Susanne Winnacker's Blog, page 14

Contest alert!

Check it out! My agency sister Jill Hathaway is hosting a contest. She's giving away a copy of Megan McCafferty's BUMPED (will be published April 26th 2011 by HarperCollins).

Here's the blurb from goodreads: When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents must pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society.


Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and had never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody's doorstep. Until now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they search for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend, Zen, who is way too short for the job.
Harmony has spent her whole life in religious Goodside, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to convince Melody that pregging for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.
When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls' lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common. Sounds cool, doesn't it?Now go to Jill's blog, read her interview with the author of BUMPED and enter the contest!

Exciting

The Other Life announced in the Bookseller!
So exciting! :D

Look...

...who's up on Greenhouse's website under the author section! You can read an interview with me there.
And The Other Life is up too! Yay! :D

Blurb and my journey

Here's the blurb for The Other Life (not the official Publisher's Lunch pitch yet. That'll probably appear tomorrow.):

3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I'd seen daylight. One-fifth of my life.

Sherry and her family have lived sealed in a bunker in the garden since things went wrong up above. Her grandfather has been in the freezer for the last three months, her parents are at each other's throats and two minutes ago they ran out of food.

Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by 'Weepers' - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus.

While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry's father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their 'other lives'. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all.

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And here's a little bit about my journey:

January 2010: I start writing The Other Life and finish the first draft within four weeks.

February 2010: I join Absolute Write and find fabulous beta readers. (Best decision ever)

End of March 2010: I start querying.

April – July 2010: Revising and querying.

August 2010: I accept Julia's offer of representation.

September 2010 : We go out on submission.

October 2010: We get an offer. A few days later we get another offer - from Usborne - and accept.

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Last but not least, a few thank you's are due:

Thanks to my beta readers Catherine, Elke, Dawn, Kathy and Debra who made The Other Life so much better. Another big thanks to Jill for going through the process together! And, of course, thanks to all the fabulous people on AW for their encouragement and wisdom! You rock!!

Thanks to Shveta The Other Life is already on Goodreads! Danke, Süße!

Book Deal!!!

I'll be a published author!!! Yay!

My debut dystopian novel THE OTHER LIFE sold to Usborne UK in a two-book deal for publication in Spring 2012.

I'm so so happy!!!

(I promised myself to wait for the PM announcement, so I could add it, but I'm too impatient...lol. I'll add it later and some more info probably as well.)

Must Read Book

Okay, guys. Here's an absolute must read for you.

SLIDE by Jill Hathaway.

Jill's my agency sister (Go Greenhouse!!!) and she sold her amazing debut a few days ago to Balzer & Bray. I had the pleasure to read it a few weeks ago and believe me, it's a book you don't want to miss!

Here's the blurb from goodreads:

So if you haven't already done it, add SLIDE to your goodreads books NOW. You can find it here.

Congrats again, Jill!!!

Inspiration

I promised you pics from my trip to the west coast a few weeks ago. I've finally chosen a few that inspired me in some way. Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon

Red Rock Crossing (Sedona)


Zion Nat. Park


Courtyard Mission Santa Barbara


Cemetery Mission Santa Barbara

Forest Lawn LA
Horseshoe Bend

Joshua Tree Nat. P.

NaNo

I'm doing NaNo this year. I've signed up yesterday. It's my first time, so I'm excited and nervous.

Writing a novel (50,000 words) in a month without trying to edit or rewrite as I go will be a challenge. Who am I kidding? Getting 50,000 words on paper (well on a word document) in 30 days is a challenge in itself.

But NaNo's more than a challenge for me, it's a chance.

A chance to write.

Just write.

I'll use NaNo to try my hands at something new. A genre I've never written before (still YA though). I can't wait to see how that plays out. I hope I'll reach the NaNo goal and that the 50k words don't suck too much.

So are some of you doing NaNo? Or do you think it's a waste of time? If you participate, why? To try something new?

Realistic goals

I guess many people set themselves goals. But how to reach them, so they don't end like most New year's resolutions?

I think the problem with New Year's resolutions, as with other goals, is that they're too ambitious.

Want to lose 20 pounds in a month and look like a model? No problem. Want to stop smoking in no time and never be tempted again? No problem. Want to be a model student and catch up on any studying you have missed over the last year? No problem.

There's nothing wrong with being ambitious, but ambitions don't always motivate us. Sometimes they can be crippling. We see the goal in our mind and we want to reach it, but because it's so unrealistic we can't ever succeed and when we realize it, the goal no longer serves its purpose. It no longer motivates. It gets us down, because we know there's no chance not to fail.

And who isn't scared of failure?

The ugly threat of failing looms over our heads every day and cripples us even more.

So that goal we set a few days, weeks or months ago?

It turns into the bane of our existence.

What was supposed to help us, destroys every chance we might have ever had to actually reach a realistic goal.

And that's the magic word: realistic

Even a writer needs a hint of reality in their life.

Realistic goals motivate.

Unrealistic goals depress.

I used to set myself unrealistic goals and I never reached them. I didn't even get close and it always made me feel bad. So unrealistic goals? Not for me.

I like goals that I can reach or maybe even surpass.

You might say: What's the use of setting a goal of 500 or 1000 or 2000 words per week? That way you'll never get that book written.

You're wrong.

I will get the book written, it'll only take longer. Every written word brings me closer.

So what would happen if I set a word count goal of, let's say, 10k per week?

I'd fail to reach it the first time, fail to reach it the second time and get so frustrated that I wouldn't write for a few days or weeks. Nothing gained. And worst of all: I would feel bad about myself, even guilty.

Maybe 10k is a realistic goal for some of you. You have to decide what's right for you. Only you. It doesn't matter if your writing buddy gets 5k written every day. That's great for them, but trying to keep up with them won't do you any good.

So try to find out what's a realistic goal for you and adjust it whenever something changes. Sometimes life gets in the way.

Okay.

Life always gets in the way, but that's just one more reason to be fair to yourself and don't pressure yourself with unrealistic goals.

What do you think? Maybe some of you like unrealistic goals and don't feel depressed by them?

Letting Go

I went on sub on Wednesday and now I'm trying to keep myself busy with something.

Anything.

I'm desperate.

So desperate that I even cleaned the house and folded laundry yesterday. *gasp*

But now that I'm done with cleaning, I'm confronted with the same problem again.

How to distract myself?

Many people say it helps to write something else. That sounds reasonable.

There's no better way to distract oneself than to focus on a new WIP, maybe even a SNI (shiny new idea).

I'd love to do that. I have two WIPs and had a SNI for a YA Thriller yesterday, so what's keeping me from delving into them?

The answer's easy:

THE OTHER LIFE

The book I'm on sub with. I spent weeks with revisions and the last few days with synopses for sequels. It feels like TOL has become a part of me. It's the last thing I think about before I go to sleep and the first thing I think about when I wake up.

I know the characters. Their fears and hopes. Their future and past.

I know what'll happen to them and I want to let it happen to them.

I want to write the next book. I want it desperately.

But working on the sequel to TOL won't do me any good if I want to distract myself from the subbing process.

I need to let go of TOL for now. Need to let go of the characters and the little voices (don't worry I'm quite sane) in my head telling me to write their story to the end.

Like with many things in life, letting go of a book isn't easy.

I'm still in the process of letting go.

How do you do it? How do you let go of a book and its characters, and delve into the next project? Is it easy for you or are you struggling?