Review in Questions: I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You

The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a fairly typical all-girls schools–that is, it would be if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school [...]

Fenceposts for Your First Person Narrative

This week I’m going to be talking about writing in first person. I know that I struggled with the idea of writing in first person. I don’t find it the most natural mode of storytelling and always feel a bit of “Why is the character telling me this?” 
But, I’d say the vast majority of YA [...]

One Thing About Outlining

 
Ok, so for my WIP-proposal thing going on right now, I’m working off a very, very detailed outline, which is great. I’m able to write much more quickly. Things rarely go in the wrong place. And I’m able to focus on the sentence-by-sentence craft a lot more. All good things, right?
Well, here’s the one thing [...]

Recommend Responsibly Part 2: A Book for Everyone

 
As promised, we’re discussing what books to recommend and to whom. Reading isn’t one size fits all and, as writers (or readers) who want to support the book industry, we know we need to recommend responsibly. We do that by encouraging so-called  ”non-readers” to read and thus, hopefully, converting them into at least occasional book-buyers. But, we [...]

2008 Wrap Up

I was checkin’ out Shelli’s blog the other day and really liked her review of her life in 2008. Since so much has happened in my writing (and personal) life this year, I thought it’d be nice to look back.
So here we go…
-Graduated a semester early to focus on writing
-Researched industry, tried to figure out what [...]

Can’t Fool Him

I’m fortunate to have a boyfriend who loves YA books, just like me.
He’ll read Ally Carter, Melissa Marr, E. Lockhart and Stephenie Meyers with the best of ‘em.
(And marketing folks think that 20-something men aren’t their target audience!)
Anyway, almost all YA books have female protagonists and, I’d say, the vast majority are written by women. But [...]

Friday Forecast: Let’s Talk Money

For today’s Friday Forecast I want to talk about money. A lot of people are disillusioned about how much *the majority* of writers make. What’s a typical advance? Do novelists live off their writing? What the heck is a “nice” deal and why is it different than a “good” deal?
All good questions. And here are [...]

10 Things to Look for When Submitting to Small Presses

First I’d like to point out a great series of posts on what of my favorite author blogs. Ally Carter has a wonderful series entitled 101 Tips on Being a Writer. Ally is the author of the bestselling Gallagher Series put out by Hyperion. In this series of blog posts she covers everything from writers’ block [...]

Topical Tuesday: Ideas and Execution in Book Packaging

Since I’m currently auditioning for a few book packagers, I thought I’d address an interesting issue involved.
If you don’t know already, book packagers are companies that come up with an idea for a book or series and sell it to a publisher. The editors at the packager (or some call them producers) usually come up with a [...]

The Squee

I’m sure different people have different ways of staying motivated. Some people may want to guard themselves against the sting of rejection as much as possible, so they go about their writing lives refusing to get their hopes up. That way, when rejections start to pile up, they don’t get so dejected they feel like [...]