How I accidentally wrote a YA and why I'm never going back.

My very first WIP was completed on October 13th, 2009.

This is was what it ended up being;

















(You'll have to forgive me, I've been dog-sitting three dogs for two weeks. I'm a strict cat person. I love the dogs, it's just this huge CULTURE shock, you know?)

This first WIP, as you can see above, wasn't worth ANYTHING, really. This WIP had a 34-year-old office-lady MC, and a really Sci-Fi plot. I queried, got 0 responses, and decided to rewrite it into a new WIP. The new MC was 15, the plot was convoluted and dense, and it was basically a YA protagonist in an Adult mystery/sci-fi setting.

Finally, after suggestions by a wonderful agent-who-shall-not-be-named who read the full but rejected it, I rewrote that WIP into Sightless/FEAR ITSELF, and it's now a full-fledged YA and it's right at home there. The story took nearly two years to get to this awesome point, but it was never, EVER intended to be YA.

There were two reasons for that; 1. I was always a huge fan of YA, starting with good ol' Harry Potty, but the influx of Twilight clones at the time had me convinced the only YA worth reading was contemp. I read only contemp YA, and I didn't want to write a fantasy YA in the slightest. And 2. I didn't want a typical YA heroine at all!

I didn't realize Sightless had become YA until halfway through the latest WIP. (Which is now out on query.) I despaired a little - not YA! I can't be writing a YA - a genre which is nowadays discounted as a flurried batch of Twi-clones and Potter-prints. If they're not one of those, they are either solid contemps or white-bread heroines poised to inherit some great power/live in a dystopian world and smooch two hot men fighting over her at once.

Of course, I've learned now that YA is much more than that, but a part of me died as I was writing Sightless. It was reborn, thankfully, with the single-minded goal of doing one thing - kicking those other heroines to the curb. My MC came out tough as nails, vulnerable in ways I couldn't imagine, and deeper than I ever thought possible. She wasn't just a symbol of my desire to see something fresh, anymore - she became a person.

I struggled with the fact I was writing a YA. It's a genre I both loved and hated, but I realized it was more than that - it's a genre I want to contribute to. A genre I want to help shape, pull back from the musty dark ages of heroines who let us down, generalize us, limit us with their carefully-crafted accessibility. I wanted to see characters again, and so I wrote characters.

I might've not done the best job, but I tried. And at the end of the day, that gives me faith in my writing. And at the end of all things, faith is the one thing that matters most. Oh, and hard work. OH! Luck too. OHH! And if an agent loves your work to bits, that also helps, too. ;)

As corny as it sounds; I didn't choose YA, it chose me. I don't think I could leave if I wanted to.


Hope 2011 is going well for you, lovely readers!

Year of the Metal Rabbit and what it means for you kiddos.

I have no resolutions. I am a child of rebellion, REBELLION, I say! Also, the word 'resolute' is the first word in red ink on my rap sheet, with underlines. Right next to the 'loves muffins' bit.

As you may or may not know, I'm something of a Zodiac dork. The Chinese way of astrology is a particular weakness of mine. Don't want to go looking through dozens of articles on what the Chinese way predicts for us? Fear not! I make it my personal duty to scour countless articles released on New Year, and I've complied the gist of all of them here. ;)

This year is a Metal Rabbit year. Last year was a Metal Tiger year. Tiger years are generally filled with financial, spiritual, and political warfare. War is what defines a Tiger year. Rabbit, on the other hand, is a calm, reserved year known for its incredible luck, morseo than any other years of the Zodiac. We've waged the battle, and now it's time to split the spoils.

Expect good shit to unexpectedly happen for no earthly reason at all. Providence is warming up her guns and feeling random, and rest assured, she's aimin' at all of us.

It's a Metal year, so there'll be feelings of melancholy and regret. Metal years are notorious for producing great cultural and literary works of art ( :D We're looking at you, pub industry).

If you were born in the Year of the Rooster, things might be particularily frustrating. Rooster and Rabbit are polar opposites on the wheel, and contention runs aplenty between them. Dragon runs for second place on having a hard time. Most of the other signs look to have a decent year, with Goats, Pigs, Dogs, and Snakes having an AWESOME year.

Each sign has a differing element each year, so not only are you an animal, but you have a certain element attached to it. Those born in Water and other Metal years will find things smooth, while those born in a Fire year find things even smoother. Metal chops the element of Wood, and if you were born in a Wood year, it might seem like you find resistance wherever you go! Earth elements have nothing to worry about in any elemental year, they are the center of the elemental compass and remain relatively neutral.


In short, Metal Rabbit will be a lot better than last year! Metal+Rabbit=Robo-Rabbit?

Post-coitus....for writing?

In sexual terms we call it the afterglow. In less creepy terms, it's the calm after the storm, the recovery, the disarming lull that settles in once you've completed something that felt monumental.

Having written three (rather shoddy) books, I'll tell you this right now; when it's done I feel a distinct emptiness in my chest. I'm pretty lucky in the fact that I can put in two to four hours of writing a day, but it's not always the most productive - some days I get 6k words, others I get 500.

When I start typing out the very end, the epilogue or the last few words, it's always a teary time for me. The ending might not be particularily sad (but being me, it is always sad) but I am still real emotionally volatile. This being my third time going through the process, I'm able to pinpoint it now - I get touchy because I no longer know if what I did was right.

I begin questioning myself; did my material deserve more than what I gave it? Did I shape the clay accurately after the dream, so to speak.

(Writers aren't artists, but that is a discussion for another day.)

Inevitably, I make peace with myself but the nagging emptiness remains. I want to write again, and I make slipshod plots in the notes section of my phone while running errands or checking into work - I want to be writing again as soon as possible, please and thank you.

I think it's an addiction.

It's taking a bit of a tax on my social life. It's hard enough to have a social life on a cesspool island like this, but in all honesty I'd rather be writing than grabbing coffee with people I don't know well enough to like. This is how it's been since I was little - it was just disguised. I had notebooks filled with dragon gods and maps of worlds. (So did everyone else, it seems, but you understand.)

Writing is not the only path in my life, but it's the only one that matters to me.

Maybe my passion does not equal my output. Maybe what I produce doesn't reflect what I feel for it, and if it doesn't then that's the only true failing I'll admit to.

When I'm not writing, I want to be writing, and that's all there is to it. Maybe I'm mentally unwell?

This is not to say the real world holds no interest for me - it very much does. I have no illusion of being a creator of worlds, or an artist. When a story leaves me as a finished manuscript, I feel very empty and immediately scrabble to fill the hole with another endeavor. I feel like I'm wasting time if I'm not churning out words.


I don't know what it is, really. I'm just happy to be alive and writing.


Querying is terrifying and an exhausting process. I would rather write seven more books than query one. But it's one of those things you have to do!


who likes bourbon?
I don't.

The Waiting Disease

There is a disease that afflicts querying authors.

No! Pray tell, it is not what you think it is. We have patience in abundance. Mayhap we have more patience than a professional turtle racer! We are writers. We write tremendous things and then we revise said tremendous things, and when all is said and done we do things tremendously. Some of us are slow, some of us are quick, but to the cosmic singularity it's all very relative.

PRITHEE, we finish said tremendous thing (tremendous thing being our manuscript), and we have polished and spit polished and car-gloss polished and we've just generally polished the shit out of it enough to see our reflections. We query! Oh boy, do we query. We query and send out partials and fulls and wait with bated breath.

PERCHANCE, the disease strikes!

After four months, you begin to exhibit symptoms that include irritability and fitful doubts of skill. At seven, the disease has a full grasp on you, and it roars only this into your buzzing head;

WHAT AM I DOING WRONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

With occasional variants of this nature;

SHOULD I WRITE ANOTHER BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK BECAUSE MY FIRSTTTTTTTTT IS SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTT?


There is no known cure, or cause, save for a 'WELL DONE LET'S PUBLISH YOUR BOOK' phrase from an agent that you love, not just because they are an agent that will accept your crap and turn it shiny, but because they are a real person and they are tea enthusiasts like you are and they watch Hitchcock movies like you, and they really like your book! They think it is simply rad.


Ahhh, the waiting will kill you. Don't give up.



I have a purikura application on my iphone.
This is dangerous territory.

FOR INSTANCE:



this will be my author picture on the back of the book.