First of all, I have no idea why this photo of my journal (AKA my secret weapon) turned out so *green.* I promise I wasn’t in an alien space bar or anything, I was just at Starbucks (which, forgive me, was the only coffee shop close to Penn as I waited for my train yesterday. Not that I drink coffee. Or beer at 2pm. That’s tea, people, for some girl named Melony).
So, back to the secret weapon!
I tend to write quickly. As in, when I’ve opened my laptop and launched Word, my fingers take off, and heaven help me if I don’t have a distinct plan for where they’re going, because my fingers don’t stop for anyone. They write. Fast.
Because of my tendency to vomit words (and my OCDish desire for order), I don’t start writing unless I have a plan. Please note, there is one exception to this rule: the beginning of a project. At the beginning, I let my fingers fly. I let them show ME what we’re going to be writing about. But as soon as I get an inkling of the story unfolding before me, I step back and plan.
Which means writing in my journal.
And honestly, I shouldn’t say journal as though there’s only one singular receptacle for my thoughts–there are several. I keep a separate journal for each novel-length project, as well as a spare “ideas” journal to keep all of the pesky, shiny new ideas away from my WIPs.
What do I write in the journal?
Well, this is where we get to the secret weapon bit. When I’m writing in Word, or on a printed draft, or even on a post-it note, I feel a little precious about the words I use. I second-guess them. I try to write only the very best ones. And that keeps me from thinking. But in my journals, I write everything. I mean EVERYTHING. I spell everything wrong, I cross stuff out, I blast through paper like it’s my mission in life to use every page up.
How does this help my writing?
Say, for example, I’m trying to build a backstory for a secondary character. I’ll doodle that person’s name (or a question mark if I don’t know it yet) at the top of a page and write: who is Mr. BananaPants? Where does he live? What does he look like? And so on and so on, until I strike upon a question that has an obvious answer, like: what does Mr. BananaPants eat? Well, anything but fruit salad, obviously. His mom caught him gobbling fruit salad once when he was five years old, and she scared him to death when she said he might be eating his own cousin.
And there you have it: the journal fills up, and the answers fill in, partly because I’m making myself focus, but mainly because I’m giving myself the opportunity to think without consequence–to throw words at the page haphazardly and in great abundance, with no worries about where they will end up. I think it’s that very sense of freedom that leads the words to the right place as I journal.
Once the journal is full, the writing begins in earnest, and a draft emerges, only to be journaled and revised again and again until, finally, it’s done. Without my journals, I’m absolutely certain my path to a solid draft would be a much longer and winding road, and though the end result might be similar, the journey would be a lot less fun.
What about you? Do you keep a writing journal, too? I’d love to hear your ideas about journals in the comments.
Normally, I don’t struggle with beginnings. They just kind of happen to me. But this is a blog post that I’ve read before, on many other blogs (and often with a catch in my throat and a tear in my eye), and, well, it’s challenging to figure out where to start!
So, let’s just get to the point, shall we?
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve signed with the amazing Peter Knapp of The Park Literary Group!
*cartwheels*
*confetti*
*heart-attacks*
Phew! You guys keep right on celebrating while I dive into the back story–because believe me, I know that this is the one time we writers salivate for a long run-up, and I’m going to give it to you.
If you’ve ever stopped by my blog before, you’ve probably heard me blab about product design and the creative process at a nerd-fighter level, and that’s because I spent ten years in product design cranking out all kinds of products for clients with deep pockets . . . until I quit. Well, to put it more accurately, we and our spawn outgrew our tiny Brooklyn apartment and escaped for more space in the far-away land of New Jersey.
And that’s when I started writing.
Not because I aspired to have a row of books lining the shelf, but because I’ve loved books my entire life, and I needed a creative outlet, and guess what? WORDS ARE FREE. This idea was a revelation to me. I could write anything I wanted (as opposed to launching a product, which would require a house-sized chunk of cash).
And so I wrote my first book.
Guess what? The story started with a girl waking up, and then staring at herself in the mirror, and then discovering that she’s not only perfect but also has amazing powers and, yeah, that’s right . . . it was terrible. But I had so much fun writing it.
That’s about the time that I decided to study publishing, just as I would study any other market prior to designing a great new product. I read every article I could find on writing and publishing. I joined twitter, and thanks to all of you spectacular people, I started learning the real scoop behind writing. I read Stephen King’s On Writing, and Strunk & White’s Elements of Style and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Cheryl Klein’s Second Sight, and I learned what had worked and what hadn’t worked in my first novel.
And I decided to write another book.
I began an epic historical YA novel (shh, my agent doesn’t know about that one yet), but about half-way through, my sons begged me to write a MG book for them. So I did. And through a strange twitter coincidence, an agent requested the material, and I sent it, and . . . nothing happened. Because that book was written for my kids, not for publishing, and it was chock-full of telling. But the concept was great–a story about two brothers who find a wishing book and create a heaping pile of mess.
By this point, I’d worked hard to find a group of trusted critique partners, and I shared the novel with one of them. And guess what? He tore it to shreds (thank you, Jeff). I already had a feeling that this was not THE novel, and that I would never overcome the limitations of basing characters on my own kids, but I decided to re-write the book just to see if I could.
And so I re-wrote my second book.
And in the end, the story was very well-written . . . although still not quite right. But I decided to query the book anyway, to gain a little practice at querying and to start building connections with agents–and that’s exactly what happened. A lot of agents had a lot of lovely things to say about the novel, and while they didn’t offer representation, several asked to see what I wrote next.
Then I wrote the next book, a contemporary MG.
And towards the end of that process, my crit partners badgered me into entering a twitter pitch contest. I did so, reluctantly, figuring one tweet couldn’t do that much damage. And then the tweet was re-tweeted a couple dozen times. And three agents requested the MS. And a strange feeling began to build in my stomach–the feeling that this was IT, and that I’d better get my ducks in a row immediately.
I rushed to query my favorite agents, around eight in all, and by that afternoon, I had several additional requests. The next day, while studying my crazy, color-coded agent cheat sheet, I came across an agent I’d noticed during WriteOnCon: Peter Knapp, a newer agent whose helpful critiques I had agreed with at every turn. And guess what? He was running a query contest that very day. So I queried him. And he requested the full at once. And the next day, he sent me a crazy-excited email during the Superbowl, saying he’d read COUNTING THYME, and could we speak the following morning?
And then we had The Call.
And no matter how many stories I’ve read about The Call, I have to say, this call was not what I expected. Because when I wasn’t busy blushing and sweating over Pete’s lovely feedback on my book, I was agreeing with every single thing he said. And I knew. But still, I spent the next ten days torturing myself as other agents read, and offered, or didn’t offer, all the while wishing I could just say ENOUGH ALREADY and get back to work.
And finally, that’s what I did. Thanks to a call from a seasoned author who gave Pete the best reference EVER and my husband’s extraordinary ability to listen to me rationalize my decisions for hours, I accepted representation with Park Literary this week. And I couldn’t be happier. There’s nothing like finding a creative match and knowing that you are going to do great things together.
If there’s one bit of advice I have for querying writers, it’s this: keep writing, and never settle for less than you deserve. Don’t settle for words that aren’t your best. Don’t settle for a query that doesn’t quite explain your book. Don’t leap at the first agent who offers representation just because they offered–say yes because it’s right, and the relationship will allow you to do your very best work.
And now, DO get back to work. We have so much writing to do!
PS: to my crit partners, I LOVE YOU.
PPS: to my husband, thank you for putting up with ALL the blathering.
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| Why is there a picture of a toaster here? Well, because I draw random things like toasters, but also because waiting to announce something BIG is like staring at a toaster, waiting and willing it to POP. |
First of all, let’s all give a great big cheer to Cindy Brown, who won my Valentine’s YA GIVEAWAY! Way to go, Cindy! You’re getting a copy of THE FUTURE OF US, plus chocolate, the perfect Valentine’s gift IMHO. Somehow, my two maniacs pulled your name out of the hat, and I managed to get a picture before they lost the paper! 🙂
YAY, CINDY! I love giving books away, and I hope to hold more giveaways this year! Cindy also writes an awesome blog called Everyday Underwear–really funny stuff. You should check it out! Next up, we have winners of a completely different variety. The season of writing conferences has begun, and I’ve been favorite-ing some of my, um, favorite tweets from insightful people in publishing. I starred quite a few from SCBWI-NY, and I thought I’d share them here. Happy February, everyone!
If you write, you hear the term “revision cave” all the time (or at least you should). And from time to time, authors share their process, describing the structure and form and material of their own personal cave–and I LOVE that. So, I’m sharing a picture from my neatly-swept, ridiculously color-coded cave, because I’m in the same boat that you are (even if you can’t see me there with you).
This is me working in the evening, on my coffee table (which must be cleared for day-time use. Thus, the lack of year-old piles of stuff and dust and grime. Although I am compulsively tidy). Once I have beta feedback, I like to revise on a printed copy of the MS. Those color tabs are for tracking different elements (action, mystery, emotion, key themes) so that I can balance the flow of the story. I scribble endless changes on post-it notes and stick them to the bottom edge of the page, that way the pages stay clear and easy to read.
I drink a lot of tea.
I resist the remote control but keep it just barely on the edge of the table where it beckons to me like a hard-earned treat.
Generally, I start out with the headphones in my ears and then rip them out at some point, when a moment grabs me so acutely that I must eradicate all other sound to focus on the essence of it.
Oh, yeah. That notebook with the ridiculously positive “Do What U Love To Do” printed across it? well, that’s a notebook for new ideas. If they interrupt my work flow, I dump them in there super-fast to get them out of my brain, and out of the way.
The notebook on top of my laptop has ten bajillion pages of journalling in response to my beta readers’ endless questions (thanks, guys!). I keep it out for reference. It gives birth to hundreds of post-it notes.
And at some point, I reach the end of the pages and go back through a second time to copy it all into the computer, using this pass as an opportunity to edit even further.
And that’s it. That’s how I work. How do you work? Do you have a sacred space? Are you anal retentive about color-coded post-its, too? Feel free to leave links in the comments, if you have pictures to share. I LOVE spying into other people’s worlds. That’s why I do this crazy fiction writing thing in the first place.
This was the first year I waited with true excitement to find out who won the Newbery Medal. Sure, I’ve read a TON of Newbery and Caldecott books over the years, but this was the first year I felt a personal connection to the awards. Because I’m writing these kind of books now (MG, not Newbery winners. Puh-leaze.).
And I can imagine everything it took for these books to make it onto the page, into print, onto the shelves, and into readers’ hands. Wow. What an astounding accomplishment. I offer my sincere congratulations to all of the winners today, and to every writer out there walking the path, putting words to paper every day.
2013 John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature:
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
2013 Newbery Honors go to:
- Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
- Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
- Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage
2013 Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:
This Is Not My Hat illustrated and written by Jon Klassen
2013 Caldecott Honors go to:
- Creepy Carrots! illustrated by Peter Brown, written by Aaron Reynolds
- Extra Yarn illustrated by Jon Klassen, written by Mac Barnett
- Green illustrated and written by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
- One Cool Friend illustrated by David Small, written by Toni Buzzeo
- Sleep Like a Tiger illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Mary Logue
2013 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults:
In Darkness by Nick Lake
2013 Printz Honors go to:
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
- Dodger by Terry Pratchett
- The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna
2013 Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences:
- Caring is Creepy by David Zimmerman
- Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman
- Juvenile in Justice by Richard Ross
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
- My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
- One Shot at Forever by Chris Ballard
- Pure by Julianna Baggott
- The Round House by Louise Erdrich
- Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
2013 Odyssey Award for best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States:
The Fault in Our Stars produced by Brilliance Audio. The book is written by John Green and narrated by Kate Rudd.
2013 Odyssey Honors go to:
- Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian produced by Listening Library, written by Eoin Colfer and narrated by Nathaniel Parker;
- Ghost Knight produced by Listening Library, written by Cornelia Funke and narrated by Elliot Hill; and
- Monstrous Beauty produced by Macmillian Audio, written by Elizabeth Fama and narrated by Katherine Kellgren.
2013 Pura Belpré (Author) Award:
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
2013 Pura Belpre’ Honors go to:
The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano
2013 Pura Belpré (Illustrator) Award:
Martín de Porres: The Rose in the Desert illustrated by David Diaz, written by Gary D. Schmidt
2013 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children:
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
2013 Sibert Honors go to:
- Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin written and illustrated by Robert Byrd
- Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip M. Hoose
- Titanic: Voices from the Disaster written by Deborah Hopkinson
2013 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book:
Up, Tall and High! written and illustrated by Ethan Long
2013 Geisel Honors go to:
- Let’s Go for a Drive! written and illustrated by Mo Willems
- Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin, created and illustrated by James Dean
- Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover written and illustrated by Cece Bell
2013 William C. Morris Award for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens:
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Yes. That’s right. I’m so flipping crazy-headed over a book right now that I just used a question mark and an exclamation point in sequence AND I DON’T CARE. What’s wrong with me? What, or rather, WHO happened to me?
Well.
This weekend, I discovered Laini Taylor‘s latest series. Although, to be fair, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE has been on my TBR list for ages, I finally got down to reading it. Which I did in a day. And then the next day, I drove my behind straight to the nearest bookstore and bought the sequel, DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT. And I read it even more quickly than the first book.
And now I have to wait until APRIL 2014 to read BOOK THREE. *dies a little*
If you’re thinking, wow, I can’t wait to hear about these books . . . well, sorry. No book reviews here. I’ll post those when I’m sane, after I’ve finished the grieving process. Because right now, my heart is so darn full of Karou and Akiva and their worlds and the flying and the death and the hope that I cannot be a nice, normal writer who provides witty and inspiring book reviews. I’m full-on fan-girling. And that makes me wonder:
Why does this happen to me? HOW does this happen to a reader?
Because I have loved books. I have loved so many books, over so many years, and every single time I fall in love I can’t believe it’s happened again. That someone else’s WORDS could so easily capture me, kidnap me, and wreck me so profoundly that I have to mourn the book when it’s over. It’s ridiculous. It’s consuming. And most importantly, it’s essential. Because a life without these other worlds, these other people and their lives and their struggles and their triumphs, well, that life is not worth imagining.
What I’m pondering instead, as I sit here deep in the midst of my latest book-inflicted-grief, is what makes me fall in love with a book.
Well, for one, it’s the characters. The few books I’ve failed to finish had lame characters–people I couldn’t care about no matter how hard I tried (and believe me, I try. I’m a reader, guys. I WANT to love your book. I will sift through chapters of inconsequential, boring mess to follow a good character). But the books I love, I swear, I think I might run into the characters on the street at any moment. That they (be they humans or angels or demons) might, just might pop up on my doorstep, needing something, still caught up in the throes of their own narratives. I feel this way because the author LETS ME IN. They let me know the character and their every thought, feeling, and struggle. They let me care for them. It’s a confluence of every small action, every adjective and verb, every nuance–and when executed perfectly, the result is love.
 What else? Well, I have to have a good, solid storyline. Not too complex. Definitely NOT ludicrous (I can suspend disbelief with the best of them. The only movie I ever walked out of was SOLARIS, and I gave it a good hour before giving up. Too much weepy Clooney for anyone to endure). I’ve read books in so many different veins that I know it’s not the content of the story that catches me. Laini Taylor’s books are the very first angel & demon stories I’ve ever read. It’s the strong construction of the universe, its rules, and the characters’ motivations that make me love a plot. It’s like stepping on the right roller coaster. Not a kiddie ride. And not a silly, thinly-veiled marketing toy. But a for-real, well-engineered, rolling monster of terror and delight. That’s the coaster I want, although it takes many forms.
 And finally, for this reader, THE WRITING. That’s nice and ambiguous, right? Covers all manner of things–voice, and the quality of description, the flow of backstory, the knitting of words into gorgeous sentences. I’ve read many a book that didn’t boast great writing. I’ve enjoyed them. But I’ve never LOVED them. To love a book, the writing has to take me there to that other place so completely that I forget my life, and in the end, leave me more than a little awed that a human being could have ever produced words such as these. I find great writing more often than I expect, from sweet and searching middle grade like WHEN YOU REACH ME to gorgeous young adult contemporary like THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, to sweeping, heart-wrenching fantasy like DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE.
I love them all. They wreck me. They leave me wanting for something I cannot have, but I would never choose to have it any other way.
The power of words is incredible.
On Saturday, I abandoned my family to go spend the night with strangers–well, not total strangers. My crit partners! I may be in the revision cave, but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to leave it. Especially if it’s for work purposes (please ignore the wine).
Across digital lines of communications I’m quite tight with my CPs, but in real life, I’d never met one until this weekend. Fortunately, none of us turned out to be large, hairy bald men impersonating women on twitter. We were all, in fact, totally awesome, insightful, supportive, and incredibly creative.
Can I just say, if you have not taken the time to hang out with other writers, make it a priority. I know it’s hard to find people. But offer to host, to organize, to drive–whatever it takes–and make it happen! Why? Because writers are the best people for other writers. My CPs did not in fact think I was crazy when I showed up with this:
Really! Instead, we all talked about revisions, and how we handle them. And what we’re working on. And everything we’d ever worked on. And what we might work on in future. And basically everything else in our lives, all in a couple of days that felt more like a week away from the kiddos (one of whom projectile vomited into the sink less than an hour after my arrival home).
So, after blabbing endlessly for hours, skpying with three other writerly friends, and spending a long, quiet stretch of Sunday in our PJs simultaneously clicking away at our laptops, I left with a renewed sense of purpose in my work, hope for my friends, and a big stack of additions to my TBR pile! Thanks, girls. It was lovely.
It’s the first day of 2013, and I’ve already written the wrong date on four different things. I wonder how long it’ll take me to adjust this year. Usually, I’m good by May. Although every once in a while I’ll spit out a random date from the ’90’s, and wonder how exactly my brain manages to function at all. Usually, these random retro dates make their appearance on something completely unimportant, like a water bill (note: water companies do not like ten-year-old checks).
2012 was a quick year for me–my first full year of writing stuff. To celebrate the completion of my latest MS, I spent much of December reading great YA and writing very little. In fact, the only thing I wrote the entire month were notes, in my journals, on the beach, in Jamaica (go ahead and hate me, I can take it).
I just dug the sandy, wrinkled notebooks out of my beach bag, which I sadly have little use for now in the frozen, snowy tundra of New Jersey. I’m looking at these notes and feeling that feeling–you know, the one where you feel pukey and impatient and shy all at once? Yeah. That’s right. Pre-REVISION nerves.
This week, I’m diving back in to the middle grade project that my wonderful betas read during December. I filled up my notebooks armed with their notes. Now I just have to translate all of this mess into a revised novel. No biggie.
And in two weeks, I’m meeting some of these uh-maaaaazing CPs for the very first time in the flesh. I’m super excited. I hope we click as well in person as we do over the wires. I hope my freakishly loud laugh doesn’t scare them away. And I hope we all keep moving forward, creating new things, putting them into the world, and making the most of our time in it. Happy New Year, everyone!
During December, I’m reading YA. TONS of YA. And I’ve been sharing my thoughts on twitter under the tag #YADecember. This weekend I shared some thoughts on series YA, and thought I’d plop them all together on here, too.
Many of the new YA books on the market are one of a series (yay for the authors!), but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be an AWESOME read all on their own. Unfortunately, I think quite a few were written as one stand-alone story with only vague ideas for a series, and that comes across in the read.
Anyway, here’s what I blabbed about:
I woke up this morning to a lovely surprise in my inbox–the charming Amanda Fanger has nominated me for a very pretty blog award. I’m always very grateful when another writer selects me for an award. Because, think about it. How long does it take you to even *think* of five other blogs off the top of your head–much less select your favorites? So, I’m grateful to have anyone at all recall my blathering with fondness.
But here’s the truth about me and awards: while I *love* the setinment, I’m pretty shabby about following through with the ‘things about me’ and the blog chain, etc. Not because I don’t want to share, but because I don’t write about me a lot on here. I don’t think anyone’s sitting on the edge of their seat dying to know my favorite kind of pasta, or what time of day I shower (on shower days, of course).
However, I love the look of this award so much that I decided to take the plunge and share–with a twist. As some of you may know, I spent a decade designing products before picking up the writer’s pen(AKA laptop). During that decade, I learned how to think creatively. The Creative Process is not something to be undertaken lightly, or taken for granted–it is every creative person’s life-force. A molten core of creativity that lies within us, ready to spew out ideas if we cultivate it.
So, as an Inspired Blogger, I am supposed to list seven things about myself. And I’m going to do just that. Here are seven things I learned as a designer about The Creative Process:
1. GENERATE ALTERNATIVES. There are *always* multiple solutions to a problem. Don’t clutch blindly to the first idea that struck you. When drafting, let the words fly. But in revision, examine each choice and all the alternatives before selecting the best path to take.
2. EVERY IDEA HAS MERIT. There are no stupid ideas. Really. In fact, some of the stupidest ideas prompt the best solutions in the end. When drafting, keep ALL of the ideas. Store them in a little pile off to the side, or in your writer’s notebook. Don’t allow analysis *during* creation. The time for culling ideas comes during revision.
3. WORK BIG TO SMALL. When creating a product, we generally narrow down the manufacturing process before we design said product. Otherwise, there are too many options to consider, and 99% of our sketches will not apply. So, when working on your story, start at the top with the big ideas, and try like hell not to fuss with the words. Don’t waste editorial energy on words you may need to throw away.
4. LISTEN TO CRITIQUE. In design we have a saying: Crit Happens. Critique is something that occurs *constantly* in a design setting. In client reviews, in the war rooms, and in quick snippets of conversation at lunch, in the hall, in the bathroom. Why do we crit so much? Because, the collaboration of minds produces the very best idea. And that is the goal: to find the right idea. Let critique help you do that.
5. YOUR IDEAS ARE NOT YOUR BABIES. If ideas were babies, and designers kept every idea they ever thought of, every designer would have millions of children. So when you get upset about cutting something, remember just how many other ideas you have. And drop the ax.
6. DON’T SKIP STEPS. The Creative Process is just that: a process. If you skip a step, your results will stink. Practice your process religiously. And never, ever skip a step. Do the work in revision, no matter how many revisions it takes. I often see the question: am I done revising? If you tap into your process, you will know when it’s time for more feedback, or if your feedback has averaged out and you are ready to submit.
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| (Click to enlarge for a pretty sweet war room panorama) |
7. TRUST THE PROCESS. In all of the years of designing stuff from toothbrushes to emergency eye-wash stations, I never once ended up with no ideas. Because The Creative Process works. It’s completely normal to have jitters at the onset of a new project. But if you follow your dully-practiced path of creative thinking, you will find solutions. Every time. For every problem, there is at least one answer. For most, there are many. So have faith in the process.
And now, the truly impossible part of blog awards: passing the award on to others. Here, in no particular order, are three bloggers who inspire me very much.
Jessica Vealitzek shares True Stories every Monday, and I hungrily anticipate her posts every week. Jessica’s background in journalism shines through in these fascinating glimpses into other people’s lives.
Annie McMahon, AKA Dutch Hill News, who has perhaps the best-researched, most-helpful lists about anything MG ever on her website. So many lists are really a bunch of blah when you read through them. But I find something excellent in every one of Annie’s lists.
And last but not least, Andrea Hannah, who self-named blog I discovered a few weeks ago via #Pitchwars, and who cracks me up. There’s a lot of great info on her blog, but also, well, an inspiring energetic faith in writing that we all need to read about sometimes.
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