New Agents Alert.

Just popping in to post some new agents and a pic of me with Ellen Hopkins, New York bestselling YA author. Larissa Hardesty (fellow writer) and I were lucky enough to have dinner with her last week. I found Ellen to have a relaxed spunk about her. Her connection to her characters is unique, as they come from real stories her fans are brave enough to share. I love her poetic style of writing. She can portay in one sentence what takes me five. I need to study her work. LOL.

For all you hopeful writers, here are two new agents. Don't forget to check their submission requirments before querying. You don't want to waste your time or theirs. Happy submitting. :)
 
1. Natasha Alexis of The Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency

She is seeking: works of literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction. As a fan of popular culture and cosmopolitan trends, Natasha is keen to represent YA and adult fiction with an edge and fresh point of view, especially works featuring women and people of color. She also has an interest in narrative nonfiction as well as pop science projects.

2. Paula Munier of Talcott Notch Literary

She is seeking: Her specialties include mystery/thriller, SF/fantasy, romance, YA, memoir, humor, pop culture, health & wellness, cooking, self-help, pop psych, New Age, inspirational, technology, science, and writing.

Character Name Generator-Give it a try.

Found this while adding new writing widgets to blogsite.  Sometimes the hardest part is coming up with a new name. Even if you don't like what the name generator creates for you, I find it can inspire a name I do like. Click the link below and give it a try.

        Character Name Generator

Don't forget, if you're local (Orlando area), Friday night at 7pm is the Orlando Literati at Urban ReThink. See link below.
http://urbanrethink.com/node/900

Hope to see you there!

What's your advice?

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to meet award winning YA author Sherri L Smith. My sons seventh grade class had just finished reading Flygirl and were privileged enough to hear her speak about the book and her writing journey.

I found Sherri to be relaxed and someone you could easily grab a cup of coffee with and talk writing as if you were old friends. Her career started very differently than most authors experience. She was lucky enough to work Tim Burton and a handful of other talented artists in California before choosing to write YA novels. 

I loved her ease around the students and the way she engaged them with questions. Even when they asked her to explain certain parts of the book she'd left for the reader to determine, she graciously spun the question back to them and asked, "What do you think happened?"

I love that, and I write with the idea that not all things need explained by the author, some are better left for the reader to conclude on their own, whatever that conclusion might be.  Which brings me to today's question—When writing a novel how do you decide what is okay to leave for the readers assumption and what needs to be spelled out?

As a writer we all have critique partners, and in my experience, they all pull different things from my work. Some love a piece, while others question it. Some understand a paragraph or chapter while others are left wanting an explanation. So when you get a piece back that has contradicting reviews from your CPs, how do you decide whose advice to take? Do you go with your gut and leave it at that, or should you seek more opinions? In my experience, too many people in my head causes that much more trouble, questions, problems. What's your advice?

 

Character-Building Exercise

Last year I attended the SCWBI conference in Orlando. One of the speakers was K-YA author Kathleen Duey. She talked about meditating on your character and then interviewing him or her. At first I thought it sounded funny, but the more I pondered over it, the more sense it made. It’s not that different from what actors do to connect with their characters on a deeper level.  

So, I tried it. To my surprise, the experience led me to responses and revelations about my characters I wouldn't have come up with had I not tried. Then recently, I read an article with exercises on Character Building and thought I'd share it with you. Even if you feel awkward asking a fictional character questions or imagining a scene where your characters run wild in your mind, like me, you might be pleasantly surprised with the results.  

 

Basically, the article talked about using your imagination to create a movie in your mind. Here is the four-part exercise:

·         Close your eyes and “watch” your character. See the character in rich detail and describe what you see. Be a journalist—record information as it if for a distant reading audience.

·         Place your character in a scene, any scene, and watch. Let the action happen. Watch other characters and events pop up on your inner movie screen. Let all manner of conflict take place and see what your character does.

·         Create another character to describe the first character. We get to know people by listening to what others say about them.

·         Conceive of your characters as extremes first, and only later “pull back” to the point where they fit their role. This will keep your characters from being “drab.” Let them have their passions and obsessions. What do they reveal to you?

Note that none of this has to have anything to do with the story you want to write or are writing. In fact, it’s better if it doesn't.  The only point of the exercise is to get to know your character so when you place him or her in your story you’ll know who you’re writing about.

A final key to the exercises is this: Let as much of the story happen without judgment or criticism from you. Only later, with lots of rich material, will you make editorial decisions.

                                                    --James Scott Bell, Writers Digest magazine

 

So if you're stuck with how your character should react in a scene, or frustrated with what you've written about him or her, try the above exercise. What could it hurt?

If you have any character-building exercises, do share. I'd love the hear them!

Inspiration for writers in the throes of queries and rejections.

Inspiration for writers in the throes of queries and rejections.

Almost every great author has been rejected. James Joyce's Ulysses, voted best novel of the 20^th century by The Modern Library, was rejected repeatedly. Jane Austen, too. I've yet to hear a story about any author who achieved success without first receiving rejections.

Fortunately, there are a ton of books with helpful advice for those of us in the throes. One, The Essential Guide To Getting Your Book Published, I recently read had inspiration I wanted to share with you.

Rejections Rules

It's only one person's opinion – All agents and editors have stories about bestselling books they've turned down. Books they thought were downright terrible, books they thought had no market. Or simply books they didn't feel strongly about. Think about bestselling books that don't appeal to you, and you can't understand why others are reading it—loving it. The point is, there is simply no accounting for taste.

No one wants to give you your first job – Love this example. Everyone wants to give you a job after you're successful. A couple of nutty brothers wrote a script that was made into a movie, and suddenly they had the ear of some Hollywood muckety-mucks, all of whom wanted to know: "Where's your next script?" The brothers had been working on a big, crazy science-fiction idea that they wanted to direct themselves, but the idea was so huge and unusual that no one would give them the money. No one wanted to take the risk. So they wrote a smaller, easier-to-make-movie, much of which takes place in an apartment. Because the budget was so small, adn the movie was so good, it made money. So now those Hollywood muckety-mucks, who wouldn't give the money to make their crazy sci-fi movie before their success were more than happy to give them $70 million. The nutty sci-fi film? A little movie called The Matrix.

No one knows what's going to sell—A study done at Wharton School of Business about predicting success showed overwhelmingly that no amount of number crunching or objective quantifying analysis can predict what will be successful. The best predictor of a book's future success is an agent's or editor's or publisher's gut instinct. Unfortunately, it appears that the guts of those in publishing are particularly unprescient. SO, no matter how many people tell you that your ms has no value, understand that a large percentage of those people have no idea what they are talking about.

Let no nabob shake your faith in your writing ability—Yes, listen intently. Yes, be open to making changes necessary to mold your ms into a lean, mean fighting machine. But don't let the "nattering nabobs of negativity" shake your belief in your own ability to succeed. As Saul Bellow put it, "I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'"

It takes only one—Your book can be rejected by hundreds of publishers and/or agents. But what you've got to remember is that all it takes is on e publisher or one agent to make your dream come true. Joe Quirk wrote five novels and collected 375 rejection letters before he got published. Upon finishing his fifth novel, he sent the first chapter to Harper's magazine. He got back a rejection letter. Scribbled across the bottom were the words, "Give it a rest, pal." You'd think at this point he would have done just that. Instead, he soldiered on and a month later found an interested agent. Shortly thereafter, his book was sold. The Ultimate Rush went on to become a national bestseller.

Rejection can help you become a better writer—As Charles Baxter, acclaimed novelist and professor of creative writing, says, "A lack of self-confidence can be turned to your own purposes if it helps you take pains, to take care, to avoid glibness."

I reread this section of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published regularly to keep my focus clear. Hope it helps all my fellow aspiring writers to keep forging ahead.

Kristen Simmons debut novel party

Last night I traveled to Tampa with three incredible writers, Jessica Souders (author to debut novel Renegade, releasing in November. Big cheer!), Larissa Hardesty (talented multi-tasker, who handles a million things at once and still finds time to right kick-ass novels), and Christy Farley (phenomenal writer, who's soon to be a published author).   

It was our first release party and a fantabulous experience. Kristen Simmons is a young adult dystopian author of Article 5. She chose the quaintest bookstore for her debut party (Ink wood, Tampa Fl. Reminded me of Shop Around the Corner from You've Got Mail). I would highly recommend visiting the place. The owner was a delight and the ambience, charming and inspiring.

Kristen was the sweetest person. Her reading was enjoyable and has me anxious to plunge into her novel. She was entertaining and charismatic, but I feel it was her honesty that won me over. Kristen's rise to publication story was heartfelt and a great reminder for aspiring authors not to quit. Learning her background is in mental health made me even more interested in her story. She used her knowledge on the issue to portray realistic responses from her characters when facing life altering challenges, drawing awareness to a topic that is current and too often dismissed.

 Please take the time to check out her novel, Article 5.

Okay, so my birthday was the other day, but I'm not about to tell you my age, which might hint that I am older than I'd like to be, older than I feel, and, thanks to Botox, older than I look. Anywho, my point to this is that my sister is the queen of finding the funniest cards that relate to my life in a hysterical way. So, I had to share them with you.