*to the tune of Jingle Bells* "Rebel Belle, Rebel Belle, you are nearly done..."
Yup, still slaving away, although the light at the end of the tunnel is very bright and clear now. Especially since my new Alphasmart got here and OMG I LOVE IT SO MUCH! Seriously, you guys. It is ever so awesome. My favorite part (other than the whole "it runs forever and ever on 3 batteries thing) is when you dump your file into Word. The whole document doesn't just magically appear; it types itself out, like Story Elves are writing your book, and I find this highly enjoyable. So if you've been on the fence about getting one, let me just say that I love mine more than a fat kid loves cake (and so does Ally Carter, who, let's face it, is much more of an expert on these things than me!)
This will be my last post of 2008, since there is about to be much traveling/writing/editing in my future, BUT 2009 is going to be so exciting on Reading Writing Rachel! For one thing, I'm jut a little over a year from publication, which seems like long time, but feels just around the corner! And I'm sure there will be lots of exciting things to report as Demonglass gets closer and closer to press (Edits! Cover art! More edits! ARCs!)
Plus, in January, this here blog will be one whole year old, and I'm planning another super fun contest to celebrate that. There will also be author interviews to look forward to, and maybe, if I ask really nicely, Agent Holly will stop by.
As y'all know, 2008 has been a heck of a year for me! *g* It's weird to think that this time last year, I was right in the middle of everything: two months out of the Black Hole of Suck, two months to go until I finished the book and found Agent Holly. Of course, you know I can't talk about any of this without getting Lifetime movie-levels of sappy, so I'll just skip the "FOLLOW YOUR DREEEEEEAMS" part get onto my list of things I was thankful for in 2008.
1. The Husband. I don't think I can ever really express how supportive The Husband has been through all of this. He never, ever stopped believing I could do this. He handed his retirement fund over so that I could do this. When I freaked out back in January '08 and got a crappy job, he was the one who said, "This is not what you should be doing. You should be writing." Books can be written without that level of support, but I can't imagine it. You rock, babe.
2. Small Son, who brightens my day every single day, whether it's by announcing that his teacher is NOT a dolphin (which is good. We were all wondering about that.) or the whole "chip in booty" incident, or telling me he loves me "infinity," Small Son rules my world.
3. The Mama, who is awesome and you should all be jealous she's not your mom. ;) Like The Husband, The Mama was ultra-supportive (which, um, makes her sound like a bra), and didn't yell at me, even though I quit my job and didn't finish graduate school. Oops! Love you, The Mama!
4.My friends. I am to have so many wonderful friends, all of whom read parts of Demonglass when it was first developing, and gave me great feedback. And of course, Felicia gave me great cupcakes, to she gets an extra thanks! ;)
5. The Black Hole of Suck. I KNOW! It's so weird that I'm thankful for the Black Hole of Suck! But I so am, for a couple of reasons. One, if I hadn't worked there, I never would have met some lovely friends, and some truly excellent kids. I would never have discovered YA if it hadn't been for those kids, and I still think about them whenever I write. You guys made all the BS worth it. And two, well, if it hadn't been such a soul-crushing place to work, I never would have had the guts to quit and take a risk at a better life for me and my family. So here's to you, Black Hole of Suck! May cans of pepper spray be fired in your honor!
6. Agent Holly, aka The Bestest Agent Ev-ah. Seriously guys, I cannot even express how awesome Agent Holly is. She is funny, and super smart, and so professional, and even though she has bunches of clients, she always makes me feel like I'm her only one, even when I'm emailing her 4 time a day with silly questions. That is talent, folks.
7. Editor Jen. Again with the super-smart and so professional. At least three of the series she's worked on are NYT bestsellers. I mean, hello? Also, like Agent Holly, she's very quick to get back to me and makes me feel important, even though I am not Rick Riordan. ;)
8. The seven (SEVEN!) other countries who have bought Demonglass. When I was writing the book, it never even occurred to me that people all around the world would be reading it. I am so grateful that Sophie and Co get to be all international! (And I'm looking forward to some super sweet "business trips.")
9. The "Tenners." This group of ladies (and one dude) rock my face off. Everyone is so talented, and so helpful, and there's such a positive vibe of community within the group. Writing can be kind of a lonely business, so it's wonderful to have friends and colleagues who are all going through the same thing. If you haven't gone by the site to read their bios and book synopses, you really must. I'm not kidding when I say that EVERY SINGLE BOOK sounds fabulous. 2010 is going to be a great year for YA!
10. All of y'all! Thanks to everyone who stops by the blog to comment, or just to read. When I started this blog, I figured I'd be lucky if my friends stopped by, so thank you, thank you, thank you for hanging out at Reading Writing Rachel!
I hope 2009 brings you everything you've hoped for, and that for many of you, 2009 will be what 2008 was to me.
Happy holidays!
Showing posts with label Demonglass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Demonglass. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Shameless Self-Promotion, Part II
Thanks to Stephen for letting me know the announcement was all out and official-like!
From Publisher's Marketplace:
Foreign rights: UK Fiction
Rachel Hawkins's DEMONGLASS, to Venetia Gosling at Simon & Schuster UK, in a three-book deal, by Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein on behalf of Holly Root at Waxman Literary Agency.
I'm SO excited to be working with S&S UK on Demonglass! They handle all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer stuff for the UK, and that was really all I had to hear! ;)
From Publisher's Marketplace:
Foreign rights: UK Fiction
Rachel Hawkins's DEMONGLASS, to Venetia Gosling at Simon & Schuster UK, in a three-book deal, by Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein on behalf of Holly Root at Waxman Literary Agency.
I'm SO excited to be working with S&S UK on Demonglass! They handle all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer stuff for the UK, and that was really all I had to hear! ;)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
What's The Meaning of My Books, What's My Inspiraaaa-aation?
That song will be stuck in your head for the next two weeks. You're welcome, blog readers!
First off, you'll notice the blog is slightly different, namely that I got rid of my non-working links, and that there are now labels for all of my posts. That way, if you want to read solely about Demonglass or the Writing Biz without sifting through my Xanadu/Neil Diamond/Small Son diatribes, you can! Hooray! But, just so you know, you are missing some QUALITY STUFF! ;) I'm still not totally sold on this template, though, so there may be more changes to come. Stay tuned!
Okay, today I wrote over 3,000 words on Rebel Belle, which means that my brain is a little fried, and I might start writing in French or weeping incoherently. So, you know, heads up.
I'm around 20K words into Rebel Belle right now, and writing it has been such a different experience from writing Demonglass. Part of that is that when I was writing Demonglass, I was basically hovering on a tightrope of terror. I was living off my retirement, I had literally no Plan B, and I had never managed to finish a book before. This time around, I have the security of a fabulous agent, and a lovely editor, and a perfect home for all 3 of the Demonglass books.
But I really don't think all of that is what's made the difference. I think it's the main thing I learned while writing Demonglass, and that is that writing is hard.
I just blew your mind, right? I mean, NO ONE has ever suggested writing was anything but flowers and sausages (oh, yeah, I used that clip again)!
Sarcasm aside, what I mean is that, while I knew writers had to treat writing like a job, I still thought they always loved the writing, that they always felt inspired that they always knew they had a great story. Therefore, I thought, when the writing felt super sucky and really hard and not like fun at all, it meant there was something wrong with the book (or, at the worst moments, me.)
There were so many times I nearly gave up on Demonglass because I really felt like the story was too big, that there was too much of a "mytharc" to build. I mean, I'd never written a whole book! What was I doing trying to write an epic trilogy?
Then there were good days, great days even. Days when I was so deep into the story that I felt like my typing couldn't keep up with my brain. It's just that those days seemed pretty rare. Most of my writing days were just sitting down, doing the work until I'd done somewhere around 2,000 words. And occasionally, I had the "Oh my God, I suck so hard!" days.
But somehow, through a combination of those 3 types of days, Demonglass got written. And I would guess that that's how pretty much all books get written. Sure, some authors do write in a frenzy of inspiration (Stephenie Meyer wrote the gargantuan Twilight over a summer. That's 3 months, people! And she has, like, a bazillion little kids!)but for the rest of us, I'd guess it's more like a really long road trip. Most of the time you're just driving, focusing on your destination. Sometimes, you get frustrated and you're just ready to be there already, dammit, and your butt falls asleep, and you have to pee, and you can't remember why you even wanted to take a road trip. And then there are the moments when you see something truly amazing, like a really beautiful sunset, or a awesome roadside stand selling something you just have to have, and the whole trip, butt fatigue and all, feels totally worth it.
So any aspiring writers, if you're about thirty pages into your novel and feeliing a total lack of inspiration, power through it! If I only wrote when I was inspired, I'd write a book every five years, or something.
Of course, sometimes inspiration does rain down upon me in a shower of sparkly lights, as was captured in this picture by my friend Felicia.
Rachel, receiving The Muse OR slightly tipsy at an outdoor restaurant while looking at a squirrel across the street? YOU BE THE JUDGE.
I know, it's really amazing how much Inspiration looks like cheap Wal-Mart Christmas lights!
So tell me Blog Readers/Writers: What inspires you?
First off, you'll notice the blog is slightly different, namely that I got rid of my non-working links, and that there are now labels for all of my posts. That way, if you want to read solely about Demonglass or the Writing Biz without sifting through my Xanadu/Neil Diamond/Small Son diatribes, you can! Hooray! But, just so you know, you are missing some QUALITY STUFF! ;) I'm still not totally sold on this template, though, so there may be more changes to come. Stay tuned!
Okay, today I wrote over 3,000 words on Rebel Belle, which means that my brain is a little fried, and I might start writing in French or weeping incoherently. So, you know, heads up.
I'm around 20K words into Rebel Belle right now, and writing it has been such a different experience from writing Demonglass. Part of that is that when I was writing Demonglass, I was basically hovering on a tightrope of terror. I was living off my retirement, I had literally no Plan B, and I had never managed to finish a book before. This time around, I have the security of a fabulous agent, and a lovely editor, and a perfect home for all 3 of the Demonglass books.
But I really don't think all of that is what's made the difference. I think it's the main thing I learned while writing Demonglass, and that is that writing is hard.
I just blew your mind, right? I mean, NO ONE has ever suggested writing was anything but flowers and sausages (oh, yeah, I used that clip again)!
Sarcasm aside, what I mean is that, while I knew writers had to treat writing like a job, I still thought they always loved the writing, that they always felt inspired that they always knew they had a great story. Therefore, I thought, when the writing felt super sucky and really hard and not like fun at all, it meant there was something wrong with the book (or, at the worst moments, me.)
There were so many times I nearly gave up on Demonglass because I really felt like the story was too big, that there was too much of a "mytharc" to build. I mean, I'd never written a whole book! What was I doing trying to write an epic trilogy?
Then there were good days, great days even. Days when I was so deep into the story that I felt like my typing couldn't keep up with my brain. It's just that those days seemed pretty rare. Most of my writing days were just sitting down, doing the work until I'd done somewhere around 2,000 words. And occasionally, I had the "Oh my God, I suck so hard!" days.
But somehow, through a combination of those 3 types of days, Demonglass got written. And I would guess that that's how pretty much all books get written. Sure, some authors do write in a frenzy of inspiration (Stephenie Meyer wrote the gargantuan Twilight over a summer. That's 3 months, people! And she has, like, a bazillion little kids!)but for the rest of us, I'd guess it's more like a really long road trip. Most of the time you're just driving, focusing on your destination. Sometimes, you get frustrated and you're just ready to be there already, dammit, and your butt falls asleep, and you have to pee, and you can't remember why you even wanted to take a road trip. And then there are the moments when you see something truly amazing, like a really beautiful sunset, or a awesome roadside stand selling something you just have to have, and the whole trip, butt fatigue and all, feels totally worth it.
So any aspiring writers, if you're about thirty pages into your novel and feeliing a total lack of inspiration, power through it! If I only wrote when I was inspired, I'd write a book every five years, or something.
Of course, sometimes inspiration does rain down upon me in a shower of sparkly lights, as was captured in this picture by my friend Felicia.
Rachel, receiving The Muse OR slightly tipsy at an outdoor restaurant while looking at a squirrel across the street? YOU BE THE JUDGE.
I know, it's really amazing how much Inspiration looks like cheap Wal-Mart Christmas lights!
So tell me Blog Readers/Writers: What inspires you?
Monday, October 6, 2008
Demonglass Goes International!
Okay, so today, I decided I was going to talk all about foreign rights, seeing as how Demonglass has started selling in some other countries, which is ridiculously excting. But, as I sat down to write about foreign rights, it occurred to me that I actually know very little about them, not that that should be a shock! After all, this is a blog by a newbie writer for newbie writers or aspiring writers (and my friends and family who just wanna know what I'm up to!) So instead, I'll give you some links about foreign rights by people who are experts, such as this one, which is a little dry, but very informative, and there are several posts here by agent Kristin Nelson that are very cool and helpful.
As for my own experience in selling foreign rights (and I cannot even tell you how many times I've already misspelled foreign. Damn, that's a hard word. Thank you, Spell Check!), it's been really fun to note the difference between selling those and the first sale. When Demonglass was all out there in the publishing world, getting looked over by Important Publishing Types, I was beyond stressed out. Every time Agent Holly called, my heart went into my throat, my hands started shaking... oh, it was bad.
With foreign rights, Agent Holly shoots me an email that says, "Country X wants to buy Demonglass and the sequels for X amount of dollars/Euros," and I say, "Sweet!" usually around a mouth full of cereal. So basically, that first sale is like trying to find your book a home. Foreign sales are like your book getting to go on a kick ass vacation to an awesome place. And I'm beyond thrilled at the places Demonglass is getting to go! (I'll be more forthcoming about the actual countries it's sold to after I do official stuff like sign contracts.) It's still very weird to think that a book I wrote on a metal folding table in Harvest, Alabama is going to be read by teenagers in Europe and South America.
So, with all of that in mind, here are the only things I know about Foreign Rights Sales.
1) Not every book sells overseas, and it's really hard to pinpoint why some books sell and some don't. Some of it has to do with your agent and/or publisher and their international connections. Some books are viewed as "too American" for international audiences. I was kind of surprised that Demonglass would appeal overseas, seeing as how it's set in Georgia, and it's pretty entrenched in the Southern Gothic tradition (or so I tell people when they make fun of me for writing a book about witches and faeries and vampires and what have you.) However, London plays a pretty big part in the book as it's sort of "headquarters" for the big wig witches and faeries and vampires and what have you. Plus, almost all of Book 2 is set in England. So I think that might help. Not that I had any idea of that when I was writing the book. I just picked London because A) It is my favorite city in the whole wide world, and B) the evacuation of children from London during WWII played a big part in the history of my characters. So, you know, if you wanna sell your book overseas, throw in some international flava. ;)
2) Sometimes your publisher buys your World Rights when they buy your book. If that happens, any money you get from foreign publishers goes back toward your advance from your original publisher. In some cases, that can be a good thing, but that's why it's very important to really read your contract so that you know exactly what your publisher is buying from you. It's easy to get so excited that someone is going to publish your book that you can end up giving away more than you should. And, of course, talk to your agent about it, and asks lots of questions. I'm all for asking questions. Agent Holly is lucky that I don't email her every morning and ask her how I should wear my hair.
3) Your agent will probably get a bigger commission on your foreign rights, as there are other agents involved in that process, and they need a cut of that, too. Check your agency agreement to see how much more of a commission your agent gets. (This usually applies to film and tv rights, too, and for the same reason: more agents = more money.) Oh, and that reminds me. A lot of the time, people complain about getting an agent because the agent does get a commission (usually 15%, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less), and why should they get an agent when they could just sell to publishers themselves and keep their 15%?
And to these people, I say: DUDE. You NEED an agent. Yes, people do sell to publishers without one, but it's hard, and the author almost always gets screwed. It's much better to have someone knowledgable and awesome on your side to handle all the scary business parts. A good agent is so very worth his or her 15%. Trust me, if you have a great agent, you'll be happy to hand over that 15%. (Not that you actually hand it over. The publisher sends the check to your agent, who takes the commission out, and then sends it on to you. In case you were wondering.)
So there it is. The complete sum of my knowledge of foreign rights. Expect future posts dealing with Stuff Rachel Knows Almost Nothing About, such as rugby, and The War of 1812, and knitting.
As for my own experience in selling foreign rights (and I cannot even tell you how many times I've already misspelled foreign. Damn, that's a hard word. Thank you, Spell Check!), it's been really fun to note the difference between selling those and the first sale. When Demonglass was all out there in the publishing world, getting looked over by Important Publishing Types, I was beyond stressed out. Every time Agent Holly called, my heart went into my throat, my hands started shaking... oh, it was bad.
With foreign rights, Agent Holly shoots me an email that says, "Country X wants to buy Demonglass and the sequels for X amount of dollars/Euros," and I say, "Sweet!" usually around a mouth full of cereal. So basically, that first sale is like trying to find your book a home. Foreign sales are like your book getting to go on a kick ass vacation to an awesome place. And I'm beyond thrilled at the places Demonglass is getting to go! (I'll be more forthcoming about the actual countries it's sold to after I do official stuff like sign contracts.) It's still very weird to think that a book I wrote on a metal folding table in Harvest, Alabama is going to be read by teenagers in Europe and South America.
So, with all of that in mind, here are the only things I know about Foreign Rights Sales.
1) Not every book sells overseas, and it's really hard to pinpoint why some books sell and some don't. Some of it has to do with your agent and/or publisher and their international connections. Some books are viewed as "too American" for international audiences. I was kind of surprised that Demonglass would appeal overseas, seeing as how it's set in Georgia, and it's pretty entrenched in the Southern Gothic tradition (or so I tell people when they make fun of me for writing a book about witches and faeries and vampires and what have you.) However, London plays a pretty big part in the book as it's sort of "headquarters" for the big wig witches and faeries and vampires and what have you. Plus, almost all of Book 2 is set in England. So I think that might help. Not that I had any idea of that when I was writing the book. I just picked London because A) It is my favorite city in the whole wide world, and B) the evacuation of children from London during WWII played a big part in the history of my characters. So, you know, if you wanna sell your book overseas, throw in some international flava. ;)
2) Sometimes your publisher buys your World Rights when they buy your book. If that happens, any money you get from foreign publishers goes back toward your advance from your original publisher. In some cases, that can be a good thing, but that's why it's very important to really read your contract so that you know exactly what your publisher is buying from you. It's easy to get so excited that someone is going to publish your book that you can end up giving away more than you should. And, of course, talk to your agent about it, and asks lots of questions. I'm all for asking questions. Agent Holly is lucky that I don't email her every morning and ask her how I should wear my hair.
3) Your agent will probably get a bigger commission on your foreign rights, as there are other agents involved in that process, and they need a cut of that, too. Check your agency agreement to see how much more of a commission your agent gets. (This usually applies to film and tv rights, too, and for the same reason: more agents = more money.) Oh, and that reminds me. A lot of the time, people complain about getting an agent because the agent does get a commission (usually 15%, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less), and why should they get an agent when they could just sell to publishers themselves and keep their 15%?
And to these people, I say: DUDE. You NEED an agent. Yes, people do sell to publishers without one, but it's hard, and the author almost always gets screwed. It's much better to have someone knowledgable and awesome on your side to handle all the scary business parts. A good agent is so very worth his or her 15%. Trust me, if you have a great agent, you'll be happy to hand over that 15%. (Not that you actually hand it over. The publisher sends the check to your agent, who takes the commission out, and then sends it on to you. In case you were wondering.)
So there it is. The complete sum of my knowledge of foreign rights. Expect future posts dealing with Stuff Rachel Knows Almost Nothing About, such as rugby, and The War of 1812, and knitting.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Book Limbo
Okay, before I get into the "meat" of today's post, I have to give a little update on the Books-A-Million situation. I went back in there yesterday, and now I think I can safely say that their whole "Beloved as Beach Reading" thing was just a result of poor shelving skills. That place is FULL of books in the wrong section. I found the latest Jacqueline Carey hardback in the YA section, even though all of her other titles are where they belong, in sci-fi/fantasy, and I found not one, not two, but THREE books that aren't even supposed to be released yet all out there and chilling on the shelves. As an author, I find that kind of troubling. See, when Important Publishing People look at sales figures, they only see the sales from your release date on. That means that if people at Books-A-Million shelve your book a week before it's supposed to come out, and your book sells 100 copies during that week, those sales WON'T show up on your all important first week of sales tally. For first time and/or midlist authors, that can be a really bad thing. So if you see a book by an author you love, and you know that book isn't supposed to come out until the next week, RESIST, no matter how much you might want it. I know it's hard. I had to walk away from Lauren Myracle's newest, Bliss, and I am DYING for that book. Boarding school! Ghosts! Horrible murders! Twist ending! What's not to love? But since I love Lauren Myracle, I'm waiting until Tuesday to buy it.
But on that Tuesday? It shall be mine.
As for my own books, I am, as the title of this blog says, in book limbo right now. I'm not quite ready to start on Demonglass 2 yet since there are still edits to do on Demonglass 1, and I want to make sure that first book is completely locked down before I reopen the door on Sophie and Co. I have written a few snippets of scenes for Demonglass 2, and I have to say, it's a very strange experience working on a sequel. For one thing, I'm writing a book that Hyperion has already paid me for, which is VERY different from writing Demonglass. There's a little more pressure, sure, but there's also the lovely feeling of knowing that THIS book already has a home. It's also weird to think that I'll actually turn in Demonglass 2 to my editor several months before Demonglass 1 comes out (January or February 2010!) So when my first readers- an idea I still can't wrap my mind around- are first discovering Demonglass, I'll be nearly done with the whole series.
I've been having fun playing around with ideas for Demonglass 2, but since it's not due until late 2009, I figure I should probably write something else in the meantime. And therein lies the problem.
It's not that I don't have ideas. Ideas are actually the easiest part of writing. That's why I always used to laugh when I was in the agent-getting process, and people would say, "But what if he/she steals your idea and sells it for him/herself?" Well, first of all, no agent is ever going to do that. But secondly, ideas are literally a dime a dozen. EVERYONE has an idea for a book. Most people have dozens. It's that whole sitting down and writing it out part that separates the idea-haver from the writer.
That's why I think it's so interesting that "Where do you get your ideas?" seems to be one of the most popular questions auhtors get (exceeded only by, "How do you get published?" And hey, I've answered that one!) Meg Cabot jokes that she gets her ideas from "The Idea Store," an answer I think Stephen King has given a time or two as well. And I can see why you'd give a jokey answer to that question, because... well, there is no real answer to "Where do you get ideas?" You just do. I know it's a cliche to say it, but ideas literally come from everywhere. Sometimes it's something you read or watch. As I've said before, a lot of Demonglass came to me after watching the show Hex and reading Anne Rice's The Witching Hour. I really responded the the Southern Gothic-y vibe of the Anne Rice book, and I loved the creepy boarding school aspect of Hex. So I started out writing a Southern Gothic set in a creepy boarding school. Everything else developed from that.
Ideas also come just out of nowhere. For example, the other day, I was putting a band-aid on Small Son when it suddenly occurred to me that a character in Demonglass 2 should get severely injured (funny how Small Son's barely bleeding scraped knee becomes a character getting all eviscerated by demons on the page, but there you go!)
I liked my injury idea, tucked it away, and let it stew for a couple of days, and before I knew it, I had a MAJOR plot/characterization moment bubble up as a result of that character's injuries. I mean, it was such a good idea that I actually said, "Oh!" out loud when it dawned on me. That one moment ended up giving me direction for the entire third act of the book. All from Small Son and his scraped knee.
That's why I'm definitely more of a "pantzer" than a "plotter." When I have an idea, I jot down everything in my head about that one idea, including any scenes that occur to me. Then I start writing. When I hit a wall, I go back to my notebook and start jotting down any plot problems I'm having and any possible solutions. Once that knot is untangled, I write some more until I hit another wall. Then back to the notebook, ad infinitum, until the book is finished. I like doing it that way because I feel like the plot twists that come about end up being more organic and legitimately twisty. The audience doesn't see them coming because I didn't really see them coming.
Anyway. Ideas.
I have buckets of them right now, but none of them feels right for this particular writing juncture. I'm still kicking that haunted house book around, but I'm not really having fun with it, namely because the work I have been doing on Demonglass 2 has all signs pointing to that book being a little darker and angstier than the first (see above, RE: major character getting jacked up by demons), and I don't really want to deal with TWO dark and scary books banging around in my head at the same time, especially since I am one of the least dark people you will ever meet, despite writing a book that full-on has "demon" right in the title.
Then there's the other idea I've had for quite some time, an idea I love so much that I want to take it to Vermont or California and get gay married to it (providing, of course, that my idea is female. Which I think it is.) Now this idea is fun and exciting and there are no demons or ghosts or people getting their insides all on the outside or anything!
But.
There is no doubt in my mind that this idea wants- nay, needs- to be a series, and I don't want to be "That Author That Only Writes Series." I need my next book to be a stand alone.
Which leads me to the idea I had last night. I couldn't sleep thanks to fretting over whether or not to buy a new car (I decided not to, BTW. I like to think it was a mature decision based on the fact that there's nothing technically wrong with my car other than it being old lady-ish, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I really could not give a damn about cars, and the idea of spending another day at a dealership was making me feel crazy in my head.)
This idea is good. It's cute. No one gets killed in it. Well, no one important. ;) And it features a heroine who is so different from Sophie that I think I can avoid falling into that horrible trap that plagues so many of us who feel most comfortable in first person POV: that all of our books will sound the same.
So we'll see. I have been led astray by too many Slutty New Ideas to place my trust in this one lightly.
But I have a good feeling about this one...
Ooh! Before I forget, if you would like to find me in other places in Internetlandia besides this blog, feel free to friend me on Facebook. I'm also hanging out with a bunch of super cool authors who also have books coming out in 2010 at 2010: A Book Odyssey. I'm really thrilled to be in a group with these ladies, as they have some AWESOME books coming out. So please check it out!
Next time, I may have some exciting Demonglass news to report!
Until then, au revoir! (and that...um...might be a hint as to the exciting news. Maybe. I'm just sayin'. ;) )
But on that Tuesday? It shall be mine.
As for my own books, I am, as the title of this blog says, in book limbo right now. I'm not quite ready to start on Demonglass 2 yet since there are still edits to do on Demonglass 1, and I want to make sure that first book is completely locked down before I reopen the door on Sophie and Co. I have written a few snippets of scenes for Demonglass 2, and I have to say, it's a very strange experience working on a sequel. For one thing, I'm writing a book that Hyperion has already paid me for, which is VERY different from writing Demonglass. There's a little more pressure, sure, but there's also the lovely feeling of knowing that THIS book already has a home. It's also weird to think that I'll actually turn in Demonglass 2 to my editor several months before Demonglass 1 comes out (January or February 2010!) So when my first readers- an idea I still can't wrap my mind around- are first discovering Demonglass, I'll be nearly done with the whole series.
I've been having fun playing around with ideas for Demonglass 2, but since it's not due until late 2009, I figure I should probably write something else in the meantime. And therein lies the problem.
It's not that I don't have ideas. Ideas are actually the easiest part of writing. That's why I always used to laugh when I was in the agent-getting process, and people would say, "But what if he/she steals your idea and sells it for him/herself?" Well, first of all, no agent is ever going to do that. But secondly, ideas are literally a dime a dozen. EVERYONE has an idea for a book. Most people have dozens. It's that whole sitting down and writing it out part that separates the idea-haver from the writer.
That's why I think it's so interesting that "Where do you get your ideas?" seems to be one of the most popular questions auhtors get (exceeded only by, "How do you get published?" And hey, I've answered that one!) Meg Cabot jokes that she gets her ideas from "The Idea Store," an answer I think Stephen King has given a time or two as well. And I can see why you'd give a jokey answer to that question, because... well, there is no real answer to "Where do you get ideas?" You just do. I know it's a cliche to say it, but ideas literally come from everywhere. Sometimes it's something you read or watch. As I've said before, a lot of Demonglass came to me after watching the show Hex and reading Anne Rice's The Witching Hour. I really responded the the Southern Gothic-y vibe of the Anne Rice book, and I loved the creepy boarding school aspect of Hex. So I started out writing a Southern Gothic set in a creepy boarding school. Everything else developed from that.
Ideas also come just out of nowhere. For example, the other day, I was putting a band-aid on Small Son when it suddenly occurred to me that a character in Demonglass 2 should get severely injured (funny how Small Son's barely bleeding scraped knee becomes a character getting all eviscerated by demons on the page, but there you go!)
I liked my injury idea, tucked it away, and let it stew for a couple of days, and before I knew it, I had a MAJOR plot/characterization moment bubble up as a result of that character's injuries. I mean, it was such a good idea that I actually said, "Oh!" out loud when it dawned on me. That one moment ended up giving me direction for the entire third act of the book. All from Small Son and his scraped knee.
That's why I'm definitely more of a "pantzer" than a "plotter." When I have an idea, I jot down everything in my head about that one idea, including any scenes that occur to me. Then I start writing. When I hit a wall, I go back to my notebook and start jotting down any plot problems I'm having and any possible solutions. Once that knot is untangled, I write some more until I hit another wall. Then back to the notebook, ad infinitum, until the book is finished. I like doing it that way because I feel like the plot twists that come about end up being more organic and legitimately twisty. The audience doesn't see them coming because I didn't really see them coming.
Anyway. Ideas.
I have buckets of them right now, but none of them feels right for this particular writing juncture. I'm still kicking that haunted house book around, but I'm not really having fun with it, namely because the work I have been doing on Demonglass 2 has all signs pointing to that book being a little darker and angstier than the first (see above, RE: major character getting jacked up by demons), and I don't really want to deal with TWO dark and scary books banging around in my head at the same time, especially since I am one of the least dark people you will ever meet, despite writing a book that full-on has "demon" right in the title.
Then there's the other idea I've had for quite some time, an idea I love so much that I want to take it to Vermont or California and get gay married to it (providing, of course, that my idea is female. Which I think it is.) Now this idea is fun and exciting and there are no demons or ghosts or people getting their insides all on the outside or anything!
But.
There is no doubt in my mind that this idea wants- nay, needs- to be a series, and I don't want to be "That Author That Only Writes Series." I need my next book to be a stand alone.
Which leads me to the idea I had last night. I couldn't sleep thanks to fretting over whether or not to buy a new car (I decided not to, BTW. I like to think it was a mature decision based on the fact that there's nothing technically wrong with my car other than it being old lady-ish, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I really could not give a damn about cars, and the idea of spending another day at a dealership was making me feel crazy in my head.)
This idea is good. It's cute. No one gets killed in it. Well, no one important. ;) And it features a heroine who is so different from Sophie that I think I can avoid falling into that horrible trap that plagues so many of us who feel most comfortable in first person POV: that all of our books will sound the same.
So we'll see. I have been led astray by too many Slutty New Ideas to place my trust in this one lightly.
But I have a good feeling about this one...
Ooh! Before I forget, if you would like to find me in other places in Internetlandia besides this blog, feel free to friend me on Facebook. I'm also hanging out with a bunch of super cool authors who also have books coming out in 2010 at 2010: A Book Odyssey. I'm really thrilled to be in a group with these ladies, as they have some AWESOME books coming out. So please check it out!
Next time, I may have some exciting Demonglass news to report!
Until then, au revoir! (and that...um...might be a hint as to the exciting news. Maybe. I'm just sayin'. ;) )
Monday, September 8, 2008
My Route to Publication! Part II: Electric Boogaloo.
Okay, so I know I said I would tell the whole story about how I got published last week, but...um... I'm a lazy blogger. Also, I got completely sucked into a new series of books last week, so any free time I had was spent frantically reading. Seriously, this book right here? 
Sweet, sweet crack. And I'm not a huge fantasy person, which is odd, considering The Husband is a sci-fi/fantasy Geek Extraordinaire. But these Jacqueline Carey books are AWESOME, and remind me a lot of the other fantasy author I love to distraction, George R. R. Martin. So if you're looking for some highly addictive fantasy, with lots of sex and political intrigue thrown in for good measure, check either author out!
Now back to my story, in which not nearly as much happens, but where what DOES happen is extremely awesome!
MARCH 2008:
Super Awesome Agent Holly and I begin discussing some of the edits the book then called Too Near the Glass might need. The first thing to go is the title, which Holly and I agree is a little too heavy for a book that's relatively light. Holly and I toss around various ideas for a couple of days, including my favorite "joke" title. I just realized I can't actually say it here, because it would spoil the entire book, but it was a take off on a Britney Spears song, and once the book is out (only 17 more months! Ha ha!), I will share it with all of you, and lo, we shall laugh merrily.
Anyway. After several titles incorporating word like "hex," "spell," and "witch" are discussed, Holly comes up with Demonglass, and I immediately fall in love with it. It's relevant to the book- there's actually a substance called Demonglass that plays a very important role in the book- and it's kind of sexy and mysterious. Loves it.
Other than the title, we make a few more minor changes. One of Holly's best qualities as an agent- and she has bunches!- is her editorial eye. The changes she wanted were simple, but they improved the book tenfold.
So, changes made, Demonglass waits its turn to go on submission!
APRIL 2008:
Around the second week of April, Demonglass is officially submitted to editors. This is probably the most exciting, if most nerve-wracking, step in the process. Holly sends me a list of the houses she's submitting to, and every name on that list makes me do a happy dance. They are all houses I'd be thrilled to work with, and it's ahrd to imagine even one of them would actually want my little book!
Within a couple of days, we get our first rejection, which is a little disheartening, but unlike those awful form letters you get from agents who reject you, editor rejections are actually pretty nice.
So that rejection happens on a Monday. By Thursday, we have some MUCH better news: a house makes an offer on Demonglass. Then, on Friday, a SECOND house makes an offer. Much rejoicing occurs at Chez Hawkins.
Then things really heat up. After that first offer, Holly lets the other editors know that there's an offer on the table. I kind of expect everyone to say, "Oh, well, good for y'all then, we pass." And a couple of houses do just that. But several of the others say that they also want in on the action. Holly gives them a deadline for the offers, then lets me know that we officially have an auction on our hands.
Now, the idea that ONE house might want Demonglass blows me away. The idea that SEVERAL houses want it and are, like, going to fight for it, is truly shocking. I've said before that writing is a pretty lonely pursuit, and it's a self-doubt filled journey. To have other people love that book that you've slaved over is beyond gratifying!
The days leading up to "A-Day" as we call it are equal parts thrilling and stressful. The Husband and I have many talks about what the end result could be. The main thing both if us want is to get an offer that is large enough to allow me to write full time, with The Husband planning to get back into teaching in the fall. It would also be nice if we could move, since both of us were, by that point, kind of over Huntsville and wanting to move back to Auburn, where we'd both gone to college. The Husband plans on taking a few classes if we're able to move so that he can eventually live his dream, and get out of teaching for good. However, we're both realists, and we know that this is the first book, and the average book advance for a first time author is around $10,000. Nothing to sneeze at, but not exactly quit your day job money!
APRIL 22, 2008:
A-Day. I know Holly has given the houses interested in Demonglass until noon that day to get their offers in. I wake up early, feeling like it's Christmas morning and the first day of school, all rolled into one! In fact, my nerves are so bad that I work out for over an hour that morning, which, if you know me and my aversion to all things exercise, is a major sign of how freaked out I am.
Around 10-ish, I send The Husband to the grocery store, because he is making me crazy as we both wait for the phone to ring. After he leaves, I take a shower, and am in my bathrobe with a towel on my head when I hear my cell phone. It's Holly's ringtone (The Pet Shop Boys' "Opportunities." Hee!)
I answer the phone with shaking hands, and manage to croak out, "Hello?"
And then Holly says the words every author longs to hear: "Are you sitting down?"
I assure her I am. I kind of have to, because my knees ar shaking. Then she says (showing how well she knows me, ha ha!) "You're going to freak out."
"I love freaking out," I reply.
And then she tells me that Hyperion has come in with a pre-empt. She tells me how much it's for multiple books, and then tells me the amount they've offered.
"So that's for 2 books?" I ask, confused.
"No, they want all 3," she answers, which makes me very happy. I'd always planned on Demonglass being the first of a trilogy, so I really wanted a house that would take all 3.
"Wow," I say, my mind reeling. "And that's what they want to pay for all three?"
Holly kind of laughs. "No, Rachel, that's what they're going to pay for each one."
And that's when my stomach drops and I yell, "HOLY SHIT!"
Holly just laughs and says, "Yeah, that's kind of what I said."
After we get off the phone, I immediately call my mom. I tell her. She cries. I cry.
Then The Husband gets home.
I tell him, in the most nonchalant voice I can muster, that the auction is over.
He asks what happened.
Keeping my voice calm, I start to tell him, but by the time I get to the money part, my voice gets all high and loud and I nearly start to cry again.
"You're shitting me," he says, his eyes wide.
Finally, it sinks in, and there is much yelling and jumping and exulting. Not only can I write for a living, but we can move, and The Husband can go back to school full time.
In the course of seven months, we'd gone from being miserable in our jobs, to unemployed and depressed, to achieving the dream.
Needless to say, we immediately got dressed and went out to lunch, and much wine did flow. ;)
MAY-JUNE 2008:
After all the excitement of the deal happening, the next couple of months were kind of boring. My announcement hadn't come out yet, so I couldn't talk about the book. You may remember this as a rather dead time on the blog! By then end of June, I had my contract, which was another highly exciting time. John took pictures of me signing it that I'll post to the blog soon. Then I sent the contract off to Holly, and more waiting ensued.
JULY 2008:
More waiting, until the very end of the month. I am in the car with my mom, on my way to Selma, AL for a wedding, when The Husband calls to tell me that my first check has arrived. I briefly consider telling him to wait to take it to the bank so that I might see it.
I then remember that we are stony broke by this point, and I tell him to hustle that bad boy to the bank ASAP!
AUGUST 2008:
We move to Auburn and there is much rejoicing. I'm especially happy because this means The Husband gets to live his dream, too, and he is a big reason of why I succeeded at my dream. I mean, how many spouses would hand over their retirement fund so that you can write a book? That kind of faith is pretty humbling, and I'm so glad that I got to repay him for it.
Then, as you all know, on August 28th, the announcement finally comes out in Publisher's Marketplace and Publisher's Weekly! And there is much MORE rejoicing!
So there you have it: how, in less than a year, I pretty much dynamited my whole life and started over fresh. As J.K. Rowling herself said, sometimes, rock bottom makes a great foundation for something new!
If there's one thing this whole experience has taught me, it's the importance of taking risks in life. I know now that if grad school hadn't gone KABOOM, and if the place where I taught hadn't become a Black Hole of Suck, I would've gone on my merry little way, being a teacher forever. And it would have been okay. It was a good job, with good benefits, and the pay was far from horrible, despite what you may have heard. But it wasn't what I was meant to do. A lot of people gave me a hard time about not doing student teaching, and cashing in my retirement, saying what would I do if I didn't teach? What would I do when I was 65? Well, I was more concerned with what would I do at 28. While it's important to plan for the future, you can't live there.
Coming up later this week, provided I don't get sucked in by anymore sexy, epic fantasy, I'll be talking in depth about what to look for in an agent, as well as my own writing process. Also, I'm working on building an FAQ for my website, so if there are any questions you'd like to see on that, please feel free to leave them in the comments or email me at rachel@rachel-hawkins.com
Sweet, sweet crack. And I'm not a huge fantasy person, which is odd, considering The Husband is a sci-fi/fantasy Geek Extraordinaire. But these Jacqueline Carey books are AWESOME, and remind me a lot of the other fantasy author I love to distraction, George R. R. Martin. So if you're looking for some highly addictive fantasy, with lots of sex and political intrigue thrown in for good measure, check either author out!
Now back to my story, in which not nearly as much happens, but where what DOES happen is extremely awesome!
MARCH 2008:
Super Awesome Agent Holly and I begin discussing some of the edits the book then called Too Near the Glass might need. The first thing to go is the title, which Holly and I agree is a little too heavy for a book that's relatively light. Holly and I toss around various ideas for a couple of days, including my favorite "joke" title. I just realized I can't actually say it here, because it would spoil the entire book, but it was a take off on a Britney Spears song, and once the book is out (only 17 more months! Ha ha!), I will share it with all of you, and lo, we shall laugh merrily.
Anyway. After several titles incorporating word like "hex," "spell," and "witch" are discussed, Holly comes up with Demonglass, and I immediately fall in love with it. It's relevant to the book- there's actually a substance called Demonglass that plays a very important role in the book- and it's kind of sexy and mysterious. Loves it.
Other than the title, we make a few more minor changes. One of Holly's best qualities as an agent- and she has bunches!- is her editorial eye. The changes she wanted were simple, but they improved the book tenfold.
So, changes made, Demonglass waits its turn to go on submission!
APRIL 2008:
Around the second week of April, Demonglass is officially submitted to editors. This is probably the most exciting, if most nerve-wracking, step in the process. Holly sends me a list of the houses she's submitting to, and every name on that list makes me do a happy dance. They are all houses I'd be thrilled to work with, and it's ahrd to imagine even one of them would actually want my little book!
Within a couple of days, we get our first rejection, which is a little disheartening, but unlike those awful form letters you get from agents who reject you, editor rejections are actually pretty nice.
So that rejection happens on a Monday. By Thursday, we have some MUCH better news: a house makes an offer on Demonglass. Then, on Friday, a SECOND house makes an offer. Much rejoicing occurs at Chez Hawkins.
Then things really heat up. After that first offer, Holly lets the other editors know that there's an offer on the table. I kind of expect everyone to say, "Oh, well, good for y'all then, we pass." And a couple of houses do just that. But several of the others say that they also want in on the action. Holly gives them a deadline for the offers, then lets me know that we officially have an auction on our hands.
Now, the idea that ONE house might want Demonglass blows me away. The idea that SEVERAL houses want it and are, like, going to fight for it, is truly shocking. I've said before that writing is a pretty lonely pursuit, and it's a self-doubt filled journey. To have other people love that book that you've slaved over is beyond gratifying!
The days leading up to "A-Day" as we call it are equal parts thrilling and stressful. The Husband and I have many talks about what the end result could be. The main thing both if us want is to get an offer that is large enough to allow me to write full time, with The Husband planning to get back into teaching in the fall. It would also be nice if we could move, since both of us were, by that point, kind of over Huntsville and wanting to move back to Auburn, where we'd both gone to college. The Husband plans on taking a few classes if we're able to move so that he can eventually live his dream, and get out of teaching for good. However, we're both realists, and we know that this is the first book, and the average book advance for a first time author is around $10,000. Nothing to sneeze at, but not exactly quit your day job money!
APRIL 22, 2008:
A-Day. I know Holly has given the houses interested in Demonglass until noon that day to get their offers in. I wake up early, feeling like it's Christmas morning and the first day of school, all rolled into one! In fact, my nerves are so bad that I work out for over an hour that morning, which, if you know me and my aversion to all things exercise, is a major sign of how freaked out I am.
Around 10-ish, I send The Husband to the grocery store, because he is making me crazy as we both wait for the phone to ring. After he leaves, I take a shower, and am in my bathrobe with a towel on my head when I hear my cell phone. It's Holly's ringtone (The Pet Shop Boys' "Opportunities." Hee!)
I answer the phone with shaking hands, and manage to croak out, "Hello?"
And then Holly says the words every author longs to hear: "Are you sitting down?"
I assure her I am. I kind of have to, because my knees ar shaking. Then she says (showing how well she knows me, ha ha!) "You're going to freak out."
"I love freaking out," I reply.
And then she tells me that Hyperion has come in with a pre-empt. She tells me how much it's for multiple books, and then tells me the amount they've offered.
"So that's for 2 books?" I ask, confused.
"No, they want all 3," she answers, which makes me very happy. I'd always planned on Demonglass being the first of a trilogy, so I really wanted a house that would take all 3.
"Wow," I say, my mind reeling. "And that's what they want to pay for all three?"
Holly kind of laughs. "No, Rachel, that's what they're going to pay for each one."
And that's when my stomach drops and I yell, "HOLY SHIT!"
Holly just laughs and says, "Yeah, that's kind of what I said."
After we get off the phone, I immediately call my mom. I tell her. She cries. I cry.
Then The Husband gets home.
I tell him, in the most nonchalant voice I can muster, that the auction is over.
He asks what happened.
Keeping my voice calm, I start to tell him, but by the time I get to the money part, my voice gets all high and loud and I nearly start to cry again.
"You're shitting me," he says, his eyes wide.
Finally, it sinks in, and there is much yelling and jumping and exulting. Not only can I write for a living, but we can move, and The Husband can go back to school full time.
In the course of seven months, we'd gone from being miserable in our jobs, to unemployed and depressed, to achieving the dream.
Needless to say, we immediately got dressed and went out to lunch, and much wine did flow. ;)
MAY-JUNE 2008:
After all the excitement of the deal happening, the next couple of months were kind of boring. My announcement hadn't come out yet, so I couldn't talk about the book. You may remember this as a rather dead time on the blog! By then end of June, I had my contract, which was another highly exciting time. John took pictures of me signing it that I'll post to the blog soon. Then I sent the contract off to Holly, and more waiting ensued.
JULY 2008:
More waiting, until the very end of the month. I am in the car with my mom, on my way to Selma, AL for a wedding, when The Husband calls to tell me that my first check has arrived. I briefly consider telling him to wait to take it to the bank so that I might see it.
I then remember that we are stony broke by this point, and I tell him to hustle that bad boy to the bank ASAP!
AUGUST 2008:
We move to Auburn and there is much rejoicing. I'm especially happy because this means The Husband gets to live his dream, too, and he is a big reason of why I succeeded at my dream. I mean, how many spouses would hand over their retirement fund so that you can write a book? That kind of faith is pretty humbling, and I'm so glad that I got to repay him for it.
Then, as you all know, on August 28th, the announcement finally comes out in Publisher's Marketplace and Publisher's Weekly! And there is much MORE rejoicing!
So there you have it: how, in less than a year, I pretty much dynamited my whole life and started over fresh. As J.K. Rowling herself said, sometimes, rock bottom makes a great foundation for something new!
If there's one thing this whole experience has taught me, it's the importance of taking risks in life. I know now that if grad school hadn't gone KABOOM, and if the place where I taught hadn't become a Black Hole of Suck, I would've gone on my merry little way, being a teacher forever. And it would have been okay. It was a good job, with good benefits, and the pay was far from horrible, despite what you may have heard. But it wasn't what I was meant to do. A lot of people gave me a hard time about not doing student teaching, and cashing in my retirement, saying what would I do if I didn't teach? What would I do when I was 65? Well, I was more concerned with what would I do at 28. While it's important to plan for the future, you can't live there.
Coming up later this week, provided I don't get sucked in by anymore sexy, epic fantasy, I'll be talking in depth about what to look for in an agent, as well as my own writing process. Also, I'm working on building an FAQ for my website, so if there are any questions you'd like to see on that, please feel free to leave them in the comments or email me at rachel@rachel-hawkins.com
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Shameless Self-Promotion
So later today I'll be continuing my blogs about getting published, but before I do that, I HAD to post a link.
I was Googling myself this morning- ooh, dirty! (Sorry. That joke will never get old to me!)- and ran across this little mention on a sci-fi site! TOO COOL! And this here little blog even gets a shoutout!
Also, this is a VERY good lesson on why you should always have the most flattering picture you can find on your blog! You never know who's going to use it! I mean, what if I'd had a picture of me, like, drinking a beer with all of my pale skin on display at the beach? A picture like this one:
I mean, what if THAT picture was all on the interwebz where people could see it? Man, that would be AWF-
Oh. Wait.
Dammit.
I was Googling myself this morning- ooh, dirty! (Sorry. That joke will never get old to me!)- and ran across this little mention on a sci-fi site! TOO COOL! And this here little blog even gets a shoutout!
Also, this is a VERY good lesson on why you should always have the most flattering picture you can find on your blog! You never know who's going to use it! I mean, what if I'd had a picture of me, like, drinking a beer with all of my pale skin on display at the beach? A picture like this one:
I mean, what if THAT picture was all on the interwebz where people could see it? Man, that would be AWF-
Oh. Wait.
Dammit.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
My Route to Publication! Part I!
So, in honor of my happy little self finally getting all announcified, I'm devoting the next few days of blogging to The Story of How I Got Published. Okay, I know the book isn't TECHNICALLY published yet, but it will be soon, and I need to get this all down now before I get swamped in edits and what have you.
Also, I realize that most of my path to publication is scattered throughout my blog archives, but that would mean sifting through my ramblings on Xanadu, and Neil Diamond, and what shenanigans Small Son has gotten into lately. So let's just make it all nice and streamlined, shall we?
Oh, and I find this story is much more enjoyable if you imagine it as a montage, complete with an inspiring song in the background, like "Eye of the Tiger", or, my personal favorite, "You're the Best" from Karate Kid. Of course, I find playing "You're the Best" to be inspiring even while doing small things like fixing my hair or cleaning the kitchen. As Cracked said in their article about Inspirational Songs of the 80s,
So let's do this!
JANUARY 2007:
MLK day. Off work, Small Son and The Husband both elsewhere, cold and rainy day. I feel inspired to sit down and write something, making it the first time I've written anything since summer 2004 when I worked on about 150 pages of a completely schizophrenic romance/adventure novel. I abandoned that due to getting a new job teaching high school English AND starting grad school. I resolved to get back to it in early 2005, but fate laughed at me, and I got pregnant in February of 2005. SURPRISE. (Sidenote- this experience is why I'm SO looking forward to my agent-mate Maureen Lipinski's upcoming book, Was It Planned? Because her premise totally happened to me!) So yeah, no writing for a couple of years until that quiet January morning. Inspired by my love of creepy boarding schools and Southern Gothics, I write about 5 pages about a girl named Sophie who ends up at Prentiss Academy off the coast of Georgia where All Is Not As It Seems. After those five or so pages, I abandon the idea, as I have no idea where to go with it and, other than Harry Potter and the Gemma Doyle books by Libba Bray, I haven't read much children's/YA lit.
MAY 2007:
Grad school goes KABOOM! I'm supposed to graduate, HAVE to graduate in order to get a teaching certificate and keep my job (I was on an Alternate Certificate, which you can only have for 3 years, because I had a B.A. in English, not education. I was getting an M.Ed in Secondary Education), and when I register to graduate, the school suddenly goes, "Nope! We have all these EXTRA classes you have to take now that NO ONE told you about! Oh, and you also have to do student teaching for a semester- WITH NO PAY- even though you've been a teacher for 3 years. Suck it!" So despite having a B.A in the subject I wanted to teach, 45 hours of grad school, 3 years of experience, and scoring in the top 5% in the nation on the Praxis II exam, I am somehow not qualified to teach English in the state of Alabama. No graduation means no certificate, and no certifiate means no job.
I freak out.
JUNE-AUGUST 2007:
I continue to freak out while the only decent principal at my school attempts to find a way to keep me. Meanwhile, I'm frantically trying to take those extra classes. In all of this, I also start writing a romance novel, mostly in the desperate hope that I can sell that and have some income should I have to do that whole "No Pay For You!" student teaching. I now realize how insane this idea was, but, like I said, I was desperate. But, hey, during this time, I met Jolie, who was a rockin' critique partner, and became an excellent internet friend! So my romance attempts were not in vain! Luckily, by August, the only decent principal at my school had pulled some strings and gotten me hired back as sort of a permanant sub, but that was still pretty temporary, so my freaking out was only slightly abated.
AUGUST 27, 2007, 8:30 AM:
After several bomb threats, there's what the Madison County BOE refers to as a "little fight" at the school where I work. In truth, it was a mutha effin' riot, complete with teachers having to tackle kids, and cops shouting obscenties and macing kids. Kids are crying and running, and several are shrieking that they saw guns. I somehow end up very close to this fracas and basically think I might get killed.
AUGUST 27, 2007, 8:33 AM:
I rub my stinging eyes and begin to suspect that my job might, um, totally blow.
SEPTEMBER 2007:
The Husband, who was also worked as a teacher at my school, quits his job there due to issues he has with the administation. We both freak out, but we both know that teaching in that toxic- literally!- enviroment has left us stressed, frustrated, and profoundly unhappy. Not to mention that I was still fretting over what to do about getting certified. And it was in this pretty freaking dark moment that The Husband looks at me and says the words that, no exaggeration, change our lives: "Quit. Quit that job that you hate, we'll cash in our retirement, and you can stay home and write that book."
So I do.
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2007:
During these 2 months, I turn back to those five pages I wrote in January. I remember how fun they had been to write, how easy the YA voice felt to me. So I figured I'd turn those 5 pages into a book and it would be, like, totally easy!
Ha.
HA!!
During those 2 months, I pretty much write the first half of the book that became Demonglass. It is much, much harder than I'd ever imagined. For one thing, anyone who has written a book knows that it's a pretty lonely process that involves you spending a lot of time in your own head, and that can sometimes be dangerous, ha ha! During these two months, I probably quit Demonglass 3 or 4 times, convinced that it was too hard, too complex, too craptastic. Every time I quit, I start working on some new idea, convinced that THIS would be the one. This, from what I hear, is a common trap for writers to fall into. New ideas are slutty things. They whisper in your ear, "Hey, there. Aw, is this book you're working on too difficult? I wouldn't be hard to write. Oh, no, no, no. I'd be easy. You'd finish me in 2 weeks, tops. I promise. Now let my buy you another drink..."
Do not fall for the Slutty New Idea.
DECEMBER-JANUARY, 2007-2008:
I fall for the Slutty New Idea.
I actually, um, fall for 3 of them, and Demonglass fell by the wayside, until all I really had to show for my months of not working was half of a book that I thought wasn't any good, and 20 or so pages of three different books that weren't going anywhere. This is pretty much the lowest point, the point where I think very seriously about just doing my damn student teaching and getting another teaching job at a less shitty school.
FEBRUARY 2008, IN WHICH MUCH HAPPENS:
This is a crazy month as it was the month I gave up on my writing dream, revived my writing dream, finished Demonglass, AND got an agent. Whew!
The first week of February, I freak out about my jobless status and go and get the first job I could find. That, as I mentioned here, went KABOOM. And strangely, that experience is what gives me the last push I need to resurrect Demonglass. Working that crappy job makes me see that I could potentially have a lifetime of crappy jobs in front of me if I don't give this writing thing my all. I see in a flash that writing was what I was MEANT to do. I mean, hello? Look at all the roadblocks I was hitting in trying to become a teacher! Was the universe trying to tell me something? So I hit Demonglass and hit it hard. 2,000-4,000 words a day.
And then I do something very stupid that aspiring writers should NEVER EVER do, as I nearly derailed my career before it started.
On Februaary 15, I decide I was pretty damn close to the end of my book, so why not start querying agents, even though I was a first time author WITHOUT a finished manuscript? Ugh.
My 1st query letter blew. It blew so hard, I don't even have a copy anymore. Although, in my defense, it was written for a specific agent, and that agent did request a partial based on that query, so that was good.
But yeah, lots of rejections.
So after a couple of days of this, I go searching for new query letters. On Rachel Vater's blog, she uses an example of one of her client's queries. It iss cute, concise, and very professional. So using that as my model, I make a new query letter.
At around 9 p.m. on February 19, I get a request for a full manuscript from an agent at Writer's House.
I freak out. Again. Some more.
See, Writer's House is big. HUGE even. So this is very exciting. And very scary. Because, if you'll recall, I DO NOT HAVE A FULL MANUSCRIPT TO GIVE SUPER AWESOME WRITER'S HOUSE GUY! Because I am dumb.
So that night, I start frantically editing, and the next day, February 20th, I finish Demonglass. I write over 100 pages in a 24 hour period. I start smoking again, mainlining coffee, and I cry a lot. If it hadn't been for Felicia's delicious peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes, I never would have made it!
Again, aspiring writers, DO NOT DO THIS. I've never been so frantic in my life as I was between the night the request came in and the time I sent it off.
On February 23, Super Awesome Writer's House Agent passes on Demonglass, but he does give me 3 agents who might be interested. One is not, turns out, but one asks for a full, and the last of the three, Jenny Bent, says she wasn't feeling it, but she'd shown my query to her colleague, Holly Root, and Holly wants me to get in touch. So on Febraury 25, I email Holly, and she asks for the full.
Then, on Febraury 27, I'm sitting at my computer when my little Gmail notifier pops up on my tool bar, saying I have an email from Holly. She had read all of Demonglass in less than 48 hours and she wants to offer me represenation.
I- sing it with me!- freak out. And then I talk to Holly over the phone, and I immediately know she is the gal for me.
So, in almost exactly 2 weeks, I started querying agents, finished the book, and got an agent.
Like I said, February was a BIG month!
And coming up tomorrow, the path from acquiring an agent to sold book!
Also, I realize that most of my path to publication is scattered throughout my blog archives, but that would mean sifting through my ramblings on Xanadu, and Neil Diamond, and what shenanigans Small Son has gotten into lately. So let's just make it all nice and streamlined, shall we?
Oh, and I find this story is much more enjoyable if you imagine it as a montage, complete with an inspiring song in the background, like "Eye of the Tiger", or, my personal favorite, "You're the Best" from Karate Kid. Of course, I find playing "You're the Best" to be inspiring even while doing small things like fixing my hair or cleaning the kitchen. As Cracked said in their article about Inspirational Songs of the 80s,
There are no lyrics in this song that aren’t about how completely, utterly, and thoroughly, f&%@ing awesome you are at everything from fighting to gambling to sports.
So let's do this!
JANUARY 2007:
MLK day. Off work, Small Son and The Husband both elsewhere, cold and rainy day. I feel inspired to sit down and write something, making it the first time I've written anything since summer 2004 when I worked on about 150 pages of a completely schizophrenic romance/adventure novel. I abandoned that due to getting a new job teaching high school English AND starting grad school. I resolved to get back to it in early 2005, but fate laughed at me, and I got pregnant in February of 2005. SURPRISE. (Sidenote- this experience is why I'm SO looking forward to my agent-mate Maureen Lipinski's upcoming book, Was It Planned? Because her premise totally happened to me!) So yeah, no writing for a couple of years until that quiet January morning. Inspired by my love of creepy boarding schools and Southern Gothics, I write about 5 pages about a girl named Sophie who ends up at Prentiss Academy off the coast of Georgia where All Is Not As It Seems. After those five or so pages, I abandon the idea, as I have no idea where to go with it and, other than Harry Potter and the Gemma Doyle books by Libba Bray, I haven't read much children's/YA lit.
MAY 2007:
Grad school goes KABOOM! I'm supposed to graduate, HAVE to graduate in order to get a teaching certificate and keep my job (I was on an Alternate Certificate, which you can only have for 3 years, because I had a B.A. in English, not education. I was getting an M.Ed in Secondary Education), and when I register to graduate, the school suddenly goes, "Nope! We have all these EXTRA classes you have to take now that NO ONE told you about! Oh, and you also have to do student teaching for a semester- WITH NO PAY- even though you've been a teacher for 3 years. Suck it!" So despite having a B.A in the subject I wanted to teach, 45 hours of grad school, 3 years of experience, and scoring in the top 5% in the nation on the Praxis II exam, I am somehow not qualified to teach English in the state of Alabama. No graduation means no certificate, and no certifiate means no job.
I freak out.
JUNE-AUGUST 2007:
I continue to freak out while the only decent principal at my school attempts to find a way to keep me. Meanwhile, I'm frantically trying to take those extra classes. In all of this, I also start writing a romance novel, mostly in the desperate hope that I can sell that and have some income should I have to do that whole "No Pay For You!" student teaching. I now realize how insane this idea was, but, like I said, I was desperate. But, hey, during this time, I met Jolie, who was a rockin' critique partner, and became an excellent internet friend! So my romance attempts were not in vain! Luckily, by August, the only decent principal at my school had pulled some strings and gotten me hired back as sort of a permanant sub, but that was still pretty temporary, so my freaking out was only slightly abated.
AUGUST 27, 2007, 8:30 AM:
After several bomb threats, there's what the Madison County BOE refers to as a "little fight" at the school where I work. In truth, it was a mutha effin' riot, complete with teachers having to tackle kids, and cops shouting obscenties and macing kids. Kids are crying and running, and several are shrieking that they saw guns. I somehow end up very close to this fracas and basically think I might get killed.
AUGUST 27, 2007, 8:33 AM:
I rub my stinging eyes and begin to suspect that my job might, um, totally blow.
SEPTEMBER 2007:
The Husband, who was also worked as a teacher at my school, quits his job there due to issues he has with the administation. We both freak out, but we both know that teaching in that toxic- literally!- enviroment has left us stressed, frustrated, and profoundly unhappy. Not to mention that I was still fretting over what to do about getting certified. And it was in this pretty freaking dark moment that The Husband looks at me and says the words that, no exaggeration, change our lives: "Quit. Quit that job that you hate, we'll cash in our retirement, and you can stay home and write that book."
So I do.
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2007:
During these 2 months, I turn back to those five pages I wrote in January. I remember how fun they had been to write, how easy the YA voice felt to me. So I figured I'd turn those 5 pages into a book and it would be, like, totally easy!
Ha.
HA!!
During those 2 months, I pretty much write the first half of the book that became Demonglass. It is much, much harder than I'd ever imagined. For one thing, anyone who has written a book knows that it's a pretty lonely process that involves you spending a lot of time in your own head, and that can sometimes be dangerous, ha ha! During these two months, I probably quit Demonglass 3 or 4 times, convinced that it was too hard, too complex, too craptastic. Every time I quit, I start working on some new idea, convinced that THIS would be the one. This, from what I hear, is a common trap for writers to fall into. New ideas are slutty things. They whisper in your ear, "Hey, there. Aw, is this book you're working on too difficult? I wouldn't be hard to write. Oh, no, no, no. I'd be easy. You'd finish me in 2 weeks, tops. I promise. Now let my buy you another drink..."
Do not fall for the Slutty New Idea.
DECEMBER-JANUARY, 2007-2008:
I fall for the Slutty New Idea.
I actually, um, fall for 3 of them, and Demonglass fell by the wayside, until all I really had to show for my months of not working was half of a book that I thought wasn't any good, and 20 or so pages of three different books that weren't going anywhere. This is pretty much the lowest point, the point where I think very seriously about just doing my damn student teaching and getting another teaching job at a less shitty school.
FEBRUARY 2008, IN WHICH MUCH HAPPENS:
This is a crazy month as it was the month I gave up on my writing dream, revived my writing dream, finished Demonglass, AND got an agent. Whew!
The first week of February, I freak out about my jobless status and go and get the first job I could find. That, as I mentioned here, went KABOOM. And strangely, that experience is what gives me the last push I need to resurrect Demonglass. Working that crappy job makes me see that I could potentially have a lifetime of crappy jobs in front of me if I don't give this writing thing my all. I see in a flash that writing was what I was MEANT to do. I mean, hello? Look at all the roadblocks I was hitting in trying to become a teacher! Was the universe trying to tell me something? So I hit Demonglass and hit it hard. 2,000-4,000 words a day.
And then I do something very stupid that aspiring writers should NEVER EVER do, as I nearly derailed my career before it started.
On Februaary 15, I decide I was pretty damn close to the end of my book, so why not start querying agents, even though I was a first time author WITHOUT a finished manuscript? Ugh.
My 1st query letter blew. It blew so hard, I don't even have a copy anymore. Although, in my defense, it was written for a specific agent, and that agent did request a partial based on that query, so that was good.
But yeah, lots of rejections.
So after a couple of days of this, I go searching for new query letters. On Rachel Vater's blog, she uses an example of one of her client's queries. It iss cute, concise, and very professional. So using that as my model, I make a new query letter.
At around 9 p.m. on February 19, I get a request for a full manuscript from an agent at Writer's House.
I freak out. Again. Some more.
See, Writer's House is big. HUGE even. So this is very exciting. And very scary. Because, if you'll recall, I DO NOT HAVE A FULL MANUSCRIPT TO GIVE SUPER AWESOME WRITER'S HOUSE GUY! Because I am dumb.
So that night, I start frantically editing, and the next day, February 20th, I finish Demonglass. I write over 100 pages in a 24 hour period. I start smoking again, mainlining coffee, and I cry a lot. If it hadn't been for Felicia's delicious peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes, I never would have made it!
Again, aspiring writers, DO NOT DO THIS. I've never been so frantic in my life as I was between the night the request came in and the time I sent it off.
On February 23, Super Awesome Writer's House Agent passes on Demonglass, but he does give me 3 agents who might be interested. One is not, turns out, but one asks for a full, and the last of the three, Jenny Bent, says she wasn't feeling it, but she'd shown my query to her colleague, Holly Root, and Holly wants me to get in touch. So on Febraury 25, I email Holly, and she asks for the full.
Then, on Febraury 27, I'm sitting at my computer when my little Gmail notifier pops up on my tool bar, saying I have an email from Holly. She had read all of Demonglass in less than 48 hours and she wants to offer me represenation.
I- sing it with me!- freak out. And then I talk to Holly over the phone, and I immediately know she is the gal for me.
So, in almost exactly 2 weeks, I started querying agents, finished the book, and got an agent.
Like I said, February was a BIG month!
And coming up tomorrow, the path from acquiring an agent to sold book!
Friday, August 29, 2008
AT LAST!
Well, faithful blog readers, it's official!
Demonglass and the next 2 books in the triolgy sold to Jen Besser (who works on the AMAZING Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, as well as the equally fab Blue Bloods books) at Hyperion, in a pre-empt. Don't believe me? Well, hurry up and go check it out in Publisher's Weekly! ;)
Thanks SO much to Amie and Carrie, both of whom saw the announcement in Publisher's Marketplace before I did, ha ha! I had no idea it was all out and announced and what have you!
Sometime over the weekend, I'll be posting the FULL story of my road to publication, but for right now, I'm gonna go have some champagne. Oh. Wait. It's 9:30 AM.
In that case, I'll go off to have a Mimosa.
Demonglass and the next 2 books in the triolgy sold to Jen Besser (who works on the AMAZING Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, as well as the equally fab Blue Bloods books) at Hyperion, in a pre-empt. Don't believe me? Well, hurry up and go check it out in Publisher's Weekly! ;)
Thanks SO much to Amie and Carrie, both of whom saw the announcement in Publisher's Marketplace before I did, ha ha! I had no idea it was all out and announced and what have you!
Sometime over the weekend, I'll be posting the FULL story of my road to publication, but for right now, I'm gonna go have some champagne. Oh. Wait. It's 9:30 AM.
In that case, I'll go off to have a Mimosa.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Name That Book!
On Thursday, Agent Holly emailed me with a few edits that I needed to do on teh book, and one ofher suggestions was that we needed a new title. I agree with her that Too Near the Glass is a much...heavier title than the book really needs, so now I'm wracking my brain to come up with a new one. Any help would be graiciously appreciated! So if any of my talented readers out there can come up with anything, you will SO go on the acknowledgment page. Of course, I realize that when the book sells, the publisher will change the title to whatever he/she wants, so this may all be for nothing. Still, I'd like to have an awesome title to send out. So if you have any ideas, based on the excerpts you've read here, please let me know!
Oh, also, I was Googling myself yesterday (which sounds dirty, and yet is not) I discovered that this blog pops right up, as does a page from Fanfiction.net for another Rachel Hawkins who writes Lost and ER fic. That is not me. However, my horror that someone might think it is me led me to have lots of thoughts about fanfiction that I will soon be sharing with all of you. But not now. Now I must get out of my freakin' pjs and put on real clothes. Ah, the life of a writer! ;)
Oh, also, I was Googling myself yesterday (which sounds dirty, and yet is not) I discovered that this blog pops right up, as does a page from Fanfiction.net for another Rachel Hawkins who writes Lost and ER fic. That is not me. However, my horror that someone might think it is me led me to have lots of thoughts about fanfiction that I will soon be sharing with all of you. But not now. Now I must get out of my freakin' pjs and put on real clothes. Ah, the life of a writer! ;)
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Secret Agent (Wo)Man
Okay, so this post may be only slightly coherent due to extreme levels of excitement.
As of this afternoon, I have a completely fabulous agent!! That's right- I landed myself an honest-to-god New York agent, Holly Root of the Waxman Literary Agency! She's funny and cool and very professional, and best of all, she loves the book! An enthusiastic agent is worth its weight in gold!
More to come soon!
As of this afternoon, I have a completely fabulous agent!! That's right- I landed myself an honest-to-god New York agent, Holly Root of the Waxman Literary Agency! She's funny and cool and very professional, and best of all, she loves the book! An enthusiastic agent is worth its weight in gold!
More to come soon!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sophie Sophie, Bo Bophie, Banana Fanna Fo Fophie...
THE NAME GAME!
I remember being so proud of myself when I finally learned how to sing that song in, like, 3rd grade. And I also remember my class trying to con our music teacher into letting us sing it with the name "Buck." Good times.
So today I won't be talking about agents or publishing or any of those other things keeping me awake at night (although I will say that I got another request for a full manuscript today! That makes 4 agents who currently have my book in their hot little hands. Squee!) Today I want to talk about names, specifically character names and how you come up with them. I have a lot of names in my book, so I'll only be talking about my main characters.
SOPHIA MERCER
Ah, Sophie. The only name that came easy to me. I knew when I started writing that I wanted my main female character to have a strong, goddess-y type name. We love goddess-y names in our house; my husband REALLY wanted to name our baby Artemis before we found out it was Small Son and not Small Daughter. Anyway, my goddess-y names were kind of limited to Diana and...um... yeah, see what I mean? So I went the Gnostic route and named her Sophia, or Sophie. Her name means "wisdom" and (MAJOR OVERSIMPLIFICATION AHEAD!) she was sort of like the most human of the divine beings in Gnostic mythology. She "fell" and in doing so created the material world. I kind of love that. A god who f#%&s up and in doing so creates humanity.(Also, Sophie's mom's name is Grace. Not an accident, that) Not that my Sophie is that awesome, of course, but it's as good a name as any for a girl who struggles with the "divine" nature inside her. Plus, I really, really loved Howl's Moving Castle, and sweet, stubborn, brave Sophie who is that book's heroine. I gave her the middle name Alice- also her great-grandmother's name- after my favorite female character in all literature, Alice from Alice in Wonderland. As for Mercer... that just came to me. Fit well, sounded good, moving on!
ARCHER CROSS
One day I will write an entire post on Archer and how he was such a gift from the writing gods. I really hate when writers say, "Oh, this character just appeared and took over the story! He/She wouldn't do anything I told him/her too!" I always find this a bit...precious, I guess. I create my characters; they do what I make them do (And in this way, I am GRAND EMPRESS OF THE UNIVERSE! MWA-HAHAHA!) But it is true that sometimes your Muse (mine's named Kira- see Xanadu post) just shoves this character into your book who is so much better than whoever you had initially, and that was Archer for me. He just seemed to spring onto the pages, leaning against a tree, saving Sophie from a werewolf, and snarking with the best of them.
Sigh.
Anyway, Magically Delicious Archer didn't have a name at first. Luckily, I was writing in Barnes and Noble the day he appeared and was able to mosey my way to the baby name books. I found one that dealt with unusual names, because I knew I needed something different for this guy, but something that sounded rich and classy. So, under a heading about last names for first names, I found Archer. I tried it on him and it just fit, as did the last name Cross. A last name that had orginally belonged to...
JENNA TALBOT
Poor Jenna. She started the book as a happy, ditzy Faery Princess named Lexie Cross and became loner, angst ridden Vampire, Jenna Talbot. Her transformation from Faery to Vamp had to do with plot purposes (I had to have everyone hold Sophie's roommate responsible for a series of attacks. Initially, people blamed Faery Lexie because she had a Vamp boyfriend. Then Kira the Muse choked me with her legwarmers and tortured me with hot shrimp from the barbie (just... go rent Xanadu. You'll have to if you ever want to understand this blog), and I realized that- DUH- the plot would be a helluva lot easier if LEXIE were the Vamp. Sigh. Occam's Razor and all that. But about the name. She got the Cross ripped away from her when Archer came in the picture, so I gave her Talbot because I'd once taught sisters with that last name. Then I realized I had a lot of "ie" names in the book, so Lexie had to go. I decided she needed a very simple, all-American name, and Jennifer- Jenna- she became!
ELODIE PARRIS
Another easy name. I don't watch The Hills (it makes me feel sad. And angry. And old. They drink Red Bull for fun. That's a generation gap, right there.) However, I DO read the recaps on Television Without Pity, as they are snarky and fun. Apparently, there's a girl named Elodie somewhere in there. I just loved that name ( "like Melody without the 'm'" as Sophie comments ) It's pretty and flowy, and like Archer, it sounds rich. "Parris" was the last name of one of the main Salem Witch Trials accusers, and since the SWT feature in my mythology, I wanted to use it.
CALLAHAN- "CAL"
No first name for you, Cal! I know it, but I'm not quite ready to reveal it yet. Now, when you read the book, should the book ever come out in print (God willing!), you will think, "Wait... didn't Rachel say in that rambling blog post about names that Cal was a main character? He's in, like, three scenes. And he only talks in one!" To which I say, don't worry. Cal comes back in a BIG way in Books 2&3. Anyhoo, I did the whole "last name only" thing because I love it. I picked Callahan because it's a great last name. That and Shannahan are my two favorite last names ever. Well, those and LaFrance, which is the last name of a friend of mine, and AWESOME. When I was a teenager, there was a family we knew named Shannahan and I full on wanted to marry their son even though I NEVER MET HIM. I just wanted to be Rachel Shannahan. Oh, well. Hawkins ain't so bad.
So Cal. I went with Callahan over Shannahan because "Cal" is a FAR superior mnickname for a guy than "Shan." Plus,I have a wee obsession with James Dean (6 biographies of him on their own special shelf. Ahem.), and Cal is also the name of my favorite James Dean character ever, Cal Trask, in East of Eden. So Cal it was. Although Cal as a character is not even remotely James Dean-like. Much more like Dean Winchester from Supernatural. And that, too, is a post for another day...
So there we have it! The inspiration behind the names in Too Near the Glass. And now, a question: Do names ever affect your enjoyment of a book? If the name of the love interest is the same as a person you hate (or, god forbid, your parent) does that make the book harder to read for you? Have you ever NOT bought a book because of names?
I remember being so proud of myself when I finally learned how to sing that song in, like, 3rd grade. And I also remember my class trying to con our music teacher into letting us sing it with the name "Buck." Good times.
So today I won't be talking about agents or publishing or any of those other things keeping me awake at night (although I will say that I got another request for a full manuscript today! That makes 4 agents who currently have my book in their hot little hands. Squee!) Today I want to talk about names, specifically character names and how you come up with them. I have a lot of names in my book, so I'll only be talking about my main characters.
SOPHIA MERCER
Ah, Sophie. The only name that came easy to me. I knew when I started writing that I wanted my main female character to have a strong, goddess-y type name. We love goddess-y names in our house; my husband REALLY wanted to name our baby Artemis before we found out it was Small Son and not Small Daughter. Anyway, my goddess-y names were kind of limited to Diana and...um... yeah, see what I mean? So I went the Gnostic route and named her Sophia, or Sophie. Her name means "wisdom" and (MAJOR OVERSIMPLIFICATION AHEAD!) she was sort of like the most human of the divine beings in Gnostic mythology. She "fell" and in doing so created the material world. I kind of love that. A god who f#%&s up and in doing so creates humanity.(Also, Sophie's mom's name is Grace. Not an accident, that) Not that my Sophie is that awesome, of course, but it's as good a name as any for a girl who struggles with the "divine" nature inside her. Plus, I really, really loved Howl's Moving Castle, and sweet, stubborn, brave Sophie who is that book's heroine. I gave her the middle name Alice- also her great-grandmother's name- after my favorite female character in all literature, Alice from Alice in Wonderland. As for Mercer... that just came to me. Fit well, sounded good, moving on!
ARCHER CROSS
One day I will write an entire post on Archer and how he was such a gift from the writing gods. I really hate when writers say, "Oh, this character just appeared and took over the story! He/She wouldn't do anything I told him/her too!" I always find this a bit...precious, I guess. I create my characters; they do what I make them do (And in this way, I am GRAND EMPRESS OF THE UNIVERSE! MWA-HAHAHA!) But it is true that sometimes your Muse (mine's named Kira- see Xanadu post) just shoves this character into your book who is so much better than whoever you had initially, and that was Archer for me. He just seemed to spring onto the pages, leaning against a tree, saving Sophie from a werewolf, and snarking with the best of them.
Sigh.
Anyway, Magically Delicious Archer didn't have a name at first. Luckily, I was writing in Barnes and Noble the day he appeared and was able to mosey my way to the baby name books. I found one that dealt with unusual names, because I knew I needed something different for this guy, but something that sounded rich and classy. So, under a heading about last names for first names, I found Archer. I tried it on him and it just fit, as did the last name Cross. A last name that had orginally belonged to...
JENNA TALBOT
Poor Jenna. She started the book as a happy, ditzy Faery Princess named Lexie Cross and became loner, angst ridden Vampire, Jenna Talbot. Her transformation from Faery to Vamp had to do with plot purposes (I had to have everyone hold Sophie's roommate responsible for a series of attacks. Initially, people blamed Faery Lexie because she had a Vamp boyfriend. Then Kira the Muse choked me with her legwarmers and tortured me with hot shrimp from the barbie (just... go rent Xanadu. You'll have to if you ever want to understand this blog), and I realized that- DUH- the plot would be a helluva lot easier if LEXIE were the Vamp. Sigh. Occam's Razor and all that. But about the name. She got the Cross ripped away from her when Archer came in the picture, so I gave her Talbot because I'd once taught sisters with that last name. Then I realized I had a lot of "ie" names in the book, so Lexie had to go. I decided she needed a very simple, all-American name, and Jennifer- Jenna- she became!
ELODIE PARRIS
Another easy name. I don't watch The Hills (it makes me feel sad. And angry. And old. They drink Red Bull for fun. That's a generation gap, right there.) However, I DO read the recaps on Television Without Pity, as they are snarky and fun. Apparently, there's a girl named Elodie somewhere in there. I just loved that name ( "like Melody without the 'm'" as Sophie comments ) It's pretty and flowy, and like Archer, it sounds rich. "Parris" was the last name of one of the main Salem Witch Trials accusers, and since the SWT feature in my mythology, I wanted to use it.
CALLAHAN- "CAL"
No first name for you, Cal! I know it, but I'm not quite ready to reveal it yet. Now, when you read the book, should the book ever come out in print (God willing!), you will think, "Wait... didn't Rachel say in that rambling blog post about names that Cal was a main character? He's in, like, three scenes. And he only talks in one!" To which I say, don't worry. Cal comes back in a BIG way in Books 2&3. Anyhoo, I did the whole "last name only" thing because I love it. I picked Callahan because it's a great last name. That and Shannahan are my two favorite last names ever. Well, those and LaFrance, which is the last name of a friend of mine, and AWESOME. When I was a teenager, there was a family we knew named Shannahan and I full on wanted to marry their son even though I NEVER MET HIM. I just wanted to be Rachel Shannahan. Oh, well. Hawkins ain't so bad.
So Cal. I went with Callahan over Shannahan because "Cal" is a FAR superior mnickname for a guy than "Shan." Plus,I have a wee obsession with James Dean (6 biographies of him on their own special shelf. Ahem.), and Cal is also the name of my favorite James Dean character ever, Cal Trask, in East of Eden. So Cal it was. Although Cal as a character is not even remotely James Dean-like. Much more like Dean Winchester from Supernatural. And that, too, is a post for another day...
So there we have it! The inspiration behind the names in Too Near the Glass. And now, a question: Do names ever affect your enjoyment of a book? If the name of the love interest is the same as a person you hate (or, god forbid, your parent) does that make the book harder to read for you? Have you ever NOT bought a book because of names?
Monday, February 25, 2008
Query Go-Round
Just to keep y'all (and me!) up to date, so far, the stats are thus:
Full Manuscripts requested: 3
Partial Manuscripts requested: 1
Full Manuscripts rejected: 1
Queries rejected: 4
Rachel's excitement/stress level: 11. You know, because it goes one higher than 10 (Spinal Tap reference for you sad souls who've never seen that movie!)
Full Manuscripts requested: 3
Partial Manuscripts requested: 1
Full Manuscripts rejected: 1
Queries rejected: 4
Rachel's excitement/stress level: 11. You know, because it goes one higher than 10 (Spinal Tap reference for you sad souls who've never seen that movie!)
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Excitement!
So I had a big time New York agent want to see the full manuscript of Too Near the Glass (thank you, new query letter!) He ended up passing, but he had some very nice things to say about the novel, and passed on the names of two other agents he thought might like it. So I of course wrote him a thank-you email, and about fifteen minutes later, he wrote back recommending another agent there at his agency and gave me that agent's email. So I emailed Agent 2 and got a request for a full manuscript from him!
Now, I always go into these things expecting rejection, because...well, rejection is a HUGE part of the writing business. That's why you have to send out your stuff and not be afraid someone will say no. They WILL say no. You just persevere until somone says yes. You just need one! That said, I'm not getting my hopes up too high, but this is really exciting news because it means agents are viewing my work as a saleable commodity, and that's a big thing. I feel like those people who get to the top 50 on American Idol; I may not "win," but I've made it further than a lot of people!
So please keep up prayers, thought, vibes, etc. They seem to be working!
Oh, and this is the agency is question: www.writershouse.com Go there and check out some of their clients and you'll understand why I'm freaking out.
Love!!
Now, I always go into these things expecting rejection, because...well, rejection is a HUGE part of the writing business. That's why you have to send out your stuff and not be afraid someone will say no. They WILL say no. You just persevere until somone says yes. You just need one! That said, I'm not getting my hopes up too high, but this is really exciting news because it means agents are viewing my work as a saleable commodity, and that's a big thing. I feel like those people who get to the top 50 on American Idol; I may not "win," but I've made it further than a lot of people!
So please keep up prayers, thought, vibes, etc. They seem to be working!
Oh, and this is the agency is question: www.writershouse.com Go there and check out some of their clients and you'll understand why I'm freaking out.
Love!!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Crash Test Dummy
I've been kinda quiet here in Internetlandia lately due to being insane and doing something called "crashing" a book, hence the title of this blog (other titles considered were Crash Diet and my personal favorite, Crash Into Book, but I decided that a Dave Matthews reference might date me). Crashing the book means that I'm writing like a crazy person. I'm shooting for 4,000 words/day, but so far, that's only happened once in the past week. 2,000 seems to be about the limit. Anyway, all this crazy writing time has left me looking like this:
So...many...words...
Interestingly enough, when I did a Google Image Search for "crazy woman", I also found this:
Ooh... emo and dark!
USED to look like this!
Ooh...feathered bangs!
The Skank and The Saint
But despite their flaws, I LOVED these books as a young girl. In fact, one of them, Dear Sister, I probably read five times in one week. In that one, Elizabeth- aka Saintly McPrude, gets in a car accident and gets amnesia and starts acting- gasp!- kinda slutty. So she ditches her (totally closeted gay) boyfriend Todd and starts hanging out with Bruce Patman, the rich, super hot, super asshole-ish guy that exists in nearly every YA book from the 80s. He's kind of like the Andrew McCarthy character in Pretty in Pink ("Blane? His name is BLANE?! That's not a name, it's a major appliance!"), only, you know, more of a dick.
I mean, he drives a vintage BMW. Come on.
So Bruce is a slimey creep who has no problem taking advantage of a girl with a traumatic brain injury, and he ends up taking Liz to his parents' house when his parents are out of town (naturally). And there, he gives her some wine (Date Rape Ahoy! Like it's not bad enough that she's borderline retarded after her accident) and makes out with her on his leather sofa and then... HE TOUCHES HER BOOB. As a 12 year old, this was probably the raciest thing I'd ever read. And not only did he touch it, she LIKED IT! Hot stuff! Now, the next year I would read Forever... by Judy Blume and it would blow lame-ass boob touching out of the water (and led to the the most embarrassing discussion of my life when I asked my mom what "came" meant in a sexual context and she nearly stroked out. Sigh. But seriously, go read it. It great!)
So then Bruce makes the fatal mistake of going to get more wine (which is...awkward. I mean, who gets up in the middle of date rape for refreshments? Honestly.Oh, wait. Maybe he was going to get condoms and wine was his excuse. Hmmm...) and while he's gone, Liz tries to get up, but she's drunk and she falls and whacks her head on an end table and BAM! Amnesia fixed.
'Cause, you know, that happens.
And then Bruce comes back all set for some Nonconsensual Fun, and she yells at him and runs out. And then she, like, runs on the beach or something, all happy to be liberated from her previous sluttitude, even though...so, her amnesia is gone, but she...um, remembers that she had it? Whatev.
Oh, and of course, Totally Closeted Todd finds her and they reaffirm their love or some shit. But without boob touching.
So yeah, that's the kind of YA I was reading back in the late eighties/early nineties. So you kids today who get Meg Cabot, and John Green, and Holly Black, and Stephenie Meyer, and Libba Bray, and Scott Westerfeld, BE THANKFUL.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to add a creepy boob touching scene to Too Near the Glass...
Interestingly enough, when I did a Google Image Search for "crazy woman", I also found this:
Which...um... yeah, pretty crazy.
So today I'm breaking from tradition and instead of talking so much about writing, I'll be talking about reading, specifically YA. Today, The Mister and I went to Barnes and Noble so that I could browse the YA section. I've pretty much sworn off reading any YA while the book is in progress, out of both paranoia (I don't want to "steal" someone else's voice) and out of self-preservation (I don't want to read something and think, "Omigod, this is SO MUCH BETTER than the total and utter CRAP I am writing! Why- why- did I think I could ever be an author! I suck so hard!")
But I'm still a sucker for YA and I had to look. It is a sickness.
While browsing, I spotted some books called The Vampire Diaries that I thought sounded familiar. And sure enough, they were! See, the books that currently look like this:
Ooh... emo and dark!
USED to look like this!
Ooh...feathered bangs!
It makes me wonder what other YA gems from the 80s might get brought back. There's a persistent rumor that they're going to reissue Sweet Valley High, but they'd have to do a major rehaul on them. I mean, the girls were all size sixes, which would be OMG SO FAT now ( I kid, I kid!)
PLEASE tell me that some of you who read this blog remember SVH! For those who don't, it was a series of books about Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, beautiful, blond twins living in Southern California. Jessica was a sociopathic ho bag, and Elizabeth was a frigid do-gooder with a God complex. Except, you know, the books didn't come right out and say that.
Basically, they were rich and perfect and the entire town worshipped them and they gave thousands of adolescent girls eating disorders. I guess in that way they were the Gossip Girls of their time, only no one had sex or did drugs. Well, I take that back. Regina Morrow did cocaine in one book and DIED. That's right- had a heart attack and bit the big one. How's that for an anti-drug message? Although, as the reviews at the most excellent The Dairi Burger (http://thedairiburger.wordpress.com/) point out, the message seems to be more, "Hey, kids, don't do drugs, but only if you suspect you may have a heart murmur. If not, line up the nose candy! Whee!"
The Skank and The Saint
But despite their flaws, I LOVED these books as a young girl. In fact, one of them, Dear Sister, I probably read five times in one week. In that one, Elizabeth- aka Saintly McPrude, gets in a car accident and gets amnesia and starts acting- gasp!- kinda slutty. So she ditches her (totally closeted gay) boyfriend Todd and starts hanging out with Bruce Patman, the rich, super hot, super asshole-ish guy that exists in nearly every YA book from the 80s. He's kind of like the Andrew McCarthy character in Pretty in Pink ("Blane? His name is BLANE?! That's not a name, it's a major appliance!"), only, you know, more of a dick.
I mean, he drives a vintage BMW. Come on.
So Bruce is a slimey creep who has no problem taking advantage of a girl with a traumatic brain injury, and he ends up taking Liz to his parents' house when his parents are out of town (naturally). And there, he gives her some wine (Date Rape Ahoy! Like it's not bad enough that she's borderline retarded after her accident) and makes out with her on his leather sofa and then... HE TOUCHES HER BOOB. As a 12 year old, this was probably the raciest thing I'd ever read. And not only did he touch it, she LIKED IT! Hot stuff! Now, the next year I would read Forever... by Judy Blume and it would blow lame-ass boob touching out of the water (and led to the the most embarrassing discussion of my life when I asked my mom what "came" meant in a sexual context and she nearly stroked out. Sigh. But seriously, go read it. It great!)
So then Bruce makes the fatal mistake of going to get more wine (which is...awkward. I mean, who gets up in the middle of date rape for refreshments? Honestly.Oh, wait. Maybe he was going to get condoms and wine was his excuse. Hmmm...) and while he's gone, Liz tries to get up, but she's drunk and she falls and whacks her head on an end table and BAM! Amnesia fixed.
'Cause, you know, that happens.
And then Bruce comes back all set for some Nonconsensual Fun, and she yells at him and runs out. And then she, like, runs on the beach or something, all happy to be liberated from her previous sluttitude, even though...so, her amnesia is gone, but she...um, remembers that she had it? Whatev.
Oh, and of course, Totally Closeted Todd finds her and they reaffirm their love or some shit. But without boob touching.
So yeah, that's the kind of YA I was reading back in the late eighties/early nineties. So you kids today who get Meg Cabot, and John Green, and Holly Black, and Stephenie Meyer, and Libba Bray, and Scott Westerfeld, BE THANKFUL.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to add a creepy boob touching scene to Too Near the Glass...
Sunday, January 13, 2008
The (Damn) Book
Since the whole reason I created this blog was the chronicle the Writing of the Damn Book, I think it's finally time to talk about The Damn Book. So here we go!
I first started writing The Book almost exactly one year ago. It was MLK day, so I was home from work, The Husband was on a hiking trip, and Small Son was at daycare. In other words, perfect writing conditions! Looking back, I can't say what exactly inspired me, except that I knew I wanted to write something with a paranormal slant. I've always loved the supernatural, and I have tons of book dealing with unsolved mysteries, so I knew I wanted to incorporate that. I also knew I wanted to write something set in a creepy boarding school because I'd been watching a lot of Hex on BBC America, and it's set in a creepy (British) boarding school (side note- everyone must immediately go out and get a copy of Hex. It's so cracked out and weird, by which I mean it's AWESOME.) When I initially started, the book was about one Sophie Mercer, a totally normal girl attending a prestigious boarding school in Georgia called Prentiss Academy (Originally called Prentiss Hall until I remembered that's a textbook company, ha ha! Stupid Teacher Brain!) While at Prentiss, Sophie realizes there's some seriously weird stuff going down, namely pretty horrible murders! Good times!
It was fun, and I really liked the creepy Southern boarding school aspect (and, in case you didn't know, the picture at the top of my blog is my model for Prentiss. Spooky, huh?), but as I went on, it felt like it was missing something. So I abandoned it for awhile. But as is the case with most writers. I couldn't let go of the idea. It was something I just kept turning over and over in my head, trying to make it work. And then, out of the blue, I got what I thought was a pretty cool idea; What if (the best ideas start with what if?) Prentiss was no ordinary boarding school, but a sort of Juvie for teenage witches, vampires, faeries, and shapeshifters? Wouldn't that be fun? And, hey, it combines the two most happening things in YA right now, private schools and monsters!
And so Sophie became a witch who's sent to Prentiss after a innocent love spell goes Carrie-levels of bad at the prom. Once at Prentiss, she befriends Lexie, a slightly ditzy faery whose roommate died under mysterious circumstances the year before. Sophie also gets on the bad side of a trio of witches, one of whom just happens to be the girlfriend of the guy Sophie has a crush on (although Sophie would tell you that she does not have a crush on him. Well, not a big one at least...) And then there are ghosts, family secrets, a pretty bad-ass bunch of demon hunters known as L'Occhio del Dio, Lord Byron, an evil tattooed gym teacher, and, oh yeah, more horrible murders. All in all, I think it's a lot of fun.
For right now, the tentative title is Too Near the Glass. I got that from the following quote by Sarah Morgan Bryant Piatt (quite a mouthful, that!): “My mother says I must not pass, Too near the glass; She is afraid that I will see, A little witch that looks like me; With a red mouth to whisper low, The very thing I should not know.”
I've actually had that quote posted on a bulletin board by my desk for ages just because I liked it. There's something deliciously spooky about it. Then, when I was searching for a title, I happened to glance up and see it, and bam! Perfect title, not only for its air of super-creepiness, but also for the way it deals with some of the theme of the book: witches, identity, family, and the secrets people keep.
So that's my ridiculously long post about The (Damn) Book. Next time, I might even post an excerpt...
I first started writing The Book almost exactly one year ago. It was MLK day, so I was home from work, The Husband was on a hiking trip, and Small Son was at daycare. In other words, perfect writing conditions! Looking back, I can't say what exactly inspired me, except that I knew I wanted to write something with a paranormal slant. I've always loved the supernatural, and I have tons of book dealing with unsolved mysteries, so I knew I wanted to incorporate that. I also knew I wanted to write something set in a creepy boarding school because I'd been watching a lot of Hex on BBC America, and it's set in a creepy (British) boarding school (side note- everyone must immediately go out and get a copy of Hex. It's so cracked out and weird, by which I mean it's AWESOME.) When I initially started, the book was about one Sophie Mercer, a totally normal girl attending a prestigious boarding school in Georgia called Prentiss Academy (Originally called Prentiss Hall until I remembered that's a textbook company, ha ha! Stupid Teacher Brain!) While at Prentiss, Sophie realizes there's some seriously weird stuff going down, namely pretty horrible murders! Good times!
It was fun, and I really liked the creepy Southern boarding school aspect (and, in case you didn't know, the picture at the top of my blog is my model for Prentiss. Spooky, huh?), but as I went on, it felt like it was missing something. So I abandoned it for awhile. But as is the case with most writers. I couldn't let go of the idea. It was something I just kept turning over and over in my head, trying to make it work. And then, out of the blue, I got what I thought was a pretty cool idea; What if (the best ideas start with what if?) Prentiss was no ordinary boarding school, but a sort of Juvie for teenage witches, vampires, faeries, and shapeshifters? Wouldn't that be fun? And, hey, it combines the two most happening things in YA right now, private schools and monsters!
And so Sophie became a witch who's sent to Prentiss after a innocent love spell goes Carrie-levels of bad at the prom. Once at Prentiss, she befriends Lexie, a slightly ditzy faery whose roommate died under mysterious circumstances the year before. Sophie also gets on the bad side of a trio of witches, one of whom just happens to be the girlfriend of the guy Sophie has a crush on (although Sophie would tell you that she does not have a crush on him. Well, not a big one at least...) And then there are ghosts, family secrets, a pretty bad-ass bunch of demon hunters known as L'Occhio del Dio, Lord Byron, an evil tattooed gym teacher, and, oh yeah, more horrible murders. All in all, I think it's a lot of fun.
For right now, the tentative title is Too Near the Glass. I got that from the following quote by Sarah Morgan Bryant Piatt (quite a mouthful, that!): “My mother says I must not pass, Too near the glass; She is afraid that I will see, A little witch that looks like me; With a red mouth to whisper low, The very thing I should not know.”
I've actually had that quote posted on a bulletin board by my desk for ages just because I liked it. There's something deliciously spooky about it. Then, when I was searching for a title, I happened to glance up and see it, and bam! Perfect title, not only for its air of super-creepiness, but also for the way it deals with some of the theme of the book: witches, identity, family, and the secrets people keep.
So that's my ridiculously long post about The (Damn) Book. Next time, I might even post an excerpt...
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Welcome!
Hi, there! Welcome to Reading Writing Rachel! I created this blog for the same reason anyone creates a blog- to talk obsessively about ME ME ME!
Okay, that's not 100% true. Although I am an only child, so, you know, it's at least 10% true.
The real reason for this blog is to chronicle my attempts to finally Write The Damn Book. I think it's safe to say I've been a writer since I was about four. That's when I started creating my best Barbie storylines, including one in which Ken kidnapped Barbie's kids, and then slipped a hallucinogenic drug into the water supply of her neighborhood so that everyone believed the kids had been abducted by aliens. No, seriously.
Ever since then, I've loved making up stories, although my plots are a little...tamer now. Since I was about 16 or so, I've probably attempted to write about 50 books. The most I've ever written before now was about 75 pages of a romance novel in college. The least I've ever written was, literally, one sentence.
But now I'm about 150 pages into my first YA novel. It's a sort of Southern Fried Paranormal, or, as I like to say, it's like Flannery O'Connor and Anne Rice had a baby (you know- with science) and then gave that baby to Meg Cabot to raise. That baby would be my book. It's kind of crazy and all over the place right now, but it's finally beginning to resemble an Actual Book.
So this blog is my attempt to document the incredibly frustrating and rewarding process of Writing The Damn Book. It's also where I will probably rant about how hard that is and how doing other things, such as watching epic amounts of Food Network, seem much more fun than writing. I'll also probably have the occasional fun poll. And, side bonus, you'll get my not very enlightening thoughts on life! Score!
Okay, that's not 100% true. Although I am an only child, so, you know, it's at least 10% true.
The real reason for this blog is to chronicle my attempts to finally Write The Damn Book. I think it's safe to say I've been a writer since I was about four. That's when I started creating my best Barbie storylines, including one in which Ken kidnapped Barbie's kids, and then slipped a hallucinogenic drug into the water supply of her neighborhood so that everyone believed the kids had been abducted by aliens. No, seriously.
Ever since then, I've loved making up stories, although my plots are a little...tamer now. Since I was about 16 or so, I've probably attempted to write about 50 books. The most I've ever written before now was about 75 pages of a romance novel in college. The least I've ever written was, literally, one sentence.
But now I'm about 150 pages into my first YA novel. It's a sort of Southern Fried Paranormal, or, as I like to say, it's like Flannery O'Connor and Anne Rice had a baby (you know- with science) and then gave that baby to Meg Cabot to raise. That baby would be my book. It's kind of crazy and all over the place right now, but it's finally beginning to resemble an Actual Book.
So this blog is my attempt to document the incredibly frustrating and rewarding process of Writing The Damn Book. It's also where I will probably rant about how hard that is and how doing other things, such as watching epic amounts of Food Network, seem much more fun than writing. I'll also probably have the occasional fun poll. And, side bonus, you'll get my not very enlightening thoughts on life! Score!
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