Sarah Beth Durst's Blog, page 45
August 22, 2013
Big Changes Afoot for THE LOST Trilogy
Okay. I've got some news to share about THE LOST, THE MISSING, and THE FOUND, my forthcoming trilogy aimed at adult readers. And while I suspect some of you aren't going to be thrilled about what I'm about to say, it really is great news for the books.....
Here's the deal. THE LOST was scheduled to be released from the Luna imprint (division) of Harlequin on October 29, 2013, which is just a bit more than two months from now. It's all set to go. Written. Edited. Copyedited. Proofread. Cover finalized. Everything. However, in the interest of giving the trilogy the best launch we possibly can, it was recently decided that the trilogy should be shifted from Harlequin's Luna imprint to their Mira imprint (same publishing house, same editor, different division). Mira is a significantly larger imprint than Luna, with more marketing muscle, and a list that spans a wider range of genres. As a result, under the Mira imprint, these books are more likely to find their way onto both fantasy shelves and mainstream fiction shelves, and therefore into the hands of a wider range of readers -- which is great news.
With this change of imprints comes a change in release schedule as well. Essentially, it was decided that the books should come out closer together -- 4 to 6 months apart rather than 7 to 9 months apart -- so readers will have access to the full trilogy within a shorter span of time. This is also great news, both for readers and for me.
However, and this is the part some of you may not be thrilled about, fitting these three books into the Mira release schedule required a bit of juggling, and to make them fit, they had to delay publication of the first book, THE LOST, from November 2013 to June 2014. Soooooooo, the new publication schedule (tentatively) looks like this:
THE LOST -- Harlequin/Mira -- June 2014
THE MISSING -- Harlequin/Mira -- December 2014
THE FOUND -- Harlequin/Mira -- April 2015
While the release of the first book, THE LOST, has been delayed by about seven months, the shorter time between books means that the third book, THE FOUND, will come out right around the time it was always going to come out.
So that's the big news. I apologize to those of you who were looking forward to reading THE LOST in November, but this change should be really good for the trilogy overall and the more compressed release schedule will mean shorter waits from book to book.
Plus, the release schedule for my YA books remains unchanged, with CONJURED coming out just 12 DAYS from now and my next YA, MIND OVER MAGIC, coming out around a year after that.
CONJURED -- Bloomsbury/Walker -- September 3, 2013
MIND OVER MAGIC -- Bloomsbury/Walker -- Fall 2014
So it looks like I won't have two books out in 2013 after all. Just the one, CONJURED. But if this schedule holds, I'll have three books out in 2014!!! Should be quite a year!
Here's the deal. THE LOST was scheduled to be released from the Luna imprint (division) of Harlequin on October 29, 2013, which is just a bit more than two months from now. It's all set to go. Written. Edited. Copyedited. Proofread. Cover finalized. Everything. However, in the interest of giving the trilogy the best launch we possibly can, it was recently decided that the trilogy should be shifted from Harlequin's Luna imprint to their Mira imprint (same publishing house, same editor, different division). Mira is a significantly larger imprint than Luna, with more marketing muscle, and a list that spans a wider range of genres. As a result, under the Mira imprint, these books are more likely to find their way onto both fantasy shelves and mainstream fiction shelves, and therefore into the hands of a wider range of readers -- which is great news.
With this change of imprints comes a change in release schedule as well. Essentially, it was decided that the books should come out closer together -- 4 to 6 months apart rather than 7 to 9 months apart -- so readers will have access to the full trilogy within a shorter span of time. This is also great news, both for readers and for me.
However, and this is the part some of you may not be thrilled about, fitting these three books into the Mira release schedule required a bit of juggling, and to make them fit, they had to delay publication of the first book, THE LOST, from November 2013 to June 2014. Soooooooo, the new publication schedule (tentatively) looks like this:
THE LOST -- Harlequin/Mira -- June 2014
THE MISSING -- Harlequin/Mira -- December 2014
THE FOUND -- Harlequin/Mira -- April 2015
While the release of the first book, THE LOST, has been delayed by about seven months, the shorter time between books means that the third book, THE FOUND, will come out right around the time it was always going to come out.
So that's the big news. I apologize to those of you who were looking forward to reading THE LOST in November, but this change should be really good for the trilogy overall and the more compressed release schedule will mean shorter waits from book to book.
Plus, the release schedule for my YA books remains unchanged, with CONJURED coming out just 12 DAYS from now and my next YA, MIND OVER MAGIC, coming out around a year after that.
CONJURED -- Bloomsbury/Walker -- September 3, 2013
MIND OVER MAGIC -- Bloomsbury/Walker -- Fall 2014
So it looks like I won't have two books out in 2013 after all. Just the one, CONJURED. But if this schedule holds, I'll have three books out in 2014!!! Should be quite a year!
August 11, 2013
Horn Book Review of CONJURED!
Very excited to share with you this lovely review of Conjured from Horn Book!!!
Conjured
by Sarah Beth Durst
High School Walker 303 pp.
9/3 978-0-8027-3458-7 $17.99
Eve has peculiar memory problems. Not only is she unable to remember her former life, but every time she uses magic -- purposely or inadvertently -- she blacks out and awakens with even her short-term memories erased. The U.S. Marshals of the witness protection program, WitSec, are determined to make Eve remember in any way they can: they're sure she has vital information on a teen-murdering, interworld criminal -- information that is embedded in Eve's nightmarish visions of a sinister carnival and its magic show. In her new, puzzling, and forgetful life, Eve doesn't know whom to trust: Malcolm, the marshal who watches over her; the three magic-wielding teenagers WitSec lets loose on her; or Zach, the garrulous, sweet-souled fellow volunteer at her library job. Durst combines the particular terrors of memory loss and icy bureaucracy with the colorful horrors of carnivalesque murder, killer sleight-of-hand, and a creepy, terrible truth about Eve's very being. Disorientation, curiosity, and fear course through the story, offering tight suspense and satisfying mystification even up to the last pages. An unusual blend of magical worlds, psychological thriller, and teen romance. -- Deirdre F. Baker
This review completely made my day.
Another thing that made my day: the realization that in less than a month, Eve will be out in the world!!! Granted, I do wish the summer weren't flying by quite so fast. I feel like it's vanishing faster than an ice cream cone. But I can't be sad since it means I'll be able to share Eve and her creepy, topsy-turvy, wild life with you soon... in 23 days, to be exact! Yay!!!
Conjured
by Sarah Beth Durst
High School Walker 303 pp.
9/3 978-0-8027-3458-7 $17.99
Eve has peculiar memory problems. Not only is she unable to remember her former life, but every time she uses magic -- purposely or inadvertently -- she blacks out and awakens with even her short-term memories erased. The U.S. Marshals of the witness protection program, WitSec, are determined to make Eve remember in any way they can: they're sure she has vital information on a teen-murdering, interworld criminal -- information that is embedded in Eve's nightmarish visions of a sinister carnival and its magic show. In her new, puzzling, and forgetful life, Eve doesn't know whom to trust: Malcolm, the marshal who watches over her; the three magic-wielding teenagers WitSec lets loose on her; or Zach, the garrulous, sweet-souled fellow volunteer at her library job. Durst combines the particular terrors of memory loss and icy bureaucracy with the colorful horrors of carnivalesque murder, killer sleight-of-hand, and a creepy, terrible truth about Eve's very being. Disorientation, curiosity, and fear course through the story, offering tight suspense and satisfying mystification even up to the last pages. An unusual blend of magical worlds, psychological thriller, and teen romance. -- Deirdre F. Baker
This review completely made my day.
Another thing that made my day: the realization that in less than a month, Eve will be out in the world!!! Granted, I do wish the summer weren't flying by quite so fast. I feel like it's vanishing faster than an ice cream cone. But I can't be sad since it means I'll be able to share Eve and her creepy, topsy-turvy, wild life with you soon... in 23 days, to be exact! Yay!!!
August 6, 2013
The Writer's Toolbox: Character Names
Welcome (again) to the Writer's Toolbox! In this blog series, I'm talking about nitty-gritty writing craft stuff. Today's subject is character names.
Juliet famously stood on her balcony and proclaimed that names are meaningless and a rose would smell as sweet if it were called "skunk cabbage" or "baboon." And then she died because she was totally wrong. Also, unable to use the postal service in an effective way, but that's beside the point. Point is that names are an important tool in the Writer's Toolbox.
Name a character Ebenezer Scrooge or Darth Maul or Elizabeth Bennett or Her Majesty Queen Silverhoof of the Lakeside Unicorn Clan, and you set up certain reader expectations for their personality and their fate. It's then your choice whether to fulfill or subvert those expectations.
So... how to name a character.
I decided when I was ten years old that I wanted to be a writer, and one of the first things I did was read the phone book. (I'll pause for you to tilt your head in befuddlement and contemplate what an odd child I must have been. I'll wait. Done? Good. Let's move on.) I did it to find character names, and I wrote each name down on its own index card and then assigned them magical powers and talking animal friends. And really, that's not a terrible way to find names. In fact I'm going to go with that as resource #1: the phone book.
Resource #2 didn't exist when I was ten years old, and it's the one I use most often when writing stories set in our world (or a variant of): the
Resource #3 is baby name books. There are tons of them out there, and they boast names ranging from common to obscure. Often they list their origin and meaning. Only downside of these is if you have them in the house, your relatives and friends will start wondering about what's coming in nine months.
If you wish to avoid questions about that, a better resource is #4: baby name websites. There are TONS of them out there, nicely searchable, often including name origin and meaning. These let you find names whose meaning matches themes in your story or personality quirks you want your character to have (or not have). (For example, in Drink, Slay, Love, I named my vampire girl Pearl because she's the opposite of that name.)
And last but not least is resource #5: children. If you're looking for exotic names for characters in a fantasy world, ask a little kid to invent some names. They excel at stringing together nonsense syllables that sometimes end up sounding pretty darn good, and they aren't burdened by years of experience in what a name should be.
Next: when to name a character.
Really, whenever you want. Sometimes I choose the name first and then shape the personality to fit. Other times, I have a firm sense of the character's voice and need a name to match it. Usually, it's somewhere in the middle: I have a vague sense of the character but he/she doesn't gel until I have the "right" name. And then there was the one time when I wrote an entire novel and then changed the main character's name several drafts later. (This was Lily in Enchanted Ivy. She was Ivy until nearly the final draft, when I decided that Ivy wasn't exactly subtle for a girl who wants to go to an Ivy League school.)
How do you know when a name is the "right" name?
Um... I really don't know the answer to that. When the name is right it just kind of clicks in your brain, like when a puzzle piece fits neatly into a puzzle. Once you have the name, the rest of the picture should get a little clearer. The name should, hopefully, lead to a clearer vision of the character's voice and/or lead to more revelations about the character. And by the end of writing about a character, it should feel like he or she never had any other name.
Especially not Skunk Cabbage or Baboon.
Know of any other good resources for naming characters? Where do you find your names? Please share!
Juliet famously stood on her balcony and proclaimed that names are meaningless and a rose would smell as sweet if it were called "skunk cabbage" or "baboon." And then she died because she was totally wrong. Also, unable to use the postal service in an effective way, but that's beside the point. Point is that names are an important tool in the Writer's Toolbox.
Name a character Ebenezer Scrooge or Darth Maul or Elizabeth Bennett or Her Majesty Queen Silverhoof of the Lakeside Unicorn Clan, and you set up certain reader expectations for their personality and their fate. It's then your choice whether to fulfill or subvert those expectations.
So... how to name a character.
I decided when I was ten years old that I wanted to be a writer, and one of the first things I did was read the phone book. (I'll pause for you to tilt your head in befuddlement and contemplate what an odd child I must have been. I'll wait. Done? Good. Let's move on.) I did it to find character names, and I wrote each name down on its own index card and then assigned them magical powers and talking animal friends. And really, that's not a terrible way to find names. In fact I'm going to go with that as resource #1: the phone book.
Resource #2 didn't exist when I was ten years old, and it's the one I use most often when writing stories set in our world (or a variant of): the
Resource #3 is baby name books. There are tons of them out there, and they boast names ranging from common to obscure. Often they list their origin and meaning. Only downside of these is if you have them in the house, your relatives and friends will start wondering about what's coming in nine months.
If you wish to avoid questions about that, a better resource is #4: baby name websites. There are TONS of them out there, nicely searchable, often including name origin and meaning. These let you find names whose meaning matches themes in your story or personality quirks you want your character to have (or not have). (For example, in Drink, Slay, Love, I named my vampire girl Pearl because she's the opposite of that name.)
And last but not least is resource #5: children. If you're looking for exotic names for characters in a fantasy world, ask a little kid to invent some names. They excel at stringing together nonsense syllables that sometimes end up sounding pretty darn good, and they aren't burdened by years of experience in what a name should be.
Next: when to name a character.
Really, whenever you want. Sometimes I choose the name first and then shape the personality to fit. Other times, I have a firm sense of the character's voice and need a name to match it. Usually, it's somewhere in the middle: I have a vague sense of the character but he/she doesn't gel until I have the "right" name. And then there was the one time when I wrote an entire novel and then changed the main character's name several drafts later. (This was Lily in Enchanted Ivy. She was Ivy until nearly the final draft, when I decided that Ivy wasn't exactly subtle for a girl who wants to go to an Ivy League school.)
How do you know when a name is the "right" name?
Um... I really don't know the answer to that. When the name is right it just kind of clicks in your brain, like when a puzzle piece fits neatly into a puzzle. Once you have the name, the rest of the picture should get a little clearer. The name should, hopefully, lead to a clearer vision of the character's voice and/or lead to more revelations about the character. And by the end of writing about a character, it should feel like he or she never had any other name.
Especially not Skunk Cabbage or Baboon.
Know of any other good resources for naming characters? Where do you find your names? Please share!
July 22, 2013
CONJURED on NetGalley!
My next YA book, Conjured, is now available for review on NetGalley! If you're a book blogger, librarian, educator, bookseller, reviewer, or publishing professional, you can request the eGalley here.And whether or not you're any of the above, if you'd like a taste of Conjured right now, please feel free to hop over to my website and read the first chapter.
I am so, so, so excited about this book! It's the creepiest one I've ever written, and I had a blast working on it (though I'll never view carnivals the same way again). I can't wait to share it with you!
CONJURED will be coming out on September 3rd from Bloomsbury/Walker.
July 14, 2013
VESSEL Won the Mythopoeic Award!
I have AMAZING news to share!
My book, Vessel, just won the 2013 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature!!!!! Winners from prior years include Kristin Cashore, J.K. Rowling, Michael Chabon, Grace Lin, Franny Billingsley, Diana Wynne Jones, Jane Yolen, and Salman Rushdie. And now -- via what I can only imagine was some sort of clerical error -- me. This, my friends, is crazy-sauce!!! It goes without saying that I'm over-the-moon excited!
I was thrilled just to be nominated for this award alongside such wonderful authors -- Merrie Haskell, Christopher Healy, Sherwood Smith, Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado -- and am so grateful to the award committee for this honor.
And to top it all off, the award itself is a gorgeous statuette of Aslan (the lion from C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia). So. Ridiculously. Awesome. I've already picked out a place of honor for him on my writing desk.
The one pictured above is Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's. Mine should be arriving in the mail sometime soon. I plan to stalk the mailman daily.....
The Mythopoeic Society announced the winners of this year's awards (there's an adult literature award and two scholarship awards in addition to the children's literature award) during an awards banquet on Sunday at Mythcon, held this year at Michigan State University.
Click here to read the press release.
Though I wasn't able to attend the awards banquet in person, I was given the opportunity to send in some acceptance remarks ahead of time. Here's what I said:
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
Acceptance Speech
Sarah Beth Durst
When I was little, I never thought there were monsters in my closet. The monsters were all under the bed, along with the venomous snakes. The closet was for Narnia. I used to check it every single night, pushing aside all the clothes, digging through the shoes and stuffed animals, looking for a way to the woods with the lone lamppost. Winning this award makes me feel like I found the way into Narnia. I am so honored and so delighted, and I know my ten-year-old self would be too.
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was that ten-year-old girl. I believed—and still believe—that being a writer is the closest you can get in this world to being a wizard. You’re trying to cast a spell that lets you touch the minds and hearts of people you’ll never meet. You’re trying to transport people out of their lives and take them on a journey and then bring them safely back, maybe a little changed.
I love the journeys that you find in fantasy books. I love the way that fantasy is (or can be) a literature of hope and empowerment. When I close a fantasy book, I feel as though the world is a little more magical, a little more wonderful, and a little larger than it was before.
I write fantasy because, quite simply, it is what I love to read. After I received the news that VESSEL had been nominated for this award, I looked at the full list of nominees and winners of the Mythopoeic Award since its inception. It’s a list of every author that I’ve ever loved. I started crying when I realized my name would be on that list of wizards.
So I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to the Mythopoeic Society, to my fabulous agent Andrea Somberg who has believed in me from the beginning, to my wonderful editor Karen Wojtyla at McElderry and all the other fantastic people at Simon & Schuster who helped bring VESSEL into the world. And especially thanks to my family, my children who are my world, and my amazing husband Adam who made my dream his dream and who shares every step of every journey with me.
I wish I could go back in time and tell my ten-year-old self, "Keep looking in that closet for Narnia because, someday, you’ll find your Aslan. Or, more accurately, in the case of this beautiful award… he’ll find you."
Thank you so very, very much!
My book, Vessel, just won the 2013 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature!!!!! Winners from prior years include Kristin Cashore, J.K. Rowling, Michael Chabon, Grace Lin, Franny Billingsley, Diana Wynne Jones, Jane Yolen, and Salman Rushdie. And now -- via what I can only imagine was some sort of clerical error -- me. This, my friends, is crazy-sauce!!! It goes without saying that I'm over-the-moon excited!
I was thrilled just to be nominated for this award alongside such wonderful authors -- Merrie Haskell, Christopher Healy, Sherwood Smith, Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado -- and am so grateful to the award committee for this honor.
And to top it all off, the award itself is a gorgeous statuette of Aslan (the lion from C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia). So. Ridiculously. Awesome. I've already picked out a place of honor for him on my writing desk.
The one pictured above is Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's. Mine should be arriving in the mail sometime soon. I plan to stalk the mailman daily.....
The Mythopoeic Society announced the winners of this year's awards (there's an adult literature award and two scholarship awards in addition to the children's literature award) during an awards banquet on Sunday at Mythcon, held this year at Michigan State University.
Click here to read the press release.
Though I wasn't able to attend the awards banquet in person, I was given the opportunity to send in some acceptance remarks ahead of time. Here's what I said:
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
Acceptance Speech
Sarah Beth Durst
When I was little, I never thought there were monsters in my closet. The monsters were all under the bed, along with the venomous snakes. The closet was for Narnia. I used to check it every single night, pushing aside all the clothes, digging through the shoes and stuffed animals, looking for a way to the woods with the lone lamppost. Winning this award makes me feel like I found the way into Narnia. I am so honored and so delighted, and I know my ten-year-old self would be too.
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was that ten-year-old girl. I believed—and still believe—that being a writer is the closest you can get in this world to being a wizard. You’re trying to cast a spell that lets you touch the minds and hearts of people you’ll never meet. You’re trying to transport people out of their lives and take them on a journey and then bring them safely back, maybe a little changed.
I love the journeys that you find in fantasy books. I love the way that fantasy is (or can be) a literature of hope and empowerment. When I close a fantasy book, I feel as though the world is a little more magical, a little more wonderful, and a little larger than it was before.
I write fantasy because, quite simply, it is what I love to read. After I received the news that VESSEL had been nominated for this award, I looked at the full list of nominees and winners of the Mythopoeic Award since its inception. It’s a list of every author that I’ve ever loved. I started crying when I realized my name would be on that list of wizards.
So I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to the Mythopoeic Society, to my fabulous agent Andrea Somberg who has believed in me from the beginning, to my wonderful editor Karen Wojtyla at McElderry and all the other fantastic people at Simon & Schuster who helped bring VESSEL into the world. And especially thanks to my family, my children who are my world, and my amazing husband Adam who made my dream his dream and who shares every step of every journey with me.
I wish I could go back in time and tell my ten-year-old self, "Keep looking in that closet for Narnia because, someday, you’ll find your Aslan. Or, more accurately, in the case of this beautiful award… he’ll find you."
Thank you so very, very much!
July 8, 2013
Excerpt from CONJURED
57 days until Conjured comes out!!!In honor of that completely random number of days -- and also because I am ridiculously excited about this book -- I've posted the first chapter on my website. Hope you enjoy this sneak peak at Conjured!
Here's how it begins:
"Your name is Eve. Remember that."
She was supposed to call him Malcolm. Pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the car window, she stared at the house. Yellow and narrow, it loomed over the lawn. She traced the outline of the house on the window: a peaked roof, two windows with shades drawn, a front door dead center. "It's a face," she said.
The man and woman in the front seats checked their phones and then their guns. "You can't give her kiwis," the woman said to the man. Malcolm. And she was Aunt Nicki. "She'll think they're mice."
"Kiwis are nutritious," Malcolm said. Twisting in his seat, he leveled a finger at Eve. "I walk first, you second, Nicki last. Understood?" He didn't wait for her response, and she didn't give him one. He stepped out of the car and stretched.
"Start her on apples," Aunt Nicki said, opening her door and stepping out into the street. "Or bananas. Oranges."
"You could have shopped," Malcolm said. "Besides, it is impossible to eat an orange without it spitting at you. It's a hostile fruit."
"Oranges are classic. For centuries, soccer moms have been carting orange wedges to refuel their charming tykes on the field of battle."
Outside, they shut their doors. Eve let the blissful silence wrap around her for three seconds until Malcolm yanked open her car door. "You push the red button to release the strap." His voice was kind and soft, as if he expected her to cower or bolt. He pointed next to her, and she located the red button. It clicked, and the seat belt snapped out of her hands and flattened onto the seat behind her. "It's going to be okay," he said, and she was certain he wasn't talking about the seat belt. Not wanting to see pity in his eyes, she stared at the seat belt contraption for a second before she climbed out of the car and followed Malcolm toward the house.
Click here to read the rest of the first chapter.
June 24, 2013
Junior Library Guild Selection and Kirkus Review
Got some really lovely news today:
Conjured is a Junior Library Guild selection!!!
Junior Library Guild (JLG) is a collection development service for libraries. Their mission is to read through the thousands of books published each year and select books that they believe will best enhance library collections. This service is used by libraries all across the country, which means that Conjured will find its way onto lots of library shelves! This makes me a very, very happy Sarah. I feel so honored and so thrilled that Conjured was selected!
And in other really lovely news:
The first trade review of Conjured is out, and it's a great review!! It appears in the July 1st issue of Kirkus. The full review is on their site, but here's a snippet:
"Durst excels at describing grotesque violence and gorgeous magical transformations alike, painting a touching portrait of first love against a backdrop of Twilight Zone–type terrors." -- Kirkus
*shoots off confetti fireworks and does Snoopy Dance of Joy*
Thank you so much, JLG and Kirkus!!!
Conjured is a Junior Library Guild selection!!!
Junior Library Guild (JLG) is a collection development service for libraries. Their mission is to read through the thousands of books published each year and select books that they believe will best enhance library collections. This service is used by libraries all across the country, which means that Conjured will find its way onto lots of library shelves! This makes me a very, very happy Sarah. I feel so honored and so thrilled that Conjured was selected!
And in other really lovely news:
The first trade review of Conjured is out, and it's a great review!! It appears in the July 1st issue of Kirkus. The full review is on their site, but here's a snippet:
"Durst excels at describing grotesque violence and gorgeous magical transformations alike, painting a touching portrait of first love against a backdrop of Twilight Zone–type terrors." -- Kirkus
*shoots off confetti fireworks and does Snoopy Dance of Joy*
Thank you so much, JLG and Kirkus!!!
June 17, 2013
Stuff I've Learned: Just Finish It
Here's the second most important thing I've learned about writing (next to making bite-size goals): finish the story.
I started writing when I was ten years old, and I wrote tons and tons of story beginnings. I'd create lovely folders for each of them, using my beloved Lisa Frank unicorn folders for my favorites. Every year, I'd put "write a novel" on my New Year's Resolution list, and I'd plan out daily, weekly, and monthly goals to meet that resolution... and then ten pages into whatever story, I'd be disillusioned with it and skip off after another shiny idea. This continued pretty much until I graduated from college.
After college, I moved to England with my then-boyfriend, now-husband. I'd planned to stay for a year and work at a bookstore or library or something involving words... but I kind of forgot to check about whether that was legal or not. So when I discovered that my student work permit would expire after six months, I decided that THIS was when I would write my first novel.
I told myself that it didn't matter if it was horrible or not, all I had to do in that year was finish it. And so I dove in and wrote every day, even before my work permit expired. The story was based off one of those abandoned beginnings from one of my Lisa Frank folders, and it had talking wolves and other worlds and girls with swords and everything I ever wanted to throw into a book.
And I did it. Before we left England, I had a full manuscript, complete with a beginning, middle, and end. When I came back to the US, I started submitting it to various publishers and agents. It piled up some lovely rejections, and then it took up residence in my closet. In the meantime, I'd run across a beautiful picture book illustrated by P.J. Lynch called "East O' the Sun, West O' the Moon," and I started work on what would eventually become my third published novel, Ice.
But here's the amazing thing that happened after I finished that first novel that lives in my closet: it got easier.
Finishing that novel taught me that I could do it. And once both my conscious and subconscious mind knew that, everything changed in a profound way that I hadn't anticipated. It removed this massive psychological wall that I hadn't even fully realized was there, and I became a writer.
So that's my hard-won advice for this Stuff I've Learned post: just finish it. Finish the story. Finish the novel. Finish the play. Finish the script. It doesn't matter if it's good or not or if it sits in a closet forever. The key is to finish it... and then you can write the next one and the next one and the one after that.
JUST FINISH IT. After that, anything's possible.
I started writing when I was ten years old, and I wrote tons and tons of story beginnings. I'd create lovely folders for each of them, using my beloved Lisa Frank unicorn folders for my favorites. Every year, I'd put "write a novel" on my New Year's Resolution list, and I'd plan out daily, weekly, and monthly goals to meet that resolution... and then ten pages into whatever story, I'd be disillusioned with it and skip off after another shiny idea. This continued pretty much until I graduated from college.
After college, I moved to England with my then-boyfriend, now-husband. I'd planned to stay for a year and work at a bookstore or library or something involving words... but I kind of forgot to check about whether that was legal or not. So when I discovered that my student work permit would expire after six months, I decided that THIS was when I would write my first novel.
I told myself that it didn't matter if it was horrible or not, all I had to do in that year was finish it. And so I dove in and wrote every day, even before my work permit expired. The story was based off one of those abandoned beginnings from one of my Lisa Frank folders, and it had talking wolves and other worlds and girls with swords and everything I ever wanted to throw into a book.
And I did it. Before we left England, I had a full manuscript, complete with a beginning, middle, and end. When I came back to the US, I started submitting it to various publishers and agents. It piled up some lovely rejections, and then it took up residence in my closet. In the meantime, I'd run across a beautiful picture book illustrated by P.J. Lynch called "East O' the Sun, West O' the Moon," and I started work on what would eventually become my third published novel, Ice.
But here's the amazing thing that happened after I finished that first novel that lives in my closet: it got easier.
Finishing that novel taught me that I could do it. And once both my conscious and subconscious mind knew that, everything changed in a profound way that I hadn't anticipated. It removed this massive psychological wall that I hadn't even fully realized was there, and I became a writer.
So that's my hard-won advice for this Stuff I've Learned post: just finish it. Finish the story. Finish the novel. Finish the play. Finish the script. It doesn't matter if it's good or not or if it sits in a closet forever. The key is to finish it... and then you can write the next one and the next one and the one after that.
JUST FINISH IT. After that, anything's possible.
June 9, 2013
Countdown Widgets for CONJURED and THE LOST
The other day, it suddenly dawned on me that... Whoa! It's now less than three months until Conjured comes out! And for that matter, less than five months until The Lost comes out!
Yes, I've known the pub dates forever. But somehow, the reality of how those dates are actually approaching, and how these novels are going to become real books when those dates arrive, just reached my brain last week.
After a brief flash of terror -- SO MUCH WORK TO DO BEFORE PUB DATE!!!! -- my brain accepted reality and got quite giddy! And since I know I'll now be counting the days until each of these pub dates, I figured I'd formalize the process and post some countdown widgets here. So, without further ado, here they are.....
For Conjured, my next YA, which comes out September 3rd:
Get the Countdown Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)
And for The Lost, my first book for adults, which comes out October 29th:
Get the Countdown Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)
If you'd like to join in my countdown, please feel free to grab either or both of these for your site/blog/etc by clicking the "Get Widget" buttons.
Tick. Tick. Tick. AAAAAAAH! SO MUCH WORK TO DO!
Yes, I've known the pub dates forever. But somehow, the reality of how those dates are actually approaching, and how these novels are going to become real books when those dates arrive, just reached my brain last week.
After a brief flash of terror -- SO MUCH WORK TO DO BEFORE PUB DATE!!!! -- my brain accepted reality and got quite giddy! And since I know I'll now be counting the days until each of these pub dates, I figured I'd formalize the process and post some countdown widgets here. So, without further ado, here they are.....
For Conjured, my next YA, which comes out September 3rd:
Get the Countdown Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)
And for The Lost, my first book for adults, which comes out October 29th:
Get the Countdown Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)
If you'd like to join in my countdown, please feel free to grab either or both of these for your site/blog/etc by clicking the "Get Widget" buttons.
Tick. Tick. Tick. AAAAAAAH! SO MUCH WORK TO DO!
June 2, 2013
BEA 2013
Just got back from BookExpo America (BEA), an annual publishing industry convention. Five days filled with tons of wonderful people who love books! It was fantastic!
My BEA started on Tuesday when I arrived at a pre-BEA party at Books of Wonder (one of my favorite bookstores in the world), and it ended on Saturday after I was on a BEA panel about SF/fantasy with Laura Anne Gilman, Leanna Renee Hieber, and Jeri Smith-Ready that was more fun than riding a sparkly unicorn across a meadow of cheering leprechauns. And you know those leprechauns can cheer.
You can watch the entire panel here. I start talking at just shy of 4 minutes in.
Other highlights included the Children's Art Auction on Wednesday, my signing on Friday (So much fun! Thank you, everyone!), and the elegant and awesome Harlequin party on a rooftop bar with a gorgeous view of the Chrysler Building. Wish I'd taken photos. Just picture Manhattan at its prettiest.
All in all, it was a great week, and I'm already looking forward to next year!
My BEA started on Tuesday when I arrived at a pre-BEA party at Books of Wonder (one of my favorite bookstores in the world), and it ended on Saturday after I was on a BEA panel about SF/fantasy with Laura Anne Gilman, Leanna Renee Hieber, and Jeri Smith-Ready that was more fun than riding a sparkly unicorn across a meadow of cheering leprechauns. And you know those leprechauns can cheer.
You can watch the entire panel here. I start talking at just shy of 4 minutes in.
Other highlights included the Children's Art Auction on Wednesday, my signing on Friday (So much fun! Thank you, everyone!), and the elegant and awesome Harlequin party on a rooftop bar with a gorgeous view of the Chrysler Building. Wish I'd taken photos. Just picture Manhattan at its prettiest.
All in all, it was a great week, and I'm already looking forward to next year!
