Dog Days of Summer

Just when I was getting my writing groove on, I've got to dive back into my real life. Friend just had a baby, mom's coming to stay, work threw up on me. This is a long way of saying I've got a ramshackle post today!


YA Fest
Last Saturday, my writing pal Laura Campbell and I took a road trip to Easton PA for the first annual YA Fest. All I'm saying is that it better not be the last annual - because it was awesomesauce. Want proof? See this picture? I will be plastering this sucker all over the place.

Laura Campbell, Jonathan Maberry, me, Charles Benoit at YA Fest

I'll soon be posting more about the fest and the amazing writers who attended (in addition to Jonathan and Charles, Cyn Balog, Eve Marie Mont, Jennifer Hubbard, Michelle Zink - so many!) but for now I want you to know two things:
ONE: Bucks County Writers Group will be holding a contest at the end of the month to give away SWAG - signed copies of awesome books from some of the YA Fest writers. Details will go up this Monday here - so stay tuned.
TWO: You don't know how much of a fangirl you are until you stand in front of your fan-girl object munching (candy) zombie fingers. Just saying.

WriteOnCon is NEXT WEEK!
It's awesome. It's free. Last year when I participated, I got a partial and a full request. It's chock full of useful information and the faculty this year features the amazing Gennifer Albin. Did I mention the nija agents? I didn't? These are stealth agents that rummage around the forums looking for gold. Then when they find it, they direct message you for more pages/info. It's happened to me and it's a lovely, shivery feeling. RUN, don't walk to WriteOnCon. Oh, and even though it's free, I found the con so frigging useful, I donated money. You may be moved to do the same.

Girl Of Nightmares
I've been waiting for this book. The second I closed ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake I realized I needed another fix. It's finally here. It's YA Horror, YA romance, YA How's-this gonna-end-happy-when-one-of-the-star-crossed-lovers-is-a-ghost? I don't really care, I just have to be along for the ride. Happy (belated) Pub Day, GIRL OF NIGHTMARES.

Z is for Zombies (of course)

Though I don't want to hop on the Zombie trend train, I must admit. I love a zombie. There's something so wonderfully irredeemable about them. While Vampires and Werewolves could be your boyfriend dating a zombie is just not romantic. I mean, there's undead then there's undead-and- bits-falling-off-you. And zombies can be funny and scary at the same time:



I remember reading in World War Z by Max Brooks that the thing about zombies is that you can't negotiate with them. There is nothing they want more than to eat your brains. So any militaristic strategies go out the window. For a zombie, there is no threat of collateral damage that could keep them at bay. And every force you send against them could potentially turn into more zombies. Zombies are relentless.

And zombies are handy for representing a whole host of evils -the relentless march of time, the approach of death, the environmental destruction of the earth, the evils of capitalism, the evils of socialism, the evils of isms. Or, like Anna Kendrick awesomely improvised in New Moon, a metaphor for consumerism, "Some girls like to shop, okay?"

Zombie King, I'd say is Jonathan Maberry. His Rot & Ruin and Dust & Decay books are wonderfully rich. They don't display an 'us or them' mentality to zombies, more like 'they were us' There's pathos and humanity and even dignity in zombies. They don't just represent the other. In fact, the zombies aren't even really the bad guys in these books. Definitely pick up the series if you haven't already.

On my zombie horizon to check out is Sophie Littlefield's Aftertime. There are zombies then there are cured zombies. Can't wait to find out what that means.


Bringing the Zombie into your life:
Get healthy by running away from zombies. Once I'm back to running (I hope soon!) I'm getting this app.
Zombies! Run



Zombie information from the government
and a zombie graphic novella from the CDC

Finally, if you are in Asbury Park this October, why not join in the annual New Jersey Zombie Walk? It's lovely by the seaside, even when it's covered in gore. And it makes a great antidote to the Jersey Shore. (Snookie as a zombie, now that I'd watch.)

H is for HOLY EXPLETIVE! I GOT AN AGENT

Subtle, right?

The short story:
I don't know what to tell you first. Maybe start with the fact that I'm deliriously happy to be represented by Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Agency. You don't understand (she whined like a star struck fan girl) Barbara was the first agent I ever met, the first who requested my full before I'd finished revising it. I saw her at the Pennwriter's Conference last year with CJ Lyons and later that summer at writeoncon with Holly Root. Lots of agents talk about how necessary passion is, but with Barbara you feel it, it comes off her in waves. She's whip smart and funny and lovely and I KNOW she's married, I am too. I'm just saying, when she offered me representation (which I didn't know was coming) I told her I love her. I'm not taking it back, either, though it was probably too much too soon.

The long story:
I sent Barbara BookEnd in January, SEVEN MONTHS after she requested it. I wanted to send it sooner, I had a voice in my head that kept whispering, you're taking too long, your taking too long. I worried that she wouldn't be interested after all that time. But against that panicky feeling I had something substantial. Jonathan Maberry's voice in my head. I met him at Pennwriter's too and over lunch I asked him when I should send in the full request I had gotten from Barbara, after I took some time to clean it up.  He got very zen-like and said, "When it's ready." I didn't think he understood me, so I said, "Right, but how long is too long to wait to send it - what's the optimum time frame for sending out a request?" He didn't even blink. "When it's ready," he repeated. (He's like the writing Kung Fu master, by the way.)

So I took his advice and polished that sucker until it shone. In January I sent it to Barbara and also sent it out to a few other agents. I started racking up rejections (see rejection badge) quickly, but I also got a couple of other fulls. January was OK, February was worse, March was terrible as I got a rejection on my full on my birthday. Cry.

On April 2 I got an email from Barbara saying my book was next in her queue and thanks for my patience. I pretty much ate Tums like Pez that week. Then a week ago I got an email from Barbara saying lovely things about my work and asking if we could talk.

 

I don't know why I'm so clueless sometimes but I managed to convince myself that this was going to be a request for a revise and resubmit.

Keeping a brown paper bag nearby in case of hyperventilation, I called Barbara and found that she was just as lovely as I remembered. She asked me some scarily insightful questions about my story - about a character's motivations and development - and then she said she'd like to offer representation. All casual and stuff, like she'd said she was running out to Starbucks and would I like a chai? I couldn't speak for a good five seconds. She might have thought I'd dropped dead. Then she said, "Um, hello?" That's when I told her I love her. Cry. Tears of happiness.

I'm so excited and grateful to be on this journey with an agent (advocate, ally) like Barbara.

H is also for the Hunger Games Soundtrack: