"he's not really into labeling things..."

Disclaimer: Illness refuses to leave my household. It keeps hitting us in waves. I guess this is life with a child in daycare. This post should have fallen back into step with my previous Monday schedule if I hadn't been passed out, sleeping off the latest round of sick. Sigh. To be on the safe side, let's just say, for the next little while, regular posts will irregularly occur on Monday or Tuesday, depending on what's going down... and now back to our irregularly scheduled post...

Everybody knows somebody (maybe even themself) who's been in one of those relationships where, sure, maybe the whole girlfriend/boyfriend thing hasn't been discussed, or they're panning to "see where things go", or are "keeping things casual". Sometimes these relationships develop into something more--maybe it's just a conversation that needs to happen--but often they go down the road of one person convincing him/herself (usually herself--sorry ladies, but we're suckers for romance and you know it!) that there's a commitment developing while the other is continuing to see other people (yeah, that's usually the dude). When you ask your friend how things are going, you get the full-of-denial-reply, "Oh, you know. He's not really into labeling things..." Sure he's not. It has nothing to do with him clinging desperately to his bachelorhood in the face of something he's not ready for...

The reason I bring this up is because we often find ourselves wanting to label things. It helps us compartmentalize, feel in control. It helps us to better understand a given situation. As a writer, I've often encountered times when someone would ask me what I do (or when I was in school, they'd ask what I want to be) and my day job aside, my answer would be one of two words: writer or author.

Is there a difference? I've come to think so. To me, an author is a writer, but a writer isn't necessarily an author. Let me explain. Writers write. They write poetry, the write essays, journals, articles, instruction manuals, marketing copy, novels, etc and so on. Writers are people who write...well, anything really. Authors on the other hand, are what writers become when they've achieved that occassionally-elusive next level of commitment. A lone chapter does not an author make, but a completed work? I think that does.

"Only the most committed authors proceed to down the contents of their inkwell after a solid writing sesh. Darling, please be a dear and ready the stomach pump!"

It can be a fiction, non-fiction, poetry, graphic novel, picture book--published or unpublished--doesn't matter what, but if you haven't finished something, I'd call you a writer, not yet an author. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying that's the difference in my mind. It's my personal separation of the two, and feel free to disagree.

That said, when I was in school, even though I'd completed written works (short stories, essays, etc), I still considered myself to be only a writer. I wanted to be an author. It was something I'd talk about in those terms: "I hope to be an author one day" which actually meant "I hope to be a published author one day".  The distinction back then was, published = author; unpublished = writer.

I think that changed around the time I completed my first YA novel. It was such a weighty accomplishment. Even though it wasn't the one that landed me an agent, it was still a tremendous amount of work. It's writing. It's art. And though I'll further revise it one day, right now, I still consider it complete. Finishing it was what made me start to think of myself as an author. And yeah, I think the label is important--it's just not necessarily important to other people. But just as the girl who wants to refer to the guy she's dating as "her boyfriend" views that label with distinction, it's important to me. I don't write as a hobby (well, I do, but not exclusively). I write because I'm an author. I'm a writer and an author.

Where does your distinction between the two land? Or do you consider them interchangeable? If you write, how do you refer to yourself?

the writer's arsenal: revision--because seeing it once isn't enough

There are a lot of blogs covering the topic of revisions at the moment. It makes sense given that December is usually when writers who completed a novel in November are either adding on (since 50k is a little shy of a proper novel, MG and some YA aside) or fixing up the ramble-fest theycreated during the feverdream that is NaNoWriMo.

I'm not going to retread too much on what's already been said. In fact, there's an excellent rundown of revision tips over at the YA Highway with advice from several reputable agents. Oh, and they've got another great post here. And here. But I do have a few thoughts on revisions that I'd like to share. These are from personal experience, both revising my own work and going through the editing process on the work of others. Take what you will from them.

It's time to get our revise-on!

Revision

The word itself is thrown around easily, like so many other writing terms. Plotting. Character Motivation. Conflict. But we rarely think of it in its basic sense. Re-vision. You had a vision (your story idea) and you ran with it. Now you're going to go back and take a second look, with a fresh set of eyes. At some point in your revision process, the fresh set of eyes will be an older and wiser version of yourself. At another point, they should be an actual fresh set of eyes (as in, not you; as in, somebody who can read your work critically and give you valuable feedback, which you'll take to heart---and we'll cover in a future post). Regardless of whose eyes are on the page, the experience needs to be an actual re-vision of your original idea. What's here that shouldn't be? What's missing? Well-crafted stories don't just arrive that way, straight out the gate. They need to be revisited, they need to be rethought. Sometimes you can't see the problems in what you've written until after it's all there, teetering unsteadily on a plot that needs to be tightened. To revise is to take a look at your story as a whole and figure out which parts should look differently than they do.

Never Marry an Idea on the First Date

Stories are living things. At least, stories that are still being written are. They grow, they change, and this is a good thing. Sometimes we become attached to our initial plot developments/characters/scene ideas and we cling to them desperately, even when we realize something's not working. There's a little voice in our head suddenly telling us things would make more sense if we headed in a different direction, one that wasn't part of our initial outline. That little voice is your inner-reader. That little voice shouldn't be ignored. It knows from experience what good stories should be. Sometimes it's heartbreaking to give up on a plot thread you deemed brilliant back when you first thought of it, but if that plot thread no longer fits now that your story has taken shape, it needs to go. You shouldn't hang onto something just because it was part of your initial plan. As people grow, their needs change. This is true of stories too. The first 10k of a story has very different needs than a finished first draft. The finished first draft needs you to let go of those early ideas that no longer have a place. Don't leave them in just because they're familiar. They're novel writing baggage. They need to be dumped.

The Voice, The Habits and The Ugly

I've written before about how characters will take on a voice--a life--of their own if you let them. The more you write, the more fully formed they become. They start telling you how they'd react to a given situation. Their voices become authentic, unique, and their dialogue flows because you know just what they'd say. It's a wonderful thing when this happens, both as a writer and a reader. It makes your characters real. When you're revising, it's important to remember that the character you eventually found a voice for, didn't necessarily have such a strong personality from the start. Think of the beginning of your book like it's the pilot episode of a TV series (you know, that initial episode you go back and re-watch and it feels awkward because none of the characters you've come to know and love are really acting like the characters you've come to know and love). The beginning of a story doesn't know what the end of the story knows. You have to go back and inform it. It's very important to revisit the start and work heavily on those first several chapters. That's where your writing will be its weakest. Back before you hit your stride. Put a lot of focus on them and help the voice to be consistent all the way through. Working extra hard on tightening up the first third of your book is all the practice you'll need to tidy up the rest :)

The downside of honing your voice as you write is that you can also fall into bad habits. This is where you start to see word repetition. All writers have favourite words and expressions that they use a lot. It's part of your voice and your style, but it's also a problem if it gets out of hand. Keep an eye out for frequently repeating words or overused phrases. Change them up, switch them out or just plain cut them. The writing will flow once these stumbling blocks are gone. Voice is good. Style is good. But variety needs to exist within these things.

A Few Good Tips

Every writer's revision habits are different. You need to find what works best for you. But here are a few extra pointers to get you started:

• Keep an open mind. This is a process. As long as you keep a clear head and have a passion for your story, nothing you do to it will make it worse. Embrace change as you recognize the need for it. It's work, but it's worth it.
• Computer screens can make you crazy. If you revise on screen, be sure to take plenty of breaks and rest your eyes. And use track changes. The last thing you want to do is delete chunks you later decide you need back. I make an effort to be as environmentally friendly as possible, but a lot of the time, I can't do a proper revision unless I do it on paper. I see things on a page that I don't see on a screen. This seems to work for a lot of writers. If you plan to revise on hard-copy, use recycled paper to print on and recycle it once more when you're finished (front and back).
• Tackle it in waves. Your first read-through should be for big picture problems--plot holes, pacing issues, inconsistencies. Tidy up the soul of your book, then go for the body, the meat. The second read can be for typos, grammar, spelling and those sentences that suddenly don't sound so good when you read them out loud. Then do a third read to check your changes. At this point, it should seem much improved and it's probably time to have someone else take a look, to see what issues they can catch.
• Question everything you've written. Are the characters consistent in their behavior? Do their motivations make sense? Does the timeline make sense? Does the plot flow well? Is there too much exposition? Are you telling instead of showing? Are there parts that drag? How soon into the story does the reader care about the protagonist/plot? (Hint: it should be the first page) Is there enough conflict to keep things interesting? If there's world building, have you kept to the specific rules of the world you've created? Are there any side characters who really don't need to be there? Does every scene drive the story forward? Does every side plot serve a purpose?
• Save your drafts as different files. This will allow you to revisit that previously mentioned novel writing baggage should you miss it and it'll make it easier for you to move on, knowing it's still somewhere (sure, it's not part of the final draft, but who says you can't still keep it around, like that ex-boyfriend shoebox in your closet, full of letters and mementos). It will also save you a huge headache if you need to recall something you removed in a later draft. And hey, should your novel be published, you've potentially got deleted scenes to share!
• Finally, take your time. This isn't a race. I know I'm always anxious to reach that finish line, but rushing through the revision process will only leave you with a manuscript that's weaker than it could be if you took the time to nail it down. Take some time away from your manuscript. Let it simmer. Let it breathe. Think about what you've written, your characters, and what they might do in situations outside your story (it will help you to get to know them better, and sometimes they might tell you if something is missing from your novel). 

As I've mentioned, I'm still not finished the first draft of my NaNo novel, in fact, I haven't even looked at it since the last week of November. I've had a very busy past week and the one coming up looks even busier. I know I'll get around to it, and I know I'll eventually be working on revisions. For now, it's kind of nice to be thinking about it without actively working on it. I'm letting everything that I wrote in November settle and I know when I return to it in a week or so, I'll be ready to see it in a different light. Hopefully, my vision for it will be stronger and I can take it places I never imagined back when I started.

What does your revision process look like? Do you have any specific revision habits that work for you?

the next big thing blog tour

Friend and agent-mate Wende Dikec recently tagged me in her addition to the Next Big Thing blog series, where she answered ten questions about her current work-in-progress. Now I've been charged with the same task, though task isn't quite the right word as I'm quite excited to talk a bit more about Unnatural, the book that changed everything for me, and landed me my uber-fantastic agent, Marlene. I've also tagged a few more writer friends below to invite them to join the current project fun. So please visit their blogs in the following weeks to see what they're up to as well! If anyone else would like to join, please feel free to link to your blog in the comments. It's a share-a-palooza!

(I'm re-wording some of the sentence structure in these questions because it's driving me crazy, but the questions are the same ones making the rounds.)

What is the working title of your book?

The original working title was Unnatural Disaster, but we nixed the "Disaster" and now it's just called Unnatural. Who knows if it will change again, but I think Unnatural really captures the essence of what's happening in the book.

Where did the idea for your book come from?

I'd been wanting to write a "monster in the house" style book for a while, ie: one wherein the bulk of the story takes place in an isolated setting where the characters are forced to face their circumstances without escape or intervention. For a lot of people that means murder mystery or literal monster story, but for me that means outdoorsy survival tale.

The magic element came one day when I was thinking about the Filch character in the Harry Potter series. A lot of focus in the series was placed on muggle borns, (especially since our girl, Hermione, was one) and the ensuing persecution they had to suffer, but we didn't get nearly as much on the squibs--those born without powers in a magical world. Filch was the only squib we really got to see up close, and aside from providing the role of the crotchety old man with a well-hidden heart of gold, we never really got too deep into Filch. The question that I found myself asking was, what was it like for him growing up without powers? What would that look like? What would it be like to be a teenager without powers in a world where everyone else has them? And what if society wouldn't stand for it? The idea for Unnatural started to form from there.

What genre does your book fall under?

Young Adult Paranormal/Fantasy with some dystopian themes. 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I never picture a movie actor playing my protagonist when I'm writing. Other characters, sure. But my protagonist is always just this amorphous person in my brain. Still, I'll give it a shot. Here are the main three (I may do a longer post one day where I dream-cast the others as well):

Let's start with Ren. Ren is attractive, but he's no pretty boy. It's hard to think of a young actor these days who isn't a pretty boy, but I think a lighter-haired Steven R. McQueen could pull it off, or Lachlan Buchanan, who I'm not that familiar with, but he definitely has the right look in his IMDB photo:

Ren probably wouldn't be wearing a suit...

For Caden, I always pictured a Taylor Kitsch type because he defines swoonworthy to me, but since Taylor is starting to look a little more mature (I say mature and not old because he's the same age as I am...), I would have to cast Tyler Blackburn, who I've thought of as mini-Kitsch or Kitsch-lite since his adorable Riggins-esque face first appeared on Pretty Little Liars--though it would have to be a rugged-looking Tyler, not the fresh-faced Tyler we often see in magazines:

Looking especially Kitsch-y

And finally, Ember, who I'm going to have to figure out right here on the spot because, as I said above, I never really picture her as anyone but this voice in my head. The easy answer is that I'd want an unknown actress to play her, and that would probably also be the truth, but since we're getting visual, I picture her as having a look similar to Melissa Benoist. The Glee-newcomer definitely has the deer-in-the-headlights meets girl-next-door look of Ember, but she also looks like she's capable of going somewhere darker, messier, which would also be required of the character. She's a women of many hats.

Not wearing any hats here

What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I don't do one sentence well :) But here goes: Unnatural is the story of a girl facing a harsh fate, having grown up powerless in a world where everyone must be able to do magic.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Unnatural is represented by The Stringer Literary Agency.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Much longer than it would have if I didn't have a baby in the middle of it. Writing time was about four months, but overall, drawn-out time was over a year. Being on mat leave has taught me that I can write much faster than that :)

What other books would you compare your story to within your genre?

In terms of the types of challenges the characters face, I'd compare it to something like Delirium or Divergent, where the protagonists find themselves singled out from the societal norm, only to discover that the societal norm has some severe flaws. But it's not a great comparison because Unnatural has magic (MAGIC!).
While querying, I had a few agents compare it to The Hunger Games, which is certainly flattering, though I don't think they're actually that similar. It's an easy comparison because the bulk of the action takes place in a outdoors setting and like all novels with dystopian themes, there's societal oppression to deal with. But here's how I replied to the comparison whenever I was asked about it:

-->Both novels can easily be categorized as “monster in the house” style narratives with the bulk of the action taking place in an isolated setting, but while The Hunger Games explores themes of extreme class systems, voyeuristic culture, reality television, the realities of war, etc, Unnatural Disaster deals with a group of teens who are working together to survive a trial by magic and certainly aren’t in opposition the way the tributes of The Hunger Games are. It’s about a girl who should have powers, coming into her own as she suffers the harsh standards her world is built upon.  Where Katniss is a champion, Ember is a fledgling, unwittingly forced to prove she deserves a place in the magical society she was born into.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

As I mentioned above, there was definitely a moment where I was inspired by the question, "What if Filch was a teenage girl?", but when I started in on Unnatural, I was querying my first book, Chameleon, and I was looking for something exciting and fresh to distract me from the process. It's strange to say, but as the mix of requests and rejections came in, I started to feel urgently accountable for my potential to succeed as a published author. Moreso than I ever had before. It sunk in that "if this doesn't work out, I NEED a next book" and that made me feel very inspired and excited to get going on Unnatural.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

One of my goals with Unnatural was to avoid a drawn-out intro. It hits the ground running and takes you on a roller coaster ride. Even when it's quiet, it's kicking and screaming inside. There's plenty of action and romance (this is not your typical torn love triangle) and enough twists to keep the roller coaster flying. It's a lot of fun, and yet, there are scenes that absolutely broke my heart to write. I'm immensely proud of it, and I hope I'll be in a position to share it with you all one day.


And now it's time for some tagging action! Check out these other awesome authors, who will soon be posting on what they've got on the go:
Sarah Schauerte at SarahWillAlwaysWrite
Shari Maurer, author of Change of Heart

I'll be back tomorrow with a one-off Tuesday post about my NaNo results and where they leave me heading into December!

in the nano homestretch

Cyber Monday? How am I supposed to get any writing done with all these online deals? This is terrible. Just terrible. Clearly, some sort of reward system is in order. If I write 2k, I can shop online for a bit... something like that :)

So here we are in the homestretch for NaNoWriMo. How did that happen? In a year that has flown by at a shocking rate (I'm told maternity leave will do that to you), this month has disappeared right before my eyes. Weren't we just doing the costumes and candy thing?

I'm definitely not on track to hit 50k. Back on November 1st, I knew there was a 95% chance this would happen. I have a baby to care for after all, plus, I do almost all of the cooking and cleaning (and grocery shopping, etc) at my house. I have a pretty full schedule and it's the kind that you can't just ignore, as much as there are times that I'd like to. I also found myself under the weather this past week, which does not do much for the writerly brain :(

As things stand today, with only five days left, I'm sitting at a mere 27, 079 words--that's just over half of where I "should" be by the end of the week. I know I won't catch up. I'm not going to pretend that I might. If I didn't sleep and ignored a lot of things that I really shouldn't ignore, I probably could, but I know I won't...

Way behind, but my overall slope isn't too bad! I'm staying fairly consistently behind.

All of that said, I'm still quite pleased with what I've done so far this month. I'm not going to "win" NaNo, but I am carving out a good chunk of a book I'm pretty happy with. What matters to me as we wake on day 26, is that by the end of the week, I'll hopefully have managed to write over half (I'm aiming for 60-64k total so my goal is 30-32k) of a book I think has real potential. To me, that's more valuable than 50k words I feel unsure about. And I'll gladly sacrifice "winning"for what I've written already.

I know NaNo is an all or nothing thing in terms of the "official rules", but I'm definitely in the camp who sees NaNo as an opportunity to get a little extra support and feel the encouraging embrace that only comes with an entire community of authors writing at the same time. It's a time to do what you can with the time that you have, and shoot for your own personal goals, regardless of what those are. A time to forge ahead instead of hesitate, to write instead of plan. And I think there's plenty of value in that no matter where you find yourself on November 30th.

How is your NaNo project going as we head into the homestretch? Are you happy with what you've written? Was it harder/easier than you thought it would be?

finding a good home for your creation

I recently received some heartwarmingly positive feedback on a short story I wrote for a contest. As happy as I was with the story I'd written, it hadn't won. So I'd sadly moved on. But after the feedback I unexpectedly received recently, I'm now putting some thought into what else I can do with this story. I know it seems shortsighted, but it hadn't occurred to me to submit it anywhere else. My focus has always been on writing novels. The odd short story I've submitted for a contest here or there was always in a separate space in my mind. But just because a story didn't serve its initial purpose, doesn't mean you can't still find it a good home.

For a lot of people, a book that didn't survive the querying trenches (or ensuing the submission stage) eventually gets shelved. It's viewed as a learning experience, having served its purpose as a book that needed to be written before an author could go on to write the book that gets them where they're going. For others, shelving a book they've slaved over is too heartbreaking, and self-publishing is an option.

Which route is better? Well, that depends. If you're still pursuing a traditional publishing career, self-publishing could potentially hurt you down the road, especially if the book you self-publish is vastly different in style and genre than the book you're eventually signed for. It's hard to develop a strong debut author brand when an old self-published novel is kicking around. The power of your debut is diminished, especially if the self-pubbed book really wasn't up to snuff.

But if you've decided the traditional publishing route isn't for you, isn't self-publishing better than letting your story collect dust in a drawer? Again, that depends. Personally, I'd never recommend that someone invest their savings into self-publishing a book (unless they're an established author who has a strong following and is making the jump from traditional publishing to self-publishing, but that's a whole separate issue). If you have the money to do it (without the spend having adverse effects on your family/life) then I'd say self-publishing is a good option if you'd really like to see your story in book form (or ebook form).

"I'm so glad I decided to self-publish my book about reading with your eyes closed..."

A story is more than just words on a page (yes, even the muddled NaNo story you may or may not be avoiding as you read this). It's something special. Even if you write as a hobby instead of in pursuit of publication, finishing a book is a huge accomplishment and beloved creations deserve good homes, whether that be through self-publishing, submission to contests, submission to magazines, or just a special spot on your bookshelf. If you're proud of something you've created, you should take it as far as you can. And if the route you dream of doesn't work out, find another good home for your creation. It never has to be an all or nothing thing.

Do you have prior works of art that didn't achieve their initial purpose? Did you go on to find them a good home elsewhere?

Anybody have good lead on where I should submit my YA sci-fi short story? :)

friday5 for November 9, 2012

I totally should be working on my NaNo book right now, but I'm taking a break to bring you the friday5--this is how dedicated I am to you, faithful blog readers! All ten of you! Okay, there's more than ten of you, but even if there was only one of you, I'd still do the friday5 because let's face it, there's news a brewin':

1. Let's kick things off with another fantastic post about NanoWrimo, this time from the immensely talented Beth Revis (whose Across the Universe series is fantastic in audiobook format! The husband and I listened to books one and two in the car while on long drives and both give it two thumbs up. That's four thumbs, people!). Anyway, Beth points out, much like Carrie Ryan did in her post, which I linked to on Sunday, that it isn't about winning NaNo. It's about enthusiasm, support, and most importantly, writing a book! Check out A Corollary to NaNoWriMo, or, Why I'm Prouder of 600 Words than 10,000.

2. I never got the whole zombie romance craze. I like my zombies all mindless, erratic and murder-y. I'm talking Carrie Ryan (girl's getting lots of play on this blog lately!), Sophie Littlefield (ZOMG soooo good!) and of course, The Walking Dead. When somebody (I won't pretend to know who) decided to make zombies the new vampire by turning them into sentient (?), desirable (??), swoon-inducing objects of teen girl affection (???!), I just couldn't get on board. There's the undead and then there's the undead, you know? But then I saw the trailer for Warm Bodies. And I have to admit, it looks fantastic. I missed out on the book the first time around, but now I'm thinking I might have to check it out. This doesn't change my stance on zombie romance, but I think the story in Warm Bodies might be something I could get behind, especially if it's as funny as it looks. I can't say no to funny. Have any of you read it? Reviews?

3. Let's talk news I'm waaaaay more excited about than I should be. As a card-carrying Veronica Mars fan (yes, I made the card myself, what of it?), I squeeeed at the top of my fangirl lungs when I read that Kristen Bell (who I'm pretty sure I'd love even if she wasn't our dear Veronica), and her fiance Dax Shepard (who I used to refer to as the poor man's Zach Braff until I saw the guy act--now he's just a super cool, funny guy who happens to resemble ZB)...where was I? Oh right--they're having a baby! Ahhhh! A Veronica Mars baby!!!! Is it wrong that I'm already hoping it's a girl and she grows up to star in some sort of awesome reboot of Veronica Mars? No? I didn't think so. But seriously, how cute is that baby going to be? Satyana Denisof may have some competition...

4. I'm not going to try and pass the results of the US Presidential Election off as some news story you may not have been aware of, but aside from Obama's victory, some very big things came about from Tuesday's vote. Those very big things have me feeling rather proud of my neighbours to the south. And I hope they're a sign of more good thing to come. Hope and optimism are alive! I can't help but think it has something to do with the awesomeness of young voters, demonstrating their desire for change. Hooray!

5. YA book rec of the week time! Days of Blood & Starlight by Liani Taylor. It's book two in a series (after 2011's Daughter of Smoke & Bone) and it's looking pretty damn amazing:

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Karou must come to terms with who and what she is, and how far she’ll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, mysteries and secrets, new characters and old favorites, Days of Blood and Starlight brings the richness, color and intensity of the first book to a brand new canvas. (Summary from Goodreads.com)

Admittedly, the description doesn't say much about the book, but that's kinda how it often goes with sequels. So let me also share the description for book one since that's where you should start before motoring along to book two:

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself? (Summary from Goodreads.com)

Kick-ass titles, gorgeous covers and brilliant writing. What more do you want?  


Time to get back to the old NaNo WIP... I'm still convinced I won't make it to 50k, but I'm pretty thrilled with the progress I am making and I'm starting to feel really excited about the story itself. As far as I'm concerned, those things are what NaNo is all about! 

and the only prescription is all the nanowrimo advice you can find

Here we are on day four of NaNo and I'm already falling behind on my word count. But I knew this would happen. I mean, let's face it, 10-month-old babies and long hours of uninterrupted writing time don't exactly go hand in hand. I'm not at a point in my life when I can selfishly shut the door on everything for a month. But I am writing when I can. And I am staying at least close to my goals. The gap will undoubtedly widen as the month goes on, but that's okay too. I'm writing every day. I'm making some sort of progress on a novel. Isn't that what NaNo is all about?

Coffee is involved for a reason.

Also as I knew would happen, I'm struggling to keep my inner-editor at bay. Editing-as-I-go is such an entrenched habit of mine that I can't just turn it off. I have to catch myself doing it and then slap my own hand. I expect that aspect of things will get easier as the month goes on, but it'll take some time.

In addition to writing, I've also been reading, and there are a few links I want to share because they're worth a read whether you're participating in NaNo or not:

The first is a post by the extremely talented Carrie Ryan, whose brilliant and breathtaking The Forest of Hands and Teeth started as her NaNo project back in 2006. And you know what? She didn't write 50k that month. But she did write the beginning of what would turn out to be her big break. Read all about it here.

Former-awesome-lit-agent-turned-awesome-writer Nathan Bransford (whose entire blog is worth a read if you have the time, which, if you're doing NaNo, you clearly don't, but add it to your RSS and thank me later) wrote a post collecting several of his most helpful past writing posts in one place. These are must-read material if you've never written a novel before or if your novels never seem to go anywhere and you can't quite pinpoint why.

Finally, Galleycat's Jason Boog is offering up more advice than you bargained for in his post titled NaNoWriMo Tip #1: Read Two Years' Worth of Advice in a Single Post. It doesn't get much more comprehensive than that. There's a lot of content here so you might want to start by reading the first few tips when you need a writing break and then keep going back a forth. You do want to spend some of your time writing after all :) I find the best time to divert a little attention toward these NaNo tips is when I've hit a mini roadblock in my writing and I need to let the active part of my brain switch to something else for a few minutes while the back of my mind sorts out my next move writing-wise.

Well, I'm going to get back to it. If I can manage to keep the old inner-editor locked up, I might even catch up on my word count, but I'm going to be disappointed if that doesn't happen. This point is, I'm writing a book!

nanowrimo is upon us

Sandy isn't the only thing descending upon us like a wet and windy uninvited guest. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short) kicks off on Thursday (okay, fine, it's not wet or windy or uninvited, but it's coming at us like an unstoppable force of nature so, it kinda works...?).

For writerly types, NaNo is the ultimate writing challenge: write a 50k word "novel" (unless you're writing MG or are on the short end of YA, 50k does not a novel make) without looking back. We're talking a full-on first draft pound-out (that wasn't meant to sound dirty...), completely ignoring your inner editor and just doing what it takes to reach the finish line. Some people use it as motivation to get out the first 50k of a longer novel, while others use it to write a 50k novel that will never see the light of day. Regardless of your purpose, it's good exercise for your writer brain and there's never any harm in at least attempting NaNo. It's one of those nothing to lose and everything to gain kind of things. Okay, full disclosure, you might lose your sanity. And possibly your dignity. But it's not like you can't pull yourself back from the edge if things get dicey.

Unfortunately, no, you can't just write "It was a dark and stormy night" 7142.9 times.

Oh, and NaNo is all about starting a brand new project. This is the tricky part (for me). In the past, I've semi-participated by working on novels I'd played around with before, but this year, I'm starting from scratch on a book I only have a very loose outline for. For me, that's very scary. First of all, my inner editor is like that mosquito buzzing in your ear when you're trying to sleep on a hot summer night at the cottage. You're sweating, uncomfortable, and you think you've finally swatted it away for good, but then there it is, pestering your ear hole like a zombie mosquito that just. won't. die. For me, the biggest challenge of NaNo isn't going to be plot, or pacing, or character development. It's going to writing without re-reading and tinkering with the words I've just laid down. It's going to be waiting until December to revisit what I've written and finally fix the mess I've made. But that's okay. A challenge is a challenge for a reason. And if I can come out the other end of November with 50k words, even if they need to be hacked, switched and polished come December, then at least I'm 50k words further along than I am now. And not only is that quite the accomplishment, it's significant progress on what will likely end up being a 65k word book.

I should add, even though you're supposed to start a brand new project, if NaNo is the motivation you need to pick up something old and run with it, just do it. Rules shmules, right? As I said, I've used NaNo as a time to work on existing projects in the past. The pep talks and motivational emails helped me to get a lot of writing done, even though I wasn't approaching NaNo in the traditional way. At the end of the day, I like to think of NaNo as a celebration of writing the crap out of something. Anything.

If you're interested in participating in this year's NaNo, everything you need to get started can be found at the official website here: http://www.nanowrimo.org

I haven't figured out how to add writing buddies on the site yet, but if you join and are looking for a writing buddy to cheer you along, let me know and we'll figure it out!

staying in touch

To start things off today, a little blog news: I can now be found at www.katepawsonstuder.com. That's right! I'm officially a website! Now I just need to remember all the places around the net that need to be updated with the new domain...

Today I want to talk about staying in touch--not the kind of staying in touch that requires you to keep your contact info/blog listing up to date (see what I did there?), but the kind where you are in the loop on what's current.

One of the things I've learned as a new mother is that you're constantly encountering lists of milestones that your baby should be hitting at certain points in their development. I receive these lists through e-newsletters and baby apps on my iphone among other places. Recently, one such milestone that I read about was that the baby should begin to understand that people speak into the mouthpiece of a telephone. This struck me as very odd. Certainly, I've seen babies with toy phones before, adorably mimicking adults and babbling into the phone as they make their imaginary (though often brief) phone calls.

"I think you have the wrong number..." Image by Linh Ngan

But it still struck me as odd. I can't think of a single time my baby has seen me on the phone. I rarely call anyone anymore. I text. I email. But I rarely call. In fact, I make so few phone calls, I usually save them for times when the baby is sleeping (so that I don't have to explain the loud baby screams that often sound like somebody is being murdered in our living room). My baby is more likely to mimic texting on a toy phone than she is to make a call. And as far as milestones go, I suppose I'd consider that equivalent. Should she know to speak into a phone if she's never seen anyone do that? I wouldn't think so, but I would expect her to play with a phone the way I play with mine. And she does. I'm sure future baby milestone lists will have to be modified to reflect this change in the way we communicate.

The reason I bring this up is because things change over time. That's no secret. I can still remember what it was like to be a teenager and that definitely plays a part in my writing, but I also know that the teens of today are experiencing a very different world than the one I lived in over a decade ago, and I need to keep that in mind too. I read and write (and watch) YA not only because I feel a strong connection to that voice (I sometimes need to remind myself that I'm not a sixteen-year-old girl anymore, even though I often feel like one inside), but also because I want to maintain that connection. There's something wonderful and thrilling about the experiences you have at that age and I never want to lose touch with that, even as it changes over time. All writers need to live part of their life in the world they write, both on and off the page. YA is where I feel most at home and I'm lucky that there's such an awesome community of YA authors and readers online to help me stay connected :)

What genres do you feel most at home reading/writing and how do you stay connected?

the news, she's big

So as I said in a previous post, I have some news to share... this post will primarily focus on the recent BIG news, but there will be a follow-up post to explain everything else that's happened during this crazy year called 2012.

I attempted to find an image that accurately expresses my excitement over this news, but then got very distracted when a google image search for "happy" produced this little guy:

Hey Buddies!

Apparently his

name

is Happy, so not exactly the happy

face

I'd been searching for, but hey, for all I know, this

is

this guy's happy face. He appears to be eating something, so odds are good that = happy. Anyway, I dig him, so he shall be my expression of happiness for this post!

But enough of that, onto the big news (and sorry if this ends up being REALLY long):

Like most blogs of aspiring authors, posts about big news usually mean one thing--THE CALL.

And I'm happy to say, I got THE CALL!!!!!! (<- six exclamation marks! <-plus a bonus) Well, the first THE CALL in a potential series of exciting THE CALLs. But the other THE CALLs can't happen without this initial, very important, very exciting THE CALL!

My little YA novel and I are now represented by the stupendous and lovely Marlene Stringer of the

Stringer Literary Agency

. I'm officially an agented author! Wait, let me say that again--I'M AN AGENTED AUTHOR!

That is the most surreal and wonderful sentence an aspiring author can utter. And I'm not just saying it for pretendsies in my head. It's real and true and something I get to say to real people without them wondering why I'm not also wearing a tinfoil hat because I'm clearly delusional.

Like this. Cause it's fancy.

I've read many a blog post about authors getting THE CALL in the past. I think all aspiring authors do. They're addictive--proof that it's not always all about rejection (though there's a lot of that too). Posts about THE CALL are inspirational. At least, that's how I've always tried to see them. I think it's easy to read stories of others' successes and feel jealous, but I'm a firm believer that jealously only makes you feel worse and does NOTHING to the person you're jealous of and seriously, the only person you should ever compete with is yourself. Competing with other people, especially in an industry with SOOO many authors/books, is just a big fat waste of time. Feeling inspired on the other hand, that will get you somewhere. That's an emotion you can work with. It can drive you to work harder and block out thoughts of giving up. So I hope if you're reading this, you feel inspired. Because you should be. Mere weeks ago, I was just like you, chasing a dream and doubting myself and thinking my chance would never come. Until it did.

I started writing my first real novel back in 2005. I'd just graduated from university and I was determined to write something longer than 5000 words. That one didn't make it very far. As in, I didn't even finish it. Then working, life, adulthood (which I'm still mostly in denial about) took over and though I dabbled with a few more ideas, nothing ever really flowed.

In 2008, I landed my current job in publishing. It involves a lot of reading. And you know what reading makes me want to do? Write. Nothing makes me want to write more than reading something amazing. Reading does for your creative mind what exercise does for your body. All that reading got me thinking about writing again and a few ideas started to bounce around in my head. One stuck and by the end of the year, I had finished my first young adult novel. I started querying it in 2009 and received a slew of full and partial requests from agents, but they all ended the same way--close but no cigar. While querying that book, I started to work on another book because I knew the best way to move forward was to keep writing.

Work only got busier. Life only got busier. I got married, bought a house, had a baby. But by July of this year, I'd finally finished, revised and polished young adult novel #2 aka

Unnatural Disaster

. I queried in waves, starting with the agents who'd requested fulls, then partials of my first book, especially the ones who'd specifically asked me to keep them in mind for future projects. I reminded them of who I was and then kept my fingers crossed that this new book would hit the mark. The requests started rolling in (all fulls to boot, which is probably more an indicator of e-reader use than anything) and I started to feel like this time around would be different. I knew this book was so much stronger than my first one and I was pretty happy with it (despite suffering those moments all writers suffer where we're convinced everything we've written is complete crap). But then the rejections started rolling in too. Rejections on full requests stung the most, especially from some of my top choices. It was a lot of praise followed by "not quite what I'm looking for right now". I started to curse myself for querying in the summer, knowing that it's conference season and everybody's busy and their minds are elsewhere, on beaches, on vacation. I was so proud of book #2 and here I thought I'd completely screwed it over by querying at a bad time of year.

Well, it is true that July is a bad time of year to query. Avoid it if you can, but somehow, I was lucky enough to still make an impression. On August 8th, I was putting my eight-month-old daughter down for a nap when I noticed a missed call from Florida. It struck me as strange because a) nobody calls me and b) up here in Canada, I don't get a lot of calls from the US. Then I remembered that one of the agents who had my manuscript had palm trees on her website. Was it possible she was located in Florida? Why hadn't I retained that piece of information in all the research I'd done on my top picks?? I was freaking out a little bit. Another minute later, my email dinged and sure enough, it was her, emailing to say she'd like to discuss working together. I think I read the email 18 times and shook my hands uncontrollably to make sure they were still attached to my body before replying to say that now was a good time to call back. And then she did. And we talked about

Unnatural Disaster

and it was wonderful. I could tell she really got it. She was pointing out things she'd noticed (and loved) in my book that I'd always hoped were apparent, but had never been sure. She got it. She loved it. And after a good talk, she offered representation.

When I got off the phone, I did my version of a quiet happy dance (Baby E was still sleeping) and Oliver, one of my two cats, came into the room and barfed on the carpet. I think he was just excited too. Or he hates me. But I think the first thing is more likely. You can't blame a cat for having an inappropriate reaction to something :)

And then I called my husband and searched the house for celebratory chocolate. Turned out I'd eaten the last bit after my last rejection. Actually, it turned out I really needed to go grocery shopping. All I could find for lunch that day were some hotdogs so I ate one of those, which in a weird way was kind of fitting because hotdogs are my go-to funny food. They deserved a spot in my celebratory day.

The week that followed was full of the necessary follow-ups, more requests, and a lot of inbox-watching (even more than when I was merely querying), all ending in my decision to accept Marlene's offer. More celebration and wine drinking ensued.

And to think my little novel could grow up to be a real book one day!

A few more things before I wrap this up--

I believe when something good happens to you, you shouldn't take it for granted. And when the world sends something wonderful your way, you should find a way to say thank you. My way of saying thank you is by giving to charity. So as a symbol of how grateful I feel, I'm making donations to the following charities. If you're feeling particularly thankful about something, big or small, I suggest you do the same, to a charity you feel strongly about.

World Wildlife Fund

FINCA

LUPUS Canada

Oxfam Canada

And a bit of advice to aspiring authors--if you're getting requests from agents, keep going, even if it means writing another book and another after that. It means you're close to something. I can't think of anything in life that gets worse with practice so keep writing books. Each will be better than the last. The only way you will definitely never be published is if you give up.

And finally, for those who like stats, here are some of mine:

• I started querying on June 25th and received THE CALL on August 8th
• In total, I sent out 76 queries, in increasing waves
• I received 32 rejections and 10 requests for the full ms
• 34 agents either replied with congratulations or did not respond at all

a collection of stars

Just a quick post to share my entry in HarperTeen and Figment.com's Defy the Dark contest. This is quite possibly the best contest ever! I'll take a chance to be published (alongside a slew of my fav YA authors!) over a cash prize any day (and this one actually has both!).

Actual contest aspects of this aside, this short story was just what I needed--something new and different from the book I  just finished, a challenge, a chance to experiement with a male POV and a different tense than I usually write in. I'm very pleased with the end result. It's also my first completed work of sci fi.

Here it is: A Collection of Stars

quick query update

Received my second rejection last night, but this one was less form-like and more "you're a strong writer and I enjoyed your pages, but...". This is a positive thing I think. Rejection is natural, all part of the process, but positive rejection is, well, encouraging. Despite the fact that I couldn't get to sleep last night because I was thinking about how I was going to compile a list of the hundreds of agents I'm beginning to fear I'll have to go through before anyone hops on board, I do feel that I'm on the right track and am keeping my fingers crossed that the right agent for me is just around the corner.

I'm still waiting to hear back from a few of my top top picks, but in the meantime, four more query letters are on their way out into the world today. Got to keep moving forward.

Positive vibes, thoughts and prayers are ALWAYS welcome :)

don't fret lil novey, your mom thinks you're cool

So I just received my first official rejection letter. I have to admit, I feel kind of proud. It's like a badge of honour. Ok, it's more like a participation ribbon, but it's a participation ribbon that says "I put myself out there and I'm part of this crazy system now!" or something like that... In all honesty, the first rejection, while disappointing, wasn't at all unexpected (I'm not dellusional) and the agent who penned it is an agent for whom I have such immense respect that the whole thing hasn't got me down. It's just left me hungry for more replies! I'm getting close to the point where I can enter phase two of my querying (the phase where I begin to query more widely), but I'm still anxiously awaiting for more replies from phase one (my fantasy league agent picks).

In honour of Lil Novey's first official rejection, I want to share a little more about her with you. For starters, her working title, which is Chameleon. (*gasp!* Does this revelation mean I can no longer call her Lil Novey?). As I said in a previous post, the idea for Chameleon struck me like a bolt from the blue while I was on vacation and the title struck me pretty immediately as well.

Here's the gist:

The overwhelming pressures of high school are enough to leave anybody feeling lost, but sixteen-year-old Brynn Davis knows what it feels like to actually disappear. When a chameleon bite leaves Brynn with the uncanny ability to camouflage herself at will (rendering her completely invisible), she finds herself fumbling to grasp at the responsibility demanded by her unfamiliar and temptingly powerful new gift, a struggle that is only heightened as she unwittingly becomes aware of its dark origins.


Ok, so that was just a little taste, clipped and pruned from my query. As you can imagine, sixteen-year-old-girl + invisibility = wacky hijinks ensue. Throw in a hot guy or two, some hilariously colourful BFFs and you've got yourself 102,000 words of YA fun. At least, I think it's fun and I really hope some lucky agent out there thinks so too :) More than fun, I think the story has a lot of heart. Having grown up in a small town (well, small city), I wanted all of the quirks and charms that go along with that existance to shine through in Brynn's world and I feel the story is that much richer for it.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. I really hope there comes a day when Brynn and my other darling characters (who, let's face it, are practically real people to me now) will get to have their day in the sun, but for now, it's back to the query-grindstone as I remind myself, it'll only take one "yes" to make my publishing dreams come true. *sigh*

TLNTHC part 2

So here we go! Part 2 of my riveting tale of The Little Novel That Hopefully Can aka Lil Novey.

Upon our return from Cuba, I was a little worried that Lil Novey, so precious and precarious in its infantile stages, would not survive my return to work schedule, but Lil Novey proved to be strong (she was, as it turned out, the story I'd been waiting for) and I not only found time to work on her every day during my lunch break, but absolutely relished in the opportunity to see her so often, even on those days when I started to wonder where she was headed (though I did have a very trusty outline, which I'll probably talk about in a future post on my writing process). Then the biggest help of all came along: Summer hours.

Summer hours in the publishing biz undoubtedly vary from company to company, but here at HQN Ent, it means working a little later from Monday-Thursday and getting every Friday afternoon off. Friday afternoon swiftly became a time for me to polish up that week's worth of lunch-break writing. Things were moving and the excitment inside me was building as I came to realize that Lil Novey had a lot of potential to be Lil Book One in a Lil Trilogy. I sat back and crafted rough outlines for Lil Book Two and Lil Book Three and that helped me to better shape my character development in Lil Novey.

Anyway, 2008 passed as years tend to do and before I knew it, it was December and Lil Novey's first draft was nearing completion. I cannot explain to you the feeling of pride and accomplishment that comes from realizing that you've written a complete manuscript. As you're writing it, you start to lose track of how many words/pages it is, how much work has gone into it, but when you write that last sentence and finally step back to look at it as a whole, you can't help but be overwhelmed by the enormity of it. Many authors refer to their manuscripts as their babies and though I'm yet to birth a human baby (I don't mean for this to sound as though I've birthed a non-human baby...I consider my cats to be my babies. I just didn't birth them), I think I understand where that reference comes from. Here lies this thing that couldn't exist with you. It's such an extension of who you are.

At the end of 2008 and into the new year, I started my first and second round of revisions, working feverishly to correct this and tighten that. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself actually laughing at some of my own dialogue (this probably makes me sounds like a bit of a loser, but I tend to see it as my characters who are being funny, not me, so it doesn't feel like I'm some lame-o laughing at my own jokes. Ok it kind of feels like that). Anyway, much anguish was put into these first few rounds of editing as I found myself suspended between the joy of having finished it and the impatience of knowing it still had a long way to go before I could send it out for agent consideration. There was nothing I could do, but keep working on it.

After my own editing was finished, I promptly sent it out to my family (I'm very lucky to have a family of teachers with a keen eye for typos, grammar and continuity errors) and that's sort of where Lil Novey currently sits. Though Lil Novey is a YA novel, typically aimed at 14-18 year old girls, my Dad was the first to finish it and provide me with three typed pages of edits and feedback, all of which I was extremely greatful for and have dutifully applied to Lil Novey.

With Easter weekend only a few days away, we plan to gather as a family and discuss Lil Novey. My parents have refered to it as a book club discussion and I have to say, I'm very excited to be able to talk about all these characters I've grown to love with the most important people in my life (who I also love). I'm hoping to take the feedback from that session and make my final (are they ever truly final?) revisions to Lil Novey before sending her out into the world to be seen by important agenty-type people and the like. It sort of feels like I'm preparing her for her first day of school. I really hope she shines.

TLNTHC part 1

So in my first post (hi little post down there!) I said I wanted this blog to be more of a record of my writing ambitions so I might as well write a little introduction to explain where my writing has been and where it's hopefully headed. I've decided to call this post "part 1" because it's getting latish and I'm quite sleepy, which I know is going to mean either a condensed version or a two-parter and since I really suck at condensed versions...

Like most who enjoy writing, I've been writing since I was very young. I can still remember these little stories I'd write in elementary school (fully illustrated in 16-colour pencil crayon glory... side note: boyfriend's mom tried to convince boyfriend and I that "pencil crayon" isn't a real thing. They're apparently called "coloured pencils". I remain unconvinced.) Anyway, my teacher would bind the stories we wrote in these flaps of cardboard covered in old wallpaper scraps to give them nice sturdy covers and they were THE COOLEST THINGS EVER! I'm not certain about this next part, but I think it was a bit of a "If you keep writing em, I'll keep binding em" deal and I somehow ended up with like ten of these puppies by the end of the year even though the original assignment was probably for us to write one.

While stories were clearly a big part of my life at school, they were an even bigger part of my life at home with my sisters and I always coming up with extremely in-depth plots surrounding our many stuffed animals, our Barbies, or ourselves playing the parts of characters from Jem, Saved by the Bell, Ghostwriter, you name it. Some of the Barbie-related storylines got pretty intense with the children (the skipper dolls) always throwing wild parties, getting involved in games of chicken (the pink Barbie jeep managed to withstand a lot, including many trips down the stairs) and a completely hilarious plot line wherein the Ken doll father of my family (each sister had a family of dolls and they were all neighbours) would go batshit crazy every time he ate this certain type of chili pepper and would enter some trance where he would kidnap the Barbie wife of my older sister's family and then take off with her (in the pink Barbie Jeep, which almost always ended up rolling off a "cliff" otherwise known as another trip down the stairs). This plot line got so involved that my Barbie wife eventually hung a poster of "chili peppers to avoid" in my dollhouse kitchen so that she'd remember to never cook with them again. Thinking back about this both makes me laugh uncontrollably and wonder if nine-year-old me was just a little bit certifiable. I'm going to stick with the excuse that I was just extremely creative :) We had a lot of fun.

As I got older, I continued to write in school and won both of the only writing contests I ever entered (one was a poetry contest for the Royal Canadian Legion and the other a Ghostwriter short story contest for TVO). Writing was in my blood. So much so that after finding myself extremely bored after the very first session of OAC (what used to be senior year in Ontario high schools) Physics, I marched right into the guidance counselor's office and dropped it. "How can you be sure you won't need this for university?" he'd asked me. "I don't see how Physics is going to help me study English, you foolish man of guidance!" I said, then laughed maniacally. Ok, I made that part up, but the point is I knew I wanted to study writing and that's exactly what I went on to do, graduating five years later from the University of Waterloo with an honors degree in Rhetoric and Professional Writing.

I have about fifteen or so ideas for novels floating around inside my head. The hardest thing to do over the years has been to focus on any given one for more than a month or two at a time. At one point, I was getting pretty far with this one story idea, but then the third person narrative started to feel all wrong. I realized I needed to rewrite it in first person, but it suddenly felt like such a pain and I couldn't bring myself to do it so I shelved that story, convinced I'd go back to it after a few weeks apart. What I didn't realize at the time was that it just wasn't that story's time yet. I had another story in me that needed to be told first.

A year later, the story that needed to be told still hadn't reared its head, but I was working on another story idea all together. This one was for a children's chapter book, a mystery about a kid detective (which I'm still excited about and still plan to write one day). Everything for that felt like it was coming together, but again, the excitement to pound it out just wasn't there.

Fast-forward to May 2008. Boyfriend and I are on vacation in Cuba and while floating around in the resort's pool, I'm struck by this idea that pierces my brain so sharply that I have to fling myself from the pool's warm embrace and feverishly search my bag for the notebook I take everywhere. I start writing, the words flowing from me as though they're being dictated from some part of my brain I didn't know was there. Those lines of dialogue were the beginning of what would turn out to be the first novel I ever passionately finished writing, TLNTHC (The Little Novel That Hopefully Can), which I'm going to call Lil Novey for short (actual title along with description surely to come in a future post when I feel more confident about putting it all out there...)

I think that's all for now because I really do need to go to bed, but stay tuned for TLNTHC part 2: Lil Novey's journey from Cuba to 102,000 words.