Christina Hoag's Blog, page 7

Blogging about writing for YA readers

I'm on Anne Williams' book blog today, writing on the challenges of writing for a teen audience. Anne has a huge following on her UK-based blog, and I'm grateful for the tweet storm that my post has received! Here's the link & post!

http://beinganne.com/2017/03/guestpos...

I’m delighted to welcome author Christina Hoag as my guest on Being Anne today. Christina is the author of two novels – Skin of Tattoos, a literary noir gangland thriller, and a YA romantic thriller, Girl on the Brink. Today Christina has written a fascinating piece about the boundaries – and challenges – of writing YA. Over to you Christina…

There’s no question that YA is the genre du jour. Literary agents and editors all seem to be seeking the next big thing in young adult, especially the “crossover” novel that can hit both the teenage and adult markets.

So when I started writing my novel Skin of Tattoos it seemed to me a no-brainer to make it a YA book. The book is a thriller pivoting on the rivalry between two street gang members in Los Angeles. Since gangs are primarily composed of young men, many of them teenagers, it seemed to be a natural fit for YA. Great, I thought, I can jump on the YA bandwagon. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, either writing the book or selling it.

First, in writing YA, authors must keep in mind the limitations on a teenager’s life, namely they generally live with their families and have to answer to parents. The author must account for these family characters in some way and establish their relationships with the main teen character. Specifically, the author must invent excuses for the parents not noticing the behaviour of the teen that generally makes the conflict of the plot.

I notice a lot of YA books have the teen (girl, more often than not) alone with a divorced or widowed parent, which makes the mum or dad conveniently more distracted or absent-minded, leaving the teenager to get on with the plot. A lot of teen protagonists are also only children, another handy mechanism that eliminates the need for the author to deal with sibling relationships. Although these scenarios certainly occur in real life, it’s probably not quite as often as in YA fiction. Authors must also keep in mind that friends are hugely important in adolescence so friends must play a major role and those relationships must be established. Likewise, teens are not adults. They are subject to school rules and a different set of laws, which may affect the plot.

Elements such as profanity, obscenity, drug use and sex must be considered. The author can include those things but she must consider her goals for the book. If she wants to sell into school libraries and cast a wide net for readers, which would include adults who buy books to give to teens, she may not want to include the racy stuff. On the other hand, teens themselves may actually be drawn by the edgier, grittier and more realistic content.

YA books also have a more uniform style. They are overwhelmingly told in first person, mostly present tense, in a day-to-day fashion so the reader feels a part of the protagonist’s life. The voice must also be right. A certain tone of snarkiness in interior monologue and side comments seems to be what agents and editors like although in reality teens don’t talk like that as often as books would have you believe.

YA is overwhelming a girls’ genre. Visit a bookshop’s YA section, you’ll see most titles are romance-oriented or otherwise female oriented with girls on the cover. I didn’t initially view this as a hindrance. After all, my teenage son had often complained to me that he didn’t like reading books because he couldn’t find any action/adventure books more suited to boys. I figured there must be a market for boy YA.

But the truth is not really. Agents and editors are looking for what sells, and that’s by and large girl YA. Nevertheless, when I sent out my manuscript, I got nibbles and a few bites, and eventually I landed an agent. (That’s the subject of another blog post!) The book, however, didn’t move. To make a long story short, I parted ways with that agent and then I saw what I needed to do: make Skin of Tattoos an adult novel. I upped the age of my protagonist, Mags, by a couple years, to twenty, and suddenly he was freed of the constraints and limited world view of a minor, yet still young enough to have issues with his family and make the boneheaded mistakes that youths make as they enter adulthood. As a writer, it was like shedding shackles.

Mags instantly became old enough to have a level of awareness about himself and the world. He could come to terms with his family problems with the emotional depth that a teen likely wouldn’t have. It made his character, the main plot and the family-issue subplot that much richer.

After much revision, I got a deal with a small publisher, and Skin of Tattoos was finally released to the world last August, after a winding path to publication. Moral of the story: thoroughly research your genre before you sit down and write!

Enjoyed that, Christina – thanks for joining me today! Let’s take a closer look at Christina’s books…

On the blogs: My rocky road to publication!

The Hazardous Hippo (love that name!) features my post on "My Long, Winding and Rocky Path to Publication." If you're starting to despair, read on for inspiration!

I was incredibly excited when I landed my first offer of representation from a literary agent for what was then my novel “Skin of Tattoos,” a YA coming-of-age thriller set in the gang underworld of Los Angeles I’d sent out about 90 queries, had received a few requests for pages but no bites and I was starting to despair.
Then I got the call. During our conversation, the agent said, “I don’t really like agenting. I’m just, sort of, doing this.” It struck me as odd, but I couldn’t turn her down. What if I didn’t get another offer?
I signed and we met. During the conversation, she told me that a publisher had agreed to take one of her books but had never followed through with the contract. Again, it didn’t paint her in the best light, but I figured that could happen to any agent.
Several months later, my book had been rejected by about 10 houses, and she stopped submitting. Then I got an email – she had submitted to one more publisher. Relief. Then I waited. Was she submitting it to more? Was this really it? Wasn’t she supposed to keep submitting? Or maybe this agent didn’t have a very deep “bench” of editors? I recalled her previous comments. She didn’t like being an agent and she couldn’t close a deal. It was dawning on me that I hadn’t made a good choice.
Nevertheless, I tried to make the best of it and soldiered on. I told her about my second novel, “Girl on the Brink,” a YA about a teen romance that turned abusive that was inspired by true events. She seemed excited, and I pounded out a draft in several months and submitted it, hoping for a meaningful critique that would help me develop it further, a la Maxwell Perkins. That’s what agents do, right?
Nope. She was scornful about my manuscript, but couldn’t articulate what was wrong, instead telling me to read “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” which I’d heard of but never read. I looked it up. It was published in 1964.
She made it clear she didn’t want to read revisions--“It’s not good for us to read the manuscript multiple times.” Huh? Instead, she recommended a “book doctor” so I called the person. By now, my eyes were far less starry and I asked discerning questions. The “doc” had no publishing background. She’d been a screenwriters’ agent and her YA credential consisted of having a 15-year-old daughter. For $500, she’d read my manuscript and give me a critique over the phone. She repeatedly stressed the phone part. Talking, of course, is much easier than spending time writing a detailed critique, and it’s far more convenient than meeting in person.
Luckily, I wasn’t convinced. I got off the phone and immediately felt the crushing disappointment of realization that I had simply signed with a lousy agent. I had fallen in the trap warned about on so many book blogs, advice sites for new writers, etc. My depression lasted a week, then I realized something else.
What I did have were two detailed critiques from top editors at major New York publishing houses. I studied what they said, pulled “Skin of Tattoos” apart and rewrote extensively. I made it an adult book by upping the age of the protagonist, which turned it into a full-fledged thriller, and chopped it into two books. It worked far better.
By the time my contract expired six months later, during which time I never heard again from the agent (She never even responded when I sent her a polite email thanking her but stating I wouldn’t be renewing the contract.), I had a new manuscript.
I started seeking an agent once again. This time I honed my search carefully and eventually landed an agent whose name I had plucked out of the acknowledgements section of two crime books published by major houses. This agent really was a professional. She loved the book and promised to keep sending it out until we got a deal.
While this novel was on submission, I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote the “Girl on the Brink,” working on the voice and inserting more suspense elements, turning it into a romantic thriller with a social message. My agent didn’t want it (in fact, she was cross that I had written a YA: “You’re all over the place. That’s not how you build your brand.”) so I submitted it to publishers on my own and eventually got a deal.
To my great disillusion, however, “Skin of Tattoos,” didn’t sell after about 40 submissions despite garnering some real praise from top houses. I realized a hidden truth about publishing – the quality of the writing didn’t necessarily matter, nor even the story, as much as whether it was deemed commercial and fit neatly into a genre.
Eventually, I started researching publishers on my own and sent lists to the agent, who sent it out to those she deemed worthwhile. She took longer and longer to respond. After two years, the agent told me she could do no more.
I went back to the manuscript yet again, cutting about 12,000 words, deleting stuff that both agents had told me to include but really didn’t fit the story, again paying attention to the few worthwhile things rejecting editors had said, and mostly to my own gut.
Five months later I had a contract with a small publisher and I wondered if I had done the right thing. Should I have just shelved the manuscript? Waited until I landed a major publisher and developed an audience and then dusted it off?
I’m so glad I didn’t. Both “Skin of Tattoos” and “Girl on the Brink” were published in August and have received excellent reviews from Kirkus Reviews, as well as from readers. “Girl on the Brink,” in fact, was named to Suspense Magazine’s Best of 2016 YA list. It had been an unbelievably long journey but I am thrilled I never gave up. There are far more routes to being published than the traditional one. The key is to believe in yourself and your story.

I'd like to thank Christina for her guest post and for taking the time to stop by today.
I'm planning on adding both of these to my ever growing TBR and if you've read either of Christina's books then I'd love to hear your thoughts.
http://thehaphazardoushippo.blogspot....

New 5-star review for Skin of Tattoos!

From reviewer/blogger Susan Hampson:
Review at https://booksfromdusktilldawn.wordpre...
Here's what she says about the book:
Well if you are wanting sugar and spice and happy ever afters then don’t read any further, you need fantasy and this is more like reality. It is gritty and raw, at times with a cruelty that so shocking that you really do feel the fear. This book is of course fiction but it has been written by a lady that has been right in amongst the real life homeboys and homegirls in Los Angeles and San Salvador. So this isn’t one persons story, this is a representation of all of them. All their stories melted into one and these are the characters Christina Hoag moulded them into.

Mags took the fall for one of his gang and ended up inside, he is a tough cookie that had to do his full time because someone disrespected his gang and he had to sort him out. He has no intention of ever going back in, just get it together and get out of it all, make a new life, but he knows leaving isn’t going to be easy or maybe not even possible.

I really did not want to like Mags, he was a very active member of ruthless gang but God damn it I really did like him. Christina Hoag has created a character that as a mum I can relate to, a loving boy that helps out and just got in with the wrong crowd. A boyfriend who is loving and faithfully and just wants a new start, well as soon as probation is over and just a couple more jobs to get some cash together, you know how it is and a big brother to watch over his sisters. How can you not like him?

There are some pretty scary people to read about that would put the fear of God in to you even in a room of policemen. There is no crossing the line, no forgiveness and definitely no mercy as far as punishing your own. Yes you are ‘family’ until something goes wrong, then God help you, but even he won’t come. This is a very visual read, such a very touching story for such brutal reality. A Brilliant book.

The boundaries of writing YA: on the blogs today!

I'm on author D.J. Adamson's blog today writing on the boundaries of writing YA. Check the link or read on!
http://www.djadamson.com/lartiste/mar...
There’s no question that YA is the genre du jour. Literary agents and editors all seem to be seeking the next big thing in young adult, especially the “crossover” novel that can hit both the teenage and adult markets.
So when I started writing my novel “Skin of Tattoos,” it seemed to me a no-brainer to make it a YA book. The book is a thriller pivoting on the rivalry between two street gang members in Los Angeles. Since gangs are primarily composed of young men, many of them teenagers, it seemed to be a natural fit for YA. Great, I thought, I can jump on the YA bandwagon. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, either writing the book or selling it.
First, in writing YA, authors must keep in mind the limitations on a teenager’s life, namely they generally live with their families and have to answer to parents. The author must account for these family characters in some way and establish their relationships with the main teen character. Specifically, the author must invent excuses for the parents not noticing the behavior of the teen that generally makes the conflict of the plot.
I notice a lot of YA books have the teen (girl, more often than not) alone with a divorced or widowed parent, which makes the mom or dad conveniently more distracted or absent-minded, leaving the teenager to get on with the plot. A lot of teen protagonists are also only children, another handy mechanism that eliminates the need for the author to deal with sibling relationships. Although these scenarios certainly occur in real life, it’s probably not quite as often as in YA fiction. Authors must also keep in mind that friends are hugely important in adolescence so friends must play a major role and those relationships must be established. Likewise, teens are not adults. They are subject to school rules and a different set of laws, which may affect the plot.
Elements such as profanity, obscenity, drug use and sex must be considered. The author can include those things but she must consider her goals for the book. If she wants to sell into school libraries and cast a wide net for readers, which would include adults who buy books to give to teens, she may not want to include the racy stuff. On the other hand, teens themselves may actually be drawn by the edgier, grittier and more realistic content.
YA books also have a more uniform style. They are overwhelmingly told in first person, mostly present tense, in a day-to-day fashion so the reader feels a part of the protagonist’s life. The voice must also be right. A certain tone of snarkiness in interior monologue and side comments seems to be what agents and editors like although in reality teens don’t talk like that as often as books stipulate.
YA is overwhelming a girls’ genre. Visit a bookstore’s YA section, you’ll see most titles are romance-oriented or otherwise female oriented with girls on the cover. I didn’t initially view this as a hindrance. After all, my teenage son had often complained to me that he didn’t like reading books because he couldn’t find any action/adventure books more suited to boys. I figured there must be a market for boy YA.
But the truth is not really. Agents and editors are looking for what sells, and that’s by and large girl YA. Nevertheless, when I sent out my manuscript, I got nibbles and a few bites, and eventually I landed an agent. (That’s the subject of another blog post.) The book, however, didn’t move. To make a long story short, I parted ways with that agent and then I saw what I needed to do: make “Skin of Tattoos” an adult novel. I upped the age of my protagonist, Mags, by a couple years, to twenty, and suddenly he was freed of the constraints and limited world view of a minor, yet still young enough to have issues with his family and make the boneheaded mistakes that youths make as they enter adulthood. As a writer, it was like shedding shackles.
Mags instantly became old enough to have a level of awareness about himself and the world. He could come to terms with his family problems with the emotional depth that a teen likely wouldn’t have. It made his character, the main plot and the family-issue subplot that much richer.
After much revision, I got a deal with a small publisher, and “Skin of Tattoos” was finally released to the world last August, earning praise from Kirkus Reviews as “a well crafted debut” from a “a talented writer.” Reading that made the exceptionally long journey and the heartache that accompanied it all worth it.

How I moved from journalism to novel-writing!

I'm on Author Anne Louise Bannon's blog today writing about the pitfalls and advantages of going from nonfiction (journalism) to fiction (novels). In short, it ain't as easy as it sounds but many do it, including myself. Read on or check the link!
http://annelouisebannon.com/blogs/#.W...
My connection to Christina Hoag is one of those things that really makes you believe in those six degrees of separation. We both belong to the same mystery readers email list, which how we first connected. Turns out, we’d actually met face to face the week before at our local Sisters in Crime chapter meeting here in Los Angeles. Even better, she knows some friends of mine from the Miami Herald. She’s also got a really great novel out, Skin of Tattoos, which came from her work as a journalist. Here she writes about the difference between the two.

Many novelists have started their writing careers as journalists. Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Graham Greene to name a few. But writing nonfiction is a different skill than writing fiction. To be sure, there are many similarities, but there are also key differences – namely one is restricted to truth and the other enjoys the panoramic realm of imagination. There are others that are less obvious, as I was to find out when I started writing fiction in earnest, trying to fulfill my childhood dreams of writing novels.

I’ve been a print journalist for thirty years. I’d written fiction on and off since I was a child. In fact, I won a prize when I was six years old for “writing interesting stories.” So becoming a journalist was a natural step for me. It’s been a career that I’ve loved but ultimately I also felt restrained by. It was always about writing someone else’s story. Fiction is your own story, of your own choosing, and I was eager to undertake this challenge, but in order to develop my fiction I had to “undevelop” several journalistic habits.

The key hurdle in writing fiction for journalists is emotion. Journalists are trained to be neutral observers, impartial witnesses, to present a balanced picture of the facts. Emotion, in your average news story, does not factor in the equation, although it does to a greater degree in narrative fiction. Emotion, however, is the cornerstone of good fiction. Novelists need to portray the range of emotion their characters feel in order to evoke emotion in their readers. There’s no need for balance or impartiality. Indeed, the less of that stuff, the better.

Those elements stand in the way of portraying emotion, and why, in my opinion, many reporter/novelists gravitate toward writing plot-driven stories, such as detective mysteries, where there’s more of a “just the facts ma’am” feel to that type of fiction. Mysteries, for example, generally involve little emotion or emotional arc in the characters.

When I was writing the first draft of my first novel, I got about 170 pages in and I realized what I’d written read like a reportage. I chucked it and started again. It actually took many more drafts before I found myself loosening the reins and letting that emotion come through. And when it did, it gushed out.

Something that really helped me in this regard was acting classes. Acting is all about depicting emotion. Once I gave myself license to do that physically in either scene work or exercises designed to reach and draw out inner emotion, it became much easier to do that on the page with my characters. I also understood better how emotion works in dialogue and scenes, how to show it more than tell it.

I firmly believe, however, that journalism is great training for novelists. Reporters instinctively know what a good story is. They know how to research, how to interview. They know that details can make a story come alive and how to construct sentences that make sense, and structure and order a story. They are exposed to all types of people, issues, lifestyles, experiences. As I like to say, I’ve interviewed bums to billionaires, presidents to prostitutes. All that makes great grist for the novelist’s mill. Maybe, most importantly reporters are used to sitting down in a chair in front of a blank computer screen and filling it with words—on deadline.

I would never exchange my background as a journalist for, say, an MFA. Yes, it may take some work to switch from one to the other, but many have done it, including myself.

On the blogs: Interviewed by Hannah McKinnon!

I'm in the "limelight" today on author Hannah McKinnon's blog. Thanks Hannah for interesting questions!
Read on or check the link:
http://www.hannahmckinnonwriter.com/a...
This week's Limelight guest is author Christina Hoag.
Hi Christina and welcome to the blog. Let’s start by you telling us about yourself …

Hi Hannah, and thanks for hosting me!

I am a journalist and novelist. When I was six years old, I won a prize for writing interesting stories and that’s basically what I’ve been doing ever since. I became a newspaper reporter so I could write. During my career, I worked for the Miami Herald and Associated Press, among other places. The highlight was reporting from 14 countries around Latin America and the Caribbean for major media including Time, Business Week, Financial Times, the Houston Chronicle and The New York Times. Now I do corporate communications writing and write novels.

And, of course, we’d love to hear about the books you’ve written. Tell us about those.

I have two novels published by small presses last year: Girl on the Brink, a YA romantic thriller, and Skin of Tattoos, a noir thriller.

Girl on the Brink is about a 17-year-old girl, Chloe, who gets involved with the wrong guy at an especially vulnerable time in her life, as her parents are splitting up. At first, she thinks Kieran’s the one. He sweeps her off her feet, to use an old cliché, and she experiences an incredible connection with him. Slowly, however, he reveals a very dark side of his character – he’s manipulative, abusive, violent, possessive. Chloe wants to help him, but despite what he says, Kieran’s not that keen on being helped. He pulls a huge move to harm her, and Chloe must use all her smarts, strength and courage to defeat him.
Skin of Tattoos is set in the gang underworld of Los Angeles, and the main character, Mags, is a gang member. We meet him as he comes out of prison wanting to go straight and never return “behind the wall.” To do that, he has to get away from his gang, which has undergone some changes since he’s been locked up, namely his rival Rico, who set him up on the charge that got him imprisoned, is now the leader and isn’t about to let Mags leave the gang. It’s a story of revenge and rivalry, but there are also other layers such as a coming-of-age theme as Mags heals his fractured relationship with his family, and there’s a romantic subplot, as well.
How different is writing for adults from writing for YA from writing non-fiction? How do you handle these different genres?

Nonfiction is probably the easiest because the story comprises facts. It’s all laid out for you. The challenge comes in organizing those facts into a narrative, sub-topics and so on. Writing for YA is, for me anyway, the hardest because you have the most constraints. Your protag is a teenager so you have to take into account the restrictions on a teenager’s life: parental control and school, plus their limited self-awareness and knowledge at that age, and use limited sex and profanity. Adult fiction, which is my preferred genre, is a wide open field!
You also co-authored a book. What was that experience like?

I co-authored Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence (Turner Publishing, 2014), a book on “gang intervention.” Basically I was the writer. I interviewed my co-author, noted gang interventionist Aquil Basheer, at length about his life and his program to train former gang members as community peacekeepers who disrupt the retaliatory cycle of gang violence. I also interviewed many former gang members, cops, psychologists and others who work in this field. It was a fascinating project, and I’m proud to say that the book is being used as a text in several university courses.
Are you traditionally or self-published? How did you go about getting published?

I’m traditionally published by small publishers, but I got both deals myself. I’ve had two literary agents for Skin of Tattoos but neither was able to sell it or wanted Girl on the Brink. I kept rewriting both and submitting to publishers who accepted unagented submissions. It took a long time and many, many rejections but I kept polishing and submitting until I found homes for both. I’m happy to say both books have been well received so I’m glad I didn’t give up. There are many ways to launch a literary career.



You’re a volunteer creative writing mentor with WriteGirl.org. Can you share how this works?

WriteGirl is an organization in Los Angeles that works to promote writing by teen girls and help them get into college. Last year I led weekly writing workshops with at-risk girls at an alternative high school; this year I’m a mentor at monthly workshops (each month is a different writing genre) in which the mentors are paired with girls for the day to help and guide them in writing exercises. It’s a great program that really builds self-confidence and validation in girls from all types of backgrounds. I really wish I had had something like this when I was in high school.



Can you tell us about your writing process? Any particular methods or quirks you can share?

I’m a morning writer. I get up early, have my coffee and check the news and sit down and write until I feel my brain turning squishy, usually early afternoon. Then I get some exercise and try to do some marketing work. I use an outline. Although I rarely stick to it, I still like having it as a guidepost to the next plot steps. It’s also good to have some type of ending in sight when you start although it can change. I find writing is a very fluid process. It’s often surprising where the story ends up.



What’s the most surprising thing you learned about yourself when you started writing creatively?

I’m always amazed at what I come up with and how I write myself out of plot impasses. I may be uncertain of where I’m going with a particular thread or I may get just plain stuck, but a way out always comes to me. It might be in the middle of the night or as soon as I get up from the computer or while I’m writing, but an answer always pops up. I’ve learned to trust my creative process and not fret about getting stuck.

Can you share your Top-5 tips for aspiring writers?

1. I don’t write myself out every day. I leave something – the very next scene, usually - so when I come back the next day I know what to do. I just pick up and keep going. If you write yourself out, then you end up wasting a lot of time wondering what comes next and trying to get back into the rhythm of the story.

2. If someone says something in your piece doesn’t work, it’s only one person’s opinion. But if two people make the same observation, you need to pay attention to what they’re saying. More often than not, it’s something that needs fixing.

3. Develop a thick skin. It takes courage to write and show your work to the world for judgment, but remember that not everyone is going to like your work, and that’s okay. You have to learn to let criticism roll off you. The nastiest rejection I ever got was from the editor of a literary journal who scornfully said of my experimental fiction submission, “Why would anyone even read this?” I kept submitting it and got the piece and another like it published in other journals.

4. If there’s someone in your life who does not support you creatively, either get rid of them out or distance yourself from them as much as possible. Be ruthless because your art is worth it. I’ve broken up with boyfriends because they were not supportive or had no interest in my writing. In my mind, you can’t be with a writer if you’re not interested in what they write because their writing is part of their self-expression.

5. This may be the most important tip of all: Believe in yourself. Believe that you have something worthwhile to say. Believe in your talent. Believe that you will succeed and that the rocky road is part of any artist’s journey.



Will you tell us about your latest project(s)?

I’ve got a romantic suspense novel called “Heat in the Tropics” releasing next fall from Melange Books under the pseudonym C.A. Elliott. It’s a romance between a reporter and a homicide detective set in a sweltering Miami summer. Under my own name, I’m currently working on a thriller set in South America called “Jungle.”

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

My next biggest passion is travel and sightseeing. I’ve travelled all over the world, the more remote the place the better! On a more daily basis, I love going for walks either in the outdoors or around art galleries and museums. Since writing is so sedentary, I need to get off my rump!

And finally, where can we learn more about you and your work.

The most complete place is my website www.christinahoag.com I also welcome people to follow my exploits on:
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Instagram

On the blogs: My Writing Dreams!

Today I'm on author Tam May's blog writing about my writing dreams as part of her "Author Dream Series. where guest authors talk about their writing dreams. Read on! Link at the end

When I was about six years old, I won a prize for “writing interesting stories” so I think writing was a gift I was born with. As a kid, I loved books – I devoured them. My mother would buy me a book on a shopping trip and by the time we got home, I had finished it, then I felt sad that I no longer had anything new to read! Loving books so much made me want to write them when I grew up. That was my dream from a very early age.

In high school, I discovered journalism – a career that would pay me to write! So although I wrote short stories on and off and took a couple creative writing courses over the next twenty years, my journalism career was really my focus. Fiction took a definite backseat, although it was always there in the background, waiting to get out. I just didn’t really know how to go about it. Anytime I launched a writing effort, I got discouraged early on.

It wasn’t until I became a single mother with a young son that I decided to fulfill my girlhood dream in earnest. I don’t know what triggered it exactly. Maybe it was that I no longer found journalism as fulfilling as I had, or maybe because having a child made my life that much more structured so I could develop a real writing routine and discipline.

I would get up at five in the morning to write in predawn hours, stopping at seven to wake my son and get him ready for school and me ready for work at my newspaper, the Miami Herald, where I was a business reporter. Waking up so early, however, made me flag by midafternoon. I usually took a ten-minute nap on the sofa in the ladies room around three p.m., which prompted many questions: “Are you all right?” I’d say I was fine, then get up, file my story and head home.

I finished that novel. It was no good, of course, but I’d finished. I knew it needed rewriting but I didn’t know what to do with it so I started another, which eventually became Skin of Tattoos. Now I knew I could finish a novel, my dream became getting one published!

I finished it and now I needed an agent, part A of the publication dream. After some 90 queries, I got an agent, who wasn’t very good and coming to that realization was painful. I moved on, rewrote my novel and started querying agents again, this time signing with a good one.

Now on to Part B of the dream-being published. Again, it was not to be. After two years of countless rejections, my agent and I parted ways. But I knew I had a good manuscript. I revised again, cutting over 10,000 words, and sent it out on my own. Six months later, I had a publishing contract.

While that book was on submission, I wrote a third book, a YA called Girl on the Brink, which both agents had scorned because I had made the mistake of showed them early drafts, naively thinking they would help me refine it. I tried to get a YA agent but there was no interest. I revised and revised and sent it out on my own, and finally got a deal. As with Skin of Tattoos, it was with a small, unknown publisher, but I didn’t care. I was going to be published.

Funnily enough, both books were released in August. I was elated. I’d done it! I’d accomplished my dream and I’d published not one, but two novels, after many years and untold disappointment and rejection. I learned there were alternate routes to accomplish my dream and all it took was perseverance and initiative.

My dream doesn’t end there, however. I want to move my literary career to the next step and expand my readership, but for that I need a major publisher to get the editing help and exposure that I need to do that. So my dream is still much the same as at the beginning except now I know that if it doesn’t work out one way, it will work out another.

https://thedreambook.wordpress.com/20...

New interview about Skin of Tattoos!

Author Laura Wolfe interviews me as part of Mystery Thriller week. Read on or check out the link!
Mystery Thriller Week Author Spotlight: Christina Hoag
FEBRUARY 19, 2017 ~ LAURA WOLFE
I’m thrilled to welcome thriller writer, Christina Hoag, to my blog. Sometimes you meet someone–either in-person or virtually–who you know for sure is WAY more interesting than you. Christina is one of those people. (Read her bio below if you don’t believe me!) I first learned of Christina through our mutual publisher, Fire and Ice, when they released her YA thriller, Girl on the Brink, last year. I’m excited to discover more about her debut novel, Skin of Tattoos, today!

When did you first know that you wanted to become a writer?

I won a prize for “writing interesting stories” when I was six years old so I guess writing was always there. It came out as soon as I literally learned how to put pen to paper. I discovered journalism in high school so I knew that’s what I wanted to do as a career. I’ve written fiction on and off my whole life.

What attracts you to writing in the mystery/thriller genre?

I love delving into crime–the seamy side of life and what drives people in that world, which is very different than mine! My characters do things that I never would so maybe that’s why I like writing them. I’m fascinated with the psychology behind the criminal mind and how people get to be that way, the risks they take. Other than that, crime makes great drama and conflict, the basis of any novel.

Is writing your full-time job? If not, what else do you do?

Lamentably, my fiction writing does not yield a sustainable income–yet! In order to eat, I do corporate communications/public relations writing: speeches, press releases, blog posts, that sort of thing. I also edit dissertations and do some journalism in the form of big reports for Congressional Quarterly Researcher. I work freelance so I can juggle my schedule to fit my novel writing into my schedule.

How do you deal with rejections and/or negative reviews?

Develop a thick skin. It takes courage to write and show your work to the world for judgment, but you have to remember that not everyone is going to like your work, and that’s okay. You have to learn to let criticism roll off you. The nastiest rejection I ever got was from the editor of a literary journal who scornfully said of my experimental fiction submission, “Why would anyone even read this?” I kept submitting it and got the piece and another like it published in other journals. I also allow time for the sting to wear off and then revisit the criticism in a more objective light. If someone says something in your piece doesn’t work, it’s only one person’s opinion. But if two people make the same observation, you need to pay attention to what they’re saying. More often than not, it’s something that needs fixing.

What time of day do you prefer to write?

I’m a morning writer. I get up early, have my coffee, check the news and then sit down and write until I feel my brain turning squishy, usually early afternoon. Then I get some exercise and try to do some marketing and social media work. It’s amazing how much time that stuff consumes!

Which well-know authors have inspired your writing?

Probably my favorite all time author is Graham Greene. Many of his books are about the concept of being a foreigner, an outsider/observer, which I relate to on a personal level since I’ve lived in many countries both as a child and as an adult. That influence comes through in Skin of Tattoos, where the protagonist Mags was born in El Salvador but left with his family fleeing the civil war when he was a child so he doesn’t really feel Salvadoran, doesn’t remember anything about the place, yet that is his identity. He’s an outsider to El Salvador, yet as an immigrant an outsider to mainstream American society, as well. He finds his home in a gang with others from similar backgrounds. Having lived in Central and South America, I’m also partial to Latin American authors. One of my favorite books is The Goat’s Party by Peruvian Nobel prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa. This book is a fictionalization of the 1961 plot to assassinate Rafael Trujillo, the dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic for 31 years. I found it fascinating, like a window into an unseen world in the way it fleshed out historical events with the motivations and emotions of the real people. I also loved Queen of the South by Arturo Perez Reverte, which takes readers inside the world of large scale drug trafficking, and The Cartel by Don Winslow, about the current gang wars in Mexico.

Those all sound like intriguing books. You obviously know your subject well! Thank you, again, for taking the time to share your Author Spotlight answers with me. I look forward to reading more from you in the future!
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On the blogs How I came up with Skin of Tattoos

Author Vicki Batman interviews me today on her blog as part of Mystery Thriller Week! It's a nice quick read in which I talk about writing and she included the first snippet to Skin of Tattoos. Thanks Vicki!
Read below or check it out at
http://vickibatman.blogspot.com/2017/...
TODAY’S GUEST IS AUTHOR CHRISTINA HOAG
author of Skin of Tattoos, a gangland thriller
WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO WRITE?
I won a prize for “writing interesting stories” when I was six years old so I think writing was something I was born with. Iwas also a voracious reader so that made me want to write books when I grew up. In high school, I discovered journalism - a career that would pay me to write! I wrote short stories on and off until I really focused on my childhood goal of writing novels about a dozen years ago.
ARE YOU A PLOTTER OR PANTSER?
A bit of both. I like to know where I’m going so I have a loose outline to avoid writing myself into corners. That said, I change stuff as I go all the time. Having at least a mini-outlines, even covering just the next chapter or two, helps to get you started when you sit down at the computer every day so you avoid wasting time wondering what comes next.
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA OF YOUR BOOK?
I went El Salvador back in 2000 to do a magazine story on gang members deported from Los Angeles to San Salvador, which most of them really didn’t know because their families had emigrated when they were infants with the result that they belonged neither in El Salvador or in the United States. Their story resonated with me. I could relate to them because I had moved around the world as a child, so I also feel I don’t really belong anywhere. Although my novel is not about deported gang members; it’s the tale of rival homeboys in L.A., the book was inspired by those interviews in El Salvador.

Girl on the Brink "Powerful YA novel"

Blog radio host Fran Lewis gives Girl on the Brink (He was perfect. At first) a 5-star rating on Amazon!
She writes: "Loneliness, insecurities, the fear of being unwanted, divorce in your family, dysfunctional parents and the desire to feel loved can all play a part in a young teens life causing that teen to make some radically poor decisions. Falling prey to the wiles of a young teenage boy who at first appears to be polite, respectful and attentive can make this young girl his perfect victim. Verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse are at the heart of this important novel for all teens to read and understand when someone comes into your life and their primary goal is to destroy and control yours.
Friends are precious but when you allow someone to alienate you from those that always watch your back, hear you when you are distressed and discount their feelings what is revealed in this novel will definitely hit home with many teens, adults and anyone that needs someone in their lives that is controlling and handles everything they do. What happens when Chloe finds herself deeply imbedded with Kieran will not only enlighten everyone to a young man who is violent, abusive and dangerous but will hopefully teach everyone adults, young adults and teens to watch out for someone who is erratic, violent, apologizes for hitting you and abusing you and then foolishly taking them back.
Chloe is doing an internship at the local paper and Marion her boss is quite precise in what she expects her to handle. Chloe is smart and can handle creating stories and even gets a front-page byline the first time out. Having her deal with police reports, court reports and learning how to access criminal records and prison releases will come in handy when something serious comes her way. She is a product of two parents that could care less about her or her brother Tyler. When Tyler decides to cut school and experiment with drugs and more his mother sends him off to a military school to learn discipline and a hard lesson.
Kieran comes into her life and at first he seems like her perfect match. Small dates to burger places, for ice cream, coffee and then fancy dinners and presents. He seems to be a perfect suitor until he is not. Always monopolizing her time and even trying to horn in on her job by wanting to see her shoot videos, photos and even criticizing the way she handles situations, should have set off red flags for Chloe. She is blindsided in so many ways and when her friends want to hang out, do parties, sleepovers or just get to together she blows them off when Kieran snaps his fingers. Without even realizing it or rationalizing that she might be hurting both Jade and Morgan’s feelings she continues on until Kieran shows his true colors. Whenever she talks with her friends, or even mentions going out with them he gets violent and jealous. At one time he is talking to a girl and someone walks over to her at a party and the end result is she gets hurt. Feeling sorry for him when he relates that his father as a kid abused him she feels bad and accepts his apologies. Her mother is desolate since her father left and seems to not really care about his two children. College tour weekend and he puts a business trip ahead of her making her know that she does not count. Even when he claims that he will take her the next time she blows him off while her mother hides behind pills and alcohol.
When things get really difficult and Chloe’s friends no longer want her around, call her or even eat lunch with her what will it take for her to realize that she is in a violent and highly volatile relationship? When her mother realizes that she has been injured and needs medical attention why don’t they call the police to have a record of what Kieran did to her? Why feel sorry for someone that needs mental help and counseling? When Clarissa suggests that she gently suggests to him that help might be right on target for his anger issues the end result should have awakened her.
Getting on great at the newspaper and her mother finally getting it all together but her brother wanting to live with his father, things are about to take on another serious turn. Breaking off with Kieran which is the right thing to do and remembering the good and the bad she is still conflicted in her feelings. When yelling at her because he cannot pay his rent because she demands presents and big dinners, she answers him in a way that makes him more irate. She does not need all of these things and would never make him strapped for cash and not pay his rent. Kieran needs a scapegoat and you can tell that in every relationship he refuses to take blame for his actions and apologizes but really does not mean what his says. He is seriously disturbed and not even his mother and his absent father can control him. Meeting her mother he thinks will temper things with his false personality but when things heat up and she finally breaks it off you won’t believe what he does to get back at her. Phone calls, threats, stalking and then why do the police come to talk to Chloe? What does he claim that she did? Will she wind up the one who is the final victim and will he win in the end?
With her mother finally on her side and realizing what is happening and finding her own peace with the divorce will Chloe finally come to terms with the fact that Kieran is dangerous? When her mother sees her face and what happened to her eyes will they call 911 and report it? When the police comes that is when Chloe loses it but finally springs into action using her reporting skills to try and take him down once in for all. Just what she does and whether she succeeds you will have to learn for yourself. This is a powerful YA novel that all teens should read as author Christina Hoag brings to light what happens to young girls that are so in deed of someone to care for them that they get blindsided and do not see the light until the darkness comes and it’s too late. Abuse of any kind is wrong and the author adds in resources for readers or anyone experiencing any of type abuse to contact. As she closes the resource section and I will close this review with that statement: IF YOU THINK YOU ARE IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP PLEASE GET HELP! You do not want to wind up as A GIRL ON THE BRINK!
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Brink-Nov...