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Writing & Publishing Questions Batch #1

Thanks for all the great questions!!! Let’s get to it!

You asked: When your first book was published, was it by a small, independent company or one of the larger, well-known ones? If a publisher rejects you, should you send the same manuscript back to them a year later, or assume that they’re not interested?

My first published book was a quiet picture book about a girl in Kenya called Ndito Runs. It was published by Henry Holt in 1996 and has been out of print for several years. (It was later translated into Xhosa, Zulu, Africaans, and Lesotho for publication in South Africa. That was very cool.) Henry Holt is one of the major publishers. My first piece of published writing for children was a short story in Highlights Magazine. That was a real thrill because I had been such a fan of the magazine as a kid.

If a publisher rejects you, then please do not send the manuscript back a year later. They are dealing with too many manuscripts as it is. Send your story somewhere else and get to work on a new one. I have plenty of manuscripts that were rejected. Why? Because they weren’t good enough to be published. I thought they were, but the publishers didn’t and that’s all that matters. It hurts, it sucks, and it’s part of being a writer. Write something new.

You asked: Does it have an effect on your work if you watch tv shows or movies? A big obstacle for me is that my characters seem to be too much like characters from my favorite tv show. (Let’s not bother guessing which one.) How do you avoid creating something that seems more like fanfiction than original work?

I don’t watch many movies or television shows (except for sports) so I’m not the best person to answer this question. Maybe you could experiment with taking two weeks off from your normal television watching and use that time for writing instead. By the end of two weeks, I bet you’ll see a difference. If you do this, let me know how it turns out.

Thanks to the LiveJournal Spotlight this week, we’ve had many more blog readers. Hail and welcome to the Forest! I hope you come back!

For those of you who are new to the blog, feel free to follow me on Twitter. My name there is halseanderson. This will explain what Twitter is if you don’t know.

I didn’t get the 10 pages I had hoped for yesterday, but I found a way to tighten up the second half of the book, so it was a day well spent. Am going back to it right now. (Feel free to keep those writing and publishing questions coming!)

Scribblescribblescribble…

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25 random… one day late

Yes, it’s a Facebook meme, but I feed my LJ to my Facebook, so this is called efficient blogging.

1. I am too busy for this meme.
2. – 25. See above.

Honest – I’ll try it again in the summer. Everything that came to mind to write in the meme had to do with feeling overwhelmed or not having enough time or some other whiney crap that nobody wants to read.

For me this is the best of times, mostly, and a little of the worst of times. Obviously, I’m enjoying (well, basking in) all the wonderful attention that my work has recently received.

Interjected note for those of you seeking to break into writing: I started writing for kids on September 7, 1992. First picture book was published in 1996. First novel SPEAK, published 1999. So it’s taken me 17 years to get here. Be patient and keep working!

People have been very kind about my books, I have the chance to do work I care about, my family is healthy, my bills are paid. So I have no serious worries. The only small cloud on my horizon is learning how to better balance the time demands. I leave in about six weeks on the next book tour and have a bunch of other speaking trips after that. Once we get past ALA, I’ll have plenty of writing time, but the book I’m working on is due before that.

I’ve thought about taking a 6 month hiatus from blogging, but I’ve decided not to. The blogosphere is my water cooler, where I get to hang out with friends while I pour a cup of coffee. It is also part of the Author side of my job. If you are making your living writing books, you have two jobs: Writer = writing books. Author = everything related to publicity and contact with readers.

Despite the very cranky note on my website discouraging readers from contacting me with homework questions, I received a flood of them this week. Most of them wanted me to explain various aspects of my books for an essay or a report. These were usually accompanied by demands that I answer by midnight, because the paper was due the next day.

For the record: I don’t do homework. And I was such a bad student of English, that if I did give answers, they would probably be wrong.

A couple of the emails asked good questions about being a writer. I thought they might be of interest to you, too, so I’m going to answer them on this blog next week. If you have “What’s It Like To Be A Writer?” questions, leave them in the comments section, and I’ll answer those, too.

What’s it like to be a writer for me today? I am going to try to write 10 pages, and empty my email box and get started on the fan mail that came in this week. And I really need to go for a run.

Scribblescribblescribble…..

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WINTERGIRLS thoughts & questions for you

I’m starting to get mail asking what WINTERGIRLS is about, where the idea came from, etc. I feel weird when asked to summarize my books. It takes me around 300 pages to tell a story and I feel like an idiot when boiling that down to a paragraph or two. But I have been asked to try, so here goes.

WINTERGIRLS is….

…about being haunted by an angry ghost
…about being lost
…about feeling frozen and not having an ice pick
…about being trapped between alive and dead
…about pain that leads to self-destruction
…about the possibility of happiness

All of those concepts are filtered through the story of Lia, an 18-year-old suffering from anorexia, and her family and friends. But if you know where to look, you’ll see shadows of Persephone and Sleeping Beauty, too. It’s the darkest book I’ve ever written.

I was shocked to see there are already 53 reviews for WINTERGIRLS on Goodreads. Do any of you use Goodreads? I haven’t so far because I am the fussiest reader I know.

John Green (yes, him, PAPER TOWNS, LOOKING FOR ALASKA, etc.) has an interesting post on evaluating teens reactions to books based on its Goodread’s rating. What do you think of his argument?

The other book release that is beginning to rumble in the blogosphere and elsewhere is the 10th anniversary edition of SPEAK. Yes, it has been 10 years. No, I don’t believe it, either. But I counted on all of my fingers and it is true.

Penguin Books has put up a blog, Speak Up About Speak,”dedicated to readers, writers and authors who want to discuss the impact Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson has had on young adult literature.” Feel free to post your opinions, memories, or anything else over there.

10 years? Yeah, that’s what they tell me.

Does it make you feel old? No, it makes me think I stepped into a worm hole and got sucked through a decade of time without realizing it.

One last question and then I have to get to work. A new blog reader from India yesterday wrote in and asked how she could order one of my books. Does anyone have a suggestion? Are there any independent bookstores out there who ship overseas?

Scribblescribblescribble…

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Briefly looking up from page to enlist your help & tour schedule

Loooong day yesterday, loooonger day ahead today so I can turn in some overdue work. I had to bow out of my writer’s group meeting today to get everything done and that has me very cranky and peevish.

Sidebar. Peevish. Has a good ring to it. Could almost be a faux-curse word, don’t you think?

Not much blogging time today, but I wanted to share a couple of quick things.

A teacher named Heather and her colleagues are looking for ideas and advice from other teachers about using TWISTED in the classroom. She has the discussion questions from my web site, but wondered if any of you have other ideas. Any suggestions?

Speaking of the website, Theo the Web God is finishing the last touches on a map for CHAINS and is putting together the WINTERGIRLS pages. In my spare time (peevishpeevishpeevish) I’ve been combing through the site to find the inconsistencies between the flash version and the lo-resolution version, and updating the content. I still need to work on the biography.

What else would you like to see on my website?

I do have a quick and dirty version of the rest of this year’s schedule, including the cities I’ll be hitting for the WINTERGIRLS book tour that starts in …… dear God, that starts in six weeks (peeveeveeveeish!!!!!).

NOTE – on weekdays, I am generally visiting schools and/or libraries during the day, then doing a public bookstore or library appearance at night. The school and library visits are coordinated by the independent bookstores indicated in this calendar. If you want more information, please contact the store, not me, because this is all the information I have so far.

As soon as I have the firm and complete schedule with times and addresses, I will post it here and to the website.

Friday March 20: Los Angeles CA, courtesy of Children’s Book World.

Saturday March 21: Los Angeles CA, courtesy of Vromans & Mrs. Nelsons

Sunday March 22: San Francisco CA, courtesy of Books Inc. & Kepler’s

Monday March 23: San Francisco CA, courtesy of Rakestraw & Copperfields

Tuesday March 24: Seattle WA, courtesy of Third Place Books & Secret Garden

Wednesday March 25: Phoenix AZ, courtesy of Phoenix Book Company & Changing Hands

Thursday March 26: Salt Lake City UT, courtesy of King’s English

Friday March 27: Houston TX, courtesy of Blue Willow

Saturday March 28: Austin TX, courtesy of Book People

Sunday March 29: Oxford MS, courtesy of Square Books

Monday March 30: St. Louis MO, courtesy of Booksource

Tuesday March 31: Atlanta GA, courtesy of Little Shop of Stories

Wednesday April 1: Atlanta GA, coutesy of the B&N in Alpharetta

NOTE: On both 3/31 and 4/1 I will be speaking at the Kennesaw State Literature Conference

Thursday April 2: Vero Beach FL/Miami FL, courtesy of Books & Books

Friday April 3: Raleigh NC, courtesy of Quail Ridge

Other Travel Dates

4/10 – 4/18 Colegio Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lima, Peru

4/24 – 4/26 Los Angeles Times Book Festival Los Angeles CA

5/3 – 5/6 International Reading Association Conference, Minneapolis, MN

5/15 River’s End Bookstore, Oswego, NY

7/10 – 7/14 American Library Association Annual Convention, Chicago IL

8/3 Summer Writing Institute at SUNY Oswego (Oswego, NY), through the Reading and Writing Project of Teachers College, Columbia University

9/13 Brooklyn Book Festival, Brooklyn NY

11/6 – 11/8 American Association of School Librarians Conference, Charlotte NC

11/20 – 11/24 National Council of Teachers of English Conference & ALAN Workshop, Philadelphia PA

For the record, 2009 is officially packed full and there is no way I can consider any new engagements. If you have something you’d like me to consider for 2010, 2011, or 2012, you need to talk to the publishers’ contacts on this page (scroll down a bit).

Tomorrow: A few WINTERGIRLS tidbits and news of SPEAK’s 10th anniversary edition
Friday: I do the 25 Random things that I am, apparently, the very last person on the planet to do.

And something nice to soothe my peevishness.

This is the gas station we stopped at in Vermont.

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State of the Writing World & Star #4

My thumb continues to heal. Many thanks to the Constant Reader who sent me info on the local guy who makes handmade drums and gives lessons. That will be my reward for finishing the book I’m writing now (FORGE, the follow-up to CHAINS). Until then, I am downloading all kinds of drumming music. Any suggestions?

Many of the conversations at the KW retreat revolved around all the layoffs (i.e. bloodbath) that happened at various publishers in the last few months. It is horrendous for the people who lost their jobs, and it makes writers trying to sell a project or break into the market understandably confused and disheartened.

My opinion?

This too, shall pass.

It all sucks horribly – especially for the people paying NYC rents and suddenly jobless – but it is not a permanent situation. Nothing ever is.

My advice is to use the economic meltdown as an opportunity to focus less on the publication process and more on the quality of your craft. This is the year you don’t have send out one hundred queries or waste time keeping up on trends or tracking down agents. This is the year to focus on taking your writing to the next level. Do that and it will be much easier to sell your book when the economy strengthens.

Anyone else have an opinion about this?

On a more positive note, I can finally share the news of WINTERGIRLS’ 4th star!!! Thank you, Kirkus! Here’s the review:

“Neither therapy nor threats nor her ex–best friend’s death can turn Lia away from her habits of cutting and self-starvation. In broken, symbolic and gut-wrenching prose, Lia narrates her hopeless story of the destructive behaviors that control her every action and thought. She lives for both the thrill and the crash of not eating, and any progress she may have made toward normal eating is erased when her former best friend Cassie dies alone in a hotel room. The trauma of Cassie’s death coupled with Lia’s strained relationship with her parents and stepmother makes her tighten her focus on not eating as she slides into a world of starvation-induced hallucinations. Uncontrollable self-accusations (“Stupid/ugly/stupid/bitch/stupid/fat”) and compulsive calorie counts punctuate her claustrophobic account, which she edits chillingly to control her world. Anderson perfectly captures the isolation and motivations of the anorexic without ever suggesting that depression and eating disorders are simply things to “get over.” Due to the author’s and the subject’s popularity, this should be a much-discussed book, which rises far above the standard problem novel.” Kirkus, Feb. 1, 2009.

I think there may be a few reviewer ARCS available through the WINTERGIRLS MySpace page. This is done by the publisher, so for those of you who have been sending me questions about the ARCs, I’m really, really, sorry, but I don’t have a clue. On the MySpace page, there is an email address in the blog announcement about the giveaway. Mail your questions there.