Back from AASL in Charlotte, NC. There's more to say on this, but I'm about to word-war with Tessa for my neglected NaNo novel. So we'll let some pictures and music say it all.

1. Music from the Ballad video is now up for download for my site. (up for down, did you catch that?)

2. Some sketches from the Sketchbook of Doom. These are from the way to and from AASL.


3. My current musical obsession: "Percussion Gun" by White Rabbits. The whole album rocks. I can't stop listening to it. It's like if Vampire Weekend had babies with The Bravery. (also, if that happened, could I watch?)

Okay, so since I'm using up all my letters on NaNo, I'm going to do a numbers post before I head off to AASL in Charlotte, NC, today. (Kindly pray that my head doesn't explode while on the plane since my sinuses are all clogged). So here are the rundowns on some numbers currently influencing my life:

Age I'll be on my next birthday, Nov 18: 28

Number of e-mails I received and replied to in October: 4,165
number of e-mails from Scholastic in Oct: 47
number of e-mails from my agent in Oct: 24

Word count for my NaNo novel so far: 6,673

Number of LiveJournal comments replied to in Oct: 389

Number of my husband's tropical fish I killed in October: 11*

Number of friends added on Facebook in October: 306

Number of harp strings I strung by hand last week: 32

Number of messages received on Facebook in October: 105

Number of wall posts received on Facebook in October: 646

Number of nostrils a human breathes through at any given time: 1**

Number of weeks SHIVER has been on the NYT Bestseller List: 14

Number of people living on the smallest of the Scilly Isles: 90

Days on the road for SHIVER in October: 12

Hours of driving logged in Loki: 11

Number of giant snails featured on my blog: 2

*I did not mean to kill his fish. I merely added some water at a perfect 72 degrees to the tank. And they came over all dead-like the next day. And the day after. And the day after that. And the day after that.
**I discovered this while looking up remedies for stuffed up nose (saltwater rinse works awesome, by the way). A person only breathes through one nostril at a time (put your finger 1/2 inch under your nose to see which nostril you're using), and which side is dominated by the hemisphere of the brain that is currently active. Left brain: right nostril. Right brain: left nostril. Unless you're stimulating your brain to use one side of the other, each hemisphere dominates in cycles that last from two to four hours. You can also clarify your thinking and balance your brain by using the yoga technique of pinching one nostril shut and breathing out of one side and then the other a few times. Cool, yes? Okay, so it's not. but now you've learned something against your will.

And now, number of bags I'm off to pack for my flight? 1

As promised, I'm revealing the cover and first paragraph of LINGER today. A little bit about LINGER, for starters -- it's the sequel to SHIVER, it's coming out July 20th, and it is about after. What happens after you discover there are werewolves in the wood, after you've fallen in love for the first time, after you've lost what you think you can't live without, after you've become someone you can't live with (and no, not all of these are talking about the characters you think they're talking about.)

It was also the easiest and hardest book I've ever written, coming off the heels of SHIVER's immediate and crazy success. I can only imagine that Chris, the cover designer, felt the same way I did writing LINGER when he was trying to design the cover for it, because the SHIVER cover was such a smashing success, how would he follow it?

Well, I think he did. Behold, ze official cover of LINGER!





And now, the first paragraph(s). I've been asked a couple of times if folks can repost either of these things on their blogs and the answer is an absolute YES I'D BE FLATTERED PLEASE DO!!! Okay . . . the first bit of LINGER:







Is it what you expected?!

Okay, so the title's a stretch. Mostly it's because I have the flu and I need to do a bullet post and I am too lazy to think of a better name for the post.

1. NaNo. I have 1,408 words at the moment and I'm thinking I'll double this this evening after the kids go to bed. Cold medication + drafting = not great idea. I keep feeling really productive and then realizing that I've been staring at the wall for an unknown amount of time. I also have spent too much time reading about the Scilly Isles today, because I like saying "I'm reading about the Scilly People" to my husband.

2. Interested in LINGER? Tomorrow at noon EST, Scholastic has given me clearance to post the official cover for LINGER and the first paragraph. That should have little fireworks-y things around it. First paragraph! Whooo!

3. Somehow, SHIVER ended up as one of the Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Books for 2009, in exceedingly good company. It breaks my brain, just a little, to think of all the books published this year and to think that SHIVER, out of all of them, is one of fifteen children's novels picked.

4. While I was trying to understand this concept, Amazon posted their Top Ten Books for Teens in '09 list and SHIVER was on it.

5. It is only the cold medication that is making me sane right now. Otherwise I'd be floating.

Those of you also doing NaNoWriMo are infinitely aware that it is now November, and thus that writing can begin on NaNo novels.

So what am I doing today?

I am reading.

Why, you ask, in a race to 50K words, am I spending the first day of NaNo reading? Well, first of all, because I get terrible writer's block if I don't read several books a month. writers = readers. And second, because it's Sunday, and Sunday is a day that I don't write, no matter what my evil deadline is, because it is a day to recharge batteries. For me, it's a good rule, and NaNo's not going to change that.

Here's the thing about NaNo, or any other deadline. It is not a helter skelter race to the end, an every second writing sort of affair. Think of it this way: an average scene in a novel is 2-3K words long. That means that what you're really looking at with a 50K NaNo novel is not 1,666 words written every single day, you're looking at writing 16-25 scenes that lead toward an end. Which means, some days, if you are calculated and thoughtful and in the mood, you can power out two or three great scenes -- 4,000-10,000 words. Writing words just to write words will get you more words, but no closer to the end. Writing scenes and worrying about wordcount secondarily? That'll get you somewhere.

So yeah. Day one, NaNo. Word count: 0. Perturbed? Not yet.

Okay, it's finally time to tally the results of the big Ballad contest! I have to say that this contest goes down as the only one that I have asked my readers to do something (apparently) illegal: take photos in bookstores. For all of you who were run out of stores by feral employees or couldn't find the book in time, I'm profoundly sorry.

For the rest of you who performed illegal acts in the name of sportsmanship and prizes, booyah!! We had over 250 entries, which is a lot of people photographed with Ballad. And we had two (I believe two, let me know if I counted wrong) entries that had over twenty people in a photo, which I said would get a special prize. And then I did a drawing amongst the folks who did entered by the first deadline, and there's a prize for that winner too (they were also all entered in the overall drawing). I numbered every entry and did a random number generator for the top prize first and then down for them.

So. Without further ado, here are the winners:

Winner of the signed audiobook of shiver is arieleishen .

Winner of the stack of books and signed copy of Ballad istracy_d74

Winner of the swank messenger bag with the signed Maggie books in it is jb n becca.

And finally, winner of the first-chapter critique from all three of the Merry Sisters of Fate is melenka !


Now I can hear the groans already, so remember there are three more prizes. First of all, I drew from the folks who made it by the original deadline and got a_hoffman79 , who will get a signed copy of either Ballad or the Shiver audiobook (you pick).

And then there were two folks, lovethebooknook and Amanda Jirka, who got more than twenty people in a single photo, and I said that would be a special prize . . . so I'll do a 5-page critique for each of you guys. Not quite as good as the first chapter critique by all the Merry Sisters, but a little somethin'!

So congrats to everyone who won and thanks to everyone who entered! Winners, e-mail me your info! (Also, folks who are waiting on CDs from the last contest, they're going out this week).

All right, I’ve already said that I’m doing NaNoWriMo -- attempting to write a 50,000 word novel entirely during the month of November, along with a few other thousand people (note: we are all writing different novels. It might be awkward otherwise). I mentioned in my last post that I would talk about my prepwork for said Secret Novel (which is already sold and has a release date) if goaded. And I’ve been goaded.

So here goes, the birth of a novel.

IDEA! BRING OUT THE LIGHTBULBS!

For me, ideas come from everywhere. There is no such thing as a good or bad idea, by the way. They’re like atoms. They just exist. It’s what you do with them that’s good or bad. For me, an idea becomes a novel when I can’t put it down. When it gets bigger instead of smaller in my head. So for this one, I got it while on a boat in the middle of a river, and then I came home and wrote a short story. Normally the short story puts most ideas to rest, but this one was still running around like a hyperactive toddler. I knew it was going to require a novel to shut it up.


SO YOU WANT TO SEE THIS SHORT STORY, HUH?

Well, you can’t. Because it’s still secret. But I based SHIVER on one of my short stories, and it’s here. (warning, tis not beautiful).


ENDINGS FIRST, DARLINGS

Once upon a time, Maggie was an author who didn’t finish novels. It was a long time ago, and the novels were bad anyway*, but the point remains that none of them had endings, unless you consider scenes where the aliens come down and kill everyone to be excellent denouements (Only works if it’s War of the Worlds. Otherwise, not so hot).

*One novel, rewritten eleven times, was entitled THE WINDING RIVER and was about all of the unicorns in the world being hunted down so that their horns could be melted into things to make enchanters sexy. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s basically the gist.

Until Maggie realized that these terrible things didn’t happen if she actually had, you know, an ending. Once she didn’t allow herself to chase the fuzzy but dangerous plot bunnies until after she had an ending, the aliens went away.

So, for my NaNo novel, this is the most important thing. I needed to know the ending first. I do this with all my novels, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I know how the conflict will be solved (though sometimes it does) -- it means I know what the ending looks like. I know where the final scene will be, though I don’t always know why. For instance, at the end of Ballad, I knew I wanted James to be making a terribly hard choice and I really, really wanted to burn someone alive.


SUM UP, PLEASE

Usually, the summary happens at the very beginning, when I first get the idea. The summary is a paragraph long and looks like the blurb on the back of the book. It’s what I use to convince my editors to buy the book, and also helps me clarify theme and plot. It also gets me excited. For my NaNo book, since I had the short story first, the summary came after the short story and the ending. And I’d share it, but it’s Top Secret until everything is announced. Sorry. More on this later.


WHO THE HECK ARE YOU, AGAIN?

This is where characters start coming in. Generally they get names first; in fact, sometimes they arrive with them. To me, the name is the first part of their personality, because I believe you either become your name or run as far away from it a you can. Anyway, once I have these characters named, I start to brainstorm on who they are, where they came from, and most importantly, what sort of people they were to get themselves into the problem that I’m writing about.

So this involves me thinking of their family background, what their hopes and fears are, what motivates them. How will they interact with the other main characters? I don’t want two characters who are very similar. I also don’t want characters that are too stable -- I can’t have lots of lovely angst if my characters aren’t changing in some way. Usually that means something just happened to them that’s forcing a change or something in their life is becoming untenable and they need to change, or the mere introduction of the other character is making them change. Characters that stay the same throughout the book? Boring.

Also, here’s the thing about characters: they drive the plot, not the other way around. There’s no point in me brainstorming on the plot anymore without knowing the characters first, because it’s plot without context. One way expressway to writer’s block.


SCENES, YOUR NAME IS BRICKS.


Scenes are my building blocks. For every book, I have a core of ten or twelve scenes that make the book what it is, and a lot of these scenes appear during the initial brainstorming/ prep work. Remember that noodling over characters I’ve been doing before now? Well, a lot of times it will make one of these core scenes appear. For those of you that have read SHIVER, some of the core scenes are the bathtub scene, the candy shop scene, and the Bronco scene near the end. If you’ve read BALLAD, core scenes were the Dee/ James scene in D.C., the final bonfire scene, and the beer scene.

Basically, when I get the idea for a core scene, my brain explodes and I get very happy: I know ‘em when I see ‘em. And they always grow out of character rather than by plot. The goal when I’m doing early brainstorming/ pre-drafting is to tease out as many of these as I possibly can. Right now, for Secret Novel, I have four of them. And then I have four other scenes that need to happen to get to The End, but I’m not sure how they’ll go down. They’re negotiable, so I don’t think of them as core scenes.

The scenes that don’t appear during my character musing occur during my final planning stage, when I am assembling my playlist and determining my themes I want to explore. Once upon a time, I’d use the core scenes to write a two page synopsis, full of lies and damn lies between the core scenes, but for this book, I’m going to see if I’ve outgrown my synopsis stage and just do a very ugly document with the scenes listed and the ending, all topped off by my two main characters’ descriptions and backgrounds listed very briefly, as I would’ve for a synopsis. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I get more self-aware and efficient with my writing process as I move along this writerly life and learn my process better.

Ooh, ooh, I should mention that characters definitely dictate the scene building process. At one point, I was stuck in the brainstorming phase and I realized it was because my characters didn’t have motivation for moving further -- they only had the plot summary telling them to go places. I had to go back and figure out what would move them in that direction in their life and add it into their backstory. Then, bingo! Onward.

Basically, I think of the whole process like a road trip. I need to know the ending, because that’s my destination. If I don’t know where I’m going, how do I know when I get in the car if I’m going to end up someplace I actually want to be? And then the scenes are like little milestones that mean I’m going in the right direction; places I definitely want to visit. The rest? Is all up to wandering from milestone to milestone, taking the scenic route. I might go a wrong way, but I can always double back to the last milestone and strike out a different way until I find the right one.*

*this is actually the way I drive. It’s maybe a little terrifying for those who like more structure.


SO, WHAT AGAIN?

So to prep for my NaNo novel I have:

-had idea

-written short story based on idea

-come up with an ending for the novel

-written a summary

-found my main characters

-brainstormed some core scenes that I’m excited to write

-set up a musical playlist that conforms to the theme and mood I’m looking for

-brainstormed more core scenes

-gotten stuck and realized I needed SiblingProblems to make my plot work
written a document that has my scenes in sort of order, along with my ending. henceforth known as FAKE SYNOPSIS

And now I’m ready to go! Any questions? Comments? Derisive laughter?

1. If you have been hoping and praying and begging for a live chat with Maggie Stiefvater, your hopes/ prayers/ beggings have been answered by Wild Things Book Club on Goodreads -- I'm doing a chat with them tomorrow at noon, EST. That's here.

2. I know you always wanted to see footage of giant snails. So I'm hooking you up with that here. Don't say I never gave you anything.



3. I think I'm all ready for NaNo. I'm just finishing up my synopsis -- do you guys want me to talk in more detail about how I'm prepping?

. . . and other cool prizes. I've just gotten back from two days of school/ library visits (hi, Franklin & Smithfield!)

This is just a reminder that the giant Ballad contest deadline is coming up: Halloween, midnight, winners to be announced the next day.

Prizes include a critique of your first chapter by all the Merry Sisters of Fate: me. Brenna Yovanoff, whose book THE REPLACEMENT was sold at auction and comes out next year. Tessa Gratton, whose book BLOOD MAGIC was also sold at auction and ALSO comes out next year.

And tons of book swag. Ah, hell, I'll just copy and paste the prizes and rules here.

The absolute grand prize about which I am enormously excited is

A 1 chapter (or 15 double-spaced pages, whichever comes first) critique by all three of the Merry Sisters of Fate:
me, Brenna Yovanoff (author of forthcoming FE in '10)(brennayovanoff ) and Tessa Gratton (possessor of secret news I wish I could share)(everflame ). These are my two critique partners, who read every manuscript I write before it makes it to my editors. They rip and tear my manuscripts apart and put them back together like nobody's business. I would not be who I was without them and I'm thrilled that they've agreed to do this.


The first prize is this swank messenger bag. Not just a swank messenger bag, but a swank messenger bag stuffed with a signed Ballad, a signed Lament, a signed Shiver, and a signed Shiver audio book.




And the second prize is stack of books all involving the paranormal and teens and death and good stuff:

a signed copy of BALLAD
NEED by Carrie Jones
GRACELING by Kristin Cashore
IMPOSSIBLE by Nancy Werlin
THIRSTY by M. T. Anderson

And the third prize is

a signed audiobook of Shiver (what? I have a lot of them)


And here are the rules:

To enter, you must find a copy of Ballad in the wild -- that is, in a bookstore of any ilk. You do not have to buy said copy of Ballad. All you have to do is whip out your camera or your cell phone and have someone take a picture of you holding it. That's one entry. That's it. You want another chance to win? Have your sister (or any person) pose next to you. Said person doesn't have to buy the book either. Or even hold a copy. She does need to be looking at the camera though. Want another chance to win? Have that random woman browsing the Sarah Dessen books stand next to your sister. Again, she doesn't have to hold the book. Or even know you. Just be willing to smile into the camera in proximity to someone holding the book. Each person in the photo represents an entry. So more people = more chances to win. Want visual examples? Of course you do.

FOUR ENTRIES. None of them know the king of the dead, but he's looking at the camera (I think. His eyes are shadowed.) He doesn't have to hold that book, but he is anyway because he's so darn thrilled to be in it.

Then what I need you to do is take the photos and post them somewhere online -- I don't care if it's your facebook, livejournal, photobucket, mom's website, whatever, that's not important. The only thing that's important is that you link them here. You can embed them directly in the comment if you have the voodoo to do that. Or you can just send me a link. Make sure it's someplace I can see it and do a headcount. Bonus prize to someone who gets more than 20 people in a photo. ;) I'll think of something good . . .

Got the idea?

Go!

For those of you familiar with NaNoWriMo, it requires no further explanation. The mere appearance of the word is inspiring cold sweats and a churning knot of anticipation and fear in your StomachParts and a tingling sensation of hope. For those of you who think I just made that word up, here's what it is:

National Novel Writing Month. Every year in November, tens of thousands of people attempt to write an entire novel before the end of the month. A lot of them fail. Some of them don't. Mostly, I look on from the sidelines with arched eyebrows as I plug away at some other novel deadline and toy with the idea of jumping in. Last year I used it to write 20,000 words and a synopsis of a novel that wasn't currently under contract while I was writing a novel that was, right before I was ambushed with edits from another novel and had to call the whole thing off. Basically, I've never really attempted NaNo in the spirit of the thing.

Until now.

Oh, yeah, I said it. This year, I'm making it a goal, and Maggies Don't Break Goals. So what if my existing novel FOREVER is due March 1st? Or that I will be flying to two different conferences for eight days of the month? Or that I will have to also write two short stories for Merry Sisters of Fate during that time? Pshaw, minor set-backs. My two crit partners (everflame and brennayovanoff and I had the following chat:

me: I have decided to NaNo, Brenna.Brenna: which means, she decimates every possible thing on her way there
How well they know me.

Anyway, I'll be doing NaNo with my Secret Novel that involves blood, beaches, and kissing (but not kraken). Under the rules of NaNo, the novel's supposed to be 50,000 words in order to be considered successful (almost half the length of SHIVER) so my goal is going to be a nice skeleton that I can go back to and flesh out after I finish FOREVER in a timely manner.

Unlike previous NaNo years, I now have 4 completed novels under my belt, and I sort of know myself and what I need to finish a novel a lot better than before. So while I'm not exactly cavalier, I'm . . . optimistic. I have my short story that I'm basing the novel off, I know my two main characters pretty well, I have a playlist in place, and I'm just about ready to write my two-page synopsis. I think that if I add "brainstormed about secondary characters" to that list, I'm actually about ready to start on November 1st.

So. I know that some of you guys are NaNoing. 'Fess up.

So I am finally back from my absolutely brilliant UK tour for SHIVER and so much happened that I don't think i can even begin to be coherent, much less figure out what is interesting to everyone and not just to me. So let's go for photo spam instead, shall we? The business part of the UK trip was a whirlwind of efficient public transport, cups of tea made almost right but not quite right, hoards of folks with cool accents, and posses of schoolchildren in smart jackets. I would show you amazing photos of my library visit in Birmingham, my school visit in Derby, my vampire/ werewolf panel with Justin Sompers in Cheltenham, and my book signing in London, but . . . I don't have any. My publicists were snapping away, as were fans, so they're out there somewhere, but they are not on my camera.

Okay, so first of all. Scholastic UK treated me like the Queen Mum. They sent me flowers in my hotel room! (Exhibit A) They took me to lovely restaurants! They ordered me private cars after we missed our connecting flight, had to stay a night in New Jersey, and got to the UK a day late! (don't ask. I am still annoyed).

Anyway, the tour bit was fantastic. I had a signing at the Golden Treasury in London, where I got to meet folks I knew from Facebook. Witness the fact that people can spell my name right in other countries too:


I also spent a few hours with four teens who'd won a competition with Bliss Magazine; first we had high tea at a posh hotel, then we headed to the Absolut Ice Bar to have (nonalcoholic) drinks served in glasses made of chunks of ice. Yes, that is ice on the walls. Yes, it was below freezing in there, yes, they gave us coats and gloves, and yes, this is a photo of the author of SHIVER actually shivering.



We also spent a bit of time on the Tube in London -- both for the signing and also for meeting up with my art friend Katherine Tyrrell (who has a massively well rated art blog called Making a Mark). We met in the National Portrait Gallery restaurant, which had great views of the city. Apparently before I got there Katherine had told them that I was a Very Famous Author Who Shouldn't Be Killed, as they were very concerned about my preservative allergy and making sure I didn't ingest anything that would make me twitch. After we had dinner with Katherine, we got to see Vivaldi's Four Seasons performed at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which was pretty darn awesome, even if I was falling asleep from jet lag during "Summer."

Anyway. Tube. I saw this advert on the wall and was forced to pull out my camera and snag a photo, annoying many people in leggings (everyone regardless of leg shape wears leggings in London, it's slightly troubling). Because, hello, it says "Beck's" and has a wolf howling. Get it? GET IT?

So all of the touring stuff was brilliant -- I think my favorite moment was when one of the school kids raised their hand and said "I don't have a question. I just want to say your accent is really cool!"

You heard it here first.

So after four days of traveling back and forth by train to events while my husband roamed free in London, my intrepid lover secured a rental car and we headed up toward Whitby in Yorkshire. As you may recall from an earlier post, I'd had a dream about Whitby Abbey so I wanted to go there, and my next novel (not FOREVER) is set on cliffs, so I wanted to go cliff hunting too. So onward. It was four hours from Cheltenham to Whitby, which became six, because we were forced to stop at Cool Things.

Like:


At random old churches, like this one, Breedon on the Hill (nothing like a specific name to make things sound important)(for instance, I'm renaming myself Maggie Who Points At Things).


Witness the pretty stained glass in this church. Also, witness the tombs. They had two ordinary ones with sculptures of recumbent medieval folks laying on top of them, but then they had this one, which for some reason featured what was on its inside on its outside:

( lj cut for massive photoness )

Because I am about to run out the door for my UK flight, I am not going to do a proper run down post on my Ballad launch party at Fountain Bookstore or my two days of panels and conferencing at James River Writers Conference. Both were great -- so many friends showed up at the launch, it was wonderful -- but I'm afraid a description would pale beside the real thing. It made me think about just how many friends I've made since last year when Lament came out. Has it only been a year? Sheesh.

Anyway, so instead of a pitiful rundown post, I will post some photos that my friend Susan took of me. She was going through them and said "IT'S LIKE A FLIP BOOK!"

Apparently, I move a lot while i'm talking. I do not remember making half of these faces, but the camera could not possibly lie. So here they are. In case you wanted to be at the Ballad launch and really couldn't, this is practically as good as the real thing.

THE FACES OF MAGGIE.



If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is a freakin' chapter.

I can finally, finally, finally shout this from the rooftops. One of my two critique partners (everflame ) and my very dear friend and one of the three Merry Sisters of Fate has a book deal that went official today!!

From Publisher's Marketplace:


I've read it, critiqued it, it's awesome, tight, bloody, eerie, and sexy. I'm so excited for her. Now all three of us Sisters are published and all is right with the world.

I remember when we first met and the project she was working on then. Started in a motel room with a spray of arterial blood . . . aww, makes me nostalgic.

GIANT CONGRATS TO TESSA!!!! I'm so proud to know her!

People ask me this all the time. "Will you write me into one of your books?"

The answer is no.

Hey, don't look at me like that. First of all, you don't know what you're asking. You wouldn't like it. And secondly, I'm just not that into you. And thirdly, you're just too damn normal.

I hear you protesting already, but hear me out.

What people are asking when they ask to be in one of my books is really this: May I live with you? Can I move in with you for the next four to eight months and sit next to you every single day and drink out of your tea mug and watch you sleep? Because that's what a character does. As an author, I have to look at every single side of them and imagine exactly how they'd react to any given situation and make up reasons for why they act the way they do, and then brainstorm and fantasize about upcoming scenes in the book for pretty much every waking moment until the book is not only written but revised and then edited by my editor. And then live with the consequences of that cohabitation in the form of one million reviews analyzing every bowel movement said character had.

Is that what you really want from me? Is it?

Which brings me to point two. I'm just not that into you. Pretty much unless you're my husband or my immediate family or handful of best friends, I will hate you before that time is up. Because unless I love you like a brother, that sort of cozy space sharing and observing of your personal habits will drive me crazy. It's like dating, but dating when, through intense and undying scrutiny, you know absolutely everything about your significant other's backstory, embarrassing personal habits, crushing secret motivations, and hopes, dreams, and fears.

Basically it's like dating Edward Cullen.

Also, that aside, do you really want me portraying you exactly as I see you, and inventing dysfunctional backstory to explain how you got that way?

Okay, thirdly. You're too normal.

I hear you shouting that this is not true, you're not normal, you have a crazy Star Wars obsession and your cut your hair with a pair of safety scissors and you have named your toaster Monica and you only sleep on your left side on days of the week with E in them.

I get it. You're quirky.

But you're still normal. Now, stop wailing about. It's okay to be normal. Many people are. Most people are. But they would also all make bad characters. Here's the thing about characters: they are larger than life. They're exaggerations. Subtle caricatures -- sometimes not so subtle, actually -- even in the most realistic of novels. Because while gray areas work wonderfully in real life and pretty much keep us all from killing each other, in a novel, there's not much room for them. You want to be 100% certain how a character is going to react to something every time, and that means that they have to be overblown versions of real people. Stoic people become incredibly stoic. Obsessive people become hilariously obsessive. Bitchy people become the most giant bitches the world has ever seen this side of Great Dane factories. I mean, kennels.

In real life, even stoic people are not always stoic. In fact, they may be only stoic in the face of really exceptional situations, and whiners the rest of the time. Obsessive people may really only be obsessive about their kitchen being neat, and the rest of the house can look like crap. Bitchy people may really only become horrid fiends when standing in line at the DMV and otherwise be delicate flowers unable to take constructive criticism. That's cool. Functional. But bad characterization.

Sure, characters can act out of, well, character. But you bet your biffy there had better be a darn good reason and it better not happen again, buster. When that stoic character finally breaks down? Ooooh, that's when you got the reader begging for more. But only if they've been stoic every other second of the book. When the bitchy character is finally nice? What a moment . . . but only if they've been a raving terror for the rest of the book.

Are you that bitchy?

I thought not.

So, I'm sorry, I'd love to help you out, but you just can't be a character in my book.


Also, your name's boring. Sorry.

Okay, first of all, why did everyone let me get away with posting a Five Things on a Friday post on a Monday? Why did I even think it was Friday yesterday? I am counting on you guys to REMIND ME WHAT YEAR IT IS.

Second of all, remember the Ballad contest? The awesome one with huge prizes including a crit from all of the Merry Sisters of Fate, so long as you just take a pic of yourself with Ballad in a store? Well, the deadline for it is supposed to be the 10th, but a lot of folks are having problems finding it in stores. It's gone to reprint to fill demand so it'll be easier to find very shortly, but I wanted to give everyone a chance to actually, you know, ENTER. (and never fear those who have already entered, I will be drawing an extra prize out for all entries that come in before the 10th).

So the new deadline is Halloween. And here are the prizes and rules for entry. Capiche? Capiche.


Okay, first of all, the prizes.

The absolute grand prize about which I am enormously excited is

A 1 chapter (or 15 double-spaced pages, whichever comes first) critique by all three of the Merry Sisters of Fate:
me, Brenna Yovanoff (author of forthcoming FE in '10)(brennayovanoff ) and Tessa Gratton (possessor of secret news I wish I could share)(everflame ). These are my two critique partners, who read every manuscript I write before it makes it to my editors. They rip and tear my manuscripts apart and put them back together like nobody's business. I would not be who I was without them and I'm thrilled that they've agreed to do this.


The first prize is this swank messenger bag. Not just a swank messenger bag, but a swank messenger bag stuffed with a signed Ballad, a signed Lament, a signed Shiver, and a signed Shiver audio book.




And the second prize is stack of books all involving the paranormal and teens and death and good stuff:

a signed copy of BALLAD
NEED by Carrie Jones
GRACELING by Kristin Cashore
IMPOSSIBLE by Nancy Werlin
THIRSTY by M. T. Anderson

And the third prize is

a signed audiobook of Shiver (what? I have a lot of them)


And here are the rules:

To enter, you must find a copy of Ballad in the wild -- that is, in a bookstore of any ilk. You do not have to buy said copy of Ballad. All you have to do is whip out your camera or your cell phone and have someone take a picture of you holding it. That's one entry. That's it. You want another chance to win? Have your sister (or any person) pose next to you. Said person doesn't have to buy the book either. Or even hold a copy. She does need to be looking at the camera though. Want another chance to win? Have that random woman browsing the Sarah Dessen books stand next to your sister. Again, she doesn't have to hold the book. Or even know you. Just be willing to smile into the camera in proximity to someone holding the book. Each person in the photo represents an entry. So more people = more chances to win. Want visual examples? Of course you do.

FOUR ENTRIES. None of them know the king of the dead, but he's looking at the camera (I think. His eyes are shadowed.) He doesn't have to hold that book, but he is anyway because he's so darn thrilled to be in it.

Then what I need you to do is take the photos and post them somewhere online -- I don't care if it's your facebook, livejournal, photobucket, mom's website, whatever, that's not important. The only thing that's important is that you link them here. You can embed them directly in the comment if you have the voodoo to do that. Or you can just send me a link. Make sure it's someplace I can see it and do a headcount. Bonus prize to someone who gets more than 20 people in a photo. ;) I'll think of something good . . .

Got the idea?

Go!

1. First of all, I die of the awesome. Check out the site for the Italian edition of Shiver. Warning for those at work and with small, impressionable dogs: site involves howling. It comes out in two days over there, on the 7th. And check out the gorgeous cover. LOOK AT THE CLAW MARKS. Love hurts, baby.

2. In slightly less awesome news, only because the cover is the same, the Dutch edition of Shiver is now available. It's called HUIVER over there. Which I'm hoping means SHIVER in Dutch. I really have no idea. It looks suspiciously like a brand of vacuum to me, and there are no vacuums in Shiver. There is a vacuum in LINGER. There, don't say I never told you anything about what to expect in LINGER.

Does anyone have any clue what the subtitle means?

3. My short fiction involving egotistical enchanters is up at Merry Sisters of Fate. Twas written in an airport with a woman looking over my shoulder. It was eerily like sketching in public.

4. We went to see a bunch of sheep yesterday, at a Fall Fiber Festival, involving much gorgeous wool and yarn. Thing 2 pets and observes twenty different sheep and then at the end of the day, walks to twenty-first sheep and says "Can I pet your cow?"

That kid's Harvard-bound, I tell you.

5. Current musical obsession (for the past two weeks): "Patient Patient" by The Morning Benders. Sorry, no fun music video, and the sound quality is not as mind-blowing as it could be, but dude. Try not grinning while listening to this song. Go on. Try it. If you can manage, you are a heartless harpie.

And trust yourself. That's what I would tell Luke if I were Yoda. Or anyone's mentor, for that matter. I have been barraged lately by would-be writers coming to me or other authors or editors or agents, looking for validation. Or who have been crushed by something that a critique partner told them. Or who have posted sadly about giving up on any of the forums I occasionally poke my head into.

All of them ask the same sort of questions. They sound like so:

- should I be writing?
- will I ever be good enough?
- is this what I really ought to be doing?
- are they right when they say I should do something else?
- is it too hard to do this?
- is it time to give up?
- is it worth it?

All great questions. And you know the only person who can answer these questions for you?

Yoda.

No, I'm kidding. You. You're the only one who can answer these questions. You can ask other people these questions, of course, and everyone will answer you, usually with something exceptionally reassuring sounding, but they are all just guessing. Because you're not going to believe them. Not really. Not unless they agree with what you already secretly or subconsciously think.

The other day, someone asked me if my path to publication had been easy, and I shrugged and said, "Yeah, I guess so, comparatively." But on the plane trip back home, I started thinking about this statement. Looking at it objectively, I don't think it was that easy. I just did a quick search in my current e-mail inbox and found 95 e-queries that got rejected. That was since September of 2006. Before that, I had 40 from my previous email account, and before that, I did paper queries. I chucked most of those when I moved (I used to save them), so I only have about 25 of the rejection letters from my pre-2005 querying life. But that is only a tiny percentage.

When I finally did get editor interest on my first novel, the editor took it to the acquisitions meeting and returned with the news that he couldn't convince them to take it. I had no other leads.

And let's talk different kinds of rejections, shall we? I love to create music, create art, and write. When I was in college as a history major (because I thought teaching history would be a nice thing to do while waiting to make a living at something creative), I tried to get accepted into college piano lessons, college drawing classes, and a creative writing class. I failed to get into any of them. My piano playing wasn't good enough, the music department said, for further lessons. My art portfolio wasn't sophisticated enough, the art department decided. And I wasn't an English major and my writing just didn't show enough promise to get into a creative writing class (I fantasized for a long time about the day when I would rub these decisions in their faces)(these fantasies usually involved me springing into the Creative Writing professor's office with a copy of the latest New York Times and shouting "Oh ho ho look who is on the list and WHO ISN'T!?")(This fantasy somehow lost its appeal long before I actually made it onto the list).

Do you see what point I'm trying to get at here, with all the subtlety of a Jack Nicholson movie? I keep seeing authors and artists fall by the wayside, crushed by external forces that don't even care if the person is crushed or not. They just want said smashed person to leave them alone. None of those rejections were personal, not even the ones that said my portfolios sucked. They really just were trying to do their job and guess who had the most potential because their resources were limited.

And they guessed wrong.

And that's why you can't trust other people's judgment on your hopes and dreams, people. Only you can decide when you've had enough, if it's worth it, if you're doing the right thing. They might be able to decide when you get published, but they can't decide for you when you stop trying.

I think of myself like a deep sea fish. I mean, not regularly, but at this moment, I do. The pressure of the ocean once you are way deep down where it's cool is absolutely crushing. But deep sea fish don't get crushed. Why not? Because the pressure inside them is just as strong, pushing back on the world around them. At any point in my career -- those early nos when I was just learning how to write, or those middling nos when I just got form rejections, or those late nos, when I made it to acquisitions and then failed to get published -- I could've given up and let myself get crushed and given up.

Guess what? The world wouldn't have cared.

And I'm cool with that. My dreams are only my own. They are not anyone else's concern. I don't count on anyone else in the world to value them, other than my husband. Absolutely nobody in the world has any responsibility to ease your creative pain, make your writing journey easier, help you along the writing path, or otherwise not trample you like a bug with juicy green insides. That doesn't mean that no one will, it just means no one has to. And it means you can get by without others too, if you yourself have the tensile strength to withstand those crushing oceanic pressures of the creative life.

So here's where I go back to the Yoda part. Why are aspiring authors and artists looking to the outside world for verification of their purpose in life? Trust yourself. Trust your own instincts, your own dreams. I'm not saying trust yourself to know that your writing doesn't suck -- you can't. I'm sorry, none of us can. But you can trust yourself that you will eventually get to where it doesn't suck. And you can trust your opinion that it will be worth it when you get there. And that it is worth the hours you're logging to improve your craft and learn about the business.

And what if that voice inside you is always shouting that it isn't worth it? What if you're turning to the outside world for verification every week? Maybe it is time to quit. If writing is not making you happy, if you don't like the process, if you are crying all the time over rejections (I cannot remember crying over a single one), then why are you doing it? I think some people do it because they think the world will look at them as a quitter. Trust me, the world won't care. It sounds heartless, but they won't. The person you write for is you. And I think some people keep doing it because they've always done it and they can't imagine wasting all those hours spent trying. Nothing's a waste -- it's all character development. For you. I officially give you permission to give up if you want to give up.

But I also give you permission to shake your head indignantly at the next rejection and to use it as fuel instead of water for your fire. Mark it up as another physical example of you pursuing your goals -- an unsent query gets no rejections -- and find out how you can make the next rejection a little more personalized. All the nos in the world don't matter if you are looking inside yourself for the answers.

Seriously, Skywalker.

I know I just posted. But I wanted to keep this one separate as it deals with time sensitive stuff. First of all, BALLAD is now out! That means the awesome contest that involves a critique from the Merry Sisters of Fate and all kinds of swag is fair game.

Secondly, a reminder that the Ballad launch party is in Richmond, VA at the Fountain Bookstore, on October 8th from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Not only will you have the added bonus of seeing my absolute favorite little indie bookstore (it looks just like an indie bookstore in a movie), but if you call ahead to reserve a copy of Ballad there, you'll get a signed frame from the trailer at the launch. This thing:


Their number is: (804) 788-1594.

And finally, yes, I finally have a bookstore signing for my UK trip set! I'll be at the Golden Treasury (tel: 020 8333 0167)) in London on October 15th, from 4:15-5:30. Please let them know that you're coming! I'll be bringing a couple Ballads, which aren't available in the UK, and I'll give them out to the first two people who reserve copies of Shiver at the store.

I think . . . I think that's it for now. Live long and prosper.

Time for my epic MBA rundown. Once again, mostly in pictures. Because I had to be lugging that giant camera around in my bag for a reason. Day 1 of MBA involved flying to Chicago late in the evening and staying in the lovely swank Westin Hotel, who bent over backwards to find me food without preservatives in it for dinner. Which was good, because dying or barfing is a terrible way to start a book trip. I would show you pictures of the hotel, but they are boring. I would show you pictures of the sunset out my window, but it is standard sunset fare. Moving on.


Day two involved two school visits, both of which were fantastic. Witness the signage up at the first high school (they also had blue and white and red balloons). And at the second school, not only did all 150 students wear blue to the talk, but they covered the library walls with Shiver and Lament posters! I didn't get a pic of the most ominous one, which was a syringe of blood squirting blood (that's not spoilery to say that, is it?) but needless to say, it will never be forgotten.





(Sadly, at this point in the blog post, I had to consult my itinerary so that I could remember what it was I did next).

( more photos under ze cut )