Putting Down Ol' Yeller

Okay, so technically, it's Ol' Teal, but yes, the time has come.

I have to get a new laptop. Ugh.

Now, you may be saying, "But, Rachel! New laptops are made of awesome and covered in awesome sauce! Why do you not want one?"

And that is true, new laptops ARE Very, Very Awesome. Besides, I have to buy one before the end of the year so that I can write it off as, in case you haven't heard, Self-Employment Taxes Are The Devil.

But... I'm really attached to this one. This is the one I wrote my first book on! This is the computer that helped me find Agent Holly! Ol' Teal still holds spreadsheets of publisher info from when Demonglass was going to auction! *sniff*

But it's also running really, really slow, and it has a couple of cracks, and it's battery will no longer hold a charge. So I know it's time. And, as I keep telling myself, there are lots of awesome, new laptops out there, just waiting for me to write novels on! Right now, I'm leaning toward this one:


I like it because it has lots of RAM, and...um...superior....motherboard, uh...

Okay, I only want it because it's PINK! PINK PINKETY PINK PINK! (Yes, I am a pink girl. Pink phone, pink clothes, even a pink Cross pen. I think it's because I live with boys.)

Now, I know that Mac books are the thing to have if you're a hip, young YA novelist, but I am profoundly meh on the Mac book, mainly because I don't feel like learning a new OS. But people swear by their word processing program, so I might think about it.

But until I make up my mind about a new laptop, I have a new writing toy that I am SO SO EXCITED about. I just ordered an Alphasmart Neo! Now, the Alphasmart is just a word processor, so it's pretty much useless to anyone who's not a full time writer, but I AM a full time writer, and therefore I must have one in my life. It only weighs 2 pounds, it will fit in my purse (although I do have a big purse) and, best of all, it runs for 700 HOURS on 3 AA batteries!! No more plugs or getting all tangled up in cords when I'm out writing! Yay! Plus it has absolutely no bells and whistles, i.e.,distracting stuff like internet or games. So I can type away, and at the end of the day, hook it up to my laptop and dump everything into a Word document for editing and what have you.

Of course, I will look lame when I'm out and about writing, and people will think I'm typing on a Speak and Spell, but that is the price I must pay for being distraction-free during writing!

But until that gets here, I'm going to keep hammering away at Rebel Belle on Ol' Teal. Still hoping to have it finished by New Year. In fact, yesterday I emailed Agent Holly and asked her to yell at me like I was on a real deadline and not one I made up in my head. Her reply? "REBEL BELLE MUST BE IN MY INBOX BEFORE 2009,OR MY ENTIRE YEAR WILL BE MADE OF SUCK AND IT WILL BE ALL YOUR FAULT!"

This is why I heart Agent Holly.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go cradle Ol' Teal in my arm while singing "The Way We Were."

ETA: If you want to hang out with me elsewhere in Internetlandia, you can now follow me on Twitter! Mostly all I do is quote Britney Spears lyrics and bitch about misplacing my BlackBerry, but there is occasional writing-related content. Plus lots of publishing type people are on it. Also, if you read this blog and you have a Facebook, why are we not friends yet?

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! ;)

College Town Life

Have I mentioned that I LOVE living in a college town? It is the greatest place to live if you're in search of writerly inspiration, especially if you write about young people. Here is just a small sampling of the stuff I've seen/overheard since moving back to Auburn:

1) More couple fights than you can possibly imagine. Seriously. I had forgotten that people under the age of 21 will literally just start screaming at each other in the streets. The other day, I saw a girl and her boyfriend outside of a nice restaurant downtown having this little exchange:

GIRL: "I SAW YOU TALKING TO HER!! WHY WERE YOU TALKING TO HER?!?!?!"

GUY: *Pained look* "Please stop yelling."

GIRL: "I WILL STOP YELLING WHEN YOU STOP TALKING TO HER!!!"

Now, The Husband and I have been married for six years. We've been a couple for nine years. I can safely say there is no woman he could ever talk to that would make me have this sort of mental breakdown, much less on a public street. In fact, The Husband and I are so mellow that I could probably see him making out with some chick and I still wouldn't have this level of freak-out. But is the "I will stop yelling when you stop talking to her" line SO going in Rebel Belle? Um, hell to the yes.

2) This one might actually be my favorite. I was going in the post office when a young guy came out on his cell phone. His end of the conversation went like this, verbatim. Trust me, because as soon as I was inside the post office, I whipped out a notebook and wrote it all down.

GUY ON CELL PHONE: "Look, all I'm saying is that my parents were there, and it was my birthday, so maybe next time you could just, I don't know, be sober. F&%k."

Ha ha ha! The best part about this was this guy's tone, which was more weary than angry. Like, whoever was on the other end of that conversation is just a raging alocoholic and everyone knows it, and Cell Phone Guy isn't going to stop hanging out with (or dating?) this person, but I mean, it was his birthday. Come on now.

3) Not something I overheard but something I saw. At Kroger a few weeks ago (not the crazy one that ear rapes with Whitney Houston tunes), I saw two separate groups of girls hovering nervously in the pregnancy test aisle. Now, there were six girls in all, but they were very clearly two distinct groups of three, and they completely refused to acknowledge each other, even though they were literally right next to each other. It was also easy to spot the maybe-pregnant one in both groups, as she was the one in the middle, her two supportive friends closing ranks around her. I thought it was interesting for a few reasons. One, sisterhood only extends so far. When you are freaked out that you might be pregnant, you are not going to share a sympathetic smile or even a "ha ha, we're all looking at pregnancy tests, how weird!" laugh with any other maybe-pregnant girl. Bitch is on her own. Two, it's nice to see things never change. I have a feeling 99% of the girls on this planet have been standing in the Kroger or the Rite-Aid or the Wal-Mart with their friends, trying to pick the best pregnancy test, hopefully the one that will tell you you're not pregnant. I wanted to go up to them and say, "Shine on, you crazy and possibly knocked up diamonds!"

But they clearly had enough on their plates and didn't need to deal with my weirdness on top of that!

There are a lot of fun things about being a writer, but I have to say, one of my favorites is the way that everything, even something as mundane as a trip to the grocery store or the post office, has the potential to inspire. It's like being tuned into an awesome radio station that only you can hear.

Wait, Harry Potter Did WHAT With Snape?!

Roughly a bajillion years ago, I promised you my thoughts on fanfiction, and then promptly forgot about it. But when The Husband and I were watching Prince Caspian, he made the comment, "Man, I bet there is some seriously f*&%ed up fanfiction about this movie." Not only did that spark my interest in finding awesomely wrong Prince Caspian fanfiction (there isn't any that I could find, sadly, although there ARE some super-messed up Lucy/Mr. Tumnus stories. Yeah, the little girl. And the dude with goat legs. Although in those stories, Lucy is like 18, so I guess it's okay. Except not), but it made me remember all the stuff I wanted to say about the wonderful, wacky, and occasionally X-rated world of fanfiction.

Back when I was on submission, I did a Google search of my name because I knew the editors that had my manuscript would be doing the same (Sidenote of Writerly Advice: This is why submission is like Fight Club; the first rule of being on submission is that you DO NOT TALK about being on submission. You can say your book is out there, but don't say how many people have it or, God forbid, WHO has it. Book deals have fallen apart over that kind of thing. Fer serious.)

One of the first hits I got for "Rachel Hawkins" was a fanfic writer who has stuff at Fanfiction.net, and I have to be honest, my first thought was, "Oh, no! People will think I write fanfic!"
And then I had to stop for a minute and wonder why that thought horrified me so much. After all, I have written fanfic, way back in the day, and not under my actual name, and in a fandom so obscure, I'm not sure it can even be called a fandom. (And no, you probably won't be able to find it, even if you did some serious digging, although I'm sure it's still floating around the internet. Nothing ever dies in Internetlandia!)

This got me thinking about how I really real about fanfic. I think I was embarrassed that publisher people might think I was a fnafic writer because so much of fanfic is A)poorly written, or B) straight-up porn, or C)both. But I have to admit there is some really good stuff out there, even in the fandoms I don't particularly get.


That's right. In some alternate universe, these 3 are totally Doing It.

So this leads me to how I feel about fanfiction as a writer. There are several writers who don't allow FF of their work, most famously Anne Rice. George R.R. Martin also asks that his fans hold off on the fanfiction, at least until his series in finished. And I think those requests should be respected. If an author says you can't play in his/her sandbox, then find somewhere else to play. Then there are authors who started out as fanfiction writers, like Cassandra Clare, and Meljean Brook.

As for me, if someone ever wanted to write Demonglass fanfiction, I'd be totally down with it. I think it would be awesome to have someone respond creatively to my work. I wouldn't read it, though, because I think that's where you can end up in slippery slope territory. Let's say a reader sends me a story where Sophie, my main character, befriends a unicorn who turns out to eat brains, thus becoming the world's first Zombie/Unicorn hybrid. But I've already written a Zombie/Unicorn hybrid- a Zomicorn, if you will- into Book 2! Book 2 comes out, and the reader is all, "OMGWTFBBQ? Bitch, you stole my idea!" And then there are Legal Issues that no one wants to deal with.

And of course, I'm totally against the idea of people trying to get fanfiction published. Come on, now.

But so long as the fanfic writer doesn't seek to profit from his or her stories, I think it's all in good fun. Fanfiction is an awesome place to work on your writing skills because it's like riding a bike with training wheels. You get to play around with story and dialogue and not worry too much about setting or character. It's also a good way to build up a readership and start dealing with critiques, because God knows the "feedback" is flyin' in the Fanfiction world! (Say THAT 3 times fast!)

And hey, you can also get your weird sexual issues out if you feel like it! Everybody wins!


These two? Alternate universe where she is not, like, 7? Totally Doing It.

That said, if you're serious about becoming a professional writer, there comes a time to put your Pretend Edward Cullens and Fake Frodo Baggins away, and start building your own universe. But fanfic is still a fun way to rev up the creative engines.

So how many of you have read/written fanfiction? How do those of you who are writers feel about it?

Housekeeping!

Hey, everybody! *waves*

I know, I know, I said I'd be back Monday and I was not. But it turned out that I needed at least 2 days to recover from my vacation. Those of you with kids know what I mean. Now, let me do some catching up.

NaNoWriMO: FAIL. I only managed 30K words by the end of November. But that's okay. That's half the book, and Rebel Belle continues to chug along at its own pace, and it continues to make me happy, even if sometimes I do think I've gone too far with it (someone gets straight up murdered with a shoe. But, I mean, that's fun, right?)I'd still really like to have it done by Christmas, and that seems doable, so we shall see! One of the writing related things I did over the break was make a list of all the books I have bouncing around in my head right now, and when exactly I thought I could start working on them, and when they would be finished. I ended up having 14 books written in 5 years. I clearly have an overly optimistic take on how long it takes me to write books.

Birthdiversary: Most excellent. Chilled at the beach with the fam, got some lovely and thoughtful presents, and am feeling good about the last year of my 20s. And I'm already planning something epic for the big 3-0. Not sure what yet...but EPIC. OH! And at the beach, I read the best, best book in the whole wide world, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Do yourself a favor and GET THIS BOOK. Easily one of the best things I read this year.

Iron Bowl: We will not speak of it.

Small Son: Continues to rock my world with his awesomeness and high levels of hilarity. Last week, he got chocolate pudding cups out of the fridge, brought them over to me and said all excitedly, "Mama! I found Harry Potter!" I have no idea what this means, but I laughed and laughed. My kid rulz.

Demonglass: Will now be sold in both Germany AND the UK, bringing the grand total of countries where you can find Demonglass up to 6 (counting the US)! Both publishers are super awesome, and I am so thrilled to be working with them (Also, sidenote of awesome: My British co-agent's name is Caspian. This makes him easily the coolest person ever.)

CONTEST: Yes, the Reading Writing Rachel/Buy A Book, Save the World Gift Card Giveaway! Thanks to everyone who left a comment! Please feel free to kick up your feet here at this ol' blog anytime you want. And our winner, chosen at random (as in, I put the comment numbers down on paper and crossed out the voluntary "disqualfiers" and made The Husband pick a number...just in case you were wondering)IS:

CHARMALOT!

Woo hoo! Charmalot, shoot me an email at rachel@rachel-hawkins.com, and give me your deets, and some Barnes and Noble giftcard goodness will be on its way to you!


Since I've been away so long, I'm going to try and blog every day for the rest of the week (I know, that's, like, 3 more days. Big whoop. But I'm trying here!) I have some publishing stuff I was thinking about talking about, but I'm also going to open the floor to requests. Anything you RWR readers out there would like me to talk about specifically? I'm thinking publishing/writing/book stuff, but if someone wants my indepth analysis of Neil Diamond's I Am, I Said um... we can do that, too. ;)

Let me hear from you!

Quitters Never Win (Except When They Don't Die of Cancer)

I'm a quitter.

No, not on Rebel Belle or NaNoWriMo. Perish the thought! I'm a much better kind of quitter. An AWESOME quitter if I do say so myself, for I have...

QUIT SMOKING! Yes! Adieu, Cancer Sticks! I am officially 2 1/2 weeks cigarette free, and so far, it's actually been really easy. I think it's because A) no one I know smokes anymore, and B) It took me around 2 weeks to get through a pack, so it's not like I had a particularly bad habit. Now, like most smokers, I've quit before only to fall back into the habit. I quit for over a year back in 2005 (back when Small Son was Fetus Son, and then Tiny Baby Son). But this time is for good because I've said so on the internet, and as we all know, nothing is real unless it happens in Internetlandia. ;) You peeps will hold me to it, right?

In other momentous news, another country bought Demonglass (can't say who yet; waiting for PM announcement) and there are a few other countries checking it out, which is VERY exciting. Also, I have a film co-agent with CAA now, and there is *whispery voice* some movie talk burbling. Nothing concrete yet, but it still fills me with excitement/terror to think of people in Hollywood even knowing about my book.

And to top off this Feast of Awesome, Sunday is my birthday/anniversary! Yes, I got married on my birthday, but it wasn't on purpose (the date, that is. I obviously got married on purpose.) See, back when The Husband and I decided to wed, it was his first year teaching, so time off was not easy to come by. I wanted to get married in the fall, so we settled on the Saturday before Thanksgiving... which, that year was my 23rd b'day (on the 23rd, too! So I got married on my "special birthday!") The Husband has exactly one date to remember every year. He is quite lucky.

Oh, and in addition to being my birthday, it was also the Iron Bowl, and if you know anything about The South, SEC football, college rivalries, etc., you will understnad when I say that everyone in our wedding totally effin' HATED US for that. But they cheered up considerably when they got to the reception and began partaking in the free beer. Besides, Auburn won that year and has never lost since! The Husband and I joke that we have to get divorced whenever Auburn's winning streak is broken (which will almost undoubtedly be this year. Oh, well. The Husband and I had a good run!)

But wait, there's MORE! In celebration of me entering the last year of my 20s- which I am SO PUMPED about. The Husband was sad when he turned 30 last year, but I'm actually bummed I have a whole other year to go before 30. All of my friends who are in their 30s say it is much more excellent than the 20s- I am giving YOU, my loyal blog readers, a present!

Well, one of you, at least. To help facillitate buying a book and saving the world, I'll be choosing a random reader from the comments section to receive a $20 gift card to Barnes and Noble. Yes, seriously!

Just leave a comment to be entered. Any of you lurkers out there, now is your time to de-lurk. Say hi! Leave your own thoughts on Xanadu! Tell me how much you LOVED Camp Winna-WTF? and how heinous I am for hating it! If you're a writer, plug the ever livin' you-know-what out of your own book! Whatever you feel like!

I'll be at the beach through Thanksgiving, but when I return on Monday, December 1, I'll announce the winner!

Hope everyone has an awesome Turkey Day!

NaNoWriMo Has Broken Me

Ugh, y'all. Y'ALL. So remember how in my last blog, I said I'd gotten 20K words done on Rebel Belle? Guess how many I've written since then. Yeah, ZERO. My productivity, it is nil. Part of that I think is being smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo, which is thoroughly kicking my ass. However, I have an excuse! Several of them! So here they are, my list of The Four Things Currently Making Rachel Suck At Writing Like Whoa:

1) A Cold

This is the biggest one. I have a particularly yucky cold, like pretty much everyone else on Earth at this time of year. Have you ever tried writing a novel while on prescription strength decongestants? It is not good. It leads to you going back later and being like, "Um... did I write a scene that takes place on the moon? And why are there also unicorns on the moon? Also, why is one character only speaking in vowels?"

2) Unsolved Mysteries

I completely, totally, unabashedly, and unironically LOVE the show Unsolved Mysteries. When I was in college, they used to show it on Lifetime from 10-12 every week day, which meant that you could find me on the couch, bowl of Pasta Roni in hand, every day at those times. Didn't matter if I'd seen every episode (and I have. There is NO segment of Unsolved Mysteries you can whip out that I have not seen), I would sit there and happily let Robert Stack and that scary, scary theme song creep me all the hell out. And now Unsolved Mysteries in back! Okay, so it's on Spike, and since Robert Stack is offering stern narration to the angels now, it's hosted by Dennis Farina. It also has a much less creepy theme song. And, okay, for the most part, it's just re-edited old UM segments. BUT I DO NOT CARE! It's Unsolved Mysteries, and it is AWESOME. It comes on from 12-2 every day, and so, once again, I find myself on the couch at those times. And that means that if I haven't got my writing done by 12, it's probably not happening today. Damn you, Dennis Farina!

3) Gossip Girl

This is the best show ever on TV. Okay, okay, so I was saying that about Battlestar Galactica last month (I'm still right on that, too, though. BG rocks my face off.)But seriously, Gossip Girl is everything that is campy and good. Weirdly enough, I didn't really like the books when they first came out. All the drinking and drugs and casual sex made me get all pearl-clutch-y. Not that I don't know teens drink and do drugs and have sex- I did teach high school, after all!- but there was something so...weird about the way the GG kids did it in the books. It was like they were all 40 but in the bodies of 16 year olds. So I was late coming to the show. But thanks to the wonder of TV on DVD, I'm now getting caught up and it is OMFG SO GOOD! All the scandal is still there, but the actors are-shocker- really good, and so I buy their whole sexually jaded youth thing. Plus, the clothes are amazing. I mean, look at this outfit.



Who dresses like this? Chuck Bass, that's who, and I LOVE IT!

But, again, the temptation to watch Gossip Girl dvds is quite detrimental to writing. And now, the last thing keeping me from NaNoWriMo Glory...

4) Stephen Duncan

That's right, Stephen. You. See, Stephen is Another Awesome Alabama Writer, and he started this most excellent Facebook group, Buy a Book, Save the World. Basically, the publishing industry is taking a hit like, um, EVERY OTHER industry in America, and so BAB,STW is all about getting out there and buying books to help the industry we love so much. So I of course joined this Group of Awesome, and wanted to do my part to save the world.

And have I ever.

Over the past couple of days I have bought (turn away if you're reading this The Husband!) 10 books. TEN, PEOPLE. And they are all so great! I got a bunch of Kate Brian's Private series, and the new Stephen King of short stories (his short stories are even better than his novels as far as I'm concerned), and The Heretic's Daughter, which is GREAT, a series of graphic novels about VICTORIAN MURDER. Is that not the greatest thing ever? Or maybe it just is to me. I'm obsessed with Victorian-era crime. When I went to London a few years back, I was beside myself with joy to go on the Jack the Ripper tour. And trust me, if any of you visit London, you MUST do that!

All of these books are crying out for me to read them, and guess what that means? That's right, Rebel Belle gets sadly neglected.

As they say, tomorrow is another day, and I'm sure I'll be hard at work again soon. But until then, I'll quote Oscar Wilde and say I can resist anything but temptation!

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?

Philip Pullman, Why Are You So Awesome?

I'm up to my ears in Rebel Belle, so I can't be all insightful today (I know, I know, when am I ever insightful? I mean, unless we're talking about Xanadu.)

HOWEVER. I got this awesome NaNoWriMo email today written by Philip Pullman, and like everything else he writes, it is made of awesome, so I decided to share it with y'all. Apparently books change locks on Philip Pullman, too! Please to enjoy!

Dear NaNoWriMo author,

You've started a long journey. Congratulations on your resolution and ambition! And the first thing you need to remember is that a long journey can't be treated like a sprint. Take your time.

The second thing you need to remember is that if you want to finish this journey you've begun, you have to keep going. One of the hardest things to do with a novel is to stop writing it for a while, do something else, fulfill this engagement or that commitment or whatever, and pick it up exactly where you left it and carry on as if nothing had happened. You will have changed; the story will have drifted off course, like a sh ip when the engines stop and there's no anchor to keep it in place; when you get back on board, you have to warm the engines up, start the great bulk of the ship moving through the water again, work out your position, check the compass bearing, steer carefully to bring it back on track ... all that energy wasted on doing something that wouldn't have been necessary at all if you'd just kept going!

But once you've established a daily rhythm of work, you'll find it energising and sustaining in itself. Even when it's not going well. This is a strange thing, but I've noticed it many times: a bad day's work is a lot better than no day's work at all. At least if you've written 500 words, or 1000 words, or whatever you discover is your most comfortable daily rate of production, the words are there to work on later. And when you do visit them in a month's time, or whenever it i s, you often find that they're not so bad after all.

The question authors get asked more than any other is "Where do you get your ideas from?" And we all find a way of answering which we hope isn't arrogant or discouraging. What I usually say is "I don't know where they come from, but I know where they come to: they come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again." That's just another way of emphasising the importance of regular work.

You know which page of a novel is the most difficult to write? It's page 70. The first page is easy: it's exciting, it's new, a whole world lies in front of you. The last page is easy: you've got there at last, you know what's going to happen, all you have to do is find a resonant closing sentence. But page 70 is where the misery strikes. All the initial excitement has drained away; you've begun to see all the hideous problems you've set yourself; you are horribly aware of the minute size of your own talent compared to the colossal proportions of the task you've undertaken. That's when you'll want to give up. When I hit page 70 with my very first novel, I thought: I'm never going to finish this. I'll never make it. But then stubbornness set in, and I thought: well, if I reach page 100, that'll be something. If I get there, I reckon I can make it to the end, wherever that is. And 100 is only 30 pages away, and if I write 3 pages every day, I can get there in ten days ... why don't I just try to do that? So I did. It was a terrible novel, but I finished it.

The last thing I'd say to anyo ne who wants to write a novel is not actually a piece of advice, but a question. It's this: are you a reader? Every novelist I know—every novelist I've ever heard of—is, or was, a passionate reader. I don't doubt that someone with determination and energy, but who didn't read for pleasure, who only read for information, could actually write a whole novel if they set their mind to
it and followed a few rules and guidelines; but would it be worth reading? Would it give any pleasure beyond a mechanically c alculated sort? I doubt it. Novels that last and please readers are written because the novelist is intoxicated by the delight and the endlessly renewable joy that comes from engaging with imaginary characters—with story; and that engagement always begins with reading; and if it catches you, it never lets go. Write a novel if you want to win a competition, or impress your friends, or possibly make some money—do so by all means. But if you're not a lover of stories, a passionate and devoted reader, don't expect your novel to please many readers.

On the other hand, if you do love reading, if you cannot imagine going on a journey without a book in your pocket or your bag, if you fret and fidget and become uncomfortable if you're kept away from your reading for too long, if your worst nightmare is to be marooned on a desert island without a book—then take heart: there are plenty of us like you. And if you tell a story that really engages you, we are all potential readers.

Good luck!

Philip Pullman

Rebel Belle? Prepare For Your Pwn-ing.

Hi, all! Hope everyone had a great Halloween! Halloween was a little crazy here at Chez Hawkins since, for some unknown reason, Auburn decided to have Halloween on THURSDAY night instead of Friday. I was in jammies, glass of wine in hand, when the onslaught began, and I kid you not, I gave out over 100 pieces of candy in under thirty minutes. And I was only giving one piece per kid! Vultures, I tell you, vultures! So once we ran out of candy, we got Small Son out of bed and re-dressed for Trick or Treating. He ended up going costume-less, as costumes kind of freak him out. But nevertheless, Small Son loved him some Trick or Treating! Of course, now he thinks the neighbors will give him candy at any time, but that's to be expected. So here he is, enjoying his first Halloween haul:


"CandycandycandycandycandycandyCANDY!"

But even though I was not mentally or...um...candyily prepared for Thursday trick or treating, I ended up being very happy that Auburn decided to do it early because I went on vacay on Friday, and would have missed Small Son's first Trick or Treating! I know, I know, what kind of scum sucking Mama goes on vacation WITHOUT HER KID on Halloween? But this was a SPECIAL trip I was taking with MY Mama, and as my Mama and I are busy, busy ladies, this past weekend was the only one that worked. So leaving The Husband and Small Son here in Auburn (although The Husband DID have the advantage of having a huge bucket of candy for Small Son, thanks to the crazy Thursday night trick or treating, so don't feel too sorry for him), and The Mama and I headed down to my favorite place on earth, the Hilton resort in Sandestin, Florida.


Ahhhhhhh...


We had a wonderful time!


This picture really sums up the entire vacation.


I came back all refreshed and relaxed and happy and ready to totally PWN Rebel Belle. Because I want to take December off to focus on Christmukkah and family and various things like that, AND I plan on rocking Demonglass 2 starting in January, I really want RB finished by the end of November. So I'm kind of participating in NaNoWriMo, but it's also kind of cheating because you're not supposed to bring a half-finished book to NaNoWriMo as that impedes creativity or something. So it's more like NaNoWriMoOMGJUSTFINISHTHEDAMNTHING for moi. Anyone else partipating in REAL NaNoWriMo?

Of course, I should also be working on revisions for Demonglass this month, too, so I've probably lost my mind. But I work best under pressure anyway.

Oh! And for motivation, I bought myself a little Rebel Belle present. It's a Pandora charm bracelet, and my first charm was this right here:



It's a Queen Bee! That is SO my main character, Harper. So whenever I'm feeling discouraged, I look down at my little Rebel Belle charm and remind myself that Harper would really like her book finished already. And also that the charm was kind of expensive and a completed book would really help justify the purchase of a tiny silver and gold bee.

Reading, Writing Rachel on Reading and Writing...and Also Some Rachel

Okay, so let's get my shameless self-promotion out of the way first, shall we?

First off, since it's in Publisher's Lunch now, I guess it's safe to announce my foreign sales all officially here! So here's the listing from Pub Lunch:

"Foreign rights to Rachel Hawkins's DEMONGLASS, to Editions Albin Michel in France, by Michele Kanonidis at La Nouvelle Agence; to Record in Brazil; and Edicoes Gailivro in Portugal, by Elizabeth Atkins at ACER, on behalf of Holly Root and Farley Chase at the Waxman Literary Agency."

Woo-hoo! France, Brazil, and Portugal, my new favorite countries ev-ah! ;) And, I have to say, filling out a Portuguese tax form was quite the strange experience. I called The Husband and said, "Um... I never at any point in my life thought I'd have to fill out a Potuguese tax form. Life is weird."

There are some other foreign sales in the works right now, too, so hopefully I'll be able to post about those soon and add some more countries to my These Countries RULE Roster.

Also, I'm posting about my Top 10 Favorite YA Novels over at 2010: A Book Odyssey, so please hop over there for more of my signature EXCESSIVE CAPITALIZATION and raving about books that are insane and therefore awesome to me.

And, in Rebel Belle news, we're better. I gave her some extra attention/editing, and she's decided to forgive me. Now hopefull, I can get her finished by December, as that is my goal.

Okay, so last week, I got to go give a talk at Auburn University- convenient, since I live in Auburn now- to undecided Liberal Arts majors about why I became an English major, and what I have done with said degree. It was a lot of fun, and the kids had some great questions, like, "Can you have an actual career as a writer?" (answer: Yep, but it's not a given.) and "What are the best and worst things about being a writer?" (Answer: Best: Being your own boss, doing what you love, etc. Worst: No benefits, mutha-effin' self-employment taxes.) And then of course, "Do you have to major in English to be a writer?"

And that really got me thinking.

I mean, obviously, the answer is no. People with all sorts of degrees, from business to math to underwater basket-weaving, become writers. Successful writers, at that! Some susper successful writers don't have any degrees at all. So, no, you don't have to have a degree in English to be a writer.

But, to quite Stephen King in On Writing, it doesn't hurt.

And I think it's actaully more useful, if you are going to get an English degree, to focus on literature instead of creative writing. I took creative writing classes in college, and I had a wonderful teacher, Judy Troy (who was also Meg Cabot's writing teacher when she was at Indiana! How cool is that!), but I think my literature courses are where I really learned story structure and how to edit, and where I developed an ear for narrative flow. Now, some of my road to publication, as you'll recall, was solely luck, Right place, right time, all that. But I definitely think that the book itself was easier to write because of my background in English, as well as my experiences as a teacher. I graded enough crappy writing in my time (and some ridiculously good, I-think-I-might-cry-this-is-so-excellent writing as well) to be pretty ruthless with my red pen, and that translated to my own writing. My inner editor was pretty well honed.

Now let's talk about reading. One thing that always surprises me about some aspiring writers (usually the really young ones!) is that they say things like, "Well, I'm not majoring in English because I don't really like to read, but I totally wanna be the next Stephenie Meyer!"

Well, guess what? Stephenie Meyer has an English degree. And her books may be about teenage vampires and what have you, but they have pretty literary influences (Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The Freakin' Merchant of Venice...)Like I said in my talk, I may not be writing the Great American Novel, but I've read lots of Great American (and British) novels. And you can't be a writer if you're not a reader. Period.

There's a lot more I could say about this, but I have a fever and my Top Ten List sucked all the bloggy goodness from me. So I'll turn it over yo you. What do you think? Do any of you readers who a are writers have English degrees? Do you think it helped?

Monday, Monday: Or, The Day Rebel Belle Changed the Locks and Whitney Houston Ear-Raped Me

Lord, y'all, I swear. Or, as my hilarious Aunt Rona would say, I suewannee! (Because old Southern ladies don't swear, doncha know?)

So I was going to write abouut other books that I've been lusting for today, but today's events take precedence. First, the book stuff:

Okay, so remember when I said that Rebel Belle was all flowers and sausages? It was going so well that I decided to take a few days off last week. Okay, so I took the whole week off. I know.

So today, I went back to the coffee shop, bursting with excitement to get back in there with my 2K words/day. I'd ended at a chapter break, and I knew just what was going to happen next, and I couldn't wait to see what Harper (my main character) and Co were up to now. Got my coffee, fired up my laptop, disconnected from the internet, and...

Nothing.

This always happens when I take a few days (or weeks, or months...) off from writing. When I write every day, the words just flow. I walk right up into my book, usually yelling a friendly, "Honey, I'm home!"

I get all comfy on my book-couch and put my feet up on the book-coffee table, and bam! Two thousand words done before I know it. And then, because my book loves me, it makes me a book-sandwich. But that sweet, friendly, loving book? It will turn on you like whoa if you abandon it for a few days. So today, I stood outside my book, frantically jiggling the handle. "Um...honey? Could you, uh, let me in? I seem to have forgoteen my keys."

But my book had changed the locks. Eventually, I manged to pry open a window and slip back into my book, but it just wasn't the same as the days when I walked right in the front door. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, and I'm pretty sure I flashed the neighbors as I fell through the window. Today, there was no book-sandwich, and there certainly weren't thousands of words flowing forth. In fact, I felt so weird and unwelcome that I did something I rarely do: I tried to write a scene from the middle of the book rather than pick up where I left off. Now, I realize that lots of people write books this way, but I am not one of them. I'm waaaaaay to disorganized to try to build a book out of pieces; I have to take the straight path.

But tomorrow will be better. Rebel Belle can't stay mad at me forever, and I figure if I give her attention this evening- my books rarely if ever get any love after 10 AM- she will see that I'm sorry and let me back in. Or else we will end up on COPS, so, either way, win-win!

Now onto the ear rape.

After a disappointing morning of writing, I decided to get my grocery shopping done. Back when I worked a regular, 9-5 (well, 7-4) job, I used to envy people who got to do their shopping early on weekdays. But now that I am one of those people, I'm here to tell you that things are a little...off early in grocery stores before noon.

First of all, our local Kroger apparently just received a HUGE shipment of those stupid cinnammon brooms. I have no idea who buys these things. I think my mom had one once, but that was in, like, 1985. If any of you readers are cinnammon broom afficianados, please tell me why, for they are HEINOUS. Seriously, my eyes started watering as soon as I walked in the door, that's how overpowering they were.


My nemisis...



Then, as if that weren't bad enough, one of the Kroger employees was clearly having self-esteem issues, because about ten minutes after I got there, the sound system started blaring- and I mean, really blaring. As in way above the normal volume for Muzak in grocery stores blaring- Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All."

Yeah. VOMIT. And it was SO loud! So loud that this little old lady next to me in frozen foods and I just looked at each other with identical expressions of "WTF?" (Okay, I was thinking WTF? The little old lady was probably thinking whatever the little old lady version of that is, like, "Gracious! What is this odd occurence?")


"I need an adult!"

I ended up skipping half the stuff on my list just because I had to get out of there NOW. Big stupid Kroger.

So now I'm home again, back in my comfy clothes, and wondering whether it would make Rebel Belle happy if I were to eat a slice of pie. I think it might.

To all of my readers who are also writers, have you ever had this problem? Not the ear rape- although if you have been ear-raped and need to talk about it, please feel free- but that weird feeling of not being able to get back "in" to your work?

Free People Read Freely. And Awesomely.

Hooray! It's Banned Books Week! Oh, how I love Banned Books Week. I'm wearing my "I Read Banned Books" shirt, and I have a stack of Frequently Challenged books on my desk for consumption this week.

I love Banned Books Weeks SO much that back when I worked at the Black Hole of Suck, I actually got into a "fight" (that was conducted solely by email, so, you know, as far as epic battles go, it was kinda lame) with the Evil Nazi Librarian who worked there. I asked her to come talk to my kids about BBW, and she flat out refused, saying that she "didn't want to bring attention to that kind of literature." You know, like Of Mice and Men or To Kill a Mockingbird, both frequently challenged books, and both on the state curriculum for English. Yeah. I ended up getting my friend, Not At All Evil or Nazi-ish, But Awesome Librarian Who Worked At Another School, to come talk to the kids instead.

(However, Evil Nazi Librarian DID frequently bring the LOLs. An example: She wouldn't let kids bring backpacks into the library, due to her general Evil And Nazi ways. Well, one time, one of my kids forgot this rule and brought his backpack into the library when we went in there to work on research papers. THE HORROR.

So she chewed him out like he'd brought a gun in there, and I sent him back to the room to drop off his bag. ENL scurried up to me and said, "The principal doesn't want backpacks in here." And I humored her and said, "Right, because the kids might take stuff." I mean, that seemed to be the most logical reason for the no backpack rule, right? WRONG. She shook her head gravely and said, "There was a student in Florida who tripped over a backpack in the library and broke his neck against a table. And died."

So yeah. No backpacks in the library because the kids MIGHT DIE. I swear, you can't make that stuff up. It's right up there with Duck Language Girl in terms of WTF-ness.)

Anyway, if you've never checked out the ALA's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books and prepare to have your mouth drop open as you see such titles as Harry Potter, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Golden Compass, The Color Purple, Huckleberry Finn, and the above mentioned Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Notice most of these books are challenged due to sexual content and/or bad language. As I used to tell my kids when we discussed Banned Books Week, if you read Of Mice and Men, and all you take away from it are the curse words, then I feel really sorry for you. Likewise, if you read The Color Purple, and all you get out if it is the sexual aspect, then I say, "Um... what the hell?"

I guess the main thing that bugs is that it's one thing if you don't want your child to read a book. I mean, I'm a parent, so I get that. You get to make that call for your kid if you want to. But don't try to take a book away from my child just because you don't like it. And don't reduce a masterpiece of American literature like Of Mice and Men to a book about a bunch of guys who say "goddamn" and "son of a bitch." I mean, come on.

The other thing I hate about trying to take books out of libraries is that it really belittles kids, who are so much smarter and more discerning than many adults want to give them credit for. Book banners seem convinced that some of this literature is dangerous to kids, like if they read about sex, they'll just wanna run right out and get them some of that.

To which I say: Whatevs.

When I was around 12 or 13, I ran out of YA books to read. Back in the early 90s, there wasn't much in the way of YA anyway, so once I'd exhausted the Sweet Valley Highs, and Babysitters' Clubs, and Lois Duncans ( to whom people should really give more love. Lois Duncan was da bomb, what with the families trapped in time, and the astral projections, and the schools for psychics... good stuff!), I turned to the adult section of Walden Books, and I turned to romances in particular. Over the summer between my 7th and 8th grade years, I read everything Jude Deveraux had ever written, and some of her earlier stuff was very Old Skool Romance. For those of you who've never read Old Skool Romance, the plots go something like this:

HERO (who is totally hawt knight/duke/king): Hello, young virginal lass. You are quite beautiful and have boobs which I shall now fondle even though we just met and that is completely inappropriate behavior.

HEROINE (who IS young and virginal and beautiful, and so naive, she borders on mentally challenged): Wow. You are totally hawt and all this boob touchage has awakened naughty feelings within me.

HERO: Let's get married so that I might see you naked.

HEROINE: 'Kay.

Day before the wedding, HERO spies HEROINE hugging some dude who eventually turns out to be her brother/cousin/old family friend who is a eunuch.

HERO: OMGWTFSLUT!!! I am betrayed!

Wedding Night

HERO: I now know that you are NOT innocent and virginal, but a damnable wenchy ho-bag! And now I shall have rough sex with you that borders on rape!

HEROINE: Oh noes!

HERO: *rapes*

HEROINE: *kinda likes it*

200 more pages of angst and angry sex.

HERO: Oh, my love, I am sorry that I thought you were a damnable wenchy ho-bag after I saw you hugging your brother/cousin/family friend who is a eunuch. I totes love you now, and I see the error of my ways. Let us never be apart!

HEROINE: Oh, it's okay. I mean, sure I ended up imprisoned in a nunnery, and my house burned down, and I nearly dies of pneumonia, and I was sold into prostitution, and one of your men killed my brother/cousin/family friend who is...was... a eunuch, and all of this happened because you couldn't be bothered to just be like, "So, hey, who was that guy you were hugging?" You are hawt and give me multiple orgasms and I love you too!"

THE END


Books like that? All I read from the ages of 13 to about 18. And did I ever once think to myself, "You know, I HAVE to get me one of these biplor semi-rapist guys! CLEARLY, this is what adult relationships are like!"

Have I ever now, as an adult, asked The Husband, "How come you never rip my bodice? I have all these bodices, just sitting here on my body, totally unripped."

No. Because I am not a total dumbass.

And did these books cause me to turn into some sort of crazed nympho who couldn't even be bothered to go to school as she was always on the hunt of hawt men?

Um...no. I continued being a nerdy, bookish kid whose love of romance novels gave her a huge vocabulary, which led to her winning totally nerdy things like English Tournament trophies (SHUT UP!) and getting a high ACT score, which led to getting into a good college and getting an English degree, which led to becoming a perfectly respectable English teacher, and then to becoming a (so far!) succecssful writer.

So yeah. Naughty books? Not really all that bad for you!

So when these people who try to ban books assume that all kids are complete morons who are going to run out and do something just because they read it in a book, it really pisses me off. It underestimates teenagers, and if there's one thing teaching taught me, it's that you should never do that. Let kids read what they want, or they'll end up turning away from reading for good. And as an author who REALLY wants kids to buy her book, we can't let that happen! ;)

Now, all that said, I am SO hoping that Demonglass gets challenged at some point, because that would make me edgy, and there's nothing this WASP-y, private school-educated, Xanadu listening-to girl would love more than to be edgy.

Of course, there isn't much naughty language in Demonglass. Or drugs. Or sex. BUT STILL. It does have the word "demon" in the title. That has to be worth something, right?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Cafe Press to have a shirt made up that says, "I Write Banned Books."

Never hurts to be prepared!

I Heart Teenagers

First off, New Book Update: So that new idea I told y'all about last time? The one for my "the stand-alone I shall write between Demonglass books" project? I started it today, and I cranked out 2,000 words in about 2 hours. W00t! Now I only have 2,000 more to go before I know whether or not the idea will actually work. For some reason, 4,000 words is what I have to write before I can tell whether or not I have a book. Sadly, 4,000 words is about 20 pages, and that is A LOT to throw out if it's not working. But I still have a good feeling about this one. The writing came really easy today, and usually the first chapter is the one that I struggle with the most. Also, all of this good writing was totally facillitated by me finding an awesome new place to write! When we lived in Huntsville, I used to go to the Starbucks in Athens to write, as I am almost physically incapable of writing at home. I don't know if home is too distracting, what with the Food Network, and the books, and the available couch for napping, or if there's just something creatively stunting about my house (which is a kind of sad thought.)

Now that we're in Auburn, I've been really struggling with my writing since I couldn't find a "spot." There are some cool deli/bakery/coffee shops downtown, but those turned out to be bad writing spots because A) it's VERY hard to find parking downtown, and what parking there is is limited to 2 hours, and B)while I LOVE living in a college town filled with young, vibrant, educated college students, I um... live in a college town with young, vibrant, educated college students who like to go to deli/bakery/coffee shops downtown and talk VERY LOUDLY about all aspects of their lives. And I mean all. (Sidenote- Young Blonde Girl with Ponytail at Big Blue Bagel, should you happen to be reading this: BREAK UP WITH THAT GUY. Trust me, I've seen the way that one ends, and you want out NOW. Also, buy a copy of The Gift of Fear. Sheesh.)

So today, I went scouting for other, slightly further afield locations, and came across the A.K. Coffee Company. Easy parking? Check. Comfy chairs and tables? Check. Quiet? Check. Awesome coffee and snacks? Check and check! And as an added bonus, they have free Wi-Fi! Granted, that's a double-edged sword, what with the temptations of email and D-Listed, but I still like having it in case I need to look up something.

So now that I have a spot, I'm hoping the writing will flow. I'll keep you posted!

Last week, I went back to my old high school (well, my old EVERYTHING school. It's a private school, so I was there from kindergarten through 12th grade.)I was there because the school newsletter is doing a little write-up on me, and the advisor wanted me to look over it and make sure all of the facts were right. Now, I have to say, I am SUPER pumped about this, and I am not being facetious. My school was/is kind of fancy-schmancy, so usually the Alumni News section of the newsletter is full of things like, "Jennifer Mowbry just graduated first in her class from UAB medical school, after also obtaining a degree in Molecular Biology. She will be working with Doctors Without Borders in Botswana, where she will cure orphans of cancer. When she returns to the US, she plans on building her own hospital out of all recyclable materials, as well as recording a CD of Gregorian Chants geared towards waking people from comas."

So yeah, I thought my chances of getting in the Alumni News section were pretty slim. But now there I am! All gettin' published!

While I was there, I got to meet the newsletter advisor's class of beyond precious 7th grade Language Exploration students. Now, for one thing, this was the coolest class I'd ever heard of. It's all about art and culture, and they were learning about the Biltmore Estate, for heaven's sake. What REALLY blew my mind is that, since we had to go to the yearbook room to look at the newsletter, the teacher selected one kid to read from the textbook to the class and write down any facts she deemed important on the board. And when she was done with her paragraph, another kid would get up and read, and so on until the teacher came back.

AND THEY DID.

See, I told you they were precious. I was afraid to leave my classes alone for the five minutes it would take to go to the bathroom when I was a teacher.

Anyway, before the teacher and I left for the yearbook room, I got to talk to them a little bit about Demonglass, which was so very fun. They were genuinely enthusiastic, and they asked lots of questions. And talking with them made me realize how much I really do miss teaching.

Whenever I talk to people about the Black Hole of Suck that was my job, they always assume I mean the kids. But, truthfully, the kids were the absolute best part of the BHOS. Sadly, it was the adults- and only a small handful of them. Most of the people that work there are lovely people AND great teachers- that made that place so poisonous. Teaching is such a challenging profession, and one that requires teamwork and support, rather than competition and backstabbing. (Sidenote #2: Someone asked me the other day why I haven't gone into more detail about the things that made the BHOS a BHOS, and the simple answer is that all of that stuff happened a year ago, so there's no sense in dwelling on it now. Plus, that small handful of people who suck so badly are stuck there at the BHOS, and I go to work in my pajamas now. So, you know, me for the win on that one!)

I taught roughly 180 kids a year, and of that 180, I probably only had one or two a year that were genuine asshats, and even they weren't so bad. I've always believed that the majority of discipline problems in classrooms are teacher-created, as weird as that might seem. But if you can treat kids like people and make them see that you're all in this together, you have a much better chance at maintaining your sanity as a teacher.

Every great memory I have of the BHOS involves kids. There was Mekale, who I taught my first year, who freakin' HATED Hamlet. We struggled every day through that damn play, and every day, Mekale whined and complained and said he didn't understand anything anyone was saying. And every day, I told him to just try, that interpreting was what I was there for. By the time we finished Hamlet, I thought depsite my best efforts, Mekale had not taken a single thing away from the play, and would probably hate Shakespeare forever.

Then, about a month or so later, I was talking to the class a few mintues before the bell rang, and I told them that I was babysitting for a friend of mine because she had a date that night. One of the kids joked that I should take my friend's son to where she'd be on her date, jusst to freak him out.

And then Mekale piped up, "Yeah, that kid would be all, 'Hey, is that my mom? Is she with some guy? What the hell, is that my UNCLE?"

I totally ignored that he'd just said hell in class (truth be told, I ignored every bad word a kid ever said, so long as it wasn't directed at me. Pick your battles.)

"Mekale," I said. "Did you just... make a Hamlet joke?"

And he just smiled at me. I literally jumped off of my stool and ran over and gave him a hug.

Moments like that, as big a cliche as it is, totally made teaching for me.

But it wasn't just the Lifetime movie-esque moments that made me love my job. It was the super surreal ones, like the day before Christmas break, when I had a girl tell me she had a present for me. Now, this girl had always been a little off (she was also crazy-brilliant, so I wrote off her at times bizarre behavior as what happens when you're too smart for your own good), so I knew whatever present she had for me was going to be...interesting to say the least. However, I was not prepared for her to slap on some fabric antlers and announce, "I'm going to sing you a Christmas Carol. In the Duck Language."

And then, by God, she did. She stood in front of me, wearing antlers, and quacked "Greensleeves" at me.

It was, without a doubt, the strangest and most awesome thing I have ever seen. I mean, nothing- NOTHING- can ever touch the whacked-outness of that moment.

When she was done, she smiled at me, and I thanked her, and thought, "Thank God I have this job. No one else will ever have a story like that one."

So, yeah, I'm always going to miss teaching. I actually liked getting up in front of kids and talking about Macbeth. I liked that look on their faces when they got it. I loved reading essays that might have been grammatically or structurally imperfect, but that you could tell had come from the heart, and required real thought.

That's one of the reasons I'm so happy to be a YA author. I'm so excited to be able to work with kids again, especially in a capacity where I don't have to grade anything, or ever take a phone call from an angry parent who insists that yes, his kid did turn in her essay, I just lost it.

Teenagers are the best audience you can have. They love things passionately, and their bullshit detector is highly tuned. Definitely keeps you honest as a writer!

Oh, and about those 7th graders? Right before I left, one little girl, who I noticed had a tattered copy of Twilight by her desk, asked me if my book was anything like Stephenie Meyer's. Now, my book doesn't have vampires (okay, it has ONE, but she's not a hot guy. Or sparkly.) And there is a love story, but it's not the central focus of the book. And it's set off the coast of Georgia, and not in the Pacific Northwest.

So, with the importance of honesty in my mind, I looked into her earnest little face and said, "Yes. Yes, it is exactly like Stephenie Meyer."

Hey, as we say down here, my Mama didn't raise no fools! ;)

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'. ;) )

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

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,

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!