Belief

Okay, sweet readers. I'm not usually a sap. At least, I like to think I'm not.
So, apologies in advance for this post.

I've been having kind of a weird experience with my querying novel, ONE, and I'm trying to figure out exactly what it is.

I'm having trouble letting it go. Like, really, really feeling okay with whatever happens to it.

I don't know if it has something to do with my rising number of (form) rejections - 38 to date - or the dwindling number of agents remaining on my "to-query" list.
I don't know if it's because I somehow keep navigating back to the playlist for the MS on Spotify - like, once, twice a week. (I know. It's BAD.)

With my first MS, The Travelers, I remember adjusting pretty quickly to the idea that it'd get put in the drawer. It took me a couple weeks, yeah, but even I could pick out some things that people might not like about the poor sweet thing. Plus, it was my first. Everyone knows firsts don't get published.

I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and started writing again. And, in six sweet months, out came a shined-up version of ONE.

I followed (most of) the YA "rules" - I wrote it in first person (first person present even!), I didn't include any love triangles, or main characters with red hair, there's no sex, not a whole lot of swearing, no preaching (of course,) no snark for snark's sake. There's no insta-love (after the second revision,) or insta-friends, or unflawed heroine. There are no absent parents, dead or otherwise, and no crushes from the best friend. It's not too long, it's not too short, it's in a genre that all the agents seem to be asking for.

Also, it's a good story. I think.

I revised and re-revised and re-re-revised and re-re-RE-revised the query.

The only thing left to think I did wrong is the writing itself.

Now, normally I'm pretty good at self-deprecation. For real. Ask my CPs.  I'll tell you any day I'm unattractive, or a bad friend, or a lazy mother. Definitely I assume myself dense a lot of times, and quite easily too.

I'll even tell you that what I wrote sucks.

Except, this time when I try to tell myself that?
That it must be the book, the whole darn thing, that's wrong?
I can't make myself believe it.
Well, I can. But only, like, 70%.
And that's not enough.


See, sweet readers,

- and if it was possible to think this thought in a whisper, I would - 

I think I believe in this MS.

I don't know why I think it should be pulled out of the slush over all the, well, SLUSH.
(In fact, I feel like a jerk even saying that.)

But....I do.

I don't know what this means. Right now, I don't think it means that I'll self publish the thing. But I also don't think I'll give up. In fact, even though I know it makes absolutely zero sense, I kind of feel like starting on TWO (yes, that's what the sequel would be called, no, I'm not kidding) after my current WiP starts querying.

 Is this normal? Am I not humble enough, or does this weird, unshakable belief in my work mean that I'm finally becoming A Real Writer?

Do you guys feel this way about some MS of yours, drawered, or querying, or in progress?


What do I do?
Do I try to get over it?
 Do I keep believing, but keep the belief tucked in the corner of my mind, where it occasionally floods me with longing, or sadness, or regret, even though there's nothing I think I could have done differently?
Or do I say, "Screw It, I'll do anything to pub this story," even after of 100% rejections, even with the voice in my ear saying, "Self publishing is for people who could get an agent, not people who couldn't?"

Your input greatly appreciated - right now, I'm vacillating between feeling silly and convicted, and it's an odd place to be.

Giving It the Best Chance

If you're a regular reader, you witnessed my epic whining-about-whining-about-querying post from last week. (And if you're not a regular reader, just count your lucky stars you missed it.)


The conclusion of said post was this: I have to stop being so invested in whether ONE, or any of my stuff, for that matter, gets published. I have to forget how much I love it, so that every rejection doesn't break my heart.

My ruthless sweet and brilliant CPs were quick to call me out in the comments - I can't deny how much I love the goshdarn thing. Heck - even the playlist makes me cry sometimes.

Yep. Sure does.

So. While I do still need to stop being quite so invested in whether any of my stuff gets pubbed, I now realize that the only other option is NOT to let the query flurries run out, shrug my shoulders, and say, "eh."
I've got to give it the best chance I can.


That means writing a kick-butt query.
Then re-writing it.
Then re-re-writing it.
*eye twitch*


I had a pretty pared-down, simple query, which wasn't doing anything stellar for the MS. (a sprinkle of requests, under 10%)
Marieke got out her literary syringe and injected the whole darn thing with voice and filled it out a little (still under 250 words, don't worry.)
Then my saintly friend Helene stripped it back down to something more simplistic.


I've had feedback from CPs, agenteds, and Real Live Agents that the voicey query looks good.


(And, as we were so helpfully reminded last week, if the problem isn't my query, it's my MS - duh - and I'm just really not mentally prepared for that possibility just yet.)

So. Should I keep querying with it? My req. rate on it is....well, it's only been out 11 days, and I've only heard back from four or five of those. All form Rs, though. But I do LOVE this query.

Or should I pare it down a'la Helene? Which is also a solid query but way less voicey?


What do you think?*
(Thanks in advance. You all are angels. *kiss kiss*)
*Also! I'm in good company. Please run over to Gina's and Jenny's blogs, where they're asking for query advice today, too.

Sixteen-year-old Merrin Grey can’t fly to save her life, but she is a freaking amazing floater. Too bad, because in a world where almost everyone else is a Super, with at least two powers, or a Normal, with none, being a One is the worst kind of in-between.

When Merrin is shipped off to Normal High—excuse her, Nelson High—all she wants is to land an internship at the Biotech Hub.  If she can get close enough to their research on the manifestations of superpowers, she might finally figure out how to fix herself.

But then she meets Elias VanDyne, another One, and all her carefully crafted plans fly out the window. Literally. When the two of them touch, their Ones combine to make them fly, and when they’re not soaring over the Nebraska cornfields, they’re busy falling for each other.

Merrin’s over the moon. She’s unraveling the secrets of Ones—way beyond AP Chemistry—Elias is a seriously good kisser, and her mad skills in chem class even land her a spot on the Hub’s internship short list. But when Elias disappears, along with her bratty water-walking brothers, the Hub’s interest turns lethal. The thought of crashing has never been scarier, because if Merrin fights back, she has to abandon her dreams of ever flying solo—of ever being more than a One.

ONE is a work of YA Science Fiction complete at 76,000 words. Thank you for your consideration.

Accessing the Love

Thanks to the goodness and brilliance of my CP, Marieke, (and the subsequent input of a handful of other CPs, love you ladies) I have a gorgeous new query for ONE, so I spent this morning sending a third query flurry. So. This post will be short.


(That's supposed to be me, sending off a query flurry.
Yep. I look just like that. Right now.)

So. When I was smack-dab in the middle of drafting ONE, I blogged about it. The feeling. That surge of affection you get for your work-in-progress that drives you to stay up late, wake up early, and keep your butt glued to your desk chair during your lunch break just to get in a couple hundred more words.

Sometimes, it just happens. Yesterday, I thought of a particularly awesome line from the original Bible story I'm retelling in my WiP, that takes on a completely new meaning and yet means EXACTLY THE SAME THING in Chrome, and OMG you guys. Seriously. I wanted to write for hours. (Of course, I was elbow-deep in dishes and laundry, but what can you do?)


Other times, though, you have to push The Feeling. I know that when I'm in need of a writing boost, there are a few things that help me. One is listening to the soundtrack. The other is taking a moment to revisit the themes, characters, and lines I most love about the WiP. Almost always, taking a look at photos of my characters helps.

I mean, seriously. Look at these beautiful people and just TELL ME you don't want to write something about them.

So, sweet readers, please tell me - in your writing and/or reading universe, what brings on The Feeling? Tell me, so I can maybe add it to my bag of tricks! 

Contested

The internet is an amazing place for writers.
It's where we can find incredible critique partners, more writing forums than we have time for, the best agent-finding resources, and a ton of information on improving our craft. Heck, it's basically a DIY MFA playground, if you're willing to use it.

And then, there are the contests.

Every once in awhile, some kind-hearted, self-sacrificing individual will step up and run a contest on her blog. Writing is posted for critique and, if we're very lucky, agents flock to fight over the chance to review that work more in depth, in a (mostly) civilized and (entirely) exciting manner.

(ONE is playing in one such contest, the brand-new Cupid's Literary Connection, today. I'm so excited.)

Here are the reasons that I think contests can be a great opportunity for the querying writer.

1. It elevates my work above the slushpile.
Even if there are fifty or even one hundred entries on display for agents' perusal, that still amounts to two, ten, or a dozen agents looking at one hundred queries as opposed to one lone, hard-working, exhausted agent wading through slush to hopefully pull my manuscript out.

Plus, whether or not the contest is selective (meaning: the person running the contest somehow narrows entries down to what she has determined to be the "best" ones) the dirtiest of the slush has already been cast aside. No crazy queries, no YouTube videos of shirtless men. So when the agent gets to my query, hopefully she's not so slush-weary that she can't read it with a happy heart.

2. I've had success with contests.
Well, what I'm calling "success," anyway. Three of the full requests on my last manuscript were the result of one blog contest or another. Even though I drawered that manuscript, I did get a sense of which agents I would LOVE to query in the future, and their feedback was, in some cases, invaluable.

3. It helps me get to know agents in what I call a "soft query" environment. 
Agent Fabulous might say that she wants Young Adult Romance, for example, and then completely ignore every entry that seems to be a solid one of those. If I'm querying a Young Adult romance, I can then take that information and decide whether it's worth querying that agent. Or, more optimistically, I can see what about YA romances that agent loves, and highlight those aspects of my MS in the query I'll send to her later.

In past contests, even when I haven't gotten a request out of it, I have had agents point out their concerns about or approval of my query and first page, which let me either tweak it or leave it alone, and go forth formally querying with confidence.

4. Contests are how I found a bunch of my CPs.
Checking out the work of my fellow entrants gives me a chance to see whose work I'm absolutely head-over-heels in love with/excited about, which I think is essential to a great CP relationship.

5. I'm really not afraid of anyone stealing my work, or ideas, or whatever.
If anyone can take my query and first pages and use the ideas and voice in there to fully reconstruct my 76,000 word manuscript, I'll probably hand them a cookie and congratulate them. Not only would that be crazy freakish, but it would also free up a lot of my time and stress.

But seriously. I can give a crowd of twenty writers the idea of "half-superpowered teens" and they will write 20 completely different novels. Which would actually be kind of awesome.

Bottom line: It's ridiculously difficult to get an agent as it is. Anything that helps improve my chances can't hurt that badly, and the cheerleading and community-building possibilities are some seriously thick icing on the cake.

***********

Now. Just like anything else, contests *do* have cons. Just some things to consider before you let my above points get you all gung-ho excited for the next contest.

***********

1. Anonymity is tough to preserve
These contests are supposed to remain anonymous, so that they don't become a popularity contest. Obviously, though, the internet is one big web of hyperlinks, and it's pretty easy to connect most of the projects on display to an individual if you really want to. I try to stay anonymous, just because I think it's way classier, but I'm not sacrificing the information I have posted about my MS on my blog or any tweets about it for the sake of staying under the radar while I'm contesting for two weeks.


2. It's tough to keep up self-confidence while watching your work be rejected in real time. 
The point of every contest is for an agent or agents to pick their favorite entries. Sometimes, this occurs in real time, meaning that during a given period of one or several days, agents can leave comments saying, "not for me," "yes, this is good," or "YES PLEASE PUT IT IN MY INBOX NOW." It can be nervewracking and insane, but the worst is when every other entry seems to be getting comments but yours. Yes, it happens. No, it doesn't mean your MS sucks - it just means it doesn't appeal to those agents. But, again - it takes a darn chipper and mature person to remember that. (Spoiler - I'm not always that chipper or mature. I know, you're shocked.)

3. Feedback is not always positive.
One of the stated purposes for all these contests is to receive feedback from peers, but I've never really bought it. Mostly because one of the rules is usually "only submit completed and ready-to-query manuscripts." Now, I don't know about everyone else? But to me, "completed and ready-to-query" means that the MS has run the gauntlet of multiple critiques, revisions, and line edits. Not to mention much agonizing. Usually I'll contest an MS while I'm also querying it.
Now. If I'm confident enough in the MS to query the darn thing, I'm pretty much only looking for cheerleading from my peers, and maybe some gentle suggestions for minor improvement. But every once in awhile, some uppity writer will roll in and leave PARAGRAPHS of feedback, often quite critical, on everything everyone is doing wrong with their entry. This can be annoying at best and crushing at worst. Most of the time I can ignore these jerks, but if you're ultra-sensitive about the soundness of your submission, this might be a big deal.
Note: Some contests are SOLELY for the purpose of feedback, and don't involve agents, in which case the above obviously doesn't apply.


Just some things to remember about contesting:

• It can be a great opportunity to shove your work directly in front of agents.
• It can be an awesome community-builder and confidence booster.
• Subjectivity is a b*tch. Let this be your contesting mantra. Not everyone loves everything. It's okay.
• It only takes one agent to love your work and get you a book deal. There's always another contest or another query. If this contest doesn't work out, don't let it ruin future contests for you.

What about you, sweet readers? Have you participated in blogged writing contests? Do you plan to in the future? Why or why not?

How I Query

So....ONE has been querying for a week! Yaaaay!

Just wanted to do a little post on how I query, since I know a good portion of my critique team thinks it's crazy. This is mostly an attempt to convince them - and myself - that it actually makes sense. In some universe.

So, before I do this, I'm just going to make the blanket statement that this is MY querying practice, because I think it's the right way FOR ME to query AT THIS TIME in my career. If you do something different, and you like it, and you're happy, well, that's all that matters, my love.

Now that that's out of the way.....here we go.

First of all, I work on my query until I'm sure it's good and clear and voicey and hook-y. I don't post it on forums, because I don't know the folks over there, and I don't have the emotional or physical energy to deal with people who tear things up just for the sake of tearing them up. I send it to some people I "know" or have "met" via Twitter, critique groups (CPs of CPs) and then my actual CPs for this. Just like when they're critiquing my novel, they're not afraid to tear it up, tell me something doesn't make sense, and I know it's all with the intention of making my novel succeed.

Second, I set up an initial list of agents I'd like to query - somewhere between 60 and 80. I spend a good week on Query Tracker, scoping out agents listed as representing YA, making sure that they'll look at Science Fiction, and noting what projects they've sold to see what kind of styles and voices they like. (I don't stress too much about the styles-and-voices thing, because I know that for an agent, it's all about finding a book she loves. How many of us have fallen in love with a book completely different from all the other ones we've ever loved?) I make notes about what materials they're asking for, so setting up queries later is easy-peasy. (Yes, obviously, this is not as easy as it seems. Hm.)

I query my Dream Agent first. This is for a few reasons.

• One, she's the agent I'm most nervous about querying, and so if I get over my terror of clicking "send" on her query, it's all downhill from there. I mean, sending every other query is relaxing in comparison to that experience.
• Two, if she sends me a form rejection, then I'm not stuck wondering "what if" for the rest of my queries. I know she doesn't want it, so I can set my sights on other agents and move on.
• Three, if she IS interested in the material, she gets first crack at it and I have no qualms about (please please pretty please) signing with her.

Then, I begin a series of what I like to call Query Flurries.

I send an initial query batch of 20-30 (I think this time, contests and web forms included, it was something like 26)

I like to throw in a couple of agents I'd LOVE to work with, some that I know are awesome but I have no special attachment to, and some that I haven't really heard of, but seem to have great clients and sales.

Now, I know you're saying, "Hold on. 20 agents is a whole heckuva lot at one time." 

But here's the thing. A good request rate - like, a really good one - is about 20%. So, let's say you and your query and your writing sample totally kick butt. You send out 20 queries, and get four requests. You are ON FIRE. If one of those agents reading your manuscript is totally in love, and wants to sign you, that means that you still have three others considering your work at the same time. This puts you at a great advantage.

(Personally, I'm not really believing that a 20% req rate is very possible these days. I'm thinking more like 10% would be admirable. But that's neither here nor there.)

After I send the first query flurry, I wait until I get a decent number of responses.

This past week, I got two requests and eight rejections.

So, today, I'll send out eight more queries, to make up for the eight rejections I got last week.

In this way, I always have about 25-30 queries out in the universe.

(I'll also be contesting my MS, which I consider a "soft query." It'll tell me which agents aren't interested, without me sending an actual formal query to them.)

"But, Leigh Ann," you might say. "How do you know that all those rejections aren't because your query SUCKS?"

Well, I don't. But I don't stress that much about it (unless I'm getting 100% rejections for awhile) for a few reasons:

•  First of all, I've done the research and worked really hard on my query, remember***? I've had a lot of feedback on it. I'm super-confident in its ability to do its job.
• Rejections come for lots of reasons other than a query sucking. It could be that the agent likes science fiction about cyborgs, but not superheroes. Rejection. It could be that the agent just signed a superhero novel, or for whatever other reason is not confident in her ability to sell it. It could be that the agent is really only looking for multi-ethnic fiction. It could be that she hates first person present, or she had a rough commute, or her kid is obsessed with X-men and she just can't bring herself to deal with anything else regarding superheroes. All reasons that might make me, personally, not want to read a book, let alone try to sell it. REJECTION.
• 
  
• Lastly, form rejections almost never come with any helpful feedback on the query itself. Agents don't have the time to tell you WHY SPECIFICALLY they don't think that they can sell your book. So, I could try to change the query purely based on the fact that I'm getting a lot of rejections, but without agent feedback, how do I know WHAT to change?

(***If you are worried about your query, GET MORE FEEDBACK. Run it by people who you know are supportive but haven't read your book and don't know you - i.e. don't really care about upsetting you that much. Make sure they're people who know what grammar looks like, and who understand query basics. Read QueryShark. Read From the Query to the Call. Do your homework.)

As I get more rejections, I send more queries.

Along the way, I might tinker with my first page or query to see if it gets more bites. But overall, again, I don't sweat it.

I do this until I run out of agents to query.

When I've run out of agents to query, I put the book in a drawer and gear up to query the next one....

And I'll blog about that on Wednesday.

If you feel comfortable sharing, my loves, what are your tried-and-true-and-loved querying practices? Have you changed anything since you first started querying? What are some resources you love?

Why Do We Do It?

(before I start - You all HAVE seen the new covers for Elana Johnson's POSSESSION and SURRENDER, right? Because they are awesome. Just making sure.)

I'm about to send out the very first round of queries for ONE.

I know the manuscript is ready for professional eyes.
I know the writing is as polished as I can make it.
I know, after two revisions, that I'm happy with the pacing, the voice, the plot, the characters.

And yet, as I queue up the queries in my inbox - one to my Dream Agent - my hands tremble and my heart drops into my stomach.

I know that this book may not sell. Ever.
I know that today is the beginning of setting out on that road, that might end in ONE's living in a drawer.

I've written before about the split personality of a writer - the audacity that enables us to send our work to critique partners' and agents' inboxes and internet contests, paired with the self-doubt that can be, at times, crushing.


We all have those moments when we bury our heads in our hands and think,
"Why do I even bother with this anyway?"


Maybe it's frustration finding ideas, or adding word count to a draft when we have one. Maybe it's a scene we just can't get right, a relationship we can't seem to communicate fully, or a plot hole we can't seem to adequately fill. Maybe it's teasing from a family member or some especially stinging crit.


Maybe it's staring at the draft of an email about to go to your Dream Agent and only being able to think, "Who do I think I am to be sending this to her?"

The drafting, the editing, the critique, the revisions.
The query-writing, the synopsis-composing, the pitch-crafting, the contest-entering.
The rejection, the rejection, the rejection.
 Altogether, it's enough to make you think you're crazy for doing this in the first place.

Right?


So, why do we do it?

For most of us, the reason we write is some subcategory of this -
Because we can't NOT write.
Maybe it's because it gives us a sense of self we can't find anywhere else.
Maybe it's because stories live in our heads and we can't rest until we get them into beautiful words.
Maybe it's because writing gives us something to dream about when nothing else does.

Just like anyone else, I have my own answers. Just like anyone else, those change all the time.

This weekend,  when I was having kind of a tough time with some stinging critique I'd gotten, a different critique partner asked me, "What do you love about ONE?"

And so, through streaming tears, I told her. 
I told her about the characters - and their story - that just won't let me go.
I told her about how superhero stories have always absolutely captivated me.
I told her about how I knew, first hand, about dreams lost, ambitions changed, and things turning out different - but better - than we ever envisioned them.
I told her about how much I LOVED telling a story of empowerment, hope and comfort, despite things not turning out the way we dreamed they would.

At that moment, I knew why I did it - why I poured myself into this whole project. Why it's okay if it never sells, why I'm glad I did it anyway.


Somehow, thinking about that stills my shaking query hand just a little.


So, now it's your turn. Please tell me - Why do you write? 

Friday Obsessions: Snow, Crit Projects, and the Kindle

Before we begin!
Some housekeeping.

First up, there's an amazing literary/writer's auction happening over at Write Dreams to benefit Donna's Dream House, which helps KIDS IN THE HOSPITAL, so, you know, it's really important. Anyway, someone set fire to it right before Christmas, those jerks, and now Donna is trying to rebuild so that sick kids can hang out with their families a little more while they're staying in the hospital.

So if you have some extra holiday cash lying around and want to use it for a good cause and get writing help from the pros as a really nice bonus, GO BID!!! (Remember, they're bidding in pounds, so...yeah. Do your conversions.)


Second! The winner of the Brodi Ashton Classy Author Giveaway is.....

COREY WRIGHT!!!

(I swear to you I did the random draw and whatnot, but I'm too lazy to do the screenshot, etc, so you'll just have to believe me.)

Who said, "In a weird way, stories like Brodi's are so satisfying to hear. Insofar as, here is someone who really *wants* it. Who works for it and keeps at it because it's what she's called to do, not just because it's something to do. And it's a fantastic light to the rest of us who struggle with the rejections and the self-doubt and the looming fear of the not so great What If." 

To which I say: Damn straight. Congrats, Corey! (Though, I can't for the life of me find your email address, so shoot me a message with your address and whether you'd like EVERNEATH on Kindle or in hard copy, okay?)


Okay. Now, on with the obsessions!

Everything I was obsessed with this week.
Because I know you want to know.


1. The Forecast.

So, right now (5 AM on posting day,) the weather looks like this:


Which...okay. Whatever. I just pretty much HATE this whole "ten degrees and cloudy" nonsense if the weather's not going to oblige and at least give us some pretty snow to look at. So every morning these days I'm going to weather.com and just hoping....

Well, guess what I saw this morning!!!


Which pretty much has me doing this:


Yep. Even though it won't shut down work or school, or really even accumulate that much, I love a good Shabbat snow. So pretty to watch, so nice to curl up with a great book. Which brings me to....

2. Crit Projects LYM and TB
As soon as I finish pushing through this revision high on ONE (yes, ba''H, ptuh ptuh ptuh, my CPs helped pep talk my sorry behind through my revision wall from last week and I'm ALMOST DONE) I'm spending ALL WEEKEND with books from members of the team. I'll probably finish in-lines on Gina's fab new YA romance.

You need to be jealous - because my goodness is it ever romantic. Fellow LYM team member Marieke compared Gina's writing to Sarah Dessen's, and I agree, not because I've ever read Sarah Dessen, but because her writing made her famous and Gina's gonna have the same situation.

And then - did I mention? - I snagged (okay, obtained through endless month-long harassment) a very early copy of TB, which is about TIME DRAGONS I mean HOLY GEEZ, you guys - from Jamie Grey. And you guys, the writing is SO BEAUTIFUL and the characters? Love them. So I get to finish reading that and send my comments this weekend too.

Cannot. Wait.

3. My Kindle 
Call me snobby or elitist or a Hater of Paper Books, but I'm in love with my Kindle. I wouldn't get NEARLY the volume of reading or writing (yes, the Kindle is an IMMENSE help to my writing, I'll do a post on it) without my baby in her sweet eggshell-blue case.


My Kindle, tag-teaming it with my netbook to edit ONE.

Plus, when I send ONE to the Kindle, it looks just like all the other books that are actually published by People Who Publish Things. At I'm not gonna lie, that's a rush.

Okay, your turn!!! What were YOU obsessed with this week?

The Revision House of Cards

If you've ever drafted a novel, you know that when you deliver it to your CPs' inboxes, it's like a card house - painstakingly planned, fretted over, each piece fitting into place perfectly. Stable, but intricate.



But what my CPs can see, that I can't possibly see, is that my novel isn't a house of cards. It's more like this:

'

This old farmhouse has a pretty solid foundation, and has the potential to be awesome if we tweaked a little here, cleared all the brush around it, replace the kitchen, add some additions, and build a sweet driveway next to it.

But before I can do all that to it, my CPs have to make some suggestions for change that pretty much amount to this:



Not gonna work for the house of cards. 




But deep down I still see that novel as a house of cards. She's my baby, remember? I agonized over putting every piece of her into place. I saw her being built, but my CPs only saw her finished, with parts of her starting to look not-so-good.

So I try to make the changes my CPs suggest without the wrecking ball.

You can guess what happens. I usually end up with something like this:



I changed one little thing, moved around one little piece. I can pretend the whole thing's going to stand on its own, but inevitably the next round of CPs notice it for what it is: a wibbly-wobbly (but not timey-wimey, that's Jamie's book) proto-mess that won't last for long  or maybe just doesn't make any sense as-is.

We all know it. They know it, and sometimes they try to pretend it's okay, but most of the time, they keep telling me my house is about ready to fall. Yeah, it hurts to hear it, because just look at that card house up there! It's MOSTLY fine. Who's going to notice?

Well, they tell me, everyone will. When it falls. Or worst, only I will when it doesn't sell.

Well, crud.



So, that's where I am now.

It's hard, but I'm resolving to (try to)  follow my CPs advice with the wrecking ball instead of just by moving cards around.  I asked these people to read because I trust and respect every one of their opinions. FULLY.

Even when it's scary. Especially when it's scary.

And so, as my fingers hover over the "delete" button or the keyboard to write even more new stuff,  I remember that those ladies saw a strong foundation, and some beautiful elements, and knew that even with a wrecking ball, the whole thing would turn out okay.

No. It would turn out way, way better.


(That's what Elias's house looks like, by the way. Movie room's down the hall on the left.)

The Itchy Query Finger

It happened with my first manuscript, and it's starting to creep up on me again.

The itchy query finger. (Oh, July me. You were so cute.)

I know exactly what to blame. It's the first draft high, which I got a second dose of, laced with extra uppers, in the form of the first revision high I experienced yesterday when Gina, Alexa, and Marieke read ONE. (Shoot, Marieke's crit was pretty much, "You need to work pretty hard on fixing some things in the first half of this book," and I was still clapping my hands and squealing like a schoolgirl.)


Yeah. Clearly it's just a high. But still.



I have a pretty decent query that could be dolled up with a couple weeks of hard work, and yeah, writing a synopsis and the endless list of pitches one has to write is no tea party, but I could still do it.

But I'm no idiot. (No, really. I'm not. Bear with me.)

I read advice from query luminaries all over the internet:
Wait a few months to query.
Work as long on your query letter as you did on your revisions.
If you send too early, you'll find glaring mistakes in your MS and wish you hadn't.

I know. I know. And I agree. But still. My itchy query finger is CRAZY with shpilkes. 

I thought about why this is while I was procrastinating on starting to eliminate one of the ten kajillion times the word "just" appears in ONE (thanks G) and I think I realized why. You guys ready for this? It's kind of, you know, deep. Which we don't see a lot over here.

I'm afraid that if I don't query it now I'll realize how much it sucks, and I never will send that first letter.
Even though I know it doesn't suck.
Even though I know most books get waaaay better with revision.
Even though everything in my brain tells me that's wrong wrong wrong.....

The first draft/first revision high leaves me thinking...is this the most confident I'll ever be about ONE? The most excited?

(Wow. I am a nutcase. Analyze away.
Oh. And in case you were concerned? I set up a querying date for myself, to avoid any stupid moves.)

What about you guys? Have you ever had the itchy query finger? Why do you think it got so itchy? Did you send or wait? 

A Tale of Two Queries (Drafting Your Query While Drafting Your MS)

As much as I hate it, I know. All writers seeking traditional publication must write a query. I know. 

I'm not about to ignore the advice of sage individuals like Peggy Eddleman who instruct us to work on our query letters for almost as long as we work on our manuscripts - seriously, months and months. (Listen, a few months ago I would have conveniently ignored her but considering that this was one of the things that helped get her her rockstar agent and all....well...yeah. I'd better listen to Peggy.)

Anyway. Yesterday I was all whining about how, now that the first draft was done and I'm hoping to query in April, I should probably get to work writing that first query draft. It was making my stomach twist and drop and my heart race and my head feel light for all the reasons I've already told you. ONE is my baby! She's the only thing that helped me get over my first MS! How can I just condense her into a couple of paragraphs and send her out into the world? People might misunderstand her! People might most certainly will (God forbid) REJECT her! It's all too much.

But then, Jessica shook some sense into me, all the way from the West Coast.

Not to mention she was seriously enthusiastic about critiquing whatever hot mess of a query draft I managed to put together. By some strange miracle.

So, after I'd finished weeping over Chessie's NaNo novel a second time (read: finished my in-line crits, and now I can finally start to emotionally recover until the next time I pick up the wonderful heartwrenching blasted thing) I sat down and got to work.

First move - head over to query-writing guru Elana Johnson's website and her collection of blog posts on the topic. 

 Hook. 
Setup. 
Conflict. 
Consequence. 
Got it. No problem.


I mean, I KNOW all these things about ONE. I should be able to write a goshdarn 250-word letter summing them up, right?  So, I spent a good two hours breaking my head over the letter. Here's what I came up with for the first couple lines:

All Merrin Grey has ever wanted is to be able to fly like a real Super. At sixteen years old, the entire Super world is conviced that she'll always be a sad floating freak.

Merrin’s betting on a transfer to Nelson “Normal” High to let her fly under the radar while she gets good enough at Organic Chemistry to wrangle a job at the Supers’ Biotech Hub. 

*YAWN* In case you couldn't tell, this freaking sucks. This makes EVEN ME want to chuck ONE in the trash. And it just got worse and worse.

But if I'm anything, you guys, I'm a trooper. So I kept at it and got together about 250 words with the Hook, Setup, Conflict, and Consequences. Knowing it was full of too many details and emdashes, among other things, I sighed a heavy sigh as I prepared to send the whole horrid thing to Jess and watch her tear it limb from limb.  All I needed was the wording for the last line, and since my brain was fried, I figured I'd just lift it from my last query letter for drafting purposes.

I punched "query" into the search field of Evernote and guess what popped up, like an oasis in the middle of a freaking writer's desert?
A query I wrote for ONE back in August. Two weeks after I started drafting.
See, at one point, I had been a righteous follower of Guru Elana Johnson, who gently advises us to write the query before we write the manuscript.
But August-me got frustrated, reasoned that, since I'm a pantser, this advice didn't apply to me, and abandoned the query to concentrate on drafting.

Anyway. Here were the first few lines I found in that blessed File from the Past:

Sixteen-year-old Merrin Gray can float, but she can't make herself fly. When almost everyone else is a Super, with at least two powers, or a Normal, with none, being a One is the worst kind of in-between.

The rest of that letter was equally hook-y and voice-y and simple, and made my heart jump. "Yep! THAT's what ONE is about," I said to myself. After a few tweaks, it was off to Jess's inbox, and here's what she said:

Then, yeah, she sent me detailed crit in my inbox. But I'll be darned - she hardly hated it at all. 

Lessons: Query Guru Elana Johnson is always right. You know more about the bones and basic themes about your book when you first start drafting. You're probably also way less tired of it, emotionally attached to it, and mired in its details then. So just spend a bit of time drafting one up. Stick in in your files or notes. Who knows? It might do you a LOT of good later.

Also, no matter what stage your MS is in, buck up and write your damn query.

And in case you're wondering, I did send Jess the last deleted (kissing plus) scene from ONE in thanks. Because that kick in the bottom was exactly what I needed.

Flaw 'Em Up! (Crit Diaries)

Before we get started: A request. I'm totally psyched that I get to guest post over at Zap's Lobster Tank next Friday for "F---ing Awesome Friday." I'm going to be writing about how F---ing Awesome UNAGENTED (/unpublished) WRITERS are. 

So. If you are an unagented and/or unpublished writer, send me something you're proud of.  Could be a concept, an excerpt, a sentence, a TITLE for crying out loud.  Just...whatever you have that your agent-seeking fingers have toiled over that makes you say, "Yeah. I am F---ing Awesome." I know you have it.

I'm going to do my best to work everyone's contributions into the post. Because you are F---ing Awesome, unagenteds. Don't forget it.

(Oh! And if you are an unagented writer and you know that I think you're F---ing Awesome - i.e., I have harassed you for your manuscript, synopsis, kissing scenes, or anything PLEASEGOD that lets me read more of your book...don't think you can get out of this. I'm coming after you. Yeah, Jamie Gray and Marcy Kate. That's you.

Because, after all - if you don't have rabid fans, what DO you have? )

Now, on with the post.

Well, friends, it's that time of the manuscript again.

Chessie and Maggie are plowing through crit at a pretty impressive clip, and along with the "break the paragraph here"s and "What made you fall in love with run-on sentences this year?"s and "Elias sounds like an old man"s, I'm also starting to sort through the novel's meta-questions.

When I sent the ladies my manuscript, I asked them to keep a lookout for a few things.

To avoid my second lead, Elias, being a douchebag (not least to avoid Gina's wrath), I didn't give him any really STRONG flaws. At least, not any obviously egregious ones.  And I wanted to know if it was a problem.

We all know that a main character must have identifiable flaws. For one thing, they make her believable, and for another, they clarify her character arc - how she's going to grow and change throughout the story - for the reader.  So, we writers worth our salt get to work flawing our main characters up. Maybe they have low self-confidence, or they are are really rude, or stuck-up, or can't handle their tempers, or maybe they don't believe in Love (*happy sigh*.) 

But what about secondary leads? How flawed must secondary leads, or any supporting characters, be in order to be believable - in order for us to root for them?

Before critique on ONE even got rolling, I posed this question to my patient writing coach Jean, and then after Chessie had hung out with Elias for a bit I asked the same of her. And they both answered the same way:

Every character must have a flaw, but the reader only needs to see it to the extent that it interacts with your main character's arc. Mostly because your character can't go this story on her own. She has to have people doing stuff and causing events for her to react to, and without flaws, other characters won't do that. 

In other words? Your cast of characters is kind of like Voltron. One unbelievably-unflawed link, and it all goes to hell.

So, in other words, the more involved your characters are with the main character's story, the more of their flaws the reader should be able to see.  For example, I'm pretty sure that Merrin's biology teacher spends too much cash on comic books and too little saving for retirement. But we don't see that, because they only thing he does in this book is look at Mer and Elias scoldingly for breaking curfew on a school trip. No problem.

But Elias has a pretty major, if quiet, flaw that ends up causing kind of a lot of trouble in its own way. Now, I could give him no flaws, so that he could just skate through the story holding Mer's hand and boosting her self-confidence, but then people would throw my book across the room. Because a perfect character is unbelievable, especially one that we see so much of,  the whole STORY would become unbelievable.

Okay, readers. Your turn! Please regale us with stories of how you've flawed your supporting characters up, and what that meant for the way you wrote your story.

How to Have a Healthy CP relationship

I've heard, "Your CPs are too close to your books." a couple of times. I think that what people are really saying is that my CPs are too close to ME.

I don't think that's true. First of all, I haven't ever actually met my CPs in person. (I mean, seriously. For all they know, I could be a 50-year-old chain smoking prisoner in Colorado. One who writes cute books about superheroes and kissing, but still.) BUT because I think that's irrelevant, I'll give a different reason.

My CPs are my CPs because they're more invested in the health of my work than anything else. And because that depends on the health of me AS A WRITER, they have their work cut out for them. It's a tough balance to strike. It's a mixture of cheerleading, encouragement, sympathy, and understanding, balanced with a ruthlessly tough and objective eye.

Wanna be awesome like my CPs? Here's how.
(Note: These steps are for my "close readers"  - I also have betas, who do an overall read and don't get their hands nearly so dirty, which also has its super-important place.)

1. Gush over the book during the first read through. This shows your CP that you love the project and you are invested in helping her get it into tip-top querying shape.

My CPs raved on Twitter, as you know, but I also got big fat emails from them with initial reactions. Either or both of these will work, but it gives the writer confidence that she hasn't made the wrong decision by sending her stuff out for crit, and that it's good enough for other eyes to work on.

2. Tweet lines you love and other fabulous stuff as you critique.  It's really easy to use the hashtag #amcritiquing and tag your CP. My ladies will even quote a bit of the book with the hashtag #lineswelove every once in awhile.

It's easy for a writer to get stuck in an edits/revisions slump and convince herself that not only is she going to have to completely overhaul her book, but also that it will never ever EVER be finished. If you can manage to toss out little bits of love here and there, it not only assures your CP that you're actually working on her stuff, but buoys her confidence, piece by piece, to get her ready for the third (and technically most important) step...

3. Tear that sucker to shreds in (regularly sent) crit.

(Photo Credit Anne Mini)

Obviously, this is where the actual "critique" in "Critique Partner" comes in. You need to find every single problem in that manuscript and suggest a fix if you can possibly think of one. You need to be the eyes where your sweet writer friend was blind, either from love of her characters, desire to make the story flow just the way she envisioned it, and, maybe most treacherous, attachment to her darlings.

For example: Chessie just sent me the critique for the first five chapters of ONE, which, remember, we all know she loves. Here's what she did:

• Told me to cut a supporting character
• Told me that another supporting character just seems like a plot device (which OMG he is, so I've gotta cut him too.)
• Called me out on countless run-on, confusing, and clunky sentences
• Alerted me to every single place my main character made her roll her eyes (which, spoiler: wasn't none.)
• Brought up a major flaw with the way my main character views those around her
• Caught several instances of sloppy writing (example: I changed the villian's name about halfway through the book, but left his old name in Chapter 2)
• Told me I should probably combine the first two chapters into one, effectively cutting half the stuff.
• Left 110 comment bubbles and tons of in-line edit marks, changing everything from typos to bad punctuation.

Not huge changes, no. But there is a LOT of critique there, and it's just the beginning. 

How do I feel about it? PSYCHED. Because I know that she seriously combed these chapters and called out everything she could see that was wrong or that bothered her. I know she'll keep doing it, and I'm 100% confident my other close readers will do the same.

My point is this. Gushing over a book on Twitter and loving on your CP will only get her so far. It's only worth anything - is only a healthy CP relationship - if you're going to step up and help your writer friend make her stuff even better. 

So, get to work bringing the pain. Your CP will thank you for it.

(For another post about welcoming devastating news from your crit partners, check out this one that I wrote while Gina was critiquing THE TRAVELERS.)

What are your tips for making sure you and your CPs have the best critiquing relationship for you?  Tell me in the comments, so I can add to my arsenal.

Riding the First Draft High

This past weekend was the most emotionally overwhelming of my entire writing life. (Which, fine, admittedly has only been a year long. But whatever.)

Nope! I'm not complaining, not at all. It was completely awesome.

See, I finished my first-pass edit of my second (!!!) novel, ONE, and sent it to my first-round CPs, biting my nails and breathing into a paper bag.

I'm not sure if it was just well-timed, or if my CPs have an extraordinary kindness of heart, but Chessie read it in less than 24 hours and Maggie did it in less than 48.

Which, on its own, would have been amazing. But, you guys: While they were reading? They LIVE FREAKING TWEETED ABOUT IT.

So Chessie let me know she was starting....

(which made me hole up with twitter for the next 12 hours. Thank goodness it only took her that long to finish it.)

and so did Maggie...


Then Maggie quoted...


Then Chessie fell in love with the second lead (*SQUEEE*)


Then Maggie hit Chapter 10, or "The Beginning of Act 2"


Then Chessie went to Sam's Club....



....came home, and sped through the rest of the book.....

Then she tweeted this.....

....and I died.

THEN she tweeted this:




....and I could not contain myself.

Maggie gushed over the ending too, making me freak out even more.....



And then Chess tweeted THIS


And you guys KNOW how much I was worried about that...

...and so....YEAH.

Obviously this post is reflective of the near-manic state of the first-draft-initial-CP-read-through high I'm riding on.
But it feels soooo good. (It really truly is like a drug.)
And I know it will be crushed soon enough when the crits and revisions start rolling in.

So let's all just hold hands and grin like Cheshires for awhile, shall we, friends?

(Thank you.)

Please take a moment in the comments to tell me about YOUR experience with the First Draft High. You know, so that I don't feel quite so insane.

Friday Obsessions: New T-shirt, Avengers Menorah, and Reading! Lots of Reading!

Sometimes the week flies by so fast that I swear I won't have anything I've been obsessing over to share with you on Friday. And then...whaddaya know? So, here it is -


Everything I was obsessed with this week.
Because I know you want to know.

1. My new t-shirt.

Okay. So being a Jew and whatnot, I'm not exactly accustomed to giving and receiving Christmas gifts. But when Gina started talking about the epic package she was going to send me for Christmas, well, I got pretty stoked. She's so thoughtful that I knew it'd be something sweet.

You guys? I totally underestimated her. Check out the t-shirt G sent me.



Confused? There are no inside jokes here. Click over to this post where I explain it all.

Bahahahaha are you laughing yet? Because I did for a good twenty minutes. And then I wore the shirt to work the next day. And I'll probably wear it again this weekend.

2. The Avengers Menorah.

I want my kids to be psyched about Chanukah. So when I hauled out the Chanukah box and realized that our kid menorahs are a little....well, not lame, I wouldn't say, but cutesey-boring maybe?....I asked the boys what kind of menorah they wanted this year. I figured I'd Google it, order one, and we'd have a great holiday.

They told me they wanted an Avengers menorah.

But Avengers menorahs do not exist....

until now.

Behold, my craftiest craftiness of the year. I stole some of their toys, and a block of wood, some hardware nuts, spray paint, and a s*%t ton of epoxy, and we've got ourselves one of our very own.  Yeah, I was totally obsessed with getting this done. So. Worth it.

3. Reading. So so much reading.

Guess what I finally got on my Kindle just about an hour ago?


The Official First Draft of ONE!
*confetti*

Since it's hanging out in Chessie and Maggie's inboxes right now, and there's not much for me to do on it until they start sending me bits of feedback....

I get to read. A lot.
It feels luxurious.

Check out my TBR pile:

Not to mention, I get to start critiquing a second project for Chessie! I am seriously over-the-moon-obsessed.


Oh! And Prince Charming. But that's a given. Here's a picture anyway. (You're welcome.)



Your turn, loves! What were YOU obsessed with this week?

Make Them Obsessed and Tear Their Hearts Out

So, I got to read the sequel to THE NOCTURNIAN, the YA Sci-Fi novel Francesca's querying right now, over the past couple of weeks. 

(I know. You're seething with jealousy. And you should be. Here's why:)

I finished the book and I felt like I needed a moment to be alone, just so I could deal with it being over.

Chessie's asked me what I thought about it, and I feel bad that I can't really put it into words any better than that. But it's true. There was a sense of completion, victory and hope, underlaid with a very acute feeling of loss. Something irreparable. Something life-changing.  It felt like there was sort of an emptiness, where the book had taken a little piece of my heart that I couldn't really ever get back.

What I could say about the book was this: The last book  that made me feel that way at the end was POSSESSION by Elana Johnson. The one before that? CATCHING FIRE, the second book in THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy.

Yeah.

Now, there have been plenty of books I've really really enjoyed that did NOT make me feel like that. Those books fall into the (much more easily definable) category of "Obsessed." That means, to me, that even when I'm not reading, I'm thinking about the story. Songs  I hear on the radio make me think of that-one-chapter-when. I see someone at a coffee shop, and think, "Oh! That looks just like Alexis." I can't hear something about Paris on the news without thinking of the fictional hi jinx that occurred there in that one book I loved so much.

So all my CPs' books fall into that category, (duh)  right along with HARRY POTTER and TWILIGHT.

All these books are ones I am passionate about, for one of two reasons:

1. I'm obsessed with the world and/or the characters and/OR
2. I feel like my heart got torn out and trampled on by the end.

Of course, I want to write a story that others are passionate about. After all, a book's not going to sell too well if people pick it up, read some pages, say, "eh," and put it down again.

This is only my second project, and so I'm still not quite sure how to go about inspiring obsession.  But I think I have some idea of how to tear hearts out.

This brings me to a post my CP and writing-life coach Jean made recently about war in fiction. In the blog, she discusses her WiP,  and how even though it's about kid assassins (I know! Awesome, right?) it's really about war.

Then I commented that  reading about war is so gut-wrenching, because at the end, no one wins. And that's the worst part of the whole thing.

And then I thought, well, that's really how real life is, isn't it? There are no one hundred percent happy endings. For stories to feel real, and identifiable, and to tear the readers' hearts out and put them back in again not-quite-whole...there has to be a sense that no one really won here. Even if there was a literal win, like of a battle (oh hey HARRY POTTER) there's still going to be a lot lost.

The same sense we feel in our own lives.
The same things that build us up and tear us down.
The same things we know to be true.
The same things that make us human will make our characters and our stories human too.

Quite frankly, this is something I think is a little flawed about my first project. Sure, there's a bit of loss, and it's something that punches me in the gut every time. But I'm not sure it's something every reader would care about. In writing ONE, it was one of my hopes that, in achieving some of her goals, my MC also had to sacrifice a great deal. I think I'm getting a lot better at that with this second project.

So, what makes you crazy-in-love with a book? And what are you doing to make that happen in your own writing?

One Year On

One year ago today, I woke up with an idea in my head and frantically typed 5,000 words of a story that would become THE TRAVELERS.

That day, I thought a lot of things about my writing self.

I thought that writing was some silly endeavor I had to try to get out of my system.
I didn't know that writing was something absolutely ingrained in me, desperate to be let free.

I thought that those 5,000 words were captivating, stunning, AWESOME.
I didn't know that they weren't (but I'd learn to make them better.)

I thought that I'd just write this one book and be done with it.
I didn't know I'd write this book, then write another one, then dream up the skeleton for a third, before the year was out.

I thought there was no way I'd ever show my book to anyone.
I didn't know that the handful of people I ended up showing my book to would become absolute lifelines for me, writing and otherwise, and very dear friends.

I thought that, when those people gave me constructive criticism, I would curl up in a ball and die.
I didn't know that the critique-and-revision stage would turn out to be my absolute most favorite part of the whole process.

I thought that writing and blogging about it would make me even more disconnected than I already planned to be.
I didn't know that so so many of you would find my little blog, like reading what I have to say, and support me along the rocky road that I've only just started out on. (Hi, followers! I really do love each and every one of you.)

I thought that writing was ridiculous because it didn't match up with all the career goals I'd had (and achieved!) before.
I didn't know that becoming an author was a dream living deep inside me that I never knew I had.


I thought that all writing this book would accomplish was losing me sleep and buoying me through a tough year.
I didn't know writing would become part of how I think, the way I look at the world, and who I am.

And, just because you might be wondering....

I thought my book would suck.
It doesn't.


Oh! And those five thousand words? Only one sentence out of them survived to make it to the manuscript I'm querying now. (Yeah. I had a lot to learn.) But that sentence, still perfectly intact, is one of my favorites in the whole book - and looking on my first notes dated one year ago today, I know it was in me from the very beginning:

Could it be possible to belong to someone she had never met?

So, even though I was hating on Past Me something fierce on Monday, today, on my one-year-writerversary, I want to give Past Me a great big hug. She's absolutely changed my life.

Your turn! Tell me what reflections and revelations you've had on your writerversaries. Can't wait to tear up at all your sweet stories.

Editing Me HATES Drafting Me

So, ONE is only my second project, which means I'm still really learning about my whole writing process.

When I wrote THE TRAVELERS I edited as I went. I didn't have to do that with ONE - I was generally really happy with the stuff I put on the screen. I like to think that's because, after the experience of writing a first manuscript, I understand things like character arcs, pacing, and plot better.

 I really, really thought it was because I was slowly slowly moving away from being a 100% reckless fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pantser, and toward having more-or-less fleshed out story lines and plot in the first draft.

I thought. Then I merrily went through the first draft to clean up passive voice, word repetition, etc and.....


A lot of chapters were ready to be polished, loved on, gushed over, lovingly shined up. I'd say 3/4 of them. And then, in  others, I had written Future Me sweet notes like, "Add more intrigue here," "Fill in this newspaper story," or, worst, "Finish this scene."

Excuse me, Past Me? FINISH THIS SCENE?????

But the worst - the WORST - is that the last four chapters seem to be little collections of scene-fragments that I thought Future Me would be absolutely freaking delighted to sift and sort through, and, of course, FINISH WRITING.

So, while Past Me was all gushing about the first draft being finished, Future Me was just waiting in the wings to read through the "first draft," then walk up to Past Me and do this:

Past Me, who do you think I am? An heiress whose choices for filling my day are: "Finish Writing Scenes" or "Get a Pedicure?" A Woman of Leisure? Are you freaking kidding me, Past Me?

I hate you. 

(But I do really appreciate that one really pretty scene you wrote. And the angsty convo between the MC and her mom. And, you know, the whole idea for ONE in general. Oh! And that one kiss. So, I guess, thanks. I might not claw your eyes out after all.)

What about you? Have you ever hated a Past Writing You?  Commiserate with me in the comments. 

Nailing the Soundtrack

Have you ever had a moment when you hear a song and think, "How did that singer know what my character was thinking?"

Or have you ever heard a song lyric that sparked an entire scene, subplot, or entire story idea?

I'm one of those writers that NEEDS music to write a story. Whether each song acts as inspiration, encouragement, or support for what the characters do and why they do it hardly matters. The songs and my scenes are so closely linked - whether by emotion or concept - that I can't remember, for most of them, whether I wrote the scene first, and then added the song, or heard one line of a song that sent me into a writing frenzy.

For me, the work of building a book's playlist is just as slow, thoughtful, and full of heart as the writing itself. I add a bunch of songs, take most away, listening over and over, feeling them out to see what rhythms, lyrics, melodies, and progressions make my heart soar or ache. I add songs and write according to what rings true.

It's not unusual for me to write a scene, song blasting in the background, with tears streaming down my face. Sometimes when I'm completely lacking inspiration, I get in the car and speed down a long stretch of highway (you can do that in Ohio,) soundtrack blasting, and then pull off an exit to pour scenes into my netbook.

The mood of the songs changes according to the part of the book I'm writing. Sunshiney happy love songs may be on endless repeat for weeks while I'm writing first kisses and joyful discoveries, but when the character's Black Moment comes up? You can bet the songs coming out of my computer speakers reflect her  fears and, at their core, her determination.

Now that I'm revising ONE, I've fallen in love with its soundtrack, in its entirety, all over again. Here it is:

 

And just like there's one grand, sweeping theme for every novel, one song always comes to the fore of my head and heart as a book's "theme song." Here's that one:

What about you? Do you write to music? What does it do for you and your book?