In Which I Attended AWP

AWP (Association of Writer's Programs) is an annual conference that roams around the country, landing in a new city each year. And this year it was at Minneapolis, so I registered to go.
Also, since I was a student, my registration cost was vastly cheaper than if I wasn't a student, so that was awesome.

AWP was a three day event, running from nine in the morning until after midnight. I'm not even kidding. There was a party on the schedule every night at the hotel that didn't even start until 10.
I, though, am an old person and so I didn't stay out later than 9pm.

The schedule had like 15-20 panels every hour, so sometimes picking what to go see was a bit of give and take. A couple of my MFA friends were there, though, and some of my MN KidLit peeps, too, so there were times when we were sort of able to split up and then reconvene with stories of what we missed.

Going in, I knew that there would be a lot of great panels by the MN KidLit peeps and the Hamline MFAC peeps. On day one I was torn, did I want to go see the panels my friends and teachers were on? Or, because I see them at school, and locally, did I want to take the opportunity to go see panels I couldn't usually see?

Logic won out and I decided on the latter.

That only lasted for one day.

None of the other panels were as good. And I wasn't the only who thought so. Time and again I heard the same story from others, and as the days went on, the Hamline MFA booth at the book fair got busier and busier as more and more people saw the Hamline panels and then decided to check out the program. Which is awesome. The program is amazing and I would love to see more people apply.

But the other panels. I would be so excited about them. They had titles like "What I Wish I'd Known Before My First Book Came Out" (this is timely and relevant to me, since my book will be out in less than a year) or "Women Writing Darkness: Violence, Villains and Unhappy Endings" (I write a ton of violence and I was so excited to see what other women had to say)

The Women Writing Darkness panel was packed. This photo was before it even filled up.
I did come away with this gem of a quite from Kate Acculia:
"No one ever questioned if Walter White should be respected."

But I would get to the panels and they would fail to deliver on the topic at hand. Women Writing Darkness was less a conversation about the problems we face in regards to publishing (women are "supposed" to write "likeable" characters, whereas men can pretty much write whatever they want) and instead was a panel where the panelists just read parts of their books. Which, I mean, I came away wanting to buy their books (which I'm sure is a bonus for them) but with no greater knowledge or understanding of the topic.

And for the first book, panel. Two of the panelists were poets with small houses, which didn't really help me much, and the one novelist on the panel's first book came out in 1979. I wasn't even born, and to say that publishing has changed a bit since then is just a tiny understatement. Also, none of them actually addressed what they wished they'd known, other than "Have a writing group before you submit anything", which, for those of us who had already sold a book (and the panelists took a poll beforehand. There was a large chunk of us) knew, or complaints about how much social media has to do with marketing now.

Anyway, for the TL;DR crowd (and sorry, this post ran longer than I planned) my MN KidLit and Hamline MFA peeps were the highlight of the conference. By the end of the week their panels were standing room only, something I hope the conference organizers took note of.

AWP may come back in 2020, and if it does, I'm going to try to put on my big girl pants and get on a panel or two myself. Because more than once I was a spectator in the audience wishing I had been on the panel because I had things to say regarding the topic at hand.

How about you? What kind of panels do you like to attend when you hit a conference? Something unexpected? Or the tried, yet true, panels of your colleagues?

In Which I'm At AWP This Week

Hey pals!

I'll be at AWP for most of this week, which means no real blog posts (outside of this one) just because I won't be around to check it and stuff.

I'm super excited for AWP, but also already overwhelmed just because it's SO BIG. We're talking like 10 panels every hour for three days big. I don't even know how I'll go about picking what I want to see.

Anyway, I hope you have a great week!

In Which We Talk About Luck

In the world of being an author, we're always told to work hard, to do our research and all that good stuff. And absolutely 100% on all that. If you do the hard work that needs to be done, and you do the research, you will already be in the top 10% of the slush pile. And that is a good place to be.

But there's another aspect, too, that most people acknowledge, but it isn't always talked about, and that's luck.

Much of querying and submission and reaching the right audience is not always something we can control. If people knew what was going to sell, or sell well, then we'd all be rich.

But we don't. So publishers and agents and writers and even readers have to take chances. Which is where the luck comes from.

Maybe you've just written something that is what an agent is looking for. Or a publisher. Or a brand new audience. As luck would have it, and all that.

For me, I definitely think luck played a part, especially when I queried.

I spoke a bit about this HERE already, but, before I started querying, I hit an MN SCBWI conference. It was one I had been to before, but this year was the first time I was going to pay for a critique of my work (the previous years I was at the end of querying a MS. This year, I had yet to start so the timing was perfect (lucky me)).

For the critique, you could get assigned an agent or an editor. And I got the editor. I was kind of hoping for the agent (just because I knew I wanted an agent first) but I was still excited to speak with the editor. She was from a smaller imprint at a larger house, so I was excited to see what she had to say about my first 5 pages and maybe how I could improve them.

But she didn't have a critique for me, at least, not one with improvements. Instead what she said was that she loved it, and she wanted to see the whole manuscript. And when I told her I wanted an agent and was planning on starting to query in the next few weeks, she said that was a good idea and said I should put her name in the query.

Which was such an awesome thing for her to do. I got a lot of requests on my MS when I started querying, (though that was normal for me) but I'm almost positive that my lack of rejections were due to the fact that I put that editor's name in my query letter.

And all of this was just due to luck, that I was assigned to an editor at the conference instead of the agent. And from that moment, I can trace with a single, direct line the offers I got, the agent I signed with (who called the editor I'd mentioned in my query) and the book deal I later accepted from HarperTeen.

So, yes, Luck does play a part. But I don't think it's something you should worry about. Yes, we can't control it, but also, sometimes it's nice to just let it play its part and see where we end up.

What about you? Has Luck played a role in your journey?

In Which I Got Nothing

I spent the whole weekend at a local con (4th Street Fantasy (I maaaay have spoken to Scott Lynch more than once, this year)) and so I've got nothing for today.

So instead, you get this.

 

In Which I Hodge-Podge

Here we are, another Monday. Yay?

On the plus side, I've turned in my final assignments for my first semester of my MFA, which is awesome. Now I have a month off until semester two starts. Which is good because I'll be working on revisions and edits for ALL THAT REMAINS.

Also it will give me some time to try and get ahead on my required reading list. I'm reaching the end of the books I can find at my county library system. Soon I'll need to start asking about interlibrary loans.

June for me is the first month that starts to feel like summer. It's been warm and sunny enough that I've resumed eating my lunches outside while reading whatever I'm reading at the time. At least until the sun makes me too hot and I have to go inside. And unless it's raining, of course.

And June means one of my favorite local conferences: 4TH STREET FANTASY. It's small, it's single panel, and it attracts some big names in the fantasy and sci-fi community. It's also completely affordable (I think I paid $60 for my early registration, and that wasn't even the earliest price).
So I'm definitely looking forward to that next weekend.

Also, I've officially taken over the From the Vault posts at YA Confidential.

Every Monday the bloggers answer a question and anyone who comments on the Vault posts for the month have a chance of winning a free book at the end of the month. I'm not kidding here. Every month we give out a free book (winner's choice), and it could easily be you and all it takes is a comment.

So that's it! What's up with you?

In Which I HAVE AN AGENT!!!

Guys. GUYS!!!!

SERIOUSLY!

Okay. Wait. Let me calm down and back up a little. I'm just so excited because since I started this blog, alllll the way back in 2010, I've seriously dreamed about writing this post, guys. THE POST.

The I GOT AN AGENT POST!!

Because I did.

And this is how I feel:

I honestly wish I could dance this well

 

Okay, so let's tell a tale, a tale of queries and revisions and offers. But first, we must go back to a conference. (prepare yourself for a long ass post)

Wait. One more dance:

 

In NaNoWriMo 2011 I wrote the first 50k of ALL THAT REMAINS. Then I put it aside for a year because it was fighting me and I was working on something else. For NaNo 2012 I finished the last 50k of ATR and I loved it and decided I would take my time revising this one. And I would take a class to workshop it. And I would not rush.

In October (2013) I attended the MN SCBWI conference, which was fun and awesome. I had signed up for a MS crit from either an editor or an agent and I was assigned to the editor. But instead of giving me a crit, she mostly just said that she loved my first five pages and that she wanted to see the full of ALL THAT REMAINS.

Which was amazing and great. I told her that I planned on querying because I wanted an agent and she agreed that an agent would be the best way to go. And then she did something awesome--she told me if I wanted to, I could use her name in my query. So I did.

I began querying on Halloween. I sent 2 out, got 2 fulls, and then sent out a full batch of 10. My goal was to query through November, take a break in December, and then start up again when I was done with my MFA residency in mid January. Also, I had a new strategy with this MS: I was going to start off by targeting agents who had read previous manuscripts of mine.

I had a very large request rate. A lot of requests is normal for me, but this was different. This was also no rejections. Even with a lot of requests on the other manuscripts, I still pulled in the Rs. But not this time. For awhile I had an almost 100% acceptance rate on my queries. I even broke my rule and queried a few agents who had only rejected me in the past, and even they requested. For a brief moment, I thought about pulling out of the Baker's Dozen contest, but my family convinced me otherwise.

I got a partial request in mid Nov. Then that agent bumped it up to a full. And she tweeted about me, guys. That . . . that was a crazy moment. That she was so excited to read the full that she had to tweet it.

In early December, the same agent sent me an email that she wanted to call and talk revisions. She raved about ATR. She comped it to an amazing book that I lurved (*cough* LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA *cough*). And she wanted to give me her revision notes asap because she was pretty sure I would get an offer from another agent soon. And her revision notes were great, so I dove in.

And then I got 3 more R&Rs within the same week. Now, I'd had R&Rs before, but these were different. They were exuberant. There were phone calls and excitement and more agents telling me that I would most likely get an offer from another agent soon.

One agent only wanted to see revisions on the first few chapters. A kind of "feeling me out" sort of deal, to see if I could actually pull the revisions off. And that I wasn't crazy.

So I dove into those first, because they'd be faster. I sent them back to her a week before my MFA, but this agent was still out of the office because of the holidays.

Then, the day before my residency, when I'd be in lectures and workshops and readings for 11 days straight, all day, this agent said she wanted to call.

I thought it would be an offer. So I managed to skip some of the non-required readings, and took the call in a classroom.


And she offered.

And my new MFA friends freaked out in enthusiasm and excitement and congratulations and that night we went to a Korean restaurant/bar and performed some major karaoke.

That night I nudged everyone who had the MS, including the 3 remaining R&R agents and the few queries I still had out.

I had another offer a few days later. I actually had dinner with this agent because she happened to be in town, visiting in-laws. The dinner was lovely and I had a great time.

Then I had another offer. And another. And by this time the residency was over and I had just a few days to reach out to agent clients and do some final research before I had to make a decision. But during this time the offers still came in.

 

But, when it was all said and done, there was one agent that just struck a chord with me. When I was finished speaking with her on the phone, I felt excited to get to work. It was my gut telling me she was the one.

I am happy to announce that I am now officially repped by: MOLLIE GLICK! Of Foundry Literary + Media

I'm so excited to get to work on revisions with her.

Me, signing the agent agreement

 

Twin baked me a cake!

It was butter pecan. And it. was. delicious!!

So. The Numbers, since I know some people love the numbers (I know this because I am a numbers person. I love reading the "I got an agent" posts and I love seeing the stats)


Queries sent: 25
Query rejections (before the offer): 3
Partial Requests: 3 (2 bumped up to fulls)
Full requests: 14 (including the bumps)
R&Rs: 4 (3 stepped aside after the offer)
Number of Offers: 7


But, I think it's important to remind people that, yes, even though those stats are pretty awesome, this is after 2 other queried manuscripts. I've been querying almost steadily since 2011.

So here are some quick stats on those, because I want to remind people that sometimes it takes a lot of work and patience to reach this point. And there's no shame in it. I loved every step of the journey, both the ups and the downs, because it meant I was putting myself out there, that I was working hard and trying and I knew trying was the only way I'd reach my goals.


GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER SHORE
Queried for 8 months in 2011 and 4 months in 2012
Queries Sent: 96
Partial Requests: 1
Full Requests: 17


BREAK FREE
Queried for 6 months in 2012 and 7 months in 2013
Queries sent: 106
Partial Requests: 5 (three bumped to fulls)
Full Requests: 11 (not including the bumps)
R&Rs: 3


So. There you have it. over 200 queries in 3 years. 48 manuscript requests. 7 offers. 1 agent.

Thanks for reading and for being awesome. Because you are.
 

In Which I'm Away

Hey all. I'm at a conference today, so no real blog post.

Have a great weekend!

 

In Which I Hit (Another) Conference

Summer is conference season of course! I just attended a Children's and YA conference a few weekends ago, and this weekend I'll be hitting another one.

This one, 4th Street Fantasy, I've been going to for awhile. Well, it seems like a while, but I think this will only be my fourth year. So kind of a while? I dunno.

It's super fun because it's single panel, which mean you don't ever have to worry about what you're missing at other panels.

The writing workshop is on Friday and the last few years it's been awesome so I'm really excited to hit it up on this year.

And then the rest of the weekend will be the regular conference, and once again I'll come away feeling like I'm so behind on reading. I mean, I put in 50-60 books a year, but somehow people have read books I haven't even HEARD of before.

But that's okay! Because it means I come away with a list of books I need to buy (and since I have a kindle, I'll probably buy a few of them right away).

How about you? Attending any conferences this year? If so, which ones?

In Which I Need To Budget

In the past I'd maybe go to a few local conferences a year and call it even. None were so expensive that they'd break the bank.

But this year is a little different. I planned to take a class (it's going on right now) and I planned on 3 local conferences (Children's and Young Adults Literature Conference, 4th Street Fantasy and the MN SCBWI conference in the fall). So there you go. A couple hundred dollars here and there and I'm set for the year.

But then I really enjoyed my class. And I found an Advanced Children's Writing Workshop.
And I also learned that Donald Maass will be here in the fall for a Story Masters workshop (the people I heard about this from said they attended this conference last year and that it was amazing)

So if I were to throw these two into the mix (and these are way more expensive than the others. The Story Masters conference is like $500) and suddenly I find myself spending more money than I planned...

Which made me realize that I think I've reached a point in my writerly life where I need to budget better. I think this year is a wash. I've applied for the advanced class (though you have to actually supply a writing sample, so I may not get in) and depending on how that goes will make my decision on the Donald Maass conference. But I think, starting next year, I'm going to have to actually sit down, figure out how much I'm willing to spend that year on writing related expenses and budget accordingly.

This will be especially important if I apply to Hamline's MFA program for next year (very likely).

So how about you? Do you budget your writing expenses?

In Which I'm Torn

Come late May, there's a Children's and YA Conference here in the cities I'm attending. I went last year and it was awesome, and this year it looks to be even better so I registered as soon as registration opened.

And then I started to browse through the catalog to decide which talks I wants to attend. Last year that had 3 tracks at the same time, a picture book track, a middle grade track and a YA track. I attended all the YA ones, though I later heard there was an awesome MG one about magic in fantasy that I regretted missing.

But this year, this year they've made it more difficult. They've combined YA and MG (yay!) But! BUT!! They've added a craft track and a career track too. Which means the choices aren't as straight forward.

So now I'm looking at some of the tracks and I'm not sure which ones I should go to!
Urgh. If I only had a time turner...

Here are the tracks so you can see what I mean. I've highlighted the ones I want to go to:

Tracks on Craft (CR), Middle Grade & Young Adult (MY), Picture Book (PB), and Publishing & Career (PC).

 | BREAKOUT SESSIONS 1

• CR—Limitations and Latitudes in Point of View with Swati Avasthi and Heather Bouwman
• MY—World Building for Fantasy Writers with Kelly Barnhill
• PB—Creating Excitement in Picture Books with Barbara DaCosta
• PC—Steps Along the Way to Publication with Lynne Jonell

 | BREAKOUT SESSIONS 2

• CR—“Where’s Papa Going with that Axe?”: The Sharp Work of a Good Opening with Swati Avasthi and Heather Bouwman
• MY—Creating Male Heroes: Beyond the Brooding Hunk with Bryan Bliss, Steve Brezenoff, and J.C. Geiger
• PB—Picture Book Dummies: Why, Why Not, and How? with Georgia A. Greeley
• PC—Writing for the Educational Market with Laura Purdie Salas

 | BREAKOUT SESSIONS 3

• CR—Monstrous Characters with William Alexander
• PB—Reading Picture Book Award Winners with Susan Marie Swanson
• MY—Sex and YA Literature: Choices & Consequences with Andrew Karre and Carrie Mesrobian
• PC—To Query or to Kindle: A Dilemma for the 21st Century with Erin (Soderberg) Downing, Laura Bradley Rede, Stephanie Watson, and Patti Frazee

 | BREAKOUT SESSIONS 4

• CR—Plotting and Plodding Your Way through a Novel with Kurtis Scaletta
• CR—Revision: Cultivating Curiosity with Pat Schmatz
• MY—Teens Do Know Best: Reader Response and the Writing Process for Young Adult Fiction with Patrick Jones and Adela Peskorz
• PB—Authors and Illustrators on Craft, Process, Publication and How to Keep Going with Nancy Carlson, John Coy, Molly Beth Griffin, David LaRochelle, Stephen Shaskan, Charlotte Sullivan, and Mike Wohnoutka

Like, how am I ever going to decide? Some of them are easier than others, but overall, there are a lot of tough choices I'm going to make before the conference.



 

In Which I Conferenced

Saturday I hit the MN SCBWI annual conference. It was my first one, since I've only been a member for a year now (which, I mean, you can attend if you're not a member. I just didn't know about it until I became a member)

There's something to be said for a conference that only lasts a day. At the very least, it means you still get some of your weekend to do your normal weekend stuff (for me, that's errands and cooking club. And writing blog posts, natch)

So anyway, here's a rundown of the conference:

The keynote speakers were David Small and Sarah Stewart. David is an award winning illustrator and Sarah, his wife, is a Picture Book writer. The first panel was David talking about his graphic novel memoir, Stitches.

David Small was just an amazing speaker. Seriously. Everything that came out of his mouth was entertaining and profound and funny. He was one of those speakers you could have listened to the entire conference.

He and Sarah gave another presentation on her book The Quiet Place, which he had illustrated.

And they were both adorbs. Like, you know those couples that love each other so much that you can't help but love them too? Not one of those couples that fills facebook with "I love you" and "I'm on my way home!" and "I can't wait till you get home!" Those couples drive me crazy. Listen, I know you love each other, but you don't have rub everyone's face in it. David and Sarah were not like that at all. I think everyone just absolutely loved them together.

There were only like 5 copies of Stitches for sale at the conference. I got the second to last one. BAM!

The conference was then split up into Workshops. Two at a time, one for illustrators and one for writers, so naturally I hit the writer ones.

The first one was "A Whole New World: How Dreams and Desire Can Improve World-Building" put on by Sara Sargent, Assistant Editor at Balzer + Bray, a HarperCollins imprint.

Her presentations was great. The best part was, though, a writing exercise we did. She had brought with a box of books and she said anyone who volunteered to read theirs could pick out a book.

Later, someone would tell me that she thought I was super brave to volunteer and I told her the truth, that I will pretty much do anything for a free book. I got Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Honestly I wanted to be first, but one girl had a critique to go to in the middle of the workshop and managed to raise her hand faster. But I went second.

The exercise was to just list out your MCs tangible want, emotional want, barriers to their success, tools to combat the barriers and wish fulfillment. Most of these are things I actually write down before I write my rough draft, so it was easy to participate for me.

The second workshop was "Cracking the Nut: One Agent's Advice on Craft and Career for Writer's of All Levels" by Linda Pratt from Wernick & Pratt Agency.

Her presentation was good, but I was familiar with a lot of what she said, so there really wasn't much that I found surprising.


There were critiques going on as well. If you paid an additional $35 you could've had your first 5 pages read by an agent or editor or creative director. I didn't participate, mostly because I thought $35 seemed pretty expensive for only 5 pages (or at least, it did to me, since it seems like there's always blog contests or auctions where you can get 50 pages or more read by agents). But in hindsight I kind of wish I had done it, just because everyone else was and I felt a bit left out. Of course, that's a known flaw I've talked about here.

There was, however, a first pages event. And that was free to enter. How it worked was, if you wanted, you emailed your first page before the conference. Then the last event of the day was the two agents and one editor would listen to randomly selected first pages and comment on them.
It was all anonymous and random, so there wasn't a huge chance you'd get picked, but it was fun to hear what the agents and editor had to say. And I totally learned a LOT on how to write Picture Books

BUT!! I was totally picked! They only had time to go through 4 of them and mine was the 3rd one!

I have to say, it was utterly terrifying hearing someone read my first page (also, kind of a bummer, she flubbed my best line on that page, which gave it a different meaning. Le sigh).

I think I got pretty nice feedback. Or at least, they all said something good about it (they liked my opening line, my tension and the dialogue) where as it seemed all the others had mostly criticisms. But still, it took me an hour or so to calm the eff down so I could accept the critiques with a critical eye.

So there you have it! I tried to keep this post short, but clearly, I didn't.  Sorry, and high five if you stuck through the whole thing!

In Which I Hodge-Podge

Hey all -
Just a quick post today, with some updates and junk.

Just wanted to give a heads up that Dark Moon Digest #6 (where my short story Hole Ridden appears) is now available in ebook format.

Click here for Kindle
Here for Nook.

I know a few of you were waiting until it became available in e-format before purchasing and I promised I'd let you know when it was available.

Now I've done so.

This weekend is 4th Street Fantasy, which I attend every year with the awesome Hannah. It's going to be super fun and great and I'm excited. BUT! I'm also bummed because Brave comes out this weekend and I really wanted to see it, but now I'll have to wait and find some other time.

Sigh.

June is a crazy month for me. July should hopefully be calmer, but not August. Not at all.

How are things with you? Is June busy for you or have you been lazing out in the sun, enjoying the summer?


P.S. Fun fact! I spelled "available" wrong every single time in this post. Skills: I haz them.

P.P.S. I'm watching the Ultimate Spiderman cartoon on Disney channel, which was pretty entertaining until Hulk showed up. MJ actually asked Hulk if she could interview him. What. The. Eff. Umm, bad news, MJ, I distinctly remember ultimate Hulk eating a nurse in the comics. Just swallowing her whole.

Wednesday Weird

Woo Hoo! I'm back from Wiscon 36 and it was awesome! I'll chat all about it later, maybe Monday, but for now, we're back to Wednesday Weird.

On today's Menu:

Pando.



awww!

No not Pandas.

Pando.


Question? What's the largest living organism on the planet?

No it's not the blue whale, it's Pando.

Pando (Latin for 'I spread'), aka The Trembling Giant is a tree, specifically a single male Quaking Aspen, located in Utah. Sort of (the tree part I mean. Not the Utah part)

Pando

All right, let me start with some bio. When the Quaking Aspen reproduces it both flowers and produces a clone of itself. It extends its roots and then forces them up through the ground, producing a new tree. The new tree is a clone, with the same genetic makeup and markers to show that it actually belongs to the first tree.

Similar to how Twin is a clone of me. But don't let her tell you otherwise. That's just clone talk and should be avoided.

So the new tree grows with the old one and together they develop a large root network which produces more and more Quaking Aspens causing the single tree to expand into a clonal colony.

Normally clonal colonies are about 0.1 hectares in size. But not Pando. Oh No. Pando is 43 hectares and weighs about 6,000 tons.

Yeah.

As the trees on the surface die, the root system lives on and shoots up more trees and stops producing nutrients for those that have died. Because of this, Pando is protected from forest fires, which actually help it by killing nearby conifers and providing more space.

Because of this, Pando is, more or less, the Wolverine or Hulk of trees: invulnerable. Pando is estimated to be around 80,000 years old. Which means it was watching mastodons walk around doing mastodon things.

Of course, being that old has some drawbacks, mostly the changing environment. Pando hasn't flowered in over 10,000 years, which means its survival is dependant purely on its cloning ability.

There you have it. Pando. The tree you don't want to mess with.


(shout out to Matt for the Pando push)

Wednesday Weird

Woo Hoo! Back to our usual installment of Wednesday Weird. Oh how I've missed it.

Before we get started, though, just a brief update. This weekend I will be heading out to Wiscon 36, and because of that, I won't have blog posts for either Friday or Monday, since I'll be driving to and from Madison WI (hopefully without getting any speeding tickets). Blog posts will resume as normal next Wednesday.

OK! Onto the Weird!

Today we're going to talk about Sedna.

What's Sedna, you ask? Why the ninth planet in our solar system, of course! (tenth, if you're still counting Pluto. I haven't made my mind up on that yet)

See that dot? Yep. That's Sedna.

What what you ask? Yep. You heard me.

Let's get serious here. Space is effing big. We can all agree on that. And pretty much it's too bright between Mercury and the sun and too dark after Uranus to even really see anything with our current technology. So really, anything could be in our solar system. Space whales? Why not! Space Titanic? Don't be ridiculous. That thing crashed on its maiden voyage.

Even though we're pretty confident about our existing planets (except for Pluto, of course) we're actually not all that confident about other possible planets hanging out in the neighborhood. Which is too bad because they probably hate us for not inviting them to the block parties and junk.

Back to Sedna. Scientists discovered an object orbiting the sun. Yep. Sedna. As of 2012 it was about 3x the distance from the sun as Neptune. So you know, waaaay out there. No one's really sure of its size, but it's at least as big as Pluto. Sedna's long, elliptical orbit takes 11,400 years to complete. Which means chances are, anyone living there has never had a birthday.

So there you have it! Sedna! Of course, I haven't even mentioned Tyche yet, or the fact that there's also a huge gap in asteroids after Pluto, which tells scientists that there's likely a planet between the size of Earth and Mars hanging out back there, munching up all that space rock.

Ahem. But we will. We'll get to Tyche and other things (Nemesis) on later Wednesday Weirds.

Space is awesome.

So what do you think?
.

In Which I Share More Stuff Pt. 3

All right! This is my last post regarding the Children's and YA Literature Conference. This will just be covering Megan Atwood's Steps for Revising which I'm sure we're all interested in. At least I know I always am.

Fun fact. After this panel (and some thoughts from a trusted Beta Reader) I realized I was finally ready to begin querying my MS Break Free. So, officially I started querying three weeks ago. Fun times! Cross your fingers for me.

And since we're on crossing fingers - today is also the day the 8 Agents participating in the Writer's Voice Competition vote on the entries. Cross your fingers (again) that I get a vote. I would be over the moon happy if even one agent would like to see more.

OK. Sorry. Back to the revisions.

Megan Atwood was awesome. I would, hands down, take a class from her. She was also really really funny, which is always fun.

Deets on her: Megan Atwood created the Young Adult imprint Flux through Llewellyn Publications and was an acquiring editor for five years as well as an agent for one year through Firebrand Literary. She currently writes work-for-hire projects for publishers and has published 14 children's books.

OK. Her steps for revision:

1. Feeling for the bones: Does your premise suit your story? Does your story start in the right place? Is your narrative Arc arcing? Can you add some more sensory language?
2. Characters: Does your MC grow/does the inner journey match the outer journey? Are secondary, yet important characters growing (or not)? How often are you in your character's head - when can you ground emotion in the body (show don't tell)?
3. Pacing/Suspense/Foreshadowing: What scenes need to be slowed or sped - are your important scenes given the time they deserve? Are events and emotions "earned"? Are you giving out the right info when you need to? Do your chapters end with some sort of suspense and are you zigzagging those so as not to fatigue your reader?
4. Language: Are you overusing dialogue tags? Which words can you change to enhance ambiance?
5. Repeat: Put it aside for at least two weeks and work on something else. Try to read for pleasure to turn off your editor brain. Then start over at step one.

So there you have it! It sounds easy, natch, but we all know it's much harder than that. Still, it's always nice to have a game plan

In Which I Share More Stuff Pt. 2

So I'm back, with more deets regarding the Children's and YA Literature Conference Hannah and I hit up. The last presentation of the conference was Andrew Karre for Seizing the YA Moment.

Andrew Karre is the editorial director of Carolrhoda Books, Carolrhoda Lab & Darby Creek, imprints of the Lerner Publishing Group. He publishes books for kids & teens.

He was, imop, hands down the highlight of the conference. So totally cool and laid back.
He spent a lot of time talking about the #YAMatters Trend on Twitter, as well as the fact that YA is popping up in the media and culture more and people who were previously oblivious, or didn't pay attention, or now taking notice.

Highlights of his talk:

• YA is now a "thing" and to be important you have to have an opinion on it, which is why we see so many articles etc talking about YA (that tend to make us angry, etc)
• He prefers fiction "about" young adults instead of fiction "for" young adults. Because he feels that fiction about YAs is a self examination of the cultural phenomenon of adolescence, which everyone goes through, and have been since the abolishment of child labor laws and since teens aren't getting married and having kids when they're 14 anymore (as a generality).
• Adolescence is a time in all our lives that we never get over. Moments of extreme emotions we experienced in adolescence we still feel just as keenly today. It changes us forever, which is why he loves fiction about adolescence because nobody moves on from it.
• Writing "for" teens isn't necessarily conducive to art, since you're too busy trying to put across a message, or deciding what's appropriate and what's not
• Nostalgia in YA lit is fatal. Nostalgia is like the song Jack and Dianne, which is all about the good times growing up, through a filter of an adult. YA fictions should be more like Smells Like Teen Spirit, with emotion felt in the now. Almost like looking through a microscope, unable to see the big picture, to see past what is happening and what the characters are feeling at that moment
• YA is in its adolescence right now. Any disapproval that comes about (think of the hullabaloo regarding Marbury Lens) is all just fuel for the YA fire. YA is kind of like rock and roll. Maybe some people don't "get" it, so then they assume it must be bad.
• He was open for submissions in April (or for a year for anyone who attended the conference) but he said by and large YA writers should get agents and that they should spend more time querying agents than querying him or other publishers

When he was done and there was a Q&A session, people actually ran out of questions to ask him because I think everyone was just so blown away by how awesome he was. Definitely attend a panel by him if you ever get the chance.

In Which I Return And Share...Stuff...

Hi everyone! I'm back from my vacay! Normally I have no problem taking a week off and more or less hiding away from the interwebs, but with all the crazy interwebby stuff going on lately, man, it was a bit of a chore. Anyhoo, I'm back now and I'll be spending some time on catching up on your blogs and stuff. Let me know, though, if I missed anything awesome, like someone getting an agent or a book deal or something. That's need to know shit right there.

Anyway, I know I promised you some posts on the Children's and YA Literature Conference Hannah and I attended a few weekends ago, and today, I deliver. At least partially. They'll be one other post, maybe two, next week.

The Keynote Speaker was Justin Chanda, the vice president and publisher for Simon & Schuster books for young readers, Atheneum books for Young Readers and Margaret K McElderry Books and he spoke about Picture Books. And I have to say, I really don't have much of an interest in PBs. I mean, yes, I read them and buy them for friends who are having babies, but I mean, they're pretty off my radar when it comes to writing and publishing.

His presentation was fascinating as hell. Both Hannah and I left feeling amazed and loving PBs.

Highlights from his presentation:

• PBs are too important to die
• PBs are not going away, but we have to be realistic about their future.
• Kids who read, read cyclically. They start with Goodnight Moon, go on to Harry Potter, then Twilight, then Hunger Games. And then the cycle starts all over again
• PB sales are down 40% from 2007, but they were up last year
• ebooks will probably not replace hardcover PBs, because they don't necessarily pass the "lap test" (reading with a child on your lap) or the "bedtime test" reading to your child in bed
• They are publishing less PBs but the ones they do, they can hard sell and there is a lot of opportunity for first time authors and illustrators.
• PBs used to be ages 4-8 but are now 4-6 because many kids are being pushed to read "up"
• Marketing yourself is essential but does not trump good storytelling
• Teens want to get to know you as an author, but for PBs your audience are the parents so you may want to target mommy bloggers

That was mostly what he covered in a nutshell. He was really awesome, funny, smart. He also told us he was accepting submissions from anyone who attended the conference, and not just for PBs either, which is really awesome when you think about it.

All in all, he made me feel really hopeful both for the PB market and for the children's and YA market in general.

If you ever get a chance to see him speak, I would highly recommend it.

In Which I Delay

Hey all! I was really hoping I'd be able to post some cool stuff relating to the awesome Children's & YA Writing Conference I attended this weekend, but it turns out that I really can't. But don't fret! I will! Just not today. I've actually got 2-3 posts planned. Maybe 4. Because THAT'S HOW AWESOME IT WAS.

AND I ran into Carrie Monroe at the conference who approached me because she recognized my name from my blog. How awesome and crazy is that? (hint: very).

I think after you attend cool conferences and events like these, two things happen: you get inspired and want to go home and get to work right away. And also you get a little sad and depressed and you don't want to do anything. And there's really no rhyme or reason as to why you feel this way.

Mostly I came out of this one in category 1. Which is good, because I am making some exciting headway on Break Free and I don't want to lose that momentum.

Anyhoo, I'll post all the cool stuff we learned later. I hope everyone enjoys the last day of the A-Z challenge and congrats to everyone who stuck with it!

In Which I Conference

This weekend, myself and the awesometastic Hannah will be attending the Children's and Young Adult Literature Conference 2012 at The Loft Literary Center.

I'm super excited. First because spending time with Hannah is the shiz. (Hannah blogged about The Loft Here)
Second, because check out this lineup!!:

11:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Breakout Sessions

• Picture Book Track–Picture Books 101: What To Do, What Not To Do with Stephen Shaskan
• Middle Grade Track–What We Write About When We Write About Magic with Kelly Barnhill
• Young Adult Track–Quirk can work! How to create curious and intriguing manuscript elements with Kirstin Cronn-Mills (Quirky” is an industry buzzword. It can mean unusual,
  curious, weird, or funky. Interested in adding more quirk to your work? Unusual characters, scenes, and story elements can help you amuse and connect with your readers. Quirky writing can also reveal deeper levels of story, character, and theme. Please come prepared to write
  and discuss your work.)

2–3:15 p.m. Breakout Sessions

• Picture Book Track–Humpty Dumpty with Janet Graber
• Young Adult/Middle Grade Track–Writing Suspense for Middle Grade Readers with Susan Runholt
• Young Adult/Middle Grade Track–Steps for Revising: How to Make Your Novel Shine with Megan Atwood (You’ve written a draft of a novel, and the hard work is done, right? Not so much. Now comes the real work of writing a novel—revising. Where do you start? How
  do you get the perspective you need to see your work professionally? What elements are
  missing? What darlings should you kill? This session will give step-by-step revision
  suggestions to help you polish your manuscript until it shines)

3:30–4:45 p.m. Breakout Sessions

• Picture Book Track–The Language of Picture Books with Molly Beth Griffin
• Middle Grade Track–Planning a Chapter Book: Are You Sure Barbara Park Did It This Way? with Kurtis Scaletta and Eric Wight
• Young Adult Track–Panel: Then Suddenly, Without Warning with M. Molly Backes, Julie Halpern, James Klise, and Claire Zulkey (Flannery O’Connor said that the ending of a
  story must be “both surprising and inevitable.” But what makes the difference between a wellplotted surprise and a predictable twist? Four young adult novelists discuss the deliberate
  process of foreshadowing and forgetting, setting up expectations and knocking them down, that
  leads to surprising yet inevitable endings for any novel.)

Sunday: 10–11 a.m. Featured Panel: Write Up, Write Down with Kelly Barnhill, Heather Bouwman, Pete Hautman, and Sheila O’Connor (she was one of my teachers at the U of M)(E.B. White once famously advised writers of children’s books to “write up, not down.” The authors on this panel have done just that, throwing big words, imaginary worlds, and tough situations at young readers—assuming, as White suggested, that children are “game for anything.” In this panel, they will discuss why, when, and how they “write up” to challenge their readers: what that means in terms of language, character, setting and plots; whether or not it is possible to lift a child up or put a child down with a novel; and the differences between writing for young people and writing for adults)

11:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Breakout Sessions

• Picture Book Track–Hack, Tweak, & Polish: DIY Revision Workshop with Tracy Nelson Maurer
• Middle Grade/Young Adult Track–Authentic Historical Settings with Jennie Goloboy
• Young Adult Track–Seizing the YA moment with Andrew Karre (In the last few years, YA fiction has occupied a place in public discourse unlike any other time in the genre’s
  history. (You know you’ve arrived when you’re on The Simpsons and in the New Yorker in the same month.) I’ll discuss what this means for writers and their work,and why they should be excited and inspired by all the controversy and even the negativity. This is a unique moment for YA novelists, and authors should seize it rather than shrink from it.

So, needless to say, I'm super excited. I'll be hitting up all the YA tracks, though a few of the MG ones sounded pretty sweet (especially What We Write About When We Write About Magic)

.

In Which Summer Flies By

So here we are, mid august already. Can you believe it? Where the hell did the summer go?




We're also in the midst of WriteOnCon. Are you participating? I had plans to go cray cray with it this year, but, just like last year, it's kind of poor timing for me. I reeeeeeally want to finish my draft asap (maybe this week) so it's kind of a "do I spend time at the writing conference, or do I like, you know, write?" conundrum for me.

Writing seems to be winning out. Good thing you can rewatch all the live events and stuff.

Writing has also interfered with both my QueryTracker Forum visits AND some of my blog visits. I recently switched up my schedule a bit. I used to read blogs in the morning and write in the afternoon. Now, though, I've flipped that. Writing needs to come first. So, while I get back into the groove of visiting all your blogs, you'll probably see comments from me later in the day. Hopefully the drafting will be done asap and then I can really get back into the interwebs groove of things

I always seem to forget how actually busy I get in the summer, especially once renfest starts. MMMMMM...renfest food...

This is probably a good note for me to remember - don't start a new WIP in the summer. If I need to write, to distract from queries or something, short stories are probably the way to go.

So, how's writing going for you?