Weekend Boost

The Storyteller's Creed

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.

That myth is more potent than history.

That dreams are more powerful than facts.

That hope always triumphs over experience.

That laughter is the cure for grief.

And that love is stronger than death.

--Robert Fulghum

Happy weekend, everyone!

Fantastical Things

Thanks to my current WIP, I've plunged back into a world I haven't been in since middle school: the world of fantasy. Specifically YA Fantasy, and specifically current kick-ass YA Fantasy books such as the much-anticipated SHADOW AND BONE by Leigh Bardugo.

(Have to mention that the first draft of this post said "YA Fantasty," not "YA Fantasy," in true ironic typo fashion. Why yes, YA Fantasy CAN be quite Fantasty, Subconscious Me. I will explain why below.)

If you haven't heard of SHADOW AND BONE, um, do some serious googling. Like now. I'll wait.

*glares through computer screen*

Did you google? I trust you.

Now aside from Leigh making me feel severely inadequate (did you read her bio? CLEARLY YOU DID NOT GOOGLE. *glares harder*), SHADOW AND BONE is in and of itself quite a revelation for YA Fantasy/Fantasty books. I mean, a Russian-based fantasy world? Name one other YA Fantasy/Fantasty Russian-based world. YOU CAN'T, CAN YOU?

And if you've been chilling out on my blog for awhile, you might remember that a few years ago I worked for a brilliant little Russian travel agency, which re-awoke within me the bright-eyed twelve-year-old who watched the movie Anastasia and vowed to someday dance through Peterhof Palace. Russia is every bit as magical and glittering as Anastasia depicted it, and SHADOW AND BONE is every bit as magical and glittering as Russia itself is.

Which brings me to a few things.

One: seriously, go read Leigh's bio so I'm not the only one who feels like I need more hobbies.

Two: Good YA Fantasy/Fantasty stories have certain elements. Certain elements that SHADOW AND BONE very passionately incorporates, and certain elements I am beating my laptop bloody to incorporate into WINTER.

True to the OCD Writer within me, I shall outline these elements for you.

1) A glittery world. Yes, glittery. (Is this just me? Maybe?) A world so enriched in magic all its own that you enter this world feeling like you both have known it your whole life and have never seen it before.

2) Fighting. Bloody, gruesome, edge-of-your-seat fighting. My constant struggle with WINTER is feeling like a scene is boring if no one is getting attacked. Luckily, in SHADOW AND BONE, LOTS OF PEOPLE GET ATTACKED. Which is a really weird thing to like in books. Don't judge me.

3) Hello, YA Fantasty. The highly appropriate typo should speak for itself -- there should be tasty things. People, more specifically. People like Mal in SHADOW AND BONE. Mmm, Mal. And the Darkling. Mmm Darkling. Mmm. What? Oh, right.

4) Finally, the most important element (I feel) of a good YA Fantasy/Fantasty book -- culture. A culture so rich and unique and beautiful, so deep and thought-out and original, that you when you leave the book your world feels a little less complete for not having the same kind of traditions/methods/rhythm. No surprise at all, basing your fantasy world on such an already rich, magical culture as Russia is a sure-fire way to bring about a beautiful word.

So, yes, this post was more of a rave about SHADOW AND BONE than a post strictly about YA Fantasy/Fantasty elements (I think I might just start calling it YA Fantasty). But Leigh's book is one of the most original worlds to come along in quite awhile, and it feels like a door of sorts has opened in the YA Fantasty world. Could it be that Fantasty books will be the Next Big Thing? As someone with a huge bias toward the future of YA Fantasty should I commit to finishing WINTER (and it's looking good, folks), I certainly hope so. If SHADOW AND BONE is any taste of things to come, we're in for some killer worlds.

Loves

So I'm 20k words into the new draft of WINTER, and I'm at the point where I feel like a giggly little girl in the throes of a new love. One reason I'm currently high on book-writing is I rediscovered something I'd forgotten I adored the first time I wrote WINTER: court intrigue. Which is making me want to scoop up a bunch of court-intriguey books (I'm looking at you SHADOW AND BONE and THRONE OF GLASS) and devour them a-la-Lily in that episode of How I Met Your Mother where she has to gain weight to fit into her wedding dress and she chows down on a pile of fudge.

Because I'm all book-high and kind of incapable of writing coherent, helpful blog posts, I pose a question instead: what plot aspects have you found make you all giggly whilst writing? Court intrigue, steamy romance scenes, heart-pounding fight scenes, etc? Though, let's face it, we all get giggly with steamy romance scenes.

Back to the drafting trenches! *aways*

And then a meteor came crashing to earth...

AND EVERYONE DIED.

THE END.

...is what I feel like writing when I get to the Editing Point where I just. can't. read. my book. anymore.

Which, in all fairness, has never really been used to end a book. NO ONE WOULD SEE IT COMING. Unless your book is about meteors crashing to earth.

But, yes, I finished another round of edits on Ghost Book. I am finally to the point where (as mentioned above) I am so tired of reading my book that blasting the crap out of my writing world sounds more fun than reading it anymore. This is, weirdly enough, how I know I am close to being done, edit-wise.

And because I'm fried from another Editing Sprint (this time a three-day editing sprint), I ask you: how do YOU know when you are done/close to being done with editing?

Coming Home

I started writing my first "serious book" when I was 12. I'd written other books before then (with the term "books" loosely defined as any Word document between 5 to 30 pages), but when I got the idea for Giving Light, I KNEW. It would be big. Epic. Bigly epic, in such a way that I instantly started dreaming of publication and being adored by fans who would be amazed that such a masterpiece was written by a mere teenager. Or preteen, as it were.

But it kind of sucked. The story itself was pretty good, the characters alive enough for something written by a twelve-to-eighteen-year-old, but in the end it WAS my very first novel. And first novels are rarely good, no matter how much I desperately wanted/needed/KNEW it to be good. So after a few years of slowly coming to this conclusion, I put it aside in favor of newer, shinier projects.

The story, though, has never left me. I still have all of my illegible notes, my story maps, my (very, very bad) sketches depicting various characters. I pull it all out every once in awhile to reminisce about Little Author Me, and where I started, and to chuckle at how CERTAIN I was that this book would be IT. A few months ago I even started rewriting it in the offhanded hope that I could make it not suck. Got about two pages in before Ghost Book distracted me. (In Ghost Book's defense, it is pretty awesome.)

But I finished Ghost Book (or, you know, "finished long enough that I can start getting distracted by other things") and wanted something new to start on. Something epic and beautiful, something I could totally lose myself in. It's been awhile (since STREAM PIRATE, really) since I've had a book like that -- Ghost Book, while freakin' wonderful, isn't a lose-yourself-in-a-completely-different-world kind of book. And I desperately missed getting so wrapped up in my own head that I stay up into the wee hours of the night writing at ferocious speeds and get so lost in Laptop that I completely miss conversations going on around me.

So I pulled out all my old Giving Light goodies and shuffled through them in the hope that I had some random, forgotten note for a story idea I could expand. Some blip of a thought that sets off like wildfire. And while I was perusing my many, many, MANY notebooks, I remembered how lost I got in Giving Light, how beautifully, hopelessly in love I was with all my characters. And I decided -- it's time.

It's time to resurrect it. At the time, it served its purpose -- to propel me along on my writing journey and help me hone my craft. But now, I have a lot more experience with the whole writing-a-book-that-isn't-quite-horrible thing, and I think Giving Light (or Snow Like Ashes as I'm calling it now) deserves it's best chance.

So be prepared, Bloggerites. It's been a few years since you got Lost In A Novel Sara and with any luck, that's exactly what's about to happen. Coming back to this story is like returning home after a long, long absence. Everything's just how I left it yet gloriously filled with potential.

This is a blog post

And I am WRITING IT. Because I promised I'd blog more and be more entertaining and other such nonsense.

As of last Friday, I am currently working on edits for SHUTTER, SHUDDER (Ghost Book). Nothing super massive (as in, I am not yet ready to pull all my hair out and run around my apartment screaming "YOU WIN. YOU WIN. DON'T EAT ME PLEASE."), but one of the things I am adding is the one thing that I always, always, ALWAYS suck at. Always. I am now so aware of my suckiness at this that I expect it with every book, and wait with growing dread for someone to say this simple sentence:

"*insert MC's name here* needs more development in his/her personal character arc."

Character arcs. Oh, character arcs. I did a post awhile back about my struggle with character arcs. In it I tried to dissect the parts of character arcs in order to make it simpler in my head. It didn't help.

BUT, this time around, Sophie (Ghost Book MC) has an emotional struggle that I at least could put a name to: grief. And we all know those famous steps that (supposedly) everyone goes through whilst in the throws of grief. So I decided to apply them to character arcs too and found --

It kind of worked.

I'm trying not to get too excited with this discovery (we'll see if I can apply the same principles to my next book), but guys -- I HAVE MAPPED OUT SOPHIE'S CHARACTER ARC. I have never, in the history of writing, been able to sit down and map out a character's emotional journey before. It was always a barrage of "She did this -- and then -- oh wait, that happened too, so that first -- but with this other guy -- on a hilltop -- and then over there -- "

Until neither I nor anyone I tried to talk it through to could figure out what was wrong with this character. But now, I have a MAP. I have something to FOLLOW. And, dare I say, it might even be GOOD.

So if you're struggling with character arcs, give the Five Stages of Grief a whirl. Or, in more applicable terms, the Five Stages of MC Emotional Roller Coastering.

1) Depression. A common lead-in, I think. A lot of MC's start the books off a little rundown by whatever emotional problem they have. It's usually something they've been dealing with for awhile/their whole life, and when we meet up with them, they're cresting the point of Don't Know How To Fix It.

2) Denial. Usually the next step, when the MC is forced to confront whatever problem he/she has and they are so fed up with having said problem that they deny it, fight it, struggle with accepting it.

3) Anger. Towards the middle of the book -- the MC's problem is definitely surfaced by now, and they are forced to face it. Forced to in such a way that they're still wanting to deny it, unable to, and thereby pissed that they have to actually deal with it.

4) Bargaining. The MC realizes how dire their situation is. They also know what they need to do fix said emotional problem, but as a last resort, they throw caution to the wind and have a mini-breakdown of "I'll do ANYTHING else BUT that."

5) Acceptance. The climax -- the point where the MC realizes what he/she really has to do and does it. Emotional baggage is unloaded, hearts are mended, confetti is thrown.

A Status Change

Spring is an excellent time for new things. For instance, The Boyfriend and I just transplanted all of our wee sprouted veggies into the Real Outdoor Garden, where they now sit, looking quite petrified and windblown. Alas, poor veggies, the Real Outdoor Garden is a bit windier than your cushy indoor windowsill, but it is infinitely sunnier and will, ultimately, be the best thing for you.

Yes, this is metaphorical. You know me so well.

A few weeks ago, I made a decision. A decision I had been rolling through my head for a long, long while. A decision that was in no way, shape, or form easy, and was so preposterous that it took me a few months to even realize it was something I could do. Much like my poor wee veggies, now shivering in the bright Outdoor Garden light, I was terrified of what the repercussions would be and that I wouldn't survive the transition and that I wasn't cut out for the results of my decision.

I left my agent.

Now, I could go into the how's and why's and WHAT WAS I #@%$ THINKING's, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about new things.

When I left my agent, I did so with the full knowledge that STREAM PIRATE would probably never again see the light of day. At least not for a long while. And what I had instead was my Ghost Book, which made me giggle and shudder and hope people still believed in ghosts. I took Ghost Book and I walked back into a world I hadn't seen in more than two and a half years -- the world of Querying.

Querying is -- still pretty horrible. In case anyone was wondering.

BUT. But. Oh, the But. Querying can also be thrilling and energetic and ignite in you a kind of hope that you hadn't felt in years. It can make you bounce in your cubicle at work and WISH SO HARD that at least ONE of your coworkers could understand the GRAVITY of a FULL REQUEST.

And it can especially make you wish that at least one of your coworkers could understand the gravity of a full request becoming an offer.

After a whirlwind of a query session, a number of jaw-dropping requests, and so much interest my head spun for my snarky, quirky, delightfully creepy Ghost Book, I officially accepted an offer of representation on May 1st from Charlotte Sheedy of Charlotte Sheedy Literary.

Charlotte and Mackenzie are, in a word, FANTASTIC. They are enthused and bubbly and so freakin' passionate about Ghost Book that my head rings a little. I could not dream up more perfect representation for SHUTTER, SHUDDER (seriously -- there are so many similarities between Charlotte, Mackenzie, and Ghost Book that I giggle helplessly every time I think about them).

Though the decision I made a few weeks back was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made, I know, like my wee veggies, that it is ultimately the best decision for me.

And the logo on sheedylit.com looks like a mustache, which is just so MADE OF WIN, it'd make them fantastic anyway.