The Struggling Writer

This bit from PubRants made me feel kinda good about life in general:

All writers have felt like they’ve been kicked to the curb at some point in their career (be it trying to land an agent, accessing an editor at a publishing house, or sifting through the myriad of rejections). You are not alone and the best you can do is to keep writing because that’s what writers do. All established authors have at least one manuscript that will never see the light of day. Many have several.

Revisions are not going so well...I was knocked out for two days instead of just one, and have over a hundred pages to make up for the absence today.

And I had a pretty good idea about changing something in the end (not comfortable with that end...now that I've got the beginning OK, I've got to go change the end). Anyway, making those changes mean making a TON more...so, *sigh*. Off to re-write land.

I wish I had as positive an outlook on revisions as Christine has:

But once I have the bones in place I can go back and put on the skin (how's that for kind of a gross image).

Best. Analogy. Of revisions. EVAR.

Pet Peeve

Anyways is not a word. Just sayin.

Such a Geek

So, check out my links lists down the page. Yup, upgraded to a blog roll! It's so shiny and new....and now I don't have to obsessively click on my fav blogs to see if they've updated when I should be working on revision (hate revisions! hate! hate!)....

Poetry Tuesday? Also, writing the wrong thing.

So I was reading Graceling author Kristin Cashore's blog today, and was just struck by how beautiful the poem (actually, song lyrics) she posted is:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything --

That's how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen

Then I continued reading the post and found this:

Anyway, I wrote many, many pages, about half of which I crossed out, but that's okay, that's what this book seems to be like -- I write the wrong thing about 5 times, and that brings me around to the right thing. I hope?

That's what my revisions have felt like for me lately. A whole lot of cut, rewrite, cut, rewrite. I wrote the first chapter FIVE times. Five. Five. Carefully laid out chapters are getting slashed and rearranged and cut and repasted and cut again and...

...argh.

Query Letters

Colleen Lindsay, agent at Fine Print (the same agency that has the infamous Janet Reid), posted today a copy of a query letter that worked for her with comments on what was done well. Then, the author, Kelly Gay, posted the same query letter on her blog with her own comments. It's pretty interesting to get the two different view points on the same letter--why Kelly wrote it, and why Colleen liked it. Especially interesting for me as she's going to be getting a query from me in September, after revisions :)

Revision Methods, or What I Learned from Crit Groups

When I first joined a crit group, I thought it would be simple as pie, we'd exchange chapters, discuss, and be happy wonderful writers! Rainbows and cookies would fall from the sky!

I have, of course, learned much, much more. I've noticed in my recent revisions, however, that I've learned some great stuff about revising from my crit groups, too, completely by accident.

Spotting Trouble: People used to tell me that something didn't work in my writing, and I didn't get it. It was soooo much easier to spot it in other people's writing than in my own. But having done the crit group thing for almost a year now, I've realized better what I've done wrong in my writing, and I'm quicker to spot my own mistakes.

Understanding Trouble: Those writerly things that people said, you know, about ambiguous stuff like voice and pace and point of view...I didn't get that. But when I noticed it in other people's work and made a comment on it, and then someone made the exact same comment about a passage in my work...well, it makes sense now.

Revision Method: My super-awesome writing group, The Wunderkin, makes comments using the Comment function in word. Say you're reading text from your group, and you think something needs description. You just highlight the text and add a comment, and then the text is now highlighted in a bright color and has a little balloon trailing off it so you can write your own comment or question. It's simple as pie, and so much easier to read than changing the color of text or making line notes like "such-and-such needs work on line 23 of page 4" (at least imo). In MS Word on PCs (doesn't work like this on Macs), just hit ctrl+alt+m and a fancy comment box shows up!

This is something we do when we pass around files, but it's something that I've started doing in my own work. As I'm reading through my pages, I may notice a quick-fix: just rearrange a sentence or cut a paragraph and it's better. Or, I might notice something that might a hardy fix: my characters say they meet on Wednesday, but didn't I say in Chapter 4 it was Tuesday? I put this sentence here to foreshadow something later, but then the book went in a different direction. Do I explain how this bit of magic works here, or later?

For these kind of fixes, those that will take a lot of thought and usually flipping between pages and chapters, I've started to just make a comment with Word's comment function. All I do is hit ctrl+alt+m and make myself a little note: check dates later; add scene about this in Chapter 10; compare this paragraph to the one after the character do x. That sort of thing. Then, when I do my final read-through, I can easily change dates or swap scenes... and I haven't lost the momentum of reading through tedious back-tracking.

Short Rant

Please do not attempt to write a book until you know grammar.

That is all.

Book Review: Cory Doctorow's Little Brother

I actually finished this one awhile back, before I went to Europe, but other stuff made me forget to review it. There were lots of reasons for me to pick it up: many reviews, including several articles about how relevant and important this book is in today's world.

Plot: Marcus and his friends happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with a terrorist group attacks San Francisco. But the terrorists don't end up as Marcus's enemies...it's Homeland Security that's taking away all their rights, and Marcus organizes his friends to fight back, hacker-style (jeez, that sounds stupid when I say it like that).

Writer's Review: So what can we, as writers, learn from Little Brother?

1. Smart writing: Doctorow peppers his book with real facts about technology and hacking--even the husband, with all his l33t love, said it was pretty accurate. Doctorow, in short, not only doesn't dumb down the technology of his world, he explains it.

Not only that, but he doesn't hit you over the head with the message. Some reviews disagree with me. But, given that Doctorow is basically making a parallel between terrorism and anti-terrorism, I think the message, while certainly there, is still subtle enough to require thinking to see it.

2. Relevance: Some books are just perfect for right-here, right-now. This one is. In the face of an anti-terrorism America, after 9/11 and with all the hype surrounding it, this book is perfectly relevant to the world today. Does it go a bit over the top? Yes. Does it portray the "bad guys" in a completely flat, 2-dimensional way? Yes. But that makes it authentic. To most of us, terrorism is a faceless, 2-dimensional evil. Sure, Marcus's enemy is the USA Homeland Security...but the faceless-ness and 2-dimensionalism still exists for it, as well.

3. Distribution: Technically, this has nothing to do with the book itself. But...Cory Doctorow gives his book away for free. I find that fascinating, in part because it works. I read the free online version, liked it, and bought a copy for the husband as a gift. His logic is, if you like it, you'll buy it--and that an author's worst enemy isn't theft, but being unknown. I'd love to find an article out there about this topic from an agent/editor view point. Obviously, this is something the music and movie industry is going through as well, but it's so cool for me to see it in the book world, too.

Goal

When writing, it helped to set myself goals and deadlines. So now that I'm revising, let's try that again:

Sunday: Re-read and make comments/minor corrections to pages 1-100
Monday: Re-read and make comments/minor correction to pages 101-220
Tuesday: Begin rewrite of pages 50-100
Wednesday: Nothing--got plans
Thursday: Rewrite pages 101-150
Friday: Complete re-write
Saturday: Final read-through; prepare for critique!

That should get me done with revisions before school starts (next Monday!). And although I'll be sending pages to my crit group, I think for the most part, I'll be setting the manuscript aside until mid-September, when I'll be attending my state's SCBWI conference. That will give me distance, but also a deadline to pick the book back up after the conference so that I can start querying in October.

In honor of tomorrow's post...

...in which I'll be reviewing Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, here's a link to his recent article in Locus Online.

On writing for younger audiences:

We all read for entertainment, no matter how old we are, but kids also read to find out how the world works. They pay keen attention, they argue back. There's a consequentiality to writing for young people that makes it immensely satisfying.

Link via Ask Daphne.

Book Review: Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief

I found this book in part because of bookshelves of doom's review of the sequel. When I ordered The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, I didn't know that it had been honored with a Newbery. Which should indicate how good it is.

Plot: Gen (male) is a thief--a good one. A good one who stole the king's magus's seal ring. A good one who got caught and is languishing in jail. In walks in the magus with a plan: if Gen helps him steal an ancient artifact--a task that has led to the deaths of better men than him--then Gen can have his freedom back. The artifact is part of a tradition so important to the people it's tied to their mythology: a thief who steals the artifact and gives it to someone else will make the recipient the ruler of the land Eddis. The king wants the artifact so he can claim Eddis--and the hand of the current Queen of Eddis.

But that's just the beginning.

Writer's Review: So what can we, as writers, learn from The Thief?

1. World-building: Turner reveals in the author's note at the end that Ancient Greece is her rough inspiration for the world of The Thief, but it's a very loose adaptation. True, I thought of Greece in her world description--lots of olives and rocky soil were involved. And some of the gods reminded me of Greece (i.e. Mother Earth, Father Sky, Hephestia). But it was, really, a loose adaptation.

Turner truly created a whole new world for her characters. It's in depth. There are myths--perfectly done myths that sound as if they are thousands of years old and developed by word of mouth. There are landscapes so distinct that I could tell whether the characters were in Sounis, Eddis, or Attolia just by the descriptions of the land. People had distinct racial and cultural backgrounds. If you want to know what an entire new world looks like from the ground up, read this book.

2. Voice: This is another good example of a great first person point of view with a distinctive voice. The story's told from Gen's point of view, and he's got a very distinctive voice--a cynical, snarky voice that fits his character perfectly.

3. Plot Twist: You know O. Henry's awesome plot twists. Yeah, this was O. Henry worthy. If you wanna know the twist, highlight the text below. If you don't--and if you haven't read the book, don't ruin it for yourself--just know that this book had a twist that I didn't see coming a mile away. It was really good, very surprising...but so well done that by the end of the reveal, I was just smiling and saying, Well, of course.

The book starts with Gen in jail because he's stolen the magus's seal ring. 90% of the book, you think he's just this great thief who got caught once. Then, in the last two chapters, you find out that Gen himself--the narrator whose story is told in first person point of view--arranged to botch the original theft of the ring so he could end up in jail and be the thief selected for the journey because he was working for the Queen of Eddis. Wow. The guy who is telling the story totally dupes the readers.


And one last thing: This book was, according to Amazon, intended for ages 10-14 or grades 6+, depending on the review. So I guess, technically, upper MG. It's written brilliantly--no punches held in style, voice, or plot. I'm 26 and I didn't figure out the ending. This makes me feel much better about maybe having my book be upper MG...and is one more book to make me realize how skewed an idea I had of MG previously.

*insert evil laugh here*

Thought all you Twilight fans might enjoy this.

Is it just me...

...or is the biggest factor in whether or not it's YA or MG is the fantasy element?

MG Titles

Some surprising titles that I'd not considered to be MG (but Amazon does):

Aretmis Fowl
Percy Jackson series
Harry Potter (1 through 7)
Ender's Game
Eldest series
The Giver
His Dark Materials trilogy
The Chronicles of Narnia
Septimus Heap books
Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
City of Ember
Hatchet
A Wrinkle in Time
Holes
The Earthsea books
Stargirl


...um. Wow. I've read most of these books*. I used to emulate these books**. Clearly, I have had a skewed idea of MG. And I think you guys are right...there is a distinction between upper and lower MG. Heck, there's a distinction between Harry Potter 1 and Harry Potter 7. But in Amazon's 9-12 category, there are books as varied as Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss to Christopher Paolini and Louis Sachar.

Thing is, I did not consider any of these books to be MG (with the possible exception of Narnia and early HP). I just....didn't. A Wrinkle in Time? That was the epitome of YA to me...but it says, right there, for "ages 9-12." I thought the Earthsea books were adult. Stargirl is set in high school. Anne Frank's diary is about the Holocaust. I thought The Giver was way above MG.

True, there are some books on Amazon's 9-12 list that are labeled as YA if you click on the book for more details. (Eldest was the first I found.) And Percy Jackson is under the children's and the teen section.

So...um...all I've learned is that I need to do some more research, and that MG is definitely not what I thought it was before.




* And the ones I haven't were on my to be read pile. Except for Pullman's books cuz, yanno, Pullman sucks.
**Again, except for Pullman. See previous footnote.

YA vs. MG

I've posted this question to my writer's group, but it's really bugging me, so I thought I'd bring it over here, too.

Several people who have read my query think that it sounds MG, not YA. Of the four people who read some sample chapters, one person thought it sounded MG, one person thought it sounded perfectly high school, and two people (my mom and my husband) told me to quit obsessing (my husband added he wanted a pie, so I kicked him).

I'm not really up on my MG reading. When I think MG, I think Lemony Snicket, Cornelia Funke, and The Spiderwick Chronicles...all of which are series that I never finished. MG tends to be a little too light for me, a little too much on the happy ending side (despite my Lemony Snicket connotations)...it's a little more fluff. Not that this is bad--sometimes I really just want a light, easy read, but on my book shelf, I tend to stack my MG novels with my other lighter fare, like my cheesy romances. (Please don't think I'm slamming your book, PJ! Actually, when I read your description of The Emerald Tablet, I thought it sounded more YA than MG...I'm really getting confused about the distinction!)

Most of my book shelf is YA, but, admittedly, the YA I tend to read include the classics (CS Lewis, TH White) or not-as-hardcore-as-some-fantasy books (like JK Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, Robin McKinley).

The Amnesia Door is between 60 and 65k words and deals with some dark issues: ethics, morality, temptation, death, animal mutilation (it's really essential to the story, please don't think I'm psycho!), intended and implied human mutilation. It's not something I think of a 12 year old reading. Then again, the Lemony Snicket books were pretty dark too, and judging from the movie, Spiderwick got more serious as the series continued. On the other hand, there is no romance at all, there's some pretty typically MG school scenes (wish I fit in! wish I were popular!), and my characters tend to be a bit more believing and less sarcastical doubtful of everything.

So, my basic question is this: what do YOU think is the difference between MG or YA? What makes one over the other? Which do you think my novel should be classified as (know that you've not read it, just looking for a survey answer)? If you think my novel sounds more MG than YA, what do you think I should do about my query?

Getting Critiqued

My query is being critiqued over on Evil Editor's blog, and my pitch is getting a facelift on Editorial Anonymous's temporary pitch critique.

These are both great resources for anyone working on either of these two things...

Opinions Wanted!

So over to the right, I've got a little poll going. What's you opinion on Chapter Headings? I loved them in books like the Enchanted Forest chronicles by Patricia Wrede, but they're not in my favorite books, the Chronicles of Narnia.

Currently, I'm not using Chapter Headers...for the first time. Part of that is because when I started a chapter I had no freaking clue how the chapter would end...so I just slapped a number on the top of the page and wrote. I'm thinking of adding them in now, but thought I'd get some opinions first :)

First Lines

I think I've been having so much trouble with Chapter 1 because I didn't have a first sentence. So, for inspiration, I checked out the 100 top first sentences for novels (googling that brings up several sites), and once I got past stupid ol' "Call me Ishmael," there were some good ideas there. Looking at the structure helped, too. I found that, personally, I hate the long first sentences, but was attracted to the short, simple ones. Also, I liked the ones that created some sort of beautiful image or made a contrast. This site really discussed more of how to construct a first line, which helped, too.

And now that I've got a first line, I've got a better sense of direction for that opener...which means I might finally get out of the first chapter in my revisions! I've only written, you know, five different openings by this point!!

Accomplishments

Guess how much I wrote today?

One sentence.

But damn is it a good sentence.

Book Review: Mary E. Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox

My Amazon books finally came! Squee!

I had a hard time picking which book I'd read first. In the end, I decided on The Adoration of Jenna Fox, in part because I was curious about that present tone PJ kept mentioning, and because there was a recent review over on Tabitha's site (which I've not read yet as I didn't want to ruin the book's ending till I finished).

Plot: Jenna Fox wakes up from a coma 18 months after a terrible car crash. She has no memory of the crash, and a lot has changed in those 18 comatose months: she now lives with her grandmother and mother in California while her father continues to work in Boston, her grandmother--once her closest friend--is cold and distant from her, and her memory has huge holes in it--she can quote the entire text of Walden* from memory, but has no memories at all of ever having a best friend. Throughout the story, she pieces together what exactly happened to her--body and soul. Spoilers ahead: highlight the blank space below for a bit more info:
The "twist" is not that much of a surprise, at least not for me: Jenna was actually so damaged in the car wreck that her bio-engineer father manufactured a new body for her--the only thing left of the "original" Jenna is 10% of her brain. I saw that coming a mile away. The real question of the story isn't really what happened to Jenna--it's more psychological than that. For example: if "Jenna" is 10% of a brain and 90% biological goo in fake skin, is she still human? Does she have a soul? What, ethically, should have been done to her body--let it die, or save it--and now that she's been "saved," what should be done with her?
Oh. And just to get this off my chest. I didn't really like the last chapter. I'm sorry. I just felt that she'd raised issues--such as how she'll never age, or how sex seems to be out of the question--and then threw together a happy ending without telling how she overcame those issues. She just says she spent 70 years with Ethan and never even mentions how weird it was for her to be 17 forever and he ages? It was too happy an ending for me; too black and white in an otherwise gray book.
As a reader, I adored the book. Here's how you can tell: I read it all yesterday. That's pretty rare for me--I tend to read 3-4 books at once, dropping one and picking up another. Not this time. I read the entire thing yesterday.

But, you know, I don't want this blog to be a book review site; it's a writing site. So let's look at the book from a writer's perspective.

1. Episodic Plot. Looking at the book structurally, the plot is rather episodic. One thing happens, then another. It basically goes step-by-step. With the exception of the more philosophical issues touched on in my spoilers, there isn't really a driving force that carries on throughout the entire book--there's not a mystery to solve, or clues to gather. It really is step 1, step 2, step 3.

That's not to say that's bad. In some books, well, it IS bad--that kind of writing can make a book boring. If this was a mystery, or a thriller, or even a romance, episodic plot would be the kiss of death. Just look at what it did to Nobody's Princess. But this book isn't really a genre book, and an episodic plot works. The book isn't really about what happens--although that is good to know--it's more about what you think about what happened.

2. Present tense writing. Hate it. I really do. A book reads "naturally" to me when it is in imperfect past tense.

But.

This book is so well written that I really didn't notice the present tense. Even now, if I had not known that it was present tense from PJ's recommendation, I don't think I'd have noticed.

But.

If I had noticed the present tense--if it had all been in the now with nothing from the past--that might have been a deal-breaker for me.

3. Beautiful craft. This is the most important aspect of the book. Mary Pearson did two dangerous things in writing: episodic plot and present tense. However, the book was so beautifully written, that these two things weren't really an issue for me. Visually, the book was beautiful--the "chapters" weren't so much chapters as new headers in front of new ideas or pieces of the plot. Occasionally, there were darker pages with a "chapter" that read more like a poem. "Chapter" length varied from a few pages to a few sentences. Furthermore, this was tight writing. You know how people say cut everything not needed? Yeah, she did that. Every. single. sentence. was essential to the book.

I don't know how to define it**. I can just say: this is a beautifully written book.

*May I just say: if what happened to Jenna ever happens to me, could someone please give me a better book to have memorized than Walden?!?
**OK, maybe I do know how to define it. You know how you read something that's so good that you kinda wanna cry because it's over, and you also kinda wanna cry because you know you'll never, ever be able to write something that good. It's a bit like that.