Hannah R. Goodman's Blog, page 10

#DearLaura

#DearLaura,

I just read something about structuring novels like a screenplay, and I’m intrigued. Does this really work for novels? Do you know any good books or websites I could check out to learn more?

Ardent Author

Dear Ardent,

There are several books out there about screenwriting, but my favorite resource is Blake Snyder’s SAVE THE CAT (www.savethecat.com), which is now a book, a website, and its own brand.

In screenwriting, the term save the cat is the event or act your hero performs at the start of the story, which reveals their character, usually in a positive light. For instance, in Disney’s ALADDIN, his save-the-cat moment is when he gives his stolen bread to the starving children, thus showing that even though he may be a thief, he is still bound to a higher moral code of compassion for those who are worse off or more vulnerable than him.

On the same website, popular movies are broken down according to their “beat sheets.” A beat sheet breaks down the three-act structure into bite-size, manageable sections, each with a specific goal for your overall story. Being a pantser myself as opposed to a plotter, I find outlining a bit stifling, but the beat sheet feels comfortable as a scaffold on which to hang my story.

I’d check out the beat sheets listed on savethecat.com, starting with ALADDIN. If you’ve never worked with beat sheets before, be prepared, this revelation may blow your mind.

Good luck!

Laura

#DearLaura,

My agent said that an editor is interested in my manuscript and scheduled a call for us to talk. Do you have advice on what I should ask?

Cautiously optimistic in California

Dear Optimistic,

While there are probably several standard questions out there that are probably recommended for this situation, I will tell you the questions I wish I’d asked my first editor…

How closely do you adhere to your deadlines?

Editors are busy people, as are writers, many of whom are juggling multiple jobs in order to finance their art. If you are someone who strictly adheres to deadlines, about to enter into a long-term relationship with an editor who’s not as firm, it would benefit you to know that up front. The same goes if the roles are reversed, or if you both are of the same constitution. This doesn’t mean the two of you are a bad match, but it is part of getting on the same page as far as expectations go.

How do you like to communicate with your authors?

In keeping with respecting each others’ time and multiple obligations, combined with the numerous forms of communication at our fingertips, it’s important to know how your editor wants to hear from you and vice versa. Most agree that Facebook is a poor avenue for communication with regard to editorial business and some would argue that for deep, detailed questions, a phone call is best. Tangentially, the same goes for book reveals along the way. Always ask before posting about it on social media. Your editor will thank you.

What are your expectations for revision?

It’s important to know what your editor has in mind for your story, in general terms. Is it character development and raising tension, or is it scrapping and rewriting the second half. Even if you only have one editor interested in your novel, I’d recommend you get a good idea up front of what kind of revision they’re looking for in order to make sure that it’s in line with your goals for the story.

What are the elements of my story that are most compelling to you?

Most editorial letters are heavy on what’s not working, but not always on what is working. This is important for you as a writer to know so that when you’re in the throes of revision, you don’t inadvertently write out what’s working in your story. It also helps to hear from other people what your strengths are, so that you can capitalize on them.

The last thing I’d add to this list, is what not to ask, which is the finer details of the contract, such as rights, payment, etc. Those can be negotiated later with your input, hopefully between the editor and your agent who will act as the go-between. This allows you to be creative genius and your agent to be the heavy.

Good luck!

Laura

Laura Lascarso is the author of two YA novels, COUNTING BACKWARDS (2012) and RACING HEARTS (2015). If you have a burning YA question you’d like answered, tweet it to @lauralascarso with #DearLaura or include it in the comments below.

Taking Away My Own Power

From age 14 to 15, I gained 45 pounds.

I started what would become an almost two-decade long struggle with food and my body in middle school, around age 11. Most of the struggle in the beginning manifested in sporadic guilt and regret: In my mind, I berated myself for the so-called roll of fat over my Gap jeans that preventing me from tucking my shirt in (God, did I ever want to tuck my shirts in like the other girls did), and I practically committed mental suicide over the way my arms looked in tank tops—a lunch lady dangle making me feel like I may have some kind of aging disorder.  Yet, most of this struggle only resulted in half-hearted attempts at restricting my food to all-veggie salads and sandwiches made with diet bread and before bed calisthenics routines and an occasional Jane Fonda workout video.

But as I made my way through middle school, the struggle became more and more real: I started to notice how my friends were able to consume an entire bag of Doritos, wash it down with realCoke (not Diet Coke), and top it off with a pint of Hagen Das and not ever even show a slight bloat in their incredibly flat stomachs. I began to feel horrible at sleepovers, regretting the hangover the next day from a night of pizza, ice cream, chips, cookies, and cake.

On the outside, I had never had a “weight problem” and was always visually pretty average. My struggle was deep, deep inside. And it wasn’t about being fat or about being pretty or about fitting in. It was about feeling out of control.

Here is the thing about that time period, despite the internal monologue berating myself, I still ate fairly normally, eating when hungry and stopping when full.

It wasn’t until age 14 that I began to eat compulsively. A combination of the transition from middle to high school with my first real heartbreak sent me head first into a carton of Vanilla Fudge ice cream. These episodes were different from the occasional over-eat-athon with girlfriends at a sleepover. When the hunger switch inside me said “full”, I kept going…like driving a car and watching the speedometer lean all the way over—I pushed the peddle further to the metal.

Me, on the verge of 15

Oddly, I felt powerful while binging. I felt a freedom that I didn’t feel in my day-to-day life. Yet, after each episode, I was left helpless and empty, despite the filled-to the brim murkiness in my belly.

Over the course of almost 2 years, I put on 45 pounds. Then something shifted for me…I no longer felt powerful and free when I binged. I felt horrible, I felt like I was violating myself, hurting myself, like I hated my self…yet, I didn’t hate myself and I didn’t want to do it any more. I was growing up now and with the promise of college to take me out of my small town, I saw that a wider world was waiting and I didn’t want to be stuck in my wall of food and fat, missing out on it all.

So I stopped…with the help of a book by Geneen Roth called Breaking Free From Emotional Eating. I learned about the powerful tool called the hunger scale and I started to watch and listen to those numbers instead of the ones on my bathroom floor.

And my weight evened out, and I cured myself of the compulsion to binge.

Me (and my sis), almost 16

But this isn’t about how I cured myself of compulsive eating.

This is about the connection between writing and self-love, writing and compulsive behavior. There is a connection to writing somewhere in this adolescent experience of mine. If I were to create an analogy, I don’t think it would fit perfectly but it goes like this: If writing is to eating, then compulsive writing is to compulsive eating. In other words, if writing is nourishment to my soul as eating is nourishment to my body, then it is possible to turn that act of nourishment into an act of destruction, as I did once with food.

Writing was, for many, many years, a natural expression and expansion of myself, my soul, my thoughts, my force field, my energy.

The way I feel about my writing now, is so very reminiscent to how I felt when binge eating stopped feeling powerful and free and started to feel limiting, horrible, and self-destructive.

The natural ebb and flow of my hunger was disrupted by my misuse of food. I remember that one day I woke up and thought, instead of going to school and dealing with the pressure and stress of 9th grade with all of its uncertainty, newness, and heart break, I could stay home in my bed and eat…anything. All day long. I could taste and chew and fill and never have to feel the sadness and depression of loss that I was carrying around (starting with the sudden death of my grandfather, followed by a painful break up, and the ending two close friendships). If I just keep eating and tasting the tastes of delicious sweetness, I won’t have to feel a thing ever again!

Or so I thought.

When it didn’t work, I had to stop. I wanted to stop. I was more than willing to figure out how to eat normally and healthfully again. So I began to listen to the signals of hunger and fullness, and my eating began to be rhythmic and predictable and feel good and normal. I stopped obsessing all day long about it. Sure, my mind would wander and do what it did, but I became so grounded in my own hunger urges and needs and queues, that the chatter in my brain didn’t matter to what I actually did in terms of eating. My soul and body took over the chatter in my brain, and I started to trust myself .

When my writing didn’t catch fire in the industry as I thought it would years ago, I just wrote more and harder and faster because then I didn’t have to face the pain of loss, disappointment, and heartbreak.

Geneen Roth talks about how food is just food and not love. It is not power or control either. Food brings you the ability to be nourished and it keeps you alive. The same can be said about writing, yet there is a break down in this analogy—writing can bring about change, and it can bring about love. It can also bring about hate, fear, rage…because writing is art. Art has power, has the capacity to be powerful. But writing is not love. Writing is not worth. When I write compulsively, I take away my own power, my own self-trust, my own authentic voice.

When I use writing to avoid emotional struggle and pain, when I use it as a weapon against myself, when I go at it with a rawness that no longer feels healing, writing is just as bad as compulsive eating, gambling, or drinking.

Yes, something so good can become so bad, if you use it to avoid emotional distress and pain.

When I began to eat based on internal and natural cues, I started to remember that I used to do that, that before puberty took hold of me, before I started to be afraid of my feelings, I would do a lot of thing without too much obsessing and worry.

Today, I don’t eat to avoid pain. I don’t eat to block things in my life. I eat for hunger, flavor, and taste. Eating is enjoyable, but when it is over and I am full, I move on and live . There is no struggle.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve stopped writing compulsively and have started to listen to internal cues about what I love to write. I love writing this piece. I love helping my clients write. I love writing freely or writing for a purpose or writing on a deadline.

I hurt as I sit here and write this. I hurt about my manuscripts that sit in my computer and that are not agented and that are not considered by editors. I’m sad about my books that sit in my closet not in the hands of readers. The difference is, I allow myself to feel all the hurt and pain, and I don’t write to avoid it. I accept the pain of rejection, of “no”, and in that acceptance, I find my own yes, my own pleasure for writing.

 Hannah R. Goodman is a writer (among 500 other things) in Rhode Island and founder of All The Way YA. She can be found on Twitter at @hannahrgoodman

This post first appeared on writerwomyn.com on January 22, 2016.

“Everyone has a dream, what’s your dream?”

… Or The Best Laid Plans

One of the best things I’ve done on my journey to sell my YA novel is connect with other writers. Through FaceBook groups, through Twitter, through co-founding a writer’s collective in my small town, through reaching out aggressively to friends, acquaintances and people I knew more than twenty years ago (thank you to all of you!): I’ve done what I can to learn from others and share what I’ve learned. But there’s one thing that no one can help me with, and right now it’s the thing I’m struggling with the most.

Inevitably, when talking to more experienced writers (writers who have been focused on publishing longer than I have or who have made it further on their publishing journey) I ask the same question:

How long do you give it before you move on?

Specifically, how long do you shop your first novel in the “traditional” way before you move on? (And how do you measure “how long?” Months? Years? Queries? Contests?)

And, following that, if I am going to “move on,” what exactly does “moving on” mean?

Specifically, if I don’t find a traditional publisher for my first novel, do I self-publish a print-on-demand book? An Ebook? Do I turn to wattpad or blog it chapter-by-chapter on my own site? Or do I put it in the bottom drawer/circular file/bonfire out back?

Unlike most things in publishing (a subjective field to say the least!) there seems to be a good deal of consensus on this issue. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to has responded with the same answer, though it’s not an entirely a helpful one.

They all ask: What’s your goal?

Do you want to make money? To be famous? Is it more important to just get your story out there or do you want to quit your day job?

For the past five months, I’ve been struggling to find an answer. Here’s a bit of what that struggle has looked like:

If I’m honest with myself, I can acknowledge my desire is to:

— have J.K. Rowling-like success,

— have a movie made out of my book/books,

— quit my day-job,

— provide for my family on a grand scale,

— give away gobs of money to causes in which I believe, and

— have more time to write in a cabin on a river.

But if I’m really honest with myself, I realize these are pipe-dreams. That’s not self-deprecation, that’s just an honest realization that the fame and fortune I dreamed of as a teenager (who was feverishly writing short stories in math class) is not really likely to happen given that I’m over 40 and don’t have any substantial publishing credits to my name (though, if you believe internet memes, that does happen!). Also, in talking to published writers, I now realize that success in this field looks very different than what I thought it would look like when I was a kid.

Ok, so then what?

And that’s where I’ve been stuck for the past several months. Certainly without a goal in mind, it’s hard to make any progress.

When I started querying I reached out to a friend of my husband’s for advice. He had recently published his first novel after a highly publicized auction that resulted in a more than substantial payout. I told him I wasn’t sure I was up for querying and I was considering self-publishing. “But you’re not going to do that, right?” he said, in a tone that suggested I was considering sacrificing my own cat (or perhaps just my dignity, hard to say) in the pursuit of success. I mumbled something in response and put the idea of self-publishing out of my mind.

And then I queried for five months. And I thought about self-publishing more and more. I had written several Twitter pitches. I had written a Log Line. I had come up with comp titles. It felt like I was doing a lot of work to convince an agent to take me on as a client to help me find a publisher to help me sell my book… It seemed like it might be more effective to put my energy into selling my book to actual readers.

But there was another conversation with an old friend that had been haunting me. She is an editor who has worked at “the big 5” and she has been very generous with her time and advice. She once told me that many of the very big-name authors she has worked with have a first novel in a desk drawer and they’re thrilled it’s not out there in the world. Would it have ruined their career? Not likely. But would it be embarrassing to them now? Probably.

And then there’s the conversation I had when I was 16. In 1992 I met a nun while I was serving meals in a church in Rochester, NY. We worked side by side for a couple days and it came up that we both wrote and that my career goal was to be a novelist. “Women write,” she said. “Men publish.” I wasn’t really aware of feminism at that time, certainly not in the way that I am now, but those four words, they really put a point on it: writing and publishing are two very different things.

So this is where I’ve been hovering: Part of me wants to strike out on my own to publish myself (to cut out the middle “man” so to speak) and part of me worries that that would be a very bad idea.

And it is in this space that I think I’ve come to understand my goal.

My goal, like probably every other artist at some point in his or her career (and certainly every stand-up comedian I know!) is for someone to love me, or, more specifically, love my work. I’ve (mostly) let go of the idea of quitting my day job. I’ve (mostly) let go of the idea of making millions of dollars. But I’ve also let go of the idea of self-publishing (at least for now). Not because I have anything against self-publishing or writers who do it – in fact, I’m in awe of them – but because what an agent or publisher offers to me is some level of quality control and validation that I am desperately seeking.

I know I’m a writer. I know I’m a writer because I like to write more than I like to do most things. I know I’m a writer because sometimes I sneak into the basement with my laptop when no one is looking just so I can write for twenty minutes. I know I’m a writer because one winter I drove four hours to my mother’s empty apartment (she’s a snowbird) so that I could write a scene I couldn’t write anywhere else. The heat was turned down really low, the cable was off and the fridge was empty, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else I wanted to be. But knowing I’m a writer and publishing are two different things – and right now I think I’d like a little help with the latter. An agent or publisher is not the only way I’ll consider myself a success, but it’s the way I’m hoping for right now.

So for now, I’ve made up my mind: I know my goal and I know my timeline. I will spend 2016 looking for an agent or a small press for Novel Number One and writing Draft One of Novel Number Two. If it doesn’t happen this year, I will (figuratively) put Novel Number One in the bottom drawer and refocus on Novel Number Two. After months of not knowing what I wanted or what would come next, it feels really good to have a plan.

But wait!

Stop the (virtual) presses!

I just got an email from a publisher. It was a pass but with real, helpful, actionable notes!

2016 might just be another re-write year for Novel Number One and that’s ok.

Isn’t this journey fantastic?!

 

Jamie Beth Cohen hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and currently lives on the line between suburban and rural Lancaster County, PA. She is currently trying to find an agent for her debut novel in which sixteen-year-old Alice Burton is caught between enjoying her burgeoning sexuality and underestimating its considerable power. She is occasionally on Twitter @Jamie_Beth_S and you can read more about Jamie, and see videos of her recent story slam performances, at www.JamieBethCohen.com.

Amateur Hour

I’ll be the amateur so you don’t have to be.

When I was 16 I worked in a record store. We didn’t sell records (because it was the 90s so we sold cassettes, compact discs and the easily forgotten cassingles) but we still referred to it as “the record store,” probably because that sounded way cooler than “the cassingle store.”

My musical taste and my general outlook on life were greatly influenced by my time there and in particular, by my co-worker Ray, who taught me about many things, including the concept known as “amateur hour.”

See, when you work in a record store, you come to believe (for better or worse) that musical taste is someone’s defining characteristic and that being “cool” is the most important thing you can be. I am happy to say Ray and I both grew out of this phase and eventually valued things in others beyond “coolness,” but back in the day, good luck if you came into our store looking for Mariah Carey or Debbie Gibson while we were listening to Elvis Costello. If three people in a row asked for something we deemed “uncool,” Ray would turn to me, shake his head, bug his eyes out and say, “Must be amateur hour.” I learned to give a mean side-eye as a 16-year-old.

I believe this is how I became petrified of seeming uncool or inexperienced. Although I have always been naturally risk-adverse, working with Ray in “the record store” convinced me that appearing uncool was to be avoided at all costs. This meant that for the next twenty years I would stick to what I knew and could do well with little effort. This strategy fell apart when I had my first child and realized parenting was well outside of my wheelhouse, but that’s a different blog post… Right now, decades after my stint in “the record store,” I’m forced to confront my amateur status as an aspiring novelist. I have to put myself out there, expose my ignorance, try new things, and ask for help. Below you will see a catalogue of what I’ve done in the last six months that I didn’t know existed half a year ago.

I present it here (for all of the internet to see) for one reason and one reason only: Let me help you protect your cool.

First of all, let’s catch up:

In my first post I came to terms with the fact that getting my first novel published was going to be a lot less fun (and a lot more work) than writing said novel.

In my second post I reflected on what it felt like to soldier through my first round of rejections while simultaneously trying to appear normal in all other facets of my life.

Here are some things I’ve done (and things you might want to do, if you’re just starting out):

After polishing my manuscript to the best of my ability based on feedback from other writer friends and beta readers, I wrote a query letter, a synopsis, a log line and several twitter pitches. These are all different things and each of them taught me something new about my novel, my writing and the process of selling a book. (Click on any of the terms to learn more about these things.)

I queried, queried and queried some more. This involves research. It involves following Writer’s Digest and Publisher’s Weekly on Twitter and signing up for their listserves. Do this!

In fact, if you’re not on Twitter, get your butt over there and learn the ropes. I had resisted for years and now I’m making up for lost time. I have found out about so many opportunities and made so many connections through Twitter.I entered a (free) contest where the prize was a critique of your first ten pages. I did not win but it was cool to find out a thing like this existed. It’s an on-going contest that focuses on different genres each time. Check it out!

I did a Writer’s Digest webinar (for about $90) on rejections that came with an agent critique of my query letter. This was hard. I’m not a terribly spiritual person but, as a writer, I certainly believe that words are powerful. Listening to an agent say the world “rejection” over and over again was difficult. But I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from peers on my query letters and I thought it would be worthwhile to get feedback from a professional. Here’s what I learned:

My title rocks. (I have since learned I likely need to change it for legal reasons. Sigh.)

My writing is solid.

I have a huge (fixable) plot problem that no one else but this agent caught.

I submitted a query to an agent who guaranteed a personal response (either a request or a reason for the pass). I found about this on Twitter by following other writers and agents. Having a query rejected is something I’m getting used to, but never hearing back from an agent (which is fairly common) is something I don’t expect to ever get used to. The opportunity of guaranteed personal response from a top agent seemed really cool. Here’s what I learned: The contemporary YA market is over-saturated and my novel doesn’t have a strong enough hook for this agent.

I participated in a twitter pitch party. This was exciting, frustrating and illuminating. I participated in #PitchMAS but there are several twitter pitch parties and you should check them out. #PitchMAS is a two-phase contest where you can submit a 35-word pitch for a curated blog contest and then there’s an open day when anyone can throw pitches up on Twitter using a specific hashtag which agents and small presses have promised to read. I didn’t make the cut for the curated phase but I did get some interest from the Twitter pitches. More importantly, I met a community of writers who are in relatively the same place with their publishing career as I am and this was a huge benefit.

I connected with other writers. I did this through Facebook groups, through mining my own Facebook contacts and my real-life contacts. Do this! The best part of this whole process for me so far has been connecting with agented or published authors who want to share their experience and their journey. I am frankly amazed by the gift these writers have given me by sharing their time and answering my questions. I’ve also connected with aspiring writers who have turned into new critique partners and wonderful supports.

Do I feel like an amateur?

For sure.

Is someone somewhere giving me and my questions a mean side-eye?

Probably.

Has it been worth it?

Without a doubt.

Am I going to pay it forward?

I can’t wait!

Tell me what I’ve missed in the comments!  Surely some of you out there are former-amateurs!

Jamie Beth Cohen hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and currently lives on the line between suburban and rural Lancaster County, PA. She is currently trying to find an agent for her debut novel in which sixteen-year-old Alice Burton is caught between enjoying her burgeoning sexuality and underestimating its considerable power. She is occasionally on Twitter @Jamie_Beth_S and you can read more about Jamie, and see videos of her recent story slam performances, at www.JamieBethCohen.com.

#DearLaura

#DearLaura,

How do you find the time to write your books? Do you just sit down and write whenever inspiration hits or do you set aside a certain amount of hours every day to write? And which seems to get the job done better?

MichelleConde71

Dear Michelle,

For many writers, myself included, writing is not their full-time job. And even for those who do write full-time, it can be difficult to juggle the creative and business side of being a professional writer, ie. social media, conferences, school visits, etc. While these other commitments are important as they often help writers generate supplemental income, they can swiftly take over your creative time.

While I can’t speak for all writers, I can give you some insight into my process. For inception novel writing, which takes the most amount of creative energy for me, I tend to block out large chunks of time to devote to the first draft of a project. I’ll pull back from social media, make sure all my admin-type projects are complete, and devote most, if not all, of my limited time to simply writing. For me, this means 3-5 nights per week between 9pm and 12midnight (I’m a night owl). To help make the most of my writing time, I often daydream about my story during the hours in between, thinking about characters, scene, and dialogue. This means that when I sit down to write, I have an idea of what I need to accomplish and I can be efficient with my time.

When I’m writing something new, I need to spend as much continuous time as possible in it, or I lose the thread of the story. My best writing comes when I am living with the characters, feeling their feelings, thinking their thoughts, and that only comes when I’m deeply invested. Therefore, to complement my weekly shifts, I try to plan for a couple weekend writing retreats per year, so that I can spend a few days with my characters without the responsibilities of daily life. I do very little revising on the new draft during this time and I try and tune out the editor in me altogether (unless problems arise).

So, to summarize, the three things I recommend for you are:

keep to a weekly writing schedule;
hold your creative time sacred;
build in some more in-depth writing retreats.

Hopefully, this will ensure that you are able to accomplish your writing goals while still managing your other responsibilities.

Good luck!

Laura

#DearLaura,

I keep hearing writers who have agents talking about “going on sub.” I know it has to do with their books going out to publishers, but can you explain how that process works?

Elizabeth M. from Washington D.C.

Dear Elizabeth,

“Going on sub,” short for “submission,” means that your agent thinks your manuscript is ready to pitch to editors. Based on your story and intended market, your agent likely has a top tier of editors to whom they intend to pitch your story. For children’s literature, which includes YA, the sub list is usually 6-12 editors. Most agents will only pitch to one editor within a publishing house, even if the publisher has several imprints. The pitch includes a short synopsis (similar to a log-line), a few published works that are comparable to your project, and some specifics like whether its YA or MG and the genre of your manuscript.

Some agents will share their sub list with the author. Some don’t. Some agents will share editor responses with their authors, word-for-word, while others act as a go-between. And some agents will only tell an author when an editor is interested. If you have a preference as an author, it may be wise to let your agent know. They may be flexible in their process or they may have found through experience that they prefer their own methods.

While it’s the agent’s job to follow-up with editors in a timely matter, if it seems like it’s been awhile (three months or more) with no response, you may want to nudge your agent. They are likely juggling several projects at once and may appreciate a gentle reminder.

Going on sub can take anywhere from a week to a year, maybe even longer. This is because the agent likes to give the editors ample time to review your work. If the first round of editors pass on your manuscript, but offer feedback, your agent may ask you to revise your manuscript before going out on sub again to increase your chances of sale.

In the best-case scenario, more than one editor will be interested in your work, which allows you and your agent to have the upper-hand in negotiating your contract. You may be invited to speak to the editors over the phone to learn a bit more about their vision for your book and how they believe it fits with their publishing house. These conversations are extremely valuable because it gives you, the author, the opportunity to ask questions and get to know the editor before you enter into what will become a long-term relationship.

If your agent has exhausted their list of contacts, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the end of the line for your book. There may be opportunities to strengthen it and go out on submission again. Or it may be that it’s not the right time in terms of market conditions. The good news is that editors move around a lot, so if you and your agent decide to go out on sub later down the line, you will likely have a fresh set of editors with different sensibilities reviewing your work.

Good luck!

Laura

Laura Lascarso is the author of two YA novels, COUNTING BACKWARDS (2012) and RACING HEARTS (2015). If you have a burning YA question you’d like answered, tweet it to @lauralascarso with #DearLaura or include it in the comments below.

Why New Year’s resolutions don’t work… and why you should make one anyway.

I love New Year’s. I love New Beginnings. I love New Ideas. Don’t you? They are all shiny and bright and festive. But what about New Year’s resolutions? How many of you have made one this year? Or maybe several? And how many of last year’s resolutions did you actually achieve? Or, like someone I know rather well but won’t name *ahem*, do you just recycle last year’s resolutions? You know, just in case, maybe, this year they stick? You know, things like:

I will write a book.
I will find an agent.
I will lose X kilos.
I will be a nicer person.
I will do more marketing.
I will organize my office.
I will spend less (or more) time on social media.
I will do more sport.
I will become a better writer.

Do any of these sound familiar? They do to me… and they are all good ideas. Who doesn’t want to finish their current project? Or start (and finish) a new one? Or be nicer, or be more organized, or in better shape?

We all do.

But how often have any of us achieved those resolutions? If you’re like me… not often. So why don’t resolutions work?

The problem with resolutions isn’t that they aren’t good ideas. Usually they are. It’s also not that (most of the time) they aren’t attainable. Usually they are.

So what’s wrong with us?

Nothing.

What’s wrong is how we formulate our resolutions. Or at least that has been my problem. Let’s take the first resolution, ‘I will write a book’. On the surface, it’s great. I have a year to do it and I probably have an idea (since I wrote I wanted to write a book). But how does it translate into an action? It doesn’t. And that’s the real problem with many New Year’s resolutions. Too often they are formulated as a goal, a wanted outcome, an ideal event. But not as a concrete, step-by-step, task or series of tasks that I can stick to and achieve.

But before we dig deeper into that first resolution, let’s look at another one.

‘I will get an agent’.

Yup. That one. Already it’s harder. We aren’t the only ones in this resolution anymore. Does that mean it shouldn’t be a resolution? No. All it means is that it needs to be formulated differently.

So what about ‘I will try to get an agent’?

Well, even that doesn’t work. Like with ‘I will write a book’ it’s too vague. However, if I decide: ‘I will search for 1 agent I would like to work with and send that person a query’, it is a resolution I can keep. I have a deadline and a specific, task-oriented goal. I can even make a chart and post it next to my computer to help keep me accountable—if I want.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you are guaranteed to get an agent, but it does mean you are figuring out which agents you would want to work with. And by figuring that out, and targeting specific people, you are more likely to find the right fit than if you send off a hundred queries to agents just because they had ‘YA’  in their listing. Each agent you research, whether you decide to submit to them or not, will help you get closer to your goal. And a relationship you will want to keep.

And all New Year’s resolutions are things we want, and want to keep—or we wouldn’t make them. But they aren’t always the right way of approaching the issue.

For example, if we go back to the resolution ‘I will write a book this year’ it is huge. And vague. And where do we start with that anyhow? And how can we know what is going to happen, in our lives or in the manuscript, for a whole year to come? We can’t. And deciding ‘I will write a chapter a week’ doesn’t necessarily work either. Not all weeks are the same and inspiration can’t be forced to buckle down and cooperate.

So maybe what would actually be more helpful is to make the resolution: ‘I will write at least 100 words every day, no matter what’. And then let those hundred words be about a character, about the plot arc, about a scene, a bit of dialog—or even an entire chapter for those days you are on a roll and can write 3,000 words or more.

But does that help write a book?

For me it does because it forces me to keep in touch with my manuscript every single day. And by keeping in touch with my characters and my world, they continue to be alive for me and my creativity is stimulated. When I have to leave my world for even a few days, it always takes me a while to get back into it. But if I touch base, even just to jot down a few ideas before going to bed, my characters, and their story arc, continue to grow.

So what are your resolutions? Are they attainable, task-oriented goals? And if not, can they be?

Good luck—and let’s touch base in a year!

Happy New Year! Time To Stop Disqualifying the Positive

Got number 1,250,000 rejection letter from an editor last week.

The months before I received it, I told myself that, with all the past year’s therapy, I have a new perspective of rejection, not just the hollow self-talk of yesteryear in the form of Euphemisms About Rejection (It’s Their Loss or Not Meant to Be) but rather solid, rational, cognitive challenging that was truthful and real and authentic and that I actually believed.

I told myself that when (IF) the rejection came and the automatic thought, “I’m a total f*$king loser/failure because I’ve been rejected by so-and-so”, rose up in my brain, I would seamlessly challenge it with: “I’m not a total f*$king loser/failure because look at those three degrees up there on your wall and check out that first place award from your first book and set your eyes upon the volumes of Sucker Literary in your book shelf.”

Then, on Dec 15th, I awoke to this in my inbox:

“I loved the premise, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass. Hannah is definitely a talented writer (her voice is spot on for NA!) but I just didn’t connect to the manuscript in quite the way that I hoped. I wish you both the best of luck in finding this manuscript a home, and I can’t wait to see what Hannah does in the future! ”

And…my self-esteem exploded.

This rejection hurt—much to my disappointment—far more than I anticipated.

No matter what I told myself in that moment I read that email, “You’re a loser/failure/f*$k up” echoed through my brain far louder than other, more rational thoughts.

The rest of that week I only saw my own writing and attempts at publishing through a heavy veil of depression, and I felt myself spinning backwards and buying the thought: “You’re a loser/f*$k-up/failure.” Not only was I buying that thought, but I was banking it, staring at it daily, and watching it inflate and deflate.

This Veil of Depression did not lift as I went about my normal, daily life of work, children, husband, etc. Worst of all, I found myself doubting my abilities in all of those areas.

You suck as a therapist and you suck as a writing coach and you suck as a mom and you suck as a wife.

By the end of the week, when I burst into tears because I made a minor mistake with some paper work, the depression skidded to a halt, like a car slamming on the brakes.

What the mother f*$k am I doing to myself?

Stop!

I reached into my Self-Therapy toolbox that is this book length manuscript thing I’ve been kinda sorta working on. I ran my eyes down the list of Ways We F*$k Ourselves Over and—ah-ha!

There it is! This is what I’m doing:

Disqualifying the Positive, which is a form of a Cognitive Distortion.

Not once, in that whole week, did I look at that email and take in ANY positive part.

I only saw NEGATIVE:

“I loved the premise, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass. Hannah is definitely a talented writer (her voice is spot on for NA!) but I just didn’t connect to the manuscript in quite the way that I hoped. I wish you both the best of luck in finding this manuscript a home, and I can’t wait to see what Hannah does in the future! ”

When we Disqualify the Positive, we do E-X-A-C-T-L-Y that. We tell anything positive to f*$k off, and we gaze into the eyes of the negative lovingly.

It really is one of the single worst things humans do to themselves.

The answer is to do the opposite, even if it feels really weird.

Which is E-X-A-C-T-L-Y what I did.

I took the email out and AMPLIFIED the positive so that I saw this:

“I loved the premise, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass. Hannah is definitely a talented writer (her voice is spot on for NA!) but I just didn’t connect to the manuscript in quite the way that I hoped. I wish you both the best of luck in finding this manuscript a home, and I can’t wait to see what Hannah does in the future! ”

And you know what, Ms. Editor? I can’t wait to see what I do in the future

Why I Said “No” To NaNoWriMo This Year

 

This time last November you would have found me chained to my laptop, sucking down bars of semi-sweet Baker’s chocolate, with about two hundred post-it notes stuck to my desk, my hair, my kids, the dog, and any available space within a five-foot radius. Not only did I sign-up to “win” NaNoWriMo–which really consists of receiving a video with a bunch of people in viking hats cheering–but I was determined to finish before Thanksgiving so it didn’t impact my holiday. On top of that, I decided to write for a new age group, Middle Grade, and in a new genre, Sci-Fi.

In short, I’d chosen to voluntarily screw myself over the course of 26 days.

My problem as a writer, heck, as a person, is that I firmly believe that I can do anything if I want it bad enough and work hard enough. I’ve gotten to do some really amazing things as a result of this work ethic. I’ve also ended up doing a ton of things I wished I didn’t sign up for. NaNo ended up being somewhere in-between.

Here’s how my NaNo experience went.

Days 1-5:  Awesome. I didn’t write every day, but I loved the topic, so when I did write, I hit 3k without blinking.

Days 6-10: This next round wasn’t as easy. Still, I had an outline and a plan. Did it matter that I kept forgetting to eat? No. Who needs food when there’s an awesome story brewing?

Days 11-20: Okay, it was official. I hated writing Middle Grade. Why did I pick Middle Grade when I loved writing YA? It should’ve been a YA book. I contemplated rewriting the beginning to morph it into a YA….More baker’s chocolate…

Days 20-25: I had absolutely no idea where the plot was going. I hated writing MG, though I did enjoy Sci-Fi. How would I end this thing? Oh, geez, I overdosed on the chocolate. Head rush.

Day 26: Did I even know the characters? Sort of…Oh good, I was finally done. What???!! The word count in Word was different than it was on the NaNo site? I had to write 500 more words? 100? 25? When would this hell be over? OMG! It was over. Sleep time.

The Aftermath: Yeah, so that was my shining NaNo experience. At this point you’ve probably guessed that it lost some of its sparkle after day five. Was I as prepared as I could have been? Maybe? Could I have chosen to write a YA and had a better experience? Probably.

But after it was all over, even the excitement of the Nordic-themed video and the impressive NaNo Winner badge on my website wasn’t enough. For me, NaNo took away the very best part of writing. The writing. Then it sent me straight into my least favorite part. Editing. Don’t get me wrong–I spend a tremendous amount of time editing my work before anyone even sees it. I believe in editing, and in being thorough. That doesn’t mean I dance when it’s time to edit.

I do, however, dance when I’m writing because I’m at my best when I’m creating new worlds. That part of the process drives me. NaNo ensured I only got 26 days of writing bliss. After it was all over I couldn’t help feeling like I’d been cheated. I then spent a year completely rewriting the manuscript into a YA and editing the heck out of it. Mostly, because I didn’t have time to get to know my characters in 26 days. I thought I knew them and then I started writing and guess what? I didn’t. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

NanoWriMo is a great tool–especially for writers who are having trouble getting and staying motivated to finish a first draft. The camaraderie and support system other writers offer is top-notch. I’m just not sure it was for me. If it wasn’t for you, that’s okay, too.

In the end, my final NaNo version looks nothing like that first NaNo draft. That’s okay, because I love it in a way I didn’t last November. Although I didn’t do NaNo this time, I embraced the challenge last year and did it. Maybe NaNo isn’t for me, but you know what? I’m good with that.

Persevere, Writer

So often we get caught up in the race, you know the one, agents, deals, publishers, editors, and we forget what is most important. This isn’t about finding an agent or impressing a reader or even seeing your work in print. It’s about writing the best story possible.

What’s the most important aspect of our writing?

Us. We are. You, dear writer.

Our race is a marathon. Miles, months, continents long. It’s easy to lose ourselves—and our work—to the monotonous struggle of our feet pounding the pavement. Our journey becomes a push and pull of self-doubt and self-hatred. X agent tells us we’re not good enough. Y editor rejects our work. Or maybe you’re not that far yet, perhaps a beta reader tears your manuscript apart and drops the shreds into your lap.

What’s worse above all this, is finding your own work uninspiring. If it’s not the story, it’s the characters. One or the other is too vapid, too superficial, too uninformed. It could be better. The words don’t flow.

I’m not here to hold your hand or make you false promises. Will an agent finally love you? I don’t know. Will a big name publisher pick up your book? Who can say?

What I will tell you is to persevere.

Persevere, writer, for there will be a day when you love your story more than words. When your characters reach deep into your soul and pull forth something so exquisite you won’t believe it came from your fingertips.

Persevere.

You may not love it today, but tomorrow, when the sky is a little darker, the wind a little harsher, the words will speak to you. Today you doubt yourself. You discredit your talent, you deny your privilege to write. But tomorrow, tomorrow it will all fall into place.

Be a cheerleader for your own work. Give yourself credit for learning, for making it another mile. Haul out your old manuscripts and witness your growth. Bask in the rapture of knowing you can improve them. Find simple pleasure in stories pushed aside and forgotten. Make what is old new again. I’m certain you’ll find good in them.

Forget about the race, writer. Shove all thoughts of it to the back of your mind and pile over it with bricks. Close your eyes. The sun is on your skin and the wind is fingers through your hair. Your feet slap a monotonous tone, or is a rhythm? A rhythm, yes, a heartbeat. A pounding that pushes us forward, anxious for the next twist, for another moment of glory. Persevere, writer. The best is yet to come.

KACEY VANDERKARR has a penchant for fantasy and frequently listens to the voices in her head—most of whom are teenagers. Her favorite place to write is an old salon chair in her kitchen, with coffee in one hand and adoring cats sprawled across her arms. She prefers her music loud and her skeptics quiet. When she’s not writing, Kacey coaches winterguard, works as a sonographer, and hangs out with other weirdos like her at the Flint Area Writer’s club. She is currently seeking agent representation.

That was a Pretty Bad Monday, or: You’re No Pizza Rat!

It started when I lost my water bottle on a Monday morning.

I frequently misplace my water bottle. I never lose it. I don’t leave for work without it. For me, my purple water bottle (filled with room temperature water from the Britta and exactly four ice cubes) is as much of a morning ritual as coffee is to most normal people. But I couldn’t find it, and we needed to leave, so I joined my family (my husband and two kids) in the Honda and we left for school (my husband and I work where our kids are enrolled). I knew what lay ahead of me – either I would be hopping up and down from my desk all day to fill a flimsy cup with water, which I would eventually spill on something electronic, or I would dehydrate.

In reality, I had little idea of what fresh hell I was actually in for that day.

That Monday morning, that awful Monday morning, I was in the midst of submitting my first novel, a YA coming-of-age book, to agents. And that Monday morning I sat down at my computer, waterless, my lips already tight with dryness, and I received two rejections (or “passes” as they say in polite circles) – one from an agent who had the full manuscript and one from an agent who had 50 pages. I was flabbergasted – not necessarily by the passes themselves but by the fact that they hit my inbox exactly 55 minutes apart. That seemed cruel and unusual. I had not even begun to wrap my head around the first blow when the second came through. I didn’t cry, which surprised me. Instead I tried to take stock of exactly what I was feeling and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

In texting with my friend (an artist) she shared this, “Once someone with actual cred gave me a really brutal critique and I was raging and embarrassed and felt like my whole life was a joke. And simultaneously like they knew nothing and just didn’t get what I was doing. It was awful.”

“Yes! That!” I thought. “I was feeling that.”

But there was no time for feeling “that,” because I was due to read a book in my son’s class at snack time, so I scurried down the hall, my head and heart virtually disconnected from my body in self-protection mode.

I read the book too loudly. I guess I thought if I just spoke with volume no one would know I was devastated. I think I fooled the three year olds, but when we sat down to eat our apples, my jaw (a problem area of my body that hadn’t “acted up” in probably a decade) painfully popped out of place.

“Oh,” I thought to myself, wincing from the pain, “I get it. If I put a lot of energy into not crying then my jaw will pop out of place. I guess my emotions have to go somewhere. Awesome.”

When I got back to my office I forced myself to eat a mushy meal bar just so I would have something in my stomach to absorb the multiple Advil I needed to take. I was almost grateful for the physical pain (which could be medicated) as a stand-in for the psychological pain. I hoped for the best. And on that horrible Monday “the best” meant taking all day to do a labor-intensive, yet functionally simple, report multiple times before getting it right.

Just the day before I had been involved in an on-line discussion about juggling writing and “day jobs.” A group of writers and I had shared strategies for time management. Nobody mentioned what to do if you got two rejections within an hour on a Monday morning on which you already had too much planned and a day-job deadline looming. I made a note to report back to the group that this is something we should discuss.

By the time I got back into the car with my family at the end of the day I was exhausted, raw, and dehydrated. My husband, who had already provided several hugs throughout the day, asked our kids, six and three, to be extra-special-nice to me that night. And then he told me that as soon as we got home I should retreat to the bedroom and let him handle homework/piano/dinner/bath/bed. I took him up on the offer – or I thought I did. Moments later my six year old complained of nausea and when we got home I immediately made her a bed of towels on the bathroom floor and assumed my puke-companion position in the hallway, our heads touching in the doorway. I felt horrible for her and horrible for me. I wanted to be alone; I wanted to wallow. But there is no time for being alone when you have a sick kid, and there is no time for wallowing when you are trying to get a novel published.

Eventually my daughter admitted she hadn’t eaten her lunch and then things started to make sense. At that point I turned my attention to getting some food in her and getting everyone through our nightly rituals with an eye towards going for a therapeutic run once the kids were in bed. And then halfway through their dinner it started to rain. And that’s when I really lost it. Not outwardly. I didn’t yell or scream or cry or curse. I just quietly gave up on salvaging the day as I watched the rain come down on the skylights above the dining room table.

The feeling of giving up was so powerful. How in the world was I going to manage parenting, working, married life, writing and submitting? What was I thinking? I trudged through the rest of the evening trying to tell myself that I had no control over getting published but I could will myself to be a good mother… maybe … if I could hold it together.

Miraculously, after the kids were asleep, the skies cleared. It felt like a sign, one I was eager to receive. All was not lost. I bolted out of the house into the dark, barely kissing my husband goodbye.

The on-line conversation about managing work life-balance wasn’t the only writing-related conversation I had had the weekend before. As I ran through my suburban neighborhood I remembered what a friend, a writer, had told me on Saturday. She said that if either of these two agents took me on, it would be amazing (I had only submitted nine queries at that point – trust me, I know that’s a staggering return rate, but I also have an editor-friend and author-friend who are very generous with their respective contacts, so it would be foolish to think or give the impression that somehow my pitch was super-amazing!), but if they didn’t take me on, it would be ok, too. “If one of them takes you on, you’ve skipped a lot of the really annoying steps, but if neither of them do, you just pick yourself up and go do those annoying steps.” When she said it, I almost didn’t want to hear it, because I wanted so badly to skip those annoying steps, but two days later, at the end of a truly horrible Monday, I was so glad we had had that conversation, because if I was going to pick myself up, it was going to be because of support from people like her.

When I got home, after a kick-ass three miles, dinner and my husband were waiting for me. I took a moment to check-in with my gratitude. I acknowledged that for all of the things I didn’t have going for me on that particular Monday, I had a ton of things, and people, to be thankful for. And then, misguidedly, I checked in with Twitter.

The agent who had passed on my 50 pages had posted the following status: I offer unconditional representation to Pizza Rat.

I showed it to my husband and said, “This is one of the women who passed on my pages this morning! I’m less appealing than a rat who carries a slice of pizza down some steps to the subway platform!”

“Ooof,” he said, “There’s no way to spin that. That sucks.”

And we laughed and ate our dinner.

Jamie Beth Cohen hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and currently lives on the line between suburban and rural Lancaster County, PA. She is currently trying to find an agent for her debut novel, So Much More Than Everything, in which sixteen-year-old Alice Burton is caught between enjoying her burgeoning sexuality and underestimating its considerable power. She is occasionally on Twitter @Jamie_Beth_S and you can read more about Jamie, and see videos of her recent story slam performances at www.JamieBethCohen.com.