Angelic Muse

RTW: Double Take

2012-02-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

The Query Post, Part 1: The Resources

2012-02-06T03:00:00.000-08:00

As much as writers gripe about it, if you want to see your writing published you'll need to craft a query at some point. A query has a big job to do, so it's no wonder it can be intimidating: a query serves as your introduction to an agent or editor, gets them excited about your premise and how you've enacted it, and hopefully gets a yes--whether that's a "yes, send me your full manuscript!" or "yes, go ahead and write that article!"

I've been querying for a long while, both on the nonfiction article front and for my young adult novels, and I now get "yes" more often than "no". I wanted to share some of the things I've learned in my own process of refining queries, so I'm doing a two-part post on queries. This first part will be a roundup of the resources available online, and the second part (scheduled for two weeks out on February 20) will offer some examples from my past queries and pitches.

The best place to start with query craft advice is straight from the horse's mouth on agents' and editors' blogs and websites. Going to any of the blogs I have listed in my sidebar and searching for the term "query" will get you a ton of good posts, plus here are some that I've found particularly helpful:

*A great starting point is Agent Query's page on How to Write a Query

*Lisa Gardner has a lecture series on Conquering the Dreaded Synopsis
that includes a query section (and you will eventually need a synopsis as well, so take a look at those lectures while you're there).

*Sydney Laine Allan has posted a workshop she did on Writing a Dynamite Query Letter

*The Nelson Literary Agency website, and Kristin Nelson's blog, are a mine of information on queries and pitches, and in the agency FAQs they have links to a workshop that Kristin Nelson did on pitches. Be sure to check out the next question in the FAQs also, since it has real-life examples of successful queries from their clients.

*Backspace has a brief query letter workshop with Jeff Kleinman of Folio Literary Management

*Last year's WriteOnCon had a wealth of interesting workshops that are now archived and available to view at your leisure.

*Pitch University is where I truly honed my teeth on pitches and queries, and their Pitching 101 lessons are a must read (scroll down and they're in the righthand sidebar)

*Roni Loren has earmarked all her posts on queries from her Fiction Groupie blog

*YA author Elana Johnson has a free ebook called From the Query to the Call that is essential reading

*Noah Lukeman also has a free ebook on Amazon, How to Write a Great Query Letter: Insider Tips and Techniques for Success

So go read those--I'll wait!

Once you have polished your query or pitch to shiny perfection, you'll need someone to give you helpful feedback. In this case, it's preferable to find at least one reader who has not read the actual book. This way they can tell you where they got lost, where they may have misinterpreted plot elements, whether they could keep the characters straight.

Absolute Write's Query Letter Hell (you'll need to register to be able to see the Share Your Work forum, where Query Letter Hell lives), Nathan Bransford's forums, Verla Kay's Boards, and Ladies Who Critique can help you get some fresh eyes on the page, but only post if you're ready to hear honest feedback--because you're likely to get it! Conferences big and small almost always have query critique opportunities, public or private. Plus, some paid editorial services offer free query critiques as a way to see if their style is a good match for yours.**

If you still want more, there are places to get your query publicly shredded (or better yet, learn from other people's mistakes before yours gets a chance to see the light of day):
Evil Editor
Query Shark
BookEnds Literary in their Workshop Wednesday feature
Gabriela Lessa's blog via her new Query Wednesdays feature
Miss Snark's blog You cannot submit to this blog for critique since it's no longer active, but I highly recommend working through the archives. Same goes for The Rejecter.

With so many resources out there, there's really no excuse for a lame query. Remember, your goal is to get the agent or editor to read your pages, and whether for good or ill your query is a reflection of your writing proficiency. If the query is amateurish, they will assume your pages are in the same state. See you in two weeks for examples from my own query files! And if anyone else knows of some great resources, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

**Teen Eyes Editorial is the only paid editorial service I personally have experience with, and I found them to be affordable, prompt, thorough, and well worth the money for a full manuscript critique. In fact, nearly my entire critique group has run part or all of their manuscript through Kate Coursey's gauntlet and come out impressed!

Writer image courtesy of Clip Art Pal
Cat gif from AvatarFarm

Soundtrack for Crow's Rest

2012-02-04T17:38:00.000-08:00

While listening to The Thistle and Shamrock, I found the perfect song to serve as a soundtrack for my WIP, Crow's Rest, but it won't let me embed the video!

Firethief by Karine Polwart is a lovely song, and the haunting lyrics could have been written for my book.
Here's a link:

http://youtu.be/PMAuoYQC9TA

or

http://video.stv.tv/bc/tv-thefivethirtyshow-20080122-karine-polwart-firethief---live/

Enjoy! Have you ever heard a song that made you say, "That's my book!"

RTW: Betcha Can't Have Just One Book, and Not Want More and More

2012-02-01T07:21:00.000-08:00

Birds & Blooms Backyard Blunder Contest

2012-01-30T03:00:00.000-08:00

Birds & Blooms was the first magazine to pay me for my work ten years ago, and now they have a contest that sounds like fun:

"Do you have a funny birding or gardening story to share from your backyard? We want to hear it! Send us your best "backyard blunder," and the winning story will receive $500.

To enter, email your true story (no more than 400 words) to contests(at)birdsandblooms.com. Please put "backyard blunder contest" in the subject line."

Complete rules are here, and $500 will buy a lot of flowers or bird seed! Good luck if you enter!

Feed Your Inner Analyst

2012-01-23T03:00:00.000-08:00

I once had a conversation with a friend where we were discussing a movie that we'd both liked (the Matrix), but she liked it much better than I did. I really loved elements of the scenery and the premise, but there were glaring plot holes and inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story.

My friend got really annoyed and ranted, "Can't you watch the movie without analyzing it to death, and just have fun?"

There was this awkward silence, and then I laughed and said, "But analyzing it to death is fun for me!"

As a writer and photographer, it's always been really hard to turn off the editor in my brain while I'm reading a book or watching a movie. I fought that tendency for a while, until I realized that it's a really good skill to have. Even while I'm caught up in the story, there's a little Hermes inside me filing away all the things that worked (and didn't work) for future reference:

And now I've found a writing book that really taps into that habit: Screenwriting Tricks For Authors (and Screenwriters!)by Alexandra Sokoloff

It's full of great tips on crafting characters, plot, etc, and includes fun exercises. You know, my kind of fun, like making a list of your favorite ten antagonists in books or films (she uses films as examples just as often as she uses books), and then thinking about what made you connect to those characters. Not only does it help you find instances where antagonists are done well, it gives you insights into why you might be writing the antagonists that you've put into your stories.

She says, "You need to create your list, and break those stories down to see why they have such an impact on you - because that's the kind of impact that you want to have on your readers. . .there will also always be a few stories on your list that have nothing to do with your dominant genre, some complete surprises, and those wild cards are sometimes the most useful for you to analyze structurally. Always trust something that pops into your head as belonging on your list. The list tells you who you are as a writer. What you are really listing are your secret thematic preferences. You can learn volumes from these lists if you are willing to go deep."

So if you're willing to go deep, check out her book, and its companion, Writing Love. They're on Amazon and Barnes and Noble in ebook form for only $2.99.

This Could Be the Future: No Blog Post Today

2012-01-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

Websites and blogs all over the internet are going dark today to protest two bills that would greatly restrict content and freedom on the internet. Since I usually participate in YA Highway's blogfest, Road Trip Wednesday, I thought it was only fair to link to their info on the subject.

Felt compelled to add this from the Oatmeal:

Check Out My Haul!

2012-01-16T03:00:00.000-08:00

We had an RTW a few weeks back that asked, "Where do you buy your books?" and I mentioned that we hit the local library book sales a few times a year. And this is why it's worth it for us to go all the way to Sacramento:

64 YA books for $24!!! And yes, those are first editions of The Poison Eaters by Holly Black and Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings by Le Guin, thank you for asking:

And some contemporaries and a few anthologies/collections:

Of course, most of these have library markings (although once the mylar comes off, so do the markings), but that doesn't interfere with reading them one bit. So if you have read any of these, any nominations of which ones should go to the top of the list? If you click on the photos, it opens them bigger and makes it easier to see what's in those towering stacks.

RTW: Whoooo Are You?

2012-01-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination through the YA Highway site and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: If you couldn't use your own name, what would your pseudonym or penname be?

Well, ahem, Angelica R. Jackson is already a pseudonym, for both my photography and writing. It's fairly close to my real name (close enough to cause confusion, actually, I wish I'd thought that through better), but my real one is common enough that there were published writers out there with the same name.

Back when I started writing as a teen, I created the nom de plum of Nikki Atoll. I have no idea what my reasoning was now, other than I wanted to be closer to the beginning of the alphabet and my maiden name started with a W at the time.

But this post is turning out to be rather dull, so I'm going to add a game I filled out on Facebook a while ago:

Everyone has 7 names
#1. Your name: Angelica R. Jackson
#2. Your detective name (favorite color & favorite animal): Red Raven
#3. Your soap opera name (middle name & street you lived on as a child): Rue Hampton
#4. Your Star Wars name (first 3 letters of last name w/ first 2 of middle name & first 2 letters of first name w/ last 3 of last name): Jacru Anson
#5. Superhero name (color of your shirt & item directly to your left): Brownmulti Wall
#6. Goth name (Black & one of your pets' names): Black Blue
(the actual list had no #7, so I think it was naughty and someone deleted it; I added this one)
#7. Secret name that wizards can use against you: Like I'm going to give that one out!

I love Rue Hampton; I would totally use that as a pseudonym. And if I wanted to be close to the beginning of the alphabet, I could use Jacru Anson. I'd be the suckiest superhero ever with a name like Brownmulti Wall.

What about you--ever put any thought into creating a new identity? Legally, of course.

(clipart source)

RTW: Soul Retreat

2012-01-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest Opens Soon

2012-01-02T03:00:00.000-08:00

Amazon will open soon for entries for the 2012 Breakthrough Novel Award--are you ready? Here are the quick details from their website:

"The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award brings together talented writers, reviewers, and publishing experts to find and develop new voices in fiction. The 2012 international contest will award two grand prizes: one for General Fiction and one for Young Adult Fiction. Each winner will receive a publishing contract with Penguin, which includes a $15,000 advance.

Open submissions for manuscripts will begin on January 23, 2012 and run through February 5, 2012."

One of the most important components of your entry is the pitch, and I thought I'd round up some web pages with useful advice on pitches, and the related query summary:

Have to start out with Pitch University; so much good stuff squirreled away in the articles and case studies!

Nathan Bransford has many concise, helpful blog posts on crafting a pitch, but his post on "The One Sentence, One Paragraph, and Two Paragraph Pitch" handily combines his advice in one place.

The Absolute Write Water Cooler forum has a Query Letter Hell section in Show Your Work, and it is a crash course in what works and what doesn't in a query.

And see that blogroll I have in the sidebar? Hit all those blogs and do a search for "queries" and "pitches", and you'll find a gold mine of information from agents, editors, and writers. Even doing a search on Google will yield some worthwhile sources.

Good luck to those who enter--and even if you don't enter, it's a great excuse to polish your pitch!

(clip art source)

RTW: All My New Favorites

2011-12-28T07:12:00.000-08:00

YA Highway often does a "best book you read" for the last Road Trip Wednesday each month, and a lot of us have trouble picking just one title!

So for today's blogfest, they want us to list our "Top Five Favorite Books of 2011" Yay, we get five whole books to list! Many of these titles will be familiar to other road trippers, because they were recommended by me or other participants in posts throughout the year. And I'm a visual person, so I'm including all the covers.

In no particular order (confession: because I couldn't decide how to rank them), here are my Top 5 Favorite YA Books of 2011

I do have a warning included for Scorpio Races in a previous post here.

So what are your top 5? Do you have any recommendations to add to my reading list for next year?

Christmas Bird Count!

2011-12-26T03:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know today's the day after Christmas, but it's the day selected for the Folsom Christmas Bird Count so that's when we got out to take a tally of the bird species in our area. It starts very early in the morning, but I do not, so I'm going to join my husband a little later in the day.

He's much better at bird identification than I am, but I must admit I'm an excellent spotter. That should give you some clues about our personalities: he will take the time to stay in one spot and confidently identify a single bird. I spot a bird, and then I'm trotting off, "oh, there's another one! and look over here--skunk poop!"

So whatever your plans are for today, have a good one! And may they not involve too much skunk poop.

RTW: Where Do You Get Your Fix?

2011-12-21T07:39:00.000-08:00

Winners, Winners, I'm Allergic to Chicken Dinners

2011-12-19T03:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, I really am allergic to chicken, so you'll have to enjoy this cool chicken (the graphic address changed, so there's no dancing chicken, sorry) while I draw names (well, the numbers assigned in the order you commented) with random.org.

And the first winner is...

Kris Atkins, you wanted the Amazon gift certificate, so expect an email later today from me and Amazon!

and the second winner is . . .

Christina Mercer, you wanted a lovely Faces of Fat Kitty City Calendar, so let me know if you want me to mail it or deliver it!

And winner the third is . . .

Sophia Chang, you wanted the Amazon gift certificate, so expect an email later today from me and Amazon!

Thank you to everyone who entered, and all the followers that have stuck with me all this time! And if you didn't win but wanted a Faces of Fat Kitty City Calendar, you can still get one through Fat Kitty City.

(name gifs from 123glitter.com)

100 Followers Celebration!

2011-12-12T03:00:00.000-08:00

Contest closed! Thanks for entering and check back on Monday to see the three randomly chosen winners!

Okay, so I've been planning on doing a giveaway once I hit 100 followers, and I've been hovering at just under 100 for some time. (And BTW,if you're thinking of doing a giveaway of your own, here's a post on legal things to make you tear out your hair.)

I logged on this morning to do my post anyway, planning on calling it the "Close Enough to 100 Followers Celebration". Imagine my surprise and delight when I peeked at my followers and it showed 101! A big thank you to the Blogger community for sticking with me.

But I'm sure you want me to stop blathering and get to the good stuff: what are the prizes?

There will be three randomly chosen winners from the comments on this post, and each will get their choice of:

A digital or hardcover Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (see my post on it here)

A Faces of Fat Kitty City Calendar; a donation of $20 will be made in your name to get the calendar (see all the pages here)

Or an Amazon.com gift card for $15 and pick out what you want!

Now for the rules:
Unfortunately, this giveaway is only open to U.S. addresses (unless you're able to redeem an Amazon.com gift card or get the electronic edition of SR anywhere--tried to find if you can do that outside the U.S. and the site was vague).

Tweets and shares are always appreciated, but not necessary to enter or win. You also don't need to be a follower, but you must leave a contact in your comment, or have it available through your Blogger profile. My last contest, I had to do a lot of online legwork to track down one of the winners and this time around if I can't reach you easily, I'll pick another name.

Also leave which item you would choose if you win in your comment, please.

The contest will end December 16 at 11:59 PM, Pacific Standard Time, and the winner will be announced December 19 on my blog. I do have an Amazon Prime account, so there's a chance that your prize will get to you by Christmas if it's the hardcover book; I can email the gift card or the code for the electronic edition, so those could reach you even quicker. The calendar will be shipped via media mail; the USPS site says that can take 2-8 days.

(gif from AnimationPlayhouse.com)

Addendum: As a Pay it Forward, I'd like to direct your attention to Christine Johnson's YA Authors Against Animal Abuse auction. Some great swag up for auction from the likes of Carrie Ryan, Cassandra Clare, Julie Kagawa and more. I'm hoping for the Carrie Ryan books myself, but higher bids for the critters are good too!

RTW: I Can See Shangri-La from Here!

2011-12-07T07:01:00.000-08:00

(Graphic from the YA Highway site)
Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination through the YA Highway site and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: How far would you go to get published? We writers can form quite an attachment to our characters and stories. But we also know publishing is a business, and sometimes to make it in said business--to really build a career from it--we have to bend a bit. How far would you go to break into the publishing world?

I've been a little spoiled with my freelance articles--I've never been asked to revise them or change them. Reshoot the photos, yes, and the magazines have done some light copyediting but that's it. Pretty sweet, but it kind of established unrealistic expectations about how much revising I would be expected to do because that didn't carry over into fiction.

I lost my first "sale" of a short story when my college lit mag asked me to change the ending and I refused. I did give it some thought, but decided not to do it. Unfortunately, I didn't find out that it killed the deal until they actually released the lit mag, and mine wasn't in there (after I'd told everyone it would be, of course!). So I have no idea if I'd known that, whether it would have changed my mind. And of course, years later, I did change the ending but for different reasons. Aspects of the story changed, and that meant the ending no longer fit. (And I eventually found a home for Hornworms in Hunger Mountain)

Earlier this year while querying, I got a revise and resubmit request from an agent. When she was setting up the phone call to go over her concerns, she let me know they were "not minor". So that sent me into a panic (and I do mean a panic--how a writer's imagination can run away with her!) over what sort of changes she might request and whether I would be willing to make them. Fortunately, they were suggestions that worked for the story and made it stronger, so I was glad that I gave them a chance.

But I do know that there are aspects of my book I would not be willing to change. Usually if a character or plot device isn't working, I spend a bit of time trying to discern whether it's just not working in this form and I can write it differently, or whether it truly doesn't belong in the story at all. And when my CPs give me advice that I don't agree with, I try to examine why they would have made that suggestion. So most of the time even if I feel their suggestion was way out there, I can find the flaw in the passage that made them feel it needed something else. My fix may not be what they suggested in the end, but hopefully I will have addressed the issue.

What about you--how far are you willing to go? Don't forget to go to the comments on the YA Highway RTW post to see everyone else's answers!

Wall Candy for Geeks

2011-12-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

My husband and I are big fans of the now-defunct show Firefly and its movie incarnation, Serenity. So when we heard of some art noveau posters featuring the characters, we were excited to see them. First the ladies:

Which I have to admit, I like the artwork but it felt more like a novelty item and not something I needed to own. And then they came out with the men--especially the Jayne one--and I'm sold.

I mean, he's got the goofy hat and Vera, his most favorite gun. Must have these.

*No response necessary to this post, unless you want to jump on the fanwagon.

Magick 4 Terri Auction

2011-11-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

My teen years and young adulthood were shaped by some wonderful fantasy books, many of which had a connection to Terri Windling. She seemed to have her fingers in a lot of wonderful pies (my apologies if that metaphor made you crave pie).

Terri is going through some hardships currently, and some of her friends and colleagues have gotten together with this mission:

"Terri Windling and her family have been coping with health and legal issues that have drained her financial resources at a critical time. Due to the serious nature of these issues, and privacy concerns for individual family members, we can't be more specific than that, but Terri is in need of our support. As a friend, a colleague and an inspiration, Terri has touched many, many lives over the years. She has been supremely generous in donating her own work and art to support friends and colleagues in crisis. Now, Terri is in need of some serious help from her community. Who better than her colleagues and fans to rise up to make some magick for her?

Through the next 18 days, we'll be posting personal offerings from the likes of Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Wendy & Brian Froud, and many more! Besides bidding on these beautiful items, YOU can also post your own skills, services, arts, crafts, or whatever else you'd like to offer for auction!"

So if you'd like to help support this worthy founder of so many fantasy elements, go the Magick 4 Terri auction.

I've been quickly outbid on the items I was after, so this is turning out to be a hot auction!

Top 5 Reasons for Me to Lose That Weight

2011-11-28T03:00:00.000-08:00

I know I've had the best excuse for gaining weight, but over the last year I put on about 20 pounds. Then in the last few months, I put on another 10 to make it a nice round 30 pounds (and I do mean round, my waist is only a memory). So now that I'm on my way to getting better, I'm determined to try to lose some weight. Here are my top 5 reasons why, in no particular order:

1. I NOW SNORE LIKE A WARTHOG Prior to this, I might have let out a delicate little piglet snort in my sleep occasionally, but now it's at drunken sailor volume. My husband even said that the other night, he dreamt he was sleeping next to a wild animal and woke up to my snoring. Weight gain can definitely promote snoring and sleep apnea, so the warthog needs to migrate on outta here.

2. I'M TIRED OF PEOPLE ASKING ME, "WHEN ARE YOU DUE?" Yes, I know I look like the right age for my childbearing years, and the majority of the extra weight has settled in my abdomen. But it's to the point where I've started giving strangers a made-up answer ("I'm four months along") because it's easier than seeing their embarrassment when I give the real answer ("Not pregnant, just fat, but thanks for asking") So time for that pseudo baby weight to drop.

3. MORE CLEAVAGE=MORE CLEAVAGE I'm not complaining about going up a cup size in my boobs (and my husband hasn't shared any complaints either) but I draw the line at having a cup size in my back fat. Because I've refused to buy new bras, my back fat gets pushed into back cleavage that is showing way too much in sweater season. Time for the back cleavage to split.

4. IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM My mother has been back on Weight Watchers for about 3 months, which means she is obsessed with "points". Every phone call or in-person meeting is filled with a recitation of how many points each item she has put in her mouth is worth, and incredulous lists of how many points the things she chose to not put in her mouth would have been. Despite my gentle comments meant to discourage such behavior, like "Hey Ma, save it for your Weight Watchers meetings and people who care" or "Mom, a list of points does not a conversation make", she still does it. So why not jump on the WW bandwagon and let her do all the points tracking for me?

5. REALITY BITES Last week I started back to water aerobics, and I got the bright idea to step on the locker room scale. And that's when reality hit: it's not the horizontal stripes that make me look fat, it's not the baggy sweater I grabbed out of my husband's drawer that makes me look fat--IT'S THE EXTRA 30 POUNDS OF FAT THAT MAKES ME LOOK FAT.

So if you've decided to lose weight, what's your inspiration?

Faces of Fat Kitty City

2011-11-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned it before, but I volunteer at a wonderful cage-free, no-kill, local cat sanctuary called Fat Kitty City where I take photos and mostly do this (while wearing a cat hair smock):

But last year, I started doing a calendar of my favorite digital paintings of the kitties as a fundraiser, and I had so much fun that I decided to do it this year also. Go on over to my other blog, Fat Kitty City Nitty Gritty, for a sneak peek at what this year's calendar holds.

Beauties like this for example:

Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!

RTW: Time for Thanks

2011-11-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination through the YA Highway site and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: What writing or publishing-related thing(s) are you most thankful for?

Okay, I do a lot of tongue-in-cheek posts, but this one's going to have some serious stuff seep into it. I'm thankful for all the people (my husband, my crit group, my betas) that support me in my writing life and regular life, because otherwise both aspects could have had some major setbacks in the last year.

This time last year, when I went in for my regular annual checkup at my doctor's I pointed out the lump in my neck and wondered, "Is this supposed to be here, or am I growing an Adam's apple? Cuz as far as I know, I've always been a girl." The doc said, "hmm" and sent for an MRI.

It came back as multiple nodules on my thyroid, probably goiters (there's a word you want to hear in your 30s) or adenomas. So two inconclusive biopsies later and half a year later, I could have a risk of cancer as low as 5% or as high as 30%.

But in the meantime, one nodule had grown some so a total thyroidectomy was recommended. They were so confident that this was all benign that they kept pushing my surgery out to fit in people with more life-threatening conditions. Since I was working on a revise-and-resubmit at the time (yay!), I was totally fine with that.

So I finished the revisions and sent them off a few days before my surgery, and was satisfied that my recovery time would overlap with the agent's reading time. My surgery went well, the recovery was a cake walk compared to the back surgery I had a few years ago, and everything was on track.

Now if you're a writer reading this, did you just have an "uh-oh, that sounds like the calm before the storm" moment? Because it was--after being assured multiple times that this was most likely benign, that phone call where they told me it was thyroid cancer came as a shock.

But the cancer word was cushioned with some (relatively) good news: my cancer had fairly clean margins, there were no indications that it had spread to my lymph nodes, and the radiation treatments for thyca are not as destructive as other kinds of radiation.

And this time they were right: I had my radiation at the beginning of the month, and the scans show no metastasis. So I'm good; no worries for another year, when they will do an ultrasound and check my thyroglobulin.

Went from a thyroid cancer diagnosis to thyroid cancer survivor within the space of a few months, what a roller coaster ride! And along with all this stuff, I had the usual writing drama with revisions, querying, the revise and resubmit requests, and so on. My crit group got a few panicked emails in there, believe me! And my husband had to pick up a lot of slack around the house, so thanks to all of you!

This week, I'm making some more cuts to my first novel, and then back to working on my next book. Onward!

What about you--What are you thankful for in your writing life or otherwise? Don't forget to go to the comments on the YA Highway RTW post to see everyone else's answers!

Sink Your Teeth into These

2011-11-21T03:00:00.000-08:00

Playing catch up on some things, so today's post is a whimsical collection of book-themed cakes:

Found through Powell's Books Tumblr

Never Ending Story Book Cake with Falcor Topper Credited to Say it with Cake

Spiderwick Chronicles cake by Lisa's Cakes (go to the link for more detail shots on this one)

RTW: Rite of Passage Reading

2011-11-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

I missed my Monday post this week (thought I had another auto-post queued up, oops) so I was determined to jump on Road Trip Wednesday to make up for it. And lucky me, I actually had something to say on this topic! Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination through the YA Highway site and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: In high school, teens are made to read the classics - Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Bronte, Dickens - but there are a lot of books out there never taught in schools. So if you had the power to change school curriculums, which books would you be sure high school students were required to read?

I secretly enjoyed* some of the titles on our high school reading list--in fact, I'd already read most of them. I say secretly because it irked me to no end to be forced to read a book, and then discuss it at length with other students forced to read it and therefore unlikely to contribute anything beyond what the teacher wanted to hear. But the third high school I attended (which happened to be a continuation high school) let us pick from a list of books, and it actually had science fiction titles!

As to books I consider to be required reading for teens, I have two titles that I always give to my teen nieces and nephews as a sort of rite of passage. And no surprise, they're both science fiction.

I've heard from a few charter school students that Ender's Game is on their reading list, and kudos to those teachers. This book raises so many of the big questions for teens like making decisions for yourself, coming to terms with others' expectations for your life, and living with the consequences of choosing to defy or meet those expectations. As well as more everyday, relatable topics like bullying, sibling rivalry, adults that want you to act your age and are disappointed when you actually do. All this, and a fascinating world-building and action-packed plot too.

The second book that I give to teens, especially girls, at age 16 or older would never make it onto a high school reading list because of all the graphic sex. It's not gratuitous, definitely integral to the plot, but it's graphic enough that I give a copy with a warning.

You may not be able to see it in the pic, but the full title is The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Ladies Illustrated Primer, and it truly is a formative book for young ladies. On the surface, it's got some incredible, early Steampunk imaginings (I would totally be a craftsperson for the Vickies, even with the rules) and cyberpunk elements. But it also has a thread of story throughout, with girls finding their own kind of power and honor, and therefore their own paths in life.

If you haven't read this one, put it on your own required reading list! What about you--what books did you hate reading in high school, and which ones would you substitute for the required reading list? Don't forget to go to today's YA Highway post to see what everyone else had to say.

*The exception was Steinbeck; I had this weird brain hiccup in that I loved his stories, but couldn't wade through the actual writing. The Grapes of Wrath has some truly heartbreaking elements, East of Eden has such classic story conflicts, but as a teen I just couldn't get into his writing style. I've done a little better as an adult, but Travels with Charlie and Cannery Row are the only Steinbeck books I've truly enjoyed.

2nd Annual Vintage Holiday Gift Ideas

2011-11-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

Last year, I posted some Vintage Holiday Gift Ideas featuring old commercials with creepy toys. If you're out of ideas for this year, here's a handy shopping guide to comb the antique stores:

Now with more soul!

Can you imagine when this was state of the art? Though I will admit to saving up quite a bit of my allowance for one of those barking St. Bernard's as a kid; compared to this toy, it was worth every penny.

This is a campaign for the Ding-A-Lings toys launch. Really? You open with volcanoes and futuristic "city" shots and then name them something like Ding-A-Lings? And to make it worse, one toy "flashes" a camera, and another one encourages insertion of a brain where a thermometer sometimes goes:

I love how the kids smile through the terrible whiplash pain of playing with their Swing Ding:

And now a special bonus creepy video:

It seems Jenny Greenteeth discovered the powers of Prell. I guess they cut the camera before they continued with "Come lay your bones on the alabaster stones and be my everloving baby".

Anybody remember playing with any of these toys?

Book Rec: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

2011-11-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

I don't do reviews, but I do recommend books through the RTW Best Book of the Month posts. Only, I've just read a great book and it's November 3--the end of the month is too long to go without mentioning it! Here's the trailer, which I also love:

What's not to like? Horses, and not-horses, dark legends, a mysterious boy . . . but be warned that there is a healthy portion of blood and violence and peril (people as well as animals, though it's usually the animals that get to me more in books). If you're not sure if that warning has put you off, download the sample through Kindle or whatever app you use. Enough of a taste of what is to come shows up in there that you should be able to make up your mind.

As an aside, I tried to read her Shiver series and had a difficult time connecting with them. Can't even articulate why, but I had no such problem with this book.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T03:00:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Halloween, I thought I'd post a tiny teaser from Spirits from the Vasty Deep:

As I was drifting to sleep finally, I felt someone sit on the edge of my bunk and heard a woman softly singing in Spanish. "Mamá?" I called sleepily and reached out. But the hand that clasped mine was cold and dripping, and my nostrils filled with the scent of sodden wool and brackish water. I came awake and scrabbled against the wall, my heart pounding.

The dim light from the corridor showed me I was alone in my bunk. A strange sensation crawled across my skin, over the entire length of my body. As if many spirits were trying not just to talk to me, but to grab hold of me as well. Never had the veil between the worlds felt so thin, not since the haunted room back in the boarding school.

That's when Ruby started screaming, in a long drawn-out wail of horror.

Hope you enjoyed it! Any plans to celebrate Halloween? We don't even get kids coming to our house any more, since it's on a dark country road.

Minoutaur Books First Crime Novel Competition

2011-10-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

Minotaur Books, along with the Mystery Writers Association, is once again running a First Crime Novel competition.

There is no entry fee, but there is an extra step of requesting an entry form by sending an e-mail to MB-MWAFirstCrimeNovelCompetition@StMartins.com, with the following information:
Name of Entrant:
Manuscript Title:
Address:
Phone:

All requests for entry forms must be received by Minotaur Books by email by November 15, 2011. DO NOT SEND MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS TO MINOTAUR BOOKS.

Each entrant will receive an entry form by email containing the address of the judge to whom he or she will send (by regular mail or next-business-day delivery service) his or her manuscript. Entries must be postmarked no later than November 30, 2011 and received by judges no later than December 15, 2011. Winners will be notified March 31, 2011.

The winning entrant will receive an "offer to enter into its standard form author's agreement with the entrant for publication of the winning Manuscript. After execution of the standard form author's agreement by both parties, the winner will receive an advance against future royalties of $10,000. On the condition that the selected winner accepts and executes the publishing contract proposed by Minotaur Books, the winner will then be recognized at the Edgar Awards Banquet in New York City in April 2012."

So if you are an unpublished author over the age of 18, here's your chance at a publishing contract! Good luck to those who enter!

Miss Snark's First Victim & the Baker's Dozen

2011-10-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day! I had the MeeGenius one below queued up for auto post, but I ran across a great opportunity through Monica B.W.'s blog that is time sensitive, so I'm posting this too.

Miss Snark's First Victim is running their 2nd annual Baker's Dozen Agent Auction. No, you don't get to bid on agents--it's actually the agents who will be bidding on your work!

The details:

* $8 entry fee

* Submission dates vary for MG/YA and adult titles, so be sure to read those carefully on the page linked above, but YA/MG is set for Nov. 1 & 3

* Submit your logline and first 250 words of your polished manuscript

* The 60 winning entries will be posted for critique, and hopefully requests from agents in which they bid with the number of pages they'd like to see--up to a full manuscript.

Sounds like a fun project to me; even if you don't experience the thrill of a bidding war, you should still come away with some valuable feedback. Monica says the spaces fill fast (and she got her agent through the last one), so don't hesitate if you're interested!

MeeGenius Contest for Children's Ebooks

2011-10-17T03:00:00.000-07:00

News of MeeGenius's contest for authors of children's ebooks (ages 2-8) has been floating around the blogosphere, but in case you missed it here are some of the details from their website:

"MeeGenius is searching for the next great children’s book author, and is extending an invitation to aspiring and published authors to submit a manuscript. Winning manuscripts will be beautifully illustrated, professionally edited, and published online at MeeGenius. It’s as simple as writing, submitting, and having MeeGenius’ online community vote."

The process looks like this:
Submit Your Story by November 1, 2011

Manuscript Voting Round
(November 28 – December 18, 2011)
All of the stories will be posted to the MeeGenius website for review by the larger community. There are two ways to advance through the Manuscript Voting Round:

Popular Vote
Next to each story will be a “Like” button for visitors to press. The stories to get the most “Likes” from the community will go on to the Finalists Round.

Staff Favorites
In addition to the books chosen by the larger community, “Staff Favorites” will be picked by MeeGenius to enter the Finalists Round.

Finalists Round
(January 31 - February 21, 2012)
If you are one of the authors to get into the Finalists Round, your book will be professionally edited, and illustrated, and produced for the final round of voting! Again, your story will be voted on by your peers, fans and family — but this time everyone will see your book with illustrations and showcased on the MeeGenius website, and vote on whether you will be the Author Challenge 2011 Winner!

Winners Announced!
March 7, 2012
Prizes include a publishing contract+cash prize+collection of MeeGenius's ebooks for the school library of your choice

This sounds like a great opportunity to get your ebook published, or at least get some feedback on it! Good luck to those who enter!

Andrew Karre of Carolrhoda Wants Books with Inventive Characters

2011-10-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the myth and reality of Steve Jobs's adolescent years, Andrew Carre has opened for submissions of MG and YA novels about the young entrepeneurial and inventive spirit:

"So, I’m open to novels with main characters who personify this spirit. YA or older middle-grade. No biographies, no thinly-veiled novelizations of biographies. No books that extend into adulthood. Standard genre rules apply. Offer ends 11/7/11. Void where prohibited."

Guidelines are here. This is another very specific "want", but maybe someone has something that's nearly ready to go.

RTW: Writing Travelogue

2011-10-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

Character Inspiration in My WIP Crow's Rest

2011-10-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

A few of YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesdays have asked what kinds of things inspire your writing. I've done a few of those for setting, but not for characters yet. So here's a picture of one of the character's from Crow's Rest:

This is how I picture the character of Bobbin, a Corgi mix. Bobbin has some pretty crucial parts in the book, so it was worth nailing down the details of his appearance and personality. This is actually a dog that was up for adoption earlier this year at The Grace Foundation, one of our local rescue groups. His real name was Sinatra, and this photo captured his look of intelligence, determination, and bounciness so well. Doesn't he look like a dog that could be described as "all wiggles and yelps" like Bobbin?

I'm not going to put any pictures up of how I picture the human characters from Crow's Rest; I really like to give clues but let the reader picture them for themselves. But this dog picture was too cute to keep to myself! What about you--do you "cast" minor characters as well as the main ones in your books?

Contest for Chilling Winter Tales

2011-10-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

The Toasted Cheese Literary Journal's Dead of Winter Contest for short horror fiction opened October 1 (with no entry fee, yay!). Here are some particulars, but go to the guidelines page for full details:

*Stories submitted to the 11th Annual Dead of Winter contest (December 2011) must use the theme SKULL AND BONES

*The word limit is 2000–3000 words.

*Stories MUST be set in winter.

*Stories must fall in the horror genre. As to subgenres, any is allowed but note that the judges prefer gothic, dark fantasy, erotic horror (PG-13 max), noir, psychological horror, quiet/soft horror, and suspense horror. The judges tend not to like sci-fi horror, extreme/splatter horror, Lovecraftian, etc. Please no creepy children, people who don't know they're dead or overdone "monsters" (vampires, were wolves, sasquatch, etc.). As to gore level, we'd far rather know what's going on inside a character's head than to see it on a pike. We want to be disturbed, unable to shake your story and compelled to leave on every light in the house after reading it.

*The contest opens October 1, 2011 and the deadline for submission is 11:59 PM ET December 21, 2011.

*Email entries to dow2011[at]toasted-cheese.com with the subject line: Dead of Winter Contest Entry

Good luck to all who enter!

(I couldn't decide between these two spooky images, so I used both from Halloween Graphics Plus)

RTW: Best Books of September 2011

2011-09-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

Banned Books Week

2011-09-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

Banned Books Week runs from September 24-October 1, 2011 and this year one of the events to help draw attention to censorship is the Virtual Read Out, where readers can present excerpts from their favorite banned books.

On the Banned Books Week YouTube channel, you can see people celebrating the triumph of the power of words over censorship by reading aloud from books that have been challenged or banned. There is also this short video with Judy Blume, which has some great points about why people try to sensor books for children and what affect it actually has:

For my contribution to the Virtual Read Out, I chose Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. This book was challenged for its religious viewpoint, variously described as anti-Christian and anti-authority.

The controversy stepped up when a movie was made from the book, which is ironic because the movie neatly sidestepped a lot of the issues of religion and stuck to the adventurous and otherworldly parts of the book. Which were the parts I liked the best anyhow! Don't get me wrong, I did appreciate the discussions which his version of the origins of sin stimulated, but to me this book is a marvelous adventure tale.

So I chose to record a reading of a glimpse into another world from The Golden Compass:

Only a few flubs, not bad! What about you--any special plans for Banned Book Week? Did you post a video for the Virtual Read-out?

RTW: Cover Songs

2011-09-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

Market: Tu Books (Lee and Low)

2011-09-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

I interviewed Karen Sandler, author of Tankborn which came out this month by Tu Books, but in case you were wondering what Tu books looks for in submissions:

"Tu Books publishes speculative fiction for children and young adults featuring diverse characters and settings. Our focus is on well-told, exciting, adventurous fantasy, science fiction, and mystery novels featuring people of color set in worlds inspired by non-Western folklore or culture. We welcome Western settings if the main character is a person of color.

We are looking specifically for stories for both middle grade (ages
8-12) and young adult (ages 12-18) readers. (We are not looking for picture books, chapter books, or short stories. Please do not send submissions in these formats.)

For more information on how to submit, please see our submission guidelines.

What we’re particularly interested in seeing lately: Asian steampunk, any African culture, contemporary African-American stories, Latino/a stories, First Nations/Native American/Aboriginal fantasy or science fiction written by tribal members, original postapocalyptic worlds, historical fantasy or mystery set in a non-Western setting.

We look forward to reading your book!"

Hope there's someone who has a book that fits their categories. I'd like to see what an Asian steampunk looks like for myself!

P.S. Don't forget that the deadline for entering Writer's Digest's Young Adult Short Ficion Contest is October 1.

RTW: What's with All the Nautical Metaphors?

2011-09-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination through the YA Highway site and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: What themes, setting, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work?

Ooo, what a great topic! I think it will be interesting to see how many of the universal themes crop up in all of our posts. Motifs were easy to come up with for my books: nautical references and metaphors, crows, things that are not what they initially seem, music as symbolism, etc.

For themes in my books, I thought I would need to address my two books separately, but after I thought about it, these three themes run throughout both books:

1. Forgiveness, of yourself and others.
It seems that most people have the hardest time learning to forgive themselves. Forgiveness of others is difficult enough to put into practice, and to truly mean it, but it seems like people (especially perfectionists) hold themselves to higher standards, and are therefore harder on themselves when they don't meet those standards. Or maybe that's just my characters (okay, and my younger self).

2. Finding your strengths (and they may very well be traits you considered weaknesses at one time) and deciding your own path in life.
In Spirits from the Vasty Deep, Olivia has always considered her ability to hear spirits as a curse. When a wiser person suggests that it's a gift, it's very difficult for her to wrap her mind around that concept. After all, how could something that always brought her nothing but trouble actually be a power for good?

3. What survives after death?
In Spirits from the Vasty Deep, this is an obvious question. Some of the spirits Olivia encounters become fragmented and incoherent over time, but others actually gain power from their connection to the living--sometimes enough to influence or physically affect them. As in possess them or harm them.

In Crow's Rest, the MC's boyfriend is declared brain dead and his parents are following his wishes to serve as an organ donor. Avery (MC) was always for organ donation in theory, but when it comes to Daniel suddenly it's more than a theory. Here's a tiny excerpt (and this is a WIP, so it's still a bit rough):

His organs could go to some secretive serial killer or child molester, for all I knew. Someone who looks fine and upstanding from the outside, like Dexter. Do they do background checks on organ recipients?

My anxieties shifted into overdrive now, and my brain whirred with other scenarios. How much of Daniel would still be in those parts? Would there be scraps of him or his psyche, trapped and voiceless, while some scumbag went on a crime spree? Is that what organ rejections really are—cases where a psychic echo from the donor just can’t assimilate into the new person’s life?

Whew, I had a lot to say on this topic! Hope you all stuck around for all of it. What are your recurring themes and motifs?

P.S. Check out yesterday's post for some pictures taken on our real-life road trip last week.

What I Did Over Vacation

2011-09-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

Missed my blog post yesterday because we'd just gotten back into town and I was busy catching up on things (what's that you say--I could have set up a post ahead of time to go up automatically? Did you catch the "vacation" part?). So here is a photo essay catching you up on the places we went and things we saw:

We stayed in the hills above Pillar Point Harbor (near Half Moon Bay, CA)

Used the rental cottage as a base and went into San Francisco for day trips, including sights like the Maritime Museum at Fisherman's Wharf

and the Japanese Tea Garden

and the Conservatory of Flowers

along with a side trip to the Filoli estate (this is just the garden room, and I totally want one)

Went lots of other places, but I didn't want to turn this into a captive blog audience vacation slideshow. Hopefully this little taste is enough to inspire you in your writing somehow--I know it did for me!

What Carolrhoda Doesn't Want in This Round of Open Submissions

2011-09-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

For the month of September, Andrew Karre of Carolrhoda is opening for submissions. Unlike his previous special requests, in which he said, "Bring on your bastards and your unresolved romances," this time his request includes what he is not looking for (because he already has books under these categories):

"Until the end of September, I will be accepting electronic submissions of YA novels with the following exceptions (based not on prejudice so much as on what I've got brewing in the lab already):

1. I'm not considering dysto/post-apocolypto books.

2. If your book can be sung to the tune of a song by The Police, please make sure it's not “Don't Stand So Close to Me.”

3. If your books is more than 60,000 words, please don't send it.

4. Unlike that little kid in the movie, I don't read dead people. No narrators from beyond the grave.

5. If you have superpowers, I have kryptonite. Stay away.

6. I don't do high fantasy. Here there be no dragons."

So if your YA novel fits outside of one of those categories, take advantage of this momentary opening of his mailbox! Good luck, all!

RTW: Best Book(s) of August 2011

2011-08-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

Grants Available for Readings and Workshops

2011-08-29T03:00:00.000-07:00

Poets & Writers is offering grants to fund readings and workshops in selected areas, so if you're lucky enough to be in one of these locales you can apply for a grant:

"Organizations that sponsor readings and workshops in New York State or California, or Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, New Orleans, Seattle, Tucson, or Washington, D.C., may apply for grants to be used for writers' fees.

We make grants for writers' fee payments only. Grant checks are payable to the writer and sent to the sponsor, which is responsible for delivering them to the author. We do not fund administrative costs, publicity, transportation, or other expenses related to producing events. We do not fund in-school events, children's events, staged dramatic readings, or storytelling events featuring non-original or adapted works."

There are lots of other details, so go check it out for yourself. Please note that you must apply at least eight weeks before the event--breaking that rule alone is enough to disqualify your application!

Also, new to my critique partner Christina Mercer's blog is a section called Events listing upcoming workshops, conferences, and contests. Go over there and check out her list, too.

Stipends for Starving Writers

2011-08-22T03:14:00.000-07:00

Some of the freelance markets have dried up in the last few years, victims of the economy's impact on readers' disposable income. That means there aren't as many good magazines to read, but the flip side is that there aren't as many opportunities for freelance writers to sell their work.

As a result, you might find that you want or need to supplement your writing income in other ways. Contests, grants, and fellowships can be good sources of funds, as long as you know what you're getting into (what are the entry fees, do you retain rights to your work, will your work be tied up for the entire judging period, etc). Here are a few opportunities that don't involve entry fees:

Fellowship for Creative and Performing Artists and Writers

"The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), a national research library and learned society of American history and culture, is calling for applications for visiting fellowships for historical research by creative and performing artists, writers, film makers, journalists, and other persons whose goals are to produce imaginative, non-formulaic works dealing with pre-twentieth-century American history.

"Successful applicants are those whose work is for the general public rather than for academic or educational audiences. The Society's goal in sponsoring this program is to multiply and improve the ways in which an understanding of history is communicated to the American people."

If this sounds like you, go to the AAS link above and apply by October 5 to be eligible for a stipend of $1350-1850

Real Simple's 4th Annual Life Lessons Essay Contest

Enter Real Simple’s fourth annual Life Lessons Essay Contest by September 15 and you could:

*Have your essay published in Real Simple

*Win round-trip tickets for two to New York City, hotel accommodations for two nights, tickets to a Broadway play, and a lunch with Real Simple editors

*Receive a prize of $3,000

Entries must be no more than 1,500 words and address the theme "When did you first understand the meaning of love?"

Good luck, everyone, if you decide to get into the running for either of these! You could see a tremendous return on the cost of postage (or no postage at all, in the RS contest since it's email entry) and your time.

WriteOnCon

2011-08-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day for WriteOnCon, so I thought I'd better stop lurking on the site and join the forum. I commented on several posts on Tuesday, but just couldn't keep up with all the good stuff. Now I'm having to play catchup on all the workshops as well as responding to threads on the forum.

The best part is, except for the live events, I don't have to keep up. They archive everything, so you can go back and read and/or watch workshops at your leisure. This is a great idea, because it's difficult to digest all this information at once.

I'm seeing a lot of Absolute Write names on the WOC forums, I guess they share participants. If you'd like to join us, go to http://writeoncon.com/2011/08/gearing-up-for-writeoncon-2011-%E2%80%93-the-full-schedule/ or http://writeoncon.com/forum/ for the forums.

So thank you, WriteOnCon organizers, for providing this valuable service. For free, a bonus to starving writers everywhere!

No-Fuss Chocolate Cake: Gluten-free, Dairy Free, Egg Free

2011-08-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

image source

And it's also a No-Fail cake--never had an issue with this one, and it's so moist and yummy that you won't hear any complaints from guests accustomed to gluten-y cakes. Enjoy!

No-Fuss Chocolate Cake—No Mixing Bowl, Either!
(Vegan, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg-free, Contains Nuts)

The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home features a recipe for "Six-Minute Chocolate Cake" that I've adapted to be gluten-free and without refined sugars. Don't bother to dirty a mixing bowl, this cake can be mixed right in your cake pan. (Unless you need to turn the cake out on a plate, like for a layer cake. In that case, mix in a bowl as usual and pour into a greased and floured pan) Great edible science project for kids, too, as you talk about how the vinegar reacts with the baking soda to make the cake rise.

Makes one 8-9" cake

Dry ingredients:
1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour blend
1/2 cup almond meal
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients:
3/4 cup agave nectar or mild honey
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
7/8 cup water or coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
-------------------------------------------
2 tablespoons white vinegar

Preheat the oven to 375°.

1. In an ungreased cake pan (8" square or 9" round), mix all dry ingredients with a fork or small wisk.

2. Mix the wet ingredients in a 2-cup glass measure and then pour into the dry ingredients. Blend until smooth. Batter may appear a little too runny at first, but let it sit for a moment and it should thicken up. If not, add a couple of tablespoons of sorghum flour, one tablespoon at a time, until it has a cake batter consistency.

3. Add the vinegar and stir quickly. The vinegar and baking soda will react to create lighter swirls in the batter. Don't overmix, just incorporate the vinegar evenly into the batter.

4. Bake at 375° for about 25-30 minutes, until a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean.

We serve the cake unfrosted, but if you're feeling indulgent you can mix in chocolate chips and/or nuts to taste.

Read-a-Thon

2011-08-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

I don't usually do book reviews, but I will occasionally recommend books as part of the YAHighway Road Trip Wednesdays that round up the best books of the month. But rather than wait for the next one, I've had the opportunity over the last week to catch up on my TBR list, and to discover some new favorites. So here's what I've been reading and liking lately:

I've been on a bit of a Holly Black binge, mainly because I stumbled across White Cat at the library and liked it so much that I hunted down some more of her titles(Tithe and Valiant are still in the TBR pile), including its sequel Red Glove. I loved the characters and alternate world she created for these two; a good read for boys, too.

The next book is Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst, and I stumbled on this video so why not let her tell you about it?

Sarah Beth Durst Talks About Enchanted Ivy

And lastly, I mowed through Zombies vs. Unicorns in a day. And, strangely, it took another week before I had a zombie-filled nightmare. Mmm, that sounds like a delicious snack cake: Zombie-Filled Nightmare! Now with spongey cake! Pardon me, you have some raspberry filling around your mouth . . .

Market for Children's Short Fiction & Poetry: Underneath the Juniper Tree

2011-08-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, a unique blend of "playfully dark arts and literature" called Crow Toes Quarterly shut its doors. But another such bold repository of subversive stories cropped up in the form of Underneath the Juniper Tree.

They run contests and challenges, as well as accepting submissions for prose (up to 2,000 words), poetry, and art year round. This quote about their art submissions says it best about what they are looking for:

"All submissions must have a dark, whimsical children’s theme to them. Pictures of fluffy bunnies and rainbows will not be accepted."

So if you have any sinister characters lurking in a corner of your mind, Underneath the Juniper Tree just might like to meet them.

This is an automatic post, so if I don't respond to your comments right away, I'll be back after the middle of the month.

RTW--Senses Working Overtime

2011-08-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: The Five Senses. How you use them in your writing, how you are inspired by them, pictorial essays, that character with smelly socks, books that have used them well, the ones that are currently missing from your work, etc.

Since I pay a lot of attention to details around me in real life, I think I do a pretty thorough job of covering all the senses in my writing. Sometimes, too thorough--I had a crit partner complain about all the bad smells in my historical novel: vomit, sewage, rotting food, animals, etc. His complaint only made me more proud of those sections--I'd actually grossed him out with writing on a page!

But not all of the sensory descriptions are gross-out. I have some tender touches, gorgeous scenery, whispering ghosts, comforting smells like the love interest's balsam shave soap, and my favorite, FOOD.

In this last dive into revisions, I noticed how much I talk about food in Spirits from the Vasty Deep. How could I not, when she goes to such exotic climes as Spain, Jamaica, and Antigua? The MC, Olivia, is lucky enough to board with a fantastic cook and here's a little teaser section of when Olivia first arrives at her home (this one doesn't go into the taste and smell as much as other sections, but be glad because she's been seasick and vomiting):

The grand name of dining hall led me to picture a richly formal room, but it was quite the opposite. A large sturdy table, like you might find in a farm kitchen, dominated the room, groaning under the food laid out. Pottery dishes held the local fare of baked yams, fresh mangoes and melon, scones and clotted cream. Hard-cooked eggs, a cold chicken and loaves of dark, soft bread rounded out the meal.

"Are we waiting on others to join us?" I asked as Duncan held the chair out for his mother.

Before Mrs. MacInnes could answer, Duncan laughed out loud.

"I warned you she would put out a spread at tea to welcome me home. She believes I eat nothing but moldy salt pork and hardtack when I am at sea," he said in a stage whisper as he held my chair for me.

"Well, you are always thinner when you come back," she said.

"Only because sailing is hard work—not because I starve. I'm all muscle."

To demonstrate, instead of sliding Sonia's chair in he picked it up with her in it and placed her closer to the table. She squealed and said, "Otra vez." Instead of fulfilling her request of "again", he patted Sonia's shoulder and took his place beside his mother. As Duncan filled his plate, he did nothing to disprove his mother's notion of starvation. He took servings of everything, eating with impeccable manners—but much gusto. I confined Sonia and myself to the eggs, melon and bread.

"Aren't you hungry?" Mrs. MacInnes asked.

"I'm sorry we can't do justice to your offering, but Sonia and I suffered from the ‘mal de mer’ on the entire trip from Jamaica to Antigua."

"Then you are wise to stick to bland foods," Mrs. MacInnes said. "Are there any interesting new delicacies from the States you can share with me when you're recovered? I hear brown bear is popular in California."

I gaped at her, spoon raised halfway to my mouth. I had never even seen a real bear, except the stuffed one standing in the corner of my father’s study, let alone tasted one.

"Mother, surely you don't expect us to have a bear haunch in our baggage?" Duncan said.

"Of course not, young man, I merely thought she might have some good receipts to share." Well used to his teasing, Mrs. MacInnes did not take the bait. Perhaps she could teach me how to do that—he always seemed to be able to get the best of me with his banter.

Hope you enjoyed my tease! And no, that's not a typo above--they used "receipts" rather than "recipes" in this time period.

What about you--do you find yourself using one sense more heavily than others in your writing?

P.S. Don't forget, I'll be out of touch electronically for a bit. I've set up auto posts for the next two Mondays (including a recipe on the 15th--more food!)

Geek Delight

2011-08-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

For my husband's birthday, I ordered a custom cake of Bag End, Bilbo Baggins's house in the Hobbit and other Lord of the Rings books. It ended up looking pretty cute, but I wanted to add a little more geekitude, so I went online and found some LOTR paper dolls.

Printed out Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins (you can tell which one is Frodo by his determined expression and the tiny ring on a chain around his neck), along with Gandalf. While I was cutting out Tom Bombadil, I kept thinking that it looked like someone, and then I realized he kind of looks like Tom Green with a crazy beard. Here are some helpful pictures for reference; Tom Green on the left, Tom Bombadil paper doll on the right (dressed in his unmentionables).

Anyway, here's how they look with the cake:

Tom Bombadil is one of my favorite characters from the book, but in that first photo he looks like some kind of lurking hobbitophile. Not really what I was going for, but good for a laugh nonetheless!

Also wanted to note that I'll be taking a break from blogging and other interwebz fun starting August 3rd. I'll set a few posts to go up automatically on the next two Mondays (look for another gluten free recipe, No-fuss Chocolate Cake, on Aug 15), but otherwise I'll reconnect about mid-August.

Reruns/Greatest Hits

2011-07-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

I'm deep in Revisionland once again, so I thought I'd take a page from television series: Put up previously-viewed content and call it an "encore presentation"!

So, from my "Greatest Hits" file, here is a post that first appeared on August 30, 2010. Enjoy!

Surreal things happened this weekend; some made me laugh, and some made me cringe.

First up was the Stephen King Special ice cream truck that came through our neighborhood. The fact that an ice cream truck found our street was pretty amazing (he was already doing better than 90% of our visitors, who get lost trying to find us), but the music on this thing was ultra creepy. The new music system is not an improvement over the ol' Pop Goes the Weasel.

This ice cream truck had a recording that featured a calliope (the deceptively cheerful carnie instrument) and the voices of children singing something about "come out before I melt away." I kid you not, it was like a chorus of trapped souls. I don't know if Stephen King has featured a sinister ice cream truck in any of his stories, but this had shades of "It" that made me afraid to make eye contact with the driver.

The second thing was seeing a vanity plate that said AC230--you guessed it, on a Mercedes C230. It cracked me up to imagine this guy's thinking process, "Hmmm, I want to pay an extra $50 for a vanity plate, but I don't want it to be too obnoxiously ostenatious." I guess ASEDAN was already taken.

And lastly, apparently there is a (flabby) arms race going on with chain restaurants, wherein the novelty fried foods are escalating. Cheese seems to figure prominently in all of them, which makes me ever so grateful that I can't have dairy, thereby removing the temptation to consume my entire day's worth of calories (and week's worth of sodium and fat) in one sitting.

What's Your Flavor? A Buffet of Contests

2011-07-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

image source

Writer's Digest is not only an invaluable source for improving your craft and keeping up with market news, they also offer contests throughout the year. Their biggest two are annual well-established competitions:

The annual Short Story Competition (in its 12th year) with a maximum of 1,500 words. Any genre, any style, but 1,500 words is challenging! If you're up to it, the entry fee is $20 and the deadline is November 15, with the winners notified by the end of February 2012.

The deadline for the 80th WD Annual Writing Competition has already passed, but the winners will be announced in October, and details for the next competition in November. WD also has competitions for poetry, screen plays, self-published books, and "Your Story" (which uses a writing prompt).

New this year are separate genre short story competitions, with a maximum of 4,000 words. Entries are also $20, with a chance to win up to $1,000. The deadlines for each genre are:

September 15
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Thriller/Suspense

October 1
Young Adult Fiction

October 15
Romance

October 22
Crime

October 31
Horror

So start pondering some story ideas now, so that you'll have a finished story by the deadline! I may enter more than one category, just for the challenge of stretching my genres.

What about you--do you find yourself keeping to one genre when you write, or do you write all across the board?

RTW--D'ohn't Try This At Home

2011-07-13T04:30:00.001-07:00

I Blame Buffy and Joss Whedon

2011-07-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

I've been working with an excellent beta reader, Alison Kemper, and we were talking about our efforts to make our books scarier, while at the same time keeping the humor intact.

We both do really well writing pithy, sarcastic dialogue for our main characters. You know, those hilarious off-the-cuff remarks a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that break up the tension without somehow diluting it.

The difference is that in an episode of Buffy, we're also seeing the big scary monster (so we're scared too), her reaction (which might not be verbal), and everything moves at such a snappy pace that if they dwelled on something too long it would feel awkward rather than more meaningful.

All those things are so much harder to do on paper! For me, I tried to maintain the pacing over all else, so my main character never really had a chance to process the trauma or experience her own emotional reaction. And that meant the reader wasn't feeling it either.

Because that pithy dialogue is somewhat like having the last word--it's so funny on its own that it doesn't leave any room for you to explore any emotional depth. Like one of those movies that you see where you go away feeling it was only a collection of catchphrases, with no actual plot development. We've all seen those, haven't we, where we should have just saved the $10 because all the funny bits were in the trailer?

So I blame you, Joss Whedon, for giving us expectations that novels for teens can have that same mix of scariness, humor, emotional depth, character growth, and kick-ass pacing that Buffy showed us. Thereby making my job a lot harder.

RTW: Picture This

2011-07-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

Recipe for Gluten-Free Drop Scones

2011-07-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned on occasion that I eat gluten-free and dairy-free (and also am allergic to chicken and their eggs, but can eat duck eggs) but I've never posted a recipe on here yet. When I tweeted a while ago that I'd made GF lemon blueberry scones (pictured below), I got a few requests for the recipe so I decided to share it. I am planning on posting other specialty recipes, but it will likely be on a sporadic basis (mainly because there are some recipes I have put quite a bit of research into and would like to find a home in print somewhere).

I always make sure to credit the inspiration for a recipe, even if I've departed drastically from the original, but in this case I no longer know where I saw the recipe I began with. It's in my handwritten recipe book, and I probably recorded it sometime in 1992. It is similar to other recipes that yield a more biscuit-like scone, much less sweet than traditional scones, and lends itself to variations. Without further ado, the recipe:

Gluten-free Drop Scones (with a dairy-free option)

1 cup yoghurt, sour milk, or buttermilk*
1 egg**
3 tablespoons mild honey or agave nectar
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour blend***
1 cup almond meal
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon egg replacer (optional, but it helps with texture)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter or margarine (Earth Balance rocks!)
1/2 cup currants or raisins
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh orange zest

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (F)
1. In bowl of a stand mixer, beat together milk, egg (or its substitute), honey, and almond extract if using.

2. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, egg replacer, and salt.

3. With mixer on low, add two cups of flour mixture a cup at a time, mixing well with each addition.

4. Turn mixer up to medium and gradually add melted butter, then raisins and orange zest.

5. Add the last of the flour mixer and mix until well blended. If mixture seems a little too dry, add a splash of milk of choice. It should be slightly stiffer than cookie dough.

6. Spray a cookie sheet or tray with non-stick oil, or use a non-stick cookie sheet. Drop batter by generous spoonfuls, spaced 2-3 inches apart.

7. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden and firm to the touch. These freeze well, and are best reheated slightly before serving.

Variations:
Substitute chocolate chips or dried cranberries for the raisins
Add 1/4 cup toasted chopped nuts, such as almonds, pecans, or walnuts

For lemon blueberry scones: use lemon-flavored yoghurt, and substitute blueberries for the raisins and lemon zest for the orange zest. If you can't find a lemon-flavored DF yoghurt, use your milk of choice and add 1 tablespoon lemon extract.

*can use non-dairy yoghurt, or ND milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar added
**or suitable replacer, though they will be slightly more crumbly if using an egg substitute
***I use a combination of brown rice flour, tapioca starch, and potato starch

RTW: All My Favoritest Books of June

2011-06-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult & Children's Writing

2011-06-26T14:20:00.001-07:00

I've been so caught up in revisions that I haven't been able to stay on top of contests and such like I used to, sorry!

The KP Prize has a postmarked deadline of June 30, but since you can submit novel excerpts as well as short fiction, I'm going to post the details anyway. There just might be someone out there who has the perfect story or stand-alone excerpt ready to go! So here are the details from their contest page:

*One overall first place winner receives $1,000 and publication!
Three runners-up receive $100 each. One runner-up from the YA (young adult) entries, one from the Middle Grade entries, and one from the Picture Book or Writing for Young Children entries chosen.

*$20 entry fee.

*Entries must be postmarked by June 30th

*Submit one story or novel excerpt up to 10,000 words. You may include a synopsis if your entry is an excerpt, but an excerpt should still work as a stand-alone piece

*Work must be original, written in English, and previously unpublished

*Your name or address should not appear anywhere on the work

*Once submitted, entries cannot be altered

*All entries will be considered for general publication as well as for the Katherine Paterson Prize (My MG short story, Hornworms, was published in Hunger Mountain and it was a genuine pleasure to work with the editorial staff)

*No artwork, or translations please

*Multiple entries allowed—each entry must include a separate entry fee

*Winners will be announced in September

This year's judge is Kimberly Willis Holt. Good luck to everyone who enters!

Pumpkins Gone Wild

2011-06-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

If you remember from my post last year, when we'd just installed the beds, the garden is doing much better this year. Last year we had such wet, cold weather into June that I didn't even plant anything until July 4th weekend.

We had a similar weather pattern this year, but I decided to forge ahead with the planting anyway. I used Wall o'Waters on the peppers (next year I'll use homemade ones) and they also gave some radiant heat to the tomatoes planted next to them. So now my tomatoes and peppers are looking pretty good, even without the WOWs. You can tell it's transitioning from planting seasons, since the cabbages and chard are still going, and the sweet potatoes are just starting (those are the arrow-shaped leaves in the foreground).

And then there are my pumpkins gone wild! We had a mound of soil that didn't fit in the beds, so I decided to plant the pumpkin seeds right in it, and they're loving it.

And as a final pic for this post, let's check in with the pollywogs in the fountain:

No limbs yet, but some of them are getting more frog-shaped!

And now I need to retreat to my revision-cave once again--after I put the potatoes out in the solar cooker to roast for supper, that is.

Anybody else have some season-extending tips to share?

And the Winner of Through Endangered Eyes Is . . .

2011-06-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

And now, a special guest to help announce the winner of a signed copy of Through Endangered Eyes: a poetic journey into the wild by Rachel Allen Dillon from last Monday's interview and giveaway:

The tiger says, "The winner is melodycolleen!" Unfortunately, she neglected to leave her email address so that I could contact her for a mailing address. If you know melodycolleen, ask her to email me at strikingnotes(at)yahoo(dot)com so I can send her book! She has until July 4 to contact me, and if I don't hear from her I'll draw another name.

And to everyone else who entered, thanks for stopping by and sorry we couldn't give copies to all of you!

Carolrhoda Books is Looking for Open-Ended YA Romances

2011-06-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

Don't forget--he was only accepting manuscripts until June 24,2011, so you'll need to wait for the next open period. But it's still useful to get his take on romance in YA by reading below:

Andrew Karre had some interesting things to say on the Carolrhoda blog about romance in YA. It's a long (but insightful) post, so I picked out a few pertinent bits for what he's soliciting now for YA manuscripts:

"I’m increasingly interested in the romantic arc of YAs where there is a central romance. Specifically, I’m concerned with the end of that ARC. Do YA romances tend unswervingly toward a marital apotheosis, whether actual or implied?

Marriage is a powerful force in our storytelling traditions. A marriage is the formal ending of almost any Elizabethan comedy. . . So it’s no surprise it comes up in YA, but I’m wondering if there is unexplored territory here due to to the overwhelming pull of The Wedding on our stories (I’m looking at you, epilogue to Deathly Hallows).

I think one of the trickiest things about YA is that it is fundamentally anti-ending, despite all the ceremony we associate with the end of high school. . .Teenagers make their peace with uncertainty as they end adolescence, but they don’t resolve that uncertainty. This applies to relationships (what is a marriage if not a resolution of uncertainty?).

I’ll take queries for existing manuscripts that address this theme. I’m interested in YAs with central romances that know they’re doomed (and not for extraordinary reasons—fatal illnesses, galactic cataclysm, etc.) and how they cope. Go here for how to send queries. The query offer is good until 11:59 PM on June 24, 2011."

And by existing manuscripts, he means finished and polished. Don't waste this chance with something you've pulled out of a dusty drawer--he doesn't open to submissions all that often!

P.S. Sunday June 19 is the last day to enter to win a signed copy of Through Endangered Eyes: a poetic journey into the wild. If you know a child who loves animals (even if it's your inner child), you want this book!

RTW: Paris & a Boy

2011-06-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

Crows at Rest--a Teaser from Crow's Rest

2011-06-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

Since today is once again devoted to revisions on Spirits from the Vasty Deep, I wanted to do a tiny teaser from Crow's Rest here. This scene is fairly close to the beginning, and Avery has already had some weirdness that day from Bobbin, the neighbor's Corgi.

Outside, the stars unfolded without the interference of streetlights, and a chorus of insects buzzed in the summer night. I grabbed my bag from the car and went around to the back of the cottage, since the bathroom was right next to the sleeping porch and I could avoid going through the kitchen and talking to Mom and Uncle Tam again.

I turned my gaze to Daniel's house without meaning to, and I saw Bobbin standing with his paws on the fence, watching me silently. Above him, the leaves of the sycamore shifted and rustled without the wind's help. A sound like muffled croaks and squeaks—or whispers—joined the rustling.

I stowed the bag inside the screen door, and grabbed the high-powered flashlight that Uncle Tam kept for emergencies. The beam played across the leaves and branches, glinting off of countless eyes and ruffled feathers. What the hell? I caught myself clutching my chest like a B-movie star.

Taking a few steps forward, I squinted to get a better look at whatever was watching me from the tree. A barrage of caws and croaks rang out from the flock of crows. As the light shone on them again, they snaked their heads in my direction and made a rattling sound in their throats—like I was a red-tailed hawk after their nestlings.

"All right, hush," I called to them. "If you'll be good neighbors, then I'll be a good neighbor."

The birds quieted instantly, making the hairs rise on my neck and arms. Glinting eyes focused on me with an air of anticipation. This was just beyond weird. I turned and ran back to the house with my arms covering my head, half-expecting to feel sharp beaks bloodying my scalp at any moment.

But I made it to the screen porch safely, and hastily drew closed the old sheets that served as drapes. I'd probably stifle in the heat and need to open them again later, but for now I didn't want all those dark eyes trained on me.

Discover Dot Painting with Rachel Allen Dillon

2011-06-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

Rachel Allen Dillon took some time from her busy life as a mom and author/illustrator extraordinaire to answer some questions about her projects. She's also generously provided a signed copy of her book to give away (details below)! Thanks, Rachel!

Rachel graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a Bachelor of Science in Art, emphasizing Graphic Design. She combined a passion for animals, children, and creative expression, to write and illustrate her first book, Through Endangered Eyes - a poetic journey into the wild (Albert Finney/Windward Publications, 2009). She is currently working on a second endangered species book, Through Desert Eyes (Albert Finney/Windward Publications, Spring 2012). Rachel completed the text and research last summer, and is now working on the illustrations.

ARJ: If I remember correctly, in your first book, Through Endangered Eyes, you did the paintings first and the poems later. But for Through Desert Eyes, you've done the opposite--poems first, followed by the artwork. Why the change in technique, and do you recommend one way over the other?

Many of my illustrations for Through Endangered Eyes were painted first, and then I wrote the poems. Often, I didn’t connect the two. I figured the paintings, which were mostly just animal portraits in dots, worked fine on their own, and so did the poems. It wasn’t until I was starting to wrap up the first book that I started to allow the words of the poetry inspire the images. You can see that in “Speed of the Herd,” and “Worried about Melting World.” These illustrations are telling a story, and the poems take that story even further.

I am doing things differently for the second book, “Through Desert Eyes,” which is slated for a late Spring 2012 release. Each animal’s illustration spans across both pages, so that the words of the poem are sitting on the painting. I think it’s a much more powerful connection between the poem and the image. I wrote the book first, and turn to the words to inspire my illustrations. What’s funny though is that the last illustration I completed, which is more dynamic than my initial sketches, doesn’t fit the poem. So, I’ve gone back and revised the poem to fit the illustration. I guess that’s the benefit of being both the writer and artist, I have that flexibility.

ARJ: You've been to Australia, an influence that is clear in your dot painting. Did your travels there inspire you in other ways?

We traveled to Australia three times to visit family. My first trip there was when I was seven, a highly influential time in my life. My Australian uncle, who is very proud of his country, sent me a book when I was a teenager about Australian endangered species. I think that was the first time I really became aware there was a problem on our planet. I knew that panda’s were endangered, but seeing a book, and it was a big book, filled with endangered animals made an impact on me.

I was nineteen when I was exposed to Aboriginal acrylic dot painting. I had just decided to major in art at UW, Madison. It was a time when I was taking art history, and trying an assortment of mediums to figure out who I was as an artist. I combined how aesthetically pleasing mosaics were to me, and acrylic dot painting, and started to create my own style. To this day my technique is evolving (as you can see in this cheetah painting from Through Desert Eyes).

ARJ: Any cool facts you came across while doing research for Through Desert Eyes that you'd like to share? Do you have a new "favorite animal"?

Sometimes, I think my “ah ha,” moments seem silly to adults, but are great for kids. It makes sense that all desert species are able to handle living in such an extreme environment, but as I researched the animals that range from fish, reptile, marsupial and mammal it still shocked me how much they have in common.

As far as my favorite animal in the desert book, my heart strings are always pulled by big cats. I already know the cheetah will be my favorite painting, and I’m only a third of the way done with the illustrations. I think the species I’ve been most surprised by is the Desert Pupfish--now there is an extreme survivor.

ARJ: What else are you working on?

I am working on two young adult contemporary fantasies, one about young witches, and another about a girl that is part-lion (only on the inside.) I have gone back and forth between them, but I’m spending most of my time on a book titled, “The Lion Within.” I really enjoy this type of writing. I have been working on “The Lion Within” for two years, and have learned so much in the process, especially with the help of the two critique groups I work with.

Thanks so much, Rachel! And if you'd like to win a signed copy of Through Endangered Eyes, Honorable Mention Winner of the Eric Hoffer Award 2010, please leave a comment by Sunday, June 19 @9 PM Pacific (extended from Friday, June 17) and make sure to include your email if it's not in your profile. Winner will be announced on Monday May 20! (Sorry, only able to mail the book within the U.S)

Weekend Destination

2011-06-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

I just realized I haven't done a hiking post with photos in a while. We had very mild temperatures in the area today, so my husband and I headed to Folsom Lake in Granite Bay. Lots of wildflowers and birds; we even spotted a blue-gray gnatcatcher on her nest (well, I spotted her and Tim identified her) on the trail to Beek's Bight.

Large parts of this park have been shuttered because of financial woes (or at least the access points and parking lots have) so the trails were the quietest we've seen them in years. If you don't count the bicyclists that come down the hills at breakneck speed. And by the way, in years past, the shoreline in this pic was about another 20-50 feet away:

RTW: Plotser

2011-06-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: Do you like to make a detailed plan before you start a project? Or do you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants and make it up as you go along?

The last few Road Trip Wednesdays, I've been posting fairly late in the day--I guess that would be pantsing. But today I made a special effort to get up early and type up my post before class (although I won't be able to tour everyone's posts until later)--plotting.

I don't see the topic until it's posted on YA Highway (didn't they used to post a "next week" headsup in the RTW posts?), however, so I have no idea what topic will be on the table, making it a pantser task. Or a hybrid plotser task. Hmm, that's pretty much how I've written things too, with a little bit of both methods sprinkled in. Not surprising since I'm a Gemini, is it?

In my first novel, I started out with a detailed outline and synopsis. It didn't necessarily include every single event and scene in the story, but there were specific scenes that were already very strong in my mind, down to snippets of dialogue and description.

This worked fairly well for the first 50 pages or so, but then my characters became developed enough to voice ideas of their own about where the story was going. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds, but since mostly other writers read this blog, I know you all get it!

I fought the new plot twists for a while, and then just went with it. I explored tangents, got to know new characters, indulged some research and description. And ended up with a 120,000 word monster of a book. So a lot of those tangents, research, subplots, and characters had to go, which ended up feeling like a lot of wasted effort.

By the time I started my second book, I had a few more conferences under my belt, over a year with a YA crit group, and found some strong betas, all adding to the experience I gained from writing that first book.

From the get-go, I felt like my second book was going to be so much more streamlined. I mulled subplots or scenes before I even sat down to type anything, discarding some and refining others. It was like learning music and improving your ear--I am better at "hearing" what is working.

And then an opportunity to practice my pitch and get a feel for how this story idea would be received came up on Pitch University. It felt like it was much earlier in the stage of the book writing than I would have chosen to pitch it, but I went ahead and wrestled with it and was actually fairly pleased with the results (you can see it up on my novels page above).

It helped me zero in even more on the characters and their relationships, the big conflicts, what the stakes are, etc. Pitch U has an opportunity for romance writers and YA authors to pitch later this month, so I would highly recommend that you take advantage of it!

What about you? Do you plot obsessively (in your book life, not your supervillain life if you have one) or fly by the seat of your pants?

Return to Preston Castle

2011-06-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

I talked up the inspiration, Preston Castle, for the setting of my current WIP so much that our YA crit group decided to take a road trip there. And one junior member accompanied his mom, as you can see.

(Photo courtesy of Christina Mercer)It was a rainy, gray day, the perfect weather for a haunted castle. There were way more people than I expected, and I kind of longed for the days when I've been in there by myself, or nearly by myself. I'd never taken an official tour before, though, so it was nice to see that side of it.

Afterwards, we drove up to the graveyard where my WIP, Crow's Rest, starts out. Too wet to get out of the car, so we moved on to another little foothill town and did some shopping and had lunch.

These are the days when I know that I've made lifelong friends from our little crit group! And watch for an interview on next Monday with one of my crit partners, and I'll also be giving away a copy of her first book to a lucky winner!

Here's a bonus video of the interior of the castle:

RTW--Sweet Cadaver Lips

2011-06-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

Monday was a blogging holiday, wasn't it? Yeah, I didn't post because we were out of town and didn't have time to set up an automatic post before we left. But today is Road Trip Wednesday!

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: What is the strangest/weirdest thing you've ever researched?

So this is where the title of my post comes into play. And, no,it's not a zombie reference! I once saw an item in the newspaper on organ and tissue donors,and it listed all the ways that your body and parts are used when you donate it.

In addition to the well-known organ donations and medical school donations, they mentioned that lip augmentation can use tissue from cadavers. They don't actually transplant the lips; they instead insert or inject skin cells harvested from cadavers to give lips that puffy look.

I found this to be just horrifying enough to be fascinating, and knew it required further research. Thank goodness for the relative anonymity of the internet, where I could search for "cadaver lips" and "cadaver cosmetic surgery" and "corpsey lips" (okay, that last one was a search for the lyrics of "Lady Margaret") without getting strange looks. Though I'm not altogether sure that I'm not on some sort of watch list.

Today, while typing this post, I tried to find the links I'd seen before, but instead came across this:

Sigh. Another book for my reading list.

What about you? What's the weirdest thing you've researched in the name of writing? Don't forget to go to YA Highway and check out everyone's answers (you'll find them in the comments).

Characters to Connect With

2011-05-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with an agent last week that led to some recommendations for YA books that do an excellent job of showing the main character's emotional life, their inner motivations and desires. I thought I'd share the titles for the benefit of other writers struggling to find this balance (I think I'm always afraid of going too far and making everything overdramatic, and err on the side of not showing enough). Here are some books that got it right:

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (this one was also used as an example of voice in Eve Adler's workshop at our local SCBWI Spring Spirit Conference)

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

My own recommendations would be the Flavia De Luce mysteries by Alan Bradley:

Any other recommendations?

Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

2011-05-23T03:36:00.000-07:00

From their website:
"SPS Studios Eighteenth Biannual Poetry Card Contest
Deadline: June 30, 2011
1st prize: $300 * 2nd prize: $150 * 3rd prize: $50

In addition, the winning poems will be displayed on our website sps.com.

Poetry Contest Guidelines:

Poems can be rhyming or non-rhyming, although we find that non-rhyming poetry reads better.

We suggest that you write about real emotions and feelings and that you have some special person or occasion in mind as you write.

Poems are judged on the basis of originality and uniqueness.

English-language entries only, please.

Enter as often as you like!"

I found this contest through WOW! Women on Writing's blog and stopped to think about it. I have never written for greeting cards before, but I have bought a few Blue Mountain Arts cards and they are not the usual bland pap. I've even saved some that I've received because I liked the poem and/or artwork, in spite of the fact that I usually don't keep cards more than a few weeks after the occasion.

But the rules are pretty simple (you retain rights) and there's no entry fee, so if you're inspired to submit some poetry for this, go for it! I have one in mind already . . . Even if you don't want to enter, there are some nice past winners.

Road Trip Wednesday: Chocolate Covered Edition

2011-05-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

Please Welcome Karen Sandler to the World of YA!

2011-05-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

Today we welcome author Karen Sandler, whose debut YA novel, TANKBORN, is coming September 2011 from Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low. Karen has several published romance novels under her belt, and has now turned her hand to young adult fiction.

There's a great synopsis of TANKBORN on her website www.KarenSandler.net, but here's a little blurb about her book to get us started:
When best friends Kayla and Mishalla, genetically engineered slaves on the planet Loka, develop friendships with higher-status boys, they discover a shocking, evil plot that leads them all to begin to question the strict caste system of their world.

ARJ: Tell me a little about the world building you did for Tankborn: how the society and classes relate to each other, how roles are assigned, and so on. Were there any specific, real-world events that prompted you to write on these themes?

KS: Back in the ‘70s, in my first job (I worked on the Space Shuttle project), I worked with a man from India who became a good friend. He shared stories about Indian society and the caste system, and my fascination for that culture embedded itself in the back of my mind for years. Later, in the mid-‘80s, I became intrigued by genetic engineering, back when the concept was nothing more than science fiction. I first came up with the idea of genetically engineered slaves when I took a class on writing movie scripts and wrote a screenplay called Icer. A few years ago, I started thinking about how I could use some of the ideas from Icer to write a young adult book. Somehow, those two fascinations, for the Indian caste system and for genetic engineering, dovetailed in TANKBORN.

The world-building came about in stages. I’d created the “castes” in TANKBORN without fully fleshing out how that stratified society came to be. Later, during the editing process, my editor, Stacy Whitman, pushed me to develop a more integral understanding of my own world. In the process, I set up the history, politics, and religion on Loka, as well as its geography and flora and fauna.

ARJ:Prior to Tankborn, you wrote and published several romances. Did your romance writing skills translate directly, or were there some aspects of writing that you discovered are unique to the YA genre?

I strongly feel that writing romance (particularly the category or series romances I wrote)is an excellent training ground for developing good characterization skills. The stories are very character-driven, and internal conflicts are key to a satisfying romance read. I love science fiction, but it’s sometimes a disappointment when depth of characterization is given short shrift in an SF story. That is one of the most gratifying aspects of great YA—stellar characterization.

Knowing how to build a romantic relationship in a novel was also a helpful skill while writing TANKBORN. The romance element can be an effective way to connect emotionally with the YA reader (although not all readers of YA appreciate romance in their stories).

I did struggle with the language, the word choice while writing my first YA. After a while, I just wrote, getting into the characters’ heads and writing them accordingly. I also read widely in YA. I have a lot of catching up to do.

ARJ: You did not have the typical road to finding an agent--please tell us a little about that, and why it worked so well for you. Are there lessons that other writers trying to break into the YA market can take from your experience?

KS: Hmm. I’m not sure what was atypical about my search. I probably had a bit of a leg up having already been published and having been previously represented. I’d only left my previous agent because although her agency was just getting into YA, my agent didn’t feel she could represent SF.

But I did what most people do—I sent out a raft-load of query letters. For the most part, I used Agent Query to find potential agents. First, I used their search feature to find agents who represented SF/F and YA. Next, I went to those agents’ websites for further information. Although Agent Query was a great resource, sometimes what was in their database didn’t match what was on the actual website. Accurate information is a must in an agent search.

If after checking the agency website it still seemed like TANKBORN was a good fit, I’d follow their requirements to the letter. That is, if they wanted just a query by mail, that’s what I sent (luckily most want e-mail queries). If they wanted pages too, I sent what they requested.

I kept track of my submissions in a Word table. As a former software engineer, I love tables and keeping things orderly. For a sample of the table that Karen used to keep track of her agent submissions, go to her website and use the contact form to contact her.

I sent out queries to 28 agencies. Of those 28, all but two passed. Some of those were agents who never got back to me one way or another. I sent my first query in mid-October 2009 and got two offers for representation in late February 2010, so the whole process took four months. That seems fairly quick to me.

ARJ: What do you read for pleasure? And do you have any favorite YA authors and books you'd like to mention?

KS: As I mentioned above, I’ve been reading a ton of YA and middle grade books to “catch up.” For instance, I just finished HUNGER GAMES a week or so ago (which was fantastic). I’ve really enjoyed the UGLIES series and think Scott Westerfeld is a rock star. I also loved MATCHED by Ally Condie (my only disappointment was that the next book doesn’t come out until November!). MOCKINGBIRD by Kathryn Erskine was wonderful, as was RULES by Cynthia Lord (I heard Cynthia speak at an SCBWI conference and she had me in tears). On the non-YA front, ROOM by Emma Donoghue was just incredible (actually, I can imagine YA readers loving this) and THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett is an absolute must-read.

As far as classics are concerned, I have read and re-read the EARTHSEA TRILOGY by Ursula K. Le Guin so many times those books are falling apart. Same with Anne McCaffery’s early dragon books.

ARJ: What are you working on next? Do you see yourself writing more YA and possibly breaking into other genres as well?

KS: For the moment, I’m committed to YA. I recently completed a proposal for a sequel to TANKBORN that my editor is considering. I’m also working on an entirely unrelated book in what I envision as the first in a new series. It’s what I’d call apocalyptic horror.

Thanks so much for the interview, Karen, and I can't wait to see what else you have in store for the YA market!

Prioritizing

2011-05-13T16:12:00.001-07:00

In my recent interview on Pitch University, the final question and answer were:

Q. What skill is next on your list to learn?

Angelica: Learning to balance my everyday demands and my writing time. And social media time. And laundry time. And time with my husband. I'll let you know if any of those happen.

Since that interview, it has seeped into my brain that this balance would not happen on its own. So I'm changing a few things in order to give me more actual writing time.

Firstly, I've been pretty faithful about posting on this blog 2-3 times a week, and I want to be able to continue to do that. But much of my blogging time is spent searching for contests and researching other topics to blog about. So I'm going to be trying some new things like interviews with authors (the first one will be next Monday, May 16, with debut-YA author Karen Sandler) and some updates on what I'm reading.

Also, my posts have not been on specific days, but in the future I'm shooting for always posting on Mondays, and then another post on Wednesday or Thursday. I wanted some flexibility in there so that I can take advantage of YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday topics that strike my fancy.

I also decided to take a hiatus from my critique group meetings for a while. This was a really hard decision to make--I learn so much from being a part of this group, and I hope I offer good insights in return. But the fact of it is that Tu and Thurs are my only entire writing days (not split up by errands and appointments) and our meetings occur every other Thursday. So I had to ask myself, "Which is the more productive way to spend that time: writing, or talking about writing?"

The writing won out. I will still offer them feedback on their pages through email, but I'll have that precious chunk of time back. And my husband will get to see me outside of my office occasionally, which will be a plus for him. And once I have my full draft finished of Crow's Rest, I'll be back to darken their door.

What about you? Do you have any secrets to balancing your writing life and, well, a life?

Teaser from Crow's Rest

2011-05-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

Haven't done a teaser in a long time, but since I'm working on revisions for Crow's Rest, I thought I'd offer up a tiny sample with bonus photo. It takes place in the historic cemetery where Avery's uncle is the caretaker:

Even as a kid, I'd never really been creeped out by the graves, or the thought of death for that matter. Maybe because so many of the old-fashioned monuments had tranquil faces: lambs on the graves of little children, angels and cherubs on pillars, the ones I'd called "ladystones" that were statues of classical-looking women.

I took a seat on the cracked slab beneath one ladystone. Her upward-rolled eyes were supposed to direct your own gaze Heavenward, and if that was too subtle for you, she held her hand with the index finger pointing straight up. But the finger was close enough to her face that it looked like she'd just sniffed it and was offering it to you, saying, "Does this smell like Doritos?" I'd captioned it in photos as "Smell My Finger".

Meet Me in Crow's Rest

2011-05-05T17:47:00.000-07:00

I've been busy catching up on some things today, which means I got very little done on Crow's Rest, my WIP. I felt like I needed to devote a little time to it, so I knocked out this cover with one of my photos (with a filter applied in Photoshop) and some fun Gothic text:

An historic cemetery figures big into the plot of Crow's Rest, and it gives me an excuse to prowl around them and take pictures. At this graveyard last weekend, there were lots of crows, but they were messing with me and refused to stay perched on a tombstone whenever I raised my camera. Isn't that just like them?

Of course, writers don't always have control over their covers. But what elements do you consider "essential" to represent your book, if you could have complete control?

Blogiversary Contest Winners, and Don't Forget to Help Write Now

2011-05-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

First, the winners, because that's the fun part! In no particular order, Random.org generated these winners:

Marie! Who said she would like Fat Vampire for the Kindle!

Rachel! Who also wants Fat Vampire on the Kindle (and who Facebook tells me has a birthday this month, so happy birthday too!)

Angie! Who says she wants Soulless, but neglected to say which format--no worries, I'll be emailing you all to get all the addresses, and I guess that gives you time to change your mind if any of you had "entrant's remorse".

And don't forget that items for auction on Help Write Now will go up today, and bidding is open for three days! I've heard rumors of outstanding critiques, wonderful books, and a UNICORN on offer--can't wait to see that one!

My item is here and it's already gotten a few bids, whew! I was afraid it was going to look minscule next to all the big items.

Help Write Now: A Writing Community Auction to Benefit Southern Storm Relief

2011-05-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

The organizers of Help Write Now say it so much better than I could! From their site:

"Over the past two weeks, record-breaking storms have killed over 300 people and destroyed countless homes, neighborhoods, and towns. Tornadoes tore across the south, fires raged across Texas and Oklahoma, and flooding continues to affect communities all over the country. The writing community has rallied before to raise funds for many worthwhile causes, and we're hoping you'll show your support for the areas affected by one of the worst weeks in national weather history."

I wanted to donate an item, but had trouble thinking of an item of value. So I started combing my bookshelves, looking for something collectible that might generate some bids. I decided on:

This is an early edition of Charles de Lint's first novel, The Harp of the Grey Rose. It's a trade paperback, illustrated edition from Starblaze. Very good condition, with the only mark being an embossed "library of" on the first page (visible near my thumb on the interior shot). Charles de Lint is the acknowledged master of urban fantasy, so if you'd like to get your hands on this, watch the Help Write Now site and place your bid!

P.S. If you're looking for my Blogiversary Contest, which closes May 2 at 9 PM Pacific, you must comment here to enter.

Blogiversary Contest!

2011-04-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

CONTEST CLOSED, THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! WINNERS ANNOUNCED WEDNESDAY MAY 4.

My inaugural post for this blog was on May 4, 2010 so to celebrate my first Blogiversary, I'm holding a contest! With three different prizes!

I love it when I win books (if you're reading this, you're probably a writer and also love books) and I thought it would be fun to give copies of books I've read and enjoyed this past year.

So first up is Fat Vampire: A Never-Coming-of-Age Story by Adam Rex

I loved his book, The True Meaning of Smekday, and enjoyed this one too. If you like Christopher Moore, you'll like this teen vampire book too. This one's in hardcover or ebook, because the paperback doesn't come out until July 26.

Next is the first book in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, just to prove I don't read YA exclusively. My review of it for a Road Trip Wednesday is here. Okay, so this one could almost be considered a crossover book . . .

And in the middle grade category, I have The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood. It's Jane Eyre meet The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, with a dash of Lemony Snicket.

So, what do you need to do to win one of these fine tomes?

1. Be a follower of this blog (old or new) or a Facebook friend

2. Leave a comment on this post, and please let me know which book you would like if you win, and whether you want a paperback or a Kindle edition.

3. Make sure to leave your email (if it's not included in your Blogger profile) so that I can get your mailing address if you win.

4. Tweets, blog posts, links, and facebook shares are encouraged, but personally I'm tired of the contests where you get points for each hoop you jump through, and then are expected to calculate your own points. So no requirement for sharing!

5. Contest open internationally for the Kindle editions, but not the paperbacks, sorry!

Contest opens today, April 27, and will close May 2 at 9 PM Pacific. Winners will be announced May 4.

CONTEST CLOSED, THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! WINNERS ANNOUNCED WEDNESDAY MAY 4.

Top 5 Kindle Tips

2011-04-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

We got our Kindle 3G last fall, and recently some friends and family members have gotten Kindles too. They asked me for some tips on navigating the features, and I decided to post them here:

1. Your Kindle has a Web Browser

The number of people that didn't realize their Kindle has a Web Browser feature surprised me. Under Menu>Experimental>Web Browser, the Kindle does indeed include a rudimentary web browser. I say rudimentary because it's clunky and slow (especially if you're used to a good smartphone, tablet, or netbook), but it is considered experimental so I wasn't expecting a lot.

However, on several car trips it's come in very handy when I needed an address, a map, to search for a store or restaurant, things like that where a smart phone comes in handy. But, alas, I don't have a smartphone, and was glad to at least have access to the internet through my Kindle. My Yahoo! Mail seems to have compatibility issues, so I don't see myself using this regularly for email unless I'm really desperate for a fix.

Also, turn off the wireless (via the Menu button) when you're not using it, and your power will last longer.

2. You Can Upload Your Own Documents to Your Kindle

What's more, you can do so for free, by USB or email. For USB, just drag and drop, and for email you'll need to send them as an attachment to your "name"@free.kindle.com address (check your account settings to find yours, but it's usually the same name as the email you use on Amazon.com). If it's a PDF file, you can also type "convert" (without the quotes) as the subject line, and it will convert your PDF to an AZW format (for better formatting on your device, and to access features like font size).

There are some occasions that the free kindle upload doesn't work, and Amazon may try to send it by 3G instead. For that contingency, it's a good idea to set a charge limit for documents so you're not caught by surprise. You can set the limit through the "Manage Your Kindle Page".

3. A Kindle Can Read to You

This is also an experimental feature on the Kindle, though more people are aware of text-to-speech because there was some speculation on whether or not this feature infringes on audio rights. The experience of using the text-to-speech that comes with the Kindle does not compare to a well-done audio book, so no contest in my mind.

The Kindle's "voice" is pretty robotic, but that can mean some unintentionally funny readings. What it's truly valuable for, is using it in conjunction with uploading your documents.

When we read our own writing, whether on the page or out loud, we impose a certain rhythm on the words. Someone else doing a cold read (and what's colder than an experimental robot's voice?) may not have the same take. So words that are repeated jump out at you more, as well as places where you might need a comma, period, or new paragraph.

4. There Are Lots of Free Kindle Books Out There

When you go to the Kindle Store, there is a link on the left that will take you to Free Ebook Collections and there are some marvelous classic works listed, but what if you're in the mood for something more contemporary? Especially if you're wanting to try out a new author?

From the "Bestselling Kindle eBooks in Featured Categories" page, click on a genre and it takes you to a page displaying the Top 100 Paid and Top 100 Free in that category.

Another trick is to browse the genre you want, and then sort them using "Price: Low to High". You should get a few pages of free and nearly-free books before the prices start climbing.

5. You Don't Need to Buy a $50 Leather Case to Protect Your Kindle

Unless you want to, of course. My Kindle travels in my purse inside a low-tech sleeve: a bubble wrap pocket. Somebody shipped me a few music CDs inside one, and it fits perfectly without adding a lot of bulk. If I want another layer over that, I have an old-school zip up fabric book cover.

And then there's the Speck Dustjacket that I bought with a Target gift card, so technically it didn't cost me anything at all. I love that it has a stand (I have a bad habit of reading while I'm eating) and the "covers" have a weight/thickness to them that makes it easier to hold in my hands for longer periods.

You can also protect the most important part, the screen, with a film you apply over it, but I've heard mixed reviews on those. Since there isn't any sensitive touch-screen technology in the Kindle, it's probably not necessary.

So those are my Top 5 Kindle Tips! Hope they were helpful. Also, there is one more experimental feature that allows you to listen to MP3-formatted music, but I haven't successfully gotten any files on my Kindle yet so I don't know how good they sound. Anybody else have any tips they want to share?

Addendum: Hilarious blooper while composing this post. I had to tweet it: Mistyping fingers faster than brain. Just typed "dongjunction" instead of "conjunction". That's a whole nother Schoolhouse Rock

Fellowships, scholarships, and grants (oh my!)

2011-04-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

Writer's conferences and workshops may have fellowships, scholarships, or grants available, but they don't seem to advertise them widely. This makes sense, of course, because they would have people who might otherwise register choose to wait and see if they got some funds to pay their way.

I try to pay for conferences out of my writing income instead of household funds, but this year my account is pretty low. So I decided to look for other ways to attend writer's events, such as volunteering (like I did at our SCBWI Regional Conference recently), fellowships, and grants. I wanted to share some of the opportunities in my neck of the woods, to give some ideas of places to check in your area.

Our SCBWI regional chapter has a grant available for members to attend the Summer Conference in Los Angeles this August. They'll pay up to $1,000 dollars to cover your lodging, conference fees, and a paid critique (oddly, you must be logged in to the site to view the details and application instructions). Incidentally, SCBWI offers a number of other grants for members.

UC Davis, through their extension courses on creative writing and nonfiction writing, holds the Tomales Bay Workshops in October this year. You may apply for an Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Fellowship, which will be awarded in each genre: fiction, poetry, and nonfiction/personal essay. Or just become the student editor-in-chief of the American River Review (the literary journal of American River College) and you can automatically get a fellowship.

That last suggestion may be a little more time intensive than you want (and may require you to relocate), but most of the other fellowships, grants, and scholarships require little more than your time and writing effort. There are usually no fees to apply, but you may have to submit an essay or CV along with your writing samples. It didn't take me very long to get my packets together to apply for each of these, and if I get the grant or fellowship it will be time well spent.

Also, I've posted about it before, but it's worth a reminder that Poets & Writers has a searchable database for grants and awards.

Does anyone else want to share any links, or creative low-cost ways to get access to conferences and workshops?

Interview at Pitch University

2011-04-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been following Pitch University, with its lessons on pitching from industry experts and opportunities to pitch to agents from the comfort of your home, then you've been missing out on some real gems.

I've been participating with comments and pitches from day one, so Diane asked me to do a short interview on what I've learned in the process.

At the time of the interview, I couldn't think of an answer for the "personal theme music" question, so I used the answer my husband gave me when I asked him, "What music do you hear when you think of me?"

But afterwards, I thought of the Chumbawumba song "I Get Knocked Down" and how that's what the early stages of querying and pitching felt like back in my naive days, when I thought just completing a book would have agents and editors knocking down my door. When that didn't happen (much to my utter shock), I started researching dream agents and sent off my queries. Only to discover that the "dreamy" feeling wasn't mutual--they just weren't that into my book. Or at least not that early draft.

But meanwhile I was taking steps to change that dynamic:

I joined some critique groups

I started reading every book and blog I could find on craft, marketing, and networking (and started my own blog, joined twitter and facebook)

Went to a few conferences

And most importantly, I went back and applied the things I learned to that mess of an early draft of my novel

All these things helped give me the confidence and the writing chops to take that feeling of "I get knocked down" and add the rest of the song lyric: "But I get up again, you're never going to keep me down." And that's what makes me send out the next query or enter the next contest. Or submit a video pitch for that matter.

So, dear readers, what about you--what keeps you sending out that next query? What do you do to further your writing skills?

Pitch Contest over at YAtopia

2011-04-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

Writers of young adult fiction seem to love collaborating on blogs (YA Highway and Operation Awesome for example), and another gem called YAtopia started up at the end of 2010. In just a few months, YAtopia has gained over 350 followers!

Today, they are starting a pitch contest with Natalie Fischer. The 8 contributors to YAtopia will narrow the entries down to 20, and then Ms. Fischer will pick her winners from those finalists. She's currently closed to queries (I missed her by about a week when she closed, and I was so mad because an interview with her listed her "wants" as an almost-exact match to my book!) so this is a great opportunity to get to her inbox.

So head on over and enter the contest! It ends April 21 or at 150 entries.

Scar Light, Scar Bright

2011-04-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

SCBWI North Cal Spring Spirit Conference

2011-04-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday was my first time volunteering at a SCBWI conference, and my second time attending this one. What a long day--a bunch of us were carpooling so I was up at 4:30 a.m. And we got home about 9 p.m.--whew! I really enjoyed volunteering, and would do it again, but maybe not put myself down for the really early duties next time!

The marvelous Bruce Coville was the keynote speaker, and gave insightful advice about how writing for children is all about the details. I popped in for part of his workshop and people were madly taking notes, and any time I ran into him during the day he was surrounded by adoring fans. But the attention hasn't given him a swelled head, he was genuinely one of the most approachable and funny men I've met. We even got to sit with him at dinner, where he (of course) shared some wonderful stories.

The other full sessions I got to attend were Eve Adler's talk on historical fiction (where I came away with some great recommendations for books to track down and read) and Greg Pincus's social media talk (I admit I was fading during that one, but got some useful tips anyhow).

Also caught part one of Nick Catalano's Picture Book Mastery workshop (had to run out during the second part to put out the lunches for everyone) and that was probably my favorite part. He walked us through Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, pointing out design choices and how his style revolutionized the PB market. I haven't been formally "schooled" in PBs, so this was a great way to stimulate new ways of looking at the design and how the writing and pictures complement each other.

All in all, worth the long day. One of my crit partners even got a full request out of her paid agent critique, so yay for her! And BTW, our crit group was formed through SCBWI's "looking for a crit group" organization.

RTW: A Young Girl's Fantasies

2011-03-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

Character Naming Resources

2011-03-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

For my new book, Crow's Rest, the main character's name jumped out at me right away: Avery Cash. But arriving at names for, not one but two, love interests was a little harder.

I settled on Daniel as the perfect boy-next-door name, and Lonan for the corbin (a type of pooka that usually crosses into our world by inhabiting crows) since it's Irish for "little blackbird". And because I like the way it sounds.

Pre-internet, I relied on a handful of books for finding character names:
Dictionary of First Names by Alfred Kolatch (though any of the baby naming books will usually do)
The Guiness Book of Names by Leslie Dunking (a good source on unusual and celebrity names)
The Writer's Digest Character-Naming Sourcebook (arranged by nationality or origin)

Now you can search online databases for the meanings of names, their origins, and use another tool that's useful to writers--the ability to check for the most popular names in a given year.

So if you know when your character was born, you can check for the most popular name and use it accordingly. Do you want an "everyman" name? Use one of the top 15. Want to show how unique your character is? Use one that falls way down on the list, or doesn't appear at all. Make one up.

And lastly, my favorite resource is an older (1984) numerology book called You Are Your First Name by Ellin Dodge. Using the "science of numerology," the author has created personality profiles for each name.

You'll notice that I put the "skeptical quotes" around science of numerology above, but there have been times where this book has been eerily accurate about real people I've met.

Here's a little of what it says about Angelica, so you can judge for yourself:
Ability to incorporate orderly system, levelheaded practical analysis, and formal conventions into career. Deals in facts, and employs gifted intuition. Extreme desire for perfection in self and others.

But just like Adrian Monk says, that desire for perfection is "A gift. And a curse. A gift."

So how do you come up with names for your characters? Researching the perfect match of meaning and personality traits? Just what sounds good?

Revised Video Pitches

2011-03-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been following Pitch University, you may not have seen the good news/bad news scenario that followed my video pitch submission. The good news was that both my pitches were chosen for the Pitch Evaluation Lab last Wednesday. The bad--well, more terrifying than bad--news was that I had to finish revisions by that Friday morning. Knowing that I had a dentist appointment Thursday morning, as well as our crit group Thursday afternoon. And to make it more interesting, we had an intense thunderstorm with wind gusts of up to 80mph--all of which will be picked up by microphones if they're sensitive enough.

But I squeaked in under the wire, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. These will come in handy for the SCBWI Spring Spirit Regional Conference next weekend. I'm pasting my revised pitches below, or you can go to Pitch U's site and see the Before & After with Adam Friedstein's comments.

Show Me the Voice Contest Blogfest

2011-03-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

I got a late start today, fighting a cold or allergies! Brenda Drake's Show Me the Voice Blogfest begins today, and I've already sent in my entry. We could either send it now, or wait until we got feedback and send it later; My book has gone through several betas and critiques so I felt comfortable submitting it now. But, in true blogfest spirit, I will still be making the rounds of those who posted their pages to give them some feedback.

I would have liked to submit my first 250 words from Crow's Rest, but the rules stipulate that your sample must be from a completed novel. So I submitted the first 250 from Spirits from the Vasty Deep (from the prologue, actually).

Name: Angela Jackson, writing as Angelica R. Jackson
Title: Spirits from the Vasty Deep
Genre: YA Historical w/ a ghostly twist

(From the prologue)

"Where are you taking me?" I tried to plant my feet, but Miss Bonney roughly pulled me into motion again.

"I'm taking you to the east wing, to put an end to this superstitious nonsense once and for all," she answered, holding my arm in an iron grip. "I will solve two problems with one fell swoop—get some use out of that room, and cure you of lying."

"But I don't lie," I said, my breath coming in puffs as I trotted to keep up.

Miss Bonney snorted. "I suppose you deny telling the other girls the ghost of the groundskeeper and his dog walk the gardens? Or that Tabitha's late grandmother wanted to speak with her? Some of those girls haven't slept in a week. You're nearly ten years old, Olivia, you're getting too old for such stories."

"They're not stories—there are shades all around us, all the time. And I told the others they didn't need to fear these spirits, they don't mean us any harm."

Miss Bonney turned left into a long gallery, raising her candle to get her bearings. Cold and disused, this wing of the school reeked of decay and mildew. Quiet reigned at this end of the building; all the students would be getting ready for bed in their dormitories by now.

My curiosity about the forbidden wing outweighed any misgivings—until we approached the door at the far end. "What is this place?" I whispered, trembling as
I felt the weight of a presence beyond it.
----------------------------------------------

Looking forward to reading people's entries, and "meeting" some new writing friends!

Sneak Peek at My Book Pitches

2011-03-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

In case anyone is wondering why I haven't posted in a while, I've been busy making videos. Pitch University's Pitchfest starts up again March 20, with agent Adam Friedstein of Anderson Literary Management viewing and commenting on video pitches.

I've done a new pitch for my completed YA novel, Spirits from the Vasty Deep, as well as my work-in-progress, Crow's Rest. We can't submit our videos until Sunday the 20th, but I thought I'd put them up here for a sneak peek.

Is anybody else submitting a pitch this time around? And you may have noticed that Pitch University is now offering a query feedback option!

Contest Roundup

2011-03-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

Marie Rearden dubbed me "The Contest Watcher" on her blog post yesterday--how did she know I had a few more contest opportunities this morning??? And I'm not sure if my title is valid, since a few weeks ago I missed that I had won 2 separate book giveaways. The bloggers had to email me to notify me {hangs head}

But enough of my shame--get to the contests! These are both great opportunities with agent Natalie Fischer of the Bradford Literary Agency.

The contest celebrating the anniversary of Adventures in Children's Publishing is more time sensitive (she doesn't say when it closes, just that she's announcing the winner Saturday) and a random winner gets a first chapter critique by Natalie. There's a great interview with Natalie as well.

And Brenda Drake is running a Show Me the Voice contest, where you could win a critique of your first 20 pages, first 10 pages, or query by Natalie! To enter, you need to sign up through the linky on the contest page, and on March 20 and 21, you post the first 250 words of your completed book on your own blog.

And then the really fun part: you hop around to everyone else's blog and give them feedback, and they return the favor. Once you have your entry spit polished, you email it to Brenda by March 22. If that sounds confusing, read the rules on her page, she lays them out better. Top 20 entries will be posted Mar. 24, and the winners announced by Mar.28.

Welcome to Crow's Rest, California

2011-03-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd offer up a glimpse of my WIP, Crow's Rest, with a teaser from the opening of Ch. 1:

Mom woke me as we hit the outskirts of Crow's Rest, saying, "Brace yourself, Avery." It's what she'd said the first time we'd come to visit Uncle Tam, and every time since, as we got close to Crow's Rest and the Castle. A tingle of anticipation and dread rushed through me and I sat up.

For weeks I'd begged her to let me drive part of the way on this trip; bicycling was nearly a cult in Davis, and I hadn't gotten much use out of my new driver's license at home. But I'd been so wiped out from last-minute packing that instead I fell asleep as soon as I settled into the passenger seat.

As I opened the window, the June air streamed in, tasting of iron-rich dust and heat. Houses flashed by: a few McMansions that had probably been foreclosed on before they'd even been built out, along with the farmhouses that dated from the 1840s on. Buzzing insects circled the weeds, already drying and brittle among the oaks.

As we took that last curve on the approach, tree branches arched over the road, blocking our view until suddenly there it stood—a castle, an anamoly glowing red in the afternoon light. Looming over the Gold-Rush-era town from the top of a hill, making my shutter finger itch. The usual complement of turkey vultures and ravens soared above it, sinister-izing the turrets even more.

I adjusted the vanity mirror, watching the Castle recede for as long as possible as it flashed through the trees, and slouched into the seat with my feet up on the dash.

Blatant fishing: What do y'all think, am I onto something good?

"I Have Walked Through Many Lives . . ."

2011-03-02T17:09:00.000-08:00

My husband and I went to see a program at the new venue down the hill, 3 Stages in Folsom. Ensemble Galilei performed while Neal Conan read selections of poetry, Shakespeare, and other works. We enjoyed the entire program (well, not the severe lack of leg room) but what really struck me was a poem called "The Layers" by Stanley Kunitz. It describes the writer's experience for me so well:

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings. . . (more here) or click the video below to hear Mr. Kunitz read his poem

Wow! I've often felt that a few of the stories I tell belong to someone else's lives, and somehow I'm privileged to glimpse them. And have the responsibility of telling them. The conclusion of the poem really captured the conflict of trying to get the stories right: the frustration coupled with optimism.

Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written,
I am not done with my changes.

Do you do "self checks", looking back on how far you've come in your writer's journey, and looking ahead to where you think you'll be? My road has had a lot more twists and turns (and sidetrips) than I expected but I can still see the Promised Land on the horizon.

Take That, You Bastard

2011-02-27T17:05:00.000-08:00

Andrew Karre occasionally opens up Carolrhoda for unsolicited submissions, and it seems that he's had his fill of Pollyanna narrators.

He says: "I’m going to ask that you all send me your bastards (of all genders, naturally). Send me your problematic narrators, your cousins of little 6655321, your children of Humbert. In short, heroes need not apply. I’m not looking to like your narrators, but I’m hoping to adore your prose.

I don’t want really care about cover letters, so you can cut and paste this into the body of the email to which you attach your complete ms:

Please find attached a book narrated by a loathsome brute. Take him or leave him, but don’t like him.

In addition, if you’re inclined, I would welcome a brief note about your favorite unsympathetic narrator and why he or she won you, in spite of it all."

So if you have one of those books that all the crit partners kept saying, "I don't really like your MC," then send it in by March 25. I'm thinking along the lines of some of Saki's works, or possibly some of the stuff that shows up in Crow Toes Quarterly.

FIDO: ever faithful

2011-02-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

Zombies seem to be everywhere these days, so my husband rolled his eyes when I put in the disc for FIDO, another zombie movie. But we both ended up liking this one. Zombies give me the heebie-jeebies, but I can tolerate them better with a dose of humor.

FIDO delivers on the wry humor (I almost said "tongue-in-cheek" but that takes on a different tone when you're talking zombies)--like Pleasantville meets Shaun of the Dead (another must-see that I've blogged about), which sounds like an odd mix but actually works. I was surprised when I looked back and saw that it got an R rating for "zombie related violence." I've seen gorier movies with a PG-13 rating.

Here's the trailer:

A Tourist in Your Own Town

2011-02-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

My current work-in-progress is set in a fictional small town in California's Gold Country (fictional because it's an amalgamation of several towns) called Crow's Rest. So to help me establish the details and the atmosphere, my husband and I set out for a drive to some nearby Gold Rush-era towns last weekend.

Camera in hand, we visited some spots that the locals know about, like this historic cemetery:

where I found the perfect character name:

There's an interesting dichotomy, in that the locals are sometimes unaware of the nearby treasures. I used to be a docent at a historic park and the highway runs right through the middle of it; I'd have people tell me, "I've lived in the area for years and I never stopped to see what was here until now." Usually they were there with their child's fourth grade class, as a required field trip for California history.

As a historical fiction writer, one of my favorite places is a real snapshot of history in Sutter Creek: when the owner of a general store passed away in the 1950s, she left the store and its contents to the city, to be used as a museum or library. It's now a museum, with goods from the 1890s all the way through the mid-20th century, but it's rarely open because they don't have enough volunteers to staff it. My husband and I lucked out and got to go inside one afternoon, and I could have spent hours in there.

And yet, people that have lived in the area for years have no idea that it's there. I kind of like the feeling of it being a bit secret, but it's a shame that it doesn't get more attention. You know who usually knows about these kinds of places, though? It's the local kids. How great is it to grow up in a place where ruins and old mines are literally in your backyard?

What about you--have you recycled bits of your locale or hometown into your writing?

Squeamish Tuesday

2011-02-15T09:58:00.000-08:00

Squeamish Tuesday: a Teaser Tuesday that is not for the squeamish, because it contains stinky things and injuries.

The set up: Spirits from the Vasty Deep is an historical (1851) and this section is newly-added. Olivia has taken a position as assistant to Mr. Oakleigh, an obsessive naturalist who has asked her to tackle some preserved specimens for cataloguing:

I was not generally squeamish, which had served me well thus far as Mr. Oakleigh's assistant, but some of these specimens had been pickled haphazardly at best. Today's selection included those so poorly preserved that merely cracking the seal and releasing the fumes nearly knocked me from my seat. Then I had to reach into the sludgy mess with a pair of long forceps, and extract whatever flesh and bones could be saved.

But fortunately not all were so horrible, and a few of the fish must have been truly beautiful in life. I recognized one or two from the fish mongers, so I was able to guess their original colors more accurately.

One particular particular denizen of the sea fascinated me; with its lumpy appearance and frilly attachments it resembled nothing so much as a disanimated section of reef. I stood and placed it on a blotter where I could spread it out and examine it more closely, curious to see if the bits of what looked like lichen were part of its skin, or another organism attached to it.

But as I articulated the dorsal fin, I felt a sharp jab in the meat of my thumb, followed by a burning sensation racing up my arm. I drew in a sharp breath and cradled my hand to my chest, but the pain grew so intense that I wobbled on my feet.

"Mr. Oakleigh . . ." I hissed.

"Hmm?" He did not look up from the stack of papers he was sorting.

"Mr. Oakleigh," I said more firmly, "I'm wounded—that blasted fish stung me."

"Oh?" Now I had his attention. "Let me take a look at that."

I held out my throbbing hand as he approached, but he reached past me to the specimen I'd been handling. "Fascinating," he commented. "Which part injured you?"

"A spike in the dorsal fin, I believe." When he continued to poke and prod the fish, I said, "Mr. Oakleigh, the fish will still be there later, but my hand needs attention now."

"Hmm? Quite so, but we'll be sure to document your symptoms." He examined the puncture and surrounding tissue, already red and puffy past my wrist.

"There do not seem to be any spines or barbs left behind," he said. "This looks to be a reaction to venom."

"Can you do anything for it?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"When I was collecting specimens in the field and one of us got stung, there were two remedies that helped," Mr. Oakleigh mused. "One was to immerse the hand in very hot water, and the other was to bathe it in urine."

I recoiled. "I'm willing to try the hot water treatment."

At my expression, Mr. Oakleigh hastened to reassure me, "Oh, it doesn't have to be human urine. I could send down to the dyers for a jug of bovine urine."

"The. Hot. Water." I spoke clearly and firmly.

"Suit yourself," he said, shrugging. "I'll have Mrs. Chatsworth heat some."

In the meantime, I sank into a chair and laid my swimming head on the upholstered arm. Mr. Oakleigh sat across from me and proceeded to interrogate me.

"Now, what are your symptoms? Describe any neurological, mental, and physical complaints as best you can."

"A burning pain shooting up my arm, lightheadedness, nausea, dizziness, and a lack of patience for more questions," I said waspishly.

He looked up from his note-taking, and raised his eyebrows. "I believe I must add irritability to the list of symptoms."

"If you must."

RTW and some news!

2011-02-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

Are You Ready to be Schooled?

2011-02-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

Pitch University launches their first "Pitch U Pitchfest Week," wherein agent Christine Wittohn of BookCents Literary Agency will consider your pitches. If a video pitch intimidates you, they've added options for audio and written submissions to ease you into the process.

There are lots of details to get straight, so be sure to read the rules carefully. I recorded a pitch last week that I liked, and after re-reading their rules I discovered that I'd left out the important "completed" tag. So I tackled it again, and I thought I'd post the result today, in case anyone sees some glaring errors I need to fix by Sunday.

And as a bonus, some advice to prospective pitchers on word choice: beware dangerous word combinations like "sets a ship," or you could end up with a blooper like this:

Yes, I said "Olivia Herald sets a shit" before I cracked up. Mom would be so proud.

If you'd like to read the text of the pitch, it's the same one that's on my Novels page above.

O Magazine Wants Poems!

2011-02-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

For a special poetry issue of O Magazine, Oprah.com is calling for your favorite poems. They can be your original work, or a poem that particularly moves you.

Open to submissions through February 11, so hurry! Tried to embed a video with an invitation to submit your poems from the guest editor, Maria Shriver, but I'll have to give you the link instead:

http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Maria-Shriver-Guest-Edits-O-Magazine-Send-Us-Your-Favorite-Poems