Which aspects freak you out?

Blerg, I say. Blerg!

I admit that I go through phases of being a good social networker. But mostly I suck. When I began this blog, way back when, I did so more for me than for anyone else. I wanted to keep track of my progress as I began a serious path to publication. It was a of keeping myself honest. Then I found myself with actual people reading this blog. Over the years, I've tried to develop themes and such, but the simple truth is that I'm not organized enough for that. I generally blog about whatever pops into my head at the moment. I'm not particularly eloquent with my blogs because I often forget that these aren't just for me.

When it comes to Twitter and Facebook, I don't consider them platforms for my writing so much as places to chat. Sure, Twitter has helped me with promotion events, but I consider that a halo effect. It's not why I do it. To be honest, Twitter has lost some of its shine. It's difficult to keep up with, I go for days without being able to check it, and sometimes I miss so many tweets that it's impossible to keep up. Facebook is the same.

Between you, me, and the Internet, I'd much rather be a passive participant to all this social networking stuff. I'm introverted by nature, usually seeking out one or two people to hang out with. My circles of friends have always been limited. So it's mentally exhausting trying to keep up with loads of people. But at the end of the day, it's rewarding. I've met some great friends through Twitter and Facebook and this blog. The awesome folks on the chain are definitely at the top of the list.

For me, I just try to focus on being me. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. It's not possible for everyone to like you, so I don't try. I just be myself and let whatever happens happen.

The only aspect that truly freaks me out is having to do signings. I'm good with people one-on-one, and I'm good in front of an audience, but that aspect gives me cold sweats. I think it's because people expect me to be funny. I wrote a funny book which means I should be funny in real life, right? Not so much. The reason I'm a writer and not a stand-up comedian is because I don't think of the funny stuff until hours or days later.

Right! So what about you? Go check out the amazing Laura and see what she had to say, and then go check out the spectacular Sarah tomorrow!

Ignorance

2011-02-02T13:00:00.000-05:00

Ignorance isn't just bliss, it's essential.

This morning I read fellow Tenner Steve Brezenoff's blog post about how he cancelled his Google alerts and made a decision to stop looking for the endgame in this whole writing thing. I honestly read the post and then moved on without thinking about it until I read a review of Deathday that pissed me off.

Since Deathday came out, I've done my very best to be zen about reviews. I avoid them if possible. I remember in 2009 following the flameout of a romance author who got into a fight on Amazon with a bunch of readers over some bad reviews, and I made the decision right then never, ever to become one of those people. Bad reviews happen and I should get over it. But this review was particularly annoying for reasons that aren't important. What's important is that it pissed me off. And I was pissed off for a a while. Until I remembered Steve's post.

Reviews don't matter. A bad review, one person missing the point so badly that I'm not sure they even read the book, doesn't change the fact that I loved writing it. I love the characters. I loved working on it with my editors. I love holding it in my hands and knowing that it's out there. I'm not going to stop writing what I love.

So I took Steve's advice. I cancelled my Google alerts. My Goodreads Author page is dead to me.

Because writing is its own reward.

People who read the book, they have the right to feel any which way they want to about it.

And I have the right to plug my fingers in my ears and shout, "Nah, nah, nah, nah! I can't hear you!"

Deadlines

2011-01-31T08:47:00.000-05:00

I don't like giving advice to writers because I don't necessarily consider myself an expert on anything. When it comes to writing, I kind of feel just as lost as always. But there's one thing I am good at and that's meeting deadlines.

The number one barrier most authors face is finishing the damn book. They come up with all kinds of excuses. The book sucked, they had a better idea, Lost was on. But it usually boils down to an inability to get your butt in the chair and write.

What works best for me setting goals. Like giving yourself 8 weeks to finish a first draft. I should note here that when you set your goal, you need to be realistic. For me, 8 weeks is a totally realistic deadline. I write 6 days a week for a minimum of 2 hours. That gives me 48 days of writing. If my book is 60k to 70k words, that means I have to average between 1250 to 1450 words per day. By breaking it down like that, I take the sting out of it. Thinking about writing 70k words is painful but 1250 is totally doable. Your schedule might be different so you should adjust accordingly. If you can only write 3 days a week for an hour a day, then be honest about that. But find the time to do it. My agent told me about a friend of his who writes exclusively on his lunch break.

But it's not enough to just set a goal. You have to be accountable. People do it in different ways. They tell their friends, they talk it up on twitter, they challenge each other. I do it with a spreadsheet. I keep a daily log of my word count. Then at the bottom, I have a countdown to the number of days I have left, the number of words I have left, and how many words per day I have to average to meet my goal. That last number is important because it goes up or down depending on my output. If I have a bad couple of days where I don't write much or I don't write at all, that average goes up. It keeps me accountable. It says, "Okay, you screwed up, but here's how many words you have to write per day to catch up." I've got a huge sense of self-guilt, so when I fail to meet my "goal," I feel really crappy and use that to surge ahead.

An unintended positive consequence to getting into a habit like this is that it enable you to be able to visualize later on how quickly you can complete a project. Take the book I'm working on now. When I began, I intuitively knew it would be around 70k words. I set myself a deadline of January 15. I'd started around the holidays and had forgotten to take into account the number of days I wouldn't be able to write, so I extended my deadline to Feb 1. I finished the book yesterday with a word count of 67500.

I feel like I'm rambling here. But if there's one thing I can impart it's the importance of deadlines. You don't have to tell anyone about them, if you're worried about being embarrassed for not meeting them. The only person you really need to be accountable to is yourself. But setting deadlines and really trying to stick to them, can be a great motivator to do the one thing most unpublished authors are unable to do: finish that book.

Blog Chain - Fears

2011-01-29T13:37:00.000-05:00

It's Christine's turn to start the chain this time around, and she picked a hell of a question.

"What is the main character of you current WiP most afraid of and why? Don’t use a previously finished work. This is all about discovering the inner motivations of your current characters – the ones you don’t know all that well yet.”

How am I supposed to answer that one? I'm currently working on my YA that's due out next year, but it's kind of bad luck for me to talk about something I'm in the middle of working on, so I'll use an MG I've been thinking about working on after I finish my YA.

The MG is about the day aliens invade a small town in FL. My main character, Max Gamble, has just lost his father, and his mother works all the time. On the day of the invasion, Max is left alone with an elderly woman and two delinquent neighbor kids. Max's fear is simple: That everyone he knows is going to leave and he'll be left alone. That's Max's biggest fear. And I think it's justified. Losing his father woke Max up to the fact that people leave. They die, they disappear, they simply walk away. The things in his life that seemed so concrete before, suddenly became mutable. The foundation of his beliefs is weak.

And then the aliens appear and very literally begin taking people away. Max's greatest fear comes true.

I've only written one MG before but I like MG for different reasons than YA. YA is all about exploring boundaries. Exploration of the self. Whereas MG is about coming to terms with the things in your world. I think MG is that age where you're just beginning to learn that not everyone is nice, not everything is fair, and not everyone is what they appear.

So that's my answer! Check out Laura who answered before me and Sarah who will talk about her characters' fears tomorrow!

You Gotta Have Character

2011-01-28T13:21:00.000-05:00

A couple of posts back, I talked about the US remake of Skins and why it was important. I stand by everything I said, but this morning I watched the first episode of the 5th season of the UK Skins and I want to talk about why the US version sucks and what that has to do with you as a writer.

It's all about character. For those not in the know, every two seasons (or series as they call them in the UK) they dump the cast and start fresh. So newcomers can always jump on board and get to know the new group of misfits. This season began with a girl named Frankie. She dressed like a boy and was bullied at her old school in Oxford. She's trying to begin again, start new, but she's worried that no one will like her or that the past will repeat itself. In this episode there is drinking and snogging and smoking and some drug use. Along with trespassing and skinny dipping and theft and bullying. But those things are there to titillate. They're just part of the landscape. The real stars are the characters. The crazy diverse characters.

See, that's why the US version of Skins is failing. Character should inform plot, not the other way around. The US remake is trying to be daring for the sake of daring, not because the characters demand it. I feel that for the remake to be successful, they should take the concept but ignore all the characters that came before. Start fresh, just like the UK version does every two years. By mimicking, they're letting the plot lead the characters and not the other way around.

As a writer, that's an important lesson. If you want to be daring or bold or "edgy" (which is such a bullshit word these days), then those things MUST flow from the character and not the other way around. When Ollie gets high in Deathday, it's not because I wanted to be cool. It's because it's his last day. He's dying. The opportunity presented itself and he went for it. The plot flowed from Ollie. An extreme example comes from The Marbury Lens. It's one messed up book. There's a lot of everything. Swearing, drinking, name calling. But it all flows seamlessly from the characters. It never feels forced.

The way to think about it is this: If your characters were real, would they do the thing in real life that you're trying to make them do in your book? If the answer is no, then don't do it. I know some people will say that they're YOUR characters and they should damn well do whatever you tell them to. They're right. But then they won't be good characters. Readers, especially teens, can smell bullshit a mile away.

Plot's important, I don't want to say it's not, but characters are the key, in my humble opinion. And by the way, setting is a character.

The Writing - It Goes

2011-01-26T15:59:00.000-05:00

I'm in the home stretch for the book I'm working on and that means that I've gotten to the point where I have to start bribing myself to finish. It's not that I dislike working on it--I love it like cake--it's that I'm impatient. I want to be done. I want to move on to one of the other million ideas I've got.

My impatience was one of the first hurdles I had to overcome before I could become an honest-to-goodness writer type who actually finishes books. I overcame it with bribes. I have daily little bribes. Like if I hit my word count, I can have cookies or a special dinner. Then I have bigger bribes. Like if I average a certain number of words for the week, I can go see a movie or buy something shiny. And finally, I always buy myself something nice when I actually finish a book. It doesn't have to be anything big. For example, when I finish this book, I'm going to buy myself a new pair of running shoes. Maybe not the most exciting gift in the world, but my feet will certainly thank me.

I'll actually be happy to finish because I miss talking to my friends here and on Twitter. I haven't been very good lately. Actually I've been bad for about two months. I didn't want to be one of those people who only Tweets during their book launch season and then disappears. But between real life and book writing, I've not been able to make much time. With a little luck, that will soon change.

So what do you use to bribe yourself into finishing things? Not just books, but anything. I'm all ears.

Guest Post - Michelle McLean

2011-01-25T09:19:00.006-05:00

I want to welcome Michelle McLean to the blog. Her first book Homework Helpers: Essays & Term Papers is available now. I got to read some of Michelle's book and she's got a wonderfully informative and warm approach that I think is going to be really helpful to anyone struggling with writing assignments or anyone who just wants a refresher.

I'm going to let Michelle talk now but I'll put up links to her book at the end along with all her contact information. Thanks, Michelle!

Fiction and non-fiction may seem a world apart, but they have a lot more in common than you may think. Sure, non-fiction books are generally there for more educational purposes, to inform their audiences, maybe even teach them something. But you know, if you are a non-fiction author and you want people to read your book, you still have to make it interesting.

Which is why I have always been confused as to why so many textbooks and guidebooks are so dry, humorless, borrrrrrring. Yeah, they are there to teach you about something, but really, why not jazz it up a bit? Why bog it down with so many huge, unutterable words that only the highest degreed people in that particular field will understand it?

My guess is that a frustrated student isn’t going to get a whole lot of help from a book they have to have a dictionary, translator, and PhD to understand.

I kept this in mind when writing Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers. Yes, it will give you a bunch of rules. And yes, the purpose of the book is to show you how to write an essay or paper. But I worked very hard to make this book as understandable as possible. I want my readers to feel like I’m sitting right next to them, explaining as plainly as possible every single step they need to take. And just in case they are still confused, I have a TON of examples so they can actually see what I’m talking about.

And not just any examples…almost all of the essays samples included in the book are assignments I actually wrote for classes (the rest I wrote specifically for the book). So if you want to see the types of things I used to write about, go check out the example essays :D

Look, the bottom line is everyone out there is going to have to write at least one essay at some point in their lives. It’s unavoidable. Why make it any more difficult than it needs to be? :)

Michelle McLean is a writer and the Chief Editorial Consultant for PixelMags, LLC. In addition to her non-fiction work, Michelle writes YA historical novels and other children’s books. If she's not editing, reading or chasing her kids, she can usually be found in a quiet corner working on her next book.

Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers is a fun, user-friendly book that guides the reader, step by step, through writing a dozen different types of essays, including the dreaded SAT essay. Using straightforward, plain English, this book shows the reader exactly what they need to do, from start to finish, and includes rough draft, edited, and final draft versions of every type of essay discussed. This book also provides chapters that include tips and instruction on researching, proofreading, and citations.

Thank you again, Michelle!

So where can you get Homework Helpers: Essays & Term Papers? Here are some links for you:

Amazon

Borders

B&N

And you can find Michelle at the following places (as well as on the blog chain!):

Michelle McLean

Michelle's Blog

Operation Awesome Blog

Facebook

Twitter

The Reality of Young Adulthood

2011-01-24T08:46:00.000-05:00

Before I write about what I'm going to write about, I want to let you all know that tomorrow I'll be hosting the amazing Michelle McLean on the blog. Her book Homework Helpers: Essays & Term Papers is out now so she'll be stopping by with a guest post about how to jazz up non-fiction. Michelle rocks so stop by tomorrow and show her some love!
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So here it is: The Happy Days....not so happy. Charles wasn't always in charge. That Full House was full of lies. Prime time family shows are bullshit.

There. I said it.

This is a difficult post for me to write because it involves the new MTV version of Skins, a brilliant British import. It's difficult because the remake was horrible. It was a helpless, hapless ghost of the original. And yet, I feel the need to support it for two reasons. The first is that I hope it finds its voice and becomes at least as good as the original. The second is that there is a need for shows like it on the air.

So what is Skins? It's not a poor version of Gossip Girl. It tells the stories of real kids doing things real kids do. The thing about Gossip Girl and shows like it is that they feature obscenely rich kids in exotic locations...OUT THERE...doing things most kids will never get to do. Whether you realize it or not, there's safety in that. Most parents who let their kids watch GG aren't worried that their kid is going to suddenly inherit a trust fund and start doing lines of coke off of other rich kid's Gucci handbags. Shows like GG are so out there that they're easy to dismiss.

A show likes Skins is not.

The kids in Skins are written by and portrayed by kids their age. 16-18 year-olds. They're kids I could have known in high school. They're kids, your kids probably know. That's what makes them so scary. You watch them getting high and screwing their brains out and, as an adult, a little voice in your head SCREAMS that kids shouldn't be seeing this.

But you're wrong.

Because kids aren't just seeing it. They're DOING it.

Not all of them. Kids are as diverse and varied as crayons. I didn't experiment until I was out of HS, and I know people who have never tried drugs. I know some who tried them all in HS and are now as straight as arrows.

But shows like Skins along with books that provide honest, frank depictions of teenagers (books by the likes of Hannah Moskowitz and Andrew Smith and Ellen Hopkins) are essential. Pretending that kids don't do those things, or putting them in bubbles, doesn't actually protect them. In fact, I'd argue that it does more harm than good.

I'm not going to argue that the show doesn't glorify some things that shouldn't be glorified but that's what honesty is about. I know there's this idea that if you see a kid doing something they ought not be doing on TV that they should subsequently be punished in some way. But that's just not how life works.

The reality of Young Adulthood is that it's fucking messy. Kids are stupid. They do stupid things. They experiment with sex and drugs. They're absurdly reckless. Sometimes that leads down dark, terrible paths. But more often than not, those kids grow up and go on to be your real estate agent or tax preparer or your kids' teacher.

So before you condemn a show like Skins, watch it. Watch it WITH your kids no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. Talk about it. Understand that your kid and ALL the kids don't live in a PG world. You may not like shows like Skins, but your kids probably do. And if it helps them relate to their world, you should be for it too.

Steal This Post

2011-01-21T14:34:00.000-05:00

There was a bunch of hoopla a week or two ago about book piracy. My initial gut reaction was, "Argh! Stealing is BAD." I mean, I know a lot of these people that book pirates are stealing from. That's money out of my friends' pockets. Bad pirates! BAD!!!!

And then I saw another post today and I realized that people are thinking with their guts and not their brains. So I've decided to put in my two cents.

First off: Make no mistake. If you download a book you didn't pay for without the author's permission, you are stealing. There's no getting around it. However, it isn't the bookpocalypse people are making it out to be.

Let me give you a little history on me. Back in the early part of the decade, when Napster and Audiogalaxy made stealing music easier than breathing, I allegedly downloaded a ton of music. I mean, I used to line up hundreds of tracks in my queue every morning and then let them download all day. This was back before it was strictly considered illegal. I knew it was wrong then and I know it now. But the thing to take from this is that being able to sample music made me much more likely to buy a band's music.

It seems counterintuitive, right? But stealing made me a better consumer. Let's say I walked into a music store and was looking through the CD rack. Maybe I came across a CD that looked interesting. But I had no way of knowing if the band was any good. Money was tight, so I passed more often than not, tending to stick to the bands that I knew. But downloading introduced me to indie bands that I might never have given a chance. Bands that I still buy music from to this day. Bands I went to see in concert. In short, if I hadn't been able to download music, I would have never taken a chance on a lot of bands and they would have lost my money.

Ten years later, there's no real reason to steal music. Bands stream tracks for free on-line, iTunes gives you 90 second samples, Myspace is still a decent place to find unsigned acts (though not much else), Pandora and indie Internet radio stations consistently play little-known bands right among the well known ones. These days it's easy to learn about and sample new music without stealing it.

But how does this translate into book piracy. Well, here's the thing. If your book isn't selling well and someone pirates it, chances are that they're much like I was when I was pirating music. I couldn't afford to take a chance on an unknown, so I downloaded it. If I liked it, I supported it. Now, you can definitely argue that libraries and e-galleys and wonderful sites like PulseIt which put my book on-line for free for a month, give people the chance to sample books. And you're right. But e-books are still in their infancy and it's still easier to torrent a book than find somewhere to read it legally.

One of my greatest joys is reading a book so amazing that I immediately have to share it with someone. Before I purchased my Kindle, I would just pop that book in the mail and let them sample the goodness within. If my friends loved it like I did, 9 times out of 10, they purchased the author's next book. By sharing, I'd made consumers of my friends. But you can't share e-books. Yet. I know that both the Nook and Kindle have a "sharing" feature, but out of the 70 books on my Kindle, only 16 are eligible. That's 23%. Which is miserable. Now, you can allegedly strip the DRM from Kindle and Nook books and share them with your friends, which is fantastic. You just have to trust that your friends will delete the book when they're done and not share it with the whole wide world.

What I'm saying here is that stealing is bad. But instead of punishing book pirates or scolding them we need to make sure that we're giving them easy ways to be consumers. Now before someone comes and tells me, I know that some people are ALWAYS going to pirate books. There's just no getting around that. But I'm not going to waste my time tracking them down. Because quite frankly, my hope is that if someone does hypothetically download my book, that they'll like it and tell their friends, and that when my next book comes out, they'll support me. If even 10% of the people who steal my first book buy my second, then I've won.

Because the thing I believe is that someone who pirates you book likely wouldn't have bought it anyway. But there IS the chance that you've created a fan. Cory Doctorow takes this stance and releases all his books under the Creative Commons license. He put his books up for free download on his site and lets people convert them into every known format so long as they aren't DRM'd and you don't make money off of them. I downloaded Little Brother from his site and then recommended it to others who bought the physical copy. When For the Win came out, I bought the book. See how that works?

I'm not going to defend piracy. It's simply an indefensible act. However, I think it's a waste of time to rant about its evils and chase down every single person torrenting it or sue your customers into oblivion. I think our energy as a whole would be better devoted to finding ways to give people what they want, the way they want it.

Stealing is wrong, mmmmKay, but being unknown is wronger.

The Explainer

2011-01-17T08:52:00.001-05:00

In The Deathday Letter, I know everything. I know what I meant. I know why Ollie acted the way he did. I know where the letters come from. I know everything.

And I'm not going to tell you.

There's this story called The Replacements by Lisa Tuttle that I studied in college. Basically it's about a man who sees these creatures all over the place. They're attached to women by a golden chain, and the animals drink their blood. The women choose the creatures over the men. You should really read it if you get the chance. My professor taught this story as a look at how a man feels during a pregnancy. Like he's being pushed out of the relationship by the unborn child. When I read it, I saw it as a discussion on abortion. I created the argument based on the text and presented it to my professor. It was an interpretation of the reading he'd never seen before. He didn't necessarily agree with me.

And there was no way to prove either interpretation. Because they're that. Interpretations. They're not right, they're not wrong. They're yours.

When I let go of Deathday, I knew that people were going to read things into Deathday that I never intended. The possibility existed that people wouldn't "get" Ollie the way I did. And I made my peace with that. In fact, I've seen some outstanding takes on Deathday...ideas that I didn't intend. Interpretations I didn't expect. And that's pretty cool.

Because people are pretty cool.

And smart. Deathday isn't mine anymore. It's yours. All the books are yours. All the books belong to you.

Handling Diversity

2011-01-13T13:25:00.000-05:00

This is less of a post and more of an open call for discussion. I'm curious how you all handle writing diversity and how you read diversity.

I love filling my books with people of all colors and races and sexual orientations and genders. But I hate drawing attention to it. Because people don't walk down the street going, "LOOK AT ME! Over here! I'm ASIAN!" Unless of course, you're Margaret Cho. People just are who they are, and I like writing diverse casts. I don't think you have to write a gay character and then make the whole book about their gayness. I think race and all those other things are just facets.

But I'm asking you here. Does it bother you when writers attempt to write outside their comfort zone? Like Shane. He was black. I'm not black. Did it bother anyone? I'm curious. Are any writers out there intimidated to write people of other races or genders or sexual orientations?

Speak to me!

Blog Chain - The Good and the Bad (but mostly the Ugly)

2011-01-12T12:09:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the first blog chain of 2011! I've been absolutely swamped the past couple of weeks so if I owe you emails or anything like that....sorry :)

So this blog chain was started by Sandra who wants to know:

What do you think your strengths and weaknesses as a writer are? Did you have to develop your strengths, or did they come naturally to you? How are you trying to overcome your weaknesses?

I actually think about this a lot. Writers really need to be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses so that they can better themselves and their writing.

What do I think my strengths are? My voice and my characters. I think that above everything else, those are the things I do best. I don't know why or from where those skills came but when I write people, I see them like 3-D. I like to develop their flavors like stew. I rely on them to push the story forward.

And I blame the voices on mental illness. Don't you agree? I do. Thanks.

My weaknesses are many and varied. I suck at plotting, I get caught up in minutiae, I'm easily distracted, I have tons of writing tics (like repeating things three and four times), I have rely too heavily on words and phrases. I could go on and on.

I'm a pantser so it's hard for me to outline, but I'm trying to be more aware of plot before starting a story. More often than not, I find myself 3/4 through a story with no firm grasp on the plot. Sure, the characters rock, but what are they doing?

For the rest, I just try to stay cognizant of my flaws. I rely on "just" a lot, so whenever I catch myself writing that word, I put in something different or delete it. I try not to let people rolls their eyes or grin a lot. I keep a list of words that I overuse.

I think weaknesses are only weaknesses if we fail to recognize them. I'm sure I have more than I don't know about, but the ones I do see, I'm trying to fix.

Welcome to 2011! If you haven't read Laura's awesome list from yesterday, go do so, and then tomorrow go to the Awesome Sarah's blog to see what she thinks her strengths and weaknesses are.

Authenticity

2011-01-10T10:16:00.001-05:00

I hate preachy, self-righteous books. The ones where you can tell that the characters are simply a mouthpiece for the author's agenda. It doesn't matter whether I agree with the author or not, I don't read fiction for the sermons. And if you love books, chances are that you don't either.

Sure, we love a good message. I love getting to the end of a book and realizing some universal truth. But subtlety is key here. Some people maybe say that authors, especially YA authors, have a duty to shape young minds. But I call bullshit. My only job as a YA author is to tell a good story. I was reading an interview with the creator of the Brit show Skins on his work importing it to MTV here in the states, and one of the things he said surprised me. In essence he said that one of the main differences was that the consequences of the teens' actions had to appear much sooner. If they took drugs or had sex, the punishment must come quicker. Wait, what? Why do we have to punish teens in stories for doing the things that teens do? Yes, teens do bad things. And sometimes bad things happen to them. But there isn't a causal effect all the time. Some girls have loads of sex and never get pregnant or get an STD. Some girls have sex once and get one or both.

So I guess what I'm talking about is when authenticity and the messages we want to convey collide. If I want to show a party scene in which a bunch of kids get high, do I later need to show them getting into a car crash on their way to a late night Taco Bell run? Is it a literary sin to show a youth enjoying a debauched night of drinking and partying without consequences? I drank as a teen and not every experience was bad. In fact, some were pretty damn fun. I'm not endorsing that kids go out and get plastered, but sometimes they're going to do it and it's not always going to have a lesson at the end of it.

On the other side of authenticity are authors who have their characters act and speak, not like adults exactly, but how adults WANT teenagers to speak. And I think if we're talking about literary sins, that ranks WAY above sin without consequence.

Writing is all about making choices. And I may have veered far, far from my point here, but if you choose to write a story that's about SOMETHING rather than about SOMEONE, then you're not writing for kids, you're writing at them.