More Resources for Writing

If you read my post on writing craft books yesterday, you know I have a slight addiction problem. It’s so huge, that I had to split the post in two. Here’s the second part!

Audible Recs

Since I started writing, I’ve found the easiest way for me to actually enjoy a book is to listen to it. Audible’s met that need for me. They have craft books, but they also have workshops. Two of my favorites are:

Screenwriting for Hollywood by Michael Hauge

 

This covers basics like character development story structure (which differs from Blake Snyder and Save the Cat but just by a smidge), but the most valuable and provoking part for me involved the ways to illicit emotion from the viewer (or reader). I listen to this one repeatedly.

The Hero’s Two Journeys by Michael Hague and Christopher Vogler

A new favorite. Not only do we learn about the outer journey a protagonist needs to take, including character arc and a fast, tight plot, we learn about the hero’s inner journey. Emotion is what connects readers with characters, and this workshop helps the writer connect with the deeper psyche of a main character.

Writer Mental Health Recs

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Stephen Pressfield is bossy. No, really.

He’s not going to take any excuses, and he’s not going to let you make them, either. Fear is not an option, and neither are any other barriers to creativity: procrastination, self-doubt, or laziness.

After you finish this book, you WILL feel like a writing ninja. Just be careful with that sword.

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

“In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.”

Twyla Tharp is a dancer/choreographer, yes, but don’t let that dissuade you. We all get creatively blocked, whether we’re dancers, painters, writers, or musicians. There’s a definite “show up and do the work” attitude throughout this book, and there are exercises to help. Discipline is key, according to Tharp, and her work ethic reminds me of:

“Sister Mary Responsibility kicks the muse’s ass every time.” – Nora Roberts

The Craft Books I’m Reading Now

Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass

The things I have been promised by champions of this book: 

How to capture emotional depth, create living, breathing characters readers care about, turn magic real, and create a compelling voice.

I’m chasing down emotion and how to pull it out of a character and when I find out how to make it happen I’m going to club it and drag it back to my office by its hair.

Progressive, I know.

The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby

Things I have been promised by champions of this book:

A lot of crying? I mean, a book like that shouldn’t fall into the “Must Read” category for me, but allegedly the tears are worth it?

The skinny is that this book takes you deep inside your story and makes you acknowledge all the layers you have an opportunity to expose. Another book that focuses on character emotional growth, and gives suggestions such as, “come up with a list of every scene” to weave a tapestry, “figure out a web of symbols” to communicate different aspects of the story, etc.

It sounds cerebral and layered, and I hope it’s as challenging as I’ve been promised!

Your turn! I want to know which craft books/helpers you love and why. I always need a fix.

  

Myra McEntire is June's second Affiliate Blogger. To find out more about our guest author positions here at the League, click here.

Myra McEntire knows the words to every R&B hit of the last decade, but since she lives in Nashville, the country music capital of America, her lyrical talents go sadly unappreciated. She’s chosen, instead, to channel her “mad word skills” into creating stories.

She’s an avid Doctor Who fan and will argue passionately about which incarnation is the best.

Hourglass

Timepiece

Infinityglass

by Myra McEntire

More info

For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn't there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents' death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She's tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.

So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson's willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may also change her past.

Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he's around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should've happened?

My Top Craft Book Recommendations

When I first decided to write seriously, I went to the library to check out some books about the subject, as you do.

My youngest son was still a toddler, and we managed to make about three trips before we got kicked out, because he was in his stroller, singing. Softly. To his toes. Apparently, you can’t sing to your toes in this library unless you’re in the children’s section.

Yes, I have considered going back to that library, plopping down in the easy readers, and singing to my toes. Instead, I just go to a different branch.

You learn to pick your battles.

But I did get to check out a few craft books before we were banished, and that was the beginning of a love affair – the obsessive, unhealthy kind. I can never get enough craft books. EVER. I read them between projects and edits. I read them at the pool. I even listen to them to fall asleep (more on that tomorrow). For now, here are my top six, in no particular order:

How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich

This was the first book on writing I picked up. I’d discovered Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum series) while living in Florida, and I’d never laughed out loud at a book until hers. I figured if anyone could make the process less intimidating, or at least funny, it was Janet.

I was right! The advice is well organized, easy to understand, and the reader doesn’t feel overwhelmed or like the process is insurmountable. It’s definitely a “get your feet wet” instructional book. Lots of basics, and lots of laughs.

Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell

Okay, I’m going to try to keep my evangelizing of this book to a minimum, but if you are new to the craft, or even revisiting it after an extended vacation, you want this book. James Scott Bell not only instructs, he becomes the voice of encouragement that whispers in your ear. He tells you that you CAN do it, and then tells you HOW to do it. This book is college curriculum worthy, but don’t think it’s dry or stuffy. There’s humor, there’s warmth, and most of all, knowledge a writer in any stage can apply.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Ann Lamott

Anytime I get mopey or neurotic or discouraged, I pull this book out. For me, the charm lies in the life lessons. It’s less about writing, and more about the writing life. Something different speaks to me every time I read it. One of my favorite quotes:

“Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.”

As wonderful as this book is for the novice, it’s even better for those who might have PPTSD (publishing post traumatic stress disorder), and who need a reminder of the joys to be found in creating books.

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

I have read this book no less than twenty times. I’ve also read Save the Cat Strikes Again, and Save the Cat Goes to the Movies. The knowledge here is logical, solid, and basic, and it’s actually a screenwriting book, but my very favorite thing about it is that is provides BOUNDARIES. I need boundaries for my first drafts, or they get all kinds of patchwork quilt crazy, and Snyder’s Fifteen Beats give them lines to color inside, even though I don’t have to (Google 15 Beats and be prepared for the awesome, and then buy all the books).

The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler

This is based on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, which (everyone probably knows) is what George Lucas used to build the Star Wars stories. Thing is, Campbell’s a little bit of a wingnut, and there’s a lot of philosophy in his works. Read them, most certainly, but if you want those principles broken down into manageable chunks, this is your book. It’s a doorstop-sized, but worth every page. It’s also a screenwriting book, but don’t let that put you off. We’re all telling stories here. 

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

This is one of my most recent finds, and I love it so much it goes everywhere with me in my computer bag. It lists seventy-five emotions and gives you body language/internal thoughts to go with EVERY ONE. I am so glad I bought a paper copy, because I’ve written all over this thing, making notes when I think of my own examples! It makes me feel smug and proud (while I cross my arms and tilt my chin).

WARNING: Check your surroundings before reading this book in a coffee shop, because without fail, I read the body language suggestions and then act them out. The good news is, it’s a really easy way to get the table by the electric outlet.

More tomorrow!

Myra McEntire is June's second Affiliate Blogger. To find out more about our guest author positions here at the League, click here.

Myra McEntire knows the words to every R&B hit of the last decade, but since she lives in Nashville, the country music capital of America, her lyrical talents go sadly unappreciated. She’s chosen, instead, to channel her “mad word skills” into creating stories.

She’s an avid Doctor Who fan and will argue passionately about which incarnation is the best.

Hourglass

Timepiece

Infinityglass

by Myra McEntire

More info

For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn't there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents' death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She's tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.

So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson's willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may also change her past.

Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he's around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should've happened?

JULY: Polly Holyoke

- See more at: http://leaguewriters.blogspot.com/p/guest-authors.html#sthash.yqg8Tuau.dpuf

World Building 101: Do You Really Want That Second Moon?

I love writing both fantasy and science fiction, but I’ve learned to be cautious about my planetology in both genres, and I think more writers should as well.

Red Moon and Black Mountain by Joy Chant was one of my favorite fantasy novels when I was a girl, in part because the world of Vandarei she created was so incredibly vivid and real. This was the first book that made me realize that other worlds might have more than one moon. And her red moon wasn’t just up there in the sky for decoration. When it was full and rose on one particular night in the year, the powers of her evil villain were at their strongest.

But I would venture to guess (my apologies to Ms. Chant if I’m wrong) that she probably didn’t chart the orbits of her red moon and her silver one too carefully, or keep track of when they should be rising and setting. Magic is a handy explanation for why one moon orbiting the same planet and same star is silver and the other moon is blood red. You can be a little more relaxed about orbits and your planetology in fantasy, but in science fiction, your fans may expect your moons to behave like real satellites, with real, predictable orbits and plausible colors.

If you write science fiction and decide to give your world extra moons, at the very least you should be aware of the impact of those moons in terms of their gravitational pull on large bodies of water. If your planet has seas and all three of your moons are in alignment, your characters are going to have to deal with some epic tides. But I’ve read dozens of science fiction novels in which the moons rise whenever their authors needs them to, and their gravitational pull appears to have no apparent impact on the planet. That disregard for the laws of physics erodes my belief in an author’s story.

If you set your book on a planet with an irregular orbit, that could explain spectacular weather anomalies that play havoc with the climate of your world. Winter is coming, but if your characters aren’t sophisticated astronomers, they might not be able to predict when that winter is going start or how long it might last. Patricia McKillip took this idea several steps further and hypothesized that members of a primitive culture might base some of its religious beliefs around a brilliant flash of light they saw on their moon each year. But that flash actually came from a supply ship landing on a satellite, and she wrote a thought-provoking novel about that clash of cultures in her novel Moon Flash.

Extra moons and irregular orbits can instantly make your world seem more exotic and foreign, but with extra moons comes great responsibility. You may lose some of your true science fiction fans if your moons and planets don’t obey the rules of science.

Polly Holyoke is June's first Affiliate Blogger. To find out more about our guest author positions here at the League, click here.

Polly Holyoke graduated from Middlebury College and earned her teaching certificate from theUniversity of Colorado. She loved working as a middle school social studies teacher and has been writing stories since she was in fifth grade. When she isn’t tapping away on her computer, Polly enjoys reading, camping, skiing, scuba diving and hiking in the desert. She lives with three rescue dogs, two spoiled cats and a very nice husband who tolerates piles of books all over their house.

The Neptune Project

by Polly Holyoke

More info

The Neptune Project is set in a future where the seas are rising and wars and famines wrack the surface world. Nere Hanson and her teen companions are shocked to learn that they have been genetically altered by their desperate parents to live in the sea. Protected by her loyal dolphins, shy Nere leads the rest on a perilous journey to her father’s new colony. Fighting off government divers, sharks and giant squid, can Nere and her companions learn to trust each other before their dangerous new world destroys them?

World Building 101: Don’t Forget the Taste of the Food, Dude

When I’m teaching world building workshops, I often tell my students that less is more. When you are trying to create vivid new worlds, ONE or TWO well-chosen details per page can do the job nicely, thank you very much. You don’t need to deluge your readers with dozens of clues to show them that they aren’t in Kansas anymore.

But it is important to choose your world building details carefully. When I’m writing for teens and children, I make sure that I often include my favorite sensory detail: taste. If you have kids of your own, you realize how important food is to them. When I pick my offspring up from school, their first question (asked with desperate urgency) is almost always, “Mom, what’s for dinner?”

Taste and smell are powerful senses. They are tangled up with each other in our brains, and with our memories. How often does smelling a familiar scent instantly transport you back to your childhood?


Writing The Neptune Project, a novel set almost entirely in the sea, posed all sorts of interesting world building challenges. I wanted to make sure my readers understood what a wrenching transition my characters face when they give up their lives on land forever to live in the sea. At one point my Neptune kids eat a meal of raw fish and talk about the food they miss from back home, like warm, crusty bread. It’s a simple conversation with only a few sensory details, but I think it conveys effectively just how much these kids have lost.

I knew from the start that my Neptune kids were going to have to eat raw seafood and seaweed for the rest of their lives, which meant (gulp) that I had to know what that stuff tasted like. So my game hubby joined me for an expedition to a sushi restaurant where we tried raw eel, squid, octopus, and sea urchin. The squid and octopus were quite tasty, if a little chewy, but I’m quite sure I’m NEVER going to develop a taste for sea urchins! In fact, after this gastronomic adventure, we quickly decamped and headed for a frozen yogurt place.

But what if you are creating a completely different world from ours, and your characters are going to eat lots of roast merinbeast? You can’t go taste that in a local restaurant. Then you better figure out ways to let your readers know what roast merinbeast tastes like, without saying it tastes like “steak” or “hamburger,” which will instantly eject your readers from your world. Instead you might try adjectives like “rich,” “fatty,” “gamey,” or “savory.”

Taking the time to include taste details will pay off for you big time. World building is all about creating a visceral experience for your readers, and you’ve done your job if they can actually taste the food in your world.

Polly Holyoke is June's first Affiliate Blogger. To find out more about our guest author positions here at the League, click here.

Polly Holyoke graduated from Middlebury College and earned her teaching certificate from theUniversity of Colorado. She loved working as a middle school social studies teacher and has been writing stories since she was in fifth grade. When she isn’t tapping away on her computer, Polly enjoys reading, camping, skiing, scuba diving and hiking in the desert. She lives with three rescue dogs, two spoiled cats and a very nice husband who tolerates piles of books all over their house.

The Neptune Project

by Polly Holyoke

More info

The Neptune Project is set in a future where the seas are rising and wars and famines wrack the surface world. Nere Hanson and her teen companions are shocked to learn that they have been genetically altered by their desperate parents to live in the sea. Protected by her loyal dolphins, shy Nere leads the rest on a perilous journey to her father’s new colony. Fighting off government divers, sharks and giant squid, can Nere and her companions learn to trust each other before their dangerous new world destroys them?

World Building 101: What’s In a Name?

What’s in a name? When you are building a whole new world for your readers in a science fiction or fantasy novel, a name can make a huge difference. Maybe roses would smell as sweet if you called them “blaggentoffleworts,” but your reader would get pretty tired of tripping over that word if you used it frequently in your story, and your editorial team wouldn’t be too happy with you, either.

Would a blaggentofflewort smell as sweet?

I’ve been writing fantasy and science fiction for a long time. Making up names for characters who live in other centuries and worlds is something I can do easily. Early on in my writing career, though, I have to admit that I created some real clunkers.

So these days, how do I go about coming up with strong, original names for characters in a different reality from ours?

First of all, I’m the proud owner of five different baby name books, and for the record, my hubby and I are tidy sorts and have only made 2.0 offspring. My favorite baby name book has some fairly exotic names (does anyone really name a girl Arnoldine?) but I like its detailed explanations of the origins and meanings of names. I’ll often make sure that the original meaning of the character’s name fits that character, even if I’m the only person who knows that meaning.

But sometimes there’s a Latin root in a word, like malus which means “evil” or “bad,” that most people do know. Hence the plethora of villains out there such as the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty named Maleficent and Malfoy in the Harry Potter books. This isn’t the most subtle approach, but sometimes you may want to hit your readers over the head with associations, or you may want a humorous connotation or meaning associated with your character’s name.

Naming a character “Maleficent”or “Maldread” is NOT the most subtle way to name a character,
but sometimes you don’t want to be subtle.

Once I pick a contemporary name, I usually change one vowel in it, or a consonant, or shave off a syllable, and I often end up with something I like. If I don’t, I keep tinkering and adjusting until I create a name that sounds vaguely like one we have in our world and in our time, but still is different. For example, take the name “Jezebel.” If you shave off the “j” and the “e,” now you have “Zebel.” I probably wouldn’t use that for a main character, but it’s a serviceable name for a secondary character.

Telephone books (remember those things?) can also be a great resource for last names.

If I’m totally stuck and I need a more exotic, foreign name, I type random sets of keys and see if in those groupings I can find the root of an interesting name. But here’s a warning: this approach can often lead to an unpronounceable name. And THOU SHALT NOT use unpronounceable names.

Which reminds me, I have two basic rules for naming characters in other worlds.

1. Your readers need to be able to pronounce a name.

2. Even it if it is pronounceable, it still can’t look too foreign or funky on the page, or your readers will trip over it, and you’ll have an argument with your editorial team down the road that would be nicer to avoid. Plus it’s no fun un-naming a character once you’ve gotten used to calling him or her “Rycanthalcyr” for three hundred pages.

Here’s one final hint. Don’t ever let the need to find a perfect name hold up your writing. When I’m having a great writing day or week, I’ve been known to leave a secondary character unnamed for several chapters and just use a symbol or blank to hold his or her space.

But in the end, I will spend a great deal of time making sure that even my secondary characters have strong names because the Bard, in this case at least, was wrong. There’s a great deal in a name if you’re in the world building biz.

Polly Holyoke is June's first Affiliate Blogger. To find out more about our guest author positions here at the League, click here.

Polly Holyoke graduated from Middlebury College and earned her teaching certificate from theUniversity of Colorado. She loved working as a middle school social studies teacher and has been writing stories since she was in fifth grade. When she isn’t tapping away on her computer, Polly enjoys reading, camping, skiing, scuba diving and hiking in the desert. She lives with three rescue dogs, two spoiled cats and a very nice husband who tolerates piles of books all over their house.

The Neptune Project

by Polly Holyoke

More info

The Neptune Project is set in a future where the seas are rising and wars and famines wrack the surface world. Nere Hanson and her teen companions are shocked to learn that they have been genetically altered by their desperate parents to live in the sea. Protected by her loyal dolphins, shy Nere leads the rest on a perilous journey to her father’s new colony. Fighting off government divers, sharks and giant squid, can Nere and her companions learn to trust each other before their dangerous new world destroys them?

Paperback Release for Lissa Price's Starters + Portrait of a Spore

After a hugely successful run in hardcover (7 printings!), STARTERS is finally coming out in paperback today. And as a thank you to fans, Lissa wrote a special short story just for the paperback: Portrait of a Spore.

So what's Portait of a Spore about?  PoaS is told from two points of view - one gives us insight into the "mind" of a Spore, bioengineered to wipe out everyone in North America without the vaccine (mostly those from 18-65) leaving only children and teens (Starters) and the elderly (Enders).  The other point of view is Callie's mother.

The story covers the morning and afternoon of the spores arrival in Callie's hometown. It fleshes out Callie's backstory and gives us some really great mother/daughter moments. Definitely worth the read!

Also, EW.com had an exclusive reveal yesterday of the Enders cover, with an excerpt as well - leave a comment on that post and you could win a copy of the paperback or a gift card. (International entries accepted).

Find out more about Lissa Price and Starters at her website and Facebook.  Follow her on twitter.

Write What You Love...

One of the most cliched bits of advice given to young writers is to "write what you know." As a teenager I always laughed at that, because my favorite books involved dragons and robots and spaceships. Not exactly something your standard life experience prepares you to write about. Obviously, I was taking the advice a bit too literally—as writers, even speculative fiction writers, we're constantly writing what we know anyway. The decisions our characters make are reflections on the decisions we make in our lives. The traumas and battles are echoes of the fears we ourselves have. In many ways, I think we can't help but write what we know. What we know informs everything.

So that's not really what I'm here to talk about. Instead, I'd like to champion the idea of writing what you love.

Yesterday I went to see Pacific Rim, a movie which I've been looking forward to for years, ever since I found out that Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) was doing a mecha/monster movie. For those of you who haven't been devouring every single interview and tidbit about the movie, it's basically a giant love letter to the kaiju genre (think Godzilla) of Japanese film, which he loved as a child.

And even though I was never into kaiju movies myself, it was probably the most thoroughly enjoyable movie I've seen in a long time. Every moment of it oozed love for the genre. I think I spent the entire movie with this big, ridiculous grin on my face because you could feel how much fun del Toro had making it. It got me thinking about how much better art is when we give in to doing what we love, writing what we really want to write about. And why on earth we'd waste any time doing anything else.

I've heard the same thing from so many aspiring writers (myself included): "What I'd really love to do is X, but..." There's always a reason not to. "I'm not good enough yet" was always my reason for not attempting to write what I really loved. But I've also heard "but there's no market for X right now" and "I don't know if anyone would want to read that."

There are always plenty of reasons not to try it. But the thing is, if you love it, that'll come through in your writing. It always does. Inevitably, readers' favorite parts of books are the parts I most enjoyed writing. When it's a labor of love, the rest falls into place.

All The Stories Have Been Told... Even The Dialogue

I love being a media consumer. And man, do I consume. If media had calories I'd be in a circus somewhere. I read about 80 books a year (not counting manuscripts I read for critique partners) I binge watch cable shows when they come out on DVD because I won't pay for television, and the number at the bottom of my iTunes library screen is really, really big. And while I fully believe that reading, watching, and listening is only one step behind actually putting your fingers to the keys and writing, there is a downside.

And that downside is that I always know what's going to happen.

I've been told for years that all the stories are exhausted, we're just recasting them in a new mold. When I was younger I didn't believe that, but now I see that's only because I hadn't been exposed to many of the already-manufactured stories in existence. Now that my horizons have expanded I can see it's pretty much the case.

I know. I always know. My brain has devoured so many plot lines, characters, story arcs, and fake conversations that it's almost impossible for me to get the same enjoyment out of books, movies, and TV shows that I could when I was younger. I'm at the disgusting point where I can predict dialogue. The boyfriend and I went to see World War Z (which, coincidentally, I totally enjoyed) and there were three different points where I turned to him and said the next line of dialogue before it happened.

I'm really annoying to go to the movies with, by the way.

There are benefits though - I know what people expect when they're reading my stories, so I veer off somewhere else. I recently met Michael Grant (GONE) at ALA. He blurbed my book for me (I'm still in shock) and when we met he told me one of the things that hooked him was that NOT A DROP TO DRINK surprised him. He said he thought he knew where it was going and then... it didn't. This was one of the happier moments in my life, by the way.

And another up side is that when I'm reading and someone knocks me back - it recently happened with Kate Karyus Quinn's ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE and Stephanie Kuehn's CHARM & STRANGE - I take a hard look at what they did that broke the mold... and then I try to figure out how to do that, in my own way.

Our Princess is in Another Castle

Writing is hard, but is it "Nintendo hard"?

The 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (1985–1995) is notorious for offering some of the most challenging video games ever made, games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Battletoads that would make many of today's Xbox and Playstation gamers weep with anger and frustration. Although you could often find cheat codes to get extra lives, pore over player's guides, and even call an official hotline for tips, in the end, games of that generation all relied on skill and reflexes. You also needed one more very important thing:

Persistence.

To complete a difficult game like Mega Man, Castlevania, or Ninja Gaiden, you needed to play through each level over and over and over again, memorizing the patterns of enemy movements, finding power-ups, and avoiding traps (usually after getting caught in them a few times first). This takes a tremendous amount of patience and persistence, which are essential qualities for the hopeful writer submitting work to agents and editors. While I was playing all those NES games as a kid, repeating the same levels for hours (no save games! limited continues!), I was also unknowingly rewiring my brain for a career as a published author.

Consider: How different is "Thanks, this is a solid novel but it just isn't for me" from "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle"? It's disappointing to slog through four treacherous levels in the Mushroom Kingdom, sneak past pitfalls, and triumph over a fire-breathing dragon only to discover that you have to do it all over again somewhere else. So it is with writing and revising and querying and waiting for weeks or months only to find out that you've ultimately sent it to the wrong agent.

Getting a rejection letter can feel like hitting a brick wall, but it isn't game over. You have to get back on that speed bike, telling yourself that next time you'll make it. I came so close this time! I just need to give it one more try. Come on, five more minutes, Mom!

The act of playing a video game is all about not only learning how to play that game, but putting in the time to practice and master it completely, no matter how many times you have to press Continue. And if that isn't bad enough, sometimes you have to blow on the cartridge to even get the game to start in the first place.

But as you pick up the rules, get better at writing, and persist in sending those queries out, you'll hone your instincts. Maybe along the way you'll find some warp zones and things that will shorten your journey or improve your chances of success. And one day, probably after numerous setbacks, you'll find the agent you've been looking for.

Cover Reveal: WINGS (A Black City Novel)

We're super excited to reveal the cover for WINGS (A Black City Novel), the third and final installment in the Black City trilogy by Elizabeth Richards! Isn't it gorgeous?

What Liz thinks

I'm absolutely in awe of this cover. I love the blue theme, not only because it matches Natalie's eyes but because it's also the color of the rebels' flag. Plus, butterflies are a key motif in the book, so it ties in the themes really well. So much love! It's definitely my favorite of the three covers. *hugs cover*

Giveaway

The giveaway is open internationally.
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See Lissa and Genn at Comic Con International 2013!

Hi Leaguers! Gennifer Albin and Lissa Price will soon be at the craziness that is Comic-Con to talk about YA novels. Signings will take place immediately after the talks, in the autograph area in the Sails Pavilion on this same upper level. Mysterious Galaxy will be handling book sales right there at the signing tables and they will have the new Starters paperback with the exclusive 25p short story, “Portrait of a Spore,” before it will be available for everyone else on July 23rd.

Lissa will also give out brand new postcards, sign with unique artwork and do a special giveaway for people in her signing line.

Gennifer will be signing at the Macmillan booth (1220) at 11 am on Sunday.  The first 20 people in line will receive ARCs of ALTERED.

Saturday, July 20 • 11:00am - 12:00pm

When Grrls Fall in Love

From The Hunger Games' Katniss to Divergent's Tris, no one knows how to give a solid ass-kicking like a YA novel heroine. But when these young ladies aren't saving the world, overthrowing powerful regimes, or slaying everything from zombies to dragons, they still find time for romance. Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments), Ally Condie (Matched), Veronica Roth (Divergent), Holly Black (The Coldest Girl in Coldtown), Marissa Meyer (Scarlet), Lissa Price (Starters), and Veronica Wolff (The Watchers) discuss the delicate balance between killing and kissing, and what it takes to properly woo a YA heroine. Moderated by Sherri Smith (Orleans).

Saturday July 20, 2013 11:00am - 12:00pm

Room 23ABC

  1: Programs, Horror and Suspense, Mysteries & Crime Dramas, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Writers & Writing

Sunday, July 21 • 2:30pm - 3:30pm

Safety Not Guaranteed

Dystopian societies, postapocalyptic scenarios, enhanced (and deadly) abilities, and mysterious government branches make the future a not-so-safe place to be. Moderator Anna Jarzab (Tandem) joins authors Marie Lu (the Legend series), Genn Albin (Crewel), Brandon Sanderson (Steelheart), Margaret Stohl (Icons), Amy Tintera (Reboot), and Michael Johnston (Frozen) as they discuss what it takes to survive in the future worlds they've created.

Sunday July 21, 2013 2:30pm - 3:30pm

Room 23ABC

  1: Programs, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Writers & Writing