Aimee Carter's Blog, page 7

They Have Arrived

Books! Books! Everywhere!

Those of you who follow me on Twitter probably already know this, but since I was terribly rude and only announced it via video, I thought a text version of my earlier announcement was in order. There are two parts to this awesome announcement, both equally exciting:

1. The third GODDESS TEST book is now a done deal! It's currently untitled, and while I've heard that the release date will be around November 2012, don't quote me on it. This may or may not be any surprise for those of you who knew that THE GODDESS TEST was supposed to be a trilogy, but I'm floored at the reception this trilogy has had so far, and I'm beyond excited for you all to have the chance to read the third.

2. My amazing publisher Harlequin TEEN has also bought my YA dystopian novel entitled MASKED. I'm so excited about this story, I can't even tell you. I've also heard this will be out in August 2013, but again, don't quote me on it. All of this is subject to change.

For those of you who would like to know what MASKED is about, here is the blurb from Publisher's Marketplace:

Author of the GODDESS TEST novels, Aimee Carter's trilogy MASKED, set in a future America in which a 16-year-old orphan is surgically changed to replace the Prime Minister's dead niece, and must deal with the dead girl's secret life, her fiancé, a growing rebellion and a kidnapped heir, along with the knowledge that the Prime Minister will kill to preserve his own secrets, again to Mary-Theresa Hussey at Harlequin Teen, by Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio.

So that's the big news! I've been sitting on it since December, and I'm thrilled to finally be able to share it. I've had a fantastic journey with Harlequin TEEN so far, and I'm so excited and grateful for the opportunity to continue it.

Only 36 days until the release of THE GODDESS TEST on April 26th!

You Are Amazing

This week has been a milestone for The Goddess Test. With a little under two months to go before it hits shelves, not only did Goddess Test pass 1,000 adds on Goodreads, but it also hit the top ten list of most requested galleys on NetGalley.com.

Adds have almost doubled. I gained over a hundred new Twitter followers. Fabulous reviews are coming out.  Things are happening.

And it's because of you. The bloggers. The early reviewers. The people who take time out of their busy schedules to read books and put their thoughts into words. The readers who hear about a book and tell their friends. Who tweet and link and add. You.

I want to gush. I want to hug each and every one of you. In late December, thirty people had added Goddess Test on Goodreads. Now, two months later, nearly twelve hundred people have, and the book doesn't even come out until April 19th. Your enthusiasm, your tweets, your blog entries and emails and everything you've done – it's magical what the YA blogging and reading community does for authors. It really, truly is.

If you decide to pick up or request Goddess Test, whether you enjoy it or not, thank you for giving it a chance. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read it. I won't pretend it doesn't hurt like hell to get a negative review, but it would hurt even more if no one were reading it at all. But because of you, readers know it's out there, and with a little luck, they'll give it a chance.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you times infinity. And if anyone ever makes you feel like you don't make a difference, send them my way and I'll set them straight.

Face to the Name

I feel odd posting this before THE GODDESS TEST has even been released, but Melissa Anelli asked about my dream cast for the book. And even though we have two months to go before the release, I figured it might be fun to give you a preview of some of the characters – faces only, of course. No spoilers here.

Let's start with Henry. Dark, tortured, and mesmerizing, or so the back of the book describes. Who better than…

Ben Barnes?

Just in case you're not completely convinced…

Really. He's perfect. And age-appropriate, since Henry is supposed to look like he's in his twenties.

Next we have James, who's described as blond, tall, and elephant-eared (and a cute, geeky nerd). He's hard to figure a face for, but if we're going mostly literally (minus the ears)…

Mitch Hewer. (Thank you, UK Skins!)

He's not a perfect fit though, and if we nixed the physical description and went with personality alone…

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Darren Criss. A+. If anyone could pull off James, he could.

Now, onto the girls! Kate Winters is the protagonist, and she's the one I can never picture. She has brown hair, and…yes. Let's just go with that.

How about…

Troian Bellisario? Or…

Mandy Moore, circa A Walk To Remember?

Ah, well. Picture whomever you'd like! Let's move on to Ava, who's blond, beautiful, and has had a mental face from before I started writing the book. Who's that?

Elisabeth Harnois. I can't believe she's almost thirty-two.

I would go on – there are plenty of other characters in the book – but I'll leave it at this for now! Once the book's out, we can talk about some of the other characters, but for now, these four are plenty.

Thanks for playing!

I Was a Teenage Writer

I started writing fan fiction at the age of eleven. I'll try to keep total embarrassment at bay and refrain from mentioning what kind of fanfic I wrote, but I spent hours every day at the computer, writing stories and reading others'.

By age thirteen, I'd moved on to Harry Potter fan fiction, which instead of slowing me down, only made things worse. I wrote hundreds of thousands of words in a few short years, and I loved every single comment I got. Even the bad ones.

By age fifteen, I started to write my own original novel. It was terrible. Let's just leave it at that. But I continued to write and write and write, more hundreds of thousands of words per year, some original and some fanfic. And once I realized that this was something that people could do for a living, I became convinced that in order to be noticed and published, I would have to get an agent and a publishing contract when I was still in my teens. Preferably high school, of course, since seventeen and a high school junior is much more impressive than eighteen and a college freshman. (This is my own teenage brain talking here. Both are seriously impressive.)

By the time I graduated from high school, I'd written half a dozen novel-length stories. Most of them I shoved in the drawer, but a few of them I did try to shop around to agents. I had a few bites and one agent I worked with for two years, but I never signed anything. Not in high school.

I was horrified. How was I supposed to be a successful writer if I wasn't published by the time I went to college?

Miracle of miracles, I signed with an agent as a college freshman. Finally, someone had seen my potential. Eighteen wasn't seventeen, but it would have to do. Except that contract only lasted a day before, due to circumstances likely beyond her control, the agent had to take back her offer.

Talk about painful. It was four years before I could bring myself to submit again, even though I continued to write. Inwardly I'd always known my work would have to stand alone and not just stand out because of my age. Who wants to be told "You write well for your age!" anyway? It always seemed a bit of a backhanded compliment to me, but there you have it. I still wanted to be traditionally published as a teenager.

The pressure was enormous–not because of any my father put on me, or even society. It was pressure I put on myself. I had to get this done now, else I'd never be good enough without the hook of being a teenager to lure readers in, and I didn't want to be a failure at age twenty. But on my twentieth birthday, that's exactly what it felt like. My birthday not only came with a new digit in front of my age, but also the realization that I was never going to be a teenage author like Amelia Atwater-Rhodes or S.E. Hinton.  And it was crushing. I'd failed something monumentally important to me, and there was no possible way I was ever going to be published now.

Two years later, I was signed by one of the best kid-lit agents in the business. A year after that, I signed my first publishing contract.

But that all seemed impossible on my twentieth birthday. If I wasn't a teenage author, then what was I?

I'm not alone. A lot of teenagers spend their lives writing and hoping for that big sale when they're still young enough for it to stand out. Maybe it's that extra push it would give them for marketing. Maybe, like me, it's that fear that if they're not young enough to be an oddity, they'll never get published at all.

But here's the thing: if you work hard at it, if you keep it up, if you learn your craft and don't let anyone tell you your time is up…well, there's still no guarantee. It's kind of like medicine: there's never any guarantee. But the only way to make sure you fail is to stop trying.

The pressure for teenagers to be great, especially in this day and age, can be crushing. Whether it's athletics or GPAs or popularity or writing, it feels like a race. There are so many milestones in those first twenty-two years–important birthdays, graduation, more important birthdays, more graduations–that it's easy to set a mile marker for yourself and say "If I'm not published by X, I'm going to quit."

Don't. Unless you can. Then stop.

You have to love what you're doing, and if you're writing for the joy of it, no one should ever be able to tell you to stop. Not even the DMV, when you receive that first driver's license that doesn't have MINOR printed on it. If you're writing to win a race with yourself, stop. Or at least stop the race. Life isn't a race, and success at too young an age, before you're mentally prepared–

How terrible would it be to be like one of those child stars? To hit your peek at age sixteen and to spend the rest of your life trying to match it? Or even come close. Imagine what the likes of Stephenie Meyer face now: the entire world expects excellence from her, and how is she going to live up to that with her next book? What about JK Rowling? Christopher Paolini?

Setting goals for yourself is important, but setting time limits–and that's exactly what they are, limits–is only going to hinder you. And make you feel like a failure when you haven't reached them. Failure's all well and good (see this awesome speech by JK Rowling), but there's no use in setting yourself up for it. Being a teenager–or any age when you've only been writing for a few years–is a time when you should be learning, not setting difficult hurdles. Concentrate on doing what you love, and you'll give yourself the best chance of success in the long run.

It's Sequel Time!

The sequel to THE GODDESS TEST, called GODDESS INTERRUPTED, has been listed on Goodreads, so check it out if you're so inclined! There's no information yet, and I don't think any can really be released until after the first book is out. But for now, consider this a placeholder. It's listed for release in February 2012.

I've written the prologue and first chapter of the untitled third book in the Goddess Test series and hope to be diving into that very shortly. Am so excited to get this entire trilogy written and sitting around somewhere, waiting to be read. Whether readers love it or hate it, I've had a hell of an awesome time writing it, and to me that's what matters most.

Also, I may be COMPLETELY off on this, but judging by the released-two-Tuesdays-before-the-first-Tuesday-of-its-release-month formula I think Harlequin Teen follows, GODDESS INTERRUPTED might very well be released on my 26th birthday. I'm not even 25 yet, so this seems way off, but still! How cool would that be? (Though admittedly I don't care when it comes out–I'm just thrilled it is.)

Oh, and the website is finally up and running! Not much there at the moment, but as soon as I have content to post, it'll be up.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I Review

In video format!

Beware, here be spoilers not just for the first movie, but for the entire Deathly Hallows book as well.

 

Top Ten "Wanna Be Her"s

Yesterday we covered the top ten fictional crushes, and while I was compiling it and looking at various books and movies, I realized that there are female characters in those books that I would love to "be". Certainly not all the time, but if I got to step into a character's shoes for a day, these female characters would be my top ten.

Why females? Mostly because if I included males on this list, I'd never get it narrowed down. So here we go.

 

1. Polgara (from The Belgariad/The Malloreon series): Supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world, three thousand years old (and still has the body of a twenty-something), and a powerful sorceress. Seriously. Fun times there.

2. Nymphadora Tonks (from Harry Potter): Not gonna lie. If I could have one super power, it would be to change my appearance at will. Vanity aside, how cool would it be to get to be anyone you wanted? The possibilities would be endless. Plus she snags Remus Lupin, so, you know. Not a bad deal.

3. Fox (from the movie Wanted): She's so kickass she makes me want to learn how to shoot.

4. Bella Swan (from Twilight): Before you feel like smacking me for this, I'd do it for one single reason: to tell Edward Cullen to go stalk someone else. And the free trip to Italy.

5. Katniss (from The Hunger Games): Kickass. Strong. And the opportunity to hang out with Peeta and Gale. Hello. Definitely not on a Hunger Games day though.

6. Belle (from Beauty and the Beast): One of my favorite Disney movies. My freshman year in high school, a few of my friends and I (jokingly) decided we would all work at Disney when we were older, and we would be the princesses. With my coloring and heritage, I was a shoo-in for Belle, and I wasn't complaining.

7. One of Charlie's Angels: I'm really not picky here, as long as I don't have to feather my hair.

8. A Spice Girl (they made a movie, remember?): Getting to drive around the UK in a bigger-than-it-looks tour bus meeting famous people and lip-sync in front of millions and get paid for it? Sure. Plus I'd get a fun nickname.

9. Jane Jones (the movie Closer): She is seriously screwed up in the head, but she knows what she wants, and she goes for it. One of my all-time favorite characters.

10. There are so many more, but I think it would be fun to be Aphrodite for a day. Just for the hell of it.

 

So many choices, and I'm positive I'm forgetting some of my favorites, but if I could step into a character's shoes for a day, these would definitely make my list.

Top Ten Fictional "Crushes"

So I realized that limiting this blog to long posts about opinions on various writing topics is sort of silly. That's not who I am, and I might as well let my freak flag fly, right? We all have one. (Name that movie time! It's one of my favorites.)

I'm going to start off simple and try to ease into this. Try to make it interesting for you as well as me, and generally try not to blow too much hot air into the blogosphere. I'm blatantly stealing this from a good friend of mine, Sarah Reck, whose blog you should check out.

Top ten fictional crushes. Bear with me, because when I say crushes, I don't actually mean crushes. I've never been that kind of person, and while I have absolutely nothing against the idea of getting crushes on fictional characters, I just don't. So we're gonna go with top ten favorite characters who I might agree to go out with if they asked me nicely.

I'm not limiting this to literature, by the way. Books, movies, and TV, here we go.

 

1. Bill Weasley (from the Harry Potter series): Why Bill? Well, he has long hair, and I have a Thing for that. He enjoys traveling, has a huge family, a bit of a rebellious side, and is just a general all-around good guy, but not so good that it's cloying. Very important, that.

2.  Gale (from The Hunger Games trilogy): See Long Hair Thing (henceforth to be known as LHT). Stands up for what he believes in, a hard worker, loyal, values his family, general good stuff here. But also that same hint of rebellion.

3. Jasper Hale (from Twilight): Shut up.

4. Michael Vaughn (from Alias): Okay, TV show. I watch a lot of TV. This character is the reason I waded through five seasons of Jennifer Garner.

5. Wash (from Serenity/Firefly): Or Mal. Or Simon. But probably not Jayne. Why? Two words: Space Cowboys. Mostly Wash though, because really, he's Wash. If you've seen this series/movie, you probably understand.

6. Spencer Reid (from Criminal Minds): LHT. Well, up until the most recent season. But also, he's sweet, he's socially awkward (I adore socially awkward), he's weird, he's smarter than an entire roomful of rocket scientists, and he'd be away working half the time, leaving me plenty of time to write (and to miss him).

7. Poseidon (from Percy Jackson, the movie): Another set of two words: Kevin McKidd. And fragile. And lonely. And I'm pretty sure there was a leather jacket involved somewhere.

8. Remus Lupin (from the Harry Potter series): Okay, so two Harry Potter characters. Truth be told, I could fill this list with Harry Potter characters, but we're going with my favorites. Most fan girls I know say Sirius, but he's too much of a bully for me. Remus is gentle, intelligent, a tad bit rebellious, stands up for what he believes in, are we sending a pattern yet? Also, he's broken in the way that having someone who loves him would go a long way to fixing him.

9. Daniel (from Love Actually, played by Liam Neeson): All right, so he's a lot older than me. So let's de-age him to his thirties or so, and I'm game. Grieving widower, great with his step-son, not afraid to use pop-culture icons (Leo, Kate, and never let go) to make his point for him. Generally this has a lot to do with Liam Neeson though, as tragic as it is that life imitated art in the grieving widower part.

10. Prince Caspian (from the Chronicles of Narnia): LHT, and our last set of two words for the day: Ben Barnes. Really, that's all you need to know.

 

That was fun (and possibly more revealing than I'd like, but hey, why not?). Anymore top ten lists anyone wants to see?

Titles

As anyone who's ever been around me when I'm trying to come up with a title knows, I'm crap at them. The original title of The Goddess Test was Persephone, and it only changed after an excruciatingly difficult brainstorming session. My titles for the next two books are equally as bad, and I'm positive they're going to change somewhere down the road. The manuscript I wrote shortly after I finished TGT was called The Fake Princess, and yes, it was as bad as it sounds.

But tonight, thanks to my co-workers, an online thesaurus, and lots of bad jokes, I came up with titles for the next trilogy I've been working on, the one that evolved from the basic story of TFP, called Masked. That's the first title I've been proud of in a long time. And now the next two–especially the one I have planned for the third–thrill me. The new titles tells me where the story's going, and it gives me a goal to shoot for.

A lot of people judge books by their covers. I'm a title girl. If the title doesn't grab me, it'll be that much harder for me to pick it up. Artwork is great, and a lot of times that makes the book iconic (Twilight, anyone?), but in the end, what matters most to me about a book is its title.

The funny thing is, a title is so flexible. Changing the title doesn't change the content. You could call a book a million things, but there's usually only going to be one that jumps out at you. There were nearly twenty words on that online thesaurus that could have worked, but only one made me stand up straight and say "That's totally it." Well, okay, two.

But the important thing here is, they're titles I love. Titles I could definitely live with on the shelf. I struggle with titles to the point where I get anxious when I have to think up another, but even before these books are written, I feel like I have something wonderful to look forward to, and to me, that's a huge relief.