The post where I write about the book I started writing when I'm supposed to be writing a different one...

I sat down to work on my WIP today, and suddenly found myself writing another story entirely. It's a whole new novel, one much darker and edgier than anything I've ever written before. However, it came to me last night in a burst, whole, complete with a beginning, an end, some semblance of a middle, and a very clear main character who spoke to me and outright told me his name. When I didn't really like the name he offered me, he argued with me that that was his name, and I could give him another if I liked that other people could call him by to add depth to his character, but that that was his name. Who was I to argue? It actually made sense with the story I'd been given, so I decided to sit down this morning and see where it went.

It was one of those writing experiences that is truly a gift - where you sit down in front of the computer and the book just begins to write itself. The words flowed freely and I knew where the story was going, which is not always the case for me. I know I should be working on my other WIP, but this story is demanding my attention. It wants to be written, and now. Has this happened to you?

The truth is, I'd reached the dreaded murky middle of my WIP, and I was not as excited to dive into it because I wasn't sure what I wanted to have happen next. Therefore, writing something else entirely might, in fact, be the best thing I could do to save my other story. Sometimes, it really can be a good thing to take a break from a work that starts to feel forced and is not flowing naturally and work on something completely different. You're still writing, still being creative, and you can always come back to the work later with a fresh eye.

I love that this project is not my normal style of writing. It feels refreshing and inspiring to write more dramatically. It allows me to draw richer characters that don't rely on humor and dialogue as much to move them through their story. It allows me to work on my description and emotional interplay between the characters and the intensity of the world around them. It feels like what I should be working on, as evidenced by the fact that I sat down and wrote over 20 pages today, which is unheard of for me.

When it comes to writing, go with your gut. Don't be locked into one story, whatever you might be working on, and feel like you can't work on something else if the muse strikes you. Go with the flow. There's nothing wrong with having several stories going at once, and having the option of working on wherever your head and your heart takes you that day, especially if the pieces are drastically different.

If you're not comfortable with completely switching gears, take time to jot down notes of what comes to you. Write out whole scenes, even if they're out of context. You can always come back to them later. Stay with the idea while it's fresh in your mind, even if you need to back burner it for awhile, but you won't be scratching your head trying to remember the details later. Good luck!

Writing the Dreaded Query Letter

Just seeing the words 'Query Letter' give me an involuntary shudder. Admittedly, I hate them. How is it possible to take several hundred pages and sum them up succinctly, flavor them with the voice and tone of your story, and put them into one to two paragraphs to relay the entire essence of your book? And further, how do you pitch yourself as an author worth taking seriously when you do not have a long list of writing credits?

The truth is, I don't have the answer. I struggle with it myself. The best place to start is by reading other query letters. Very often, agents will offer up ones from their published clients that show what worked for them and why they were hooked. What do theirs have that yours don't?

One of the biggest mistakes that can be found in a query is that it is too wordy. I speak from personal experience. Back when I started querying my novel, before it was truly ready to be queried, I might add, my query was nothing short of an epic. Too much detail, too many character names - in short, it was utterly craptastic. That summer, I attended an amazing online writing conference called WriteOnCon, and they offered up a Query contest which was to be judged by agent Joanna Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary. You can imagine how thrilled and excited I was that she chose mine as the first one to break down. (You can read her comments here.) Although it was unnerving to put myself out there like that and have all my newbie mistakes on display, Joanna gave me an incredible gift - she actually told me what I was doing wrong (and peppered it with what I was doing right, thankfully.) For must of us, we send our query out and when we get no response, we either tweak it or continue to send another round. I actually had new direction now, and from the comments, other writers were helped by it too because they had made similar mistakes. If you have the opportunity to enter your query in a contest, or get feedback from other writers on it, do so, preferably before you submit it to half of New York City. After making these changes, interest in my book jumped.

Shortly after, I befriended YA author Eileen Cook online, and in our banter, she was kind enough to offer to take a look at it for me and sent further comments and revisions my way, helping me turn it into the query it is today. Ever since that further change, the interest spiked again. It underscored the truth that a great, tight query is everything. You have an agent's attention for approximately 45 seconds or less. If you can't hook them and get that idea across, they are on to the next one. They literally get hundreds every week, so yours must stand out.

As for pitching yourself as a writer with limited credits, look into your history and see what parlays as experience. For me, I had a history in motion picture development as a reader, as well as writing Outreach materials for a PBS station in Seattle, specifically for a popular children's television show. I'd graduated from the Screenwriting program at UCLA extension, and of course, maintain this writing blog. Not as effective were the countless hours of my childhood spent in front of a typewriter fancying myself the next Judy Blume, or the meeting I got to have with the Editor-in-Chief of Putnam Publishing when I was thirteen based on a submission, or the interest I'd had from the Disney Channel in a script I'd written when I was a teenager. Nothing ever happened with those things, so they aren't useful, except to me to reassure myself that this has always been in my blood and been my passion for as long as I can remember. You don't need to spell out "I've never been published." Saying "This is my first novel" can be enough. But don't overdo it. Less is more.

For some great tips on query letter writing, check out YA author Elana Johnson's blog entry, and even better, her free eBook "From The Query To The Call." For an excellent list of 10 query no-no's, check out this link. AgentQuery.com has a great how-to list that gives you great structure and tips. Another great resource is The Writer's Digest Guide to Query Letters. A quick Google search will bring up countless more.

What are some great tips you use to make your query stand out? Good luck, and may the force be with you.

What's Original Anymore?

One of the biggest challenges in creating a new work is making it original. There will always be a market for romances, thrillers, a good cozy mystery, and a road trip novel, but what makes yours stand out? Agents and publishers want to see that spark of something they haven't seen before, so how do you catch their eye when everything has been done before? Living proof of that is the plethora of novels out there right now on zombies, vampires, angels and mermaids. Not to say they aren't good - many of them absolutely are - but isn't one zombie or vampire the same as the next? It absolutely can be, and can ensure your book stays in the proverbial drawer, unless you do the work to make sure it has that extra somethin' somethin'.

When I am writing something new, i.e. a road trip novel, for example, the first thing I do is try and read every novel I can get my hands on that falls in that vein. I also watch any movie I can that fits that subject too. I do this first for inspiration, that it may spark some ideas of my own. I do it second because I want to make sure I don't duplicate what someone else has already successfully done. However, here's the reality: We know in every good road trip novel, there are a series of mishaps that keep the pacing going and keep the reader turning the page. Will our MC get from point A to point B? What obstacles will she encounter along the way that keep him/her from getting there? Will he/she find romance along the way? The answer is: Most likely, yes. This is what is known as a formulaic plot. (Think of the movie "The Sure Thing" with John Cusack). However, let's give that a spike. Yes, it's a road trip of sorts, but so much more: Think "Thelma and Louise" with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis and a young, shirtless Brad Pitt. They face a lot of choices that determine what happens next and an unexpected twist at the end. THAT'S what you want to aim for. Another great example is the recent YA novel "Au Revoir Crazy European Chick" by Jon Schreiber, which is best described as Ferris Bueller meets La Femme Nikita. Perry, the main character, is forced to take his European exchange student to the prom, which ends up to be a night on the run through the underbelly of New York City when she actually turns out to be an assassin. The twists are surprising, and the author successfully manages to have the reader suspend their disbelief and take the wild ride along with the MC. Just driving from point A to point B, running out of gas and falling in love is not enough to engage the sophisticated teen literary tastes of today. Think out of the box.

Here's an exercise to make yourself feel better when you feel like your writing feels "un-sparkly": Pull out 20 of your favorite books and see if you can break them down into a simple formula. You can bet each one has one. Then try and discover what gives each one their "spark." If you need a little extra help in coming up with some great plot ideas, check out Martha Alderson's new book "The Plot Whisperer" and watch her video series on Yahoo.

Most of all, if it doesn't come to you all initially, don't despair. That's what revisions are for. Additionally, sometimes real life will surprise you and throw an idea in your path. For example, just the other night I went to a writing workshop and found myself lost in downtown Los Angeles at 11 p.m. with some pretty interesting peple on every corner. Though I was not quite so into it at the time, that's the kind of stuff you want to save up and channel for later, and you can write it honestly because you've experienced it. You know what it felt like to have that adrenaline pumping through your body, the panic setting in as eyes are on you alone at a stop light, praying for it to change so you can peel out of there and find that freeway on-ramp. Don't worry about getting it all in in that first draft. Think sparkly!

Pity Party of One

Ever have one of those weeks where everything seems to happen at once? Rejection after rejection? Even people who you queried six months ago decide that NOW would be an excellent time to let you know that your work is not for them? Seriously? Other than throw a pity party of one to celebrate an utterly craptastic week, what's a girl to do? (Other than eat chocolate, duh!)

Well, here's what I did. First, I sat on the couch and cried. Crying is actually really good. I'm a cryer. I believe it's important to get out what's inside instead of letting it bottle up, and it had been as bottled up as the genie in Aladdin's lamp, I assure you. Then I talked to my mother, my friends, the barista at Starbucks, whomever knows me, knows how hard I've been working, the endless hours of revisions I've put in, letting them build me up by reminding me I really am a good writer, that this is so subjective, that all it takes is one, etc. It wasn't enough. I still felt craptastic.

Two rejections followed by two new requests for the full. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster. But I kept reminding myself - I believe in this book. I know it's a great, fun story. People have told me, at the minimum, numerous times, the film potential this book has - and that is what brought me back.

Although I believe in this story as a novel, I must consider that there are many mediums in which to tell a story. It's important for you to consider too (Not my book, yours, silly!) If it feels like the response is not what you want it to be, try reworking your story in another medium and see if that helps it find its more organic voice. At the minimum, putting a novel into screenplay form demands a certain structure that your novel may be lacking. Certain things need to happen at certain points in the story in order for a screenplay to flow. Are those things happening in your novel at certain points? If not, that may be part of the problem. How often have you watched a movie with great actors and a fun storyline, but NOTHING HAPPENS for too long a stretch. Characters walk, talk, sleep, eat and canoodle, sure, but what else happens? When you translate things to a visual medium, it's hard to get away with that and it may underscore what is hard to see in the pacing of your novel.

After my burst of inspiration that my novel was far from dead - it is still actively garnering interest and holds much potential to be reworked into another medium if necessary - I decided to be brave and dive into the stack of recent rejections. Of course, I made coffee first and grabbed more chocolate. And something salty. Salty and chocolate together . . . yeah. But anyhow, when I took the time to really read the rejections, the biggest thing that I saw that came through on every single one was the validation that I could indeed write. Perhaps what I had written was not for that person, but they all told me I had great talent, they loved the story, they loved the characters, parts made them laugh out loud. So, in fact, I was doing something right. It was the missing piece that was where the subjectivity came in, and what is one man's trash is another man's treasure, right? For example, I just finished reading a current bestselling adult novel this past week, and at the end I wanted to claw my eyes out with a spoon. Up until the end, it had been fantastic, and then it utterly fell apart and was completely unsatisfying. How could that get by the gatekeepers of publishing? And how could readers scoop it up like candy? And how could Hollywood then embrace it as a movie? The ending STUNK!!! But...that's just MY opinion. Just one in a sea of opinions.

And so it is for me...continuing to look for the one soul that connects to the whole package because they see all the other stuff AND see the further potential. I have no doubt it will happen. Just a matter of when. So when I'm feeling discouraged, I have to remember one very important thing. I really do believe in myself and my ability to write. And above all else, it has to start there. If I can't believe in myself and my story, why should I expect anyone else to?

Writing Down The Bones

Author Natalie Goldberg offers up some amazing advice in her tried and true book, "Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within": Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think. It's great advice, if you can fight the urge to resist it, because it takes so much pressure off the creation process in the early stages of writing your novel.

If you liken your work in progress to a body, the core structure is the skeleton, or the bones. Everything is built upon that foundation. You add the muscles, the nerves, the flesh, etc. until you have an entire being. Therefore, if you work on first creating that skeleton and not worrying about anything beyond that, you will free yourself to create the basic template of your story. Admittedly, it's hard for me to write and not want to edit as I go. I want to feel that when I finish that first draft, that it will be all downhill from there. But truthfully, that's where the hard work begins.

Don't worry about the details. Write your story, even if it includes long rambling passages of description and dialogue. You will go back and change it later, but in the meantime, you are getting the words on the page. Don't let others read your novel at this stage, even though you may want direction and feedback, because it may veer you off course. You know you're going to make changes, you know it needs work, so it can be equally frustrating for a beta reader to give you feedback knowing that it's all likely to be changed up anyhow. This is the part where you write for YOU - no rules, just free-form writing,

When you have finished draft one of your ultimate epic masterpiece, read it out loud. Make notes in the margins. Does it need more action? Is there enough suspense? Are the characters three-dimensional? Is there a discernible plot? How is the pacing? Author Jessica Brody had a great suggestion - she uses color-coded note cards to write the information about what each character is doing throughout the story. After all, each character has their own arc and purpose. Are there way too many note cards of the same color? Does your story need more balance? Try and break the story down to its natural chapter breaks, making sure each one ends in a place that keeps the reader hungry to find out what happens in the next chapter. Once you have completed this first pass, you will have added your muscles. Stir and repeat and you'll have your nerves. NOW would be a great time to give it to some writer beta friends to see what they think.

Once you get legitimate feedback about what's working and what's not, you can know where to focus your revisions from there. When you have finished (if a novel can ever be truly finished) you will have the whole body, with all it's parts working in concert with each other.

Be careful not to rush any part of this process. It takes work, patience and perseverance. When you send your novel out, you want it to be the absolute best it can be. Further, as you've probably learned by now, the world of publishing takes a loooong time. I've read it articulated many places to remember it's not a race. If you attract interest from an agent but they want some changes, don't feel pressured to pull a week of all-nighters to turn it around to them. They want to see you put in the time to make it right too, and there are few things in life that come out perfect if we rush them. It just ups the ante for oversights and mistakes.

How To Keep Your Readers Turning The Page

I went to a fantastic writing workshop last night taught by bestselling YA author Jessica Brody that offered some fantastic nuggets of wisdom about how to keep your readers turning the page and hungering for more. The fact that I got lost coming home in the streets of downtown Los Angeles at 11 p.m. and felt like I was in a bad Corey Haim movie is a whole other story for another day, but I digress . . . These simple techniques can be applied to any type of story in any genre, and can make all the difference in making your book one that they can't put down.

HIDING THE BALL AND CREATING SUSPENSE
Jessica said that one of the best ways to get your reader engaged right away is to "hide the ball" - that is, to start in the middle of an action and write around it, but never actually reveal to the reader what is actually going on. It keeps them guessing. You plant the seeds of what is going on all around them - what they are seeing, smelling, small pieces of backstory that led to what has occurred, etc. If you can write your entire first chapter this way, the reader will be anxious to read the next because now they are dying to know what has happened, and if they guessed correctly.

CLIFFHANGER ENDINGS
It's always best to cut in the middle of the scene so that it ends before the resolution. This way, the reader continues to be propelled forth along with the character to find out what happens next. She often likes to end with a line of dialogue that sets you up for the next scene, whether it be in the MC's interior monologue or another character speaking. Sometimes she will not even say who says that line of dialogue, which adds further intrigue. Ending with a character's dilemma or the character figuring out something about themselves or the situation they are in allows the reader to be in sync with the MC, because you don't want your reader to be ahead of them or your story can become predictable.

SHORTER CHAPTERS
Ever read a book that seemed like a fast read that you just couldn't put down? The length of your chapters can make a huge difference in the pacing. Short chapters lasting 4-6 pages in length can create the illusion of speed, especially if each one ends with a cliffhanger.

PEPPERING YOUR STORY WITH LITTLE MYSTERIES
Adding mystery to your story keeps the reader going even through the slower parts. The "A" story is your character's story (i.e. the logline of your book). The "B" & "C" stories are the secondary stories that involve who your character meets, their relationships, the subplots, etc. All of these stories should converge with your "A" story, showing us your character's world. For example, in Jessica's book "My Life, Undecided", her MC is volunteering at an old age home and meets a crotchety old lady. Uncovering the mystery of why this woman is so bitter keeps the reader not only intrigued in that "B" story, but also serves to showcase to the MC what she will turn out like if she doesn't make some changes in her own life. Plant seeds along the way of things that will show up later and prove to be important.

Pick up a few of your favorite novels and see if you can find these techniques applied throughout!

What's Another Word To Describe.....?

I'm in love.

With a blog.

It's true. And I'm giddy beyond belief that I've found it because I can't tell you how much I've needed this in my life, and I want to share the love. I've just discovered my savior, The Bookshelf Muse. Run by two fabulous writers, Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman, they offer a tremendous resource to writers scratching their heads for how to find just the right description to capture a mood, an emotion, the weather, shapes and colors, character traits, setting and symbolism - you name it. Check it out. Bookmark it. Keep it open on another screen while you write. No more Googling thesauruses and scrambling through tons of irrelevant entries - it's as if they've climbed into the writer's mind and they KNOW what you're trying to say! It's kismet, I tell you.

And most of all, give thanks to these two great ladies who put so much time and energy into creating this amazing resource for the rest of us!!!