The Story of A Story

Last December, I left my laptop at home and traveled 2,500 to be with family. I'd shelved my beloved empath story in the fall and recently completed a dreadful draft of SIGNAL HILL. Disillusioned is a mild word for it. I think broken-hearted is a better description. I'd reached a point with writing where I'd lost any love for it. I knew I needed a break.

Of course that week is when inspiration decided to strike. I'd sent a couple scenes cut from SIGNAL HILL to two CPs one night and I couldn't forget them. The characters wormed their way into my head and my heart and I needed to tell their story.

It came in snippets at first. Bits on dialogue I typed out on my phone while hiding in the bathroom at my in-laws, scenes I sketched in my head while camped out beside the fire.

By the time we arrived home on January 1, I was ready to write.

And write I did. I finished the first draft of THE EXTRAORDINARY ART OF FALLING, my first ever contemporary romance, in a single month. I wrote as much as possible while my kids napped and hacked out scenes on my phone while I nursed the baby (thank you Evernote). I don't think I read a single book or watched a movie or TV show during that time. But the words flowed and it was beautiful.

In mid February, I sent my draft to my first CP, Leigh Ann, and she loved it. I sent it to my second CP, Cait, in early March and she loved it.

I polished a little, then submitted to Brenda Drake's Pitch Madness. I didn't make it through, but had so much support from Brenda that I went ahead and tried the twitter pitch party, tossing out my simplified, 140-character pitch. I got a few hits and with the feedback I received, I polished again.

Come May, I entered the Writer's Voice contest and, by luck of the draw, made it to the coaching round. Krista Van Dolzer of Mother. Write. (Repeat). picked me for her team and I dove into polishing my query and first page with her guidance. I received two requests and sent them off into the wild blue yonder.

Then on May 28, I decided to try the twitter pitch party again, posting this pitch:

YA - Bria knows exactly who she is – the militant vegan, purple-haired Queen of the Art Room - until she kisses the HS quarterback.

To my great delight and surprise, it caught the interest of Meredith Rich, the editor for Bloombury Spark, a new digital first imprint launching this winter. I love my eBooks, so I'm really excited about what Bloomsbury Spark is doing. I sent off my materials with high hopes and low expectations.

Then on July 15, I got an email. I'd just finished a grocery run to Costco with both kids and loaded everything into the car. It had been a rough week for my writing and after wrangling two kids in a warehouse store alone, I was ready to curl up in a corner and cry. I decided to check my email on my phone before pulling out into traffic. I expected another kind rejection, so I didn't even bother to read Meredith's subject line. I think I was about halfway through the sentence when I realized this is what it said:

I am thrilled to be able to tell you that we would like to publish The Extraordinary Art of Falling with Bloomsbury Spark!

Pub. Lish. Publish. PUBLISH.

I was stuck in a parking lot with two crazy kids and two weeks of groceries and I had to drive. My hands shook and I cried and I did my best to not freak out the kids. I don't think they get happy tears yet. I called my husband and rambled at him. I texted my writing bestie with the news and after sufficiently freaking out, she called to calm me down. Somehow my 3yo ended up completely naked and the baby was chewing on something totally inappropriate, but I HAD AN OFFER!

And after following up with all the agents who had partials or fulls, I accepted.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ART OF FALLING will be published this winter as part of the official launch of Bloomsbury Spark! 

I'm going to be a published author! My little manuscript is going to be a real, live eBook that people can  buy and read and take to the beach or read by the fire or stay up too late to finish. My beloved characters, Ben and Bria, are going to come to life in other people's heads.

I am so thrilled to be a part of Spark! I love what they are doing and Meredith is fantastic. I know my book is in great hands and I CAN NOT WAIT to share it with all of you.

There are so many people who've helped me get here that it would take a whole other post to fit them in, so thank you. Yes, you. Everyone who cheered me through drafting, who like a line I quoted, who read my manuscript, synopsis, query or pitch. For everyone who believed in me and my writing. Thank you. Thank you.

Writing Novels: Storytelling vs Craft

I read a book the other day. The whole 370 some pages. On a day I had the kids by myself, had four hours of sleep and barely had time to shower. It's the second in a series, in a genre I don't particularly care for. There are things about the writing that drive me CRAZY. Like throw my Kindle across the room crazy. The writer must have repeated the same two (stupid) observations about the mental states of the two main characters half a dozen times each. I GET their inner conflicts. You don't need to keep TELLING me, especially using the EXACT same phrasing.

So. Given my very limited free time and the fact that I kind of hate this book, why did I plow through it, devouring words like I just ended a hunger strike?

The characters. Gah, the characters. I BELIEVE in them. I believe in their romance. I desperately need them to end up together and resolve all the tension. I spent days after finishing in the kind of grief haze you experience when you realize a story is finished and you can't go back to the world it pulled you into.

Novels are a strange thing. There are two (at least) very unique elements that go into writing a novel: storytelling and craft. Someone like Stefanie Meyer is a master storyteller. Whatever your feelings about the Twilight series, chances are you have feelings. The relationships she created get under your skin. I read through at an embarrassing clip, with my inner 15-year-old dying of happiness. The rational part of myself sat back in horror, questioning why I could delight in something so obviously flawed.

The reverse of that is someone who is a master at craft, but the story fails to grab me. I KNOW Moby Dick is a classic for a reason, but I loathed reading it. I relish Tolkien's writing, but I finding reading his books a slog. Mind you, it's all subjective. My mom and brother reread The Lord of the Rings trilogy a couple times a year. They'd probably hate Twilight. But the fact remains, novels can be successful even if they only have one of these two elements.

When it comes to writing, I think craft comes easier to me. It can be learned. It can be improved. But storytelling, at least on some level, is innate. While you can memorize story arcs and fit your story into a perfect beat sheet, but without that thing, that intangible quality that makes a story REAL, it's just words.

And then there are those perfect books that somehow hit both aspects and everything is wonderful and there are angelic choirs and you race to Twitter to fangirl all over the poor unsuspecting writers. Those books? Those books are magic.

So I will continue to perfect my craft and search my heart for stories in hope that one day I will write that magic book that makes my readers rush to finish then ache because it's over. Because that's what I dream of as a writer.

What about you, dear readers? Do can you forgive craft for a killer story? Or tolerate a lackluster story for flawless craft?

Falling in Love with YA All Over Again

I haven't blogged in forever. Ooops. I've been traveling, writing and READING! Oh, reading. I think I forgot how much I love reading. It's not like I ever stopped, but I'd slowed. With kids and work and writing, my habit dropped from a book a day to probably two a month. Enter my library's e-book catalog and I am DEVOURING books again.

I feel like I'm playing catch up for the greatest YA hits of the last five years, but oh, is it fun. The wonder, the self-doubt, the heady romance. I've lived a dozen lifetimes between digital pages, falling in love over and over.

And you know what? It's completely reaffirmed everything I love about YA literature. Rationally, I'd never want to be a teen again (would I?), but how I wish I could go to boarding school in Paris or fall in love with my best friend all over again. To be young and having nothing but promise.

With the rise of New Adult, I know a lot of writers that are successfully transitioning to books about college and finding oneself as a grown up (yay for my NA writer friends!). Maybe it's because college was NOT the best years of my life or that I'm not into reading about other people having sex or that actual grown up problems don't captivate me, but NA just doesn't resonate with me the way the angst and drama and intensity of YA does.

As part of my travels this summer, I visited my hometown and that always brings my adolescence (let's pretend I spelled that right the first time) into sharp focus. I never moved back after starting college (because I was silly enough to take summer classes), so all my memories of that place are seen through the hazy lens of teenage idealism. There is a lot of pain there, a lot of disappointment. Broken friendships and failed romance. But how beautiful it looks, how simple, through these grown up eyes.

When I curl up with a book, I want to escape. I want to make the problems of my grown-up, responsibility-saddled life disappear. I want the problems I read about to be real and strong and conquerable (hey! That's a real word!).

YA has a way of making the ordinary MATTER in a way I love. I remember the point in my senior year of high school when I decided I was done pretending I enjoyed reading adult books and went back to the YA section of my library with glee. Sitting in front of that small shelf, surrounded by kids 4-6 years younger than me, I knew I was home.

So give me instalove and characters that skip homework to save the world and best friends and arguments about curfew. Give me bad choices and inconsequential choices that seem like the end of the world. Give me gym class hatred and sneaking into bedrooms for sexless sleepovers. Because those are the fantasies that make this woman's inner 15-year-old swoon.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am a first kiss to write and the cute, sweet, funny boy with glasses needs to break through my main character's walls before they can get there. Yay YA!