Lisa Roecker's Blog, page 52

WTF Wednesday: Frustration

After reading some of the comments from yesterday's post I decided it might be time to post something that we wrote a few months ago. We had hit a major bump in the road to publication and were beyond frustrated. As Heidi Willis said yesterday, "Once you get published it doesn't feel like the dream came true. It feels like it's just getting started."

I don't want you to think we have rainbows shooting out of our asses, because we most certainly DO NOT. We've gotten rejected more times than I c...

Two Years Ago Today...

Two sisters sat on the phone and had a long talk.
A talk about their lives. (they sucked)
Their dreams. (they weren't even sure they had any)
And their big idea. (to write a book and get it published)
If we had known then how much hard work it would take to get us where we are today, I'm not sure if we would have had the guts to even start.
But we've come a long way baby. 
And if we had to do it all over again, we would. 
Now we're soon-to-be-published authors. (March 2011, baby!)
But there are...

The Monday Mouth-Off with Miley Cyrus

It's Monday and we're sick of the sound of our own voices after spending the entire weekend on the phone hashing out edits, so we decided to put words into Miley's mouth. She rarely has anything remotely interesting to say anyways.
Don't knock toeless socks till you try 'em, y'all.[Miley's remake of Achey Breaky Heart:] Don't tell my unitard, my hole-y sparkly unitard, It just might snap off and leave me naked.Once a Disney Princess, always a Disney Princess.Your turn. Fill in Miley's word...

Bring on the Betas...

So, the last week has been all editing, all the time. Lucky for us we have an amazing beta ninja who's willing to read (and rip apart) our work as we go. She gives us the gift of instant feedback and we will never, ever be able to thank her enough.

And now it's time for the big test.

We're sending our baby off to people who have never read our writing before (unless you count the blog). Writers who don't know Kate or Grace or Seth. Writers who (if we're being totally honest...) scare the shit o...

The Bookanistas: An Interview with Author Lee Bantle

Today we'd like to welcome Lee Bantle, author of the acclaimed DAVID INSIDE OUT. 
From the publisher: David Dahlgren, a high-school senior, finds solace in running with the track team; he's a fast runner, and he enjoys the camaraderie. But team events become a source of tension when he develops a crush on one of his teammates, Sean. Scared to admit his feelings, David does everything he can to suppress them: he dates a girl, keeps his distance from his best friend who has become openly gay...

In Which the Sister-Editors Turn on Each Other

After five straight days of editing things inevitably start to fall apart. Our children start to hate us, our houses look like someone bombed them with toys and cookie crumbs and our yoga pants start to develop a very distinct odor. Life isn't pretty in LiLa land at this stage of the game and it's usually right around this time where we start to turn on each other...

Lisa: There's something wrong with the big reveals. They don't feel big.

Laura: *silence*

Lisa: Hello? Are you there? The book su...

Confessions of a Sister-Writer Editing Team

Hi, my name is Laura and I'm the one who contributed 99% of the gerunds/participial phrases (whichever are the bad ones) to our manuscript.

Hi, my name is Lisa and I'm obsessed with unnecessary additions of "that." Sometimes Laura deletes them and I add them back in.

Hi, our name is LiLa and we still really, really like adverbs that end in -ly and we tend to overuse the word "look."

Move over Stephen King.

From LiLa-ctionary: Edit Brain

 1edit brain Pronunciation: \ˈe-dət\ \ˈbrān\Function: transitive verbEtymology: Skype conversation between the sister-writers Lisa and Laura Roecker, commonly referred to as LiLaDate: July 20091: complete inability for normal brain function following excessive editing of manuscripts 
2 : emotional detachment and inability to interact socially while consumed by editing your novel 
3: inability to come up with thought provoking or entertaining blog posts while engaging in the act of editing  
4strong

The Top 5 Things We Learned This Week

1. Editing can be fun. No seriously! We're actually kind of enjoying edits. Don't tell anyone though, ok? We don't want this getting around...

2. Spelling out "HOME" in fireworks still doesn't make people want to stay in Cleveland. Shocking, right? I feel like Cleveland was acting like a stage-5 clinger in the whole LeBron James scenario. Maybe it's time that we all start focusing on fixing some of the bigger problems that plague our city as opposed to pouring money into sports teams that most...

The Bookanistas: STRANDED by J.T. Dutton

We are so excited to introduce a new book review blog chain called The Bookanistas. We're a group of writers who are at various stages in the publishing process and have decided to band together to recommend and promote the books we love. As writers we've made a conscious decision to post only about books that we're excited to read or books that we've already read and loved.

We will post reviews every Thursday that cover various topics – upcoming ARCs, books we've read and enjoyed, and even...