Confessions of a Former Plan-aholic

Tip of the Day: organizing one thing in your writing life can lead to a feeling of everything being organized.

Somewhere between college and now, I transformed from:

Color-coded-planner-and-loving-it Chick:

into

Not-quite-sure-what-this-mess-is-but-clearly-it’s-not-

anything-resembling-organization Gal:

I’m still unclear as to how this transformation took place. Or why this lack of organization only applies to tracking my personal life and not my work life.

In a short period I will be ready to query agents again and I’m getting ready by whipping out my trusted electronic spreadsheet and starting to create a sheet to track all my queries. Not only am I hoping it helps combat my inner unorganized self and be a much better system then my last one which resembled the scribbles above, but that it will help me to start treating querying more like I treat my other organized business activities. And for some reason it just feels like being organized with my writing will make it feel more professional.

Here’s to hoping anyway!

And for those that don’t like spreadsheets, I’ve heard www.querytracker.net has a wonderful system to help you keep track of queries. I’m sure other systems of organization work as well. I used to be a fan of note cards back in the day, too, and organized many things that way.

I know there has to be tons of other ways to organize who/when/how/what/response on querying. Any suggestions for blog readers?

--Emily, Miss Awaiting an Agent

Sick Thoughts

Tip of the Day: Doctor’s offices can be places for inspiration. Read an article in a magazine you normally wouldn’t read for ideas, or bring pen and paper and make plotting notes while you’re waiting.

I’ve been feeling really run down lately—sick as a dog, actually—and it’s impacting my writing. When I’m sick, I just don’t have the energy to write the next chapter. Or at least I tell myself I don’t. How much physical energy does it take, right? I’m sitting my butt in a chair. You’d think I could manage that much.

But when I’m sick, the ideas don’t come. Nothing seems funny or interesting. My mind gets sort of mushy. Even a crossword puzzle feels dangerously close to thinking.

It’s not really the lack of energy from being sick, even combined with the full-time job and the kids who insist on eating on something ridiculous like a daily basis. It’s the negative thoughts. When I get sick, I’m 100% percent convinced that I have no talent and writing is a waste of my time.

Fortunately, I have enough experience to know that illness affects my self-esteem big time, so I can tell myself this is only temporary. I’ll feel better and I will once again be inspired to work through my plot problems. I will drive to work thinking of my characters instead of wondering if I remembered to bring decongestant. But in the meantime, the negative thoughts are hard to fight. Why am I trying to write a book? Am I enjoying it, or is it only drudgery that I’m not particularly good at? Now that I’ve figured out I’m not particularly talented or tenacious, shouldn’t I go back to bed?

Writer friends certainly help! This weekend we had a visit from an out-of-town writer friend and the special treat of a dinner out. I coughed through the whole thing, but it definitely lifted my spirits. So thanks ladies! And sorry about the coughing.

Today it’s back to me alone, staring at words on a computer screen while my mind whispers, “Forget those self-imposed deadlines. You can’t do it. Make your excuses. It’s too much for you. You’re not very bright. Remember when you argued with the bank teller that she was shortchanging you because she only gave you five twenties for $100?”

So take a break, right? Breaks sometimes make me feel worse, though. Like I’m saying I really can’t write, or worse, that I shouldn’t write. What I need is someone standing over me reminding me that I have no power of judgment when I’m sick. Does this happen to everyone? Misery loves company, but I’ve never heard anyone else say they think they should quit writing every time they catch a bad cold. Is this a common problem in the writing world?

Sickness never loans itself out to comedy, does it? Although remember the Muppet Show and Veterinarian Hospital? I loved that sketch.

So ... Tune in Next Week (as they used to say in voiceover) for our Luck O' the Query week! Luck, you say? We can debate it next week in our Continuing Story.

-- Kate, Miss Apprentice Writer

The Best Kind of E-mail

Tip of the Day: Have a "CONTACT ME" page on your web site. You won't be sorry!

I used to think the best kind of e-mail I could get was good news from an editor or an agent.

I've changed my mind.

The best kind of e-mail I can get is from a reader who takes the time to look me up and writes me to tell me how much she enjoyed my book.

I'm sharing a couple here, because I want all of you who may be wondering, as you try and try again to find an agent and/or editor, if it's worth it. Read these e-mails. How can you wonder, after reading them, if it's not worth it? I spent years writing book after book until one finally got noticed by an agent, and then an editor. How many times did I wonder if I was cut out for this? If I should just put down my pen and take up knitting instead?

"Hi Lisa, I just got done reading I heart you, you haunt me and I just had to let you know that it amazed me. I'm usually into books about vampires like Stephenie Meyer's book Twilight and the sequels but when I picked your book up in Border's today, I instantly wanted it just because the name intrested me. When I started reading it I realized it was kind of like a poem through-out the book and that caught my attention even more. I'm a Freshman Jock at a small school and no one but my older sister understands how much books can mean to you. Every minute after practice's I have a book in my face and I hope you continue writing books like these."


"Lisa, My name is K. I'm 15 years old and I just read your book, "I heart you, you haunt me." I just wanted to tell you that it's such a good book and I LOVED it. I really couldn't put it down. As soon as I got home from the book store, I went up in my room and came down about an hour and a half later because I finished the book. I usually never like reading, but your book got my attention and it made me want to go back to the store and get a new book. So I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your book and I hope you continue to write books for my age group because I'd really like to read some more."

I hope everyone reading this blog gets to experience an e-mail like one of these someday.

Don't ever stop believing!

~Lisa, Miss Pinch Me I'm Pubbed

Remember Your First Time?

TOD: For giggles, report any e-mails your e-mail provider sends to you back to them as spam.

No! Not THAT first time. Though if you want to swap horrible first time stories you can e-mail me on the side. Ha! No, I’m talking about that very first query letter that you sent to an agent. What was it like for you? Were you nervous? Scared? Excited?

I sent my first query at the end of July 2006. And I was SO nervous. Really. I had just written this book—my very FIRST book and I had no idea if it was any good. And no one—not a single other person—had read it to tell me yay or nay. This was before I took Lauren Barnholdt’s YA chicklit class, and before I met my wonderful critique partners, and before I joined LiveJournal and Verla Kay’s. So yeah, I knew squat. What I did find online was Robin Schneider’s blog and later her awesome querying experience chronicled. What can I say? I was inspired that she was selling books at like 20 years old so I thought maybe I could do it too.

So I made up a short list of agents to query (and this was before I discovered Agentquery, which makes life a million times easier when querying) and I looked at it for about a week. I wrote my query letter, which turned out to be a WEE bit too long (like a page and a half), and I tried to mentally prepare myself to start querying. But I was SO scared! I think I imagined these super powerful, smart people sitting in uber-tall NY buildings reading my letter and laughing—“Ha ha ha! She thinks she can write!” (That doesn’t really happen, right?) When I actually got up the nerve to e-mail that first query, I literally had to hold my right hand with my left to click Send. And then I just sat there staring at my e-mail because you know, the fabulous agent would write me back immediately of course.

Well, if you’ve sent out one or a hundred queries you know this generally isn’t the case. But I was totally in shock because this super sought after agent e-mailed me back in thirty minutes requesting a full! I couldn’t believe it! Of course I called my husband right away and told him this whole agent hunting thing was a snap. I should be agented by the weekend and a sale probably the following week. Alas, that did not happen. The very next day I received a very nice, long rejection from this agent. And I was SO mad. See, now I went from scared to even query to how dare she reject me in just 24 short hours. I’m talented like that. It took me like, 10 more rejections to realize that the first rejection I received was the nicest and most helpful one. She had even offered to look at it again if I revised.

Ok, now came the time where I slowed down a bit, joined the YA class, met great critique partners and worked more on the book. And wrote another one. I was still slowly querying (and started querying my second book near the end of the search)—and actually I queried for almost nine months before finding the right agent. But I was a whole lot smarter about all this stuff by that point too. Rejections Shmections—they just rolled off my back. I believed in my writing a lot more by this point and I knew it was just a matter of time before I got an agent and sold.

Your turn now—what was your first time like?

Kristina, Miss Soon-to-Pub

A Protag's Age (or When College Ain't Cool)

Tip of the Day: If you live up north and rent property, go for the apartments where rent includes electricity -- and then run your space heater 1-foot from your winter-frozen body so your fingers don't freeze as you type.

Ageism.

It's a rampant problem.

Especially in YA literature.

Dun dun DUN!

What do you do with a novel that has a college-aged protagonist? Instinct would tell me to sell it to a YA publisher. After all, kids read "up," so in theory high school kids would want to read about teens in college. Right?

But then we hear that YA publishers don't want to put out books with kids out of high school -- or at least that they are a "hard sell." Is this because they don't think that HS teens can relate to the lives of college teens? Or does the "reading up" theory stop applying at a certain age, say 18? And is it assumed that college kids don't have time for leisure reading so they won't read about teens their own age either?

Suppose we come to terms with the fact that our college-aged protag won't come out in YA form -- would the adult lit world be ready for her? Apparently the answer is similar to the YA answer: sometimes.

Diana Peterfreund's IVY LEAGUE series that follows a college junior came out with the adult publisher Dell. Lauren Barnholdt's REALITY CHICK about a college freshman came out with the YA imprint Simon Pulse. Caridad Ferrer's IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ACCENT features an MC who goes from HS senior to college freshman and is published by the YA imprint MTV Books -- or is it a crossover imprint? I'm still not sure.

So it IS possibly to sell books about this age group, but I know and have heard of many writers who were asked to change the age of their MCs from 18-19 to 16-17 -- just bc they were told by agents/editors that the younger age would be an easier sell.

Gah! It's enough to make my head spin! The benefit of having an agent is that you can run these questions by her to get her professional opinion -- but what do YOU all think? Would you even bother writing a novel that takes place in college, or skip it to make it an "easier sell?"

Deena, Miss Recently Repped

Why YA

Tip of the Day: If your own Revision Girl or Boy needs a boost, evidently talking about her or him on a blog does the trick! So thanks everyone for your revision tips last week.

Now as an aspiring writer, I’m sure we don’t field nearly as many questions as published writers, which is why when making a FAQ page of a Web site you might have to revert to your fiction skills and make many of the questions up yourself.

But there is one question I get with some frequency: “What do you write?”

Apparently, answering “Young Adult” or “Teen fiction” doesn’t mean anything to 90% of the people out there that aren’t writers or avid readers of teen fiction. Who would have thought?

So in follow up, I either get “What’s that?” or “Why Young Adult?”

In answer to “What’s that?” I’ve found the easiest way to respond is by saying, kind of like Harry Potter, since everyone’s heard of Harry Potter. And despite the fact I don’t write fantasy that usually does the trick.

In response to the “Why Young Adult?” question, that’s a little trickier. Merely because there’s tons of reason why I write young adult books.

Sure it’s because I loved my teen years and like to relive them. I love anything teen related (Bring it On, She’s the Man, 10 Thing I Hate About You, Veronica Mars, anyone?). My writing voice seems to fit YA. It’s one of the main genres I read and love. I love working with teens in my day job, so it would be natural I would gravitate towards teen books. Yadda yadda yadda.

But I think more than anything it’s the fact that with YA books, you get more freedom to be creative than with adult books. Not saying adult books aren’t creative. But I don’t think books about Magical Pants, a normal girl that finds out she’s a princess, and books about a secret spy school would sell in the adult world. Sure adults read them (like me and you), but still even if they had adult protagonists and you take out all the defining teen factors, the underlying teen themes (basically the entire book itself), I still don’t think they could ever be marketed for adults. Merely because with teens you can stretch things to include magical pants and it’s okay and fun. And I personally really don’t want to be in a genre that can't handle spy schools, princesses, and magical pants. Plus, with teen books there seems to be more openness to creative formats, like diaries, IM messages, blogs and the like. And I love reading creative formats and experimenting with putting some aspects in some of my novels.

What about you, why do you write YA? Or read YA? And if you don’t write or read YA, then why do you write or read the genre you do?

--Emily, Miss Awaiting an Agent

Oh Noes, the Dreaded Synopsis

Tip of the Day: Even though the plural of octopus is octopi, the plural of synopsis is not synopsi. I think it should be.

I’m considering applying for the SCBWI Work in Progress grant, but that means I need to write a synopsis.

A synopsis! Arrggh, anything but that! Help me!

I hate writing synopses. I know, everybody does. In fact, I’m using the grant to force me to write the d@mn thing, because otherwise, I probably never would. And a synopsis is a good thing to have. Keeps you on track and all that. Focus. Emotional arc.

Aaah, I don’t want to do this, I can’t do it!

Okay. Breathe in, breathe out. I have an outline. I’ll start from my outline. I’ll just read this baby for the major conflict points and … OMG, this isn’t an outline! I thought this was an outline? This is a series of sentences unconnected to each other by any cause and effect whatsoever! Seriously, this is direct quote from my so-called outline: “Are they watching a game? Should Vinny act like he likes Celia here? Also—earlier.” I don’t know what I meant by “earlier.” Possibly this means I should move a section of the outline to earlier in the book, possibly it means I want an additional, earlier interaction between Vinny and Celia, or possibly it means I should have started writing this book before my kids were born.

My outline describes little chapter files all over the place. I need to run a disk defragmentor over it. An outline defragmentor. Of course, that would be my synopsis, wouldn’t it? D@mn, d@mn, d@mn.

Here’s something else to stress about: I got lost trying to articulate the spot where my main character think she’s solved the problem but she’s made it worse. I know where, towards the end, she thinks she’s solved the problem. She has a power she doesn’t want and she gets it taken away. It turns out she’s going to need that power to save her friends. So far, so good. But wait … how exactly does her power save the day? Is her nemesis too powerful for this to logically work? Does she use the element of surprise? The more I stare at this, the more my plot is falling apart.

Anyway, send your synopsis advice along if you think I’m strong enough to take it. Or chocolate. Yeah, maybe you should just send chocolate.

-- Kate, Miss Apprentice Writer