NESCBWI Conference: Top Ten

The annual NESCBWI conference in the spring is one of my favorite events as a writer. In my post-conference haze, I’ve been mulling over just how awesome it was, so here’s my top ten list!

10. Opportunities to fangirl. How often do you get favorite authors like Grace Lin, Sharon Creech, Nova Ren Suma, and Kate Messner together in one place? Um. It’s pretty cool.

9. Amaaaaazing workshops. There’s so much variety that there’s something for everyone. I absolutely loved Killer First Chapters with Nova Ren Suma and Real Revision with Kate Messner.

8. Great manuscript/query critiques. There’s always a nice full lineup of faculty offering up critiques. Definitely worth it for anyone about to query!

7. Bed-jumping. A new sport to me, but it was highly amusing to watch.

6. Making new friends. I’m definitely going to be stalking some of my classmates from Killer First Chapters to see if they’ll let me read more.

5. Meeting online friends in real life. This is just so cool, and it was awesome spending time with all of you! Check out Dee’s post for more about this and some fun photos of the gang.

4. The Blue Boarder dinner! Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture, but a bunch of us who frequent Verla Kay’s Blue Board got together for a fun dinner Friday night. Great way to start the conference off with a bunch of laughter and smiles.

3. Meeting and hanging out with Taryn, the one and only Girl With the Green Pen.

2. Getting my entire critique group together in one place. We’ve been working together for eight years now (gulp!) but this was the first time all four of us could get to the same event. 

1. Spending extra time with my CP Monica. Some might refer to her as Minnesota Monica, but to me she’s my Monica.

Inspired by … the highs

Writing is filled with all kinds of highs: coming up with the perfect plot twist, nailing an amazing sentence, giving an unlikable character a tiny bit of humanity.

But there’s a special kind of high that comes when Good Things happen to your manuscript out in the world. We all know about the Bad Things that inevitably happen to every writer: rejection, bad reviews, bad timing, so it’s important to grab those Good Things and squeeze them close to you when they happen. This week, I’m grabbing some inspiration from that kind of high and tucking it away for later.

Because I got into The Writer’s Voice contest, and I’m so excited! La, la, la! Take a look at my entry for my YA futuristic thriller here: Brightest Midnight.

And while you’re at it, have a sundae. Because sundaes.

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Inspired by … home

Last time I posted as part of the Thursday’s Children blog hop, I’d just returned from a trip to Spain. My post was about the inspirational details that jump out at me while traveling.

This week, my city was attacked.

I didn’t take my kids into town to see the marathon on Monday, but I’d considered it. It’s the sort of thing we do. I love to go in and take advantage of the fun events available in town year-round. Boston is a great city with cool things going on all the time, especially in those few months where it’s warm enough to enjoy being outside.

This time, we were lucky we didn’t go. I feel the pain of those who know someone affected or who witnessed the chaos of the aftermath. I’m still in shock, and still horribly, horribly sad that someone would do this.

Still, Boston inspires me. Its people inspire me. The way people on the scene ran to help, the way doctors and nurses at some of the world’s best hospitals stayed as long as was needed to do all that they could, the way we stand together, not afraid to go into town.

I love you, Boston!

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

 

Inspired by … travel!

When it comes to brainstorming new story ideas, one of the things that often grabs me strongest is the setting. This probably stems from my passion for travel. My favorite part about traveling besides the food (because FOOD) …

… is the way it makes me notice what the people who live there see every day with fresh eyes. Every little detail is a novelty, and every new corner holds some surprise. Highlighting the right amount of detail in the worlds we create–providing readers with this same sense of novelty we get when we travel–is part of our job as writers.

I’m currently polishing a WIP set in the skies over Iceland. The setting came to me before anything with this story–even before the characters. I’ve only been to Iceland once, but it was enough for the haunting landscape to blow me away with its beauty. I tucked away everything I saw in a corner of my mind and waited for the chance to use it.

In contrast, I just got back from an amazing trip to Spain. My husband is from there, his whole family lives there, and we’ve been there to visit too many times to count. I know, I know, I am soooo lucky! I adore Spain.

But … but … I found that I really had to work much harder to capture those little details in my mind this time. For the first time in all my visits, Spain actually felt like home. I’ve become fluent enough in Spanish that I don’t have the language barrier anymore. I know my way around the family’s neighborhoods in Madrid and Valencia. There are even fewer new foods to try and instead favorite standbys I have to make sure to sample while I can.

Luckily, I realized this. I worked harder and opened my eyes and looked for the details. And of course, they were there. Do you see them too?

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Yalitchat Success Story: an Interview with Gayle C. Krause

Today I’d like to welcome Gayle C. Krause. I first met Gayle at the Falling Leaves Writers’ Retreat in 2010, and we both had short stories included in the TIMELESS anthology of YA romance published by Pugalicious Press last year.

Kip: Gayle, it was great reading your work in the anthology, and I was so pleased to see that your debut YA novel RATGIRL: Song of the Viper will be published by Noble – Young Adult. Congratulations!

I’d love to hear more about your novel. It’s a dystopian with the setting providing a really unique twist. Can you tell us a little more about what the world is like in your story?

Gayle: The year is 2511 and global warming has affected the entire world. Six of the seven continents are devastated by intense daytime heat, and the 7th, Antarctica, is known as the New Continent, because the ice has melted to reveal a temperate land beneath. It is the only sustainable land left, and produces food for the rest of the world.

The rich have fled Metro City, in favor of the New Continent. Those who couldn’t afford passage are forced to live in abandoned sewer tunnels, or subway stations by day. Nighttime, as dangerous as it is, is the only time they can come to the surface to barter for food or trade their services.

Our heroine is a descendant of one of the ECOS, an environmental group who tried to save the earth from global warming in earlier generations. She has learned from her grandmother how to survive on foods from the wild, so she and her brother do not rely on the roasted rats or rotten vegetables that feed the rest of the homeless.

Kip: I’m personally not a fan of rodents, so your character’s talent to hypnotize rats made me shudder a little. Would you say your story is a retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, or is that the only similarity?

Gayle: It is a retelling of the Pied Piper set in a dystopic future. It loosely follows the premise of the fairy tale, but is darker than the original, and the subplots give reason to the elements of the story. It’s part thriller, part mystery, part love story.

Kip: Who is RATGIRL and how did she come to you?

Gayle: Jax Stone is Ratgirl. She is a sixteen-year-old streetwise orphan, with a hypnotic singing voice, who has the responsibility of raising her five-year-old brother in a dying city, where food is scarce and rats are plentiful. When the tyrannical mayor kidnaps her little brother, Jax schemes, along with her ragtag band of friends, to save her brother and secure passage to the New Continent for all of them, but her plan puts all of them in danger.

Jax came to me a few years ago during NaNoWriMo.

Kip: I’d love to hear more about your journey to publication.

Gayle: Four years ago, I received my first contract with a major publisher, Scholastic, and they published my seasonal, rhyming picture book ROCK STAR SANTA. To date it has sold over 139,000 copies. Then, last year, Pugalicious Press published my short story, The Storyteller’s Daughter, in their YA historical romance anthology, TIMELESS.

Kip: Can you tell us a little more about your publisher?

Gayle: RATGIRL: Song of the Viper was requested by Erika Galpin, submission editor for Noble Young Adult, through the Submissions Mailbox at YALITCHAT, an online writing organization. Noble Romance is primarily an adult romance imprint, but recently has opened a YA imprint called the ‘Sweetheart’ line, where the motto is “not just romance.” The stories in the Sweetheart line are YA stories with very strong romantic threads. The focus is on the developing romantic relationship and the underlying story.

Kip: Do you have an agent, or were you submitting directly to editors?

Gayle: I do not have an agent, but I hope to sign with one this year.

Kip: You mention you also have a published picture book, and of course the short story with Pugalicious. What else are you working on these days?

Gayle: My current WIP is a MG fantasy/action adventure with a cast of humorous, and unforgettable characters. It is my only story with a male protagonist, but I’m enjoying writing it.

I’m also am feeding my poetry muse by writing a MG “fractured fairy tale” collection, in various poetic forms. It is titled, “Once Upon a Twisted Tale.”

RATGIRL: Song of the Viper will be available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble in ebook or paperback. Look for it this month.

Thanks for having me, Kip. Support of fellow writers is very important to any author’s success.

Short Fiction: an Interview with Debbie Causevic

This part week, I read A Cold November Road, a wonderful Civil War-era YA novella by author Debbie Causevic. You can download it (for free!) here.

This gripping romance was not only a page-turner for me as a reader; it also was a great lesson in short fiction for me as a writer, so I wanted to talk with Debbie a little more about her story and her writing process. Welcome, Debbie!

Kip: I’ve been intrigued by novellas for a while, but I haven’t been able to complete one myself. The one I tried ended up needing a full novel. I know you’re also a novelist, so how did you constrain yourself?

Debbie: A Cold November Road is my first novella.  Writing full-length novels is definitely more what I am used to doing. I’ve completed five full-length manuscripts, two of which are part of the YA urban fantasy series that resulted in my signing with an agent last fall.  In order to start building readership, my agent suggested it would be a good idea to release any short-stories or novellas that I had completed.  I didn’t have anything ready at the time so I decided to write one.  It took a few months, but it was a fun journey nevertheless.

I wrote the novella much like a novel, only I focused on three specific things while writing it.

1. Word count. Knowing that my limit was 40K served as a great reminder as the word count climbed with every scene.  It kept me thinking “do I really need to go there or explain that…”  
2. Moving forward.  I was frequently tempted to add scenes to better develop the main characters.  However, I asked myself at every new scene, does this actually serve to move the story forward?  If the answer was no, then I’d cut the scene regardless of how much my fingers yearned to type it.  
3. Developing characters through dialogue.  Revealing some of the major characters’ pasts and personality traits via dialogue, rather than devoting actual scenes to them, served as a great way to add back story and depth, while being fairly merciful on the overall word count.

Kip: I totally agree on these points. When I wrote my short story for the Pugalicious Press Timeless anthology last year, I was thrilled to write something that took less time, but even though it was short, I found it followed much of the same process: it still had to develop a full plot and character arc, and it still had to go through several rounds of critique and revision, and then more with an editor once it was accepted. Did you find that your process for the novella was also similar to novel-writing? Any big differences?

Debbie: The biggest difference for me in writing this story as a novella is that I was constantly staring at the word count on the screen.   That and I kept telling myself no, I can’t go there, I don’t have enough words.

A few manuscripts ago—after becoming frustrated that my story was veering too greatly from its original outline—I stopped writing detailed outlines and plots, etc.  Now, I pick the main characters’ names and just start writing. Once the MS is approximately halfway through, I write a very basic outline of what I still hope to incorporate before it’s over.  Usually I still arrive at the same ending that I envisioned when I started writing.  I’m not sure if this would work for most people, but I find it is easier for me to enjoy the writing of the story this way.  One caveat is that I never start writing anything until the characters feel like real people in my head.  I followed this same process with A Cold November Road as well.

Kip: These are great tips! Now, a little more about this piece in particular. You write urban fantasy, but this piece is historical fiction. Was it something about the story itself that made you switch gears, or did you find that historical lent itself better to something shorter?

Debbie: Truth be told, I love to write across several genres.  In addition to The Timebender’s Curse YA urban fantasy series, I have one contemporary YA MS and two contemporary adult ones.  Like most writers, at any one time I have a dozen or so stories floating around my head that I’d love to find time to write.  A Cold November Road was one of them.

I had the idea for this novella while doing research for The Timebender’s Curse series which features a heroine traveling back in time to the Civil War era in part of the story.  While doing research for this, I was moved by what ordinary citizens endured as par for the course during those tumultuous years.  And, whenever I am moved by something, a story idea arises…  Since novellas typically end in times of change, and the end of A Cold November Road coincides with the end of the war, I felt this story would work well in novella form.

Kip: Having read A Cold November Road, I totally agree that it was the perfect amount of story for a novella. Have you thought about looking for a publisher for this? I know Entangled pubs novellas, but I’m not sure what else the market for novellas looks like. I’d love to hear more!

Debbie: That is certainly a possibility in the future or, depending upon continued feedback from the novella, expanding it into a novel-length MS.  It’s off-genre from what my agent is submitting this spring, which I know is a factor for publication.  I wrote the novella based on the age-old advice of “write what moves you and build your audience from there”.  For now, I’m just releasing it in e-book form and hoping to expand readership.  Although the genre is different from my other works, at its core it is a good love story.  That is one thing I aim to put in everything I write.

Kip: I definitely agree that a good love story! Fans of historical fiction, take note! And make sure to follow Debbie’s journey on her website and twitter. I predict great things from her in the future.

The Best 100 Movies Challenge

I couldn’t help but play along when Nathan Bransford listed his best 100 movies on his blog.

I’ve been working on my list for a while (likewise while procrastinating), and hereby share my best 100. I guess I dig the foreign flicks and musicals.

1. Run Lola Run
2. Breathless
3. An American in Paris
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. Enlightenment Guaranteed
6. Amélie
7. Midnight in Paris
8. The Thin Man
9. The Sound of Music
10. Cabaret
11. West Side Story
12. Love and Death
13. Pan’s Labyrinth
14. Spirited Away
15. Brother of Sleep
16. The Nasty Girl
17. Life is Beautiful
18. Shakespeare in Love
19. Das Boot
20. Goethe in Love
21. The Departed
22. Before Sunrise
23. Before Sunset
24. Reality Bites
25. Blue
26. Finding Neverland
27. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
28. Moulin Rouge!
29. Il Postino
30. The Red Shoes
31. Pulp Fiction
32. Goodfellas
33. The Lives of Others
34. Russian Ark
35. The Others
36. The Reader
37. Funny Face
38. On the Town
39. The Blue Angel
40. Singin’ in the Rain
41. Saving Private Ryan
42. Good Will Hunting
43. The Great Escape
44. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
45. Full Metal Jacket
46. 2001: A Space Odyssey
47. Seven Samurai
48. The Princess Bride
49. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
50. Barcelona
51. My Neighbor Totoro
52. Dr. Strangelove
53. 8 1/2
54. Annie Hall
55. Bonjour Tristesse
56. Blade Runner
57. Fargo
58. Almost Famous
59. A Fish Called Wanda
60. Next Stop Wonderland
61. Revolution Road
62. Pirates of the Caribbean
63. Star Wars
64. Elf
65. The Tourist
66. Chocolat
67. The Blues Brothers
68. Blue Velvet
69. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
70. Taxi Driver
71. The Bourne Identity
72. The Flight of the Condor
73. Good Bye Lenin!
74. The Manchurian Candidate
75. When Harry Met Sally
76. Vertigo
77. Heaven
78. La Femme Nikita
79. Alien
80. The Terminator
81. Like Water for Chocolate
82. The Matrix
83. Inception
84. The Wizard of Oz
85. Schindler’s List
86. Hope and Glory
87. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
88. Lost in Translation
89. On the Beach
90. Beauty and the Beast
91. Kiki’s Delivery Service
92. Kirikou and the Sorceress
93. Ponyo
94. North by Northwest
95. The Hours
96. Sleepless in Seattle
97. Casablanca
98. Romeo and Juliet
99. The Dirty Dozen
100. Black Swan

When they nail it …

I’ve met bunches of other writers through all kinds of crazy connections on twitter, and one of my favorite things about meeting all these other wonderful people is exchanging manuscripts. I have to admit, I love getting feedback on my own stuff from fresh eyes.

But beyond that, I adore reading other manuscripts. Not only because it sometimes makes me notice similar things in my own writing–which definitely helps me, too–but because I become attached to these writers and their stories in a much more profound way when I’ve read their work when it wasn’t quite ready.

Most of my friends know I’ve been serious about the writing gig for a long time–ten years this spring. In that time, my original critique partners (who are still my closest and first-line CPs) have all gotten published. I have a nice shelf of books with acknowledgements, and I love it that I got to see those stories transform into what the rest of the world sees in print.

But I’m lucky enough to have even more CPs now–more great things to read, and more wonderful stories to root for.  Today I saw that a manuscript I read and loved months ago–but before it was ready for prime time–was picked to move on to the agent round in Cupid’s Blind Speed Dating contest. Check it out in all its glory here:

One, Two, Three query and first 250 words

I can’t even begin to express how proud I am. There’s something pretty special about reading someone’s work before the big breakthrough. It’s the chance to watch a great story morph into something amazing.  

How about you? Got a moment of great CP pride to share? Spread the love!

The Girl with the Green Pen!

I’ve recommended the TEEN EYES editorial service to several people over the past few months, and as one of Taryn Albright’s lucky clients, I’m thrilled to pass on her exciting news that she’s just launched a new venture, The Girl with the Green Pen!

A little more about what she offers:

My mission is to guide writers through the daunting task of revision. From idea development to editorial feedback to general publishing advice, I love working with stories and those who create them. As a nationally ranked swimmer, I know the value of time, so I believe in quick responses from the first email to the last.

I am not just another freelance editor. Beyond providing an experienced and thorough critique, my secondary goal is to establish a relationship with my clients. I want to support you throughout the stressful submission process and celebrate with you upon any and all good news. Writers may put pen to paper alone, but it is through a community that the book gets finished, polished, and submitted.

To chime in again as a Teen Eyes client, I can’t recommend Taryn enough. Not only is she spot-on and detailed with her feedback, but she’s as dedicated as she is savvy. I love having her as a cheerleader in my corner. And she’s not kidding about the speed of her responses, either!

A little more about The Girl with the Green Pen:

Why The Girl with the Green Pen? Why green?

Most edits are made with a red pen. If someone critiques your manuscript, s/he will most likely cover it with red ink, right? Not so much here. I make all my notes in green because I like to reflect the idea of moving forward. Green means go, it means new life. These are ways to think of your revisions, and this is how I like to think of the editing process.

But why are you leaving Teen Eyes?

I founded Teen Eyes in August 2011 to critique your YA manuscript from the perspective of a YA. Since then, I’ve expanded my interest in editing. Plus I’ll be 20 soon, so the “teen” part won’t work much longer. I still love Teen Eyes, but I wanted to do something bigger.

I’m currently your client / have been your client in the past. What does this mean for me?

I hope nothing! I will continue to give the notes you have come to expect. This is only a change in scenery, really, and I hope you’ll be excited as I am about my growth in this area.

Twofer Tuesday: Comp Titles

For the uninitiated, “comp titles,” or “comparison titles” are titles of books that you or your publisher think are similar to your manuscript in some way. For a couple of great posts on comp titles, check out this post on Pimp My Novel and this post on Taryn Albright’s blog.

I’m always on the lookout for comp titles–partially because I like to read what I like to write, but also because I don’t want to suffer the agony of finding an already-published book just like mine out there after putting all the effort into it. I recently read two great comp titles. They couldn’t be more different from each other, but that’s fine because they’e for two different manuscripts. One is a comp for my completed ms I’m shopping (see Currently Querying) and the other is a comp for my current WIP (see this blog post).

The idea of the first book, a YA novel called RADIANT DAYS by Elizabeth Hand, captured my attention before I even read it. An art student in the 1970s whose life intersects with 19th Century poet Arthur Rimbaud? Yes, please!

Once I began reading, I was swept away. Told in alternating POV chapters (1st person for the art student Merle, and 3rd for Rimbaud), the reader is immediately drawn into each character’s passion to create art. I particularly loved the lyrical voice Hand uses to bring the two worlds of these characters together through their art:

I closed my eyes, and for the first time realized how a poem might be like a painting, each word a brushstroke, a color or flash of motion: words combined the way I mixed pigments, or slashed a sun across a wall in arcs of neon below.

Another brilliant character in the manuscript is the vagrant fishing at the edge of the river on both character’s worlds–an Orpheus-like character whose presence brings Merle and Rimbaud together. Merle, who’s lost her home, her girlfriend, and her collection of sketches, doesn’t know where to begin again since she’s lost everything. The vagrant’s response?

“Screw that, Little Fly. You lost everything? Big fucking deal. Boo hoo. You said you were an artist, right? Well, this is where it starts to get interesting.”

The second didn’t really end up being a comp title after all, but I had to read it to find out–and I’m glad I did. VOICES by Arnaldur Indridason is a police thriller for adults set in Iceland. Basically, a thriller set in Iceland? My kind of book.

It was a total page-turner, but was set in a hotel in Reykjavík and didn’t have the MC getting out all that much. However, it was pretty cool to see all the awesome Icelandic names and drool over the buffet meals.

He walked past the table and admired the herring, smoked lamb, cold ham, ox tongue and all the trimmings, and the delicious desserts, ice cream, cream cakes and chocolate mousse, or whatever it was. 

While it didn’t turn out to be a comp title for me, it’s always great to read a master at setting up mystery and suspense. We weren’t sure until the end who had committed the murder in the first chapter–tons of twists and red herrings. And lots of cool woolen sweaters.