Meg Cabot's Advice

Hello Fellow Writers!

I'm still waiting to hear back on the two manuscripts that are currently being reviewed by publishers. In the meantime, I've been working on "Taste of Candy", an erotic romance. I am totally stuck on this one - something must be wrong! I need to go through and make an outline and see if I can unblock myself. So that's the plan for this week.

I've been reading Meg Cabot's bestselling "Princess Diary" series. They are wonderful books and each is such a quick read. I literally read one of the books in four hours without pause. I really enjoy Cabot's easy going style - I will definitely be reading more of her novels.

On her website, MegCabot.com, she offers her advice to aspiring writers:

What advice do you have to give to aspiring writers?

My advice to young writers is:
Write the kinds of stories you like to read. If you don’t love what you’re writing, no one else will, either.
Don’t tell people you want to be a writer. Everyone will try to talk you out of choosing a job with so little security, so it is better just to keep it to yourself, and prove them all wrong later.
You are not a hundred dollar bill. Not everyone is going to like you … or your story. Do not take rejection personally.
If you are blocked on a story, there is probably something wrong with it. Take a few days off and put the story on a back burner for a while. Eventually, it will come to you.
Read-and write-all the time. Never stop sending out your stuff. Don’t wait for a response after sending a story out…start a new story right away, and then send that one out! If you are constantly writing and sending stuff out (don’t forget to live your life, too, while you are doing this) eventually someone will bite!
It is nearly impossible to get published these days without an agent. The guide I used to get mine was called the Jeff Herman Guide to Agents, Editors, and Publishers. It was well worth the money I spent on it, since it lists every agent in the business and what he or she is looking for. It also tells you how to write a query letter, what to expect from your publisher, and all sorts of good stuff…a must buy for any aspiring author!
And above all, become a good listener. In order to write believable dialogue, you need to listen to the conversations of the people around you—then try to imitate them! So my advice is always to try to keeping quiet, listen only, and let other people to do the talking for a change. You’ll be surprised how much this will improve your writing skills (and how many people will think you’re a really sage person, when all you’re basically doing is spying on them).
Good luck, and keep writing! If I can do it, so can you!

Good advice from a number one bestselling YA author! I have a YA novel called "SL*T" that I was working on and then just kind of let go. It's much darker than most traditional YA fair. I do plan on getting back to it at some point. But for now, I've got my Advanced Writing Workshop instructor going through my Silhouette Desire targeted contemporary romance, "Snowed in with a Millionaire", and I've got my current WIP "Taste of Candy" to work on.
Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

"Graceling" author's Pep Talk

Hello Fellow Writers!

Yesterday I went to a write-in for NaNoWriMo, which was so much fun. I love getting together and hanging out with other people who are as interested in books (both reading and writing them) as I am. My word count is now 43,000.

I saw "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" last night. Wow, that werewolf grew up. He got about a million abs and biceps now. In the movie, as in Stephanie Meyers book, I found myself rooting for the werewolf instead of the vampire. Who wants an old man who's very cold and can't physically love you, when you can have a hot-blooded guy your own age who can go out in the sun?

I got another pep talk in my inbox today. This one is from Kristin Cashore, who is the author of the New York Times bestseller Graceling, the winner of the 2009 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature, a Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and a finalist for the Andre Norton Award and the Indies Choice Book Awards. Her recent book Fire also a New York Times bestseller.

Here it is:

Greetings, fellow novelists!

So, now that you've been writing for a few weeks, here's my question. Have you started to realize what you've gotten yourself into? Is the realization accompanied by a creeping sense of panic?

If your answer is no, rock on. But if your answer is yes—if your novel has gotten more complicated than you ever thought it would—if you're not sure you've got what it takes to pull this project off—then I'm here for you today with a message, and the message is: don't panic. Don't panic! No one would ever do anything great if they knew at the outset what they were getting themselves into. And I happen to know, at the core of my soul, that you can do this. How do I know? Because I've been there, many times. Sometimes it feels like my permanent state of being. And you know what? I've learned that I'm capable of a lot more than I generally think I am—and you are, too.

A lot of people who don't write novels don't really understand what it's like. They think that something easy to read must have been easy to write. What a lark! How fun to just let your imagination run wild and jot down stories all day!

I suppose there's nothing wrong with these people. Doubtless, there are thousands of occupations I don't appreciate the complexity of. For example, doesn't it seem like it would be fun to be the weatherman? But, then, everybody expects you to predict unpredictable events, and when you get it wrong, everyone thinks you're a bozo. Plus, you probably have to sit still in a chair for ages every day while people do your makeup and spray smelly things into your hair.

Here's what it starts to be like for me somewhere in the midsection of a novel:
(1) I've written the beginning, but I'm pretty sure it's a pile of crap.
(2) The end, when I even dare to contemplate it, feels as far away as Uranus.
(3) The prose I'm writing right now, here in the middle, sounds like a stiff little busybody who's sat down too hard on a nettle.
(4) I've discovered that my plot, even if it's an engaging plot, has sections that are not engaging to write, and I'm bogged down in those doldrums sections, when all I want is to move on to the exciting parts that are just ahead —but I can't, not until I've written the parts that will get me there. Boring!
(5) The house is strewn with post-it notes on which are written about a gazillion important reminders of things I must somehow remember to find a way to weave into the novel at some point, although, where, I can't imagine. Some of the post-it notes are written hastily in a code I have since forgotten. ("He is temperamentally sweet, but dangerous, like Jake." That would be very helpful, if I had the slightest idea to whom "he" refers, or if I knew anyone named Jake.)
(6) Worst of all, whenever I take a step back and try to examine objectively this unstructured mess that is half created and half still living in my head and heart and hope (and on a gazillion post-it notes)... I get this horrible, sinking feeling that my novel isn't actually about anything.

Does any of that sound familiar to you?

Listen. Learning to write 50,000 words means learning a whole pile of skills, but they're learnable skills, and you learn them by writing. One of those skills is finding your own technique for dealing with all the voices that are constantly telling you, in one way or another, what a bonehead you are and how bad you are at this and how doomed your project is. I'm not saying don't listen to the voices. Go ahead and listen to them— if you try to ignore them, sometimes they only scream louder. I'm only saying, don't believe them— and, most importantly, don't let them decide how you spend your day. Maybe laugh and give them a hug and say to them, "Yes, you're sad and lonely and desperate for my attention, aren't you? Well, thank you for visiting; stay as long as you need to; but, by the way, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Because I know I can do this, and, as it happens, you can't stop me. Want to sit with me at my desk while I show you what I mean?"

Self-doubt and fear are just part of the process. Those voices are never going to go away. Write anyway. Take a breath; go for a walk; look at the stars; listen to OutKast and shake it like a Polaroid picture; and then, sit down and write anyway. Incidentally, I think the fastest I've ever written 50,000 words was in about eight months. I don't actually keep track of word count, I just keep track of whether or not I'm making progress, and I think that's what NaNoWriMo is about: getting into the habit of making progress. And progress is something every writer needs to define for him- or herself. Throwing out the last twenty pages you just wrote can involve just as much progress as writing three new ones. So try not to beat yourself up if your novel makes it clear to you that you're going to have to shift your goals.

Breathe. Be kind to yourself. Don't panic. Take risks. Make messes. Decide every day that in your writing toolbox, next to the fear and self-doubt, you are also going to keep at least one tiny little seed of faith. That's all you need to keep going—one mustard seed. Keep tight hold on that faith, and keep writing.

-Kristin Cashore
You can learn more about Kristin Cashore's work here.

Today I am going to another write-in where I will be getting my word count to 45,000k - maybe higher. I've been printing out my manuscript for my WIP "Snowed in With a Millionaire" as I go and it's getting huge (156 pages right now).

Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers

Young Adult Fantasy Author Tamora Pierce

Hello Fellow Writers!

Yesterday I didn't get to sit down to write until after 9pm. DH and I had gone to look for a new (used) car since the old one crapped out on us. This took all night and was fruitless. Now we have to go again on Saturday, when all I really wanted to do on Saturday was go see "New Moon" from the Twilight series! I was so tempted to just go to sleep, but I decided to sit down and just "check in" with my WIP, figuring I'd just write for fifteen minutes and then call it a day. I surprised myself by getting a renewed burst of energy and writing 2,000 words, bringing my word count up to 35,500.

The moral of the story is to write every day.

This is the third week of NaNoWriMo, and this morning my inbox contained a pep talk from YA fantasy author Tamora Pierce. She has so much good advice on her website, including this tidbit about rejection that I actually found even more inspiring than the pep talk.

If an agent or publishing person turns you down, it may have nothing to do with your writing, and everything to do with what that person likes and doesn't like. If they comment on your work, read it carefully and think about it, sifting out what's useful and what isn't.

Don't let a turn-down discourage you. If you think a re-write is needed, then re-write, but be sane about it. I rewrite twice, then send things out, and I keep sending them out while I work on something new. Many times the thing that makes the difference between someone with talent who gets published and someone with talent who doesn't is the fact that the one who got published kept sending her/his work out, while the other gave up after one turn-down, or two, or three. Tom Clancy, I believe, went to more than 15 publishers before the Naval Institute Press agreed to publish his first book, Hunt for the Red October, which then became a best-seller. Jerzy Kozinski, a prize-winning writer, took his first big book, that won him many awards, changed the writer's name on it, and sent it to 19 publishers before someone thought it was worth publishing. J.K. Rowling was turned down by quite a few British publishers before Bloomsbury, a relatively small house (well, it was then) took a chance on her.

That said, here's her pep talk for NaNoWriMo:

Okay, NaNoWriMo folks, let me guess.

Right now a lot of you are doing the same thing I'm doing, staring at this piece of screen in order to put off actually writing, because at this moment in time the writing is decidedly starting to suck. You are stuck; worse, you're bored. You're thinking you were bounced repeatedly on your head when you were small and easy to bounce. You're thinking you have no talent.

So am I. The chief difference between us, probably, is that I've been at this for a long time and I know where to go for help. I know I can throw in a new character and get more content from the way the old ones react to the new one. Who becomes friends; who becomes rivals? Who's lousy with babies when the newcomer is a baby? Who can't deal with people who live a non-standard lifestyle?

Have something happen: the power goes out; there's a car accident; there's a flood; there's a war; there's an epidemic. All kinds of new problems and new heroes arise, often the last people you expected to be heroic. Set characters in motion, even if it's just to higher ground. You learn something, you can tell us something, by how people deal with with something that requires them to assemble themselves and move from their comfort zone.

Talk it out with someone you trust, someone who shares your tastes. You may not like their ideas, but something they say may spark the idea that will work for you.

Go for a walk. Watch a TV show. Have a nice cup of something soothing. Then throw any old thing at the page. Don't worry if it's any good or not. Don't back up and cut. Don't rewrite. Just throw whatever comes to mind at the page. The idea is to finish, remember? You have a whole different month for that. ;-)

These times are a colossal pain, there is no denying it. In desperation, I will time my breaks. Twenty minutes to read, and I'm back to the desk, to turn out a page, or two. Another twenty minutes break, then back for that page or two. Sooner or later my characters will get out of the wagon or off the ship, and they'll start doing things again.

Just keep after it. Think of how proud of yourselves you'll be once you have that novel-length manuscript in your hand! There is nothing like it, nothing like knowing you have finished something of that length.

Go for it!

Tammy

You can learn more about Tamora Pierce's writing here.

The funny thing is, and please don't shoot me for saying this - I'm not exactly having a hard time writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. Maybe it's because I exercise my writing muscles daily meeting my "Writer's Challenge" of writing 1000 words a day - so writing the 2000 words a day that I need to finish my category romance in a month hasn't been at all crazy. It's a first draft to be sure, but I'm enjoying writing it.

Today I will bring my word count up to 37,500 (or maybe even 38,000). I'm also meeting two of the women from my writing class at the Barnes and Noble to talk shop.

Wish me luck, and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shana Brodsky