Epiphany

Okay, so I’m taking this workshop called Act Like A Writer. It’s supposed to help nervous-wreck hermit-type writers like me build their public persona and gain confidence in all sorts of public situations, from pitching agents to meeting fans. 

I was scared down to my socks.

My wonderful musician aunt told me to “breathe to the floor,” but I focused more on not collapsing onto the floor because my legs trembled so badly. Instructors Jonathan Maberry and Keith Strunk threw us to the wolves immediately—into the hot seat to pitch. And just to make our terror complete, they VIDEOTAPED us for critique purposes!

When my turn came, I could barely walk to the hot seat. I sat there on the tipping point of a panic attack. The mess inside my head whirled around like a tornado, and I thought throwing up, passing out, or having my head explode was a real possibility. The oddest phenomenon—that of sitting on my own shoulder listening to my mouth talk—capped the out-of-control sensation.

Then I was done. Until the video got posted online.

Due to technical glitches, I did not get to see my video until the day of the next class. One by one, as others watched their videos, they posted traumatized messages about how hard it was to watch themselves. I agonized as I waited—I’d been such a mess, how could this not be painful to watch?

So I held my breath and pressed “play.” And…elation! Far from being the travesty I’d expected, I looked calm. I sounded coherent. I appeared so…normal. Sure, I had things to work on, but I was overjoyed all the same. If I take away nothing else, I will take away this valuable lesson:

My external presentation does not reveal my internal panic-stricken maelstrom.

Talk about a confidence booster! The way I felt and the way I looked could not have been farther apart. I realize that my fear of the fear’s effect on my performance had been more debilitating than the anxiety itself. It was an epiphany.

Will I still be nervous when I pitch? Absolutely. I will always be nervous. But now I will not be a nervous wreck.

Guest Blog at Backspace’s STET!

Hello all! Today I’m guest blogging at Backspace’s awesome blog STET! So come on over and visit! Enjoy!

Haven

Last week I returned to Chincoteague. For eight months last year, this little island and its wild companion Assateague fed my soul and sheltered me from the hustle and bustle of the hectic pace of modern life. Going back, even for a couple of days, felt like returning home.

Is it possible to have a soul-place, the way people have a soul-mate? Some people don’t believe in soulmates but I do, having found mine. So is it possible that a soul has a place, or at least a type of place, where it can grow and expand and utterly belong?

If so, Chincoteague and Assateague are mine. The first time I set foot on the island, it felt like home. Not because I felt I knew it, but more like the island knew me. Like it had been waiting for me to find my way to it–to find my way back where I belonged. Sounds weird, perhaps (or eerily like the premise to Lost). All I know is that after several days there I was more at home than after several years in Jersey.

On my recent trip back, I of course had to visit Assateague, the wildlife refuge next door. Assateague in winter is bleak, but hopelessly beautiful nonetheless. Birds, ducks, and geese populate the pools, wild ponies and deer roam the marshes and forests, and squirrels flit through the underbrush. The beach, empty and wind-lashed, stretched to the horizon, and the waves reached for the sky, foam blowing off the crests in horizontal streams.

Some would call the beach desolate. Indeed, my baby girl was frantically signing, “All done! All done!” just a few minutes after we got there. The grey sky, clouds roiling farther than sight, the raging water, seething as it ate away the land… I can see how some people would feel isolated and insignificant.

Not me. Standing there, the chains of our hectic lifestyle fell away and my soul stretched. The untamed wind filled my lungs, the sea roared in my ears, the salt coated my lips, and the sand shifted beneath my feet. But instead of feeling small and isolated, I felt small and connected. The vastness didn’t swallow me, it took me into itself and made me more than I normally am.

So Assateague and Chincoteague are my soul-places, where I can sense the thrum of life itself. And although I cannot be there always, I can retreat there in my mind whenever needed. That wild wind will be my Muse, swirling my writer’s soul and calling forth words I hope will soar as high and as far as the wind itself.

What are your soul-places?

Graphic Novel Experiment

As part of a workshop, we took a scene from our novel and wrote it as a graphic novel script. I was quite eager to try it, as I have always felt that my middle grade novel is very visual and would lend itself to a movie or graphic novel.

The scene I chose had action at the beginning and dialogue at the end. The action portion practically wrote itself – I had so much to show! The unexpected stumbling block was the dialogue at the end.

The dialogue worked well in the novel – about a half-page of quick back-and-forth. And it would easily work well in a film, cutting back and forth between the characters as they spoke. But in a graphic novel, all I could envision was an entire page of panels that looked like carbon copies – just these two characters’ faces alternately repeating.

Since this was an experiment and I am not yet well versed in graphic novels, I muddled through as best I could. I inserted several panels that were wide shots of the scene, to break up the sameness. I pared the dialogue down as much as I could without losing the voice of the characters or the necessary information in the dialogue. Is it enough? I will find out when my instructor looks at it.

When I first approached this assignment, I felt my many years in video production would work in my favor. I even found myself wanting to use film jargon in the panel descriptions. For the most part, my ability to see the action framed in my mind did help with the project – until the dialogue, when the static nature of graphic novels made it different from a film, where within each alternating perspective you can have the actor portray a small movement that speaks volumes, or use slow zooms to emphasize emotion.

My struggle with the dialogue also made me wonder if I needed to do more with it in the novel. Did I need to have action? Did I need to spice it up somehow? I decided I did not. Novels and graphic novels are two different media. Their requirements are different. A half-page of staccato dialogue flies by in a novel, but doesn’t work as well in a graphic novel – at least, not the way I did it!

I look forward to learning more about graphic novels, and trying to improve my skills.

Have any of you adapted your work to a graphic novel? Have you considered it?

The Princess Blogs?

Not long ago, I read Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries. I enjoyed the use of the diary format—it brought immediacy to the action and intimacy to the character. I couldn’t help but wonder, however, if the diary format could be as successful today as it was then. 

The Princess Diaries was written in 2000—not ancient times, certainly, but before everybody and their mother had a blog/MySpace/Facebook/Twitter/etc. Kids today are highly comfortable posting their lives on the Internet, and their “diaries” are their blogs. In The Princess Diaries, Mia says that she wanted to write everything in the diary because she didn’t want anyone to know that she was a princess. That sort of secrecy would be impossible with an online journal or blog.

So, would a diary format book become a bestseller in today’s market? Possibly—kids still know what a diary is, and some may even still keep a “paper” diary. I suspect, however, that as the kids of today become the writers of tomorrow, the diary format will turn into a blog format. Will this lose some of the intimacy of the form? Kids writing on a public blog (even a fictitious one) are unlikely to be as forthcoming and honest with their thoughts and emotions. Although kids today are more willing to put themselves “out there” than most adults, they are aware that it is a public forum, and I think that will inevitably lead to some self-censorship. This could lead to some constraint of the form, some limitations to how far it can be pushed. 

A cousin to the diary format, the epistolary novel is also looking at a sea change. With letters dying out, replaced by emails, chats, text messages and the like, will epistolary novels go the way of the rotary phone? 

In her blog, Tracy Marchini notes that one of the defining characteristics of an epistolary novels is that time elapses between each letter—and a lot can happen in that time. With emails, the elapsed time between communications dwindles from several days or weeks to several minutes or hours. Granted that it only takes a moment for someone’s life to be irrevocably changed, it still brings a different cadence to the communication. 

Like the diary novel, I think we will see the epistolary novel morph into a new form—a “communication” novel involving email, chat and text. I also think this will be a smoother transition than the diary novel, because so many of the basics will remain the same. An email is, after all, often just a letter in digital clothing. 

Do you think these forms will evolve into something new, or die out altogether? Are there other formats that technology will make obsolete or change substantially?

SPEAK Loudly

Banned Book Week 2010 featured the firestorm over SPEAK, the powerful YA novel by Laurie Halse Anderson. A man in Missouri called it “pornography,” and wanted it (and just about every other book taught in the schools there) banned. Which, of course, has led to every blogger involved with writing to blog about censorship. So, here’s my two cents.

I favor censorship. Wait, wait! Let me explain. I favor personal and private censorship – if a book offends you, don’t read it. If you feel the content in a book is not appropriate for your children, don’t let them read it. Your right to NOT read a book is as inviolable as my right to read it. No one has the right to make those judgment calls for any other person, or any other person’s children. Your beliefs are not mine. Do me the favor of allowing me to make up my own mind.

I do not favor across-the-board, yank-it-from-every-library censorship. If a community were to decide to ban a book completely, there’s only one way that decision would be acceptable to me:  only if the majority of people who have ACTUALLY READ THE BOOK deem it ban-worthy. So often, the people who want to ban books haven’t read them—they just read blurbs on websites and make judgments. They read excerpts taken out of context on like-minded people’s websites and use those “details” to make their point to the school boards. I feel this must be the case with this man in Missouri. He knew some details, but if he had read the book, he certainly could not have interpreted them the way he did.

I read SPEAK a few months back, before the controversy. I had heard wonderful things about it, and wanted to read it to see if it lived up to its billing. At first, I thought I was going to be disappointed. It seemed like it was going to be a “typical” date-rape story, with the predictable plotline. Since there are only so many plotlines in this world, in many ways this turned out to be true. But what Halse Anderson did with this basic plot was brilliant. The way she depicted the complete breakdown of Melinda, the disintegration of who she was and her complete inability to find words to alleviate the pain was gut wrenching. Melinda’s finding her voice and fighting back was inspirational. SPEAK deserves all the praise it has garnered.

What I admired most about SPEAK, from a writer’s point of view, was Halse Anderson’s use of weather/setting and the sculpting of the tree to illustrate Melinda’s emotional state and track her inner journey. Showing my character’s emotions without using the dreaded “felt” is something I have been working on in my own writing of late. In SPEAK, I got to see a master at work.

In my opinion, SPEAK should be taught in schools, both as an example of excellent writing and a way to discuss a difficult topic that is unfortunately very relevant to children these days. Those who seek to ban it have obviously missed the point of the book, if they have bothered to read it at all. SPEAK is certainly not the only book that is on the “threatened” list in Missouri or elsewhere (see Ellen Hopkins’ saga here). We as writers and as readers should fight censorship wherever we find it. We should all Speak Loudly.

WriteOnCon 2010

When you’re a writer traveling back and forth between two states every two weeks and constantly having an infant in tow, getting to a writer’s conference is next to impossible. Thanks to WriteOnCon, I got my chance to attend a conference this year.

WriteOnCon was a free online conference focusing on “kidlit” – picture books, middle grade and YA. It took place August 10-12, running from 6 am until after 10 pm. Jam-packed days with classes and chats with agents, publishers, and authors. I did not get to participate in the live chats, as they conflicted with my daughter’s schedule, but since this was an online conference, it didn’t matter. All the chats, as well as all the classes, are posted on the website, like a blog, so we attendees could access them at our convenience. This is quite the boon for time-pressed individuals like me!

Perhaps the best part was the critique forums. You could post query letters, first 250 words, first five pages of completed manuscripts and/or first five pages of current WIP. You could post as many things as you wanted reviewed, with the stipulation that for every post you made, you critiqued five others. We were also instructed to look for posts that had the lowest number of critiques, so that everyone who posted would get a decent number of responses.

I liked this feature because at in-person conferences, you are often limited to how many things you can get critiqued. Also, it was great to get feedback from other “kidlit” writers. Some lucky people also got feedback from the industry professionals, who were browsing the forums as well. I was not lucky enough to get an industry pro to weigh in on my posts, but I did get a lot of insightful feedback that will help me refine my projects. This feedback alone was worth the time I spent critiquing other people.

I think that for people who cannot afford either the time or the money to get to an in-person conference, an online conference like WriteOnCon is a good substitute. However, I think in order to get the best networking experience, a face-to-face conference is essential. And an online conference simply cannot generate the kind of visceral buzz you get from being in the same physical space as other writers sharing their passion and creativity. But I found it a worthwhile endeavor and many of the other attendees felt the same.

One of my goals for next year is to attend at least one “real” conference, since I will not be traveling between states and my infant will be a toddler.

What are your thoughts on writers’ conferences, virtual or otherwise?

No Answer Means No Interest

The Backspace blog STET! recently ran a series of posts on how to deal with waiting—which there is a lot of in this business! They spoke mostly about waiting once you are agented, and they spoke specifically about if you send in a requested partial or full and then never hear back. They did not address in detail the no-response-means-no-interest from agents phenomenon. Since this practice stirs up a great deal of ire with many writers, I started thinking about why that is.

Certainly, we writers are all aware of the state of the publishing business these days. We know that agencies and publishers are severely understaffed and chronically overworked. We have heard about (and contributed to) the vast mountain of queries that agents get in a day. And we have heard them tell us that if they responded to every query they would have no time for their actual clients. All of this makes sense. So why do writers still get so ticked off when they run across a no-response-equals-no-interest agent?

I think it comes down to respect. Most of us respect the agents enough to research them. We find out if they rep our genre, we find out who they rep, we spell their name properly, we find out precisely what their submission guidelines are and we even check out their blogs. We spend months crafting a query letter, send it off and…nothing.

This silence, even when expected, echoes with disrespect. It says, “My time is more valuable than your time.” Now, I understand that this is not what the agent intends. The agent is trying to get done a boatload of work in the most efficient way possible. But even unintentionally, this is the emotional impact on writers. And that is why so many get so upset.

It would be nice if the no response-no interest agents would specify on their website how long to wait for an answer before assuming no interest (to be fair, some do). I have at times gotten responses to queries 6 months later—long after I had assumed no interest. It would also be great if they could set up an automated confirmation for email queries/online submissions. Otherwise, we writers have no way of knowing if their silence is no interest or computer error.

As for the actual rejections? I don’t have the full answer, because everyone works differently. I know many agents who used to have interns to send out the form rejections no longer do. Perhaps simply cut and paste all the rejection email addresses into a document as they go, then when they’re done with queries for that day BCC the entire batch with a single form rejection?

More and more agencies seem to be switching to the no answer-no interest model, so it is here to stay. Personally, I don’t bother getting wound up about it. I send and forget about it. That way, if I hear from someone, it is a wonderful surprise!

What are your thoughts on the no-response-no-interest model?

Darkness in Children’s Literature

“Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.” — G.K. Chesterton

 I saw this quote posted on a friend’s Facebook status, and fell in love with it. There are some people who believe that children’s books should not deal with darkness. Nothing should be scary, and no serious topics dealt with. Everything should be comforting, light and happy.

 How boring.

 Yes, some children cannot handle scary things in books, and maybe a literary diet with more sunshine and roses is best for them. But books are a way for kids to put words to their feelings of fear and to learn to vanquish that fear. After all, if a child is scared to death of a book, how will that child deal with the scary things in real life?

 Children are not blind, nor are they stupid. They see the same awful things in this world as we do, no matter how hard we try to protect them. Children, however, often lack the tools to process and deal with the evil in the world. Heck, sometimes even adults lack those tools! Many children’s books, fairy tales in particular, face the evil and show that it can be abolished. Good can triumph. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, just to name two successful series, prove that kids are open to reading about the dark side of life, and cheer for protagonists who can beat the darkness back. It helps empower children, to have them see children win out against evil done by adults.

 Not allowing children’s literature to explore the darkness in our world does a disservice to children. Yes, here there be dragons. But here also be dragon slayers.

Judging a Book by Its Cover Copy

Cover copy (or jacket blurb) is important to a book, no question. It is one of the main things, if not the main thing that makes a reader buy a book. It is carefully crafted, often refined from the author’s pitch and query letter, and calculated to make the reader want to find out more.

I know that when I browse for books, the title catches me first, then I read the jacket. I don’t much care what the cover art looks like, as far as making a buying decision goes. And I find I rarely glance at the first few pages, although I know many people do. So the jacket blurb is of utmost importance to my buying experience.

I was in the pharmacy earlier this week, and I browsed the paperbacks while waiting. I found a book that I’d heard tons of people talking about – it’s all the rage. Since I really didn’t know what the book was about, I read the jacket. It seemed interesting—until I got to the glaring typo in the very last line. An extra word! That mistake immediately turned me off from the book. I suppose the part of me that is a professional editor wondered about the quality of what I would find inside the book, if they made such a mistake on a small blurb on the back. And while I may still read the book sometime, my strong negative reaction surprised me.

I’ve been thinking that the adage “You can’t judge a book by its cover” can also be applied to the cover copy. There have been times I’ve bought a book with a great jacket blurb, only to find that the story didn’t live up to the promise—sometimes it hardly seemed like the same book! And there are times when the book far exceeds the expectations raised in the blurb.

Authors often protest that it isn’t fair for their entire manuscript to be judged by a single-page query letter. Is it any fairer that your book, once published, is judged by a single blurb on the back? Which is precisely why we authors have to be so good at summing our book up, even though we find it so difficult sometimes!

How important is jacket copy to you when you buy a book? Should there be a better way for readers to be able to judge a book, instead of relying so heavily on cover copy? If so, what?

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