Emily Bleeker's Blog, page 3

New Year…New Goals

Well, here it is, 2015. In this year I know one very important thing is going to transpire in my life — in a few short weeks I will become a published author. Whoa. Typing that made my stomach jump with nervous excitement. I have lots of other goals for this year, most of them way too boring to talk about on this blog. But as I look at a new year of goals it reminds me of how I got to 2015, the year of my debut as an author. And if you’ll bear with me, I’ll take you on a little trip down memory lane.

Almost eleven years ago I found a lump in the back of my left leg. I found it soon after I finished working out so I thought it was a pulled muscle. I chose not to worry about it. A year and a half later, I’d had my first child and was working as a kindergarten teacher when I found the lump again. For some reason this time I felt far more concerned. After seeing three new doctors and getting a few scans I found out, first, that I was pregnant and, second, that the lump in my leg was probably benign. A year later I had an eighteen-month-old and a three-month-old. That’s when I discovered that my doctors had been wrong. The lump was cancer. I was 24 years old.

I won’t go into my whole cancer story right now but in May of 2006 I was diagnosed with monophasic synovial sarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue sarcoma. I received treatment through the summer and early fall of 2006 and then check ups, blood draws and scans every three months for two years and every six months for three more. Thankfully, every single one came back clear. Just two months before I turned 30 I reached the huge milestone of being NED (no evidence of disease) for five years. When I read all the horrible stats on that first day after my diagnosis, they only went up to five years. Back then, according to the statistics, I only had a 30% chance of turning 30.

So, needless to say, 30 was a pretty big birthday for me. My husband threw me surprise party and my friends and family came to support me. But the most monumental thing that happened that day was my decision to not waste the extra time I’d been given. That day I set some goals for the next ten years, some small, some big and some seemingly unattainable.

Some of my more lofty goals included– running a 5k without stopping (I’d been told my leg was too damaged to ever be able to run again), learn a new instrument and perform at least once in front of an audience, audition for a play, learn a new language and visit a country where it is spoken natively. Then there was my biggest and most seemingly unattainable goal: Finish my book and bring it to publication.

I turned 34 this year. There are many of my 30 year goals that I’ve not met yet but there are some other that I have. For one, I learned to run. I started out slowly, first walking, then jogging and walking and then slowly inching the time and speed up on the treadmill till I was running. Now I run at least a 5k almost daily. I’m not fast and I look a lot like Phoebe from Friends when I run but I can do it and what shocks me more is that I’ve fallen in love with it.

As for the rest of the list, I haven’t been in any plays or learned a new language or visited any new countries but I am learning guitar. With the support of a good friend I’m slowly learning the intricacies of the instrument and last year we were asked to perform at a small Christmas function. When those “checked off” moments happen, I swear I can feel a click inside of my brain.

courtesy of http://www.wearbranch.com

What I’ve found is that even after the milestone is met and the goal is completed, I’m left with so much more than a check on a piece of paper. My life has become fuller with each item I’ve completed. Actually, I hate to say completed because the harder I work to reach a goal the more I appreciate it. Most days I wonder what I ever did without my morning run or Wednesday guitar group or writing. Especially writing.

First draft of a scene from WRECKAGE. I don’t usually hand write my stories but this was before I had a laptop and I was on an airplane when inspiration hit. I’m so happy to have these few pages.

On March 1, 2015 (AH! it is 2015!) I will reach another one of my goals. I will become a published author. Now, this is not the book I was working on in 2010 and when I wrote that goal down I rolled my eyes a little, assuming it would never ever happen. But it did. You’ve read my other posts (if not…you have some homework), there has been a lot of hard work leading up to this milestone but it is all worth it.

The product of all that work!

Publication is not an end for me, it is a beginning. This process has changed how I look at myself. I’m an author. There–I said it. I’m a writer, an author, a creator of stories and people and lives. Discovering those things was not a goal I put on my list but upon attaining that revelation I’ve found it to be more valuable to me than any other item I’ve checked off.

So, as you head into this New Year, don’t be afraid to make goals (even lofty ones). Don’t be afraid to write them down, boldly proclaim them, talk incessantly about them (okay, I might avoid this if you’d like to keep your friends) and don’t forget to work hard to get them. And please remember that just because you didn’t reach some of your 2014 goals that doesn’t mean you should give up. Some goals are late bloomers and need more time to grow but as long as you keep tending to them, when they do blossom, they can be breathtaking.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

PS- I’d love to hear your goals for the year. Feel free to post them in the comments section below!

You’re all winners to me…and 11 of you actually were….

Thank you all for sharing my cover contest! I posted the winners on my FB page. We ended up eleven winners (congrats!) and over forty shares that reached over four thousand people. For old times’ sake, lets take a look at that pretty cover one last time.

Ahhh- so lovely.

Now, onto some serious stuff. I learned from this whole contest that I am super lucky to have so much support. Without you all wanting to read WRECKAGE, it wouldn’t be worth much more than when the document was saved in a file on my desktop.

For the record–this is NOT my computer

So-THANK YOU and I hope that you continue to share your excitement with your friends and family and strangers you pass on the street. Okay, you don’t have to accost strangers but if you WANT to…I’d be cool with it.

Next week I’ll be announcing the details and date for my release party. This is good stuff. You WILL want to keep in touch.

WRECKAGE — The cover is HERE! **contest**

Without further ado I would like to introduce the world to the beautiful cover art for my debut novel, WRECKAGE, available March 1, 2015:

Click here to pre-order WRECKAGE on Amazon.com

WRECKAGE was written after watching a few too many late night episodes of “I Survived…” One episode in particular dealt with a large ship that sunk after user error, leaving a boat full of survivors adrift in a lifeboat. Even though there were eight survivors after the initial crash, only two of the survivors were being interviewed. Their story was harrowing and heroic but as I watched I came to realize that this man and woman were not the only survivors being interviewed, they were the only survivors PERIOD. The whole survivor story was being told through the filter of their experience. And that’s when the thought came….What if they were lying?

Okay, I’m sure those poor people in that episode of “I Survived…” were not lying just to make themselves look like heroes, but that didn’t stop my imagination from considering the idea. What kind of mistakes would inspire someone to lie to their friends, family and the world? How could they convince themselves that lying was more valiant than the truth?

So, when my mind wouldn’t stop running through questions and scenarios, I sat down and started to write a story. Soon that story became WRECKAGE, a novel where the main characters, Lillian Linden and Dave Hall, are not only plane crash survivors they are also big fat liars.

The blurb from my Amazon page says it perfectly:

“Lillian Linden is a liar. On the surface, she looks like a brave survivor of a plane crash. But she’s been lying to her family, her friends, and the whole world since rescue helicopters scooped her and her fellow survivor, Dave Hall, off a deserted island in the South Pacific. Missing for almost two years, the castaways are thrust into the spotlight after their rescue, becoming media darlings overnight. But they can’t tell the real story—so they lie.

The public is fascinated by the castaways’ saga, but Lillian and Dave must return to their lives and their spouses. Genevieve Randall—a hard-nosed journalist and host of a news program—isn’t buying it. She suspects Lillian’s and Dave’s explanations about the other crash survivors aren’t true. And now, Genevieve’s determined to get the real story, no matter how many lives it destroys.

In this intriguing tale of survival, secrets, and redemption, two everyday people thrown together by tragedy must finally face the truth…even if it tears them apart.”

So, now for the fun part! If you share this cover on any social media site (tag me please) or on your own blog (please link in the comments section), you’ll be entered into a raffle for a free copy of WRECKAGE or one of ten free rentals from REDBOX. in a random drawing on Monday at noon.

On a ROLL….

If you are a writer then you know that inspiration doesn’t always come at the most convenient times. We’ve all hit those moments in our writing where it’s suddenly like you are walking through a tub of goo. During these times the words come out awkwardly and all the parts of the story seem to almost fit but not really like when you are putting together a 1,000 piece puzzle and some of the pieces are upside down and backwards. During those times of blockage it seems like all those “inspirational” writing quotes that flash by on twitter and Facebook come out to mock me. Images that advise things like:

or

(To this one I always want to say- “YEAH, it was only 500 words and will probably need a complete overhaul but, yeah, I wrote today. *eyeroll*)

Then there are the relatable ones that make me want to ask the person that made it to be my best friend:

There are lots of ways to deal with writer’s block but sometimes it just takes a “pushing through” phase. It reminds me of a 24 hour road trip I took from Chicago to Yellowstone with three little boys ages 4, 3 and 1 (don’t ask me what we were thinking). The trip seemed to fly by until we South Dakota. Suddenly we were speeding down these looooong barren roads with warning signs that read “Last Chance” because there wouldn’t be a gas station for another 50 miles.

These were the hours where Joe and I sang loudly to ska music and gave the kids ANY food that would keep them happy. It felt like we would NEVER get to our stop in Montana. Then, hours later, exhausted and almost our of gas we stopped just outside of Billings to fill up. As we pulled into the dilapidated gas station I was all up in my head, dreading changing the kids into their pjs in what was sure to be a gross gas station bathroom. But, as Joe filled the gas tank and I crossed the empty parking lot with three little boys in toe, I noticed the sun setting over the mountains just west of us and how it reflected off the rims that encircled the city. The natural beauty of that sunset stunned this girl from the flatlands of Illinois and suddenly I was grateful for the long, rocky roads of South Dakota, because they got me there, to that sunset.

Sometimes when we write we need those long, seemingly never ending roads of hunkering down in order to get to the “sunset over the mountains” pay off. It’s sticking with it through those rough moments that make it even more satisfying when love the words come easily, the story all seems to click together like it popped into your brain fully formed and the characters become as real (in your mind) as your best friend or next door neighbor.

Right now *knock on wood* I’m enjoying that “on a roll” stage in my current WIP. I feel a little weird declaring it like that, like I’m bragging or jinxing myself but I think after working so hard to get here, it’s worth celebrating. It’s a trick I learned while running. As soon as I could see a hill ahead of me I would force myself to get  excited for it and to run extra fast to get to the top because I knew for every up hill I struggled through there was ultimately a downhill following it. Well, unless you start at the top of the hill and end there too…but that messes up my analogy so I’m ignoring that option.

How are all you writers feeling right now? Are you on a roll, going slow and steady or maybe stopped off at a rest area? If you are stuck on a hill, take a moment to savor the burn because it’s making you a better writer and soon you’ll be running downhill so fast your feet (or your fingers) won’t be able to keep up with you!

Surreal For-real

The day before I left for a week long Disney vacation with my family I received an email from my editor with my copy-edits, due two days after the end of our vacation. This meant I either got to mush all my edits into two days (there were almost 3,000 edits soooo that wasn’t going to happen) or I needed to find time to work on the copy-edits at night and early in the morning DURING vacation while the kids were sleeping. No biggie. I actually enjoyed the quiet time every night and morning, rereading WRECKAGE for what I calculated was the 27th time.

Then, one night as I typed along in my hotel room, kids snoring on either side of me, I stumbled upon a fun surprise. WRECKAGE on Amazon. It’s already available for pre-order! WHAT?

I shared the news on my Facebook page and Twitter and over the past week my friends, family and even some new readers have taken the plunge to pre-order. And that, my friends, is when it got real. All this work, all the time and effort into writing the story, revising, editing, querying, submitting, editing again and again. Now, in a few short months, people are going to read this thing! Soon after returning from my trip (and turning in my copy-edits on time-woo hoo!) I was introduced to my Lake Union author team. They’ll be helping me through the next phase in the publishing process. My wonderful author’s relations manager already emailed me about personalizing my Amazon author page and filling out a questionnaire for the audiobook. Wait, let me say that again *clears throat*. The AUDIOBOOK. Ah! See what I mean? (Click on that Brilliance Audio picture and you can find WRECKAGE on there as well) I know there will be a lot more of these times ahead of me. They make me nervous and excited at the same time. There is still work to be done on this book and plenty of books still to be written but I’ve decided to just enjoy these “it’s really happening” moments as they come because they are awesome. Really awesome.

All aboard the Query Train!

So, I made a writer friend today. Yes. In real life. She’s a published author who hasn’t needed an agent yet in her career but is considering heading out into the query world in order to sign with one and I couldn’t be more excited. I. Love. Queries…Especially when they are not my own.

Maybe I should insert a quick definition of a query here for those that may not be familiar: “A query letter is a single page cover letter, introducing you and your book. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a resume. It’s not rambling saga of your life as an aspiring writer. It’s not a friendly, “Hey, what’s up, buddy. I’m the next John Grisham. Got the next best selling thriller for ya,” kind of letter. And for the love of god, it is NOT more than one-page. Trust us on this.” This quote comes from AgentQuery.com. If you click on that link you can read the whole article about query letters. Anyway, back to my new writer friend. After a short chat I knew right away that I wanted to give her all the resources I used in my query journey to eventually sign with  my awesome agent, Marlene Stringer of StringerLit. When I got home I began wildly typing in all the sites I’d used countless times while querying and ended up with so many open tabs. I didn’t know my browser could HAVE that many tabs open.Then I realized…..

It was time for a new blog post!!

Disclaimer- in no way do I claim that this is an exhaustive list of helpful query sites, they are just the ones I have a lot of positive personal experience with.  Query Shark- I love this site. It was one of my first forays into what a query even is and gives sooooo much helpful information. The blog is written by literary agent Janet Reid. She posts queries (with the permission of the writers that submitted them) and gives thoughts and advice to help improve the queries. She follows the queriers through revisions and helps polish that query till it’s shiny and perfect. Her instruction is AMAZING. My best advice is to start here if you are preparing to query. When I say start, I mean literally start at the beginning. Take the time to read ALL of the archives. Not only are they informative but also entertaining. If you think “but my book is different- I can’t fit into this query format” I promise you’ll find a query with your same issues in the “chum bucket.”

AgentQuery Connect-  So you’ve read through QueryShark and have a pretty new query you want to get feedback on? AgentQuery Connect is THE place. Okay, not the only place but there are some really helpful and experienced people on this site (including ME, haha). There are TONS of resources on this site so take your time to look through them all and if you feel extra adventurous, post your query for feedback. Just be aware that you will get LOTS of opinions and it will be up to you to decided what to do with them. Sometimes it is hard to get feedback on your first post but don’t freak out. Just get involved in helping out other AQC’ers and you’ll get it back in spades. PS- this is also a wonderful site to find beta-readers and critique partners that are serious about giving feedback but clear some time to return the favor!

QueryTracker- Once you are ready to hop onto that roller coaster ride called the “query train” then head on over to QueryTracker. You’ll want to set aside a good chunk of time to really figure out this website. It’s *that* important. Here you can search through agents that have interest in your genre. I advise reading the websites for EVERY SINGLE AGENT you are interested in. What every agent wants submitted with your query is different. Doing your research now can really really pay off. Their websites are usually linked in the Overview page. There are also “Quick Links” on the Overview page for each agent. These link up to sites like Publishers Weekly, Predators and Editors etc that give you independent information about the agent. It’s also helpful to read the “comments” section for the agents you are interested in to see how long of a wait you are in for, how often and what type of rejection you can expect (if it comes to that). If you find an agent you are interested in then add him/her to your “query list.” This helpful list lets you keep track of the agents you want to query and that you have queried. It’s also a great place to record responses from agents and gives you a lovely (and sometimes depressing) pie chart to show you how successful your query is. I lived and died by this website. Without it I would’ve been flying blind and probably done that super embarrassing thing of double querying the same agent.

Twitter #mswl & #tenqueries- If you are not on twitter yet, this is a good time to get an account. There’s so much good stuff for writers going on over there. Besides awesome pitch contests (which I’ll cover later) there are several awesome agents super active on there and they use some hashtags to help queriers like us. First hashtag I follow is #tenqueries. #tenqueries is a hashtag used by agents as they go through their slush pile for the day (week..or whatever). In a tweet they give feedback on the queries that cross their desk and say if they requested or rejected the query. It is all done anonymously and is so very helpful even if you aren’t querying these particular agents.

Another helpful hashtag is #mswl which stands for “manuscript wish list.” This hash tag is used by agents to share what they are dying to see in their mailboxes. Wouldn’t it be awesome if one of their “must haves” resembles your MS? There are a few websites that keep record of these wish lists but I’m just going to link one: http://mswishlist.com

Contests: There are many many query contests out there. Some are very very involved, others are simple twitter pitch contests held periodically like #pitmad (which we just passed) or #pitchmas in December or #pitchmadness in March. There are many many more out there. For these contests you need a 140 character twitter pitch for your book which would include space for the contest hashtag and your genre. I’ve had lots of luck with these contests and know several writers that found their agent from them. Even if you don’t participate, it’s always helpful to read the tweets and think about what the “pitch” for your book would be.

There are plenty of contests NOT on twitter including contest sponsored by bloggers and other authors. I can’t even come close to listing them all but as Halloween is on the horizon I thought I’d share the next one I’ve heard about: Nightmare on Query Street . Here is a contest schedule for 2014-2015 from Brenda Drake’s website. Some people LOVE these contests and have found dream agents as a result. I’ve only participated in one but found that for me I preferred the traditional method of querying. To each his own! Check them out and see if contests might be your thing.

Well- that’s it. I know there are many many more resources out there for querying but in my particular journey to publication, these were the sites I found invaluable. If you have other favorites, please link them in the comments section! Good luck with your query process and if you’d like to chat further, don’t hesitate to contact me via email. Now go! You have a lot of reading to do!!

You KNOW you want on this Query Train

Crash

Last week I was about to write a nice blog about editing but then the unthinkable happened…my computer crashed. Crash is a nice way to put it. It was more like my three-year-old spilled milk on the couch and it leaked under my computer (without me realizing it), then seeped through the bottom of the computer and into every electronic nook and cranny inside. Yeah. It’s totally broken. When we discussed the situation my husband said, “Well, you need a computer. You are a writer, it’s kind of an important part of your job.”

Ah, I love it when he says romantic things like that. Seriously, I loved it. And he’s right. Just like a carpenter needs his tool box full of tools or a photographer her camera–I need a computer to complete so many aspects of my job. The one good thing about loss, even temporary loss, is that it tends to teach you to appreciate things more.  And I do appreciate my computer now. I do, I really, really do. 

Without a computer I:

Missed a deadline. Well, it wasn’t really a deadline but it was a request from my editor that I had to put off until I could find a working computer. Though she was super understanding, it was still pretty embarrassing. And when I DID find a computer to use, I couldn’t attach the file she needed so I had to type it into the body of the email. I’m still cringing thinking about how many errors were in that transcription. *shudder*

Couldn’t blog. I know you all missed me. It’s not that I think you all can’t live a week without a blog post but I had just finished a massive edit of FRAGMENTS and I wanted to share what I’d learned from it. It’s a rare experience for me to just KNOW what I’m going to blog about so I was sad to miss that opportunity (errrr- or postpone it to my next post)

Couldn’t connect. This was hard. I did have my phone so I could check social media and emails but a cell phone screen is just not my medium. I can never seem to type the words correctly the first time and auto correct always makes me say something silly or vulgar instead. Maybe it’s because I’m from the generation BEFORE the texting generation but I’m not very good at the pecking at a screen thing. Also, I have a wonderful group of online supporters that I was suddenly cut off from. I consider them my coworkers and it was lonely working in an empty office.

Was a horrible critique partner. I have three CP’s that I’m currently working with. They have wonderful projects that I enjoy reading and discussing with them but without a computer I had no way to do either! I feel horrible guilt over the lack of help I’ve given these fine individuals in the past few weeks (ok- I was also AWOL while I edited). Writers help writers. It’s what we do. I love it and I’m so eager to get back to this rewarding process. I had a writer friend send me this blog about why writers don’t compete (Seth’s Blog). It’s a good read!

Struggled with research. When I was a kid my parents bought us the World….well the World Book Encyclopedia. They had a red faux leather binding with gold lettering and my parents even went fancy and got the ones with gold leaf on the edges of the pages. They were beautiful and looked pretty impressive on our family room bookshelf. It was great to have these resource books in our home for school projects or just plain curiosity. But it wasn’t just us kids that enjoyed those books. I’d often find my dad sitting in a random corner of the house quietly reading from one of the scarlet volumes. As a result my dad is a great source of knowledge even outside his scientific expertise. I think I’ve inherited this thirst for random knowledge. Thankfully, during my youth, the internet was invented. Then SEARCH ENGINES were invented. I’m no longer limited to the finite information inside of the World Book. I can type in just about anything and, with a little bit of fact checking, learn about almost anything my brain is hungering to know more about. Okay- enough back story. Lately many of my searches have been writing/story related. I don’t limit my research to the internet but it is for sure the first place I turn. I’ve really missed having that instant answer to my research questions (and random stupid questions I still google).

Couldn’t write. It’s not that I was blocked, it was that I didn’t have a place to put my “brain vomit” (as I like to call first drafts). I know,  I KNOW– pen to paper never hurt anyone and I do love just scrawling out ideas in a notebook but that is not the place for the first draft of Chapter 17. Maybe some people can write in a notebook and then type it all into the computer but I always feel like when the time to input the handwritten material into the computer, I’m basically writing it all over again. Between double thinking word choice and phrases, I also question basic grammar and punctuation. It basically kills my creative process. I handwrite ideas anytime I get them. I handwrite poetry (yes, I write poetry…poorly…but I write it). I handwrite LISTS for everything…so many lists. But, for some reason, my brain doesn’t like me to handwrite fiction. After spending a chunk of time editing and then this time with out a computer…I’m having some major writing withdrawals. I’m so ready to get up and typing again!

Now that the computer is here I have so many things on my “to do” list but I’m sincerely excited about nearly every single one of them. Writing this blog post was one of the items that I can gleefully check off now. So, pat your computer, say thank you to Al Gore (for inventing the internet-duh) and don’t wait for absence to make your heart grow fonder. Take it from me: You are fond. Very very fond. 

Hello (Hello) Is it me you’re looking for??

 

Courtesy of New York Magazine

 

Summer with four kids is busy. SO BUSY. There are some days where I don’t sit down from the time I wake up til the kids go to bed at night. You can imagine how that effects my writing time. I still write at night when the world is filled with blissful “now I can think” kind of silence but that’s only a few hours and I tend to get a bad case of “falling asleep while writing” when I only write at night. Plus I need to take SOME time to breathe and you know what they say about Summer Nights….”Well-a, well-a, well-a, uh!”

Since signing with Lake Union I’ve been doing a lot of work filling out a questionnaire for the publisher, getting author photos, setting up an author page and all that other fun stuff. All my work has been writing related but not many words have been added to my WIP or any other stories in the past two weeks. Two weeks feels like forever and I’m starting to miss the characters that populate my stories. I feel like they’re paused in this strange limbo just waiting for me to come back before they can keep living their lives. 

So, to the characters waiting oh-so-patiently inside my stories: I will see you soon. I’m looking forward to jumping back into your messy, entertaining and emotional lives but for now I have a few things to say.

From my WIP BEYOND:

Steve- Don’t forget to feed the kids something more than Goldfish crackers. I know you just got some bad news but don’t worry, it’s only going to get worse before it gets better ;)

Natalie- When I left you, you were out for a run. Sorry! Bet those legs are getting tired after two weeks. You’ll deserve a virtual massage after this workout.

Will- I may have given you just a little too much time to look at that brochure. I have a feeling you might notice a familiar face there if you keep looking for too long. Better get back to writing this one, FAST. 

From edits on FRAGMENTS:

Lillian: Left you burning up in that hot sun on the raft. Don’t you wish the battery on that beacon had been functional? Geeze, what bad luck *Evil laugh*

 

Dave: You’re lucky enough to be passed out. Gonna be a looong nap. Just snuggle up in some corner of that inflatable raft and enjoy the rest. It’s not going to happen again for a long long time.

Kent: I have one word for you–SUNBURN. SO.MUCH.SUNBURN.

From my “for fun” YA fantasy side project, SNOW. This baby’s been on pause since February. Poor thing:

Raven: So, right now you’re washing the biggest sink full of dishes ever but at least it’s with a prince by your side. Maybe he likes you when he thinks you’re nothing but a pretty peasant girl but he doesn’t know who you really are. And girl, you’ve gotta stop looking at yourself in the mirror. Seriously. Stop it. RIGHT NOW.

Cal: Dude. You are putting everything on the line for this girl, lying to royalty, hiding a fugitive. Be careful. You have a lot in common with her but remember–you are a dwarf. Traditionally the dwarf doesn’t end up with the girl. To make matters worse now she’s getting all friendly with the prince. Jealous much? 

George: I think you are learning how to dry dishes at the moment with servant girl Nessa/Princess Raven. How do you not know it’s her? After all these days suspended in time something inside you MUST know or at least have a clue…..

 

OH! Wait…What? Nope. Lost it. 

To that new story I just jotted down the basics of for a later date: 

Can’t wait to get to know you! Don’t even have character names yet but one day….one day. 

 

Well- farewell for now my friends. Some of you I’ll work with sooner than others. Just keep eating, breathing, sleeping etc till I get back to you. I haven’t forgotten about you. I swear.

Three more weeks of summer vacation. In some ways I’m looking forward to school starting again but I do love summer with all it’s swimming, popsicles, sprinklers and park days. Great. Now I’m sad that summer is almost over but at least I have my imaginary friends to keep me company through the long, cold winter of Illinois. Seriously, what would I do without you guys? 

Winter vs Summer in Chicago

 

Big Announcement!

If you haven’t heard my news already then get ready to put on your happy face! My women’s fiction, FRAGMENTS, has been picked up by Lake Union Publishing and will be published in February of 2015! Lake Union is an imprint of Amazon Publishing and here is the link to their web site because I know you all want to check them out and see how cool they are: http://www.apub.com/imprint-detail?imprint=13

Signing my contract electronically. What will they think of next??

If you would like to read the whole story then pull up a chair. I couldn’t talk about it for almost six weeks so now I’m ready to spill.

So lets start at the beginning. Well, maybe not the beginning. Let’s start the day after I signed with my super agent, Marlene Stringer (http://www.stringerlit.com) back in February. We spend two months getting FRAGMENTS ready to be submitted to publishers. This included some editing and a lot of changes to the title (I think we went through 20 or 30 possibilities before settling on FRAGMENTS which I LOVE). There were a few other timing issues in there but the submission packet was finally ready by the second week in April and went out to a hand full of editors for a first round of submissions.

I can be a pretty patient person (when I try very very hard). When the kids flushed a rock the size of my fist down the toilet, I learned how to remove the toilet and reinstall it as well as what a “wax ring” does in that whole situation. But waiting to hear back from editors was a kind of nervousness I’ve never really experienced before. There was no googling a diagram of this situation so I could learn how to fix it. All I could DO was wait.



After three weeks Marlene emailed me to say that one of the publishers had “shown interest” and she’d update the other publishers. Then there was more waiting…and a lot of  questioning everything I’d ever written. It took a little while for me to stop obsessing about submissions and start focusing that nervous energy on my new project. Once I started writing my new WIP I almost forgot how nervous I was about everything else.

Nearly five weeks later I received the email I’d been dreaming about. I was at scout camp with my boys doing fun stuff like this:

I’d stopped checking my email obsessively two weeks earlier so it wasn’t until some time after lunch that I happened to glance at my email. My heart jumped. It was an email from Marlene with a subject line of: Need to speak–news

I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, completely aware that news is just as often bad as it is good, but when we finally got in touch Marlene told me that I had an offer from Lake Union Publishing!! We had a few other details to go over but before we hung up Marlene said something that will stick with me forever. She said, “Emily, you know what this means don’t you? This means you are going to be a published author.”

So, while Marlene worked out some of the details of the deal I was a good little author and kept my mouth shut. It took five weeks to get a deal finalized but now I can yell it from the rooftops! It’s super liberating but more than anything I’m ready to get to work. It will be a busy few months but with the guidance of an amazing editor and a team of professionals from Amazon I know we are going to put out a the best book possible and I’m so excited to share it with you all!

This Book STINKS!

This is what happens when a little girl has three older brothers that have very strong opinions on princesses

So you’ve written a book. Hopefully you’ve edited it, revised it, polished it to an eye blistering sheen. Now it’s time for someone else to take a look at your baby, these ideas that you’ve woven into (what you believe is) a totally original, massively entertaining piece of art, and ask them to give you feedback.

Then you wait. The anticipation is killer. KILLER. The silence is not deafening, it’s blaring.  Sometimes it’s so loud it’s hard to focus on anything else like…folding laundry or making dinner (or at least that’s my most current excuse). When the silence is broken by an email DING, all else falls away. You open your email and read. I don’t know about you but when I get a new critique my brain goes a little fuzzy and everything comes out something like this:

What They Say
What You Hear


“Show, not tell”
You need a total rewrite because YOUR BOOK STINKS!!


“Didn’t interest me as much as I hoped”
Didn’t interest me because YOUR BOOK STINKS!!


“Sorry it took me so long”
Couldn’t get through it because YOUR BOOK STINKS!!


“It was…good”
I’m just being nice because I really think YOUR BOOK STINKS!


“I found that part slow”
I skipped big chunks because YOUR BOOK STINKS!!


“I didn’t connect with the characters”
Your characters are one dimensional because YOUR BOOK STINKS!


“This is a difficult genre to sell” 
This book will never see the light of day because YOUR BOOK STINKS! 

If you’ve ever felt this way then repeat after me: Your book does not stink. Or….maybe it does (I don’t know, I’ve never read it) but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Remember- we are in a profession where we WILL be judged by peers, agents, editors, publishers, reviewers, readers. This is what we signed up for when we decided to follow the path that hopefully leads to becoming a published author.

from litreactor.com

Let’s look at it this way- even if the feedback is crappy or vague or just down right wrong– it’s feedback! You know what feedback does (especially the good stuff)? It makes you see your writing from a whole new perspective. I’ve always found that even if I disagree with a critique I still appreciate the way it makes me take a second look at my work and helps me make it better.

It is easy to allow critique and rejection to pull you down and really make you question your abilities as a writer. As a rule I always allow myself a few minutes (sometimes hours and in one or two cases a few days) to freak out over any feedback that hits me the wrong way. It’s OKAY to allow yourself some moments of self doubt but just make sure you keep your life line tied safely to the shores of reality.

I always think of it as going out to dinner with a friend. We’ve had a wonderful time eating and chatting and then I go into the bathroom and realize I’ve had lettuce in my teeth the whole time we’ve been sitting together. Instantly, I feel a little betrayed and question if we are really as close as I thought. Friends don’t let friends walk around with foliage in their teeth! I know it’s awkward to tell a friend or peer about green stuff in their teeth or, for that matter, errors in their manuscript but a GOOD FRIEND does it. Just like a good critique partner or beta reader does the same thing…but, you know, with words…not vegetables.