Healthy Writer's Club: When things don't go according to plan

So. Hi. Ahem. I have nothing to report on the Healthy Writer's Club this week. My goal of running a half-marathon in the spring is basically...not gonna happen. I'll most likely be pushing it back until fall. All my glorious plans have tanked. See, I didn't plan on several weeks of sickness. Or a surprise vacation. Or a baby that is five months old and STILL won't sleep more...

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The Summer I Became a Nerd-- Cover Reveal!

Today is the cover reveal for my good friend Leah Miller and her book, The Summer I Became a Nerd! I totally love this cover. "On the outside, seventeen-year-old Madelyne Summers looks like your typical blond cheerleader—perky, popular, and dating the star quarterback. But inside,...

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The Hard Truth About Writing: Good is not good enough (but you can be better than good)

Okay, folks. Today I've got some hard truth. But keep in mind that "hard" doesn't mean "bad"-- so stick with me a bit. I can always find a silver lining. ;) While working on revisions, I had a conversation with my agent. She mentioned that in a lot of cases, editors are turning...

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Writing Deeper: Turning a Character's Fail into a Win (and Vice Versa)

I'm lucky enough to have a brilliant and beautiful sister-in-law who is a fellow YA writer. She and I have attended conferences together, swapped stuff to read, and commiserated over writerly things others just don't get. She's author David Farland's assistant, and occasionally...

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How to Beef Up a Soggy Middle-- Your Character Must FAIL

While doing some key revisions on TUGL several months back, I realized something interesting about the middle of my book. Except for a key moment near the climax, my character succeeded at almost everything she attempted. This was not a good thing. She'd be like, "Gee, I wonder...

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You Will Never Have A Fully Original Idea. And You Will Still Be Awesome.

It's Friday, which means Healthy Writers Club day. I ran 2 miles this week. Not great, but better than I have been! And I'm planning to do some P90X cardio today since it's raining, so I'm pretty happy with myself. Now, I've decided to only do full posts about HWC once/twice...

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The Stars Fell Sideways-- Review and Interview with Cassandra Marshall!

"Alison Arroway takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’. She has to, or she won’t get paid. Alison is a stunt double for pampered teen actress Pomegranate and when the director takes the shoot to Portugal, Alison is anything but thrilled to be rooming with Pom. But getting to...

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NaNoWriMo: Don't let the short-term goals get in the way of your long-term goals

I'm doing NaNo this year! Sort of. I'm actually still putting the finishing touches on my planning, and haven't written a single word yet. Hopefully that will change tonight-- I'm a little nervous about starting off behind. But not too nervous. I'm using NaNo as a tool, not as an...

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What's on Your Writing Desk?

No Healthy Writer's Club post today...because I am at a ZERO on the healthiness scale this week. Too much candy...no running...getting over a cold...some weeks, I guess healthy just doesn't happen. And now, [insert clever transition to real post]. <---Yes, this is an indication...

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Healthy Writer's Club: Even Breaks are Productive

Welcome to The Healthy Writers Club! As writers, we hear a lot about the "butt in chair" tactic, which is great for our manuscripts, but not so great for the actual butt in the chair. Every Friday, I'll be posting about how healthy I've been that week and how it connects to writing....

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Have You Met Your Heroes? An Evening with Lois Lowry

I know I've said this before, but when I was in about the fourth grade, the book The Giver by Lois Lowry changed my life. I'd never read a book quite like it, and it basically stirred my little mind and gave me the direction for the type of stories I wanted to write. In fact, my...

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Let's Pretend We're All Human Beings for a Few Minutes

I'm veering really off-topic from my usual posts today because there's something weighing on my mind. This morning, I read two articles. One about political posts on Facebook and Twitter destroying friendships, and another about a teen girl who committed suicide because of bullying. Okay,...

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Rejection isn't personal-- it's trite but true

We hear it all the time-- "rejection isn't personal." When I queried my first book, I never felt like I personally was being rejected, but what was hard was feeling that rejection was personal to my story. It wasn't so bad when I got a rejection on a simple query. At that point,...

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Healthy Writers Club: How Story Structure Gives You Freedom

Okay, first off-- the winners from the You Are a Real Writer contest have been chosen! Winner of the $10 gift card: Adrianne Russell! Winner of the 10 page critique: Tony Dutson! Winner of the 5 page critique: Reece Hanzon! Congrats to the winners, and thanks again to the rest...

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Healthy Writers Club-- Don't forget to sleep

**Don't forget to enter the You Are a Real Writer Giveaway for a $10 gift card and some critiques!** As writers, we hear a lot about the "butt in chair" tactic, which is great for our manuscripts, but not so great for the actual butt in the chair. Hence the Healthy Writers Club....

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You Are a Real Writer-- Enter the Giveaway!

After signing with my agent last week, I felt the love from so many people. And to thank you all for your support, I'm hosting a giveaway! First, though, something interesting struck me this week-- and this ties into the giveaway, I swear. :) I had several people say to me over the last week, "I'm so happy for you! You're a real writer now!" Here's the thing, though. The...

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The Healthy Writers Club: Getting on a Schedule

As writers, we hear a lot about the "butt in chair" tactic, which is great for our manuscripts, but not so great for the actual butt in the chair. Hence the Healthy Writers Club. If you're game to join the fun, you can run, walk, bike, make a healthy dinner, play tag with your kids,...

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Big, Agent-y News!

I'm thrilled to announce that, as of today, I have an agent! I'm now represented by the amazing Hannah Bowman of Liza Dawson Associates. Basically, I've been doing this all day: I actually met Hannah almost two years ago on Twitter, when she was interning at the agency....

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The Healthy Writers Club: How to Push Your Writing (and Exercise) to the Next Level

UPDATE: You can sign up officially for The Healthy Writers Club by going here! That way we can all find each other. As writers, we hear a lot about the "butt in chair" tactic, which is great for our manuscripts, but not so great for the actual butt in the chair. So welcome to The...

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The Healthy Writers Club

UPDATE: You can sign up officially for The Healthy Writers Club by going here! That way we can all find each other.  I recently went a little crazy and decided I want to do a half-marathon next spring. I've got a training schedule all planned out, my brother-in-law convinced...

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Let the Querying Begin!

As of last night at approximately 11:26, The Unhappening of Genesis Lee is DONE. WOOT! And this time, I mean done for real. As in, so done I'm jumping into the querying trenches. At any given moment, this is how I feel about that:   And now, in case you care at...

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The Coming of Querying...and Writer Therapy

Short post this week, because I'm mere days away from finishing The Unhappening of Genesis Lee! Like, REALLY finishing this time. As in, it's been through crit group, a dozen betas, and at least a dozen rewrites. This is the final, nit-picky edit I'm doing now, and then...(gulp) to querying. Querying always gets me nervous/excited. (Always? What am I saying. This is only my second...

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Deadlines-- Do you have 'em?

I'm a very type-A kind of person. I thrive on things like schedules, deadlines, and organization. So it's sort of killed me that I missed my personal deadline for finishing The Unhappening of Genesis Lee. See, I had planned to finish around the first of July. But I was nine months...

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The Uncertainty of Rewrites

Maybe it's because I'm extra tired from getting up at night with a new baby and chasing my toddler around all day, but I'm feeling rather uncertain about the final revision I'm doing on my book. Who am I kidding? I ALWAYS feel uncertain when doing certain revisions on my book. Namely,...

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Birthdays and Birth Days

Hey there folks! Just jumping into the blogosphere briefly to announce both a birthday and a birth day! My birthday was July 17th, and I got the fabulous present of a little baby girl. Yup, the little one hung on til one day past her due date so she and I could share birthdays...

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Celebrating the Awesome in Our Own Writing-- and Life

Sometimes, especially as a writer, I focus on...well, maybe not the bad, but on the things that need fixing. You know, I get a critique, and hurrah! So many things I can make better! (Of course, before the "hurrah-ing" comes the "aw-crap-I-should-have-known" and the occasional *wallow*-I-suck-*wallow.*) But...

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Summer Bookishness and Other Coolness

So. Being nine months preggo in a house with no AC except remarkably ineffective window units is turning me into the equivalent of a beached whale, but I'm still alive. :) I've been doing a lot of reading lately since my brain is a bit mushy, and wanted to share the cool books that...

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Book Reviews for Writers: The Hollow City by Dan Wells

So if you've read this blog for any length of time, you know I'm a huge fan of Dan Wells. Not only did he give me awesome feedback as a "boot camp" critique instructor at a conference several years back, but he's a hilarious and nice guy-- and he writes FREAKING AMAZING BOOKS. And...

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Good News Tuesday

So folks, here's the deal. What with having a baby next month, finishing edits and getting ready to query, and a busy summer, I'm not going to be here much. I already haven't been around much, and I miss reading ya'll's blogs and seeing how you are. I'll try and stop by and say hi when I can, and post here once a week, but until August is up, I can make no promises. Today, though,...

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Hangin' with David-- Get Outside Yourself to Write a Deeper Book

Today, I'm hanging out over at David Powers King's cosmic laire, talking about a random road trip and how getting outside yourself can help you write deeper books. Come say ...

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When shiny new ideas lose their shiny-- What to do when you're not sure what to write next

I've finished major revisions on TUGL, yay! I'm currently doing line edits, which I typically do by reading out loud. This takes forever, but man, is it worth it. Helps me find all those tiny problem areas I tend to skip when I skim through. ANYWAY, because I'm so close to being finished, my brain is salivating to play with a brand new shiny idea. Throughout the last year, I've...

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