writing
FAQ: Do I Need an MFA?
May 20, 2011
A question I see pop up a lot from aspiring writers has to do with creative writing MFA programs, and whether they’re a necessary or even recommended step toward getting published. Someone just asked me this question the other day, and after I rambled at the poor girl for a while I realized that it was a subject on which I have a lot to say.
Suddenly I Know Things!
May 18, 2011
Firstly I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who’s congratulated me here on my blog or on Twitter or Facebook over the past week. It’s been overwhelming to see the kind of cheer and support this community gives. Just thank you, thank you. <3
Anyway! So today I got to do something I’ve always looked forward to as part of the author gig: talk to a group of students about books and writing. To be completely honest, though, I’ve always dreaded it almost as much as I’ve looked forward to it, because like many writers I’m a naturally somewhat shy person. Public speaking gives me the heebie jeebies. Plus, I don’t actually feel different on the other side of the book deal–who’s to say I know stuff now? What gives me the right to pretend I do? I even emailed my ninth grade English teacher, who I’m still friends with, to ask for advice. Turns out, though, that I didn’t really have anything to be worried about!
Big news!
May 11, 2011
How do I even start this post? I’ve even had months to sit on this and try to figure it out, and here I am on the day and I’m still at a loss.
I could write an entire novel about this announcement, but you know what? For once I’m just going to be concise and let the news speak for itself.
This:
Books That Make You Want to Quit
May 10, 2011
Do you ever finish reading a book and just want to throw it across the room and cry and never touch paper/keyboard again, because you’ll never be that good? I was chatting the other day with my friend Caitlin about this–“So good you just want to kill yourself,” was the way she put it, though with her it’s film and animation and opera that gets her. I always end up with this unbearable desperation when I read a book like that, this fury and passion bubbling up inside me where I want to dive into my chair and write until my hands fall off, and simultaneously move away and change my name and never think about writing again.
Why YA?
May 07, 2011
Sometimes when I have the “What do you do/I’m a writer/Oh, what do you write/Books for kids” conversation with new people, I get a Look that I’ve come to recognize. It’s the “Oh. For kids. So not real books” look. (It’s similar to the “Oh, fantasy” look, but that’s another blog post.) I always find it amusing–and a little sad–because it makes me realize that these people have forgotten what it was like to read books when they were a kid.
Is the end nigh for end-of-the-world fiction?
Apr 19, 2011
The other day my friend Ellen pointed me toward an article on Tor.com by Scott Westerfeld discussing the reasons he felt dystopian fiction–or “dyslit,” as he calls it–is so popular among young adults right now. (He also talks about post-apocalyptic fiction, as it often gets lumped in with dystopian.) It’s a great read, so definitely go check it out. Of course, it made me ponder why I think dystopian fiction is popular, but since I’ve already written about that, it might be time to talk about why I feel it will stay popular.
Community and Networking
Jan 22, 2011
Hello, friends! I’ve been pretty quiet lately, given the chaos on my side of things. Lots of travel, lots of revision work, lots of meetups with people. I’m now back in the U.S. for a couple weeks, although little has changed except that there are cats underfoot instead of a dog, and I sit at my computer in sweatpants and sweaters and fingerless gloves instead of shorts and a tank top.
I’m battling some sort of illness that the airplane inflicted upon me, while trying to do revisions. I tend to get a bit loopy when I get sick, so the result is that I keep fixating on certain passages and changing them over and over again, only to come back the next day, read what I wrote, and go “Huh?” It isn’t the most efficient system, but I’m getting it done, and I think learning to work while sick is a pretty valuable skill for a writer. It’s easy to say “Meh, not in the mood, I’ll do it later,” but if you’ve got daily word goals or deadlines or whatever you use to track progress, it’s easy to let one day of sick turn into five, at which point you’ve lost your momentum.
Cue blizzard of exclamation points!
Dec 24, 2010
To help explain the complete radio silence on my part lately, I have some good news and some bad news. We’ll start with the bad news: I’ve had to stop working on HUNTED. I wrote the first 30,000 words of the book in just a bit over two weeks, and have been having so much fun with it. But I’m stopping for a good reason, so that assuages my guilt somewhat.
The reason, you ask? Well…
I went to a concert!
Dec 04, 2010
I went to the most AWESOME U2 concert last night. We were sitting pretty high up, but the view was amazing and I’m pretty sure we had the best seat in the house, except for maybe the chick who got pulled up onstage to dance with Bono. I’ve never been to such a massive concert before. I went with Amie, who said there were something like 80,000 people there. I have no way of knowing if that’s true, because basically after about 50 people my brain shuts down and can no longer tell the difference between 200 and 2,000 people. But she’s pretty smart, so I’ll take her word for it.
Looking down on the crowd on the floor was like flying low over the ocean during a storm. The booming thunder of the bass, the lightning of the camera flashes lighting up the surging waves of people–and in the dark the cool glow of cell phones was like phosphorescence churned up by the stormy sea. I spent nearly as much time watching this as I did watching the band, because I was so mesmerized. I couldn’t shake the impression that I was hovering over the ocean.
What is Dystopian Fiction?
Dec 02, 2010
Just tonight, a brand new twitterfriend asked me, “What is a dystopian novel?” I’m guessing that she read my bio on Twitter, which says I’m working on a dystopian novel, and was curious about the term. I answered her as best I could within 140 characters, but as I lay wide awake in bed trying to sleep, I kept thinking of everything I wanted to say about the subject. So instead of flooding Twitter, I decided to do the next best thing: blog about it!
Often the first question people ask me when I say I’m a writer is, “What do you write?” The second question tends to be, “What the hell is a dystopian?” I think that sometimes even those who do feel familiar with the term don’t have a complete understanding of the genre. I’ve come across more and more people who think dystopian fiction is brand spanking new, because of the huge swell of popularity in the genre with writers like Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) and Scott Westerfeld (Uglies) making waves in the YA market. And it’s definitely true that the genre has exploded recently, which I love because it’s one of my favorite genres of literature. But it’s been around a LOT longer than a lot of people new to the genre might think.