IT'S TIME FOR PITCHWARS!

It's time for Pitchwars -
hold on tight!

And I'm a mentor! I’m also a teacher, author, runner, and avid reader. My debut novel, RECLAIMED, came out this past October. It’s a young-adult contemporary about three teens who come together as their families are falling apart. It won a Silver IPPY and the Gold Foreword Book of the Year in Young-Adult Fiction. I really like coffee.

My credentials: I have a B.A. in English Education as well as an M.Ed. Since I'm an English teacher, I’ve pretty much spent the last fifteen years critiquing writing. I also have two amazing critique partners whom I’ve been working with for the past two years. I believe very strongly in constructive criticism, so I will not lie to you about your work in order to make you feel better. As a writer, I want complete honesty from critiques so that I can improve my craft and turn out the best possible work. My job as a mentor is to push you to be your very best, and that won’t happen if I’m not completely honest with you. That being said, I will never point out weaknesses without also shining a light on the strengths.

I love complex characters and strong writing. I want an engaging voice with setting that feels like character. I love stories that give me a satisfying ending, but if the characters are done well, I should also feel as if there are many more stories within those characters. I want to feel like I can step inside the world you’ve created. I want to be able to imagine your characters living complete lives outside the pages. And I’m a sucker for pretty words.

What I’m interested in:

Contemporary: This genre has my heart. I love dark and twisty, but points for making me laugh. I’m not a huge fan of mean girls simply for the sake of having them or “girls who aren’t like other girls.” I would love to see strong female friendships (in any genre), and I do love me some swoony boys. Recent contemps I enjoyed: Behind the Scenes, The Sky is Everywhere, Everything Leads to You, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

Magical Realism: This is a hard one to do well, but man do I love it when it is. My favorites are One Hundred Years of Solitude (duh) and The Shadow of the Wind. I also adored Savvy by Ingrid Law.

Historical: I enjoy a good historical and would love to see one from a time period that is usually neglected. I recently loved Born Wicked and Star Cursed, which are really more alternative history (with witches), but I loved them because they immersed me in the world and had a strong female lead with equally strong, badass friends. Also kissing.

Science Fiction: Not sure I’m the person for hard-core science fiction (whatever that means, right), but I loved Across the Universe by Beth Revis. Would love a YA version of Firefly. I also have a thing for doomsday – think King’s The Stand or movies like Outbreak and The Day After Tomorrow. I’m also interested in steampunk and, as mentioned above, alternate history.

No matter what the genre, I'm only looking for young adult.

I know how scary and exciting this can be, and I also know just how subjective. I applaud you for having the courage to share your writing with a stranger and for allowing that stranger to pick it apart. Congrats on having the strength and drive to improve your craft, and not being afraid of hard work.

Now pick me - Gus will be sad if you don't.

Check out the list of agents here!

MENTORS:

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BETWEEN Birthday and Giveaway!

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows how excited I am to read Megan Whitmer’s Between. AND IT COMES OUT TODAY AND NOW NO ONE NEED WAIT ANY LONGER!

When a supernatural freak of nature forces her family to separate, seventeen-year-old Charlie Page must turn to her frustrating (yet gorgeous) neighbor, Seth, to help reunite them. Seth whisks Charlie to Ellauria—a magical world filled with the creatures of myths and legends—and tells her of the Fellowship, the group charged with protecting mystical beings from human discovery. (All except Bigfoot: that attention whore is a total lost cause.) But when Charlie learns that she's under the Fellowship's protection herself, well, "stressed" is an understatement.

Ellauria should be the safest place for Charlie while the Fellowship works to find her family, but things in the mystical realm aren’t what they seem.

Magic is failing, creatures are dying, and the Fellowship insists Charlie holds the key to saving everyone. With her family still missing and the danger in Ellauria growing, Charlie doesn't know who she can trust. She's dealing with a power she never asked for, falling for a guy she can't have, and being forced to choose between her destiny and her heart. And if she chooses wrong, she could destroy magic forever.

Charlie may be in over her head.

Sounds awesome, right? I feel like I’ve been waiting to read this book forever. I did manage to get a sneak peek, and I have to tell you guys, the first few chapters I read are amazing. And now I finally get to devour the whole thing! I was lucky enough to meet Megan at BEA last year, and y’all, she is the funniest, sweetest person ever. And she has amazing hair. She and I are publisher sisters, so in honor of her debut, I’m giving away two e-copies of her book. If you want to win a copy (and seriously, who doesn’t), just follow the directions.

1. Leave a comment below, telling me why you’re excited about this book. Please leave me a twitter handle and email address so I can get in touch with you.

2. Tweet about the book. And I’ll even make it easy on you by giving you the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Between-Megan-Whitmer/dp/1939392152/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406597201&sr=1-1&keywords=between+megan+whitmer. Just copy, paste, and tweet.

And if you don’t follow Megan on Twitter already, I’m sorry. You should rectify that immediately. @meganwhitmer

I'll pick two random winners on Friday, August 1st. Good luck!

RECLAIMED Won Gold!

I learned last night that Reclaimed was awarded Gold in the 2013 Foreword Book of the Year Award for Young Adult Fiction. It was announced at the start of the ALA convention in Vegas, though I learned about it while sitting in my living room wearing yoga pants. Glamorous, aren't I?

I'm thrilled and excited and humbled by the award. Reclaimed is my debut, so obviously it has a special place in my heart, but I also always believed in this book, even when it looked like it might get tucked away into a drawer.

The summer I revised Reclaimed was one of the best ever. I finished the draft in the spring of 2011, then let it sit until I was out of school. That summer I learned that a crappy draft really could be transformed into a readable manuscript. I learned about patience, and killing your darlings, and the joy that comes with finally getting the words to truly convey what the characters are feeling. It was such a wonderful experience watching that ugly draft change into something I was proud of. For the first time, I wanted people to read something I had written.

So if you are discouraged, keep at it. Know that the hard work will pay off in one way or another. For a year I couldn't get anyone interested in reading Reclaimed. Then I had a full request from Spencer Hill Press and an offer for publication one week later. I had an editor who understood my book and loved it almost as much as I did. Reclaimed had a home.

And now, Reclaimed has won its second award.

Thank you to everyone who has read and loved Reclaimed. You have a special place in my heart as well.

Finding Time to Write

Lately I've been getting this question a lot, so I thought I would re-post a guest post I wrote last year. You can find the original post here.

 

 

I’m often asked how I find time to write. I’m a high school teacher, which requires tons of time planning and grading and meeting and learning in addition to those hours between 8:00 and 3:30 when I’m actually teaching. I also sponsor the yearbook and the book club. I’m a runner. And a wife. I’m a daughter and sister, aunt, friend, and avid book lover.

I do not find time to write. I horde it like a dragon with his gold.

You are not going to stumble upon unused time. It’s not something to find. It’s something to cultivate. Once I decided to take my writing seriously, some things had to go.

The first thing to go was my clean house. Seriously. I spent a lot of time cleaning my house, thinking that it was necessary to always keep up appearances. One day I realized that when I got to the end of my life, I didn’t want to look back and be able to say, “well, at least my house was clean.”

So I don’t worry if there is a little dust on the tables or the laundry needs doing. I don’t ignore it completely. I get to it after my allotted writing time. But I gave myself permission to chase after my passion first. And while there is often guilt in that decision, there is never regret.

I don’t get to watch tv like so many other people. I’m behind on movies. But this was something I was willing to sacrifice.

Four years ago I turned my guest bedroom into an office. Every day after school I go into my office and work until it’s time to cook dinner. Sometimes I’m on Twitter too much. Sometimes I just stare at the blank page. But I am in my office, keeping to my schedule. And most of the time, I’m writing. Or revising. Or crying about how my characters have a mind of their own and why in the hell can’t they just do what I want?

I’m very protective of this time. I have to be. Otherwise I’ll squander it, and days, weeks, months will pass, and I’ll have nothing to show for it. I take days off – they’re necessary. But I’ve made writing a necessity.

I teach full time. But as I’ve said many times before, even if you don’t write full time, you write full time. Whether you have a day job or not, you still have to write the book, revise it, sell it, market it, just like those who don’t have another day job. If you want to be a writer, above all, you will have to learn how to balance your time between writing and the rest of your life.

But it can be done. There are a million and one different ways to do this. Don’t let anyone tell you there is only one way. If writing is your passion, don’t wait to find the time. Hunt it down, hold it tight, and don’t let anyone steal it from you.

Real People are not Clichés

"The character is dealing with the death of a parent or sibling. That's so cliché."
"Another story with an alcoholic family member. How cliché."
"Yet another tale dealing with abuse. Cliché."

I understand that readers get bored of seeing the same things over and over again in fiction. But let me tell you a story.

One day, when discussing a novel, a student lamented the fact that she had just read yet another novel where the character was dealing with the death of a sibling. "That's so cliché," she said.

And the girl next to her flinched. Cliché girl had forgotten that her fellow student had lost her brother to suicide just the year before. How convenient. I promise you, the student who lost her brother won't ever forget. And reducing down her very real conflicts to a cliché is harmful.

I've been a reader for a very long time. It's easy to forget that new readers are born every single day. What we've seen often, they're encountering for the first time. But many of them, unfortunately, may actually be dealing with the day to day reality of the events we only know about through books.

In my experience, literature leans in and whispers in my ear. I understand. I've been there. It's okay. It's one of the reasons I read. And things become cliché because they are true. So before we easily dismiss something, we should remember that while it may not speak to us, it probably speaks to someone.

It illuminates a truth he has never heard before. It reminds a reader she is not alone.

We must never make a person feel cliché.

FAQ: RECLAIMED is not an Autobiography

"Is this book about you?"

Contemporary writers get asked this question a lot, I assume more so than other writers. I doubt J.K. Rowling has been asked whether or not she is secretly part of the wizarding community. (Though many people did assume Harry was based on a real person.) It seems that some readers have a hard time believing that characters, and their situations, are actually fictional.

But they are.

I grew up in a small town in Arkansas, and I've lost count of the number of people who've told me they tried to figure out who my characters are in real life. My characters are based on no one and everyone. I've never modeled a character after anyone, but I have used what I know about the world to hopefully create dynamic characters.

I wrote a guest post about this back in October, but I thought it was worth mentioning again. Pops is not my grandfather, and I don't write my students into novels.

But characters are real, in the sense that readers make them so. And isn't that the best part about reading?

RECLAIMED Won Silver!

RECLAIMED won Silver in the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Young Adult Category!



Also honored to learn that Reclaimed has been named a finalist for the 2013 Foreword Book of the Year. See the full list of young adult fiction finalists here.