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Posts Tagged ‘writing’

It seems that I pour all of my writing energy into books now. And instead of social networking, I’m socializing. I miss blogging, though. I used to love it. I can’t believe that the whole Dating Amy project will be ten in 2012. Do you know some of those guys I dated still call? Mind-blowing.

I sent my first novel, a young adult paranormal romance (not about vampires), out into the wild a week ago. I had bragged that it only took me two months to write, but then it took me eight months to revise so I shut up.

Writing my first novel was incredibly difficult and one of the hardest things I’ve ever done creatively. I keep pestering more prolific writers (aka ALL of them) to assure me that the first book is by far the hardest and the response seems to be that they’re ALL hard, but I guess I went deaf in that ear.

Having said that, I love my book. It’s sweet and funny and rock and roll, and it rubs up against being almost literary, so yeah.

Speaking of young adults and paranormal stuff I love: Have you been watching American Horror Story?

Anyone who knows me knows I love horror movies. I see pretty much everything. So of course I checked out FX’s fall offering American Horror Story. I watched like two episodes but even the credits had me lying awake at night, so I declared a ban on it, ’cause I don’t need that shiz.

But my writer friends protested, saying I needed to push through because it’s the best new show out there right now. I asked if I could skip to a recent episode because I knew there was a huge event caused by the teenage character I like, Tate, and my writer friends vetoed that. They said I had to watch the whole thing. So I forced myself to get though it and now it’s my favorite show.

It’s incredibly good. It borrows from so many horror movies that it’s an original. Francis Conroy from Six Feet Under is the older version of the housekeeper that is also played by the gorgeous Alexandra Breckenridge–whether you see her as sexy or geriatric depends on the character’s mindset at the time. This is also Jessica Lange’s first-ever television role and it’s perfect for her. Most surprising is the troubled teenager Tate Langdon, her son. Somehow the writers have made him a sympathetic heartthrob, even though he’s a crazy murderer.

I told Mark, one of my author friends, AHS makes the characters so sympathetic and real that it’s tough for me to watch.

His answer: It’s the New Horror!

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Tragically behind on posting here. Don’t think it means I don’t love you, because I do, I really do.

I’ve been revising the young adult paranormal manuscript I wrote in two months.

Also have snuck in a little reading, socializing and chardonnay.

And TV viewing.

God, are you all watching The Killing on AMC, because if you’re not you should be.

It’s the first show I’ve been excited about since Mad Men premiered in 2007. It’s a completely gripping story about the murder investigation of a teenage girl in Seattle. The characters are as gray as the weather and the acting is fantastic.

Mostly I’ve been working–revising this manuscript at a bakery/restaurant downtown. I love this cafe because there is a huge enclosed courtyard with tons of tables so I don’t have to feel guilty about sitting there for hours; there’s always room for everyone.

This place is so good that even though some of my friends think there’s an identity thief who works there–someone has taken their credit card numbers and used them and all signs point to this place–they still go there and just pay in cash. The croissant-like caramel pecan rolls and Cobb salads are that delicious.

On my way home from the bakery I pass a thrift store that gives proceeds to the homeless. All the books there are $2 each.

I picked up one called Zen and the Art of Falling in Love. A review on Amazon hilariously complained that it didn’t tell you how to hook up with the hot guy at work, but this book is so not about that.

More significantly, it got me, the most restless woman in the universe, to sit down and meditate.

I’ve had meditation recommended to me a lot, especially since I used to live in L.A., but I never got it before.

Now I do.

You experience being in the moment. It’s very heady when you’re done. I never realized how much I was living in the future or dwelling on the past.

This stuff is pretty amazing.

Happy Easter and good vibes to all of you! Also, The Killing is on tonight. You can also watch it at amctv.com.

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Amanda Hocking, the 26-year-old Minnesota woman who published her YA paranormal romances to Kindle when she couldn’t get a traditional publishing deal and sold over a million copies on Kindle, got a $2 million four-book deal with St. Martin’s today–ironically the publisher that Eisler walked away from a $500,000 deal with a few weeks ago.

From earlier this week: If Self-Publishing is So Great, Why is Amanda Hocking Leaving It?

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Good God. I’m coming into the home stretch with my young adult paranormal romance.

I’ve written 175 pages in the past six weeks. That is lightning-fast for me, because I am not a speedy writer. I really wanted to get to 300 pages and finish by March 1, but sadly it looks like that is not to be. Damn February and its short number of days. It would have been so excellent for me psychologically to be done before I flip the calendar over, but there’s no way.

Oh, but I love my characters and their swooning and their problems and their magic! Good times. I cannot wait to start editing. I haven’t let myself read anything I’ve written so far, so it will all be (sort of) new to me when I read it–the second week of March, I guess.

After the YA PR is written, I will attempt to get on the Stephen King-recommended schedule of writing in the morning and editing in the afternoon.

The next project I want to write will either be the L.A. memoir (which I think I’ve written 200 pages of?) or my self-publishing experiment, which I’m thinking may be part of a true-crime book I wrote from 2008-2010. No one knows what to do with it, including me. I tried to integrate a relationship memoir with this ripped-from-the-headlines story and… it hasn’t worked yet. Although everyone who’s seen it has said it’s an intriguing idea.

Also, I’m getting a lot of love from the independent film community and I’m not quite sure why that is. Big sloppy love right back at ya, though, guys. I’m a great believer in the cosmic flow or whatevs, so there must be a reason that in the past couple months I’ve 1) Broken a news story about a classic Seattle theater closing, 2) Been mentioned by the Independent Film Channel and 3) Been given a pep talk by one of my favorite filmmakers, indie upstart Kevin Smith.

I don’t know what it means, but it means something and I’m gonna figure it out after this teen novel is done.

Until we meet again, I’ll be off surfing the universal waves and typing ’til my arms fall off.

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So I’ve been laser-focused on writing this young adult paranormal book. I started on January 10 and I have about ten of the twenty-four chapters done. I see that I’ve written in my calendar under February 16: “Have YA novel done.”

That’s cute.

I am planning on having the first draft done by the end of this month at least, though.

I can tell I’m serious about this book because I’m not hanging around on the Internet all day and not watching any TV at night. I’ve also quit drinking wine–at home anyway. I’ve been hanging out at a really nice bar where I can write and have a glass, but it is not the same, believe me. I’m more productive when I’m out.

Weird.

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I love this blog post by urban fantasy writer Stacia Kane about how people react differently to you once you’re published.

Honestly, I thought I was just being paranoid. I’ve never heard it put so clearly before. The context is how it’s hard for a writer to publicly review other author’s books once they themselves get published, but the experience she describes applies to most authors from the big six NY publishing houses, I reckon. Although let me say that I am so glad that I am published by a major New York house. It has changed my life for the better in many ways. But…

You have no idea how lonely writing is until you’ve done it. Especially not after you’re published. Especially not after you’re NY published, and most especially after people seem to think you’re actually successful, when everything you say is scrutinized and people don’t know how to respond to you or simply don’t understand where you’re coming from. Suddenly enemies pop out of the woodwork; people you’ve somehow upset or offended without knowing how, people who think you’re a crazed egotist.

I know that I was completely blindsided by any sort of reaction to me, especially since I had no warm-up period. I was just a blogger who suddenly had a book deal before I had written an actual book. I don’t think at that time I had ever even met a published author before, much less thought of myself as one.

I have the following happen all the time. Note to all aspiring writers: If I’m giving you advice, it’s because I like you. Really, really.

You offer someone advice and they snap and get defensive. Someone else says the exact same thing and they’re thanked.

This too:

You ask an innocent question and it’s taken as berating. You answer someone’s question, thinking maybe you can help, and suddenly everyone thinks you’re totally full of yourself and are swanning around like you know everything. They resent you for it. They go out of their way to slam you for it.

This is why we published writers cling to each other like Grim Death:

You talk to your husband or your best friend or whatever, and they help. But you know who actually understands? The only people who actually fully understand, the people who can confirm for you that you actually haven’t changed and aren’t being an egotistical shithead? That it’s not you, it happens to everyone? Other writers.

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Just wanted to write a quick update before I hide my wireless router from myself for the day so I can get some book writing done.

I’m starting to feel more embarrassed than usual when people ask me how the book is going, because I keep falling in love with and then completely dropping manuscripts. I wonder if people are thinking, “Amy is really flaky.” I mean, they probably think that already. What kind of linear progress and constancy would you expect from someone who first got published for writing about going on 50 dates?

I also wonder if people think I can’t publish again. That DATING AMY was a one-time thing.

It wasn’t, or at least I don’t think it was. The thing is, it’s hard to know which book is going to be the most viable. Financially, I mean. I read this really brilliant quote on twitter last year that writing a novel is like filling out a lottery ticket for two years.

I don’t know what’s going to take off in the marketplace, but I can at least make an educated guess. The last two books I was working on (since 2008? Ish.) were memoirs, and even though I love them and other people love the idea of them, I am not completely certain I want to risk all my time and pin all my hopes on memoirs. As far as I know they’re not selling to publishers really well. By that I mean they’re not hot.

So I have switched yet again from my memoir about Los Angeles (which I LOVE, by the by, and have written 200 pages of since November 1), to a young adult novel about witchcraft, kinda. It’s my first YA and my first try at fiction. And… now I even sound flaky to myself.

Sigh.

I’m also completely enthralled with the idea of self-publishing, especially for paranormal books, because you could crank them out like an old-fashioned serial without the two-year publishing time lag. The entrepreneur in me gets all excited about selling books directly to readers through Amazon, etc. Also the 70% royalty rate is the bees knees. (The usual with traditional publishing is like 8-12%)

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I am not what you would call a particularly fast writer. I have always been more about quality, ruminating, and yes, daydreaming.

I consider myself an artist, but writing for a living is often about just cranking stuff out. Most of the full-time authors I know deal not just in quality, but in quantity–I mean even if you have a bestseller on your hands, the money is spread out over a long time, the publishing cycle (and therefore the frequency with which you get checks) takes years, agents take their well-deserved cuts.

You have to have several books in the works at one time, all the time.

Anyway, I used to really pat myself on the back for averaging maybe a page of quality work a day, rewarding myself with wine, men, song and Felicity marathons for any day I reached five hundred words.

Then I fell in with a fast crowd, people who write a thousand words before breakfast and then come home from their day jobs and write a thousand more. They got me into NaNoWriMo where you’re expected to write 200 pages in a month.

They introduced me to Dr. Wicked. His Write or Die is hard-core. It’s for people who like punishment with their prose and really, all writers are masochists, so it’s a natural fit.

I set my ‘Consequences’ to Kamikaze and my ‘Grace Period’ to Strict, so that if I pause at all in my 20 minute session my screen goes pink, then red, then it starts to delete my previous work. You have to keep going or perish.

I wrote 2500 words yesterday and I’m never going back to my cushy ways.

[hilarious BDSM joke pending]

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As anyone who knows me knows, I’ve been working on a memoir “about my neighborhood” for over two years. It’s really much bigger and more intriguing than that, but that’s its code name. It’s like when you’re driving through Los Angeles and you see cardboard signs with arrows that say this way to “Clearasil Commercial Shoot” which is really secret code for the latest Brad Pitt movie.

Anyway. There has been a lot of interest in the Neighborhood Book, but not enough to keep me going, and for now… I am deciding to cut my losses and put it aside.

The truth is, I met another project and I’m crazy about it. I get up at 5 a.m. to work on it and when friends text me to go to lunch at 7 a.m., I think they’re weird, but then I look at the clock and it’s 1 p.m. and it’s just that I’ve been that absorbed in my work for hours.

There is resistance, though. A mini outcry. The old project is like the boyfriend that everyone has gotten used to–actually people really like him and want me to keep seeing him.

I don’t know what to say. It’s not him, it’s me. Maybe someday we will get back together and work things out. I just need space to work on this new book (that I’m really, really excited about). We’re in the throes of ecstasy, but I know I need to act like I at least feel a little bad for leaving that other project. (Clearasil? Neighborhood? I’m already forgetting its name!)

Speaking of misleading cardboard signs, the new memoir takes place in L.A. It may sound like an acne commercial, but it’s totally Brad Pitt.

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I absolutely love this advice from Ally Carter about how to deal with the helplessness and insecurity that comes with being a writer. It could apply to a lot of life situations. (via a link from literary agent Nathan Bransford)

An author’s online presence (or lack thereof) is not a predictor of success.

Suzanne Collins has an unfrequently-updated website. To my knowledge, she isn’t best buds with Rowling or Meyer or King. She did not “network” her way into Hunger Games. She wrote Hunger Games.

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