Author Crush - Elana Johnson

Have you read Elana Johnson's POSSESSION?

If "yes" - Congratulations. You're in the "I've Read One of the Best Books Ever and I Know It" club.
If "no" - Seriously!??! Go read it. Now. Maybe take the day off work or get a babysitter to watch your kids. It would be worth it.



Here's the short summary from Goodreads:

Vi knows the Rule: Girls don't walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn...and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi's future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself. 

But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they're set on convincing Vi to become one of them...starting by brainwashing Zenn. Vi can't leave Zenn in the Thinkers' hands, but she's wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous--everything Zenn's not. Vi can't quite trust Jag and can't quite resist him, but she also can't give up on Zenn. This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play.

Got it? Good.

So, Ms. Johnson is an incredible writer in pretty much every area (which I hear you have to be, you know, if you want to be published.)

Examples? You know I've got 'em.


Her world building is intriguing and spot on:


Good girls don't walk with boys. Even if they're good boys - and Zenn is the best. He strolled next to me, all military with his hands clasped behind his back, wearing the black uniform of a Forces recruit. The green stripes on his shirtsleeves flashed with silver tech lights, probably recording everything. Probably? Who am I kidding? Those damn stripes were definitely recording everything.

Walking through the park in the evening is not technically against the rules Good people do it all the time. But walking through the park with a boy could get me in trouble.

She can deliver Big Messages in the midst of action and it doesn't feel weird or condescending at all:
"It's just a control tactic, Vi, to make you believe one thing over another."

I knew that, I did. But a lifetime of labels is hard to overcome. Maybe I just needed a new label, one that was neither good nor bad.


Her characters leap off the page:

Jag followed me, his breathing ragged. When I glanced at him, he was glowing. There I was, terrified, making stuff up on the fly, and this guy acted like he was on vacation.

The romance! Oh, the romance:

"You do smell like a guy, Jag whispered, his voice soft in my ear. His breath trickled down my spine. His fingers filled the spaces between mine perfectly.
"Shut up," I managed to say, but my voice sounded breathless. Surely he noticed the effect he had on me. I wasn't that good at hiding it. We'd only been living in the microscopic cell together for two days, but I felt a connection with Jag somewhere inside - somewhere I hadn't known existed until I met him.


But there's one thing in particular I'll never forget about POSSESSION. The Voice. Oh, my goodness, the Voice:


"Goodies are walking paper dolls, devoid of personality - and brains.
Yeah, that doesn't work for me. I don't want to be a paper doll."

(Ahhhhh.)

So, In the Pantheon of Prose, I'm dubbing Ms. Johnson the Goddess of Voice.

This book is written in first person by a particularly badassed main character. By the time you're done reading this story through her eyes? I'm giving you about a 75% chance of sauntering around for the day, imagining what you would say to your whining children or boss if they were Thinkers, talking to you like that.

You might also start half your sentences with, "Yeah...." (just like Vi does.) But it'll only last for a couple of weeks, tops, and besides, it's worth it.

But you think my author crush ends with the book? No way. A good book is super-important, but someone only crosses into author crush territory if she is a super-extra-classy human being.  And Ms. Johnson? Well, she's among the best.

Her dedication to the writing community is so deep and intense that she's devoted hours of personal time to helping all of us on that fraught road from "I've always wanted to write a book" to "Holy schniekies, I have to edit it? and revise it?" to "Wait, agents aren't going to be clawing at my door to read this?" to "It might not sell?"

So, when us lowly unpubs panic, Ms. Johnson is right there.

First of all, she's written and released - 100% FREE - her amazing e-book, FROM THE QUERY TO THE CALL, that holds your hand and walks, you, step by step, through the incredibly nerve-wracking process of putting your novel-baby out there in the world of agents and saying, "Read this? Love it? Please?" without looking like a total idiot.

This book is the one and only reason that I can officially call THE TRAVELERS "ready to query." If I want, I can send out a 100% polished query, synopsis, and full or partial manuscript with a professionally worded email without panicking, stressing, or going into a fetal position.

Go download it. Now. I'll wait.

She also has a blog with even more tips on writing, querying, and everything about the publishing world.

Second, and most mind-blowing amazingly, Ms. Johnson is one of the founders of WriteOnCon, an intense, jam-packed, infinitely useful and inspirational annual online writing conference that is - wait for it - 100% FREE.

Hundreds of other authors wait in the forums to help you with your query, pitch, synopsis, writing, all of it. It's the hub of the online writing community for four days every summer, and it's so supportive and amazing.

As if that weren't enough, WriteonCon also has (description from Ms. Johnson herself) :
Literary agents! Editors! [Published] Authors! Live chats and events. AND a Ninja Agent program where your query could earn the feedback from an anonymous pro!
(No, I'm not stalking the ninja agents. Not at all.)


Well, I think that about wraps it up. If you don't have an author crush on Elana Johnson now, too, then you haven't been paying attention.


 So, who else is in the club? Loved POSSESSION? Love Ms. Johnson just as much? Tell me all about it.

Books and the Courage to Keep Writing

Hi there! If you happen to be Mr. Michael Bourret, agent extraordinaire, please click over here to read all about how your incredible client, Brodi Ashton, gave the unflappable Gina (and me, too!) full-on permission to 'stalk' you. I promise, Gina and her manuscript are worth your while.


(Sunday) I've just spent the morning at the zoo with my children. It was so hot, my head is left with a fuzzy, thick feeling. The sinus cold my baby just gave me probably isn't helping. 

The house is cluttered, the children aren't wearing pants, and there are crumbs ground into the carpet. I just vaccuumed yesterday. (Didn't I?)

I am exhausted. (Who isn't?)

I need to write. There are other things I need to be doing. But I need to write.

Needs: 1. Air Conditioning 2. Coffee 3. Other people who revere words strung into stories.


I'm going to the bookstore.

I don't believe that paper books are better than digital. I don't care about the smell of their pages or the feel of their weight or the crack of their spine. 

Except when I do.

People live in these books. The people who wrote them and the characters they wrote. People who abandoned the housework and fought oppression and kept their eyes open despite exhaustion and poured their entire beings into their work and did magic and saved the world, and maybe saved themselves as well.

Which is author and which is story? 

(Does it matter?)

When I look down the rows the evidence lines up, spine strong against spine, an army of authors telling me that I shouldn't give up. 

"Look at us," the books say. 

"Just look. We had day jobs and housework and exhaustion and heartache and we did it. We still found a way to pour our hearts and souls into words, to breathe life into characters and stories that never existed before, and to defy the odds to get them printed on this paper."

I sit with that for a moment, considering them, countering that they were better writers and more determined people. And then they whisper, "What makes you think you have the right to stop trying?"

And then I turn to my keyboard and start to write.

The Split Personality of a Writer

Brodi Ashton, my new best friend* author crush recently gave an interview over on the Appendix Podcast about persistence.

She queried over one hundred - ONE HUNDRED - agents before she found the One, who sold her debut novel, EVERNEATH, in two days - TWO DAYS. Totally inspirational.

In it, she and the hosts talked about how, more often than not, an author's first novel is "the throwaway" - destined to never be published. (OhpleaseGodno.) It's our training wheels. But we can't write it that way. (I know I didn't.)

Here's the thing, she said: Writers are creatures that are completely narcissistic and completely self-loathing. We're supposed to hate our novels, and boy, do we ever. We tear them apart, replace the parts we don't like with ones that we think might be better, but probably aren't, then do it all over again. Then we ask perfect strangers to tear them apart again.  We kill characters and slash chapters and bury the whole darn manuscript in a drawer for months.

I know, personally, that about 90% of the time I sat down to write, I thought to myself. "This is silly. This will never amount to anything. This isn't what I went to school for. People will laugh at me." 

But I did it anyway.

Because when we think of the characters, and the story, we are completely in love. It is, after all, the reason we started writing about them in the first place, and sacrificing time with friends and family, the cleanliness of our house, and maybe even personal hygiene (No, I wouldn't know about that firsthand. Not exactly.) The story calls to us from the drawer, or the hard drive, or wherever, and reminds us why we loved it in the first place.

That spark of love buried beneath the hatred and the hard work and exhaustion and resentment of the training wheels is what allows us to dream, and eventually, forces us to write queries and synopses that tell agents all about how wonderful the book is, how wonderful WE are. We can be narcissistic, because at the end of the day, isn't it that little whisper of belief in ourselves that got us to pour so much hard work into it in the first place?

It is terrifying.

I don't think becoming a writer (see how I just snuck that in there? Calling myself  'a writer'?  That right there deserves a round of applause...) changed my personality. I think that I've always had this split, and even though it can make for some very tough days, it makes for some really wonderful ones, too. The day that a CP points out eight inconsistencies in one paragraph can be rough, sure - but when someone says they really like the premise of your book? Or that you've nailed the query? Or that they're excited to read more? Those days make it all worth it.

Gina, my incredible, patient, saintly first critique partner, started on this whole journey over a year ago. Yesterday, the self-confident part of her writerly self WON, and she clicked "send" on a first round of queries to agents.
Luckily for Gina, she's written a solid, sweet, heartwrenching book that, in my opinion, is flawless. I have a feeling that today is going to be the start of some Really. Good. Days. ahead for her, but I know her head is kind of spinning right now. So run on over and give her some virtual hugs and cheerleading, would you?

*In all seriousness, the protagonist of Brodi's debut is called "Nik," just like my MC. As far as I'm concerned that makes us (blogosphere) besties. EVERNEATH releases on January 3rd, and I'm dying to read it!

Author Crush - Kristin Cashore

Three years ago, before the second love of my life (the Kindle, duh) was on the scene, I went to Barnes and Noble looking to buy a copy of A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I found the "B" section, but instead of finding the book I came for, all I found was an empty space of cold coppery metal bookshelf.

I am so so happy that "Cashore" is so alphabetically close to "Bray," because this book was in the spot next to it.


I normally don't love fantasy. I can't be bothered to break my head learning new places, species, languages, kingdoms, social stratifications, blah blah blah. But the premise of this book was interesting enough - a world where some people are born with a Grace, which is kind of like a superpower, and Katsa, a girl who fights for the right to use hers for good and not evil - for me to bring it home with me.

I am so. glad. I did.

You guys, in the YA Author's Pantheon, Kristin Cashore gets ultimate storyweaving goddess status.  She weaves worldbuilding elements, characters, plot points, and emotional hooks together with her sweeping narrative voice so seamlessly, that before you know it three hours have passed, you're moving to one of the Seven Kingdoms tomorrow, you're reasonably sure you're Katsa's best friend and/or that she would kill you if you crossed her, but you would jeopardize it all to jump on her handsome Prince friend, and most of all?

You feel like you've just left a freaking five star story spa. 
I'm not even exaggerating. You feel relaxed and content and blissful and AWASH in the awesome, awesome story. Kristin's writing is like a cashmere blanket made out of letters and words; rich, luxurious, and one of the best things to wrap yourself up in.

Yeah. I know.

And that's just her books.

Kristin is one extra-classy authoress.

She is absolutely effervescent, though she is not hyper or even perky, really. Her love for writing and for her characters radiates off of her, whether on her blog or in person (which you would know if you had a serious author crush on her and plugged her name into YouTube.) Watch this video of her detailing her writing process for an audience of admirers.

Yeah, you heard her right. She writes all her stories longhand. IN A NOTEBOOK. Don't you just want to (buy yourself a notebook and some pens and) hang out in a coffeeshop with her and write magical stories with strong heroines and hunky Princes? 


As if all that wasn't enough, she is such an awesome cheerleader for other writers. She wrote some beautiful words about writing, fear, and letting go here, and her NaNoWriMo Pep Talk from a couple of years ago is truly inspirational. 


Her next book, Bitterblue, is being released soon. They haven't announced a date, but Kristin posted some photos of the manuscript (Yes! It's paper! Full of Post-It notes!) on her blog the other day, and I totally freaked out. In a good way, you know.


That makes it official! I have a ginormous author crush on Kristin Cashore.


Have you read Graceling and Fire? Are you as obsessed as I am?

Delighted to be Devastated (Crit Diaries)

cc Phil Gilbert

PSA: I seriously THANK GOD for the day that Gina agreed to read my atrocious first draft. She has been my biggest cheerleader on this project, and if I ever make it to publication some day, she'll be a huge part of the reason. She's not mean, beastly or monstrous - she gave me just the critique I needed. And she rules. Okay, on with the show.

My post from yesterday about my unflappable crit partner, Gina, garnered a couple of concerned comments. "Don't change your story just to please people."

I'm here to assure you - I didn't. Example? Sure.

There's one particularly evil character in my first (I know, never-gonna-be-published, blah blah) novel.
Gina said she wasn't buying it. That character isn't evil. Not in the least.
I could have made the character nice, which would have made Gina happy.
But that's not the story I want to tell.  I just knew - KNEW - this character was going to have to be pretty nasty. Be redeemable in the next book, (ha!) maybe, and even a little bit in this one - but NASTY. It was going to be key in a couple of other character's developmental arcs, and I just couldn't sacrifice it.
So I talked with Gina about it (clarification - I have never actually talked to Gina.) and she helped me figure out how to make this character a little more contemptible (G is still not happy with this whole aspect of the story, btw, and for now I don't care.) 


This is crit that helps. This is crit that makes us grow. It is collaborative, it listens, it discusses, it challenges.
It is two-way. TWO WAY.
When Gina brought up a problem with my story, it was because she was invested in it, invested in me. She wants to read it, and she wants other people to read it, the way I see it. She wants the story to be its best.
Writers, would you have it any other way?

My author crush Beth Revis wrote an incredible post on this today, complete with a diagram, for those of you who like that sort of thing (I do.) I'm printing it out and tacking it on my wall.

It's not just true of writing, you guys. It's true of life. Criticism stings. We've all gotten it, in nice ways, in not-so-nice ways, in ways that make us cry but end up being good for us. (Oh, hey, High Holidays sermon.)
But if we hear it right, if we respond to it right, if we use it as a challenge, it make us grow. And isn't that an incredible thing?


(Now, do me a favor and go shine some light into Gina's Revisions Cave.)

Forever by Maggie Stiefvater - Elana Johnson's ARC Contest! (Author Crush)

What makes a great story? I mean, what really sticks with you, grabs onto your heart and never lets you go?

The answer is "a lot of things," of course, but for me, a few of them are: stunning prose, gut-wrenching obstacles to be overcome, incredible characters, and a timeless love story.

Oh. And a beautiful cover doesn't hurt.


I've been in love with Maggie Stiefvater Maggie Stiefvater's "Wolves of Mercy Falls" series since I accidentally downloaded the first one, Shiver onto my Kindle. (True story.)

The third and final book came out last week and It. Is. INCREDIBLE.

What? You want some sample lines? Nooooo problem.

"Overhead, the stars were wheeling and infinite, a complicated mobile made by giants." 

I know, I know. Now, how about this:

"There is no better taste than this: someone else's laughter in your mouth." (*sigh* *swoon*)

It's these kinds of things that make me fall in love with an author and leave me star-struck by her. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Maggie Stiefvater is a prose goddess in the pantheon of YA authors, and I bow to her.

You know what might be approaching how incredible this series is? The fact that Elana Johnson (another author crush and prose goddess, yes, you'll hear more about her from me later, DON'T WORRY) is giving away a SIGNED ARC of the last book, Forever today on her blog!!!!

If I win it, I won't send it to any of you, but I will let you borrow my Kindle copy. So, that's something.