Liz Writes Books

The Angry Part

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:07:00 +0000

Late last year, two of my friends decided they were better apart than they were together, and called it quits on their marriage. They're calling this a separation, which, let's face it, is ludicrous, because he just bought a condo and she's practically on the moon that he's not around.

When she's not being all needy and melodramatic about how HARD divorce is and how SAD she feels about it and how everyone needs to stop being frustrated with her unwillingness to fulfill her obligations and just UNDERSTAND how hard and sad life is for her right now, anyway.

My point is--they ain't getting back together. Not in six weeks or six months or a year. So why bother with the separation at all? Why not call it what it is?

OK, so I'm a little bitter about the breakup. Which surprises me, because why should I care? They're not even close friends of mine. They're more like friends of a friend whom I'm around sometimes when friend and I do things, which isn't that often.

And it isn't even like I'm choosing sides. It's not like She cheated on Him and now we all hate Her. It's not like He was condescending to Her and now we all hate Him. She's needy and high maintenance. He's immature and unmotivated. It's hard to like either of them. But together...they made sense.

To me, anyway. I guess not to each other, in the long term.

Lately I've been having these thoughts that I need to sit them both down and just let into them, like if I could tell her she's a mega-douche for choosing her blog over her marriage or clue him in to the fact that he needs to pull his head out of his ass and realize he's not the center of the universe, things would be better somehow. Maybe they'd get back together, maybe not, but who cares? I would feel better, and that's all that matters.

And then I think about all the things I would say to them, usually while I'm in the shower, and by the time the water turns cold, I'm so mentally exhausted from their shenanigans that I don't give a shit.

They deserve what's coming to them, I tell myself, whatever that is.

Maybe it's that being so close to such turmoil is stirring up things that I thought I had dealt with, relationships that have withered and died, that went on for far too long and yet had no closure. Their frayed ends just kind of faded into the background without any stop or start. Maybe it's that I call bullshit on her decision to split up their family for no reason other than she saw the attention her friends received when they got divorced last year, and decided it looked like fun.

Or maybe it's that it makes me ill to see two people who have what they had piss it all away, just 'cause.

I'm doing better. I really am. But that angry part isn't done with me yet.

Six Sentence Sunday: Flicker

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:01:00 +0000

So I'm going to start this thing where y'all get excerpts--sometimes small ones, sometimes not so small ones--on Sundays. To help facilitate in this endeavor, I'm enlisting those fine folk over at Six Sentence Sunday.

What is Six Sentence Sunday, you ask? Well, it's pretty self-explanatory: you take six sentences and you post them on Sunday. And there you go.

For more information on Six Sentence Sunday, click here! Otherwise, enjoy a brief (as in the tiniest of smidges) excerpt from Flicker:

The phone rang before I could challenge Molly’s scientific theory of whatever.

“Stay here,” she said, getting up to answer the phone. “And don’t touch anything or you’ll smear.”

She disappeared into the stockroom and I went back to looking at the strand of shredded silver floating in front of the salon. Probably Molly was right, I told myself. Probably it was just some zany stunt orchestrated by a bunch of bored college kids, like the time the Citizens for Prophylactics Initiative all showed up dressed as condoms to promote safe sex, only no one got the message because it was raining and they all just looked like they were wearing ponchos.

Click here to find out more about Flicker!

Click here to find out more about Six Sentence Sunday!

Raw

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:35:00 +0000

So there's this thing that happens sometimes when my body chemistry changes and the medications I had been taking no longer work the way they should. I get tired. I get excited. I get antsy. I get lethargic. I get all of these and then some all at the same time, and it's just a big mess.

It's been this way since I was fourteen years old, when I was diagnosed as bipolar.

In a lot of ways I feel like this is something I need to talk about, because not talking about it has become just one more thing that I have to keep inside, and sometimes there is so much stuff in there it's a relief just to let something--like this thing--out. And in a lot of ways I feel like this is something that I should never talk about, because it scares people--friends, family, significant others, prospective employers, the FAA. I've been fired for being bipolar. I've been asked to leave churches and schools because they were uncomfortable with how I might react to things.

Even now, as I type this, I'm wondering if it's career suicide. If now or in the future an agent or editor will see this and think, "I cannot work with someone who's unstable, someone who's crazy."

Because that's what I've heard all my life: that I'm unstable, that I'm crazy.

When in fact this particular disorder has little to do with being crazy and everything to do with how my brain receives things like melatonin and seratonin and adrenaline and norepinephrine.

You know that feeling you get when you're nervous or scared or excited? That "fight or flight" feeling that rises in your gut and makes your heart beat a little bit faster?

That's what I'm talking about.

Because when things go pear-shaped, what happens is I stop sleeping. And the longer I go without sleeping, or without sleeping well, the more my body rebels. I get nervous all the time. Little things become big, insurmountable, life-ending things. My immune system goes to shit and I get physically ill. And I feel like nothing ever stops. Like I'm thinking, moving, doing all the time.

Not stabbing someone or hearing voices or driving a car full of puppies off a bridge.

Just...jitters.

I feel jittery all the time.

The medications--like Abilify, a mood stabilizer, and Topamax, an anti-convulsant--dull this enough to where it's not an all-consuming, coming-apart-at-the seams kind of thing. Like tapping a light when it's buzzing.

But sometimes things change, and tapping the light doesn't work like it used to. And when that happens, you have to find other ways to get the buzzing to stop.

Recently I read a book in which a teenage girl goes off her meds and feels numb. And I'm not saying that can never happen. I've been on enough medications over the years to know that there's telling what might happen in that situation. You could come up to me and say, "I stopped taking Prozac cold turkey and saw through a blue haze for three weeks after!"

And I'd believe you. Because that's what happened to me.

But numb? Numb is the least of it. Numb is a blessing compared to what it feels like to titrate off one medication and onto another, only to have that medication not work, and have to titrate off it and onto something else.

The last time I went through the this, the transition took nine months and six medications. I had earaches and vertigo and tinnitus (a ringing in my ears) for the majority of that time. I lost chunks of hair, my skin dried out, I gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of weight. I forgot what it felt like to not have a headache.

I remember going to my doctor and crying for over an hour, not saying anything, just crying, because I would rather go back to what I had been taking and be sad--just sad--than feel like crap all over.

Eventually, though, we did get everything worked out. I started sleeping again. I started feeling normal again. And all the other stuff faded away.

I know this is going to turn out like that. That somewhere down the line I will look back at these past five or so months and say, "I went through that and it was hard but everything turned out OK and I am fine now."

But being in the moment, feeling raw like this...it is hard. And I'm so tired of being tired. I wish the world would just stop moving sometimes so I could catch my breath.

But it doesn't. That's not how it works.

So in the meantime, I have to stop. Not, like, literally, in the death sense or anything, but in the forcing myself to stop and get well, to let some things go (for now) and trust they'll be waiting on me when I'm strong again.

And these aren't necessarily writing-related things. Some of these things are people whom I've been taking care of, who maybe need to take care of themselves for a while. Some of these things are relationships that have grown toxic or abusive that need to end, period.

Some of these things are dreams that need to remain dreams for the time being.

I'm sorry if I'm letting you down. I'm letting me down, kind of, too. But I know I'm no good to anyone like this, afraid of my own shadow, freaking out over the tiniest things, things that aren't even worth a second glance, let alone an all-night worrython.

But things will sooner or later go back to normal.

They always do.

Eventually.

Liz Breaks Down

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:48:00 +0000

Every now and then the shit hits the fan in such a way that I'm left alone in the PetSmart parking lot, sobbing into a slightly used McDonald's napkin, wishing the earth would crack open and swallow me up, because somehow everything has gone to shit.

Everything. Shit. All of it.

I say this, and people are like, "OMG WHAT IS WRONG?"

And I don't know what to tell them. EVERYTHING is wrong. NOTHING is wrong. I am wrong.

There's this thing that happens when so much of who you are is wrapped up in any one thing. If something goes wrong, if you get get sad or despondent for no apparent reason, they automatically assume the reason why is buried somewhere in that part of you.

Which brings me to Sunday night. PetSmart. Parking lot. Salty McDonald's napkin. And a friend on my cell telling me to calm down, calm down, there will be other books.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE WILL BE OTHER BOOKS?"

"Just that...Not everyone...Maybe you should focus on other things right now."

"OH MY GOD YOU THINK MY BOOK SUCKS!"

"What? No. Of course not. But if you're upset about it--"

"I'M UPSET BECAUSE I RAN OUT OF CAT FOOD AND PETSMART IS CLOSED AND THEY DON'T SELL IT ANYWHERE ELSE AND IT'S RAINING AND MY HAIR IS STUPID AND I GOT THE WRONG CLEMENTINES AT WAAAAALLLLL-MAAAAAAARRRRRRT..."

Truth is, now more than ever I'm grateful for writing and reading, and even my new Kindle, even though it took three hours to convert all my Nook books over to Kindle format. Every day is a struggle to keep my head above water, to keep from melting down or crippling with fear, and every minute I get to check out of this reality and find sanctuary in another truly is a blessing.

Underwater

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:13:00 +0000

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I head to the gym when it's slow and float in the pool. I stare at the drop ceiling and think about nothing, just listen to the muffled sounds of water and the blood rushing around in my head. It's a place where I don't have to do anything: pay bills, write books, exercise, clean the kitchen. All I have to do is stay afloat.

it's not you, it's me

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:52:00 +0000

It's an odd feeling to watch one part of your life soar beyond expectations and the other part of your life go down the toilet. It's odd because you realize how well they balance each other out. You can't be happy about the good or devastated by the bad. You're just sort of there while it all happens.

These past six or so months have been hard. I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating well. And whenever I tell myself, "Self, you can't keep doing what you're doing. Something's got to give," I'm met with all this hostility. Like I'm angry with myself for having limitations. Like I'd spit in my own face if I could.

I thought I had gotten rid of that part of myself, the part that always shows up to kick me in the proverbial gonads whenever something bad happens. For the past couple of years, ever since I realized just how cruel that dark passenger could be, I've made a conscious effort to be kind to myself. Or as my therapist put it, to not say anything to me that I wouldn't let someone say to a close friend.

And yet, here I am, cowering down inside of myself, afraid to say things like "I'm tired" or "it's OK" or "I know things are bad, but I should work through them anyway" because I know that when I do, that other side of myself will zoom in like the Tazmanian devil, spouting off all these things about how I'm stupid and ugly and worthless and nothing will ever be right again because the common denominator in all of them is me, and I always find a way to screw things up.

So mostly I just don't do anything. And then I feel stressed because I should be doing something. And then I feel guilty because I should have done something months ago but didn't, and now I don't even know where to start or how to apologize or any of that stuff.

So I do more of nothing, and the cycle starts all over again.

Things will get better, though. They always do. I just have to wait for the storm to pass, is all.

The Truth is Out There

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:05:00 +0000

Rory: Hi, babe.

Liz: Hey. I just woke up from a sex dream.

Rory:Well, I hope it was satisfying.

Liz: No, weird.

Rory: Jesus

Liz: Not THAT weird.

Rory: LMAO. Sure.

Liz: It ended with a threesome: Me, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully

Rory: Don't feel the need to tell me anymore, OK?

Liz: Noooooooo. You have to know.
Liz: It was soooooo good.
Liz: But then at the end, The Lone Gunmen came in and Langly started shouting at me: "FANFIC!! FANFIC!!"
Liz: Like I said, it was weird.

Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Rolly Polly Fish Heads

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:53:00 +0000

Liz: So random, but I'm reading about this guy wanting something to make with fish heads and tails
Liz: so he doesn't waste any part of the fish
Liz: a guy comes along and tells him to make a stock, but discard the fins and tails.
Liz: dude's like, Why? I know you can't eat them, but will it ruin the stock?
Liz: and guy says, "Skin is fine. Apparently fins and tails harbor any bacteria that may be present."

Liz P.: that sounds gross

Liz: And--I love this--dude says, "Any bacteria that can survive an hour of simmering has earned its right to poison me."

Liz P.: LMAO
Liz P.: it will be a battle bertween his immune system and the bacteria
Liz P.: like thnderdome

Liz:Roller Derby

Liz P. Yes!

Liz: American Gladiators
Liz: LMAO. I just remembered they tried to remake that show.
Liz: Oh, America.

Liz P.: LMAO!
Liz P.: What have you done?

Liz: It's like when you see a youtube vid of a dude trying to ride a port-o-potty being pulled by his friend's motorcycle
Liz: Except not.
Liz: I think a show like that would've gotten past the second episode.

Liz P.: LMAO!

In Which It's OK to Not Want to be Published

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:28:00 +0000

Katie asked:

I hope you're still taking questions (it's okay if you aren't tho) but I have one if you don't mind. I wrote a lot in high school and on and off through college but didn't start writing novel length fiction until my senior year when I started writing fanfic. (Yea, it's embarrassing, please don't laugh!!) After several successful (as in they got a lot of comments saying they were good) fanfic stories I started writing books using my own characters......and I don't know why but I don't enjoy it like I used to. I don't have that "urge" to write every day like I did when I wrote fan fiction. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about I wrote five novel-length (over 100,000 words) fanfic stories from 2003-2006 and from 2007-now I have started four books and finished none of them. I get about three chapters in and than quit because I'm bored or frustrated. I don't understand what's wrong with me...

There is so much I want to say in response to this but there is only so much Internet and I wouldn't want to use it all up. So let me take a moment while I preface a few things:

1) I will always (always always) make time to answer these kinds of questions!

2) There is nothing wrong with fanfic. Unless you're selling it. And then it's not fanfic it's plagiarism. But in all seriousness, I used other peoples' characters and settings to cut my teeth writing. I know a lot of other people who did, too. It's a lot easier to work on the mechanics of writing--the plotting and pacing and structure and grammar--when you aren't also consumed with trying to figure out things like characters and setting and how to tell the story. So...maybe not as embarrassing as you think. Unless you shipped Doggett/Reyes, in which case I might have to flame you.

I'll be completely honest with you: I've been where you are and it ain't a great place to be.

In fact, it sucks and blows at the same time.

If you've been in the writing game that long--since 2003, if not before--chances are you've had some sort of support system. Comments. Emails. Friends. Critique partners. Beta readers. Whatever. Someone, maybe even a lot of someones, told you you were good. At writing. That you might even be publishable.

So you decided to give it a shot.

And you fell on your face.

Hey, shit happens, right?

But there's three things you're missing, the first being that no, there is nothing wrong with you.

It's supposed to feel that way.

There was an eating disorder movie back in the nineties that all the girls in my Freshman class had to watch during health class. It was about this girl who was the best ballet dancer in all of Cupcake, Indiana. She was so good she got accepted into some prestigious ballet academy where all they did was dance and do pilates and not eat carbs.

Anyway, there's a scene where Cupcake is crying over her poor feet, which are all bloodied and blistered and horrible, and she says to her roommate, "This is hell!"

And her roommate says back to her, "This is the dream!"

My point: writing as a hobby and writing as a career are very, very different. If you want to write your own book and pursue publication, make no mistake, you will get blisters. It will be hard. You will get frustrated, annoyed, exhausted, burnt out, discouraged, and criticized. To paraphrase the eating disorder dancing movie, the road to Giselle is not paved with Cheez Doodle binges and weekly dance lessons at the YMCA.

That sounds harsh, so let me just interject a moment and say I'm not trying to scold you or discourage you. I'm not one of those people who thinks if you haven't bled for your book, you haven't earned your stripes. That's not it. But it's possible the only reason you can't write an original story is because you're putting too much pressure on yourself and on your book.

Maybe you're so caught up in the idea of writing something publishable that you never write anything, period.

Maybe you need to put the publishing dream aside for now and focus on writing. Not writing a book, or even a short story, but just writing. Writing, writing, writing. Think of words and how they work and how you might describe what someone is wearing or the expression on a dog's face. Make a list of synonyms--touch, feel; hear, listen; speak, say--and consider how they are the same and how they are different and what makes one word right and the other word not right. Take the time to perfect your craft, instead of freaking out about getting a job you might not be ready for just yet.

That's one way to interpret what's going on.

Another way would be to ask yourself if you even want to be published.

Because here's the thing: in the same way there are people who want to be published but don't want to write books, there are people who want to write books but don't want to publish them.

In one of his (many) books on writing, Donald Maass said the words that set me free in regards to my writing. He said, "You do not have to do this."

You do not have to do this.

You do not have to do this.

You do not have to write your own stuff. If you would rather write fan-fiction, if you're bored, if you're unhappy, if you can't come up with any ideas you like, if you're dissatisfied, if you're unsure...you don't have to do it.

And if you do decide to write your own stuff, no one says you have to publish it. I have a couple of books on my hard drive that are mine all mine. I love them. I think they're really good. But I don't want to share them.

It's OK to be a writer--even a good writer--and not want to be published.

Because, see, the difference between Cupcake and her roommate wasn't that the roommate didn't have blisters. She did. I don't remember ever seeing her feet, but I'm sure they were as bad as (if not worse than) Cupcake's, since she kept dancing long after Cupcake had hobbled back to their room.

No, the difference was in how they perceived their circumstances.

Is writing your dream? Or is it your hell?

Figure that out, and the rest will fall into place.

New Year, New Direction

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:26:00 +0000

I keep writing this post and it never comes out right, so I'm just going to blurt it out: I've decided to change the direction of this here blog. As in, more posts about life in general and less posts about writing.

In case you're wondering why, it's not because of any one thing in particular. I don't have any super great news on the horizon (I get those emails a lot, the are-you-being-quiet-because-you-have-some-super-great-news-on-the-horizon? emails. Not that I'm opposed to them. Or super great news. But that's not what happened.), nor am I burnt out on blogging or anything like that. Long story short, I kept hoping I would hit my stride with the writing-about-writing thing and I never did, so I'm going back to doing what I know I can do well:

Talking about my feelings on the Internet!

I went back and forth for months on whether or not I should blog about this change, because I'm a proponent of doing and not saying, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I hate bait-and-switch tactics. If you're following this blog, you deserve to know what's going on. You deserve the option to opt out.

It's OK if you do. Opt out, I mean. It won't hurt my feelings in the least. Life is too short to have to dig through a million different blogs in your Google reader to find the one that still interests you.

And if this blog is one of those blogs? You should delete it. It's messing up your feng shui.

But if you want to hang out and have fun and talk about things like World of Warcraft and The X-Files and how the Noel/Felicity/Ben triangle could totally have been fixed if in episode one Bob Barker had them all three spayed or neutered and maybe even a sprinkle of writing here and there, you're more than welcome to stick around.

2011: The Year in Review

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 07:14:00 +0000

I know there was this whole thing about moving to Wordpress, but there are still kinks that have to be worked out, most notably that Blogger is a rat fink, so that's coming. In the meantime, I took the majority of December off because holy crapola mother of dog did December move like some acid-laden spin-art or what? It's like someone slipped me a mickey the night before my birthday and this morning I woke up and stumbled around like a newborn foal, thinking, "Wait? What? And the sun and the bright and the whoa and hot damn."

Which, now that I think about it, could totally be your year in review. Thank you for reading.

So what all did I get up to in 2011? Let's see....

I failed at a lot of things.

2011...got away from me. I know, that's a flimsy excuse. But it did. There were things I wanted to do--like taking up running again and writing more short stories--that fell by the wayside, because I was too busy doing my impression of a newborn foal drunk on ether.

I helped deliver a litter of kittens.

And I still haven't recovered from the cute.

I finished a book...

...and named it Flicker and fell in love with it thirty-sevent times because that is how many edits it went through before I sent it out.

That's right, it's out there. Somewhere. Possibly a lot of somewheres. Gathering dust or being read or maybe lining a cat litter pan or being bronzed because it is awesome. Every now and then I open the file and poke it, but otherwise it's done. Done done done done done.

Except for when I wake up in the middle of the night convinced it isn't. Thankfully, though, those moments are getting fewer and fewer.

Which is good, because...

I started something new.

A lot of somethings new, actually. All the things on the HOW I WRITE tab? It's mostly all new stuff.

(And I loved every minute of it.)

(Well, mostly.)

I found my sweet spot.

Which sounds much more dirty than it actually is. Here's the short version:

Every year around this time, I do this thing where I saturate myself with World of Warcraft and Buffy/X-Files/Firefly/Doctor Who/3rd Rock/Alias/Roswell/Ancient Aliens/Felicity/Lost marathons and Meg Cabot's MEDIATOR series and Sailor Moon manga (OMG, guys, it's being re-released!!!) and Legally Blonde: The Musical and manicures and salt scrubs and wassail and cheddar cheese popcorn and a bunch of other things that make me feel like my innards are made of the stuff they fill Cadbury eggs with. It's a place where things like blog followers and book deals and fears and anxieties do not exist, a place where I'm at my most creative.

And it occurred to me, halfway through a week-long Felicity marathon (in which Ben was a megadouche) that this is what I should be doing all year long: recharging my batteries, refilling my creative well, focusing on making myself happy and inspired instead of berating myself for watching TV instead of working, working working.

At the risk of sounding like a tool by talking about a book that none of you know about outside of the first paragraph, I honestly don't think I could have written Flicker if I hadn't let myself marinade in a bunch of happy things last year. My day to day life wouldn't have sustained a first draft, let alone thirty-plus edits. There's no way.

So in lieu of doing the old resolutions thing--which, let's face it, I suck at because by February they're so forgotten, it's not even funny--that's one of the things I'm going to focus on in 2012. Being happy and inspired instead of overanalyzing every email I haven't received.

Which brings me to....

I didn't break my back, but I did give myself an ulcer.

This happened right after I started sending work out, and I didn't even know what was going on until my doctor was like, "I think I just saw Gandalf falling eternally through the hole in your stomach. Probably we should do something about that."

And I was like, "Dude, no way. How would I get a hole in my stomach? And by the way how much did that medical degree cost you, because I'm thinking of getting my friend Marilyn one for Christmas so she can remove her own spleen should the need arise."

But he was all persistent and stuff, and when he asked me if I had been anxious about anything lately, we both broke into laughs because DUDE. WHEN AM I EVER NOT ANXIOUS ABOUT SOMETHING? I have a post-it over my iSight camera because of an episode of Criminal Minds from 2007. I freaked out when the cats pulled the DO NOT REMOVE tag off my mattress. Last week I woke up to a certified mail slip on my door and spent the next four days making a list of all the people who might want to sue me, ninety percent of whom I'd never even met.

So yeah. Me and nerves don't mix.

At least, not when you throw in a thousand pounds of five alarm salsa, anyway.

More later!

Happy new year!

Changes and Things

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

I'm taking a hiatus until December 2nd so I can move things over to Wordpress where the grass is greener and the kittens are kittenier and I won't be forced to conform to Blogger's functionality.

See you on the flip side!

Why I Hate the NaNo Hate

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:33:00 +0000

It's November 11th, four days from November 15th, which is the dead middle of NaNoWriMo. In other words, SHIT IS ABOUT TO GET CRAZY.

Right now there are few thousand people scratching their heads, wondering why they want to make their books bite the curb, because hot hell holy damn, guys, who knew writing a book was hard? Hard as in work? Hard as in who's the asshole who had the bright idea to do all this shit in one month because maybe he should say hello to my little friend.

When you look at NaNo on paper, it seems so easy. Seven pages a day and at the end of the month, shazam!, you have a book. It's right up there with 1,100 calorie a day diets and marathon training programs and MLM marketing schemes and ebook sales figures.

But there's a huge gap between theory and practice. Theory says, if you do X, it will lead to Y. Practice says, if you do X it may lead to Y but probably it will try and kill you first.

So right now there are all these NaNoWriMoers feeling the sharp sting of reality's teeth biting them in their asses, the same asses that have gone flat from having sat at the computer and tried to stare it to death. And all it says back to them is, 1,667 WORDS A DAY AIN'T SO EASY NOW, IS IT, BITCH?

A while ago, Liz Poole and I talked about how there's a window of opportunity for writing a book and how you have to get it down before the new idea endorphins wear off else you'll start second-guessing yourself, and how once you let the crows of doubt in, it's only a matter of time before they start shitting on everything. That scene you were so proud of? The hook that had you bouncing off the walls? The character you missed your exit thinking about? Shit, shit, shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

This is why I'm so unforgiving about people who feel like it's their job to poo-poo on NaNoWriMo. Like those participating don't have enough shit in their heads already. Like they're not already feeling like it was a mistake to write this damn book. Like they don't already hate themselves for being so idiotically stupid to begin with. Like they had might as well give up and go back to the motherfucking Dairy Queen because they'll never be a real writer.

Any other month, if someone says, "I'm writing a book!" they'll be swarmed with well-wishes and advice to fuck the naysayers and write every day and don't get discouraged if something isn't perfect because all good writing is revision and good luck and welcome to the club.

But not in November. It is a writing faux pas to write a book in November. Those who do are either foolish or n00bs, and are destroying the ecosystem of the publishing industry. What? It's become uncouth to pick on the self-pubbed authors so let's go have at the NaNoers instead?

I don't get it.

Because here's the thing: the only people who seem to give a rat's ass about how NaNoWriMo impedes the almighty "process" of writing a book are people who allegedly love books. Love them enough to write them. Love them enough to represent them.

So what's with the hate?

Don't we always say that there's no wrong way to write a book and many roads lead to Oz and what works for me might not work for you and vice versa and your mileage may vary?

Why is this different? Why does it piss so many people off?

It's a book, goddammit, not a meth lab. Chill the fuck out.

And for those of you hitting your wall, take heart. It happens. It happens with every author and every book and yes, it is always going to be hard.

But you have 19 days left, and there's a lot you can do in 19 days.

So fuck the naysayers, write every day, keep on trucking, and don't get discouraged if it doesn't turn out perfect right out of the gate. The best writing comes from revising. But you have to have something to revise before you can revise it.

And that is what NaNoWriMo is all about.

NaNoWriMo Day #9: Haiku

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:59:00 +0000

NaNo hate is like

a dude with a tiny dick:

all grind and no bump

Birth of a Novel, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 04:57:00 +0000

There's a truth universally acknowledged that every writer sitting down to write a book will inevitably get an idea for another book. It's right up there with going into a room and not remembering why until you're out of that room again, and searching your house from top to bottom for the sunglasses perched on top of your head. You know how my motto is "shit happens"? Well, this is just some of the shit that happens. Welcome to the wonderful world of writing.

The last time we talked about this Birth of a Novel shiznit, I was all GAME ON!!!! because I finally (finally, finally) had decided what I would be working on next. This probably makes me sound indecisive, but dudes, you have no idea. I worked on Flicker for 10 months. I have 48 ideas in my ideas folder. That is 480 months. If you put that in dog years, it looks like this:

∞

So every time I sit down to start something new, I panic. Sheer, unadulterated, if-I-had-gonads-they-would-be-in-my-throat panic. What if I choose the wrong thing? What if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and never get to finish anything else? Would I really want this project to be the one they find on my hard drive? It's stupid. They're all stupid. I am stupid.

Which is why, after almost one full week of November, I have 8,000 words of six different projects.

But fear not, mis compadres, for I have conquered the evil bitches of doubt and fear. And finally--finally, finally--I have decided what I will be writing this month.

Probably.

Here's the breakdown:

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

I have an idea. An idea I think is really cool. No, I can't be more specific than that. No, I don't know where ideas come from. Ideas come from everywhere. This idea came in the shower. They all seem to come in the shower. If you need an idea, get naked and stand under some water for an hour.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Debate. Do I really want to pursue idea? More showers. More ideas. I start writing things down.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Somehow between Tuesday and Thursday I come up with character profiles and a handful of scenes. Characters have names, settings have descriptions, it's all in a file. But no real story yet.

Friday, November 4, 2011

I create a bare bones outline of plot by taking my beginning (inciting incident) and end (black moment) and putting a scene in the middle (midpoint) to bridge the two of them. Like this:

BEGINNING --------------- [MIDDLE] --------------- END

Then I found a scene between the beginning and middle, and the middle and end, to create two more bridges.

BEGINNING ------- | ------- [MIDDLE] ------- | ------- END

And so on.

BEGINNING --- | --- | --- | --- [MIDDLE] --- | --- | --- | --- END

I crapped out after like five plot points or so, but you get the gist. Plot what you know and wing the rest.

That's the end of Week 1. Still no actual writing, but not a bad start for a week-old book.

Imaginary Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:41:00 +0000

In physics we use a lot of imaginary numbers. I won't go into the details of what an imaginary number is because I know that just by listing the equation (i=√-1) some of you are going to be all, "OH MY GOD LIZ WHY WITH THE MATH AND THE NUMBERS AND THE HURTING OF MY HEAD" and then do that thing I love/hate where you hit the unfollow button and then send me an email telling me all about how you had to do it because there was math on my blog and you are morally opposed to math. I imagine the email would look a little something like this:

i=√-1 where i is me and √-1 equals UNFOLLOW.

But all imaginary numbers mean is we don't know yet what goes in that slot, just that something goes there, even if that something doesn't exist yet. It's a placeholder.

I don't know why writers are so reluctant to use imaginary scenes in their writing, maybe things that you know don't happen but will bridge the gap between what has happened in the scenes you've already written and what's going to happen in the scenes you haven't written yet. But oh my god the resistance that comes from advising people to write [SHIT HAPPENS] and move on. You'd might as well tell a reality star to get a job outside of the entertainment industry or inform the amish that not only should they colonize mars, but also sew buttons on their clothes and then fornicate with a buffalo. Or something. I really didn't think that analogy through.

[INSERT MORE ACCURATE ANALOGY HERE]

I laugh at how many books I started writing and then gave up on because I got to a place where I didn't know what happened and that was it. Game over. All your book are belong to us. And I remember always being a little sad about it, because I never got to such-and-such scene where such-and-such cool thing happened.

I'm embarrassed to admit how old I was when I figured out, holy shit, I can SKIP THAT PART and move on to what I DO know, and then piece the two together at the end, but let's just say it was after losing my virginity and before lunch at China Star last Saturday. I will let you formulate your own ideas as to how far apart those two things are and where exactly this epiphany fell between them.

ANYWAY.

My point is, if you are now like I was then, thinking you can only write a book linearly and if you don't know what happens you had might as well go suck on a shotgun lollipop, do yourself a favor: pull your head out of your ass, write what you know, and worry about what you don't know later.

Because I'm telling you, by the time you need it--really need it--it will be there like it was there all along.

I promise.

NaNoWriMo and Birth of a Novel

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:07:00 +0000

So, a couple of things:

NaNoWriMo!

It's November and that means it's National Novel Writing Month!

(Psst: you can find me there as lizwritesbooks)

I love love love NaNoWriMo for a bunch of different reasons, but after last year it's even more special because now I have a better understanding of the kind of good that can come out of it.

And now, I'm not talking book deals, even though that happens, too.

This time last year, I was a very sad sort of writer who talked about writing more than she actually did it. I could tell you all about the stories in my head, but when I sat down to put them on paper, I went blank. It was so frustrating. I was sure I would never finish another book ever again.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2010 kind of as a last huzzah, thinking that if it worked out, great, and if it didn't, at least I could say I gave it my all before I hung up my writing hat and called it a day.

But once I got started, the words just seemed to come to me, out of nowhere. And by the end of the month, I had one of the best things I'd ever written.

SIKE!

That is so not what happened.

The real story is this: I cried and whined and somehow managed to crank out 50,000 words of a craptastic YA suspense novel called STORY ABOUT CATE AND CHUCK. That's right. It was so crappy it didn't even get a title.

But when I finished? I felt so good. Like I could conquer the world. Or maybe finish another book.

So that's what I did. The following month I started on Flicker. And in the year since, I've finished nine first drafts, some of them good, others not so much.

And that's really the whole point of NaNoWriMo: to write a book from start to finish, just to prove to yourself that you can.

Because once you believe you can do something?

You're unstoppable.

Birth of a Novel

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, Liz Poole is doing a blog chain this year in which writers can chronicle their books' journeys from inception to...well, wherever they go after that. You can learn more here: Birth of a Novel.

I've always wanted to do something like this but I usually only remember that I want to do it halfway through a novel, by which time it's too late to do it. But not this year! This year I am ready! Sort of!

Sanity or Lack Thereof

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:36:00 +0000

It's been no secret that the past few, oh, months I've been running around like a post-apocalyptic chicken with its head cut off, screaming about how the SKY IS FALLING and MY BOOK KIND OF SUCKS while simultaneously giving my kitchen a once-over with my Shark Steam Mop.

(For the record, I don't really think my book sucks. Or at least, it sucks 3.5% less today than it did yesterday. Oy.)

The problem with revisions at this stage is that by the time you get to edit #29, you already 28 versions of the same story in your noggin, plus pages upon pages of notes and characters who are in one scene now but they used to be in more and they used to be important and wait, didn't he already give her that necklace? Why is it a bracelet now? And why is he slipping it on her finger? SOMEBODY JUST SHOOT ME IN THE FACE.

I'm being melodramatic. It's not that bad. Really--and this is just my opinion, here--it's not bad at all. But I've whacked so many heads off this book by now, it's hard to tell which ones are still attached until someone sits you down and says, "This is good but it could be better if you do _____ and _____."

Only instead of _____ and _____, it's more like this huge freaking list of things that would be better, things I totally agree with, and in fact things that spurn on an even longer list of my own.

A list that, quite honestly, scares the bejeezus out of me, because holy shit, I am in no shape, way, or form smart enough good enough awake enough to pull that out of my ass.

I mean, I want to...but what if I break my book? The book I love so very, very much?

Sometimes I'm so intimidated by how good my book isn't and the amount of work it will take to get it to where it needs to be (what if it needs 30 more edits after this? and I can't do them?) that I end up with a deficit of work done. I don't know how that happens, but it does.

It's almost embarrassing the number of times I've had to be talked off a ledge, usually the same ledge, over and over again. I've cried and screamed and steamed my kitchen so many times I thought I might have broken my Steam Shark yesterday until I called the Shark people and the guy asked me how many minutes I'd been using my Steam Mop and then said, in a voice that was equal parts condescending and horrified, "Ma'am, I think you need to put your Steam Mop away for a few days."

And I was all, "You don't understand, Mr. Never Had To Edit A Book . . . MY STEAM MOP IS THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME SANE RIGHT NOW! WORK, DAMN IT! WOOOOOORK!"

Throw in a renovation project, half a dozen or so sick kitties, neighbors I want to stab with a fork, a nasty bout of insomnia, and my mother, and that's where I've been for the past two weeks.

But really, I feel better now.

Fear and the Art of Moving On

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:00:00 +0000

Anonymous asked:

I was directed to your blog from the Bookends query workshop. I finished my book this summer after five long years (paranormal romance). So far I have sent off 50 queries that have resulted in nearly as many rejections. Four agents have read the full manuscript. Two have already rejected it - form rejections, both of them. I know it takes time but I'm quickly becoming discouraged. What if after five more years of working on my book I still don't have an agent?

What if everyone who lived near Yellowstone was all, "OMG, what if in five years the massive caldera on top of which we live erupts and we all die?" What if everyone who traveled by plane or drove a car to work got in thinking, "OMG, what if next Tuesday the plane I'm on crashes/my car is flattened by a semi?"

I'm not trying to make light of your situation, but I do want you to realize there are risks involved in everything we do. If you use a debit card, there's a risk of identity theft, bank error, or that your card will be declined. If you catch a cold, there's a risk of infection, adverse reaction to medication, or maybe you'll catch ebola at the doctor's office.

Fortunately, the risks of writing a book aren't anywhere near as dire as the ones above. Unless you die of a staph infection resulting from the surgery you underwent to correct your inevitable Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, I mean.

Rejection sucks. It sucks so hard. You know how people are always like, "You need to get a thicker skin, rejection is part of the business, blah blah blah?"

They're absolutely right.

But I've been getting rejections from this business for fifteen years, and let me tell you, it still is unpleasant.

Maybe I don't cry about it like I used to. (And believe me, I used to cry about it a lot.) But of course it still hurts. Probably it always will. That's life.

But you can't go into it fearing the worst. If you do, you'll choke. Every time.

So what if in five years your book still doesn't have an agent?

Simple. You write another book. And if that one doesn't sell, you write another one.

There's something very sad about moving on from a project that never found its audience. It's the same kind of sad I get whenever I think about the fact that Firefly was cancelled after six episodes and CSI: Miami is still on the air. It sucks. But it happens. That is the reality of business.

The reality of writing, though, is that whether your book finds its audience or not, it's OK to love it. In fact, loving it is kind of a prerequisite. Just know that even if you love your book, it's also OK to let it go and move on to other things. Because if you want a career as an author, you will have to write other books, whether this one sells or not.

So learn from this book. Let it make you a stronger writer. Keep it close so it can remind you every day that hey, you can do this. But regardless, open a blank Word document and start writing something else. Something new. Something different. Something that terrifies you and makes you feel like an ant trying to eat an elephant in one bite.

Moving on doesn't have to be synonymous with giving up. Writing a second book won't make your first book obsolete. It won't lessen your chances of First Book being published or snagging you an agent.

What it will do, though, is lessen the if-this-book-bombs-my-life-is-over anxiety you're feeling. And that alone is worth its weight in gold.

Passion, Talent, and Skill

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:55:00 +0000

xixi asked:

~~What would you do with a drunken sailor?~~
~~Why can't Spencer Reid be my best fri~~
~~Hey, it looks like you're making progress with Flicker!~~

As you may see, I had some trouble coming up with the right question, but I think I've finally hit on a good one:

Do you make art in any other medium than books/computerwords?

This is probably something that would be easily answered by someone who has been following you prior to #snookifest, but as it is, I was curious, because for me the processes of writing with words and writing music are so completely different, it feels as if I have two different brains I use to create (at least!). Yet I know that many art-makers talk about being creative in many different mediums, and how the experience of creativity transcends the particulars of what they are doing. So. What is your take (if you have one)? And to be clear, art/creativity to me includes not just painting/composing/artchitechture, but things like knitting, cooking, macrame (okay, maybe not macrame) as well.

I had to think about this question for a long long time because there for a second I couldn't remember if I did anything but sit on my derriere and write books. Every day with the books and the writing and the yet more books. And more writing. Is the world still heated by that "sun" thing? Because it's been so long since I've set foot outside, I just want to make sure.

I kid, I kid. I know we all live underground now, so there's no point of going outside. Or at least that's what my editor told me.

But there was a time not that long ago when I was totally into the music thing. I had opera lessons three times a week, piano lessons--three kinds of piano lessons: repertoire, technique, and performance--every day. We're talking hours--HOURS--a day at the piano, playing with broken and blistered fingers, cursing Rachmaninoff and his godforsaken mutant hands. I mean, the dude had a handspan of four football fields. I once broke my thumb trying to stretch my hands out enough to bridge a connection.

You're probably wondering what I intended to do with all of this. Teach? Play professionally? Join the circus?

Nope. It's just that, as ignominious as it is to say it, I had a natural gift for those kinds of things. Despite the fact that I couldn't read a lick of music, if I could hear it, I could play it, and my mother especially thought it was a damn dirty waste to not cultivate that into something more.

So basically I spent 8+ hours a day practicing music not because oh my god I loved it and my life would be so dull and meaningless without it, but because it was the lesser of two evils. Practicing music meant I was doing enough to not disappoint other people but not so much that I was actually progressing into something I didn't want to do.

(Like play in public. I did not want to play in public. Do not want to play in public. Ever.)

What happened? Well, there are only so many hours in a day, and between eight hours of work and eight hours of playing piano, that didn't leave very much time for writing. Something had to give.

The month after I quit my training, I ordered cable for my apartment, complete with DVR. I remember being more excited the day they installed it than I ever had been practicing piano.

Let's put this in perspective with the writing thing for a second. In one year, I learned to play the entire piano suite to The Nutcracker, most of it by ear.

One year.

And in fifteen years, I still haven't gotten a book published.

I say this to point out that sometimes there's a disconnect between what you're good at and what you have passion for.

When Tori Amos released Night of the Hunters, one of the first things I did was sit down at my upright and hammer it out. It was the first time I'd touched my piano in months. I haven't touched it since. And I'm OK with that.

I go a day without writing, I get itchy.

Once upon a time I got into a debate with someone who believed that unless a person possessed a natural ability to write, the most they could ever hope for was mediocre success.

Not. True.

Picking out music I'd only heard once? Knowing the difference between C and C-sharp at 4? That was talent.

This is practice. Years and years and years of practice.

My point is: if you don't have talent, you can always fall back on skill, perseverance, and luck.

But God help you if you don't have passion. There's no substitute for that.

Query Critique on The Haunting of Holbrooke House

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:15:00 +0000

So yesterday I found out that an older query that I had written last year and submitted for critique was up on the BookEnds blog.

(Which is kind of funny because it was originally up in August, and then taken down, and then put back up again. Holy deja vu, Batman!)

A couple of you recognized the title and concept from my What I Write page and had some questions on the query, so that's what we're doing today.

(Can I just say how odd it is to be recognized on the Internet? Because it is odd.)

Anyway, here you go:

Matt wanted to know why I wrote what I did, where I did (my comments are in red):

Dear Agent,   

Note: Lauren is right--you'll want to personalize this. You'll also want to research the agent well enough to know if they want a personalized introduction ("I'm querying you because...I saw an interview/you rep so-and-so and I love her work/you expressed interest in a similar premise on Twitter/we met at a conference and you loved my shoes…") or if they prefer to jump right into a pitch.

Thanks to her grifter mother and nomadic childhood (Lizzy's internal conflict and acerbic personality totally revolve around her mommy issues), paranormal investigator Lizzy Lozada has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to bullshit (I was surprised to see "bullshit" called into question so much. A lot of people who read the query said, "Oh my god, you can't curse in a query!" But in the end I decided to leave it because it's true to Lizzy's voice. Lizzy wouldn't have sugar-coated "bullshit", so neither did I). So when suspected murderer Wade Collins pleads not guilty by reason of demonic possession (the haunted house is the plot; this is the inciting incident, the thing that gets her into the house), Lizzy makes it her own personal mission to blow his devil-made-me-do-it defense all to hell (I start playing with language a little bit here in an attempt to show the book is full of lame humor, (just like me!)).

Note: I never queried this project, but I did get a couple of agent critiques for it. It was interesting to see the parallel. Sara Megibow was concerned that Lizzy's antics would go unchecked and be written too cutesy, a la Stephanie Plum. Lauren was concerned she'd be a piggy-backer on a police investigation. Neither actually happen in the book--Lizzy gets fired for her antics (which of course leads to more antics), and it's the assistant D.A. who calls her in to blow Wade's defense to smithereens (so she's not just nosing around)--but both are legitimate concerns, especially in a glutted market (like paranormal romance). Agents read a lot of books. They read even more half-books. And even more queries. You can bet they're going to be playing guess-the-plot in their heads and be underwhelmed when they guess right. If you're writing for a market that's already saturated, be prepared to show (not tell!) how your story is different from everything else out there.

But debunking the urban legends surrounding Holbrooke House, the now-derelict boarding house where Collins lived as a child, won't be easy, especially with rival investigator Jesse and his ragtag gang of ghost-hunting ruffians claiming squatter's rights.

The first paragraph introduced Lizzy and the paranormal. The second introduces Jesse and the romance and the Conflict with a capital C.

And yes, the sentence is distractingly long. ;-)

Tip: How do you know when a sentence is too long? You say it out loud. If you can't make it through without stopping for air (or, yegads, a drink of water) the sentence is too long.   

I'm talking to YOU, Marcel Proust.

Lizzy and Jesse share a history steeped in attraction, frustration, and self-preservation, the latter of which has Lizzy less than thrilled at the prospect of spending the night with a man who's as sinfully seductive as the devil himself (there's that lame wordplay humor again). Too bad for Lizzy, she doesn't have a choice. Because she and Jesse aren't the only ones with unfinished business, and the house they're in knows something they don't (the first two sentences set up the romance conflict, which, in paranormal romance, is the primary conflict; the last sentence hints at the plot--that the allegedly haunted house is actually freaking haunted. Why showcase one and not the other? Simple: in this particular genre, it's the romance that's the selling point, so I really wanted to spotlight the history and rivalry between Lizzy and Jesse. If HOLBROOKE had been written as a horror, I would have left them at "estranged spouses" and focused more on the history of the house and what all has happened there.):   

History is about to repeat itself…for the last time.   

This surprised me most of all, because it's the one line I honestly felt was a cop out. I mean, it's accurate. It tells you more about the plot than anything else up there, though you wouldn't know it because it's so freaking vague. But where I saw vague my beta readers saw intriguing and kind of scary, so I left it in.

THE HAUNTING OF HOLBROOKE HOUSE is a paranormal romance complete at 75,000 words (I rounded up about 1,100 words because 75,000 is easier to catch while skimming than 73,580). Chapters or a synopsis are available upon request.

I didn't include a bio for the critique, but if I were to include one, it would look something like this:

I'm a member of Romance Writers of America and its online young adult chapter, YARWA. In my spare time I enjoy reading, busting a groove to my iPod, and truly awful reality television.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Liz

Hope that helps!

Liz wanted to know how much of the story made it into the query, as well as what didn't and why:

Roughly the first 70 pages are alluded to in the query.

Or, if you're a Save the Cat beat sheeter, the first act.

(Shameless plug: you can download a Save the Cat beat sheet here.)

Here's the breakdown:

Paragraph 1: opening image / theme / set-up / catalyst (for plot - hired to investigate Holbrooke House)

Paragraph 2: catalyst (for romance - staying in Holbrooke House with Jesse) / debate (for plot - to stay or to leave)

Paragraph 3: debate (for romance - to engage or not to engage)

Paragraph 4: hint at strong break into Act II (this house is freaking haunted, yo)

What wasn't included in the query:

Subplots and B-stories and secondary characters, like the conflict between Lizzy and her mother, as well as the conflict between Lizzy and her boss, Harry.

(By the way, Harry was by far my favorite character of the book. I love Harry. LOVE. But he didn't make it into the query. Because he isn't integral to the plot. Integral to my giddy laughter? Sure. Integral to the plot? Not so much.)

The fun stuff, like the Doctor Who and X-Files jokes between Jesse's gang, the pop culture references, and all those other little darlings we cling to for dear life.

What writing the book meant to me. Of course writing the book meant something to me. And actually the whole Lizzy-and-her-mommy thing (not to mention the fact that I named a character after myself and didn't realize it for months) made me realize I have my own mother issues to work out. But that sort of things belongs in a manila folder at my therapist's office--not in a query.

Description of appearances. There's a lot implied, but now that I think about it, I can't even remember a time in the book when I sat down to describe how someone or something looked. The closest it ever comes is when Lizzy's boss calls her an irresponsible firecrotch right before he fires her.

The end. A lot of people, myself included, have big twists in their book they don't want to spoil, not even in a query. But a lot of the time, what happens is the author starts playing keepaway with the plot. They'll toss it here and they'll toss it there, but since no one ever gets to hold it and get a real good look at it, it appears as though the author doesn't have a plot at all. If you don't want to say the Titanic sinks, at least infer that it's not as impervious as its name might imply.

Backstory. I have four times as many pages of notes on Holbrooke House, what happened there, the people involved, timelines, histories of the neighboring towns, et cetera, than I do actual manuscript. Very little of that stuff made it into the book. None of it made it into the query. What backstory there is (Lizzy's mother issues; her history with Jesse) is both implied and integral to both the romance and the plot.

And Christine wanted to know why I never queried this project:

The decision to not pursue publishing with this project was solely a business one. I loved the story. I was happy with what I managed to do with it. But ultimately, I didn't want to lead off with it.

And the reason for that is Flicker.

By the time I was ready to query Holbrooke, I had finished the first draft of Flicker, and I knew I was onto something with it. Since it's very hard to establish a brand in two genres at the same time, I had a choice to make, and I chose to hold off on querying Holbrooke and instead make Flicker a priority.

This doesn't mean I gave up on it or that it will never see the light of day. It just means that, for now, it's on the back burner while I pursue other opportunities.

Speaking of which, I really should stop typing up this blog entry and start working on edit #1,000,000,005 for Flicker.

Or maybe eat a sammich.

More later!

Why I Don't Write Dark

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:19:00 +0000

It's no secret that I tend to shy away from all things dark in my reading. I don't like dark things. I don't like gothic. I don't like dystopian. I don't like serious for the sake of being serious.

Sometimes I feel like people write this off as just me being one of those kinds of people. You know, the flaky, dumb blond sort who like pink and glitter and My Little Pony and America's Next Top Model and say things like "cool" and "I know, right?" and "Like, seriously."

The truth is, I am one of those people. I do like pink. And I do like glitter. And while I'm not a fan of My Little Pony, I TiVo America's Next Top Model every time it's on. Every time. And dude, that show is on a lot.

Sometimes I'll be talking about books with someone and they'll recommend a book I've heard enough about to know I cannot read it, and when I pass, they look at me like they're disappointed in just how shallow I am.

And it's not like I don't get that, because seriously, I do. It's the same look I give to those "I'll just wait until the movie comes out" people.

But it still feels like sometimes those who read dark books are unnecessarily critical of those of us who don't.

I've talked before about how my teenage years were not pleasant. A lot of stuff happened. I was very unhappy. I was on a lot of medication. I cut myself. A couple of my friends committed suicide. There were boys in there, too, and those boys were not nice. I dropped out of school. I ran away.

It was hard.

It was horrible.

It was dark.

And while I absolutely believe those are issues teen books should be exploring in an honest way, I also remember what it felt like to watch previews for the made-for-TV movie Secret Cutting and how it made me feel sick inside. Sick because my secret wasn't a secret anymore. It was on billboards. It was in People Magazine. My mother would see it. My therapist would make me watch it just to gauge my response. My boyfriend would ask me about it. My friends would avoid me because of it.

It was the ultimate intrusion. Someone had found my truth, and they had exploited it.

I'm in no way making a blanket statement that every "dark" or "serious" YA novel is exploitative. Curiosity is normal, and teens are definitely curious about dark things.

But once you've been there--really been there--you don't want to go back.

There are people better equipped to handle the dark and serious. Let me handle the pink and glitter.

More on Self-Publishing

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:24:00 +0000

Anonymous asked:

Question: After reading your post on self-publishing, I can't decide if you are for self-publishing or vehemently against it. Would you mind clarifying your stance? Am I to take your post to mean you would not want to be agented by someone who encourages their authors to self-publish? At what stage do you consider a book a "real" book or a novelist a "real" novelist?

Wow, those are some loaded questions, Anonymous!

But I'll see what I can do to alleviate your confusion about my stances on those things.

Let's start with the post I wrote back in July in which I compared the self-publishing boom of present to the dot-com boom-and-bust of the early 2000s.

What I meant to say in that post: it is way too soon to crown anything God's Gift to Publishing, since it is very new and there isn't enough information to make an informed decision either way on whether it is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing.

It could very well be that we look back on the days of traditional publishers and paper books and think to ourselves, "Wow, this new age of publishing sure is swell!"

But it could just as easily be that we look back on the days of self-publishing and think, "Man, that was a disaster."

Right now, we just don't know.

Even the people who are making money--lots and lots of money--from self-published books don't know for sure that they will be making money five years from now, or if they are, how much and at what percentage. There's every reason to believe Amazon will continue to give authors the bulk share of book sales. And there's every reason to believe Amazon, once it has the monopoly it's been craving for, oh, forever, will shit on everyone and everything and then kick them in the balls and shoot them in the face, because where else are they going to go? ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

We. Just. Don't. Know.

Which brings me to the second part of your question, the part about agencies forming assisted self-publishing ventures.

Would I sign with an agent whose agency formed an assisted self-publishing venture? That depends on the agent and the venture and the involvement between the two. I know that's a bullshit answer, but I can't be any more clear than that. There are too many factors involved to give a simple yes or no.

But I will say this--it is something I would want to discuss--thoroughly--since it is a clear conflict of interest.

(And for those of you who want to argue about that, let me point out that if any of these assisted self-publishing companies had been "traditional" publishers, the majority of these agents would say to hold off, watch what happens, see if people get paid on time or at all, et cetera. New publishers are always a gamble. These ones are no different.)

And now for the big question, the one about the validity of self-published authors.

Not to be a bitch, but does it matter what I think?

Because dude? I am only one person. I'm not even a popular or influential person. And to be quite honest, from the tone of the question, I get the feeling you don't like me all that much anyway, so really, why care what I think?

Make yourself happy, live up to your own definitions of "real book" and "real novelist" and "success" and disregard anyone who disagrees with you.

Because seriously, plenty of people are going to disagree with you, no matter if you're self-published or a New York Times bestseller, no matter if you sell five copies or five million or none at all.

Do I think some people are jumping the gun on the self-pub thing? Do I think it will bite some people in the ass? Set them back in their careers? Give them an unrealistic taste of what it takes to survive in this industry for more than a season? Discourage writers who maybe needed a couple more years of polishing to the point where they no longer want to put forth the work it would take to carry them from good to great to AH-MAZE-ING?

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh my god, yes.

But not everyone who chooses to self-publish fits that description. Some have luck. Some have talent. Some have both. Some have neither.

But the bottom line is, it's not my job to judge or manage anyone else's career but my own. Same goes for you and for every other writer out there.

Make yourself happy.

Do what's best for your career.

And stop wasting time worrying about what other people think.

Even if that someone is me.

Inspiration: A Fairy Shat on My Toothbrush

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 05:09:00 +0000

Image Credit

Write a summary of this book.

For me.

Please.

This or That

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:59:00 +0000

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already know that I caught the flu last week and have been having heated disagreements with things that do not exist ever since. This is because my immune system is crap and once I catch a fever, I refuse to let it go, even when it is cooking my spleen.

(That was just me being dramatic. I'm pretty sure my spleen is OK. Probably.)

But there's this thing that happens when you're laid up sick and you can't move or do anything or go anywhere except to the ER and--at least in my case, anyway--the vet's office, which is where I spent a good portion of last week, what with Calliope and Suzanne, two of Nathan's kittens, catching viruses of their own, and all.

I know, right? They are such copycats.

(Did you see what I did there? Did you?)

(Cheesy humor is a side effect of the medication. Really, it is.)

But as much as the getting-sick thing sucked, I can't say it was entirely unexpected. In fact, the day before I got sick I was on the phone with a friend, saying, "Dude, what is wrong with me?"

"You're too stressed," she said. "I bet you're coming down with something."

"Nah, that can't be it."

And then the next day I woke up convinced someone had put sulfuric acid in my ear and cackled with glee as it ate its way down through my esophagus.

That's the thing about stress--I don't feel it until I feel it. You know, physically. I'll be fine for months and then suddenly I break out in hives or have a panic attack or start throwing everything up.

For what it's worth, I hit the throwing-everything-up stage in early August.

When I was a kid, I would get stressed out about stupid stuff: boys and homework and not being good enough and whether or not my friends were going to include me in their Friday night plans, even though I wasn't a guy magnet and didn't drink or do drugs or enjoy sitting around listening to loud music but not really doing anything.

Not that those things are stupid. But stressing out about them is.

Because older me knows what younger me didn't--that the boys and homework stuff will pass, the not being good enough is all in my head, and those friends? Yeah, they weren't very good friends. I should have dropped them and started hanging out with people I enjoyed hanging out with (and who enjoyed hanging out with me).

Older me isn't perfect, either. There are things I stress out about now that I'm sure I'll look back on in ten years and think, "Boy, THAT was stupid."

But for now, dude, it's just so freaking overwhelming, you know? It's like my mind is saying, "CHILL THE F--K OUT ALREADY" and my body is all, "PARDON ME WHILE I SELF-DESTRUCT."

In the meantime, shit's kind of falling apart. All the plates I've been spinning these four or so months are coming crashing down, and all I can do is watch it burn.

It's late here, so you'll have to forgive me for mixing my metaphors.

What I'm saying is this: you can't always have it all, do it all, be it all. Eventually everything will boil down to this or that and you'll have to make a choice.

Priorities are a sneaky little bitch.