Submitting Stories While Blindfolded

So I wonder if I should include a little disclaimer on my cover note when I send out my next batch of story submissions:
If you’ve already seen a version of this story—or, worse, have it in your slush pile and haven’t gotten around to rejecting it yet—please forgive me. My hard-drive died and I lost [...]

One Day, Two Lives

I spent two hours in another life yesterday. I had a long lunch with my editor in the middle of my workday, as if I were a real author. At the restaurant, for a short time, it felt like I was. We talked about what the head of the imprint had to say about my [...]

Positive Feedback, Please, Thank You!

I love positive feedback, especially random and unsolicited. The editor of my last work-for-hire novel emailed me yesterday to say that the copyediting person at her office stopped by to tell her how much she liked my manuscript, and as the editor said, it was: “totally unprompted!”
I was thrilled, of course, though after some seconds [...]

Hooks

I was told by a literary agent (not this one, another) that my short story collection, once finished, would need a bigger hook in order to sell. Story collections do these days, she said sadly, which made me wonder if I needed to be a one-armed orphaned albino circus freak from Macedonia who writes all [...]

Congratulations!

I just heard the absolutely thrilling news that Heidi Durrow’s novel Light-skinned-ed Girl just won the Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change and will be published by Algonquin Books in Fall 2009!
Heidi and I were NYFA fellows together and organized a reading at the Housing Works Bookstore some years ago. I remember when she [...]

Awkward Elevator Moments: Literary Agent Edition

It’s an especially auspicious start to your day at your office job when you run into a literary agent who rejected you on the elevator.
When introduced, hope he does not recognize your name, smile, and say simply, “It’s nice to meet you.” Do not say, “Why didn’t you give my [...]

Payday

I came home today to a check. THE check. The first half of my advance for my tween novel.
Excerpt of running commentary inside my head: Seriously, they paid me? And I haven’t written it all yet? Did the person cutting the check know that? Am I aloud to cash it now? Should I buy a [...]

First Book Contract Stupor

Today, while I was at work, my book contract arrived at my apartment. I was fifty blocks away and couldn’t see for myself until after 5 o’clock. E called the moment it was dropped it off. He described the contract, read me choice bits. My name is there. The name of the novel. A plot [...]

One Week Later

It’s been a week since I learned I’m actually going to publish a novel. (The delirium can be re-experienced here.) Yes, it’s now a week later, and though my editor asked for my information including social security number and the name I want the copyright to be under for the contract I am still floating [...]

Writers Helping Writers, Assumed Rejections, and Cake!

Good things first: e got me a “Happy Book Deal” cake this weekend and even as I type this I want another slice. (No, really, where is it? I want another slice.) I asked him if I would get a cake for every book deal and he said yes. Isn’t he wonderful? I hope this [...]

Saying Yes to a Yes

I am so flattered and surprised by the outpouring of support from my announcement about my tween novel. How can I say thank you enough? Thank you!
I formally accepted my formal offer from S&S* on Friday, so this whole publishing-a-book fantasy is real. (I think. I’m still in shock about the whole thing.) I never [...]

What HAS Happened: I’m Publishing a Book!

Below I expunged all the things that haven’t come my way lately, and do you know why? Because things were brewing for reals and I am—no joke—about to tell you some good news that I was hinting at before:
I just got a formal offer on my first original tween novel from Simon & Schuster!
It’s not [...]

Stabs at a Writing Life

I’m not thinking about much else but writing these days. Only, I’ve been exhausted—and here I type this with a headache—probably because I’m trying to push myself so hard.
I am under deadline with a freelance writing project—and I am behind, very behind—and the day job is cutting into my time. I try to write every [...]

Why Not?

Early this morning, when I stumbled out of the bedroom all bleary-eyed second-guessing my idea of getting up before the sun has come up, I sat myself down at the table to check my email. It’s a little maneuver I do to keep from going back to sleep on the couch. This morning my email [...]

Online vs. Print

Related to what I was musing about below when I confided how old-school I am when it comes to print publications, I just happened upon this post on Kelly Spitzer’s blog: “Online vs. Print Publishing.” It may be time to rethink my whole idea of what being “published” means. Agree?

How Books Save Me

I love books, always have. And by that I mean the physical object of a book itself: thick pages, crisp black type you can feel beneath your finger, that hard binding, that tough spine, how when you flip through the pages they fall in a cascading arc, blindingly quick, and the air fills with that [...]

A Barely There Summary of AWP Day 3

To anyone who hasn’t attended this conference before: if you decide to stop reading now so I don’t exhaust you with the summary of my last day—I’m exhausted enough, no use passing it on to anybody else—just know this conference is most definitely worth it. Not only am I glad I went, I would do [...]

AWP Day 2

I am too worn out to come up with a better title for this post, that’s how much happened today.
The AWP conference this morning started early, too early for many, I imagine, seeing as how my first panel was sparsely attended for such a huge room. This was “On Adapting and Being Adapted”—about novels being [...]

A Day of Books, Stories, More Books, More Stories, and Long Lines (AWP Day 1)

I’ve been at the AWP conference all day. So many writers. So many choices. Such narrow escalators. Book-fair tables for miles. Only three stalls in each women’s bathroom, talk about lines! Let’s just say it’s been a jam-packed day.
The first panel I attended was “Shaping a Short Story Collection”—first thing in the morning, in a [...]

Appointment

One perk to living in New York City that I’ve just learned about is if a New York agent likes a story you published in a journal and contacts you to see if you’re represented and you say no and then she wants to see more work and you send in more stories and an [...]