How not being creative just invites in the Brain Monster

I've got a theory that can be summed up in a single sentence. Are you ready for it? Here goes.

If you don’t expend creative energy, BAD THINGS HAPPEN.

Mark my words. BAD. THINGS.

Of course creative energy can be expended in a million different ways. Writing, drawing, photography, graphic design, knitting, creating things with your hands. Even finding solutions to organization problems or coming up with really cool math problems. (Once upon a time, I did technical support for spreadsheet software for a few years and I wrote some paragraphs-long formulas that had the power to make me float on a creative high for days. DAYS, I tell you!)

It wasn’t until I cashed in every single one of my creative outlets for writing that I realized the full effect of creative energy expenditure. You know, sometimes life gets busy. And you don’t have time to write (or whatever your favorite method is). And that’s when the bad things happen.

Photo Credit: hugoo13

You see, there’s this thing that lives in your brain. He’s a maniacal, crazy, hyper little monster, and doing creative things is like Valium to him. When he doesn't get his Valium, he goes wild. Wild like a nine year old ADHD kid hopped up on mass amounts of sugar, Dr. Pepper, and red dye #40. He runs around your brain and beats on the walls and yells and jumps and throws things, and it takes EVERY OUNCE OF PATIENCE TO HANDLE THE CHAOS ENSUING.

And the thing is, you don't even realize it's going on. You don't realize that you have spent every bit of your patience until something else comes along. Any tiny little thing, really. And suddenly you can't handle it. And you don't even know why, because it's such a teeny little thing. Of course you should be able to handle it just fine! But you don't.


See? Bad things.

I swear to you, if you ever feel this way, you can look back and say, "Wow. When was the last time I did something creative?"

And you'll hear the answer in a maniacal, crazy, hyper voice. "Forever ago! I NEED MY VALIUM!"

If you go and expend ANY kind of creative energy (but preferably the kind you've been most craving), then the BAD THINGS DISAPPEAR. Like magic.

So go be creative! Write! Draw! Make cool math problems! Then everything will come up roses again. I promise.

Interview with the authors of THESE BROKEN STARS

I'm so excited to have you meet Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman via this interview today. It's rare when authors collaborate on a YA book, but these two do it from across the universe (yes, League joke). I think you'll find their process as fascinating as I do. - Lissa



         Meagan Spooner                                                                                           Amie Kaufman


Whose idea was it to write as a team and who came up with the idea?

We'd been writing together, a series of collaborative story-telling games, for years before it ever occurred to us to write a novel together. The idea for THESE BROKEN STARS came when we were ready to start one such new game, and Amie wanted to make the setting a shipwreck, and Meg wanted to make the setting space. We came up with the idea of a shipwreck in space and intended to write a bunch of little vignettes to entertain each other, all about the little groups of survivors. But we got completely carried away by the very first such group we made: Lilac and Tarver. We never got to writing any other survivors, and ended up playing with the characters for over a year before we started to wonder if maybe other people might have fun reading about them too.

What is your writing process together?

We often play out conversations and events together via instant messenger long before we start drafting the book, just to make sure the characters are well-established, and we have a vague idea of the events to come. Once we feel we've got a good handle on our characters, we then alternate writing chapters; Amie writes the boys, and Meg writes the girls. In revision, however, all bets are off, and we both rewrite stuff from each other's chapters. There are actually significant chunks of THESE BROKEN STARS where we honestly can't remember who wrote what.

Is it faster or slower writing as a team?

It's usually faster to write together, because we can literally work around the clock--due to the time zone difference, Amie's going to sleep in Australia around the time Meg's waking up in America. We usually do a little hand-off, recapping what we did and where we're up to, and then the other one takes over. That said, it's much slower to revise as a team. With revision we're much more careful to discuss everything, and make sure we're not making unwanted changes. That requires us to find more time to be online at the same time, and a LOT more working around the time difference, so it often requires more time than it would if there was only one person making decisions.

Any advice to writers considering writing as teams?

Communicate! The number one thing we see that tears collaborations apart is a lack of communication ahead of time. You have to make sure your goals are the same (do you want to get published? are you just writing for fun?). You have to make sure your expectations are out in the open (how fast do you expect your partner to work? how much of the book does each person write?). You have to make sure you agree on where the story is going--and if you don't agree, you have to know exactly how to work out that dispute. We've known each other for so long that we already had that communication in place, but it can be frustrating to work with someone whose expectations don't match your own.

Anything else you'd like to tell the League readers?

Thanks so much for reading, guys! If you want to know more about THESE BROKEN STARS, we put up all our news, along with contests and sneak peeks of upcoming projects, on our newsletter. You can sign up for that here. You can also find Amie and Meg on Twitter at @amiekaufman and @meaganspooner. And finally, if you've got questions, we're both on Tumblr: meaganspooner.tumblr.com + amiekaufman.tumblr.com. Isn't social media awesome? Authors and readers, a click away from each other.

 

 

 

 

Finding Inspiration in Film

Okay, so whenever I feel low on story ideas, I do what comes naturally. Nothing. That's right! I do nothing!

I don't try to force the ideas. I don't research. I don't freak out and wonder if I'm a real writer, or if I'll ever have another writable idea, or any of that.

I simply do nothing. A mindless activity, like folding laundry or driving or making dinner. Something I don't have to think very much about, something that allows my mind to imagine and wander.

That's when the best ideas come.

Another thing I like to do is watch movies. I especially like science fiction films, as they have cool techno-gadgets and awesome special effects -- stuff I like to see in books. Stuff I want to incorporate into my own speculative fiction.

So whenever I'm feeling low on creative vibes, I turn to movies. I do a whole lot of nothing, and it's fun! I get to see what they're doing with CGI these days, and I get to see what someone else's mind is coming up with. It's a win/win.

What do you like to see in your speculative fiction? Cool gadgetry? Awesome transformations? New inventions?

Need an Agent? Look at Publisher’s Marketplace

Have you met a nice agent at a conference but have no clue about their professional history? What have they sold, when and for how much? Choosing the agent to represent you is key to your career. You’ve spent months or years writing the manuscript, so it’s well worth the time spent on research to find the perfect agent for you.

When you are ready, one of the best things you can do is to sign up for Publisher’s Marketplace. This is a source that is used by just about everyone in publishing. It costs around $20 a month, but is worth every penny when you need agent information. It lists the current sales of manuscripts, shows which editor acquired the property, which agent sold it, and often mentions a rough estimate of the price.

The search function in the deals category is extremely powerful. You can find how many sales an agent has reported in the last year or two or more. I’ve heard agents say that not all sales are reported, but why withhold this publicity opportunity for you, them and the book? You can also search for a category or a specific keyword. Say you are thinking of writing a book about puffins. You can see if anyone has sold a manuscript recently about puffins. It doesn’t mean you won’t still write your concept, it just gives you more information. You can also search more broadly, say for a category like middle grade or a genre like fantasy, to see how many of those have sold in the last week or month.

You can create your own page there if you like. This is particularly helpful to writers who also have a side business like editing.

A great timesaver function is the ability to set up alerts to track certain editors or agents (that sounds dangerously like stalking, but it’s not). If you’re considering five agents, you can put them on your tracking list so whenever they report deals, it will automatically show in your tracking area. There will be days when you’re too busy to read all the deals, and this is a perfect shortcut. But every so often, scan all the deals to give you a sense of what is now selling – and what is not.

And of course the site lists job opportunities and publishing insider news. You can start with the free Publisher’s Lunch, and get the news sent to your email. It’s a shortened version of the one sent to subscribers, but it’s free.

If you want to be a published author, the key is writing the great book. But it also helps to know what those in the business know. It’s all just waiting for you.

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Growing a Story From A Seed

Where do ideas come from? There are too many answers to that question to count, but today I’m going to focus on giving you a snapshot of one way to tackle the getting of ideas.

I once heard Neil Gaiman say that everybody has ideas, but writers train themselves to notice them. To notice the playful daydreams and the ‘what ifs’ that float through all our brains on a daily basis. 

For me the ‘what if’, followed by the ‘what next’ are perhaps the most important parts of the daydream-to-idea-to-story sequence, and it all starts with a seed.

I recently saw an article about a group of medical specialists who have learned to oxygenate blood with an injection. It came about when one doctor watched a little girl die for lack of oxygen, and started thinking about ways to help her breathe that didn’t involve getting air down her windpipe. Now, they’re at the point of being able to oxygenate blood for up to half an hour via injection. A development like this, once widespread, could gift paramedics with the ability to save lives.

But, the article asked, what else could this mean? Could it help us spacewalk? Deep sea dive? What about climbing Everest without oxygen tanks? 

I thought this was fascinating, and for me, this is where the writer’s brain kicks in. The ‘what if’ is fascinating, and the ‘what next’ turns it into a story. What if we could spend extended periods of time underwater without any need for oxygen tanks? What next? Where would that lead? Could we explore underwater environments with greater ease? Could we look at ways to make them habitable? After all, with global warming, we’re looking at diminished landmass. Or we could take it in another direction—could I commute to work across the bay? All I’d need would be an injection, a waterproof suit to keep me dry, and some sort of propulsion. What would it be? An underwater motorbike? What would a city look like if rivers and bays became, essentially, roads? What sort of person might live there? Who could face an interesting dilemma?

The questions go on and on, and that’s before I even get to the question of spacewalks! Building a story is as simple—and as difficult—as that. A seed of an idea, and then a thousand iterations of ‘what if’ and ‘what next’, until just the right one comes along!

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.

Using a Sense of Wonder in your writing

Having a sense of wonder in your books is important no matter what genre you write and what age group you write for, but it’s especially important that you have it in spades when you are writing speculative fiction— fantasy, sci-fi, alternate reality, post-apoc, dystopian— because it’s one of the largest reasons that fans of speculative fiction read it.

In a lot of ways, speculative fiction lends itself to evoking a sense of wonder. It’s a world we’ve never been in before (or at least a version of the world that we’ve never been in), so everything’s new and fascinating. A sense of wonder comes strongly from the setting, as well as from the magic if it’s fantasy, from the government if it’s dystopian, from how things are different in post-apoc and alternate reality, and from the vastness of the universe and the possibilities of technology in sci-fi.

But the sense of wonder doesn’t have to just come from setting. In Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction the term sense of wonder is defined as follows:

SENSE OF WONDER n. a feeling of awakening or awe triggered by an expansion of one’s awareness of what is possible

Another definition: To be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel

So anything that brings about a sense of awe, amazement, or makes you more aware of what is possible will bring about that sense of wonder that a speculative novel needs so greatly.

Like with characters. We’ve all known that person who’s just slightly crazy and spontaneous enough that they’re fascinating to be around. Or the friend that’s brilliant, and listing to them speak can open your mind to seeing the world in a whole new light. Any character that introduces the reader to new possibilities, or in ways that bring about admiration or awe, introduces your reader to wonder. Your characters can introduce a sense of wonder every bit as strong as seeing the vastness of the universe.

photo credit: write_adam via photopin cc

It doesn’t take the vastness of the universe to evoke a sense of wonder. It can come from the tiniest of things. From something as small as a bit of magic that helps a single blade of grass grow. From watching an insect community that flourishes even though it’s inside a space ship. From seeing a single cog fall and stop a massive piece of machinery from working. From noticing the shapes that ice forms on a metal wall when temperatures outside drop rapidly.

photo credit: Auzigog via photopin cc

When you use a variety of ways to introduce your reader to wonder— from the vast to the minuscule, from setting to characters— your story will be much more satisfying.

What's your favorite way to introduce wonder?

The Science of Madness

I recently began researching insanity for the purposes of a WIP. I had some pre-conceived notions about what I would find, mainly in relation to the spotty medical care of the insane long ago. What I found was much more interesting than anything I believed I would dig up. It seems that we don't really understand a lot about insanity even today.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that the human brain and its workings remain as mysterious to us as the deep ocean blue. Doctors have been studying the brains of syphillitics, insomniacs, manic-depressives, serial killers, and even "normal" people, for a long time. Progress has certainly been made as far as understanding many, many things that we formerly were pretty clueless about, but it seems that every new discovery brings with it a massive revision of what we thought we knew twenty years ago... or even five years ago.

Madness and creativity have been good friends for a long time, something that anyone who has read more than a few paragraphs about some of the greats can tell you. But when I started digging around in the modern parameters for establishing schizophrenia, I became a little... well, I'll go ahead and use the word paranoid.

Because doctors have no way of documenting the internal processes of the insane, they have to rely on external behaviors to diagnose schizophrenia. Here's a general list of symptoms from the Mayo Clinic:

Positive Symptoms:

• Delusions:  These beliefs are not based in reality and usually involve misinterpretation of perception or experience. They are the most common of schizophrenic symptoms.
• Hallucinations:  These usually involve seeing or hearing things that don't exist, although hallucinations can be in any of the senses. Hearing voices is the most common hallucination among people with schizophrenia.
• Thought Disorder:  Difficulty speaking and organizing thoughts may result in stopping speech midsentence or putting together meaningless words, sometimes known as word salad.
• Disorganized Behavior:  This may show in a number of ways, ranging from childlike silliness to unpredictable agitation.

Negative Symptoms:

• Loss of interest in everyday activities
• Appearing to lack emotion
• Reduced ability to plan or carry out activities
• Neglect of personal hygiene
• Social withdrawal
• Loss of motivation

Yep. I dare any writer lost in the drafting process to look at these lists and defiantly declare they exhibit zero of these symptoms.

Now, be assured I'm not making light of mental illnesses. I've been doing some heavy research and learning a lot about the diagnosis (and mis-diagnosis) of mental illnesses both in the past, and not-so-distant years. There have been plenty of people institutionalized that were less outwardly insane than you or I. On the flip-side, some people who really need help don't get it because their symptoms aren't extreme enough to warrant intervention. 

In the end, the most glaring fact I've taken away from my research so far (and please, be aware that I know exactly how much of a layman I am) is that we really don't understand the human brain very well, even today.

If I've piqued your interest check out this recent TEDtalk about what we know - and what we don't.

How the Lexile System Harms Students

About a month ago, a woman approached me at a conference. She picked up a copy of ASHFALL and asked me, "What's the Lexile on this?"

This question threw me for a bit of a loop. I'm used to being asked what ASHFALL's about, how much it is, or where I got the idea for it. "What's a Lexile?" I asked.

"They use it at my daughter's school," she replied. "To match students with books at the right level for them."

"Oh, like the Guided Reading level." I happen to know about those because my wife's school district uses them. They always seemed a bit idiotic--what reader chooses a book based solely on its reading level? But since at her school they're used as suggestions, not mandates, and take the content of the books into account, they've never really bothered me. "ASHFALL is a Z+ on the Guided Reading level scale," I said.

Here's where the rabbit hole started to get twisty. "We don't use Guided Reading," she said. "We use Lexiles. And my daughter isn't allowed to read anything below 1,000." The italics are mine. You'll have to imagine my angry shouting at a school that won't allow their students to read--no matter what the excuse.

"I'm sure it's fine, then. ASHFALL is a Z+. It's got to be at least a thousand on your school's scale. What does she like to read?"

"She loved The Hunger Games, but the school wouldn't count it. It's too easy for her." (I later looked up The Hunger Games--its Lexile level is 810.)

"A lot of teens who liked The Hunger Games enjoy ASHFALL. How old is your daughter?"

"She's in sixth grade."

"You should read ASHFALL first, then--it depicts an apocalypse realistically. It's very violent. Definitely not appropriate for all sixth-graders."

"That's okay. I just need to know what the Lexile level is. Can you look it up?"

I obliged and found ASHFALL listed at Lexile.com. Its level? 750.

"It's too easy for her, then." The woman walked away as my lower jaw hit the table with an audible slap.

For kicks, I looked up Ernest Hemingway's masterpiece, A Farewell to Arms. Its Lexile? 730.

Is my work more difficult, more sophisticated, or more appropriate for older readers than that of Mr. Hemingway, a Nobel Laureate in literature? Of course not! Think about it: If this poor student stays in her school system, she'll NEVER be allowed to read A Farewell to Arms. It's allegedly too easy for her.

Since this conversation, I've heard of a high school that boxed up all its copies of Night, Elie Wiesel's classic account of surviving the holocaust, and sent them to the elementary school, because it's "too easy" for high school students. It's Lexile is 570.

Shocking as that example is, there's a bigger problem: the Lexile system punishes good writing and rewards bad writing. I'll illustrate this point with an example. Here's the first sentence of a book that sixth-grader would have been allowed to read, a book with a Lexile of 1650:

"ON the theory that our genuine impulses may be connected with our childish experiences, that one's bent may be tracked back to that "No-Man's Land" where character is formless but nevertheless settling into definite lines of future development, I begin this record with some impressions of my childhood."

Forty-eight words that can be replaced by three with no loss of  meaning: 'My childhood was.' This is a truly awful opening, whatever your opinion of the overall work.

Here's a novel millions of sixth-graders have enjoyed. A novel with a Lexile of only 820. A novel this woman's daughter would not be allowed to read:

“They say Maniac Magee was born in a dump. They say his stomach was a cereal box and his heart a sofa spring. They say he kept an eight-inch cockroach on a leash.”

It's clear and concise. It introduces the main character and opens irresistible story questions in the reader's mind. If it were rewritten as one sentence, it would lose the flavor of gossip that makes it intriguing--and have a much higher Lexile score.

Good writing is simple. The best writers never use two words where one will do, and they choose their words with precision. But the Lexile system rewards complexity and obscurity by assigning higher Lexile scores for works with longer sentences and longer words. In short, students forced to use the Lexile system in their reading are being taught to be bad writers. And some are likely being forced into books that will turn them off to reading.

What should you do? If you're a school administrator, teacher, or librarian, quit using Lexiles. I realize your motto isn't, "First, do no harm," but is that such a bad precept to follow? The Lexile system is actively harmful to your students.

If you're a parent, let your child pick books the way you do--based on interest and need. Ask your school to dump the Lexile system. The last thing we need is an expensive program that makes the great work parents, teachers and librarians do--educating our children--more difficult.

Bloody Feathers and How to Tell a Complete Story – a Guest Post by Lauren DeStefano

Intro: I am at ComicCon today speaking on a panel discussing dystopian fiction with Neil Shusterman, Paolo Bacigalupi, Michael Grant, Daniel H. Wilson, Marie Lu and our own Leaguer Gennifer Albin. My agency-sister and novelist of the Chemical Garden Trilogy – WITHER, FEVER and soon SEVER - Lauren DeStefano, was kind enough to step in for me today. I love her writing and I know you will too – Lissa.

When I was invited to do a guest post for the League, I started mulling over possible topics that I haven’t covered before. If you’ve ever been to my blog or my twitter page, you know that I like to talk… a lot, so this was going to be difficult.

But then something happened. While I was out having lunch with a friend, my mother called. She was at my house, making her rounds in my garden, planting perennials and making sure I hadn’t killed the tomatoes, and she noticed something. Two small birds had been nudged from their nest. When she approached, the mama bird swooped at her, so she wanted to warn me to approach that particular shrub with caution.

Now, I don’t make it a secret that I’m sort of a hippie about animals. Not just animals, really—I was deeply offended a few months ago when the deliveryman stomped on a spider in my house. And this past spring, when there was a mouse in my garage, I set a snap trap, and that night I tossed and turned until I begrudgingly stomped out of bed to do away with the trap before it had killed anything. I’m fascinated by living things, and I’m more of an observer than an interloper. (Besides, I have three cats, so the spiders in my house aren’t long for this world anyway). So the idea of baby birds in my heavily-wooded neighborhood unnerved me, and I checked on them when I came home. There they were: fuzzy and gray and clearly new to the concept of life outside of the nest that sat just three feet above their heads. I had an uneasy feeling about them, but mama bird was circling and I could see that my presence was keeping her from her job, so I left them alone.

The next morning, I took a step outside and peered into the shrub. From where I stood, it appeared to be empty. But that emptiness was confirmed by the bloody feathers pressed into the sidewalk at my feet. It was an ugly answer to my unasked question. Later in the day, my mother returned to tinker in my garden some more, and when I came outside, I noticed that she had watered the sidewalk. My mother being my mother, she probably hoped I hadn’t seen the carrion and wasn’t going to mention it. The water was already beginning to dry under the hot sun. In a few minutes, it would be as though the baby birds had never existed. Mama bird was gone, and her nest was pointedly empty. But I could hear other birds in other trees—birds who had been hatched, and been bumped from the nest, and beaten the odds. Every living thing can make the claim that it battled odds of some sort just to be born and to make it this far. Every insect we see, and every animal, and every person. The only thing that connects us to birds and bugs and people and that squirrel darting in front of your car is that we all survived.

When people ask if my writing is personal, I think they mean more along the lines of, “Is this character based off of anyone you know?” or “Did you draw this story from one specific experience?” And my answer to these is usually no. But what is writing but the words we say? And words come from thoughts and from experience. It’s impossible for writing not to be personal. If I were to write a story about baby birds being killed before they learned to fly, that story would be incomplete. I wouldn’t be telling of the birds that migrate, and nest, and peck at my strawberry plant. And it wouldn’t be much of a tale.

Writing, like life, won’t go as planned. Or at least mine doesn’t. When I’m beginning a new story, I don’t always know what it will be about. I don’t always know the name of the town or what the central conflict will be. All I know is that it will be a world in which awful things happen, and happy things. It’s a world where things live and things die. In order to write believable fiction, all one needs to do is live. And I don’t mean fly to Paris or be the son of a serial killer. I only mean to live—to pay attention and to see enough to tell a complete story. A complete story acknowledges the ugly things, but also the pretty things. Your characters were born—they battled those odds, and here they are. They aren’t props for entertainment, and you aren’t telling just a story—you are telling a LIFE story. Don’t worry about taking the story too far. Life certainly doesn’t worry about that. Life doesn’t apologize; it doesn’t explain; it doesn’t pander. So neither should the writer. The act of writing requires bravery, because living requires bravery.



Lauren DeStefano was born in New Haven, Connecticut and has never traveled far from the east coast. She received a BA in English from Albertus Magnus College, and has been writing since childhood. She made her authorial debut by writing on the back of children's menus at restaurants and filling up the notepads in her mom's purse. Her very first manuscript was written on a yellow legal pad with red pen, and it was about a haunted shed that ate small children.

Now that she is all grown up (for the most part), she writes fiction for young adults. Her failed career aspirations include: world's worst receptionist, coffee house barista, sympathetic tax collector, and English tutor. When she isn't writing, she's screaming obscenities at her Nintendo DS, freaking her cats out with the laser pen, or rescuing thrift store finds and reconstructing them into killer new outfits.

She blogs at www.LaurenDeStefano.com. Her twitter handle is @LaurenDeStefano and her facebook page is www.facebook.com/LaurenDeStefanoFan. On tumblr find her at www.laurendestefano.tumblr.com/.

THIS ONE IS ABOUT YOU

Yes, you, as in you the person sitting at their computer or tablet or even phone, reading this right now. What matters to you, as a reader of YA dystopian novels? As a new author, just learning about the exciting roller coaster we call publishing, I’m interested in what you think.

Take covers, for instance. Are there trends you’re weary of? What catches your eye? Have you ever bought a book because of the cover?

How much does it matter to you that the cover of later books in the series matches or goes along with the first cover? And blurbs, otherwise known as quotes, when you see them on the cover or the back cover, do they influence you? Have you ever chosen a book because of a quote from an author you admire?

Do you care if there is a short story set in the same world as the novel or would you just rather wait for the next novel? And, speaking of that, how long will you wait for a sequel to the first book in a series?

I want to know because I’d like to learn how readers feel. But I also want to discover what you’re interested in hearing about. How many of you are also writers, for example? Do you want to see more posts about the business of publishing or about the craft of writing? Or would you rather see more about YA science fiction books and films? Or be surprised? Leave your thoughts in the comments. I’m all…

Anne Rice at the LA Times Book Festival

I was fortunate enough to speak on a panel at the LA Times Book Festival this past weekend. My panel was called “Future Tense” and also featured Marie Lu (LEGEND) and Cecil Castellucci (FIRST DAY ON EARTH), moderated by the wonderful Aaron Hartzler (RAPTURE PRACTICE, 2013). We enjoyed a great turnout on an unusually mild day on the USC campus.

I only had time to see one panel and I chose to see Anne Rice being interviewed. She was a natural speaker, talking from the heart, with the ability to make you feel like you were in a living room, just the two of you, as she shares her stories. What I’m relating to you here is my memory of that experience, and would be different if told by any other viewer in the audience.

She spoke about her challenging relationship with Catholicism, her connections to New Orleans, and the effect her mother’s stories had on her. In those days there were no DVDs or videos on demand and so if you missed a movie, you missed it. Her mother would relate movies to Anne, scene by scene. And radio was a big influence on her life, listening to the radio plays and imagining the visuals.

The most interesting part for me was when Anne spoke about the craft of writing. She said she originally tried to write what was in vogue at the time (during the 1970s) – small family stories. She said it just didn’t work for her, she was only doing it because that is what was big at the time. But once she started writing about the unusual, the strange, the monsters – it all opened up for her. And she said other authors have told her the same thing. Once they found their genre, they were able to take their feelings and passions and translate them into these stories. This was a time that is hard for many of us to imagine – when anything that wasn’t “real” couldn’t be good literature.

At the time, she remembered attending what used to be called ABA, but is now called BEA, and going to see the film “Star Wars” across the street. And she felt the strange mismatch, that the mainstream public wanted to see stories like this, about the fantastic, and yet the mainstream books in that book convention were not fulfilling that (of course science fiction was always published, just as a smaller niche then). She felt it was possible to bring the fantastic into the mainstream. And she did.

She had an early method of keeping close contact with her fans by having a special phone line where they could leave and hear messages. Now of course, she’s on facebook with over 600,000 fans. Sometimes, when she wants an opinion, she asks a question and prints out the answers and reads all of them. I just find that so impressive, that she has that kind of relationship with such a large number of fans.

When it came to her wanting to write about werewolves in her newest book, THE WOLF GIFT, people tried to talk her out of it. But she said she’s never listened to trends because she figures she’ll put her own mark on the subject. It’s easy to assume that at this stage in her career, of course she has that luxury. But I got the feeling that this has been her mantra from the time she decided the trend of realistic family stories didn’t fit her. So the lesson I took from this was the deep importance of discovering who you really are as a writer.

Will Work for Tarantulas

Your life experiences all add up to make you a writer.

Oh, I’ve had weird jobs, good jobs, bad jobs. My worst was probably when I was paid to participate (they make it sound like so much fun, you’re “participating”) in a study dealing with fear.

So they had me wired up like for a lie detector test, and I sat in a chair that faced the narrow end of a long table that was angled down. The edge of the table closest to me was probably two feet away. At the far end of the table was a little curtain. What was behind that curtain?

They raised the little curtain and there was a toy train with a tarantula tied to the top of the locomotive. Only his feet were tied so he could move and wiggle.

And he did.

There were markings beside the track relating to the distance the hairy creature was from me. Ten feet, nine feet, etc. I don’t recall at what point I pressed the button that made the train stop and quickly run in reverse, pulling the beast away from me and behind the little curtain.

Don’t ask me what they were testing, but this event probably will show up in my writing at some point. Because it was so visceral, it was accompanied by a lot of emotion, and I remember it quite clearly.

So if you want to be a writer, the lesson is to go for the really weird jobs.

Event note: Dear League readers, I will be speaking at the LA Times Bookfair this Sunday at 3:30 at the YA stage, on a panel called “Future Tense.” Also with me will be the wonderful authors Marie Lu and Cecil Castellucci. No tickets required, signing immediately after. Happy to meet you, if you’re coming to USC.

What I Did Before I Was a Writer, Writing Advice, or Maybe Just the Awesomeness of Michael Grant.

It's Sunday night, and as usual, I have no idea what to write here. (Apparently I'm a better novelist than blogger. I have no shortage of novel ideas.) So, I have turned to Twitter for help, and Twitter has delivered in the person of Matt Agius (@LoosedGrunt). He suggested writing about all the jobs I had before I was a writer, which reminded me of Michael Grant.

I spent Thursday and Friday stalking Michael. I met him at Kids Ink Children's Bookstore, followed him to dinner at Binkleys, and sat in on his raucous presentation at Ben Davis High School the next morning. (I also slept in the hall outside his hotel room in the Hyatt, just to listen to him snore, but please don't tell him that. It might be a shade on the wrong side of creepy.)

He's touring to support his latest and best work yet, BZRK. If you like scifi thrillers, buy a copy. Now. It's got a secret war conducted nano-sized predator drones, a dystopia-in-the-making, and a fabulously wealthy, tough-as-titanium heroine bent on avenging her family.

One of the many subjects we discussed was writing advice. My stock answer to "How do I become a better writer" is this: 1) Read a lot, and 2) Write a lot. As it turns out, Michael agrees with me on points one and two but adds a third, which I will henceforth rip off. (And this is the only time I plan to give him credit.) His writing advice is: 1) Read a lot, 2) Write a lot, and 3) Live a lot.

What he means by this is that you have to get out there and do something so you'll have something to write about. Otherwise, all modern novels would be about laptop computers. I'm dying of boredom just thinking about that prospect.

And this brings us around to what I did before I was a writer. As it turns out, Michael Grant and I have a lot in common. We both dropped out of high school, lived overseas, became champion roach killers, and married women smarter and tougher than us. I can certainly see the richness of Michael's life in his novels, and I hope readers can see the same in mine.

East Coast Tour for ASHFALL

I'm starting the third week of an east coast tour for my debut novel, ASHFALL. I visit high schools, junior highs, libraries, and booksellers and give a talk that's part taekwondo demonstration, part reading/writing revival meeting, and part geology horror show. Here are a few pics from my talk last week at St. Francis Prep in Queens:

From watching my talks, you'd probably conclude that I'm the biggest extrovert in the world, but in fact the opposite is true. I much prefer home, solitude, and my small circle of friends to meeting new people every day and psyching myself up to give great presentations. So yesterday I was feeling pretty exhausted and depressed. Asking myself fruitless questions like, "Why do I bother?"

The response to my question came via Facebook. Here it is, although I've stripped the names out to protect this student's privacy:

"Hi Mr. Mullin, recently you went to Port Richmond High School in Staten Islamd, NY and met a young Lady named [daughter's name]. You made a great impression on her and thanks to your book Ashfall she is reading again. I.always encouraged her to read since she was little and she did until her grades started going down and she became difficult, she became a teen. [Daughter] is 14 now and I am so happy to see her reading and seeing her so into your book fills my heart, Thank you. I now have hope that she will turn her grades around. Thank you for listening to her and giving her your card she will be emailing you once.she's done reading your book and she wanted me to say hi and.that she can't wait for your next book to come out.... Truthfully neither can I. Good luck."

Now I'm ready to psych myself up for another week of great presentations. I still look forward to finally returning home and spending more time with my wife, and even her cats, but knowing I made some kind of difference to at least one student and her mother makes the three weeks away worthwhile.