One Year Later

It's sort of insane to write this, but one year ago, my first book was unleashed on the world.

Like Wow. I don't even have words. That statement feels simultaneously long ago in a galaxy far away, and like it happened just a couple days ago. And it's still such an honor to have my work out in the world, and supported by the amazing people at Curiosity Quills. I am amazed and humbled by the reception my book has received. Fan mail and reviews, all of it has been amazing, and I count myself lucky to have connected with some many wonderful people along the way.


The thing I get asked the most is: "When is the sequel coming out?" Coincidentally, this is the biggest compliment anyone can give a writer, to express excitement about future work. Thank you all for making the last year unbelievable!

(And yes, there is a sequel in the works!)







(Also, you can buy the book here or here if you don't already have a copy!)

All Roads might lead to publishing: part III

This is the third installment of All Roads Lead to Publishing, you can check in with Part I and Part II.


After putting away the book that would become Acne, Asthma, And Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon, I started writing another book. I wrote the book I wanted. It was to purge my demons. It was everything a book isn't supposed to be. It was superheroes and space and aliens and science. It was the "Well, if publishing is going to spit out my book without even reading it because someone else's book sold poorly, then I'm gonna write whatever I want!"

And I wrote the letters out of that book. I loved it. I rewrote parts of it while in the middle of writing it, and it was, beyond a doubt, a revelation. I wrote without thinking about publishing because publishing had already shown me that it wasn't just about my book. It was about the rest of the market. Publishing is a business. Writing is an art. At that moment in my life, I needed the art (hint, I ALWAYS need the art, the business side and I are only default partners, more on that on another day). That book changed my voice. It showed me what writing could be for me.

But as I was finishing my first draft, I heard about an awesome new writing contest modeled after a singing competition: The Writer's Voice, 2012.

The only problem was, a rough draft is a terrible thing to send out into the world of editors and agents. They can normally smell that stuff from a mile away, so I couldn't enter the contest with my most recent manuscript. So I did what any sane writer would do, I dusted off my previous manuscript--after all, I'd only queried two people with it--and I cleaned it up with my new knowledge of my voice. With shaky fingers I entered the widget for the blog hop portion of the contest and crossed my fingers.



to be continued...

All roads lead to publishing… sort of (part II)

This is the second installment of how my book got published, and specifically about how I took a pretty circuitous approach to seeing my novel into a book. You can read part I here.

So there I was with my third novel dead in the water (and of course, its two sequels, because if you’re gonna make a rookie mistake, be sure it’s to the tune of 350,000 words!), and no real start on my next project. I had some ideas, but nothing seemed to be sticking. And writing had been SO easy before (turns out, that was just the clichés talking), so I decided that it would be good for me to sit down with one of these elusive, not sticking ideas, and pound out a story.

I told myself this would be “good practice.”

Before anyone gets any thoughts about how this novel was “just for practice,” I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I struggled for the words―the right words―they would come in fits and spurts and then I’d go back through and erase entire chapters for not living up to my expectations. I maybe cried a lot as I wrote this book.

When I finished, I was briefly triumphant, then instantly certain that pretty much all of it had to be rewritten. And that’s when the real work started, but hey, I thought: It’ll be good practice seeing this novel through from start to finish.

So I started in on revising. I rewrote most of the ending. Then, I rewrote most of the beginning. Then I changed most of the words in the middle, polished it up and sent it to an agent who was having a query contest.

I’ve talked before about what she told me during that contest. She told me that my writing was fine, good even, but the problem was that there was another story that was similar enough in concept that had done very poorly in the market place. She said that because another book had done poorly, she wasn’t even interested in mine. I might as well have written a vampire novel.

And so, with a heavy heart and after wasting most of a year on a book that was still not the one, I trunked my novel without sending it out into the world.

Stay tuned for part III