SEE A HEART

My editor at Dial shared this book with me at Christmas: SEE A HEART SHARE A HEART by Eric Telchin. 

It's truly a lovely collection of photographs.  I've found myself pulling it off the shelf repeatedly during the past few days, as the Ozarks has dealt with a horrible blast of wintry weather: sleet, snow, freezing rain. 

In the midst of ugly, harsh surroundings, it's provided a much-needed ray of warmth. 

BIRTHDAY REFLECTIONS

I can't tell you guys how much I appreciate all the Happy Birthdays you sent last week.  You broke your own record!  I literally received hundreds of well-wishes this year.

 



Birthday Flowers - Aren't they cool?  I think they look like paintbrushes.

 

I've got a ton of new Birthday Goals, too, aimed at making 36 the best year ever...and many of those goals involve producing my best work yet for my fabulous, loving readers!

 

In the meantime, you can head over to Books a la Mode to win a signed bookplate.  (The giveaway is international.)

 

 



THE BEST FIREWORKS

I didn't write much of a post about the Fourth this year, because I didn't get to enjoy my usual celebration...

I live just south of one of the best fireworks displays in town.  Most years, on the Fourth, I walk a few blocks, pop open a lawn chair, and hang out in a conveniently undeveloped field, watching the incredible professional fireworks from the Twin Oaks Country Club.  They completely fill up the sky, rattle through my chest.

This year?  My tried-and-true empty field was a construction zone.  And the heat was absolutely vicious, keeping me from my usual bird’s eye view.  Though my neighbors and I are residents of the county, and can legally shoot our own firecrackers, our worries about the brittle, dry surroundings during this prolonged drought also kept most of us from lighting much more than a few sparklers. 

  

So there just wasn't much going on, in our skies this year.

But we did spend plenty of time in our backyards, hitting grills or backyard pools. 

Some of my younger neighbors—a couple of elementary-school-aged girls—spent the Fourth on a picnic blanket, under a backyard tree, with assorted cold summer snacks and drinks and a pile of books.  I kept watching those girls, as the day lingered on, engrossed in their reads and laughing and enjoying each other.   

It has since occurred to me that those are perhaps the best fireworks of all—the fireworks of connecting.  To another person.  To the voice in a novel.  There’s nothing like that rattle that echoes through a chest when you find someone—or something—that you can relate to, on a personal level. 

So here’s to all those fireworks of connection—may they be popping and banging all around you, this summer and for many more to come…

SPRING & MY ROOM

Virginia Woolf once famously insisted that in order to write fiction, a woman needed money and a room of her own.

Eleven years ago this May, that’s exactly what I got: a room of my own.

I’d just completed my master’s, and in the midst of all my fellow classmates making plans to move on to PhD programs or interviewing for full-time employment, I was taking my mom up on her offer. “Let me feed you,” she said, “and you can write.” It was the only thing I’d ever wanted to do, after all—and there was no way I was going to pass up such an incredible opportunity.

A couple cans of paint and a new desk later, I had it—my own office, in the former guest bedroom of my childhood home. It wasn’t incredibly high-tech, in the beginning: I had a dinosaur of a computer, so old it didn’t even have a modem. And I had a phone, and a MailStation where I could send emails (no attachments). And a coffee maker. And that pretty much did it for the electronics.

But what I did have was time. All the time I needed. And that turned out to be a good thing, indeed…

I’d banked on two years. Two years tops to get started. Two years came and went. So did three. And four. Five.

Each spring, as my alma mater’s graduation day made the local news, I’d wind up taking stock of how far I’d come: I’d look back on the year’s submissions. I’d remind myself of all the new work I’d written. I’d show myself the list of books (either partials or complete manuscripts) currently being considered by publishing houses or agents.

Six springs went by. Seven.

Finally, finally, finally, on that eighth spring after my graduation, I had a book in development. A book in development! That eighth spring, as I tuned into the news and watched flashes of MSU’s commencement, I thought about that twenty-four-year-old who’d just gotten her master’s, who’d just written a creative thesis, who’d published a few shorter pieces and was convinced that writing and publishing a novel would be a breeze. I thought about how much she had to grow as a writer before selling her first book.

The thing is, if I hadn’t had the ability to devote full-time, seven-day-a-week attention to my writing, I know it would have taken twenty years or more to get that first acceptance…if ever. (That “if ever” are the two scariest words in the English language…) I had so far to go, and so much to learn…I just don’t think I ever would have gotten there without that room of my own, and the freedom from financial concerns.

This spring—and every spring hereafter—with multiple books on store shelves, I know I’ll take more than just a few moments to be grateful for the most incredible gift I’ve ever (and without a doubt, will ever) receive: the simple gift of time.

SPRUNG

A tulip made it just in time for the first day of spring yesterday:

And Jake got in the first good dig of the warm season…Too bad the dirt that gets licked off a guy’s nose doesn’t taste as good as the remnants of dinner!

In the midst of all things new, I also found this recent (and fantastic!) review of PLAYING HURT, which is now officially a year old (it just feels so good to know that long after the initial book release hoopla, my book continues to find new readers)! Check out the review at TEEN INK.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY + INSPIRATION

My hometown of Springfield was recently named one of Amazon's most romantic cities! In honor of both this distinction and the upcoming holiday, a vlog post:



Instead of giving out chocolate hearts to my followers, I'm offering another treat: I'm rerunning a guest post, which recently appeared on Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing. The post, which details my long road to publication (and how, in the course of two hours in one day, I suddenly had both an agent and book deal), got quite a bit of attention online. I'm running it here in the hopes that it will continue to offer sweet bursts of inspiration, to those still chasing their first publication:


When I got my master’s in ’01, my mom invited me to stay home and devote full-time effort to getting a writing career off the ground (my lifelong dream). I figured it’d take a year or so to write a novel, then it’d sell (I was lucky enough to have placed poetry, short fiction, and literary critique in journals when I was in college, and was under the grand delusion that selling a manuscript would be a breeze for me), and in oh, two years or so, I’d have money in the bank, and I’d be off and running.

Okay, seriously. You can stop laughing now.

The truth is that I spent the next seven and a half years writing and submitting manuscript after manuscript…after manuscript. In that time, my friends from college finished up PhDs, started teaching, doing research, became professionals. I often felt like all I had was a deep gash in the drywall where I’d spent months upon months banging my head against it. And rejection slips. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of them—more than a thousand in all.

Enter the holiday season of ’08. That’s when my YA, A BLUE SO DARK, was under submission at Flux. I spoke to Brian (Farrey, acquisitions editor at Flux) for the first time just before Thanksgiving, and though I tried to play it cool, I spent Christmas on pins and needles, tied up in knots, hoping that finally the acceptance I’d been working toward for so long would appear.

Appear it did, just a few days after the new year. And literally two hours—I swear it’s true—two hours after I accepted the offer from Flux, the phone rang. On the other end of the line was an agent who was raving about a middle grade book I’d sent earlier that fall. With an offer of representation.

I accepted (Deborah Warren later sold my debut MG, THE JUNCTION OF SUNSHINE AND LUCKY, to Dial, and is still my agent). After that initial phone call, though, in the winter of ’09, I just stood in my kitchen, dazed, wondering how it could have happened. Seven and a half years I’d been seeking a book deal, seeking representation. And in the course of two hours in one day, I had both.

The thing is, though, I can’t attribute that incredible day to luck or holiday magic. That day is the result of hard work. Period. That day happened because I really did read every single one of those thousand-plus rejection letters (more than eighty of them were rejections for A BLUE SO DARK). Painful as it sometimes was, I didn’t just toss those rejections in the trash, insist I was right, and continue to submit the same book over and over. I digested the critique and I dove back in, revising before submitting again.

For the most part, though, I really think that’s what luck is really made of: the ability to recognize your own shortcomings, the willingness to listen to advice, and the sweat of some insanely hard work.

YA TO A

My own second YA, PLAYING HURT, features slightly older characters, for the genre: Chelsea's already graduated from high school and Clint has finished his first year of college when the two meet and embark on their love story. One of the reasons I chose protagonists of that age is because I love stories that focus on characters who are in the midst of one of life's times of transition—a rocky, scary, thrilling new beginning. The kind of beginning that finds us at the end of our school days, or as we set out to establish ourselves in "the real world," etc.

That's a big part of why I love this video; I can't help it—I smile every single time I watch it. I really appreciate the transition Ms. Swift is making here; this is the first time I've ever viewed her in an adult capacity...Plus, as PLAYING HURT also illustrates, I'm just a sucker for a sweet love story:




Speaking of PLAYING HURT, I absolutely loved bumping into Best-of-'11 lists throughout the blogophere late in December that featured the book. I wanted to highlight a few here, from Reading Angel, Book Goonie, and Magnet 4 Books.

I'd also like to know: how do you prefer your characters in YA? Older? Younger? Weigh in below!

...And with that, I officially kick of '12 here at the blog! I can't help it—I just have this fabulous feeling about '12. Life is good...