With all of the talk about TWILIGHT today and how it affected the young adult market, I started thinking about how I came to young adult books. It wasn’t through TWILIGHT–although I wouldn’t be ashamed if it was. Despite whatever flaws those books have, I love them because I care about the characters. Plus, I…
Writing
How TV Shows Ruin the Romance
Thanks to the transfer of information from my old laptop to my new laptop taking FOREVER (still going after 46 hours), I finished binge-watching Veronica Mars yesterday (three episodes plus the movie in a single day). Yeah, I really should have saved some files onto a jump drive before I started that process. Today I…
5 Signs You Should (or Shouldn’t) Be Submitting/Tweeting Tomorrow
So there are a couple of amazing opportunities out there tomorrow for writers who have a manuscript ready to query. One is the incomparable Authoress’ new On the Block contest, a progression from her very popular Baker’s Dozen contest. The other is #PitMad, a twelve-hour pitch session that happens four times a year, dreamed up…
That Magical Moment When Feedback Clicks
Don’t you hate it when you know something’s wrong with your manuscript–maybe it’s even been pointed out to you by multiple sources–but you can’t figure out how to fix it? Or, even worse, when you think you’ve fixed it and then you receive comments from agents after you start querying that reveal the issue was…
Quick Tip: What’s Happening on Page 20? 50?
A wise critique partner of mine once got to page fifty of one of my manuscripts and said, “Think about what’s happening here. This is page 50!” And although it was still a fairly early draft, I realized she was making an important point. When you’re ready to query a project, agents have varying submission…
6 Reasons You Should Critique for Others While Revising
Did you miss me? I know I threw that four years of querying post out there and then deserted the blog for a couple of weeks. My family went to the Lake of the Ozarks, and then I had a week of craziness catching up with some deadlines. But I’m back! So, I’m in the…
What I’ve Learned in Four Years of Querying
It’s here! I have officially been querying for four years. (Actually it was July 11, but since that’s a Saturday this year, we’ll just consider it today.) And in a strange coincidence, four years ago I sent off my first round of queries and then we packed up and drove down to Springfield, Mo., to…
On Balancing the Urge to Slap a Character or Root for Them
I read a number of frustrating books over my vacation, but before you think that means I didn’t like them, I’ll point out that I wrote a review about one of them earlier this week :). Why was that particular book frustrating? Because the girl kept missing out on opportunities where she could have fixed…
Revising for Vacation!
When I was in college, my roommate always cleaned our dorm room or, in later years, our apartment before we left for a break. She said she wanted to return to a clean place. (Hi, Liz!) I didn’t totally get it when we were in college, but I do now. And of course I’m going…
Why Subjectivity Is Your Friend
Like many writers, I have a love/hate relationship with the concept of subjectivity. It’s the indefinable reason for countless rejections in the publishing world, many of them even quite complimentary. It’s also the source of invaluable opinions from other writers who provide feedback on your work. (I’ve blogged on the benefits of multiple subjective opinions before.)…
A Song for Every Step of the Writing Process
The title of this post might lead you to believe I’m going to give you a writing playlist, but I don’t listen to music while I write. I can’t. It’s too much of a distraction. However, there are always songs in my head, usually of my own making. Today, that song goes something like this:…
A Prayer for My Future Agent
As a person of faith, prayer plays an important part in my life. I pray about pretty much everything, including my writing journey. I prayed about whether my manuscript was ready to query. I’ve prayed about when to wait and when to move forward. Most of all, I pray for patience. Lots of patience. Like,…
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